Jimmy did that, but he walked back and forth, agitated.
“Where’s the goddamn DVD?” he said. “All of them.”
“I just got the one,” the guy said, and worked it out of his coat pocket. He tossed it to me and I caught it and held it. The guy said, “Can I take off this jacket? It’s hot.”
“Why did you wear it?” I asked, knowing the answer.
“To keep the DVD and for a disguise,” he said.
“You try and pull something besides your arm from out of that coat, and my brother here will put a hole in your head,” I said, fearing he might do just that.
“You didn’t have a rifle up there, did you?” the kid asked.
“No,” I said. “But Jimmy’s got your girl’s gun now, and he’s got one of his own. Don’t push him.”
“Girlie,” Jimmy said, “why don’t you take off that coat too, and be careful about it when you do.”
She whimpered once, moved to a sitting position and worked the coat off. She was wearing a dark sports bra and she had dark tattoos on her stomach around her navel, all down her arms. I couldn’t tell what they were, flowers maybe. She tossed the coat across the floor toward us. She said to Jimmy, “You hurt my leg with that thing. You hurt it bad.”
“Forgive me if I don’t give a shit,” Jimmy said. “Put the light on that boy.”
I did.
“Hold your face up,” Jimmy said.
The kid did that. He had a red mark between his eyes where Jimmy had whacked him. It wouldn’t leave a permanent mark, but it would bruise up.
“Hell, I knew I knew you,” Jimmy said. “You’re in the history department. I don’t know your name, but I know you. You can fucking figure on failing now, ’cause I’ll sure think of your name in time.”
“I’m not in your classes,” the boy said.
Jimmy let out with a laugh. “Well, that saves you, doesn’t it?”
The girl bawled some more, paused to say: “I’m scared of spiders.”
20
They had come by car, and it was on the other side of the hill. We all walked up the hill and through the woods, the same way they had come, then down the other side to a little dirt road where their car was parked. It wasn’t much of a car and looked like the last time it had been washed someone had rubbed it down with sand and waxed it with a hammer.
We made them get in the front seat, the guy behind the wheel. Jimmy and I slid into the back seat and Jimmy waved the gun around a little too much.
“What are we doing?” the guy asked, and he was so scared his voice vibrated.
“Going for a ride,” I said. “We want you to take us to your place, where you got the computer that copied the DVD.”
“We made copies,” the girl said, “but we found the DVD.”
I tucked that bit of information away. I said, “What about Caroline Allison?”
“I knew her,” the guy said. “She was in the history department with me. I knew her and that’s how I came up with this idea.”
“Stupid idea,” the girl said. She had grown pouty, like a child whose birthday party had been ruined by bullies.
“It was stupid,” Jimmy said.
“Yeah,” the guy said. “Stupid. But Tabitha needed the money for school.”
“Jesus,” Jimmy said. “Whatever happened to a student loan?”
“I couldn’t get one,” she said. “I failed too many classes goofing off.”
“Well, I’ll be damned,” I said. “You needed tuition money, so what better way to get it than to kill some girl and take her DVD of her and the kindly professor here doing the bop and blackmail him with it? That sure beats a student loan, or heaven forbid, working for the money.”
“We didn’t kill anyone,” the guy said. “You know we didn’t kill anyone.”
He said that like he thought we really did know he didn’t do it. And I was pretty sure they hadn’t, even if I wasn’t sure they were telling the total truth. In fact, I was more than certain they weren’t.
“What’s your name?” I asked the guy.
“Ernie Smith.”
“And you, kid,” I said to the girl. “You’re Tabitha? Tabitha what?”
“Patrick,” she said. “Tabitha Patrick. We’re in big trouble, aren’t we?”
“What do you think?” I said. “Start up the car and let’s go.”
Their place was near the hill where Jimmy and I were camped. It was a gray rental house by the railroad tracks with an outside light that didn’t work. It was an ugly location and an ugly house. The neighboring houses were a little brighter and better looking, but there was nothing you could do about that location.
Inside, the place was long and narrow like a boxcar and smelled like cat piss, and when Ernie turned on the light, roaches darted for cover but no cats made an appearance. In the front room there was a couch that looked as if it had taken on a few land mines. It was partially draped over with a blanket that had more holes in it than a dartboard. There were a couple of folding chairs, a desk with a computer on it, and the only good chair in the place was the chair at the desk. Tabitha sat on the couch, and after a few minutes so did Ernie. We told Ernie we would be taking the computer.
“I got all my lessons on it,” he said. “All my history work.”
“You should have thought of that before blackmailing me,” Jimmy said.
“You can’t go to the police,” Ernie said, “not with those DVDs around. That’ll nail your ass.”
“You’re going to give them to us,” I said.
“And if we don’t?” Ernie said. “What then? There’s nothing you can do to us.”
“Except put a bullet in your heads,” Jimmy said.
Ernie went quiet and put his hands between his legs.
Jimmy was starting to pull at the computer, like he was going to run off with it. I said to him, “Hold on. We’re not going anywhere yet.”
He stopped pulling, looked at me. I had taken one of the folding chairs and was sitting in it. Jimmy took one of the others and sat down. He still had the girl’s revolver and he laid it on his knee.
“Don’t hurt us,” Tabitha said. “You can take the computer. We just thought it would be fun. And I needed the money. I didn’t mean to hurt anyone.”
“Sure,” Jimmy said.
“How did you come by the DVD?” I asked. “You said you found it, but I’m thinking you didn’t go out in the yard and it rained down on you like manna from heaven.”
“We’re urban explorers,” Ernie said. “That’s how we found it.”
“You’re what?” Jimmy asked.
“We like to prowl at night. Get into places that are locked up, preferably without anyone knowing we did it. We go in and take pictures. Used to be several of us. You learn locks, and you watch places to learn where all the ways of getting in are. It’s a big game.”
“What happened to the other explorers?” I asked.
“They graduated, moved off.”
“The original ones,” Tabitha said.
There was something in that, but I let it go for the moment.
“I see,” I said. “Only thing throws me is, around here, we’re sort of short on urban.”
“Technically that’s right,” Ernie said. “But there are plenty of places you don’t think about. That’s how we came up with the DVD. All the DVDs. We found them.”
“All the DVDs?” I said. “You just found them?”
Ernie nodded.
“Where?” Jimmy said.
