why don’t you just ask me what you want to ask me?’
‘We’re trying to find out what happened to Aaron Prager.’
The boy choked back a grin. ‘I can help you with that. Bitch got shot.’
Ty moved in on the boy. ‘Have a little bit of respect. You wanna be ghetto, you’d better understand, you step to us wrong and you know what’s gonna happen.’
The kid’s eyes fell back to the sidewalk. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it.’
Lock could see that what the boy aspired to, Ty simply was, with all that entailed. He decided to let Ty handle him.
‘Did you ever speak to Aaron after he hooked up with this gang?’ Ty asked.
The boy’s smirk was back, but there was a touch of something else there too. Lock guessed at a creeping understanding of how people could change, and not always for the better.
‘The only time he spoke to me was to call me a wigger.’ The boy kicked at the ground. ‘He used to be a nice guy.’
‘Do they have a leader?’
‘Roach, I guess.’
‘What’s he look like?’
‘Big sucker. Shaves twice a day. You’ll know him when you see him.’
‘He a student here too?’
‘No, he got kicked out last year.’
‘Where can we find him?’
The boy gave Ty the name of the same fast-food restaurant as the one provided by the Pragers’ neighbour.
‘Thanks for your help, bro,’ Ty said, bumping fists with the boy.
‘Just don’t mention my name, OK?’
Lock and Ty got back into the Lincoln, leaving the kid on the sidewalk. Lock waved a thanks but the kid was too busy jamming his headphones into his ears. Lock didn’t blame him. If he’d grown up here, he’d have wanted to shut out the world too.
As they pulled away from the school, Ty sideways-glanced at Lock. ‘This Roach kid sounds like a real charmer.’
Lock puffed out his cheeks. ‘Big fish in a small pond. Maybe if we drain the water a little we can get him flapping.’
‘You think he’s caught up in this?’ Ty asked.
‘I can definitely see him giving up Aaron. I’m not so sure about anything else. Although, if he wanted to make a name for himself, then who knows.’
Lock fell silent for a moment, his jaw clenched tight.
‘I’ll promise you one thing though, Tyrone.’
‘What’s that, brother?’
‘He’s gonna tell us everything he knows about what went down.’
51
The boy they’d spoken to at the school was right, Roach was hard to miss. Six foot plus and maybe a hundred and eighty pounds. He wasn’t up there with Reaper or the other members of the AB, but he would hold his own in most prisons, which in Lock’s view was exactly where he was heading.
He greeted Tyrone with a faux-menacing ‘What you looking at, nigger?’
Tyrone’s expression read mock-offended but he kept his hands by his side as Roach’s compatriots snickered. He and Lock hadn’t exactly expected a ticker-tape parade, and they weren’t going to be disappointed.
‘I get it,’ said Ty. ‘This is the part where I say, “Who you callin’ a nigger?” And then you say, “I’m callin’ you a nigger, nigger.” And then I throw a punch at you. And that gives you and your cronies here the perfect excuse to triple-team me and beat me to a pulp.’
Ty’s speech seemed to throw Roach. He looked to his fellow skinheads for a reaction, but they seemed equally perplexed.
‘Except,’ Ty went on, ‘there’s a couple of problems. One, I’ve been called all kinds of names. And you know that saying about sticks and stones…’ He pulled down his T-shirt to expose the fresh wound on his shoulder. ‘And I been shot too. Recently. You ever been shot?’
Roach looked at his cheerleaders. ‘Nigger’s crazy.’
Lock eyeballed Roach. ‘Answer the man’s question.’ He parted his jacket just enough that the butt of his 226 was on view. ‘You ever been shot?’
Roach backed up a step. ‘Screw you, nigger-lover.’
Before anyone had a chance to react, Lock’s gun was in Roach’s face. Roach’s mouth shaped to say something, then he changed his mind.
‘Get in the car,’ Lock whispered to him.
Roach’s bravado was very slowly ebbing away. Easy to be top dog in a town like this, thought Lock, especially when you were big and stupid.
‘You’re playing in the big leagues now, Roach.’
Roach reacted to hearing his name. ‘Who are you?’
The longer the delay, the more chance someone would call the cops, Lock knew, smashing his gun into the side of Roach’s face. His buddies did some sidewalk dancing and shouting, but none of them made a move to help their fallen leader.
Ty grabbed Roach, dug both thumbs under his jaw and propelled him towards the Lincoln. Together, he and Lock bundled him into the back. Lock climbed in with him, giving Roach a few digs of his elbow for good measure.
‘You guys are dead!’ Roach shouted.
Ty caught Lock’s eye. This was going to be fun.
They drove for more than an hour in total, heading due east towards the desert. The longer they drove, the more Roach’s self-confidence peeled away in layers. He quickly moved from threats to a sullen silence, finally settling on a couple of half-hearted pleas for leniency, all of which were met with studied silence by Lock and Ty.
As the traffic on the highway thinned out, Lock finally spoke.
‘You bring the shovel?’
Ty glanced in the rear-view for the briefest of seconds.
‘In the trunk with the quicklime.’
Five minutes later, Ty pulled the Lincoln off the road and they hauled an unwilling Roach out. They walked him for ten minutes, hitting a rise and putting them all out of sight of the highway. Every time Roach tried to look over his shoulder, Lock prodded him with the gun.
‘This looks as good a spot as any,’ Ty said.
‘Get down on your knees,’ Lock ordered.
Roach was crying now. Big mucus-filled sobs. Just like Aaron Prager. Lock contemplated starting out by cutting off one of Roach’s many Nazi-themed tattoos. He jammed his gun into the back of Roach’s neck.
‘This is bullshit, man. You’re going to kill me because I called someone a name?’
‘Oh, I’m sure you’ve done a lot worse. Sure there’s been more than a few blacks, or Hispanics, or gay folk, or people who just looked different, who’ve run into you and your little jerk-off crew. Haven’t there?’ The SIG was ready to fire. He withdrew it from Roach’s neck. ‘I’m going to use this, but I don’t want any contact burns. It makes the gun easier to trace if they find you.’
Taking a step back, Lock aimed the SIG six feet to Roach’s right, then pulled the trigger. Roach let out a choked scream and, judging by the smell, emptied his bladder and bowels simultaneously.
‘Damn, that’s rank. You want to get a bit more variety into your diet there, son,’ Ty said.
