I’m like, “Come on, that doesn’t make any sense. Why would I write all these articles about Ashton if I had anything to do with her disappearance?”
“Maybe because you want to throw the spotlight off yourself,” Smiley said.
“How is that throwing the spotlight off myself? If I hadn’t written the articles or tried to pass along some solid info to the police, you would never know who I was.”
And Mr. Browning goes, “But you want people to know who you are, don’t you, Dylan? You want everyone talking about Dylan Jones, the investigative reporter who solved the case and got the reward.”
Suddenly, I felt naked. Fat and naked. Because he was right. He saw straight through me. I did want that. But he was wrong about what I would do to get it. After all, I was me, not him.
“Listen,” I said. “I only came over here to help you out. I didn’t come over to have people start throwing accusations at me.”
“That’s right,” Randy added. “Dylan’s a good dude. What you should be doing is looking at the Wiccan population in this city.”
Smiley’s like, “Wiccan? What’s he talking about?”
“Nothing,” I said. “Forget that. I found that shoe because I just happened to step on it. If I hadn’t been there, you might have never found it, and you wouldn’t have any clues. And that’s all I’m going to say. I’m done.”
“We’ll tell you when you’re done,” Smiley said, but Mr. Browning’s like, “No, he’s right.” He leaned back and let out this big breath like he was trying to get rid of all the tension of the past month. “I’m sorry if it looked like we were accusing you of anything, but you have to understand how important this is to me.”
“I never said it wasn’t.”
“We have to cover all our bases.”
“Well, I’m not one of your bases.”
Mr. Browning looked at Smiley. “I think we’ve taken up enough of these boys’ evening. Would you be kind enough to drive them home?”
Smiley said all right, and Mr. Browning shook my hand, then Randy’s. “I think we had a productive talk, all things considered,” he said. “And I’ll trust you and your journalistic integrity not to mention it in one of your articles.”
“That definitely wouldn’t be a good idea,” Smiley added as he clamped his hand on my shoulder. “Let’s go.” And then to Mr. Browning: “You want me to call you later?”
“That would be fine,” Mr. Browning confirmed.
Outside, the air was cool, but that didn’t stop Randy from asking if we could take a dip in the pool.
“Get back to the car,” Smiley said.
CHAPTER 27
Except for Smiley’s complaints about how the inside of his car now smelled like hamburgers, the drive back to Topper’s was pretty quiet. After the way he talked to me in the guesthouse, I wasn’t in a hurry to strike up any further conversation with him. The whole experience left me feeling like I’d gotten myself into something that was over my head. With one call from the likes of Mr. Browning, Detectives Hair Gel and Forehead would be only too glad to haul me down for some more grilling.
It was good to get back to my own side of town, and when we pulled into Topper’s parking lot, I was more than eager to hop out of that black sedan and get gone. Smiley wasn’t in such a hurry to let me escape, though.
“Wait a second, kid,” he said as I opened the door. “Let me see your phone.”
I’m like, “What for?”
And he goes, “I want to enter my number in there so you can call me if you come across anything new we need to know about.”
I told him I’d enter the number myself, and when I finished putting it in, he grabbed hold of my arm and stared into my eyes. “Son, if there’s anything you haven’t told us or if you find out anything, you’d better call my number. You need to understand that if you don’t, you’re going to be in a lot of trouble.”
“Sure,” I said. “No problem.”
Once I had my feet firmly planted on Topper’s parking lot and the black sedan had disappeared around the corner, I tried to muster up as much of a sense of relief as I could, but something told me I wasn’t completely free of Smiley and Mr. Browning quite yet.
“How about that mansion?” Randy said. “I’m going to get one like that someday, only I’m going to decorate it all in NASCAR stuff.”
“Go for it,” I said as I pulled my phone out, this time to check on who called while I was in the media room with Mr. Browning. The call didn’t come from Audrey. No, it was from Beto Hernandez.
He’d left a message asking me to call him back. He didn’t say what it was about, but the first thing that came to mind was that somehow he knew where I was and wanted to find out whether I suspected him of working for Mr. Browning. Or maybe whether Mr. Browning was ratting him out.
I wasn’t so sure I wanted to call him back right then, but it didn’t matter—I never got the chance. Just as Randy and I walked up to my parents’ car, who came walking out of the shadows but the scruffy sideburns dude who’d been sitting across the room in Topper’s earlier that evening.
He’s like, “Hey, losers, what’s up?”
And Randy’s like, “I don’t know, loser. Why don’t you tell me?”
Sideburns grinned a sly TV-serial-killer-type grin. “Well, look at you,” he said to Randy. “The ant with the almost-mustache can talk.”
And Randy goes, “You know what? We can’t all be werewolves like you.”
That’s just the way it was with Randy—always begging for a punch in the mouth.
Sideburns waved him off and walked up to me, stopping about two feet away. “You Dylan Jones?”
Randy told him it was none of his business, but I figured I might as well admit it since somehow the guy clearly knew who I was.
He leaned toward me. “I got a message for you, fat boy.” He paused and stared at me.
“Okay,” I said. “Since obviously you want me to, I’ll ask the question—what message might that be?”
“There’s some people don’t like the way you been poking your nose into places it don’t belong.”
He stopped again.
“And?” I said to prod him on.
“And you’re gonna stop it.”
“Wait a minute,” Randy cut in. “What places are you talking about? Me and Dylan go a lot of places, and we don’t like people telling us we can’t go there.”
In a whirl, Sideburns turned and shoved Randy to the pavement. Then the next thing I knew he grabbed my throat, pressed me against the car, and flashed a switchblade in front of my eyes.
“You like your nose the way it is?” I could hear that serial-killer grin in his voice, but I couldn’t look at anything except the knife blade.
“Yes?” I said.
“Well, you’re gonna be breathing out of a hole in your face instead of your nose if you don’t stop sticking it in this Ashton Browning business. How would you like that?”
“Not so much.”
“And you just stop thinking about collecting any reward money. That ain’t for you. Got it?”
Before I could answer, there was a loud crash, and Sideburns lurched forward, almost slicing off my ear. He let go of me and spun around. There stood Rockin’ Rhonda, holding up her now-busted stringless guitar like a battle-ax.
“What the hell?” said Sideburns. “You didn’t just hit me with that piece of crap, did you?”
Rhonda laughed. “Just like ringing a bell.”
“You must want your belly slit,” Sideburns told her. The only problem was he’d dropped the switchblade, and it was obvious that if he stooped down to grab it, we could all three jump him and that guitar might just crack his face open this time.
“Go for it,” Rhonda said cheerfully. “I’m gonna come at you like a cross-fire hurricane.”
Sideburns glanced at the knife, then back at Rhonda, his fingers twitching at his side as if they were arguing the case for making a play for the knife.
“Come on,
Mr. Cool,” Rhonda invited. “Let’s rock and roll.”
Finally, Sideburns backed off. “Forget it. Kicking a homeless freak’s ass isn’t worth my time.” Then he turned to me. “But it is worth my time to kick your ass.” He jabbed a forefinger at my chest. “It’s plenty worth my time.”
“Hold on, I’m coming,” Rhonda sang, and shuffled closer.
“You better watch your back, freak,” Sideburns said as he eased away into the shadows. Then he was gone down the alley behind Topper’s.
“Crap,” I said. “Thanks, Rhonda. You couldn’t have showed up at a better time.”
“It’s all right now,” sang Rhonda. “In fact, it’s a gas, gas, gas.”
On the way home, Randy talked about how he would’ve stomped the crap out of Sideburns if he hadn’t pulled that switchblade. I didn’t mention that Sideburns had about a thirteen-inch and hundred-pound advantage. I was more interested in how he knew who I was and where to find me.
“He probably just wants the reward for himself,” Randy guessed.
“But how would he know about me?”
“Hey, it’s not like you aren’t writing about the case in the school paper, you know. Maybe he’s buddies with someone at our high school or something.”
“Yeah, maybe.” I doubted it was that simple, though.
At home, I didn’t have a chance to creep up the stairs to the privacy of my bedroom. My parents were all about wanting to interrogate me over how the first big date went.
“Not good,” I told them, trying to head off any further barrage of questions.
“Aw, what happened?” Mom asked, her voice changing to a syrupy sympathetic tone like I was a five-year-old coming home with a bee sting.
“Nothing,” I said. “I just don’t think we’re compatible.”
“You can’t always tell on a first date,” Dad said. He was going for the buck-up-there-little-fellow strategy he probably used on his grade school students. “Sometimes things can turn out a lot different on a second date.”
“I don’t think so,” I said, heading for the stairs. “There won’t be any more dates like the one I had tonight.”
CHAPTER 28
Here’s the weird thing—with that knife blade shining about an inch from my face, I was scared, sure, but I didn’t really think Sideburns could actually kill me. After all, I can’t count the times the Andromeda Man had knives or guns or even, one time, a medieval sword flashed at him, and he’d always get out of it. I mean, he’s the Andromeda Man. The whole show was named after him. He couldn’t get killed. But later that night it hit me hard—I’m not the Andromeda Man.
It would’ve been pretty easy to give up on Ashton, but curiosity is a weird thing—it’s hard to just turn off, especially feeling the way I did about her. A bunch of ideas whirled in my head, but mainly I kept coming back to the question of why Sideburns wanted me to give up. Maybe Randy was right. Maybe Sideburns was after the reward for himself. A hundred thousand dollars could make a guy itchy with a switchblade all right. But, to me, he seemed more likely to be a thug for hire. But who would hire him? Mr. Browning? Rowan Adams?
Or maybe even Beto Hernandez. That could’ve been why he’d tried to call me. Maybe he was trying to find out when I’d be back in Topper’s parking lot so he could make sure Sideburns would be there waiting.
I couldn’t exactly call Beto back and ask him about it, though. That would be a dead giveaway that I was still digging into the Ashton thing, and I sure didn’t want to give Sideburns an excuse to come back around to make sure I started breathing through a hole in my face.
I still hadn’t figured out what I was going to do, when I got a text message from Audrey. Apparently, her date with Trix was finally over. She said I’d never believe what happened. I texted her back and told her she’d never believe what happened to me more.
We didn’t fill each other in on the details until the next day, when we could get together and talk face to face. We sat on the patio at McDonald’s, where a lot of us from our high school hung out at lunch. I got two Quarter Pounders. I never, ever get a Big Mac. I don’t know what’s in that special sauce, but I suspect it’s mayonnaise-based. Audrey offered to let me tell my story first, but I told her to go ahead. I was pretty sure whatever her story was it couldn’t beat mine.
She’s like, “Okay, so we go to the movie—Georgia’s Roses—which is like this cool indie film about these two women who go into hiding from one of them’s despicable husband.”
“Who drove?”
“She did.”
“That’s interesting.”
“Why is that interesting?”
“I don’t know. I’m just interested in how the lesbian thing works.”
“What? Are you trying to figure out who is supposed to be the girl in the relationship and who is supposed to be the boy?”
“Something like that.”
“That’s just like a guy. You have to think one of us is trying to be like you. But we’re not. There’s no one’s the girl and the other’s the boy. We’re both girls. No boys involved at all. None.”
“Okay, okay—I got it. You don’t have to act like it’s such a stupid question.”
“Anyway,” she says, all exasperated, “the movie is like so good, and we’re sharing popcorn out of the same bucket, and then I put my arm on the armrest, only hers is already there—and neither one of us moves our arms. We’re just sitting there watching this amazing movie with our arms touching the whole time.”
“Congratulations,” I said, though I couldn’t see what the big deal was. Plenty of times I’d shared an armrest with Audrey at the movies over the years.
So then she started going on about how they went for coffee after the movie and talked and talked and were finishing each other’s sentences because they thought so much alike. At this point, I didn’t think it was that big a deal, but I kept listening and nodding because that’s what you have to do when you have a friend who’s a girl.
“And then when we got back to my driveway, it’s like neither one of us wanted the night to end, so we just stood around by her car talking and laughing until finally, she had to get going. And what do you think happened then?”
I’m like, “Uh, I don’t know—she went home?”
“She leaned in and kissed me.”
“She kissed you, like with tongue and everything?”
“No, it wasn’t like that. It was just a sweet little soft kiss.”
“On the lips?”
“Yes, on the lips.”
“Hmm. So what does that mean? Is she like your girlfriend now or what?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. It was like bang!—she kissed me, and then she walks around to get in the car and smiles and says she’ll call me.”
“And has she?”
“No, not yet. But we only went out last night.”
So I’m like, “Well, that’s pretty cool.” And she goes, “Pretty cool? It’s like the most awesome thing ever.”
“Okay. I’m happy for you.” I went back to eating my burger. I have to admit the most awesome thing ever line bugged me. After all, Audrey and I had had some pretty awesome times together. Didn’t those count for anything anymore?
After a couple of minutes of eating in silence, she finally goes, “So what’s your big news?”
I finished chewing, and then I go, “Oh, nothing much. I just had my life threatened, that’s all.”
“You’re kidding. By who?”
I set my burger down and told the whole story of last night, ending with my list of the top three candidates—besides Sideburns himself—for who was behind the threat.
Of course, Audrey liked Rowan the most as a suspect, but she didn’t have much evidence besides the fact that she despised him.
“What did the police have to say about it?” she asked.
“Are you serious? I didn’t get the police involved. I’m not their favorite guy, you know. I’m not sitting through another one of those interrogations.”<
br />
She cocked her head to the side. “I still think you should’ve called them. It’s probably too late now.”
I popped a French fry into my mouth. “The dude could’ve cut my nose off and the police would still blame it on me.”
“So how did Mr. Browning even know about your articles?”
“I sent copies of them to Nash. I figure he’s been spreading them around.”
“Nash, huh?” she said, like there was something suspicious about that.
I’m like, “What?”
And she goes, “Have you ever thought Nash might be behind it all?”
“No way. Nash’s a cool guy. He’s my buddy.”
“Yeah, right.”
“You think I can’t be buddies with a Hollister guy? You’re going around like you have this great Hollister girlfriend, but you think I can’t have a friend from there?”
“Trix is different. She’s not a snob.”
“Yeah, well, I think Nash’s different.”
We finished our burgers in silence. Then Audrey’s like, “So what are you going to do? Are you going to quit on the Ashton Browning thing?”
“I don’t know. I’m still trying to figure that out.”
At that point, who walked by but Corman Rogers from high school. He’s like, “Hey, Body Bag, think fast,” and threw a wet paper sack smack into my chest. It slid down into my lap, and when I picked it up to toss it aside, a dead toad fell out on the table.
“Real cool, idiot,” I said, but Corman and his buddies just laughed.
When they walked off, I shook my head. “Jesus, I don’t know which is worse, having my nose cut off or living like this.”
CHAPTER 29
Despite Audrey’s opinion of Nash, I figured he’d be a good person to call for advice. He’d always been cool to me. Sure, he did put the squeeze on us to do what could’ve been some pretty humiliating karaoke, but even that turned out all right. I could see us hanging out, doing cool Hollister things. Besides, he owed me. Hadn’t I done him a favor and left Gangland out of my articles about Ashton? Now that I needed some deeper scoop on Mr. Browning and Rowan, it was his turn to keep quiet.