Scott opened the refrigerator and pulled out a carton of orange juice. “Thirsty?”
“Yeah.”
David sat on one of the stools at the counter as Scott pulled down a pair of drinking glasses. As he poured the juice, Scott glanced at the clock on the wall. It was just after four P.M. “Your folks working late again this week?”
“Dad is. Not sure about Mom.” Scott handed a glass to him.
“I can’t believe your mom still works,” David said. He took a sip of his orange juice; it was freshly squeezed, just the way he liked it. “When my dad was made senior partner, Mom quit her job.”
“My mom loves this shit,” Scott said. He was standing on the other side of the counter. He took a quick gulp of orange juice. “She always has. I mean, they met at work.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.” Scott finished the rest of his juice in several gulps, set the glass down and sighed. “That hit the spot.”
“So…your mom’s always worked, then?”
“Pretty much. She works, does her country club shit on the weekends.”
David took another sip of his orange juice. When his mom quit her job, she said it was because she wanted to be home for when he and his sister returned from school. I don’t like the idea of you coming home to an empty house or spending the afternoons at the Rec Center, she’d said at the time. David had been hoping she’d change her mind; having mom around now was like being under the watch of the Gestapo. Ever since that day five years ago when his parents received that call from school telling them what he’d done to Count Gaines, Mom never fully trusted him again, even after he apologized a thousand times and went out of his way to be extra nice to her and shower her with presents. Now she was constantly checking up on him, calling the homes of his friends to inquire about him.
“That sucks,” Scott said.
David nodded. That pretty much echoed his sentiment.
“So…we cool?” Scott asked. He was looking at David as if he were trying to get a read on him.
David finished his juice and set the empty glass down on the counter. “Yeah, we’re cool.”
“I’m going to keep Rebecca away from the house.” Rebecca was Scott’s gorgeous, and incredibly nosy, girlfriend. It was a minor miracle Rebecca wasn’t along last night. She was known for dropping by Scott’s house unexpectedly to check up on him.
“She still doesn’t know about the Intercourse incident, right?”
“Hell no!”
David grinned at the memory of the Intercourse incident. Late last summer, just before school started, he, Gordon, and Scott had gone cruising around in Intercourse, a small town about fifteen miles away. Intercourse was a big tourist attraction, drawing thousands of people a year to its quaint streets and shops run by the Amish. There was actually a big Amish population in Intercourse, with the majority of them living on farms in the surrounding countryside. On the day in question, with David driving, they’d cruised around the town until they found their likely target — a young Amish man on a bicycle. As they drove by, Scott leaned out the car window and pushed the man down. They’d sped away, sputtering laughter. They’d done the same thing to a pair of female Amish sect members, also on bikes. This time Scott had pushed one down, causing her to topple into her friend, knocking them both to the ground in a tangle of Amishflesh, blue ankle-length dresses and bicycles. They’d laughed all the way home.
There’d been no witnesses to what they’d done. The incidents had even received mention in the local paper the next day.
In a way that’s what started it all.
Scott had wanted to go cruising for some bum-bashing ever since. The uproar over the assaults on the three Amish had been loud in the local media, and for a brief time David was afraid the cops would come knocking on his door. Fortunately for them, their victims had been unable to provide accurate descriptions and the authorities never came poking around. Besides, they had a clear alibi. David was at Scott’s house that day watching movies all night with Rebecca and Gordon. Scott’s parents had seen them when they left earlier that evening for a shindig at some fancy Country Club. They’d still been there when they came home, shortly before midnight. Besides, all four were at the top of their class academically and socially, and they were involved in various youth groups at their local churches. Scott was even President of an off campus Spring Valley High School Students for Christ social club that met every Wednesday in the basement of the Grace Baptist church on Main Street.
They’d remained on the straight and narrow ever since they’d gotten into trouble by beating up the Gaines kid.
Or so everybody seemed to think.
“Okay…I see what you mean,” Scott said. He was leaning against the opposite counter where his mother prepared the occasional meal. “It’s still gonna be my ass in a sling if we get caught.”
“If you’re afraid of getting caught, let’s kill him now.” David was slightly taken aback the minute that was out of his mouth. Had he just said that? Yes, he had.
“Nah, I don’t want to kill him now,” Scott said. “It’s gotta be like we planned it. I mean, what fun is offing him real quick? That’s why we got him in the first place, right?”
“Right.”
“And we got tired of driving out of the area to other neighborhoods and picking fights with other guys, right?”
“You got that right.” Ever since that incident involving the Amish, he and Scott, occasionally joined by Gordon and Steve, in various vehicles, had ventured out of Lancaster County to pick fights with people. It didn’t matter who — some guy taking out the trash, a pedestrian in a quiet section of town. If it looked like they could take him, the guys would jump out and pound the shit out of him for as long as possible, then get the hell out of there. The first three times they’d set off on random beatings like this they’d stomped the shit out of four different guys. Last time, though, they met their match. Some skinny little fuck with glasses they set upon turned out to be a martial arts expert. They got the hell out of there before serious damage was done to their respective selves.
“So we’re safe,” Scott said. “That homeless guy is so fucked up he ain’t gonna be in any condition to scream or run. My parents never venture out there, and what we’re doing is staying between us. We’ll be fine.”
Steve nodded. He looked at Scott, realization dawning in him. “Only thing is…what do we do after he’s dead and buried? What then? Get another one?”
Scott frowned. “Damn, you’re right. You got a good point there.”
Chapter Three
Tim Gaines couldn’t have wished for a better evening.
George and Al picked him up shortly after 5:30 and they made it to the theater fifteen minutes before the movie started. The Spring Valley Main Theater was packed. Located just across from a small commercial airport, the theater housed eight screens, all of them running first-rate features. Hostel 3 was nearly sold out. Surprising, considering the relatively conservative nature of the population of Spring Valley.
The three boys cringed in the appropriate moments of the film and laughed during those moments of humor. When the movie was over they walked out of the lobby into a relatively comfortable late Spring evening. There was already a large crowd arriving for the late show, including several kids from Spring Valley High School. Most of them Tim recognized.
George nodded at a couple of familiar faces that said hello to him as he and Al talked about the movie. As they stepped into the parking lot, George turned to them. “You guys hungry?”