Wetbones

'Christ, that name sounds like the villain of a Flash Gordon serial or something.' Prentice shrugged. 'That's something we can ask Lonny. If that shit was self mutilation.'

'That's just not a Mitch thing to do. He might do all kinds of weird shit but Mitch hated pain. Hell, he hated any kind of discomfort, he was not your Spartan type, you know? And if he was into mutilating himself it would've showed up before now. I mean, he was never that fucked up.'

'Yeah well. Amy was crazy but I never knew her to mutilate herself either. And she did it…

He broke off, embarrassed, as the Chicano boy and his mother bent their heads and began to pray together in Spanish. The counsellor had said, 'Every single kid here is in a gang – for three exceptions, all of them white boys. Mitch was one of the exceptions.'

There were tears rolling down the Chicano boy's cheeks as he prayed. This was not how Prentice pictured juvie gang members. But then, the kid's companeros weren't around to see this.

'You know,' Jeff whispered, 'they say the girl gangs are the worst. They've got these girl gangs out here now – they're son a like Apache women were supposed to be. Torture the prisoners. Just mean as can be. They say you won't live if they get pissed at you and catch you – some of the other gangs might let you live, after they beat you up, but never the girls.'

'I'm glad this place isn't co-ed.'

The door to lock-up buzzed and opened, and a boy came through. He looked half Oriental, maybe Vietnamese, half-Hispanic, some Cauc blood too. Long lank, black hair over his shoulders. He wore a Metallica t- shirt and jeans, high-top black Adidas. He swaggered just a little as he walked. His muscular arms were home- tattooed with snakes entwining cartoonish girls. Behind him came a potbellied black guard, his khaki uniform shirt popped open where his belly spilled over his shiny black belt, one hand on the butt of his holstered gun. 'You got about ten minutes, Lonny,' the guard said, 'then you got Group.'

'Group sucks,' Lonny muttered, pausing to look awkwardly around.

'You axed for that group, homie,' the wheezing guard said. He fished a cigarette from a shirt pocket, handed it over, lit it with an old Zippo, and left.

Jeff and Prentice crossed to Lonny. Shook his surprisingly soft hand. Introduced themselves. 'Hi, howya doin',' Lonny said, politely but tonelessly. He stuck his free hand in a jeans pocket, the other one flicked the cigarette. He looked at Prentice and Jeff, then looked at the floor, then looked back at them. 'So what you guys want?'

'I'm Mitch Teitelbaum's brother -'

'I know, you said that before. But whas'up, you know? I mean, I don't wanna be an asshole, but I got to check this shit out. Mitch was like my blood homie, you know?'

Jeff nodded. 'Okay. Look – if you can answer some questions for us, we'll sign something for your lawyer, says you were helpful, it won't hurt when it's time to get out of here. We're trying to figure out where Mitch went. I'm not going to tell the cops anything you tell me – I want to go get him myself. You got any ideas?'

Lonny drew on the cigarette. He looked at them.

Prentice thought about offering him money. He had a sense, though, that offering money would have been taboo; Lonny's claim to close friendship for Mitch had the ring of truth about it.

'At the hospital,' Jeff prompted, 'they said someone saw him going out in a wheelchair, pushed by a funny looking kind of guy, older guy… Any idea who that might be?'

Lonny shrugged. 'Maybe it's the More Man.'

Prentice stared. Hadn't there been something in Amy's hospital evaluation papers about the More Man? Something she'd said more than once…

'I don't know who the fuckin' More Man is,' Lonny said. 'Mitch called the guy that, said someone at the Doublekey was going to help him break into recording. Mitch wanted to write songs and shit. All I know is, the More Man's hella rich.'

'What's the Doublekey?' Jeff asked.

'It's this ranch, out by Malibu somewhere, people party out there a lot, girls go out and get free drugs an' shit. I heard that before, and Mitch told me about it too, you know.'

'You ever tell the cops this?' Prentice asked.

'Fuck no.' He snorted at the idea. He went to a chair that had a tin ashtray on its seat. He picked up the ashtray, brought it back, held it in one hand, tamped ashes into it with another. There was something curiously feminine about the way he did it.

'You ever see Mitch, uh… Jeff hesitated. 'Hurt himself?'

Lonny grimaced, an expression fleeting as the lighting of a nervous fly. Then the impassivity returned. 'Sure, yeah. I told him cut it out or I was going to kick his fucking ass for him.'

Prentice waited for the boy to notice the irony in that. Stop hurting yourself for I'll hurt you. But he didn't. Maybe there was a reason…

Eyeing the cigarette to see whether there was a millimeter to smoke before the filter, Lonny said, 'Yeah, shit, he dug this shiv into his arm down to the bone… plowed it all up… stickin' it real deep in himself all over… he was startin' to cut on his dick and shit too…

Jeff winced. Prentice's mouth went dry.

Lonny went on, 'He didn't seem to feel no pain. I thought for a while he was bogartin' dope or something, to be doin' that, but I don't think so. He said it was spirits that did it, and I know there's spirits, I got an aunt, she can get spirits to come and take her over and she can put her hands in fire and it don't hurt her. I believe in spirits. Fuck, yeah.'

For a moment, Lonny closed his eyes. His adam's apple bobbed. When he opened his eyes again they were moist. 'I told him I'd kick his ass for him if he did that shit again.' He said it this time with an odd kind of sentimentality. 'He's like, my brother…' He gave Jeff a look that made him stiffen. ''You probably find him out the Double-key. You go get his ass and bring him home, but don't be fucking telling the cops this shit. If they go out there and he gets busted and it's my fault, man…'

'I don't want him busted either,' Jeff said. 'Don't worry, Lonny.'

'I'm not kidding man. Swear on your dick, you'll lose it if you tell the cops.'

Jeff started to laugh, then saw that Lonny was completely serious. 'On my…'

'You heard me. You swear or I'll tell some of my friends on the outside to go out that Ranch, tell Mitch to split before you get there. Swear on your fuckin' dick, dude.'

Jeff swallowed. He shrugged. 'Okay I swear. On my dick.' Lonny looked at Prentice meaningfully. Prentice sighed. 'I swear…' He glanced at the Mexican lady who was standing now, hugging the boy. Prentice lowered his voice to add, ''… on my dick'

Los Angeles

'I've heard of the Doublekey ranch somewhere or other,' Jeff said.

They were on the 101, in Jeff's Cabriolet, with the top down, but with no wind to cool them off. The traffic was backed up and desultory. The radio was playing, but low, Tom Petty was singing about good girls and bad boys, but Prentice couldn't make out much more than that. The sun made sundogs and quivery pools of light on the cars; it was slowly burning the crown of Prentice's head. He wondered if his hair was thinning up there. Male pattern balding, they called it. That'd be right in line with the rest of my luck, he thought.

Then he found himself looking at a black family with seven or eight sad-eyed kids packed into a battered old station wagon and just the way the clothes and odds and ends were crammed in around them made it clear they lived in that car…

And he thought: Prentice, stop feeling sorry for yourself.

'Jeff,' Prentice murmured, 'you ever wonder if there're things guiding us to see things… or not to see things? Influencing us? Like, if we're paying attention, we might be feeling sorry for ourselves and then something prompts us to notice someone worse off…'

'You mean, something guiding us like God? If you're guided, it's more likely being done by some part of your unconscious that knows self pity is dumb,' Jeff said.

'I guess. Sometimes, though, I think…' He blew out his cheeks, feeling foolish. 'Never mind. This fucking traffic sucks. Let's get off a here, get on the surface streets.'

'If I can ever get to the goddamn exit.'

The cars in front of them moved up a little; Jeff prodded his Cabriolet a few yards farther in the slow conga