'What time I tell you to meet me in the parking lot?' Smoke yelled as Weed shrieked, doubled over, arms locked under his crossed legs, head practically in his lap. 'What time, you fuckin' little shit!'
'Three!' Weed cried, tears running down his face in little rivers. 'Why'd you do that? I didn't do nothing.' He hiccuped. 'Smoke, I didn't!'
'And what time was it when you walked up to my car, you little fuck!' Smoke grabbed the back of Weed's woolly cornrows. 'It was five after three!'
He yanked. Weed screamed again.
'When I say three, what does that mean, retard?'
'I couldn't get away from Mrs. Grannis!' Weed choked, gasping and making awful faces as Smoke gripped Weed's hair, tearing some of it out by the roots. 'I'm sorry, Smoke! I'm sorry! Oh please don't hurt me no more.'
Smoke shoved him away and started laughing. He turned up 2 Pac on the CD player, every other word fuck and nigger. Smoke reached under his seat and snatched out the Glock. He shoved it between Weed's ribs, getting off on how bad the little shit was shaking. Weed put his hands over his face. He farted and burped.
'You pee or shit in here, and I'll blow your dick off,' Smoke told him.
'Please, Smoke,' Weed begged in a tiny, pitiful voice. 'Please don't, Smoke.'
'You gonna do what I say from now on?'
'Yes. I'll do anything you want me to, Smoke. I promise.'
Smoke tucked the pistol back under his seat. He turned up 2 Pac and started rapping along. There was no further conversation as Smoke headed across the river toward Huguenot Road, winding here and there, cutting over to Forest Hill, avoiding tolls whenever he could. Weed had gotten very quiet. He dried his eyes and kept his legs tightly crossed. The kid was so puny his Nikes barely touched the floor. Smoke knew all about timing. He knew exactly how to make people do what he wanted.
'Feeling better?' Smoke asked, turning down 2 Pac.
'Yes,' Weed answered politely.
They were on Midlothian Turnpike now, passing German School Road.
'You know what an oath is?' Smoke asked.
He was nice now, relaxed and taking his time, as if they were going out for a hamburger or just cruising.
'No,' Weed answered softly.
'You need to speak up,' Smoke said. 'I can hardly hear you.'
'I don't know what it is,' Weed said more loudly.
'You ever been a Boy Scout?'
'No.'
'Well, to be one you got to take an oath. On my honor I promise to do my best and on and on, whatever. That's an oath. Something you swear to, and if you break it, something really bad happens.'
Businesses along this stretch of Midlothian Turnpike were all about cars and trucks and everything that went with them. A Cheers restaurant had gone out of business, and an adult bookstore had only one car in the lot. Smoke cut up an unpaved side street and drove through the middle of a trailer park, where balding, muddy yards were littered with metal chairs, flowerpots and ceramic lawn ornaments. Scrawny cats darted out of the way. Wind chimes tinkled, and parked trucks reflected the sun.
They turned into the cracked, weed-infested parking lot of the Southside Motel, which had been out of business and boarded up for years. A chain was strung across either end of the drive leading into it, air conditioning units outside the rooms rusted, a breeze sucking dingy white curtains in and out of broken windows. Junipers had grown out of control in clumps, shielding entire blocks of rooms, and grass was dead and treacherous with broken glass. Smoke drove around to the back of the motel and parked next to a Dumpster.
'Remember when I drove you through here last week?' Smoke said. 'Remember, the first rule is, nobody parks back here. You see all the No Trespassing signs?" 'Yeah,' Weed answered, looking around and scared.
'Well, the cops don't come here, but I can't take the chance. They see your car, and you're fucked.'
He put the Escort in gear and drove back around to the front. Weed was quiet as Smoke backtracked and parked on the side of a rutted, muddy road on the outskirts of the trailer park.
This is how I go in,' Smoke said, cutting the engine and reaching down for his Glock. 'You gonna have to come in another way because they don't have nothing in here but white trash and you'll attract attention. They might even call the cops.'
'Then what do I do?' Weed asked, climbing out and casting furtively about.
'Cut in through Fast Track, Jiffy Tune, Turnpike Auto Parts, one of those other places on the strip, and just come through the woods behind the motel,' Smoke said, sticking the pistol down the front of his jeans and pulling his Chicago Bulls sweatshirt over it.
He kept a good pace along the unpaved road, Weed limping along as fast as he could, obviously hurting. Smoke knew his latest recruit was wondering if he was going to get his brains blown out behind an abandoned motel in the middle of nothing, and Smoke let him worry. Smoke understood fear. The gratification was instant when he made something suffer. He had learned this as a little boy when he could see panic in the eyes, when he could feel terror in the rapidly beating heart of the weaker creature he tortured to death.
Smoke came from a better home than most, one of comfortable, open-minded parents who had never gotten in his way or tried to hold him back or believed their son could be bad. They preferred to give permission rather than force the child into clandestine behavior. They believed if they were trusting and fair-minded, their three children would make the right choices. Smoke's older brother and sister had seemed to prove the philosophy right. They were making good grades in college and associated with nice people and had normal ambitions.
Smoke had always been different. During the interminable evaluations and counseling sessions in Durham and training school at Butner, he had not complained about his family or a single event that had or hadn't happened to him. He had blamed no one for who he was, and in fact, took full credit. He had diagnosed himself as a psychopath. He worked hard to be a good one. Smoke had no doubt that one day the world would know his name.
Smoke wasn't giving Weed a hard time right now, and Weed was grateful and appropriately cooperative. Their feet clinked bits of broken bottles and dislodged rocks, and acres of dense woods shielded the back of the motel from busy highways and streets just blocks away. Smoke headed straight for a large sheet of plywood propped against a wall behind a clump of junipers. His eyes narrowed as he looked around and listened. He slid the plywood to one side and stepped through the empty bent aluminum frame of what was left of sliding glass doors.
'Who's bartending?' Smoke announced to the girl and three boys inside the boggy, musty-smelling suite. 'We got something to celebrate. Weed, meet your new family. That's Divinity, and the three assholes there are Dog, Sick and Beeper." 'That's their real names?' Weed couldn't help but ask.
'Their slave names,' Smoke replied.
Chapter Seven
The Pikes were sipping vodka out of Dixie cups and smoking cigarettes. They looked at Weed and seemed amused, their eyes laughing at him as they lounged on stained, sour-smelling mattresses.
Divinity was dark-skinned, but Weed didn't think she was black, maybe Hispanic or a little bit of everything. She wasn't wearing a bra, and her tight sheer black undershirt showed more than Weed had ever seen in person. Her slender legs in their worn-out jeans were spread wide. She was really pretty.
Dog was big and looked mean and stupid, and Sick had acne and a dark buzz cut and five loops in his right ear. Beeper seemed a little nicer, or maybe it was just that he was small like Weed. Each of them had a number tattooed on the right index finger and seemed oblivious to the nasty mattresses and the rotting wall-to-wall brown carpet beneath them.
Strewn about were plain oak chairs that Weed associated with school, and TV trays, and boxes of paper napkins and Dixie cups. Candles of all description sat in puddles of hardened wax on windowsills, and the motel furniture was so warped the Formica lamination was curling up. Piled in corners were boxes of chalk, erasers, a slide projector, library books, a corkboard, throw pillows, and at least a dozen empty wallets and ladies' purses and just as many pairs of leather tennis shoes of different sizes. Cases of liquor were stacked up to the water-stained ceiling. Smoke lit one of the candles while Divinity poured Smirnoff into a Dixie cup and handed it to him.