“This is your car?” Theo said when he saw the Civic. “This?”
“It’s a car. What’s the problem?”
“But it’s your car?”
“Yes.”
“Yours?”
“Oh my God. Orlando, you’re sitting in the front seat. I already can’t handle this.”
Auggie wasn’t sure, but he thought Theo was smiling as he slipped into the back seat. It was hard not to keep checking the rearview mirror. Hard not to keep stealing looks. Theo looked better than ever. The hollowness in his face, the dark circles around his eyes, even most of the limp—they’d all vanished, as though the summer had been a magic cure. Or Cart, a treacherous part of Auggie’s brain suggested. Maybe being with Cart had made everything better. Theo was staring out the window, pushing the flow of strawberry blond hair behind his ears. His beard had copper in it where the sun struck just right.
“Umm,” Orlando said.
Auggie jerked the wheel to keep from hitting a mailbox.
In the back seat, Theo made an amused noise, and Auggie resolutely refused to look in the mirror.
“I didn’t know your family lived in Wahredua,” Theo said.
“Just outside the city limits,” Orlando said.
“Wahredua High?”
“Yup.”
“I knew,” Auggie said.
“You found out, like, an hour ago,” Orlando said.
“But I still knew before Theo.”
Orlando looked over his shoulder, obviously trading glances with Theo, so Auggie gave him a dead leg, driving his knuckle into Orlando’s thigh.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Orlando shouted.
“No more talking until we get to Cal’s apartment,” Auggie ordered.
“Thank God I got the back seat,” Theo murmured.
“What was that?”
In the rearview mirror, Auggie caught Theo’s too innocent smile.
Orlando rubbed his leg the rest of the drive.
The apartment building that Orlando directed them to was situated on the northeast side of town. Although there were some signs of revitalization—hipster cafes, a bike repair shop, a narrow brick house called, creatively, the Redbrick Bed and Breakfast—much of this area looked older and run down. Frame buildings were desperately in need of paint and, in some cases, structural support. Cinderblock strip malls displayed cracked foundations and empty storefronts.
“I’ve never been over here,” Auggie said as he parked.
“Really?” Orlando said. “The Pretty Pretty’s a couple of blocks that way.”
“What’s the Pretty Pretty?”
“The only gay club in town. You haven’t been? Oh my God, we’ve got to go sometime.”
Theo didn’t do anything. He didn’t even move. But suddenly Orlando’s face was red, and he said, “Um, you know, um, um.”
“Oh my God,” Auggie said.
Orlando was still stammering.
“Did you threaten him?” Auggie said to the rearview mirror.
Theo just rolled his eyes.
“I can go to a gay club if I want,” Auggie said.
“Be my guest,” Theo said. “You’ll get eaten alive, and not in a sexual way. Well, not exclusively in a sexual way.”
“What does that mean?”
“Go to the Pretty Pretty and find out.”
“Maybe I will.”
Theo rolled his eyes again.
“And I can go with Orlando if I want.”
Sighing, Theo just unbuckled his seat belt and got out of the Civic.
The apartment building had clearly been extensively renovated: the brick was clean, almost new looking, but its dark red color matched the other brick buildings in the area; the windows were definitely new, the energy-saving kind that Fer had bitched about putting in the house in California; in the exterior corridors, the stairs and railings had glossy black paint, and the outdoor carpet tiles were a bright, yellow-and-blue check that the sun hadn’t faded yet.
“That’s Wayne’s.” Orlando pointed to a blue BMW. Then, gesturing to the empty stall next to it, he said, “That’s Cal’s spot. He drives a yellow Mustang, and I’ll text you the plate number in case it helps.” He led them up the stairs, down one of the exterior corridors, and stopped at the door marked 3F. He knocked once.
The man who answered had to be related to Orlando. He had the same scruff, although his was so thick that it was almost a beard, the same lantern jaw, the same thick brows. He was bigger than Orlando, taller and wider, and although he had the first hints of a gut pulling at the rugby shirt he was wearing, he still had an athlete’s build. His eyes were red, and his gaze drifted over them until settling on Orlando. Then he turned and shuffled back into the apartment, the door hanging open behind him.
“He’s not handling this nearly as breezily as Billie,” Auggie said.
Orlando just shook his head and went inside, and Auggie and Theo followed.
The apartment clearly belonged to bachelors. The living room furniture consisted of a pleather loveseat and matching pleather recliners, all three pieces arranged to face an enormous television. Auggie could see into the kitchen from where he stood: a Vitamix blender, tubs of protein powder, a frying pan and plates in the sink. The only ornamental items were a poster with the 2012 Mizzou Tigers football roster, a sepia-tone map of St. Louis, and a framed baseball card featuring Mark McGwire, first base, in a USA uniform—Auggie didn’t know baseball well enough to know if the card was valuable, but it looked old, and he guessed it hadn’t been framed for purely sentimental reasons. A short hallway led off the living room; Auggie could glimpse a bedroom through a partially closed door.
“I thought we were going to Cal’s apartment,” Auggie said.
“This is Cal’s apartment,” Orlando said. “He and Wayne live together.” Then he said, “Wayne, this is Auggie and Theo. They’re the ones I told you about.”
Wayne dropped into a recliner. The chair had a built-in cupholder, which was currently occupied by a can of Pabst. Wayne chugged the beer, crumpled the can with one hand, and tossed it. It made a cheery, clinking rattle as it joined the pile of cans next to the chair.
“Hi, Wayne,” Auggie said.
Wayne’s gaze finally moved to him, but his eyes were bleary and unfocused, and Auggie couldn’t tell how much Wayne was really seeing.
“What are we doing here?” Theo asked in a whisper.
“Trying to find out what Wayne knows,” Auggie whispered back.
“They’re helping us look for Cal,” Orlando said a little too loudly. “They want to talk to you.”
“So let them fucking talk to me,” Wayne said. He rubbed his big hands along the recliner’s arms. “Peepee, get me a beer.”
Orlando’s face turned to fire, and he very obviously tried not to look at Auggie as he headed to the kitchen.
“You don’t look so good,” Theo said.
“Right back fucking at you.”
Theo shot Auggie a look.
“I think he’s just asking if everything’s ok,” Auggie said. “You seem upset.”
“Upset?” Wayne said. “No, I’m not upset. I’m pissed off. And I’m drunk. My brother’s been gone for over a week. We’ve got a business to run. Personalized coaching. So I’m going to be doing double the work until Cal decides to show up. My sisters want to pretend nothing is wrong. And my other brother is such a royal fuckup that I can’t ask him for any help.” Orlando had come back with the beer, and when he held it out, Wayne snatched it from his hand and said, “Isn’t that right, Peepee?”
Orlando stared at his feet.
“He’s been gone for over a week?” Auggie said. “I thought it hadn’t been quite a week.”
“Nobody knows, really,” Orlando said.
“What? How is that possible?”
“I was out of town,” Wayne said. “When I got back, no Cal.”
“How long were you gone?”
“Weekend. Left Friday night, came back Sunday night.”
“Cal didn’t have any appointments over the weekend?” Theo asked. “Training sessions, practices, nothing like that?”
“Right before Wroxall starts up, we take a week off. Like a summer vacation for the kids who have been training. Cal was going to stay here and jerk off all weekend.” Waving lazily with the beer, he added, “We go back tomorrow, just like you.”
“He didn’t have a girlfriend? Someone he might have spent time with, I mean.”
“Cal and I are building a business. We didn’t have time for stuff like that. Not everybody’s lucky enough to go to school on Mommy and Daddy’s money, nights and weekends free to suck a few cocks. The rest of us, even the girls, we had to go on scholarship. We had to work hard enough to make the right team. We had to work our asses off to get a chance. Not baby Peepee.”
Orlando’s face, if anything, got redder.
“What’s that like, Peepee?”
“Maybe you should wait outside,” Auggie said to Orlando.
Orlando shook his head.
“Could I use your bathroom?” Theo asked.
Wayne waved at the hall, and Theo moved out of sight. A door clicked shut.
“Pretty sweet life, huh?” Wayne said, and then, faster than Auggie could believe, he slapped Orlando’s stomach. Orlando let out a grunt and stumbled back, both hands pressed over his abdomen. His face was white.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Auggie said, putting an arm around Orlando. He could feel Orlando shaking. “He’s still healing.”
“What a fucking crybaby. This is why you’re going to take a year off? Because your tummy hurts?”
“He got stabbed, you dumb fuck,” Auggie said.
“You know why we call him Peepee? I bet he didn’t tell you that story.”
“Wayne, come on,” Orlando said, but he was still trembling, and he was still holding his stomach.
“Sit down,” Auggie said.
Orlando just shook his head.
“He was, I don’t know, three or four. Mom and Dad were having a dinner party. The Joneses were there, remember?”
Orlando stared blankly.
“And he comes out of his room in his pullups, you know, what kids wear so they don’t piss the bed, only he’s got them around his knees, and he’s saying, ‘Look at my peepee, look at my peepee.’”
Orlando swallowed. His eyes were shining, and he blinked rapidly. “You’re such an asshole.”
Wayne burst out laughing, but the laughter ended almost as abruptly as it had begun. Then all the energy seemed to drain out of him, and he lay back in the recliner, his eyes half closed. His breathing evened out.
“So you can’t tell us anything?” Auggie said. “You didn’t talk to Cal all weekend? You didn’t text? Nothing?”
“Nothing,” Wayne said. “I saw him Friday night. I left. When I came back Sunday night, he wasn’t here. Monday morning, he still wasn’t here. That’s when I started texting. We looked all the usual places.”
“Where?”
“Flaherty’s, Saint Taffy’s, Meramec Maniacs. There’s a girl he hooks up with sometimes. Jessie something. Then I noticed stuff was missing.”
“What stuff?”
“Collector’s items. Autographed bats, limited-edition jerseys, a puck from Game 3 of the 2008 Stanley Cup. Probably more, I just haven’t noticed it’s missing yet.”
“Somebody broke in and stole your stuff? And you didn’t report that to the police?”
Wayne grunted. “Nobody broke in. Cal took it. He sells it, and then he scores, and then he’s on a bender. Notice he didn’t touch any of his own shit.” He gestured at the framed baseball card.
Theo came back, and when Auggie shot him a look, he gave a discreet shake of his head.
“Is that all?” Wayne said. “Because I want another fucking beer.”
Orlando turned toward the kitchen, but Auggie caught his arm and steered Orlando to the door.
“Get it yourself,” Auggie said as they left.