God, he could feel her dark eyes boring into him.
“I’m saving my ass,” he told her, trying to turn over the van again. “I’m trying to save all our asses.”
“We’re not going anywhere,” she said.
He knocked her hand aside. “Oh yes, we are.”
She just stared at him. “You’re going to leave the scene of an accident? Aren’t you in enough trouble as it is?”
“Shut up,” he said.
“You might want to listen to her,” Soo-Lee said. “If you leave the scene of an accident—”
“Zip it,” Chazz told her.
Lex sighed. “He won’t listen to reason. It’s like trying to get a monkey to stop eating its own shit.”
“Oh God,” Danielle moaned.
“All of you shut the fuck up!” Chazz told them.
“Please, Chazz,” Ramona said. “Please, just listen for once, okay? Don’t make matters worse.”
“Shut up, Ramona. I won’t tell you again.”
“You won’t have to,” she said, opening her door and stepping out.
“FUCK ARE YOU DOING, YOU STUPID BITCH?”
“Here we go,” Creep said.
Chazz beat his fists against the dashboard. “GET THE FUCK BACK IN HERE OR YOU’RE STAYING BEHIND!”
Ramona didn’t bother justifying that with a reply, she just slammed her door shut.
Chazz unrolled his window. “Ramona! Get back in here! We have to go.”
“I’m not going.”
“Get in here or I’ll leave you behind! I swear to God I will!”
“Then go,” she said. “And when the cops arrive, I’ll give them your name and address and the license of your van. Go ahead, Chazz, run from your fucking mistakes like you always do. Just see how far you get.”
His jaw hung open. “I can’t believe you. After all we’ve been through.”
The truth was, he did believe her. This is exactly what he’d expected her to do when he needed her to stand with him. It wasn’t that she had high morals or steadfast ethics. No, it wasn’t that at all. She had been waiting for something like this. Waiting for a time when he needed her like never before so she could shit all over his parade.
I told her I loved her, too. I actually told the bitch that.
“Fuck you then,” he said.
Even though he knew that she had him, he kept trying to start the van but it wasn’t happening. The distributor must have gotten wet and all he was doing now was wearing down the battery. The only thing to do was wait, but he couldn’t do that. He didn’t have the time to wait.
He heard the side door of the van slide open.
He whipped his head around. “What the fuck are you people doing?”
What they were doing was apparent: they were getting out. Lex got out followed by Soo-Lee, Creep and Danielle right behind her. Fucking herd mentality. They were all just like Ramona; they couldn’t wait to hang him out to dry. Well, that was fine. They would need him, too, some day. That’s what he was going to wait for.
As Creep walked by the open window, Chazz seized him by the arm. “I said, what the fuck are you doing?”
Creep, with uncharacteristic defiance, yanked his arm away. “You ran somebody down. Don’t you think we should check and see if that somebody’s all right?”
But the idea of that made Chazz practically deflate inside.
3
As he followed Ramona over to where the body lay in a crumpled heap, Lex knew that was what he loved about guys like Chazz: the bigger the muscles, the smaller the balls. He was a real force of nature out on the field—Christ, the guy had rushed for three touchdowns against those animals from Cardinal Sprague and that was beyond belief—but when it came down to it, he was a gutless coward. Things had always been too easy for him. He got by on his natural prowess, his athleticism and dark good looks. But none of that was going to buy him beans this time.
Not that Lex was going to tell him that.
Chazz was big. Chazz was powerful. Maybe he had a peanut for a brain, but he could kick serious ass and Lex had no interest in being on the wrong side of that. There would be no physical contest between them, because Chazz would have stomped him flat. Mentally, Lex knew he could have pared him down to shavings in a matter of moments, but physically, hah, forget it.
Chazz was back by the van, grumbling.
Soo-Lee was right behind Lex. Creep and Danielle were following her, but hesitantly like they weren’t moving of their own volition but being towed along by a string.
When they got to the body, Lex said, “Is he… is he alive?”
Ramona shrugged. “I’m not sure.”
“Well, is he breathing?” Creep asked.
But nobody could really say.
It appeared to be a man and he was facedown in the wet street. One arm was stretched out, the other tucked beneath him. One of his legs looked like it was broken at the knee, the foot turned nearly around on the ankle. If he was alive, then he was pretty broken up.
Ramona jogged off and, after a few seconds of arguing with Chazz, returned with a flashlight.
She shined it on the body.
And immediately gasped.
The guy was wearing a dark coat, gray woolen pants, and dirty brown shoes. He was hardly a fashion plate. Lex figured from the way he was dressed he might be a bum or a homeless person or something. His clothes were ragged, his shoes badly scuffed. It looked like he’d grabbed what he could find from a dumpster out back of St. Vinnie’s.
Beyond that, he didn’t look so good.
His body was terribly distorted—hips twisted, back hunched, head bent to the side at an unnatural angle. There was a rut in his lower back where he had been run over. One of his hands was smashed, marked by a clear tire tread.
Lex didn’t know much about medicine, but even he knew that if this guy survived this, he would never walk right again or even stand up.
“Well?” Creep said. “Aren’t you going to check him?”
The tone of his voice suggested that Lex would have to do it because there was no way in hell he was going to. The revulsion was thick under his words. Danielle wasn’t much better. She was mumbling nonsensical things and Lex was almost certain they were a jumbled version of the Lord’s Prayer.
“Is he fucking dead or what?” Chazz said, coming up behind them.
He was looking around nervously to see if any of the good folks of Stokes had come out to investigate yet. Lex figured that he was still planning on running.
“Let’s just get out of here. I ain’t going to prison over this guy. No fucking way.”
“Just calm down, you idiot,” Ramona told him. “I’ll tell them I was driving.”
“You… hey, that might work,” Chazz said, brightening considerably. “It just might.”
“Good idea,” Lex said. “Let your girlfriend do the time for you.”
“You better shut up,” Chazz told him.
Lex shrugged. “I wonder if it’s true what they say.”
Chazz narrowed his eyes. “What?”
“All that stuff about prison rape.”
“You motherfucker—”
Lex knew he’d pushed it too far with that one. Chazz came right at him and he would have had him, too, if Ramona hadn’t gotten between them and told them both to knock it the fuck off. She was a petite thing, but when she got pissed, she was filled with black, seeping venom.
“Lex?” she said. “Check his pulse.”
He kneeled down next to the body. In the beam of the flashlight he couldn’t see any blood or other fluids leaking from it. The pavement was wet but only with rain. The others were all watching him, pressing in, eyes wide, mouths hanging open. Christ, he felt like he was about to be lynched.