A gang of boys in blue leather Perlin High jackets were sprawled across a corner of the Egg House, looking eager to take offense. No one sat near them. The other diners ate all huddled together, relative strangers sharing tables like they were back in school themselves, all eating their sandwiches and sipping their iced tea as if there were nothing at all unusual about leaving half of a restaurant abandoned.
Joel found Kimbra Lott in a booth, seated near the back between Dashandre, the lone boy from the cheer squad (“We’ve had more of that the last few years”) and a girl with a lip piercing and bright black nails. Seated across from them were two boys, one a portly red-faced ginger and the other a handsome black kid, both of them footballers Joel recognized but couldn’t name.
Kimbra, Dashandre and April were all three cramped around Kimbra’s phone, struggling to hold a smile for a selfie. When Kimbra lowered the phone, they looked dissatisfied with the results.
“If I might make a suggestion,” Joel said gently, and the five of them flinched. “Your natural light is actually that way.”
“Boy, we ain’t trying to be a supermodel like you.” Dashandre scowled, though Joel noticed the way he shot a look across the table, like he was hoping to make the players smile.
But the boys were too distracted introducing themselves, the portly ginger rising to shake Joel’s hand with both of his. “Mr. Whitley, good to finally meet you. Whiskey Brazos, starting center. Your brother was a brother to us.”
The other player leaned around Whiskey to say, “Tyrone Baskin. Defensive captain. Call me T-Bay.”
Joel was more than a little taken aback by this courtesy—he’d long since assumed every boy in town found him contemptuous. He said something about Dylan having nothing but respect for all of them.
The girl with the black nails toyed with her ketchup. When Whiskey introduced her as his girlfriend, April, she said, “The hell dragged you back here from New York?”
“I’ve asked myself that question a lot. Do y’all mind if I speak to Kimbra?”
The Perlin High boys let out a booming parody of the Bentley cheer from the other side of the diner: “Bison Turd!” The residents of Bentley, refusing to indulge them, intensified their polite discussion of the weather.
Kimbra studied Joel before giving a little shrug, sipping her iced tea.
“The cops should be looking at those Perlin guys,” she said in a low voice once she and Joel were alone. “The Stallions haven’t won a Stable Shootout since your brother made quarterback.”
Suddenly the presence of the blue-jacketed boys made sense: the game against the Perlin Stallions was the event of the season. They always came around town to stir shit the week before—it was as much a tradition as the smack-talking soap signs (WE MAKE GLUE W/ STALLIONS) Joel had started seeing in car windows this morning.
“I’m sure the cops have their own priorities. I was wondering if you’d heard from your boyfriend.”
“Didn’t we have this conversation on Sunday?”
“We did. Boys seem to evaporate in this town.”
“You’re telling me.” Kimbra frowned. He had the distinct impression she was sizing him up for some private purpose. “Have you ever been to Los Angeles?”
“Unfortunately yes.”
“People say California’s beautiful.”
He smiled. “You want to be in the movies?”
“I want to be somewhere people want to be.”
“Are you and KT getting out of here together?”
She froze, her straw between her fingers. “How did you know that?”
Joel smiled wider, trying to calm the panic he saw in her eye. “Because I used to live here.”
Kimbra lapsed into silence. Her eyes were swollen and weighed down with bags. She hadn’t straightened her hair in several days, Joel saw. Frizzy split ends tickled her neck.
“KT and I are leaving in the spring, the day after Finals,” Kimbra said. “Just get in a car. Head west. We’ve been talking about it since we were kids.”
Joel nodded, waited.
“Do you think he’s okay?” she said.
“I really don’t know. He hasn’t spoken to you?”
“No. Nobody’s seen him since school on Monday.” She paused. Her voice cracked. “You don’t think he might have been—it’s just, he wouldn’t know anything to get killed over. He’s stupid. Really. I love him but he’s not very smart.”
“Maybe he got spooked,” Joel said. “Needs a chance to calm down.”
“I heard Dylan sent you a text saying the same thing.” She bit her straw.
Joel felt the Adderall ticking in his brain. He played with a fork. “Is it true that KT got in some trouble over the summer?”
“Trouble?” Her surprise looked genuine. “What trouble?”
“I don’t know. With the cops? At home?”
“His mom’s always trouble,” Kimbra said. “But summer was mellow.”
Joel readied himself to go. It had been worth a shot. He pulled a card from his pocket and slipped it across the table. “Listen, if KT gets in touch with you, maybe I can help.”
“Help how?”
“Depends on the situation.”
Kimbra gave him a last long look, pulled a little notebook from her backpack and jotted down a number. Her eyes shot around the diner before she passed it to Joel.
“That’s me,” she said. “If I can do anything to help find him—”
The diner door clanged open.
“Here comes trouble,” she murmured.
Mitchell Malacek and Garrett Mason had arrived. The Perlin boys let out another fake cheer. They started bawling like cows, began to sing a rendition of the Bison fight song so vulgar it made even Joel raise an eyebrow. Garrett Mason flipped them a finger.
Mitchell Malacek had the same golden hair as his father, the mayor, which he wore long and pulled back in a mussy bun. Garrett, though far heavier than his older brother, still held the same permanent, spiteful light in his eyes as Ranger used to wield. Joel recalled something Wesley had said on Sunday, a mention of Ranger being hurt in Afghanistan.
An idea struck.
“Excuse me,” he said to Garrett, and when the younger Mason fixed him with his hard brown eyes Joel felt the same cold twist in his gut as he’d experienced ten years ago, the moment Ranger had emerged from the football field’s toilets. Joel forced himself to smile. “I was wondering if your brother was around.”
“Unless you grown a pussy you ain’t his type,” Garrett said and turned away. Mitchell snickered and shook his head. The Perlin boys let out a whoop.
“I just had a few questions for Ranger, some sympathy. I heard he got hurt.” Joel refused to be shaken off so easily (though Garrett and Mitchell were intimidating in more ways than he’d anticipated—up close, both boys were jarringly handsome). “Maybe talk about the old days.”
Garrett looked back at him, his tongue running over his teeth in a gesture Joel recognized. “Is that right?”
“You’ll never learn,” Mitchell Malacek said. “Maybe if you’d minded your business in New York your brother’d be alive.”
Joel felt the air rush out of his chest. He struggled to say, “Excuse me?”
“That’s fucking unfair, bro.” Whiskey Brazos appeared at his side, T-Bay a few steps behind him.
The diner went very quiet. Even the Perlin boys hushed. Joel had the distinct impression he’d somehow stumbled into a rift within the team: Garrett and Mitchell sneering from one side, Whiskey and T-Bay on the other.
What, Joel wondered, had Dylan thought of his arrogant teammates? And what had they thought of him?
The silence was broken when the waitress emerged from the back with two heavy to-go bags for Mitchell. He took them with a perfect political smile, a distant air of superior gratitude.
“Keep your head down, Mr. Whitley.” Garrett said, before following Mitchell out the door: “Plenty of folks ’round here wouldn’t mind you got yourself hurt.”
Joel emerged from the diner a few minutes later, his hands trembling. Whiskey and T-Bay had apologized for their teammates’ behavior, seeming genuinely aghast, and even the Perlin Stallions, perhaps out of sympathy, had begun joking loudly about their food.
Mitchell had just been trying to fuck with him—he was ninety percent certain of it—but still Joel felt as if he’d been mowed down by a truck.
Joel was so preoccupied that when he saw the young boy standing under the eave of the diner in a Bison ball cap too large for his head he at first mistook him for Dylan, looking just as Joel remembered him as a boy. The sensation lasted precisely long enough to be painful.
As Joel made to open the door to the convertible, the boy called to him.
“How kem you ain’t got Snapchat?” The kid’s accent was so thick Joel struggled for a moment to understand him. He had a pinched face, a bad overbite, wore a T-shirt of a grinning Mario leaping toward a mushroom just out of reach.
Joel stopped. “Excuse me?”
“Some’un wanna talk tee ye.” From a pocket of his cargo shorts the boy withdrew a folded slip of paper and held it out for Joel. He made no effort to come closer.
Joel looked both ways up the street. They were alone. Joel accepted the paper, and without another word the boy set off running.
Seated in his car, Joel saw one word when he unfolded the note. He presumed the word was a screen name: BBison50k. Staring at it, Joel felt his fingers start shaking again.
He logged into Snapchat—an app he had installed years before and promptly ignored—and fumbled with an interface that appeared designed to bewilder anyone with a living memory of the Clinton administration. The search bar for new friends was concealed, bafflingly, near what appeared to be an options menu with no options.
He typed BBison50k into the search bar. His phone buzzed seconds after he hit Add Friend. The user had been waiting for him.
Is this Joel?
Yes.
I need to talk to you.
Would you like my number?
There was a pause. Joel accidentally backed out of the chat and when he opened a new message from BBison50k he saw that the previous messages in the conversation had evaporated. This person didn’t want to leave a trace. Clever, Joel thought.
Or dangerous.
BBison50k wrote:
In person would be better.
Joel could still hear Garrett Mason in his head: “Plenty of folks ’round here wouldn’t mind you got yourself hurt.” Joel didn’t doubt it.
He chewed an Adderall and typed:
Where works for you?