Chapter 5

Carter
A year later
High School

Friday. September. Five o'clock in the afternoon.

I know because I keep looking at my watch, watching the seconds run while I scrape my dry lips with my thumbnail.

The sun is beating down so mercilessly it feels as if you could stamp a heel into the gravel, bleached dry and white, and it would crumble into dust.

There are no birds in the sky. The leaves on the elms hang in rags, but in the shade of the old warehouse's leaky awning behind Lucas's father's garage, where we've gathered, breathing is almost bearable, and my nostrils tense as they draw in the hot hell of the day.

"What do you think, Carter? Will they pull it off? Chris and the guys? That fat bastard Higgins is a crafty piece of shit, after all. Chris is sure he must have pulled something like this before, otherwise he wouldn't be operating so brazenly in town. What do you think?"

Lucas's eyes shine feverishly, and the sweat on his temples says far more than the question itself. I turn my head and look at my friend.

"They will, Palmer. But I still think they're idiots."

"Why?" my friend objects. "Doesn't Higgins deserve it? Did you hear that the guy who sold him the bar on Melbourne Lane two years ago was found dead last spring in Ragged Hollow by Coral Ridge?.. Well, that guy agreed to the deal with Higgins himself and signed everything, so there's nothing to dig into there. The strange part is something else: why would he suddenly need to sell a thriving bar, and for a quarter of its price, huh?"

I shrug, thinking it over:

"Could be any number of reasons. Debts, family circumstances, or maybe he was just tired of it. That happens too."

"Yeah, right!" Lucas snorts loudly. "And a year later, in a downpour, he somehow ended up in a place where 'Danger' signs stick out of the ground every ten feet, and broke his neck! Very convenient. What the hell was he even doing there?"

"This is America, Palmer. Here, every man is his own boss. If you decide at night to pull your dick out of your pants and piss off the edge of a cliff, no one has the right to stop you. And if you slip while doing it, well, that's your problem."

Lucas raises his broad eyebrows indignantly.

"I don't get it, Carter... What are you, his lawyer?"

I flick my lighter and light a cigarette. Filling my lungs, I slowly exhale the smoke.

"I'm just trying to think the way Higgins thinks, and the way your brother should be thinking. No motive, no connection, which means no crime. And you, Palmer, finish what you started."

"Rumor is the guy, Ron Knowles, the bar's former owner, dug up something big on the fat bastard and paid for it."

The name sounds vaguely familiar, and then I remember.

"Wait... Knowles... Betty Knowles, right? Graduated last year. Cheer squad, and I think she had a thing with Chris for a while. She's this Ron's daughter?"

Lucas immediately presses his lips together and looks away.

"Yeah. She needed money. Beth wants to leave for Ohio; she has an aunt there. So stealing Higgins's new fifty-grand ride is fucking fair!"

Fuck, yes. Very much yes. But something else amazes me.

"You're idiots!" I say dryly, and I mean it sincerely.

"Why is that?" he asks, surprised.

"Because this is too big for you! Because this Higgins almost certainly has cover in the police, otherwise he wouldn't be so cocky, but more importantly, he has brains! And if he starts digging, the girl will talk!"

But Lucas shakes his head confidently.

"No, Beth will keep quiet. She hates him. She and her mother spent all their money on lawyers, but now they have a county judge's order. Because of public threats against them, Roakin Higgins is forbidden to come within a hundred yards of them. And my family needs money, Carter. You know that."

"How much?"

"Half of ten grand."

Not much. Hell, not much at all. Ridiculously little for that kind of risk.

"You understand that if Chris can't handle it and the van isn't in Raleigh[*] by tomorrow morning at the latest, five thousand dollars won't save your family anymore?"

Lucas nods:

"I know."

"Keep your mouth shut, and don't talk to anyone else. Shit!"

"I haven't told anyone, Wright! Only you and Holt know! I didn't even tell Peter!" Palmer swears anxiously. "That Red would sell his own mother for a hot dog! What, do you think I'm stupid?"

"Two is already too many."

"Come on, Carter! I trust you! I'm just afraid Walberg will run his mouth about our garage when things get hot."

"He won't. I'll have a talk with him. Let him try. I don't forget anything anyone does."

And I'm not lying. My memory is excellent, which is exactly why Lucas nods.

We sit by the warehouse's rear doors on an overturned crate marked "Rochester," between empty paint cans, listening as a couch creaks steadily in the pre-evening silence right behind the rusty wall. Thud. Thud. Thud.

Today is Friday, and at this hour the Palmers' garage is already closed. But two streets away, the Hundredth Backwater bar is open, where Lucas's father, a former soldier and now a lousy mechanic, has been getting drunk since lunch as usual.

We're alone here.

Lucas, Nick, me, and Tilda.

Behind the open door, the mattress squeaks, the wooden frame of the sagging couch thumps dully against the wall, and someone else's breathing quickens... We hear Tilda cut off Nick's panting with a laugh, ask him to light her cigarette, and tell him not to squeeze her breast so hard, as if he's fucking a girl for the first time.

After a long pause, during which Lucas's Adam's apple jerks convulsively, she lets Holt continue.

When Lucas leaves and Nicholas sits down in his place, he takes the remains of the cigarette from my fingers and nods toward the door:

"I'm sick of her. We'll have to tell her not to come here anymore. I can't stand sluts."

But judging by how long Nick stayed on top of Tilda, that doesn't ring true. Though maybe she really doesn't turn him on.

I cast him a quick smirking glance and look back to the far end of the yard, where an open stretch of road is visible above the fence.

"I think, Holt, you just hate being second. But it isn't my fault, buddy, that girls like me better. This one or another one, what difference does it make?"

Nick laughs so hard smoke bursts from his lungs in ragged clumps, and he leans his shoulders back against the brick wall.

"Fuck you, Wright!" He elbows me in the side. "Sometimes I regret how well you know me! That's why, unlike you, I get myself actual girlfriends. So I can be first with them."

"And how is that working out? They don't disappoint?"

Holt's pale eyes narrow with satisfaction.

"Sometimes I get lucky!"

A kid of about fourteen comes into the yard from the back of the house: Matthew Palmer, the youngest brother, and he gives us an unfriendly sidelong look. I've long suspected he's the smartest of the three, and I know he definitely has no business here right now.

"Where is Lucas?" Matt says, lip curled. "Coach Hurley is calling! Says your first practice is tomorrow, and he wants to see everyone!"

The kid keeps standing there and staring. I pick up a large piece of gravel by my sneakers and send it accurately at his feet.

"Scram! Handle it yourself!"

He doesn't retreat, and the second piece of gravel hits his shin, making him yelp.

"What did I say? Get lost, brat!"