“Or that people wouldn’t go punching them,” I said.
“Or that. Right.” He shook his head. “Another time, he punched a hole in the wall. Christy’d be crying and Mama’d be crying, and you know what I’d do?”
“What?”
“I’d wait till my dad stormed out, and then I’d get out the Spackle and fix the wall. I’d sand it down. Repaint it if it needed it.” He made a disgusted sound. “Nothing I could do about the microwave.”
“We don’t even have a microwave,” I told him.
He glanced at me. “Neither do we.”
He told me how his mama slept with her wallet under her pillow and the keys to her car in her underwear, so his dad couldn’t take what little she had. He told me she’d beg his dad to get help, and he’d deny up and down that he had a problem.
I wanted to say, again, how sorry I was. Instead, I reached out and rubbed the top of his shoulder. I felt him relax into it, and my hand crept up to his neck and worked away at the knots I felt there.
“That feels good,” he said, like he’d been holding a great big sack of groceries and I’d taken it from him. Like my fingers rubbing out his sore spots gave him that much relief.
“Might as well tell you, he’s not just a drunk,” he said with a sideways glance.
“I kinda figured,” I said.
“Remember how I said my sister-in-law’s a tweaker? And my cousin? Well, so is my dad.”
“Why?” I said. “I just don’t get why would anyone use a drug like that, knowing it would ruin your life? Why would you even try a drug like that?”
“Because it wipes you clean and fills you up again,” Jason said. “Whatever you don’t have in here”—he thumped his chest—“meth gives it to you. You’re fucking Superman. You can do anything.”
“That’s messed up,” I said softly.
“You’re telling me,” he said.
Eventually, our conversation circled back around to Beef’s mysterious trips and Patrick’s mysterious boyfriend.
“When Patrick mentioned his boyfriend, did he say anything about drugs?” I asked Jason.
Jason drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “Yeah. I don’t know if it was meth, but they fought about it.”
“What exactly did Patrick tell you about him?”
“Not much,” Jason said. “That he had a hard family life.” He shot me a glance to say Don’t we all?
“Do you think he’s the one who hurt Patrick?” I said. How could Patrick care for a person, maybe even love him, if he had the potential for such violence?
Jason shook his head. Neither one of us could get our heads around it. That’s when we stopped talking. But I didn’t stay in that ugly place, and as I said, our silence wasn’t the bad kind. We were here, together in Jason’s crappy Malibu, because we chose to be. We weren’t high. We weren’t hitting each other. The forest surrounded us, but sometimes sunlight snuck through the overlapping branches and bathed us in liquid gold. We were doing our best to help a friend.
“We’re getting close,” Jason said, after we’d left the shelter of the woods. He glanced at the map and turned left onto New Plateau Drive. It didn’t look new to me. It looked like we were heading into the seedy part of town.
Jason made a right and then another left, pulling into a cramped parking lot. He killed the engine. He turned and gazed at me for a long moment.
He said, “We’re here.”
BILLY THE KID’S WAS NOTHING FANCY, JUST A DOOR opening out onto an alley. When I saw it, I thought, No way anyone’s going to be here, not in the middle of the day. But I knocked anyway. When I gave up, Jason took over, his knuckles pounding the wood.
From inside, a man growled, “Go ’way. Not open.”
Jason and I looked at each other.
“Please?” I called. “I have a friend, and he’s in trouble, and I just want to ask a few questions?”
Nothing.
Jason tried. “We don’t mean in trouble with the law. We’re not cops or anything.”
“Yeah, we’re just kids,” I said.
“Go. A. Way,” the man said, but with a weariness that suggested he’d give in if we pushed a little harder.
“Just five minutes,” I said. “It’ll take five minutes, I swear, and then we’ll leave you alone.”
Silence. But when I pressed my ear to the door, I heard a heavy sigh.
“Um, otherwise we’ll just stay here,” I said. I held Jason’s gaze so it was as if I was talking to him instead of the guy inside. “We’ll just stay here, talking to you, and it’ll probably be hard to get any work done, because I know we’re being kind of annoying.”
“Who’s being annoying?” Jason said, lifting his eyebrows.
“Good point,” I told him. I raised my voice. “Well, I’m not annoying, but the guy I’m with kind of is. And sometimes he just starts singing, just randomly, and he’s not very good.”
Jason’s expression didn’t change, but amusement flickered in his eyes, and I knew him well enough to recognize it. Already I knew him that well, even though we’d only just come into each other’s lives, and it made me so happy I wanted to sing. I hadn’t wanted to sing in forever.
I picked a song Mama Sweetie used to sing to me and Patrick when we were littlies. I’d spend the night at his house, and the crickets would chirp outside the open windows, and Mama Sweetie would rock back and forth in her rocking chair, singing softly till we fell asleep.
I, however, did not use my soft voice. “Keep on the sunny side, always on the sunny side,” I belted out. “Keep on the sunny side of life!”
Jason regarded me incredulously.
“Sing with me,” I whispered
“Not happening,” he whispered back.
I didn’t know what to do but plunge on, so plunge on I did, and when my voice cracked on the high note, I ignored it. “It will help us every day, it will brighten all the way, if we keep on the sunny side of life!”
The door opened. A huge black man stared down at me.
“Well, if it ain’t a li’l white gal singing her heart out,” he said, shaking his head. “Wha’choo want, li’l white gal?”
“Oh,” I said. “Um. Is this your place?”
“Yeah. So?” the black guy said. He weighed three hundred pounds at least, and he wore a football jersey over enormous jean shorts. His sneakers were white and puffy and spotless. But his eyes, though exasperated, had no cruelty in them. It made me breathe easier.
“Can we come in?” I asked.
“Hell no, I got payroll to do,” he said. But he didn’t shut the door, and when he lumbered to a table with papers spread out on it, Jason and I followed.
“Are you Billy?” I asked. I sat down next to him, perching on the edge of my chair.
He eyeballed me. He eyeballed Jason. “I go by the Kid,” he said, pronouncing it kee-ud. “Now what you want? You got two minutes, not five. Talk.”
I drew in a breath of air, then blew it out. This wasn’t a game. This was real, and I had two minutes to find out what I needed to know.
“Not to be rude,” I said, “but is this a bar for, um . . . ?”
I looked at Jason. Help, I said with my eyes.
“Is this a gay bar?” Jason asked.
“Yeah,” the Kid said, like what else in the world would it be? His fingers, spread out on the table, were nearly the size of corn dogs.
“Well, I have a friend in Black Creek—that’s where I’m from—and he got beat up for being gay,” I said. “His name’s Patrick. Do you know him?”
The Kid’s expression was inscrutable. After a second, he said, “Mebbe.”
“Well . . . I think he had a boyfriend, and I think he might have worked here.”
This time, his answer came easily. “Nope.”
My gut sank. “You’re sure?”
“What do you mean, am I sure?” he huffed. “Are you asking do I know my employees? Yes, I do, ’cause this here a class joint. I got standards, see. I
go hiring a dude like that, and wha’choo think’s gonna happen? Dude like that’s gonna bring the law down on me, that’s what.”
Jason and I looked at each other. My heart beat faster. “You know him? Omigosh, you know Patrick’s boyfriend?”
Billy the Kid made a sound like chhhhh. “I tole Patrick to drop that strung-out piece a shit. Me and my partner, we both tole him so.”
“Your business partner?” I said.
Jason opened his mouth, then closed it. Embarrassment made me sink low in my seat as I caught on.
“My partner a decent man,” Billy the Kid said, eyeballing me. “The kinda man Patrick needs to find. Me and Leroy, we both tole Patrick how his boy’s a lost cause. He goin’ nowhere, we tole him, that’s how lost he is. And he prolly diseased on top of that.’”
“Okay,” I said, nodding a little desperately. “Can you tell us his name? Or where to find him?”
The Kid leaned forward. “I said, ‘Let the Kid take care of you. I’ll find you someone nice. Someone clean.’ And you know what Patrick said? He told me, ‘Thank you very much, Mr. Kid, but you don’t understand. I’m in loooove with this boy, and when you in love with someone, you don’t give up on ’em, no matter what.’”
“That’s Patrick, all right,” I said.
“Mebbe so. But his boyfriend was a damn bag fag, and it got so I couldn’t let neither of ’em in.”
Bag fag? What was a bag fag?
“Now I tole Patrick he was welcome anytime, as long as he didn’t bring his friend,” the Kid said. “But he wouldn’t have nothing of it.”
“Mr. Kid? Sir?” Jason said. “We need to find him, Patrick’s boyfriend. Can you tell us his name?”
“Other ’n cocksucker?” the Kid said.
“Other than that.”
The Kid pulled a napkin from the dispenser and gave his nose a great honking blow. He examined the contents, crumpled the napkin, and said, “Nope. Would if I could, but I tole you. He a bag fag. Dudes like that hold their names close.”
“What’s a bag fag?” I asked.
The Kid swiveled his big eyes at me again. “Oh, sugar booger. You just a baby, ain’t you?”
Jason educated me in an embarrassed voice. “Someone who, ah, trades sex for drugs.”
“Yeah. That,” the Kid said. “Sometimes he be selling, other times he be looking for a hookup.” He shook his massive head. “He was here more than Patrick knew, I can tell you that. Till I gave him the boot.”
A thought flitted into my brain, and then back out again, too quick for me to latch hold of it. I frowned. “Did Patrick ever come here with anyone other than his boyfriend? Before you gave him the boot?”
“Gave his boyfriend the boot,” the Kid clarified. “And no. I already tole you. When Patrick came, it was always with his damn lover boy, and only with his damn lover boy. That’s why I had to make it all or nothin’, see?”
I was confused. If it was always Patrick and his lover boy, where did that leave Beef—and how did Beef end up with the matches?
Maybe Beef knew about Billy the Kid’s, but was too homophobic to step inside, so he waited out in the alley. Or maybe I was overthinking things, and it was as simple as Beef saying, “Hey, buddy, got a light?” and Patrick tossing him the pack from his own pocket.
Unless Beef came here on his own, without Patrick. What if Beef and Patrick’s boyfriend were in business together? What if Beef, like the Kid, realized that the guy was bad news?
“Lay down with a dog, you gonna wake up with fleas,” the Kid said. “And that boyfriend, he had the scary eyes. Thought he might go after me when I tole him he was disallowed, but Patrick calmed him down. Still, I keep a rifle under the bar just in case.”
I chewed my lip. “Did any straight guys ever come here? To buy drugs or sell drugs or whatever?”
The Kid narrowed his eyes. “Why you want to know that?”
“I just do. I need to know.”
“No you don’t, so get outta here,” he said. “Your two minutes done up and flown away a long time ago.”
I pushed back from the table and stood up. Jason did the same.
“It’s just . . . there’s this guy, okay?” I said. “A white guy, about this tall”—I put my hand above me—“with dark hair and dark eyes. He used to have a crew cut, but he’s been letting it grow out, so his hair’s kinda scraggly.”
The Kid raised his eyebrows. “And I care because?”
“He’s skinny, but strong,” I said, trying to describe Beef so that the Kid could see him like I did. “Used to be a wrestler. Has a nice smile. Oh, and he’s got a scar under his eye, right about here.” I drew a line under my left eye to show the place on Beef where Roy sliced him with his class ring.
The Kid folded his huge arms over his chest. “Why you playing me, gal? I tole you, I gave his sorry ass the boot.”
I felt a tingling between my shoulder blades. “I know, but I’m not talking about Patrick’s boyfriend. I’m talking about another guy.”
“Ohhhh, I see. You talking about another scrawny white dude with hair that needs cutting, a pretty smile, and a moon under his eye?”
My mind put the pieces together, but my body couldn’t grasp it. I swayed. Jason reached out to steady me.
“There ain’t two of ’em unless they’s twins,” the Kid said.
“But Beef has a girlfriend,” I said dumbly.
“Beef. Yeah, that’s it,” the Kid said.
“You’re saying Beef is Patrick’s boyfriend,” Jason said.
“For the hundredth time, yeah,” the Kid said. “Now get outta here.”
We did, though the actual leaving part was foggy because of how my mind was spinning: Beef pushing Bailee-Ann away and blaming it on her being drunk. Bailee-Ann stepping out on Beef with Tommy. The fight between Beef and Patrick, which Bailee-Ann overheard, where Beef swished around and berated Patrick for trying to change his faggy boyfriend, who was Beef himself.
“I have to call him,” I told Jason once we were in the car. “Can I use your phone?”
Jason looked at me like I was crazy. “No way.”
“But . . .” I floundered. If Beef was Patrick’s boyfriend . . . if Beef was gay, if all along he was gay and he didn’t tell anyone . . . what else was he hiding? I beat my thigh with my fist. “He knows who attacked Patrick. I just know it.”
“And what are you planning on saying to get him to tell you?” Jason said.
I hadn’t gotten that far, but I was beginning to see that it was going to be harder than just popping out with it all. According to the Kid, Beef had traded sex for drugs. That was one ugly, steaming pile of cow shit.
“He’s kept quiet for a reason, Cat. And he wants you quiet, too, or have you forgotten?”
My breaths were shallow. I didn’t want to think like that.
“He put a cow tongue on your pillow,” Jason said.
Oh my God. From Huskers, that’s where he must have gotten it. That flaccid sawed-off slab.
Jason glanced at me, and his eyes were deep pools. “You don’t need to be calling Beef, Cat. You need to call the police.”
I shook my head, because that wasn’t the answer. At this point, all we knew was that Beef was mixed up in something bad, and not just mixed up in it but part of it, in so deep that he may have led that badness straight to Patrick, his best friend. His boyfriend, Lord have mercy.
Beef knew more about Patrick’s attack than he was saying, that much was clear. But going to Sheriff Doyle wasn’t the answer. It might come to that, but not yet.
I rubbed my hand over my face. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I could figure everything out if I just put my mind to it.
“Do you think Bailee-Ann knows Beef is gay?” I said. “Is that why she gave me the pack of matches, so I’d find out?”
Jason’s jaw was tense. “You know her better than I do. What do you think?”
I bit my lower lip. Maybe she knew, but didn’t want to. Maybe she had a streak of Aunt Tild
y running through her.
I thought about Beef and Robert’s trips to Asheville. Robert on Beef’s motorcycle, holding tight to Beef’s waist. Beef teaching Robert “to be a man,” and to never go down that faggot path, not ever, because homos always got what they deserved.
Beef had been talking about himself, hadn’t he? That bad things happened if you were gay, because look what he’d gotten his very own boyfriend mixed up in. So Beef had been hating himself, that’s what it looked like now. And maybe he didn’t want Robert to face the same fate, but probably it was just more that he needed to talk his feelings out, and who better for an audience than a hero-worshipping kid?
Only Beef, with his rash of dark moods, had stopped talking to Robert . . . and he’d threatened me . . . and then there was the redneck posse, with their secretive looks and their wall of silence . . .
My blood stopped moving. For one sickening pulse, my heart quit beating, and then it started up fast and heavy.
“Jesus,” I whispered. Jason met my gaze, his expression grim. He’d gotten there, too, just a flick of a second ahead of me.
I’d been so suspicious of Tommy that I’d blinded myself to something huge: Tommy wasn’t the only one with a sketchy alibi during the time Patrick was hurt. Beef’s alibi was even sketchier. He’d driven back and forth along the highway deep into the night, and not just once but multiple times. Ridings told me that, and I looked right through it, choosing to see what I wanted to see and nothing else.
My mind reeled. I could hardly take it in. Beef?
I put together the chronology of the night as best I could, hoping it would give me the answers.
First Beef had partied with the others at the Frostee Top. At eleven thirty or so, Tommy suggested a beer run, though his real motivation was to collect Patrick. The redneck posse had decided to confront one of their own, and they planned to do so as a group. Beef argued against the trip to the Come ‘n’ Go—Patrick had already been riding him for screwing up his life, and Beef had no desire to face more of the same—but he was overruled.