All the Inside Howling (Hollow Folk #2)(130)

We’d left behind the last vestiges of Vehpese, even the outskirts where Sara’s house stood, and the road had narrowed to a strip of asphalt barely wide enough for two cars to squeeze past each other. Out here, scrub sage rolled over the high prairies, outlined by sunlight in wedges of crisp brown. I’d never been this way before, and to judge by the looks of it, not many other people had either. Wherever Lawayne was taking me, we were going to be nice and alone.

“Where are we going?”

“I told you, I’ll get you to school. Don’t worry so much.”

“So? Why was Lena trying to kill me?”

“I don’t know,” Lawayne said, his broad, open face turning to a frown. “But see, here’s the thing: I think you know. In fact, I’ll bet on it. You want to make a bet, Vie?”

“No.”

“How about a deal, then?”

“Not interested.”

“Oh yeah? You think I don’t have anything you want?”

“I know you don’t.”

“Vie, don’t be stupid. I like you. I want to like you. But if you’re determined to get yourself neck deep up your own ass, I don’t know how much I’ll like you anymore.”

“My heart’s breaking.”

“Use your brain, kid. Does a guy like me ever come to the table empty handed?”

The answer, of course, was no. The dusty plains tumbled past us for almost a minute before I took a shot. “My dad.”

“Not a bad guess. Not bad at all. I even went down to Slippers, tried to pick him up. I thought you might be a little more conversational with you dad on the hook. But your dad, well, he’s just about the lowest piece of shit I know, the kind of shit that if it gets on your shoe, you throw away the pair. And word is, he’s skipped town. Left his baby boy all alone in the cold, wide world.”

“You want something from me, and you start off by telling me that you were planning on holding my dad hostage?”

“Then I thought, well, dear old Dad is gone, but maybe there’s somebody else. I hear you’ve got a royal hard-on for the Bradley kid, and meanwhile you’re sticking it to Deb Miller’s son, the older one. Which one is it? Or are you grabbing with both hands?”

My face heated, but I said, “I thought you said we weren’t going to school. This feels like real high school shit to me.”

Lawayne smiled. “So you wouldn’t care if I had Emmett Bradley hanging by his heels in a meat packing warehouse, all the little bits of him ready to drop off from frostbite?”

“If you hurt him—”

This time, Lawayne did laugh, although the pain showed on his face. He held up one hand in surrender; he didn’t even try with his injured shoulder. “Easy, tiger. I didn’t hurt either of your butt buddies. I just wanted to see how you reacted. It’s not smart for business, you know? You want to be smart, you take someone important but not too important. Your shit-bird dad, for example. But going straight for your little heartthrobs? Bad way to show up to the table, because at that point, you either got to kill the guy or break the guy, but he’s never going to be any help, not the kind you can count on. You, kid, well, I’m getting the feeling I want to count on you.”

He slowed the Nissan and turned onto a dirt road so overgrown with scrub that I hadn’t seen it. The Nissan humped its way over the tangle of sage and weeds and rolled towards the base of a bluff. The wind picked up reddish-white dirt here and sprayed it against the glass, and a tumbleweed the size of a house rocked back and forth in a narrow rock fork ahead of us.

“So what do you have to offer?”

“I’ve got something impossible.”

“What?”

“Nope. That would be cheating. It’s something you want, and I’m not lying about that. And it’s something impossible. And based on what happened with Lena and Salerno and Tony, I think this has got something to do with you.”

“That’s a hell of a deal. You get something from me, and all I get is the promise of something impossible.

“It’s a fair trade, kid, because what I want is something impossible. I want to know how you figured out Tony killed Samantha. I want to know why Lena came after you. And I want to know how you’re still alive, because that story you sold to the sheriff, it’s weak as an old hobo’s piss. That’s the impossible thing I want.”

“That’s three things.”

“I figure it’s all one. One impossible thing. And I want to know what it is.”

I thought about it. Until now, Lawayne had—for the most part—kept to our agreements. I didn’t trust him, I didn’t trust him as far as the next patch of buffalo grass, but I thought he was telling the truth. Whatever he knew, he really did believe I wanted to know it too. And he believed it had something to do with me.

If I told him about Mr. Big Empty, and about my abilities as a psychic, what would he do? Life had taught me to expect the worst, and with Lawayne, that meant something pretty bad. He’d try to use me. He might even kidnap me. I was already shaking my head before I spoke; whatever Lawayne knew, it wasn’t worth the risk.

“Before you say no,” Lawayne said, “let me sweeten the pot. No risk on your part. We crawl up this bluff, you take a look. If you think I kept my part of the deal, you tell me. But if you think I scammed you, or if you think I was just plain old wrong and what you see has got nothing to do with you, then I drive you back to school, and we go on as before.” He smiled, and this time the smile didn’t come anywhere close to his eyes. “Personal opinion, kid: if I’m right, you’re going to want to tell me. You’re going to need all the help you can get.”