Winger

things even worse. But when I turned around, I realized that unless the Bannock Police Department hired hundred- year-old officers who got around with walkers, we were pretty safe. And even if they did, I thought, I knew it would be easy enough to talk Joey into making a run for it.

Or a brisk walk for that matter.

The old man came out of the rain at the speed of a newborn glacier, taking two steps, then lifting the walker, then setting it down, then two steps, lift, set. I rubbed my chin to see how much that one whisker had grown in the time it took for him to get to Joey’s side of the car.

And why does Joey always have to be so goddamned nice and understanding?

Joey said, “Leave us alone and go to hell, fucking crusty old man.”

Well, um . . . to be honest, Joey didn’t actually say that. I think I was wishing it so hard, I actually imagined it, which was the girliest thing I’ve probably ever done in my life. He actually just said, “Sure.”

Two steps. Lift. Set.

I needed a shave.

And the poor guy looked terrible. He had a dirty white beard and just kept his eyes fixed ahead, staring at me and Joey as he two-stepped-lifted-set inch by inch, wearing what looked like rain-soaked and food-stained pajamas.

“Can you boys please give me a ride home? I’ll pay you,” he said.

Please, for once in your life, don’t be nice, Joey.

“What are you doing out here?” Joey said.

“I just went for a walk,” he said.

And I thought, he either lives about twelve feet away from here or he started his walk during the Reagan Administration.

“And then I got caught in this damned rain.”

“Where do you live?” Joey asked.

No!

But it was too late. I knew Joey and I were both helplessly being sucked into a black hole of Joey Cosentino’s niceness.

“I live in a residential group home for child molesters who kill teenage boys with hatchets,” he said.

Okay, I’ll be honest. I think the whiskey-cold-medicine-energy-soda-disgusting-cherry-menthol-throat- lozenge-lack-of-sleep effect was taking its toll on me. What he really said was something like, “I live in Bannock on Battle Point Lane. It’s about two miles from here.”

“We could call you a cab,” I said. I held the remainder of the poker bank out in my hand. “We’ll even pay for it.”

“Naw,” Joey said. “Come on. We’ll take you home.”

Good old perfect Joey.

Goddamnit.

“Thank you,” he said. “Thank you boys so much.”

I just hoped he killed Joey first.

We loaded the old man’s walker and our bags into the back of Chas’s SUV, then helped him up into the passenger seat beside Joey. I sat in the back and hunted around for something that could be used as a weapon.

“Joey?” I said from the backseat as he started the car.

“What?”

“Why are my pants ripped all the way down and my underwear hanging out?”

“Remember? Chas?”

“Um. No.”

That cold medicine was the shit.

“Maybe you should go to sleep, Ryan Dean.”

“Why are we driving Chas’s car without him?”

“I’ll tell you about it tomorrow.”

“You’re the best, Joey.”

Joey shook his head. When we came to the entrance to the parking lot, the old man pointed him to turn right. Then he patted Joey on the shoulder and said, “Thanks again. You’re going to take a right up here at Haley Street. By the way, my name is Ned.”

And then Ned dug around in his pocket and said, “How much do you want for the cab ride, boys?”

“You don’t need to pay us,” Joey said.

I closed my eyes and lay down across the seat. Then I felt the car turn right and begin lurching forward along a bumpy, unpaved road.

“This is Battle Point,” Joey said. “How far up here do you live?”

Then I knew we were completely hosed.

Ned said, “Where?”

It began pouring.

Joey said, “Is this your street?”

And Ned said, “I live in Waterloo, Iowa.”

Oh, yeah. Me and Joey. Both total losers.

So I said, “Ned? Will you please kill Joey first? He really, really deserves it.”

Chapter Seventy-One

SO THERE WE WERE, IN the middle of the fucking night, in the rain, on an unlighted dirt—make that “mud”—road somewhere between Oregon and Bolgia Nine in the Eighth Circle of Hell with an ax-wielding sodomist in a walker who thought he was in Waterloo goddamned Iowa.

Good times.

Ned stared blankly out the windshield. “I don’t remember any of this in Waterloo.”

“Oh, that Waterloo,” I said. “So, Ned, was Napoleon really as short as everyone says?”

“What?” Ned said. Then he pointed out the window in front of Joey. “I think you took a wrong turn, son. Where’s the Cedar River from here?”

“We’re in the middle of it, Ned,” I said.

Joey stopped the car, right there in the middle of the river of mud that used to be a road. Not that we were running the risk of blocking any traffic, that is, unless salmon used this fucking road to spawn on.

Spawning salmon . . . awww . . . made me think of Annie. God! I’d never see her again! I felt like I would start crying, but I became determined that I had to live so I could stop JP from depositing his genetically inferior milt all over her.

“But you remembered this road and how to get here,” Joey said. “And how far it was. Are you sure you didn’t want to come to Battle Point Lane?”

“Is this Battle Point Lane?” Ned asked.

“Yes,” Joey said.

“Are we in Waterloo?” Ned asked. “My son lives there.”

“Catch and release, Joey,” I said. “Let’s put him back where we found him.”

“Maybe he’ll recognize his house if we find one up there.” Joey nodded his chin in the direction of the road- torrent.

I didn’t see any houses up there.

“Maybe he’ll remember the spot where he hid all the bodies of the other kids he tricked into taking him here,” I said.

“What?” Ned said.