All the Inside Howling (Hollow Folk #2)(33)

As I turned to go, though, I crashed into a squat wall of muscle. My brain registered the smell of tanning oil, and gold chains flashed. Then a fist connected with my eye and I sprawled backwards.





Lying on the cold cement, I stared up at the bulky guy I had seen with Lawayne earlier. He still wore the dark blazer, his bald head still glistened like he’d been swimming in baby oil, and he still wore ropes of gold chains around his neck and wrists. My head spun from the punch, and spots of color flashed through the eye where he had punched me, but I recognized him for what he was: a murdering piece of shit who liked killing. Faster than I could move, he planted a kick in my stomach. The blow knocked the air from me, and I tried to curl into a ball as I gasped for breath. Another kick followed, this time catching me in the shoulder, and then another.

The blows stopped, but I was too busy trying to breathe to wonder why. When I could hear over the pounding of my pulse, and when I didn’t feel like a black hole had opened somewhere in my lungs, I realized the guy with all those chains was talking.

“Uh-huh. Yeah. All right.”

Then, grabbing a fistful of my hair, he hauled me to my feet and propelled me down the aisle of shelving. He pocketed a cell phone and followed. “Walk.” That was all he said, but he moved a lot faster than a guy his size normally did, and before I could get away he grabbed me by the hair again and steered me back into the hallway.

Instead of throwing me out of the building, though, he dragged me down the hall and through a doorway. I stumbled when he loosed his grip and barely avoided crashing into the edge of a cheap, white-paneled desk. A moment later, the guy with the chains kicked me in the back of the knees, and I went down.

When I looked up, I was staring into Lawayne’s face. There wasn’t any surprise there; as usual, there was only that look of bewildered good will, the look of, gee, kid, I’m trying to throw you a line but you seem damned determined to drown. He brushed the back of his hand along his cheek, blew out a silent breath, and leaned back. The chair creaked under his weight.

“Vie, man, come on. We already did this once today. I found you in the trash, man. Picking through my trash. And even with all the bad stuff between us, even though you’ve gone out of your way to make things difficult, I went easy on you. I called the sheriff, I told him not to be too hard on you, but I told him to make sure you learned a lesson about trespassing. And here you are. I mean, Vie, it’s the same day. The same damn day. So what am I supposed to think? You didn’t learn anything, is that it?” He shifted forward, propping his arms on the desk and lacing his hands under his chin. “Tell me: what’s it take to send a message, a real clear message? What?”

“You don’t care about trespassing,” I said. “The things you do—”

“Don’t get on that. Please, don’t. I like you. Vie, I’ll be honest: I respect you. But if you’re going to play this game, like you’re sitting up on your puffy white cloud and passing judgment, it’s not going to work. We’re not going to get anything resolved.”

I got to my feet, and behind me, the guy with the chains moved in, probably to kick me back to the ground. To my surprise, though, Lawayne waved him off and gestured for me to sit in one of the hard plastic chairs. I did, taking my time. We were in Lawayne’s office, or what passed for an office at Jigger Boss. Like the office at Slippers, this room had the air of a settled, much-used, but somehow impersonal space. Two posters papered one wall, both faded and ripped along the edges, both showing women with tiny bikinis and enormous breasts. One was a calendar from 1997. The other was a beer advertisement. The desk, the hard plastic chairs, and a row of canted filing cabinets that looked like a row of drunks leaning on each other for support made up the only furniture in the room, and sunlight came from a narrow, opaque window off-center on the back wall. Like the office at Slippers, this room looked like it was almost an afterthought, a necessary but unremarkable part of owning a business. And I guessed that, like the office at Slippers, this room had seen terrible things that hadn’t left a mark. Terrible things that could, I realized, very easily happen to me, too.

“So,” Lawayne said. “Let’s start again. You’re trespassing, again. Breaking and entering.”

“I didn’t break in. The back door was propped open.”

Lawayne waved this away. “I’ve got cameras, kid. You still broke into the back room.”

“You’re not going to tell the sheriff. What would he say if he found out about that room?”

Lawayne’s broad, open face, the face that said he was your buddy, everybody’s body, showed his shock. Then he laughed. “Kid, kid, kid. Honest to God, I guess I just forget.” Then, as he spoke the next words, he punctuated each one by driving his finger down onto the desk. “You. Don’t. Know. Shit.”

“I know enough.”

“All right. Now we’re getting to it. You’re not tough, but you think you’re tough. You’ve got a shell, but that isn’t the same thing, kid. Tough—tough doesn’t mean gritting your teeth and sucking it up. Tough cracks back. Tough breaks whatever’s trying to break it. I’m tough, kid. You’re trying to put my nuts in a vise, and I’ll give it to you, that takes guts. If I didn’t like you so much,” he stopped and shrugged as a chilly smile crossed his lips. “Tough cracks back, kid. You’re going to find that out the hard way if you keep playing this game.”