LITMIR.BIZ

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words are actions too. A lesson that mankind in general – and me in particular – seems to find hard to get through their heads.

      Kyle was in the passenger seat. He looked up, then away, and didn't say anything. His hands lay on his thighs, the fingers of both drumming constantly.

      ‘Hey, Captain Stupid,’ I said. ‘Having a good day?’

      ‘I've been there already,’ Becki said.

      ‘So what does he have for me?’

      She turned and stared at her boyfriend. He spoke quietly. ‘Rick. And maybe Doug.’

      ‘Who would be?’

      ‘Assholes,’ Becki said, bitterly. ‘They're on the beach sometimes. They were at the party last night.’

      I turned back to Kyle. ‘So how'd they come to know where you were keeping your stash?’

      ‘They just know, okay? I—’

      ‘Kyle, listen to me. I can tell you've got the message. But I need to know whether these guys found out because they're smart and know how to play people like you, or if it's one of those things that just happens and they decided to make something of it on their way home. I'm assuming it's the latter, because of the amateur-night break-in, but I'd like to be sure.’

      ‘I told them,’ he said. ‘I just kind of… said it.’

      Becki rolled her eyes and muttered something under her breath.

      ‘Good. You know where these people live?’

      ‘Yeah.’

      I opened the car door. ‘So let's go.’

      ‘What's this to you, anyhow?’ Kyle asked. ‘This is my problem. Becki already told me that.’

      ‘Where'd you get the coke from?’

      ‘Just some guys in Portland.’

      ‘And ten thousand is not huge in the scale of these things. But they're still going to want their money. There are no acceptable losses to these people, Kyle. Losses make them look bad, and looking bad is something they will not countenance. If they can't get what they're owed from you then they'll branch out, with you as the fly in the centre of the web. That means Becki next. She doesn't have what they want. So that means they'll move on to her dad, and his place of business.’

      He blinked.

      ‘No man is an island,’ I said. ‘You get now what you've done?’

      I knew I was pushing him, and that his pride was already hurt, but either this had to serve as an object lesson or it would be even worse next time.

      ‘Yeah,’ he said, very quietly.

      ‘Excellent,’ I said, getting in the car. ‘So let's go see if we can't get things straightened out.’

      The house was on the northwest of Seaside, the town that lay between Marion Beach and Astoria. It took forty minutes to get there. I got Kyle to call ahead, acting like everything was cool – and arranging to meet the two guys the next day. This went smoothly, establishing they were home and further strengthening my impression that we weren't dealing with master criminals. Also, assuming they were the people who had staged the break-in, that they were assholes who were prepared to lie to a guy's face and snigger about it afterwards.

      I asked Becki to park fifty yards down the street. I got out and opened the trunk, looked around until I found something I could use.

      ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Kyle, you're coming with me.’

      Becki started in quickly. ‘What about—’

      ‘Trust me,’ I said. ‘Comes to a fight I'd bet on you any day. It's just in case we feel like leaving quickly. That happens, I believe you're the best person to be ready behind the wheel, don't you?’

      She subsided. Kyle got out of the car and looked at me dubiously. ‘So … what now?’

      ‘Come with me. And do what I say.’

      We walked up the side of the street opposite the house. There were enough lights on to imply people were home, but nothing to suggest a windfall-driven debauch in full swing.

      ‘Stay here,’ I said.

      I crossed and went around the house, quietly, to see what I could glimpse through the windows. Not much. Music coming from somewhere, still not party-loud. A room that looked like someone had upended a junk store into it and then taken back anything worth more than five dollars. The living room, with two ratty couches at right angles to a battered television playing MTV. Another room with a single mattress on a floor strewn with dirty clothes and empty soda cans.

      Around the back, the kitchen, lit by hanging bulbs fighting cigarette smoke. Two young guys hanging at a table: emo playing off an iPod with extension speakers, a few wine bottles, big bags of Doritos and an ashtray full of white power on the side. Heaven on earth, slacker-style. And on the side counter, a battered industrial-style juicer.

      I walked backward from the house until Kyle could see me, and mimed him ringing the house bell. He hesitated but then started across the street.

      I went to the back door and waited until I heard the bell go. The two guys inside looked at each other, and then one of them got up and left the room. The other slipped the ashtray full of drugs into one of the Doritos bags.

      I gently turned the handle on the back door. It was locked. You build some, you break some. I raised my foot and kicked it in.

      The guy at the table was nowhere near his feet before I got in range. I grabbed him by the hair and shoved him down onto his chair, let him see the tyre iron I was holding in the other hand.

      ‘You Rick or Doug?’

      ‘Who the hell—?’

      ‘Nope,’ I said, and rapped him on the kneecap with the iron. He yelped. ‘That's not how this is going to play. Want to try again?’

      ‘Rick,’ he said.

      ‘Better. Where are the drugs, Rick?’

      ‘What the fuck?’

      A new voice. I glanced up to see Kyle and the other guy – Doug, I assumed – standing in the doorway. Doug's pupils were pinned even worse than his friend's, and he was looking at me as if I was a commercial for a cancer charity in an evening that had otherwise featured very mellow programming.

      ‘Here's the thing,’ I said, to Doug. It had been his idea to visit the Pelican in the middle of the night. You can always tell the difference between the big dogs and the little dogs, even when the bigger ones are still damned small. ‘I'm the person who supplied your friend Kyle with his drugs.’

      ‘Shit,’ he said, urgently.

      ‘Yeah.’ I pushed Rick to the side, making sure he stayed tangled with the chair and wound up falling heavily into the corner.

      ‘Shit,’ Doug said again, blinking fast. Dumb and high though he was, he was smart enough to realize that the evening had taken a very poor turn.

      I left a beat and then lashed hard right with the tyre iron, smashing the nearest light fitting and sending a shower of glass fragments around the room.

      Kyle and Doug leapt back, arms over their heads. Rick meanwhile was trying to fight free of the chair so he could regain his feet.

      I rested my own foot – pretty gently – on his chest. He went back down almost gratefully.

      ‘Tell me you've still got it,’ I said. ‘Except, of course, for what you've sucked up into your faces already.’

      Doug nodded quickly, compulsively. He hadn't been hit yet. He'd be valuing that position a great deal, and ready to do pretty much anything to protect it.

      ‘I'm waiting,’ I said.

      He didn't

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