Part 22 (2/2)
”Five minutes!” the younger one said.
”Wow, that's fast.” B.B. grinned. ”You think the Ex-Men could get ready that fast?”
”Even faster!” the little kid shouted.
It was hard to keep a little triumph from creeping into his smile. Jesus, he was on a roll.
”I don't think we should go,” the older one said.
B.B. shook his head sadly. ”Well, if your brother wants to go by himself, that's okay, too. You sure you want to stay alone?”
Doubt stretched its shadow across his face. His feet twirled anxiously in the water. He bit his lip. ”We're not either of us going?” It was a question, not a statement.
”Just because you don't want ice cream doesn't mean your brother shouldn't enjoy it. I think it's wrong to deny things to other people because you don't want them yourself. That's what they call being selfish, Carl.”
”Yeah,” his brother agreed.
”I don't know,” he said again, which was not exactly a yes, but certainly a retreat from ”We're neither of us going.” B.B. was gaining momentum; he could feel it. The thing here, he knew, was to go with the flow, to keep it outside of his head. If he thought too much about it, if he concentrated too hard, he would say the wrong thing and blow it. Stay in the zone.
”What's going on here?” the sunbathing woman asked. She now stood directly behind B.B., hands on her ma.s.sive hips, sungla.s.ses propped on her head. Her exposed brown skin glistened with suntan oil. Glimpsing her over his own sungla.s.ses, he was struck by the prettiness of her eyes. Not that B.B. went for fat bossy cows, but still, there was no denying it-they were stunningly green, healthy-lawn green, emerald green, tropical fish green.
”My goodness,” B.B. said. ”Those are the prettiest green eyes I've ever seen.”
”Tell me something I don't know. What's going on with you and these boys?”
”I was asking them to play quietly,” B.B. said, ”so they wouldn't bother you anymore.”
”And ice cream,” the little one said. ”Don't forget the ice cream.”
B.B. went pink as he looked at the woman. ”I thought that if I bribed them with a little ice cream, they might leave you alone.”
”You're sweet,” she said. ”Now why don't you get out of here before I call the cops?”
B.B. took off his sungla.s.ses entirely and met her gaze. ”Lady,” he said, ”I am the cops.” He'd tried this one before. Always worked like a charm. Better than telling someone he ran a charity that helped young men.
She wasn't going for it, though. ”Let's see some ID.”
”I'm off duty. I don't have it on me.”
”Well, if you go and get it now,” she said, ”you'll have it ready by the time your fellow officers get here.”
”Fine,” he said. ”I'll be right back. See you in a minute, boys.”
B.B. walked breezily toward his room, where he would have no choice but to hole up until the cow finished baking.
Chapter 26.
MELFORD HAD BEEN DRIVING in silence, and I was paying him very little attention. Mostly I was trying to come up with ways to convince myself that my run-in with Bobby wouldn't end in disaster. It was only once we'd pulled into Meadowbrook Grove that I snapped out of my fog. in silence, and I was paying him very little attention. Mostly I was trying to come up with ways to convince myself that my run-in with Bobby wouldn't end in disaster. It was only once we'd pulled into Meadowbrook Grove that I snapped out of my fog.
I stared at the trailers, the ragged lawns, the empty lots. ”What the h.e.l.l are you thinking? We need to stay away from this place, not go back to it.”
”Your plan of avoidance sounds fine in theory, but the truth is that we need to figure out what is going on. And to do that, we have to learn who that third body in the trailer was. As near as I can tell, the only lead we have is going to be what the neighbors can tell us. So you're going to go into salesman mode, only instead of selling worthless encyclopedias, you're going to ask about b.a.s.t.a.r.d and Karen and who might have been by to see them last night.”
”Should I also ask them if they've seen anyone who looks exactly like me fleeing the scene of the crime?”
”Relax, Lemuel. No one saw you.”
”If it's so relaxing, why don't you do it?”
He shook his head. ”Me? I stand out too much. Dig my crazy hair. You've been in this neighborhood before. Besides, you're the salesman. This is your territory.”
There was no way to fully express the degree to which I did not want to do this thing. ”What if that cop drives by and notices me? Should I explain to him that it's my territory while he punches me in the stomach?”
”It won't happen. I'll be keeping a lookout. If anything goes wrong, I'll grab you and we'll take off. You'll be perfectly safe.”
I then leveled my most compelling argument. At least most compelling to me. ”But I don't want to do it.”
”And I don't want us to get f.u.c.ked, Lemuel, but we very well may if we don't take charge of the situation. Believe me, I don't like this any better than you do, but Jim Doe is now on to you. And whoever sent that woman we saw at lunch is on to you. We've got to take action instead of sitting around and waiting for everything to catch up to us.”
I knew he was right. I hated it, but Melford was right. There was no getting around this. I couldn't simply recede and think that, well, maybe things might have been different if I hadn't gone to jail for multiple homicides. I had to do this.
”So what do I tell people?”
”I don't know. But if you can convince people to spend a ton of cash on books they don't need or want, how hard can it be to get them to gossip?”
He had a point.
”One more thing,” he told me. ”It's not going to happen, but let's just say things go totally haywire.”
”s.h.i.+t,” I began.
”Let's say things go completely nuts,” he continued, ”and you end up with Doe again.”
”Screw this,” I said. ”I'm not going.”
”It'll be fine. I'm just giving you worst-case scenario advice. If you end up with him, and you're in some kind of danger, hit him in the b.a.l.l.s.”
”You think that'll hurt?”
”Trust me, smarty pants. He's had some testicular distress recently, so he's going to be extra sensitive. Give him, you know, a good smack to the nuts. It should make all the difference.”
”And you know this how?”
He smiled. ”Because a friend of mine recently had cause to smash him in the nuts,” he told me. ”Now enough with the questions. Get going.”
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