Hit and Run (22 page)

I ran my tongue over my gritty teeth and suddenly wished I'd brought a toothbrush with me. Clean clothes wouldn't have hurt, either, but all the things that I had from the house were back in Riel's spare room.

I opened the door and went down the hall. Sure
enough, Lew was sprawled out in front of the TV.

“Where's Dan?” I asked.

“Out,” Lew said. “He'll be back soon.”

“You don't know if there's a spare toothbrush around here, do you?”

Lew looked at me like I was crazy.

“Mind if I check around?” I asked.

I don't think Lew was even listening. His eyes were on the TV screen. I took that as a go-ahead.

I checked the medicine cabinet in the bathroom first. Plenty of aspirin and soap, a package of dental floss, but no toothbrush. Out in the hall beside the bathroom were three drawers set into the wall and, above them, some cupboards. I checked the cupboards first. Blankets and bedsheets, pillowcases, towels and, up top, a couple of rolled-up sleeping bags. I pulled open the first drawer. Okay, getting closer. A first aid kit. Some half-empty bottles of shampoo and conditioner. A bag of disposable razors. A couple of cans of shaving cream that, from the bits of dried foam around the nozzles, had been used if not used up. A brand new package of toothpaste and a newish-looking bottle of mouthwash. Next drawer—bingo! Not one, but two brand new toothbrushes, still in their packages. It figured. Dan didn't get that dazzling lady-killer smile of his by not brushing. I grabbed one and made a mental note to replace it with a new one as soon as I could, not that I thought he was going to freak out over it or anything. I was shoving the drawer shut when I glanced at a small pile of envelopes to one side.
Envelopes from a photo developing place. I picked one up and slid out the pictures.

They were pretty recent and mostly they were of cars. But there were a few of Dan and Lew and Billy together, all smiling at the camera. They must have got someone to take them, maybe one of the girls who were always hanging around one or the other of them. Then there was a picture of Billy, all alone, standing in front of a candy-apple-red Jaguar, leaning against it like he owned it—which he didn't—looking like he thought he was pretty cool in his black jeans and black T-shirt and black boots, dark glasses hooked and hanging down from the neck of the T-shirt, hair so blond it looked like silver in the sunlight. He looked all right. If I were a girl, I might even have thought he looked cute. I kept that picture out when I put the others back. I was going to ask Dan if I could keep it or if I could get a copy made.

I grabbed another envelope, curious now to see if there were any other pictures of Billy. Since Mom died, neither Billy nor I had taken any pictures of anything. All I had were four years' worth of school IDs. The only time Billy had had his picture taken was when he renewed his driver's license. I wanted to remember him the way he was lately, not the way he was years ago.

But the pictures in the next envelope were not as recent. Billy's hair was long in the back and short in the front, a stupid Billy Ray Cyrus cut he used to have and had stuck with way too long. I remembered when he had chopped it all off. It was the day before Mom's
funeral. He had gone to the barber and had come back with his hair buzzed down to within a centimeter of his head. I never asked why, and he never explained. There were pictures of Billy with Kathy, the girl he'd been going with when Mom died. There were pictures of him with Dan and Lew, and pictures of Dan with a couple of girls, one on each side, with his arms around both of them. I didn't recognize the girls, which wasn't surprising considering that I had been ten or eleven at the time and Billy wasn't living with us anymore. Besides, Mom didn't like Dan and Lew, so they never came around the house. I'd only really gotten to know them since Mom died, and I had never figured out what she didn't like about them. I mean, compared to Billy, they were almost reliable, and Dan especially was a whole lot smarter. There were pictures of Lew, also with the girls, but they looked less than thrilled to be in his clutches. Of the three of them, Lew was the least good-looking, the least well-dressed, the one who always had a little B.O. Mostly Dan or Billy had to ask the girls they knew if they could find someone for Lew. It was funny that in all of the older pictures, Dan looked deadly serious. No wild smile. No big smart-ass megawatt grin. Guess he'd lightened up in recent years.

“Hey, Mikey,” said a voice behind me, so sudden that it startled me. Some of the photographs slipped from my hand. “What're you up to?”

I turned to look at Dan and held up the toothbrush I had found. Lew was standing behind him.

“All my stuff is back at Riel's place,” I said. “Lew said it would be okay if I looked around for a toothbrush.” I turned to Lew for confirmation.

Dan shrugged. “No problem.” He stooped to get the photos I had dropped.

“You don't look too happy in those pictures, Dan,” I said.

Lew reached over and plucked a couple of them from Dan's hand.

“Yeah,” he said. “The no-smile years. Felt like an idiot with all that hardware on your teeth, right, Dan? Looked like one, too.”

“Hardware?” I looked blankly at him.

“You know, braces,” Lew said. “You should have seen his teeth before he got them fixed. Most politicians are straighter than Dan's teeth used to be. He had to get the money together first, though. His parents couldn't pay for it. So there he was, twenty-one, with a mouth full of hardware. Didn't smile for, what, two years, right?”

Dan laughed. “Yeah, well, I've been making up for it ever since.”

Maybe there was a window open somewhere, but I don't think so. I think that chill came from someplace else, someplace inside.

A mouthful of hardware. A mouthful of silvery braces. Four or five years ago, when Mom was still alive and Billy was still wild …

I watched Dan tuck the pictures back into their envelope and slip them into the drawer, his movements
casual, his face calm, even smiling a little, like it was all okay, like nothing bad had happened, nothing that involved him, anyway.

“I'm going to clean up, then I'm going to go back to bed,” I said. Maybe it was just my imagination, but my voice sounded tight and high. Dan didn't seem to notice, though. Neither did Lew. “I gotta get some sleep,” I said. “I don't know what's wrong with me, but I'm really tired.”

“Stress,” Dan said. “Stress can really do it to you, Mikey.”

I ducked into the bathroom and washed up as well as I could. When I came out again, the hall was empty and I heard voices in the living room. I slipped back into the spare room and sat down on the bed in the dark. Then I waited.

It didn't take long. An hour at the most. I heard a lock turn down the hall. The front door, I thought. Then I heard footsteps in the hallway and someone—Dan—used the bathroom. Lew must have already been asleep on the couch. I waited another thirty minutes. Then another fifteen, just to make sure. The apartment was silent.

I got up, opened the door to the spare room, and crept down the hall. There was a cordless phone in the kitchen. I grabbed the handset and crept back to Lew's room with it. I'd decided to call Riel, when, stupid, stupid, stupid, I realized I didn't know his phone number. Information. Dial information.

I was about to punch 411 when the door to Lew's
bedroom opened. Dan looked at me, then at the phone in my hand.

“Hey, Mike, what're you up to?”

“Just making a phone call.”

“Yeah? Who are you calling?”

“A woman from Children's Aid. I was supposed to meet her after school today. For all I know, you guys could be in a lot of trouble because they're supposed to be looking after me and they don't know where I am.”

He thought about this for a moment, then said, “You're calling her at midnight? Don't you think it could wait until morning?”

I shrugged. “Better late than never, I guess.”

Dan grinned and shook his head again. “Come on, Mike, you were going to call that cop, weren't you?”

I denied it.

Dan was still smiling as he took the receiver from my hand.

“You're not being straight with me, Mike,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“You're going to tell that cop what I said about Billy, aren't you?”

I relaxed a little. “No,” I said. “No way, Dan.”

“If you did that, all of a sudden the cops would want to know how I knew about that and what else I know. And I don't want the cops sticking their noses into my business. You understand that, right, Mike?”

“Sure,” I said. “I wouldn't want to get you in any trouble, anymore than I'd want to get Billy in trouble.
That's why I should call the Children's Aid lady. They're going to be looking for me. You know they are.”

Dan seemed to consider this. I relaxed a little more, feeling almost confident that it was going to be okay, that I was going to be able to leave.

“It's late,” he said at last. “You get some sleep, and we'll call first thing in the morning, okay?”

I heard a shuffling sound in the hall. Lew? Sure enough, his sleepy head appeared behind Dan.

“What's up?” he said.

“The cops are probably looking for me,” I said. That seemed to wake Lew up—fast.

“Relax,” Dan said. “It's nothing. Mike's just worried about Children's Aid.”

“I really think I should at least call and tell her where I am,” I said.

Dan held tight to the phone. “How about I get you something to settle you down and help you sleep, Mike? You really need some rest. Lew, you stay here with Mike, okay? I'll be right back.”

He said it all so calmly, and his smile was so friendly, like all he cared about was me and my welfare. He squeezed by Lew, who filled the doorway. I heard him pad down the hall, going in the opposite direction from the front door. Now was my chance. All I had to do was get out and keep going. But how could I get past Lew?

Marilyn.

I whirled around, grabbed Marilyn from her little shelf above the dresser, and threw her up in the air.

“Hey, Lew,” I said.

But Lew was already diving into the room, scrabbling to catch her before she smashed onto the floor. I was diving the other way, for the door. I was trying to keep from tangling myself up with Lew, which is how I managed to crash into the CD tower. It toppled left. The container of mousse on it flew right. The little basket on top of it cascaded coins all over the floor. The noise brought Dan back on the double, but by then I had forgotten about running because by then I was staring open-mouthed at the coins that lay scattered all over the floor. At one coin in particular, one that glinted like the sun in the middle of all those dull copper pennies. I could almost feel it smooth and cool and heavy in my hand.

Lew lay on the floor, clutching his precious Marilyn.

“Jeez,” he said. “Jeez, Mikey.” He started to get up, cradling the figurine. That's when he saw what I had seen and what Dan was looking at now. Dan's eyes were hard and cold; his million-dollar smile had vanished.

“I told you to get rid of that,” he said to Lew. The fact that he said it—said it right in front of me—told me just how much trouble I was in, and probably had been ever since he and Lew had picked me up that afternoon. Then I thought, that was no accident, no chance encounter. They had been looking for me.

“Come on, Mike,” Dan said. He grabbed my arm. His hand bit into my flesh. When I struggled, he said, “Don't make me hurt you, Mikey.”

I don't know if it was the rumble of his voice, the
dead look in his eyes, or the pain I was already feeling from his hand clamped around my arm, but I quit fighting him. Better to stay alert and look for a chance, I thought, than to have him hurt me badly now.

He dragged me down the hall, through the living room and the kitchen, to the back door that led downstairs. Lew followed closely behind. Between the two of them, I was taken down the narrow stairs and into the garage.

Dan flicked on a light, and I saw two cars. One of them had big pieces of paper attached to it. It took me a moment to figure out that it was being prepped for a custom paint job. I peered around. There was paint and paint equipment everywhere. There were also a couple of carts of tools, and more tools hanging from hooks or sitting on shelves around the place. At the far end were the big double garage doors. To one side was a smaller person-sized door. It was locked.

Padlocked.

So were the garage doors.

“Too bad you took off on the Children's Aid,” Dan said. “I hear that happens to them a lot. Kids take off. Who knows where they end up? They just disappear.”

I felt that chill again, only this time I knew it wasn't a draft from a window. There weren't any windows down here. There was just me and Dan and Lew.

One thing I've learned is that mostly you should be glad about the everyday annoying boring things that make up maybe nine-tenths of life on a good day. Got a quiz coming up in math? Best friend acting like a jerk? Chicken burgers in the school cafeteria for the twelfth day in a row? Parents giving you a hard time over your so-so grades? Lost another library book so there goes this week's allowance? Late for your after-school job again and for sure your boss is going to chew you out? Boring, boring, annoying, boring, and you'd do anything if someone would set you free, right?

And then everything shifts.

The whole landscape.

When my mother died, I had to adjust my thinking about almost everything—from what kind of place I would live in and what would appear (or not appear) on the table at mealtime, to what was expected of me and who expected it.

Now Billy was gone and I had to adjust again. Only this time I was completely alone. Now there was no one—absolutely no one—whose job it was to make sure that I was alive and breathing, forget fed and clothed and educated. All of a sudden, everything was up to me.