'What's wrong?'
'Nothin'. It's just…'
'What?' Shane turned on his side and looked at Chooch carefully.
'Sandy called. She wants you to call her first thing in the morning.'
'Why? What's up?'
'She didn't say.'
'She probably just wants to tell me how she smoked your geek principal.'
'She didn't call St. John, I asked her. She said she's been involved in a big deal and hasn't had time to get in touch with him yet.'
'Right. Well, okay.' He lay back on his pillow. 'So I'll call her in the morning.'
'That means old Thackery musta talked to you, not her. You made him keep me in school.'
Shane looked over at Chooch again, then rubbed his eyes and sat up on the bed. 'Let's go outside for a minute. I can't sleep with this fucking headache.'
'We could light up, toke some bang?' the teenager said hopefully.
'We're through getting high together. I wanna talk to you.'
Chooch shifted his weight uncertainly, then nodded. 'Okay, sure.'
Shane got up, put on his pants and an old sweatshirt, then the two of them moved quietly past Longboard into the backyard. Shane pulled up chairs, and they both sat under a fruitless tangerine tree, looking out at the still canal. The reflection of an almost full moon wavered on the glassy surface.
'What is it?' Chooch asked cautiously.
'I'm in a lot of trouble,' Shane started.
'Trouble's the exhaust of life,' the fifteen-year-old said surprisingly.
'The trouble I'm in could get dangerous. Some of the people I'm sideways with could decide to make a play. I don't want you to get hurt.'
'I'm not afraid.' Chooch smiled. 'Got your back, bro.'
They were silent for a moment, then Shane continued. 'I also think it's time for you to get to know your mother. Maybe you haven't given her a chance.'
'I hate her,' Chooch said softly. 'Let's drop this, okay?'
'You can't stay here. When I talk to her tomorrow, I'm going to make arrangements for her to take you back for a week or so.'
There was a long silence. Suddenly some crickets started up in the hedge between Shane's and Longboard's yards. They sawed holes in the silence with their back legs.
'I think it's time you gave your mother a break,' Shane persisted. 'Make me a promise, give it a week. Just five days.'
'You're fulla shit, just like Thackery and all those other dick-wads. I thought you were never gonna lie to me. I thought we had a deal.'
'I'm not lying to you, Chooch. I'm trying to keep you from getting hurt.'
'I'm not stupid. I get what's going on here. I've become a problem, an inconvenience, so you wanna throw me out, simplify things for yourself.'
'Just one week, till I can get my problems sorted out.'
Chooch got up and started into the house. Shane grabbed his arm to stop him, but Chooch yanked it free.
'Look, it's not… I'm not trying to get rid of you.'
'Eat me!' the boy said, defiance and pain shining in his black eyes.
'I care what you think,' Shane said. 'It matters to me. We need to talk this out.'
'You came close. You almost had me fooled, but I got it straight now. I finally got it… nothing's changed. It's just like it always was I can only count on myself. So fuck off.'
Chooch walked back into the house. Shane's head was still pounding. No matter which way he turned, he saw disaster. He didn't know what to do next, so he went inside and wrote a letter to his father.
Chapter 21
Dear Dad, I hate to admit it, but I'm really scared. Something big and dangerous is going on, and I have the feeling if I don't figure it out soon, I will be destroyed by it. The answer is in that Lake Arrowhead house. Why would Chief Brewer call a location where Ray was committing some kind of sexual blackmail? Who is Carl Cummins? That name isn't in either the Arrowhead or the L. A. phone book. I need to get the answers to some of these questions fast. I'm running out of time. Why do I feel it all closing in? Dad, I'm losing it. I sense disaster coming. I need to talk to somebody.
I know my problems are the last thing you need right now, but please give me a call.
I love you, Dad, and miss you. I'm scared and lonely. You're all I have left.
Your son,
Shane
Chapter 22
They pulled up in front of the Harvard Westlake School at eight the next morning. It was half an hour before the other students would arrive. Chooch got out, dragged his book bag off the front seat, and walked away from the car without looking back. He hadn't spoken all the way there. He had completely tuned Shane out.
Three times before leaving the house, Shane had tried to get through to Sandy but had reached only her machine. As he pulled away from the school, he dialed her number again.
'Hi, you've reached 555-6979. I'm not in, but you know what to do,' announced the recording in her furry contralto voice. Shane didn't leave a third message. He closed his phone and headed back to Internal Affairs.
He pulled into the parking structure adjacent to the Bradbury and used his newly issued employee-parking card. The arm went up, and he found his assigned space on the third level.
He was just getting out of his car when he saw Alexa Hamilton five spaces away, removing a heavy cardboard case-file box out of the trunk of her plainwrap. A few Metro sergeants and special players in the department still had these prized vehicles instead of the hated slickbacks. Alexa's was a new dove-gray Crown Victoria with blackwalls and red velour upholstery. Crown Vies were senior staff vehicles, and hers was prima facie evidence that Sergeant Hamilton had top-shelf department 'suck.'
She slammed her trunk lid and started carrying the box to the elevators. Shane didn't want to ride down with her, but she had seen him and they were both heading toward the elevators, destined to arrive within seconds of each other. For him to veer off now or pretend he forgot something and divert back to his car would be a chickenhearted admission of weakness, so he kept walking and arrived a few seconds behind her. She had balanced the heavy cardboard box full of case files on her knee so she could push the elevator button with her free hand. She looked over at him with those slanted, exotic chips of laser-blue ice poker player's eyes that cut holes through him but revealed nothing in return.
'Need help with that?' he asked, hating himself for even offering, the question inadvertently slipping out of him in an anxious attempt to fill the awkward silence.
'Wouldn't that be sorta like asking a condemned man to carry his own ax to the chopping block?'
'Hardy-har,' he said sourly. It surprised him that the box was so full. She'd been on the case for only forty- eight hours. 'That can't be all me.'
