We cruised around for a while, taking the back streets to avoid the cop cars. But it was a night of empty streets and the cops were not around. I turned right onto Main and drove down Center and back to Meridian again.
All this time I said about three words to Renata. She did all the talking. She told me about her favorite pop star, Lyca, and got me interested. Lyca was an Idol. Renata had all her records except the first two but she’ll get them. I never heard of Lyca and I never heard her sing but she was Renata’s favorite and that was good enough for me.
I thought about the missing War Medal and I had a wrestling match with myself. In one corner I had this superhot girl I couldn’t get my mind off. In the other corner was my Uncle’s War Medal and I was all tied-up inside about that.
Renata is smart, very smart. She spoke like every word cost a million dollars. She knew a lot and she had lots of opinions. I just like the way she talks.
“Everybody’s got their own opinion,” she said. “But if you ask me it’s all in the planets. Planets line up in a row, you got it made. Study the planets, you can figure out anythin’. When I get to college I’m thinkin’ I’ll major maybe in Jupiter.”
We drove up to the Heights and she showed me her house on Crown, a brown house on a corner with big bushes out front and a circular driveway.
We had wasted enough time and I wanted to get back to the house. She said she would stay for a while. On the by-pass back to town I took the Eagle up to 75.
“So what’s the problem?” Renata asked.
“What problem?”
“Somethin’s goin’ on. You’re like an itch waitin’ for a scratch,” she said.
I told her about my Uncle’s missing Medal, and she said she didn’t hear anything about it, she’ll keep an ear out.
“We goin’ back now?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I think maybe not,” she said.
“You said you want to go back to the house.”
“I do.”
“So what are we waitin’ for?”
Someone in the rear seat said, “We gotta be home by ten.”
“Who are you?”
“Dwight meet Walt, Walt meet Dwight. He’s my brother,” Renata said.
“Half-brother,” said Dwight.
“When did he get in?”
“I don’t know, he gets in.”
Dwight sat behind me in the dark. He was the brother she got when her mother re-married. He was a year and a half younger. I tilted the rearview down but I couldn’t see much back there. He wore a baseball cap and he had a high voice and he was bigger than you think.
“What kinda car is this?” he asked me.
“This is an Eagle,” I said.
“Never heard of an Eagle before.”
“They don’t make ‘em no more,” I said.
“Those blinkin’ lights come with it?”
“No, I screwed them in the dash myself.”
“Looks like they come with the car,” he said.
I wanted to take Renata back to the house but Dwight insisted they had to be home by ten, so I dropped them off.
When Dwight got out he said, “Hire a cleaning service.”