Chick studied me appraisingly in the neon glow. I'm sure my face, like his, must have been an unflattering shade of purple. I probably resembled Violet from that Willy Wonka movie. You know, after she ate the gum.
But Chick must have seen something there that he liked, since he didn't end the conversation then and there.
"You think we should go busting in there," he said, slowly, "and get that kid out?"
"Busting," I said, "is not the word I would use. I think we could probably come up with a more subtle form of entry. But yes. Yes, I do."
"Wait." Rob shook his head. "Wait just a minute here. Mastriani, this is insane. We can't get involved in this. This is a job for the cops—"
"—who don't know what they're up against," I said. "Forget it, Rob. One cop already got shot on account of me. I'm not going to let anyone else get hurt, if I can help it."
"Anyone else," Rob burst out. "What about yourself? Have you ever stopped to think these guys might have a bullet with your name on it next?"
"Rob." I couldn't believe how myopic he was being. "Jim Henderson isn't going to shoot me."
Rob looked shocked. "Why not?"
"Because I'm a girl, of course."
Rob said a very bad word in response to this. Then he pushed away from the bar and went stalking over to the jukebox … which he punched. Not hard enough to break it, but hard enough so that Chick looked up and went, "Hey!"
Rob didn't apologize though. Instead, he said, looking at Chick with appeal in his gray eyes, "Can you help me out here? Can you please explain to my girlfriend that she must be suffering from a chemical imbalance if she thinks I'm letting her anywhere near Jim Henderson's place?"
Which was a horribly sexist thing to say, and which I knew I should have resented, but I couldn't, since he'd called me the G word. You know. His girlfriend. It was the first time I'd ever heard him call me that. Within earshot of someone else, I mean.
Being his date at that Christmas Eve wedding didn't look so far out of the realm of possibility now.
But Chick, instead of doing as Rob had asked, and telling me to forget about busting in on the True Americans, stroked his goatee thoughtfully. "You know," he said. "It isn't the worst idea I ever heard."
Rob stared at him in horror.
"Hey," Chick said, defensively. "I ain't saying she should go in alone. But a kid's dead, Wilkins. And if I know Henderson, this other one hasn't got much time left."
I threw Rob a triumphant look, as if to say, See? I'm not crazy after all.
"And you might say," Chick went on, "this is a homegrown problem, Wilkins. I mean, Henderson's one of our own. Ain't it appropriate that we be the ones to mete out the justice? I can put in a few calls and have enough boys over here in five minutes, it'd put the National Guard to shame."
I raised my eyebrows, impressed by the mete out the justice line.
Rob wasn't going for it, though. "Even if we did agree this was a good idea," he said, "which I am not doing, you said yourself it's inaccessible. There's nearly two feet of snow on the ground. How are we even going to get near the place?"
Chick did a surprising thing, then. He crooked a finger at us, then started walking—though, given his girth and height, lumbering was really more the word for it—toward the back door.
I followed him, with Rob reluctantly trailing behind me. Chick went down a short hallway that opened out into a sort of a ramshackle garage. Wind whistled through the haphazardly thrown up wooden slats that made up the walls.
Flicking on the single electric bulb that served as a light, Chick strode forward until he came to something covered with a tarp.
"Voilà," he said, in what I assumed was a purposefully bad European accent.
Then he flung back the tarp to reveal two brand-new snowmobiles.
C H A P T E R
11
Hey, I'll admit it. I wanted on that snowmobile. I wanted on it, bad.
Can you blame me? I'd never been on one before.
And for someone who likes going fast, well, what's more thrilling than going fast over snow? Oh, sure, I'd been skiing before, over at the dinky slopes of Paoli Peaks. It had been fun and all. For like an hour. I mean, let's face it, Indiana is not exactly known for its mountainous terrain, so the Peaks got old kind of fast for any thrill seeker worthy of the name.
But nothing could compare to the sensation of zipping over all that thickly packed white stuff with my arms wrapped tightly around the waist of my hot, if disapproving, boyfriend.
Oh, it was good. It was real good.
But I have to admit, the part after we'd pulled up in front of the True Americans' barbed-wire fence, and just sat there with the engine switched off, gazing at the lights of Jim Henderson's house, glimmering through the trees?
Yeah, that part wasn't so fun.
That was on account of the fact that deep in the backwoods of Indiana, on a late November evening, it is very, very cold. Bone-chillingly cold. Mind-numbingly cold. Or at least toe and finger-numbingly cold.
You would think that Rob and I could have thought up something to do, you know, to pass the time—as well as keep warm—while we waited for Chick to catch up to us with the backup he'd promised. But given the fact that Rob was still so mad we were here at all, there hadn't been much, you know, of that going on. In fact, none at all.
"So what are we waiting for, again?" I asked.
"Reinforcements," was Rob's terse reply.
"Yeah," I said. "I get that part. But can't we just, you know, go and wait inside?"
"And what are we going to do," Rob said, "if we find Seth?"
"Bust on out of there," I said.
"Using what as a weapon?"
I thought a minute. "Our rapier wit?"
"Like I said."
Well. So much for that.
Rob didn't seem as cold as I was. Why is that? How come boys never get as cold as girls do? And also, what's with the peeing thing? Like how come I totally had to pee, and he didn't? He'd had as many Cokes back at Chick's as I did.
And even if he had had to pee, it wouldn't have been any big deal for him. I mean, he could have just gone over to any old tree and done it.
But for me, it would have been like this major production. And a lot more of me would have been exposed to the forces of nature. Which, with it being like ten below, or something, were pretty harsh.
Whatever. Life is just unfair. That's all I have to say.
Not that I had it so bad, I guess. I mean, comparatively, I guess I've always had it pretty good. I mean, my parents are still together, and seem pretty happy to stay that way … except, you know, when one of us kids is causing them trouble, like hearing voices that aren't there, or dropping out of Harvard, or being struck by lightning and getting psychic powers and then causing the family restaurant to be burned down.
You know. The usual parental stresses.
At least we were pretty well off. I mean, no one was buying me my own pony—or Harley—but we weren't exactly on welfare, either. In all, the Mastriani family had it pretty good.
As opposed to, just for an example, the Wilkins family. I mean, Rob had been working in his uncle's garage pretty much full time since he was like fourteen or something, just to help his mom make ends meet. He hadn't seen his dad since he was a little kid. He didn't even know where his dad was.
But I did. I knew where Rob's dad was.
Not that I was very grateful for the information. But there it was, embedded in my brain just like Seth Blumenthal's current location and status.
The question was, should I tell Rob, or not?
Would I want to know? I mean, if my dad had disappeared when I was a little kid. Had just walked out on Mom and Mike and Douglas and me. Would I want to know where he was now? Would I even care?
Yeah. Probably. If only so I could go pound his face in.