Part 15 (1/2)

I kept walking.

”Didn't you hear him?” Scott asked. ”He was talking to you.”

”How rude of me,” I said. ”Yes, Ronny Neil, it is, in fact, f.u.c.king right.”

”You watch your mouth,” Ronny Neil said. ”And I'll tell you something else. You ain't as smart as you think you are.”

”Look, I'm going to get something to eat,” I said, trying to soften things up a little.

”So are we.” Scott flashed a crooked grin. ”Why don't you buy us some breakfast?”

”You can buy your own breakfast,” I told him.

”You being a cheap Jew?” Scott asked me. ”Is that it? Pinching your pennies?”

”I'm not the one asking for a free breakfast.”

Ronny Neil smacked me in the back of the head. It happened so fast that someone looking might not have been sure it had happened at all. But there was no mistaking the sting. Ronny Neil wore a ring on his finger, maybe not turned around, but he knew how to smack ring first. It hit me in the skull with a sharp crack that brought tears to my eyes.

I went stiff with disbelief and anger. I was out of high school. This sort of thing wasn't supposed to happen anymore. Despite the long hours and grueling conditions, and aside from the money, I had loved selling encyclopedias because it put me beyond high school. No one could see that I used to be heavy, that I used to be easy pickings. All they could see was the new Lem, fit, slim, good at selling. Now, with Ronny Neil and Scott, the feeling of powerlessness so infuriated me that it took all my will to keep from lunging at one of them. Both of them. Lunging haplessly and ineffectively, no doubt, but I wanted to lunge all the same.

”I keep a Buck knife in my pocket,” Ronny Neil told me. ”Now, my brother's in jail for armed robbery, and I have two cousins in there, too. One for grand theft auto and another on manslaughter, though it was really murder and he got pleaded down. That's what happens on a first offense, which my killing you would be. You think I'm afraid to sit a few years in jail, you go on and try me.”

”You think maybe you want to buy us some breakfast now?” Scott lisped.

”Yeah,” Ronny Neil said. ”You ready to buy uth some breakfath?”

When we walked into the Waffle House, there were already groups of bookmen in some of the booths. Under certain circ.u.mstances-the postsales pool gatherings, mostly-the bookmen could be a gregarious lot, but for the most part we stuck to our own groups. The Ft. Lauderdale crew socialized with the Ft. Lauderdale crew and Jacksonville with Jacksonville. No particular reason for it, and it wasn't a segregation in any way promoted by the crew bosses. But there was an inherent compet.i.tiveness among the crews, and no one ever got too friendly.

People glanced at us as we walked in, offered a few friendly nods, but no waves, no one shouted, ”Hey, come over here and join us.” All of which was fine by me. I didn't need my humiliation to go public.

They led me to one of the booths and pushed me in. Scott blocked me, and Ronny Neil sat across. He immediately picked up a laminated menu and began to study it intensely.

”Most important meal of the day,” he said. ”There's a lot of people don't know that.”

The waitress, a plump blonde in her late twenties, came by and began to put down the table settings.

”How you doing this morning, darling?” Ronny Neil asked.

”Just fine, baby.”

It was going to be one of those G.o.d-awful polite exchanges, full of empty endearments, and somehow that infuriated me more than my near abduction. ”Only two,” I said to her. ”I won't be staying.”

”Yeah, you will,” Scott said.

”No, I won't. Get up and let me out of here.”

”Don't mind him,” Ronny Neil said to the waitress. ”I think he's forgotten what my good friend Buck told him.”

I shook my head. ”Scott, get out of my way.”

”Just sit and shut,” he said.

”Juth thit and thut,” Ronny Neil echoed.

I turned to the waitress. This was a big and enormously dangerous gamble, but I couldn't live with myself if I backed down now. I was done with backing down, at least for the moment. ”Call the police, please.” I hardly wanted the cops around, but I wasn't in Meadowbrook Grove, so it was worth at least conjuring the idea of law enforcement.

Her eyes narrowed. ”You serious, hon?”

I nodded. She nodded back.

”Now, hold on,” Ronny Neil said. He held his hands up in the air in the universal gesture of lighthearted surrender. ”No need to get all threatening on me. We're just having some fun.” Then, to Scott: ”Get your fat a.s.s up. Can't you see he's trying to get out?”

I pushed my way out and past Scott, avoiding eye contact with the waitress or any of the other bookmen. I didn't know how they read this exchange, and I didn't want to know. Instead, I turned to Ronny Neil. ”Don't f.u.c.k with me.” I said it quietly and slowly.

Maybe if it had been a movie, something dark would have crossed his face. He would have recognized he'd gone too far, and he would have winced, pushed himself back into the padding of the booth. That was the myth: Bullies are cowards, and if you stand up to them, they'll back down. It was the most insidious of fables, of course. It was the lie that parents told their children because they liked to tell it to themselves; it was an excuse to avoid the social awkwardness of getting involved, of standing up for their kids, of facing the bullies' parents, surely as frightening and unhinged as their issue.

Ronny Neil turned to Scott, and the two of them snickered.

”I guess we'll just see you later, then,” Ronny Neil said.

Inside the Waffle House, everything had been cold with air-conditioning and vibrant with energy. There had been loud conversations, music, the sizzle of the grill, the ring of the cash register, the clink of coins dropped on a table for tips. Outside, the world was hot and still and sticky. I trembled in tight little spasms, fight or flight pounding through my system, but it had suddenly become distant, as though the conflict with Ronny Neil and Scott, then telling the waitress to call the police, were a vague memory or a story I made up.

There would be consequences. I knew it. I knew that my situation had grown almost inconceivably dangerous. This was no longer a matter of boys calling one another names or the occasional fingers flicked hotly against earlobes. This was deadly and dangerous. Anything could come at any time and from anywhere.

I squinted across the parking lot and saw Chitra making her way toward the restaurant. She walked with her head down, slightly slouched, and her gait tended to be a bit shambling. It was quite possibly uns.e.xy, but I found it remarkably endearing-and therefore utterly s.e.xy. Funny how that worked.

She caught my eye and smiled. ”Oh, you've eaten already?”

I was sure she was looking for company, and I might have been as acceptable a companion as any of a dozen others. Or I was nearly sure, because Melford had said she'd thought I was cute. ”No,” I said. ”There's an IHOP about a quarter mile up the road. Let's go there?”

”What's wrong with the Waffle House?”

”I can't believe that's a serious question,” I said with a forced grin. I didn't want to tell her about Scott and Ronny Neil. I didn't want to look weak in front of her. And I didn't want to have to explain what it was all about. I didn't know what it was all about.

Chitra didn't actually say that she wanted to go down the road, but somehow we were walking there, keeping to the ragged side of the street, trying not to stray too much into the weeds unless a car or a mammoth truck came barreling past. Every ten paces or so, I would sneak a look at her profile, angular and dark and breathtakingly beautiful. A couple of times she caught me, gave me a half grin, and then looked away. I didn't know how to take it, but I had a feeling that maybe those little half grins would be enough to get me through this mess.

Inside the restaurant, which smelled deeply of maple syrup, we sat down and watched our waitress place before us coffee in thick white cups with droplets spilled over the side. It felt like permission to start talking in earnest. I didn't know what I had to say.

”This is the first time we've been alone since last week,” Chitra said.

That sounded promising. ”I guess it is.” Think of something clever. Something witty and seductive and disarming. Think of something clever. Something witty and seductive and disarming. ”It presents all kinds of opportunities.” ”It presents all kinds of opportunities.”

Her eyes narrowed. ”Such as?”

Had I gone too far? Had I been cheeky? Too suggestive? I needed to make a quick recovery. ”For conversation. I mean, not to be critical of anyone, but you're not like the other book people.”

”Neither are you.”

”How do you mean?” I asked.