The Hard Bounce - [47]

“Me, too.”

“I talked to him after you did.”

I didn’t answer him.

“He called me after he left you at the aquarium.”

“Yeah. Forgot to tell you. He’s out. He doesn’t have our backs on this.”

“That surprise you?”

“Not really. Probably should have kept my goddamn mouth shut. I don’t think he’ll turn us in if this thing goes completely to shit, though.”

“Yeah. He didn’t give me that impression either. He wasn’t making threats, but he was worried.”

“About what?”

“He was worried we were about to do something royally fucked up. Something that might screw us over. In a forever kind of way.”

My heart started to sink. I didn’t answer. I didn’t like where the discussion seemed to be heading.

Junior took another big bite of his grinder, chewed, and sucked down more coffee before he went on. “I kinda agree with him.”

Brutal silence hung in the air between us. I was burning up inside. Junior and I had never backed away from each other. Ever. On anything. The feelings of betrayal slammed me right in the heart.

“You want out? Then go,” I said softly, bitterness edging my words. “I’ll step out of the car right now, and you can be on your merry fucking way.”

“What?” His voice was tinged with hurt. “Fuck you, Boo. I’m not backing off nothing. I got just as much at stake here as you do.” He shook his head slowly in disbelief. “Don’t even talk to me that way, you fuck.”

“What are you trying to say, Junior? Spit it out.”

He angrily chucked the rest of his sandwich out the window. “This ain’t our fight no more, Boo. The girl? She’s dead. We got hired to find her. We didn’t. We found out what happened to her, but it’s not the same thing. Technically? We’re done. We’re not getting paid for this, and it’s not our fucking responsibility anymore to pull this midnight-avenger shit.”

“So that’s what this is about now? The paycheck? Fuck what he did to that kid, long as we get paid?”

“Don’t be a fucking prick. Open your eyes. What if this thing goes all fubar and we get busted? Is it worth it to spend the rest of our lives in a fucking cage over this? Over a girl we never even knew?”

I opened my mouth to say something. Anything to interrupt him. But nothing came out. The man was making a point-and a righteous one at that, goddamn him.

Junior said, “Well, is it? I’ve been there, Boo. So have you. We spent most of our lives locked in, and there weren’t even bars on The Home. This guy just isn’t fucking worth it.” Junior motioned vaguely toward the opposite side of the street.

“Maybe he isn’t to you.” Despite the sound logic in Junior’s argument, Snake-whoever he was-mattered to me. I wanted him out of the world I had to live in. I couldn’t explain it to Junior in that moment, but damn it, it mattered. My hands started shaking in anger at Junior’s sudden turnaround.

“All right. Fine. I’m not saying we don’t jack this boy up six ways to Sunday and twice on Monday. I’m not saying we don’t find him and beat his ass like a piñata until he tells us what he did with the kid and we get it on tape.” He paused. “But we leave him, Boo. We leave the fucker alive. We drop the dime on his now-crippled ass with the video and his confession. All on tape. Then we let the real cops handle this. This just isn’t our game anymore. This is bigger than we thought it was going to be, kid.”

Junior was right, but I couldn’t hear him anymore. I opened the car door and got out. “Go, then,” I said. “Step the fuck off.”

Junior’s tipping point tipped. He kicked his door open and faced me across the car roof. “Goddamn you, Boo! This girl? This fucking little dead girl? It sucks. It sucks worse than anything I’ve dealt with since The Home. But you know what? It had nothing to fucking do with us.” Junior smacked his open palm on the hood of the car. He folded his arms, shook his head, and dropped the bomb. In a quiet voice, he said, “This girl? You gotta realize something, Boo. She’s not Emily.”

Bang.

All the blood raging in my ears. All the adrenaline pounding in my veins. All of it dropped in a single heartbeat into the pit of my stomach like a mouthful of mercury. Hot tears welled up in my eyes, but I fought them back. I wanted to scream. I wanted to curse and start swinging on him. My best friend. My only family. I wanted to make him hurt like his words did me. But I couldn’t. There was something hard and pointy lodged in my throat that made it hard to breathe, harder to speak.

Because he was right.

He threw his hands up in the air. “There. I said it. I was hoping I wouldn’t have to, but you’re blind to your own goddamn motivations. So you can listen to me and think it over or you can tell me to fuck off again. Your choice. Say the words, and I’m gone.”

I stared down at the concrete, trying to fight back the anguish Junior’s words had brought up from the bottom of the hole I’d thought I’d buried it in. “You’re right.” My voice came out in a hollow rasp. “You’re right.” I lit a cigarette with numbed fingers. I had a hard time looking up at him. “Maybe… maybe I’ve been screwed in the head with this thing all along. But you’re right, either way.”