Will swallowed the acorn in his throat. “No, we wouldn’t,” he said, his eyes on the wolves, who seemed to be inching closer though their feet weren’t moving.
“Thing is, he was supposed to contact me, and we’re a bit concerned about him, this particular man,” said the Butler. “We’re worried he might’ve gone somewhat misguided in the head.”
“He said we don’t know who you’re talking about,” said Jonah with that snarl that often arose without warning whenever he spoke to adults.
“I know you, don’t I?” the Butler said to Jonah, creepily delighted, as though they were old friends reconnecting. “Ah yes, you’re one of the Turtle Boys. The youngest, I assume. Good to see MacVicar hasn’t quite yet locked all of you up. And how about you, son?” the Butler said, turning to Will. “You don’t look quite as hardened as your friend. Do I know your family?”
“The girls are interested in him,” Claymore said, as the wolves began sniffing Will’s shoes. “What’s the matter, kid?” Claymore said gruffly. “You don’t like puppies?” Claymore was like a cannonball that had sprouted limbs, with knuckly ears stuck perpendicularly in his head like fleshy rivets. Though he’d run out of deodorant, all Will could do was pray that the smell of Inside Will on the Helmet they’d found at Marcus’s shack was vastly different from the Outside Will he’d become since he’d removed it. “Maybe you’d like a little Neverclear to settle your nerves,” Claymore said. “Or maybe your friend would?” he said to Jonah.
“We don’t drink,” Will managed to say.
“That right?” Claymore chuckled, still staring at Jonah, sharing some joke with the one pushing the wheelbarrow. “Well, he’s got a whole lifetime to change his mind.”
“Let’s go,” Jonah said, pulling Will by the arm.
The wolves growled, and there came an increasing wail from beneath the tarp. Claymore reared and whapped the highest point of the plastic with the flat of his shovel, as one would firmly tamp down the dirt of a hole they’d just filled. When the tarp kept stirring, Claymore struck again, harder this time, sounding like an aluminum bat hitting a base hit with a lemon.
“Where was I?” said the Butler, patting the breast pockets of his shirt as though he’d misplaced his glasses.
Sand filled Will’s throat and his head felt like it had been microwaved. Including scraps on the schoolyard and their most hideous skateboard spills, Claymore’s shovel strike was the most violence he’d ever seen a person endure.
“Yes, well this man,” the Butler continued, “this friend of ours, has been hiring boys to do his work for him. Dangerous, dirty work. Boys close to your age, in fact. And well, they aren’t always safe around him, I’m afraid. So I’d suggest, for your own safety of course, that you two steer clear of this man.” Then he turned to Jonah. “And as for you, since your brothers are no longer in my employ, don’t think anything could keep my wolves from paying a midnight visit to that squalid little duplex of yours in County Park. Just to ensure you and your brothers are keeping well. Understand?” he said.
The boys managed to shake their heads affirmatively, Jonah’s breathing gone pure Black Lagoon at the mention of his house.
“Good,” the Butler said. “But if you do have the misfortune of encountering this poor, beleaguered fellow again, I’d like you to pass along some information for me.”
The boys nodded robotically.
“You tell him that things will be much safer for him when he brings me my proof.”
“Got it?” said Claymore, pitching his shovel over his shoulder, the wheelbarrow dead silent beside him.
21
“Here,” said Jonah at Will’s front door, holding up a sealed plastic baggie of fingerprints pressed neatly onto squares of cardstock, “I lifted these from your water bottle that first night we met Titus.”
Will removed the cards and examined the prints. Good definition on the whorls and crisp detail for each digit. “Looks like you managed some really good pulls.”
“I wanted you to have them because I’m finished,” said Jonah.
“But we’re getting so close!” said Will. “We’ll go down to the elevator tomorrow, tell Titus what the Butler said and see if he talks. Don’t you want to know what this proof is the Butler is looking for?”
“Will, last night after we met the Butler I got scared and told my brothers what happened and they freaked. They’re talking about leaving Thunder Bay, moving us to some little lake up north where our auntie lives. I had to promise them I wouldn’t go back down there to keep them from packing the van.”
“That’s easy. You’ll sneak out when they go to work. They can’t—”
“Will!” Jonah yelled, his face hard with disbelief. “He knows who I am! And from the way those wolves were sniffing at you, they’ve probably already figured out who you are too. Something bad is going to happen. I know it. I’ve had dreams about it. I just can’t risk it anymore.”
“Something bad is always going to happen,” said Will, stepping Outside and shutting the door so his mother wouldn’t hear. “No matter where you are or what you’re doing. You’re starting to sound like my mom.”
Jonah shook his head somberly. “You know what Indians do best in movies?” he said. “We die. It’s like our job. We look pretty, then scream and get shot from a brown-spotted horse with no saddle. I watched all those movies growing up and I thought dying in a hail of rifle bullets seemed … I don’t know, like … natural. Something I’d do one day, same as having a kid or leaving Thunder Bay.
“But you know why I really stopped being friends with Marcus?” Jonah continued. “It wasn’t because he broke his skateboard. He could’ve bought ten more with the money he was making from the Butler. It was because I was sick of worrying about him. Sick of lying awake all night while he slept somewhere outside, sick of watching him set bombs or taunt the biggest hockey players or skate out in front of cars just to see if they’d stop. I already worry about my brothers enough.
“That’s why I started talking to you,” Jonah continued, “because you were different. Cautious. Safe. Even when you did dangerous things, I never worried about you. Until lately.”
“But he’s still our friend,” Will said. “He should be here. Like we are.”
Jonah shook his head. “There’s no such thing in the world as ‘should,’ Will. Haven’t you figured that out yet? There is only whatever happens.”
“But maybe you’re wrong. Maybe we can still help him leave. We owe that to him.”
“You know I’ve always meant to ask you this,” Jonah said, his voice rising. “You think Marcus was your friend, but he shot you in the head with a rock, then stole your garden hose the first time you met him.”
“He didn’t mean to hurt me. He was … afraid. Just like you are now. It’s not good for us to be afraid. Trust me. Marcus taught me that. And finding him is the only way I can prove that everything Outside is actually safe.”
“Prove to who? Your mom?”
“To everyone.”
“Well, brace yourself for it, Wilclass="underline" it’s not.”
They stood in silence for a moment.
“You actually want me to say it?” Jonah continued, his voice quiet now. “Okay. You’re right. I’m scared. For you. For me. It’s hard enough for an Indian to make it to eighteen in this place and still have a pulse. Even if you’re doing everything right. But I refuse to vanish like Marcus. Or end up like that guy in the wheelbarrow. Call me a megapussy all you want. But skateboarding is as close to danger as I need to get.”