White Rabbit(58)
He gets out of the Jeep, and I follow, stepping over plants that shoot nearly ten inches high through fissures in the pavement. The building housing the restrooms reeks as though it has never been cleaned, and the cloying odor of a long-dead animal drifts on the thick air that fills the shadows behind it.
The undergrowth separating the service station from the parking lot turns out to be not just rocky but also filled with trash that lurks unseen in the swampy shadows, glass and metal scattering at our feet. Emerging at last before a length of the plastic fencing, which is anchored by upright supports every ten or fifteen feet along, we follow it toward the frontage of the strip mall. Less than half the businesses look like they’re still operational, and every other window is cracked and clouded, the residue of signage lingering like tan lines.
Nearing the corner of the fenced-off work site, as we negotiate around a dented oil drum—half-full of dusty rebar and broken cinder block—we hear the sound of a voice raised in anger, and our feet stutter to an instinctive halt. Peering around the edge of the last upright in the row, gazing out on the darkened expanse of the parking lot and the dispiriting, electric bleakness of the storefronts, we see four people gathered together outside of Suzy’s American Diner.
Lyle Shetland leans against a broad-shouldered motorcycle, arms folded across his chest. He’s put on some weight since last I saw him—and grown some scraggly beard-like stuff that looks like something my mom once dredged from her shower drain with a wire coat hanger—but otherwise he’s much the same: leather jacket, thick eyebrows, and a skull shaved to the quick. He’s flanked by two other guys, one with a greasy-looking ponytail and the other with a black bandana tied across his forehead, both of whom radiate an aura of agitated subservience detectable a mile away; Lyle is clearly in charge.
Standing opposite them, red in the face with fury, is my older brother.
“—don’t like getting ripped off!” Hayden is practically shouting, his voice reverberating off the glass front of the strip mall and bouncing in all directions. “You owe me a fucking grand, and I’m not leaving till I get it!”
“You need to calm the hell down,” Lyle warns tonelessly.
“Don’t tell me to calm down! You ripped me off, asshole, and I promise you I’m not an enemy you want to have.”
Lyle barely moves, but his whole body seems to tighten somehow, a fireball contracting right before it blows. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but you better watch your damn mouth when you speak to me.”
“You. Ripped. Me. Off.” Hayden repeats ferociously, jabbing a finger at the guy like he’s hoping it’ll hurt him from a distance. “I paid your boy a shitload of money for pills tonight, and they were fuckin’ fucked up!”
My brother’s loudmouthed aggression has an adverse effect on the ponytailed guy, who starts shifting and fidgeting, glancing around the empty lot to see if they’re being overheard. I shrink back a little as Lyle answers, with deliberate caution, “I don’t have ‘boys,’ okay? And if I did, they wouldn’t be selling no pills.”
“Don’t fuck with me, man!” Hayden hisses. Reaching into the pocket of his shorts, he hauls loose a plastic bag that’s filled with small, white tablets. “I got these off one of your guys tonight, and they’re bullshit!”
He throws the bag at Lyle, who lets them bounce off his shoulder and drop to the ground. “I never seen those before in my life.”
“Don’t give me that!” Hayden spits. “I bought them off Fox Whitney about six hours ago. They’re your shit, and everybody who took one got sick. One of the girls started flopping around on the floor, foaming at the mouth—we had to dump her outside the ER!”
Lyle seems to freeze, and his two henchmen exchange an agitated glance over the top of his shaved head. Ponytail does another survey of the parking lot then, his fingers twitching nervously, while Lyle eyes the bag of white rabbits with a dark expression. Finally, he growls, “I don’t think I know a Fox Whitney. If you say he sold you some bad stuff, maybe you oughta take it up with him instead of fucking up my night.”
“Yeah, I tried that already,” Hayden replies smoothly, baring his teeth in a grin, “only I was a little too late. By the time I got to him, old Fox was fucking dead, and somebody had taken my money.”
This time, Lyle straightens up, his back going rigid. “What did you say?”
“He’s on a slab at the morgue, Lyle. Actually, both your boys are.” Hayden squares his shoulders, finding security at last in his opponent’s discomposure. “See, I figured Arlo must’ve iced Fox and swiped the cash, but when I went to see Arlo about it, it turned out he was fucking dead, too. So, way I see it now, either they both pissed off the wrong customer, or they both pissed off their boss.” He plants his hands on his hips. “And, you know, I don’t really give a shit either way, except that my money’s still missing. So right now I’m thinking that since it was your boy who sold me bad product, and it was you who gave it to him, then you’re the cocksucker who owes me a thousand fucking dollars. Right. Now.”
Lyle finally picks up the bag, examining it with a deep frown etched across his face. Wordlessly, he tosses the pills to Bandana Guy, who takes one out, studies it under the light, and then shakes his head definitively. “These ain’t ours.”