“Did you really have to have these on the counter right now?” I ask.
“Gold!” Ralph cackles in the other room. “You can keep your crystal, Mr. Goatfist, because I’ve got buckets and buckets of gold.”
Miss Rosa, the NVCG group leader, must be in her fifties now. When I was little, I remember thinking she looked exactly like a troll.
“What’s the issue, Pickle?” Dom says, trying to barge in on my thoughts.
“Nothing.” I turn the pamphlet over in my hands, recalling all the different violent personalities I met at NVCG back when I was just a kid. It didn’t seem fair that I had to go there so young. But then again Dom has always gone to extremes to ensure that I’m mentally healthy. “Just looking.”
Anyway I wasn’t really studying their behavior at the time, so I can’t really explain what to look for in violent personalities—that’s what Davey was supposed to be for. But if I really want to figure out what to look for in my investigation—what sorts of personality traits could make someone like Jim Steele more suspicious, for instance—well, I could easily go back.
Dom scrunches up his face. “Is that the NVCG one you got there?” He smiles. “Remember when you graduated from NVCG? You were the youngest one there. Ralph and the Johnstons and I were so proud—Hey Ralph! Remember—”
“Dom!” I slap the pamphlet on the counter. “Are you kidding me right now?” I can feel Davey looking at me. Dom is the worst when it comes to bringing up private stuff in public. Doesn’t he know that it’s only funny to joke about NVCG when we’re alone? When he turns his back on us I shove the pamphlet into my pocket.
“You feel free to take any one of those, Davey, okay? Any which one,” Dom says to the smoking Jumble. “Things can’t be easy on you right now. Anytime you need an ear—”
“I’m doing okay,” Davey says. “But thank you, Mr. Bushman.”
“He’s fine,” I snap. I’d like to tell Dom to shut up and go watch TV in his bedroom—I’ll handle the hot dogs—but I don’t want to look like any more of a brat in front of Davey.
“Okeydoke.” Dom pours the hot-dog mix over some plates and nods at me. “And how was school today, Lovebun, any better?”
I think of today during last period, when I was mentally preparing to go to Jim Steele’s and still thought I was so close to solving everything. Dom’s staring at me, waiting for an answer, and I’m so eager to break the tension that I bust out in a fit of nervous laughter. “Let’s just say no one was wearing armbands for Mrs. Klitch, am I right?” Even before no one else laughs, I feel a little sick for having said it.
“That poor woman,” Dom says, squirting more mayonnaise on the hot dogs. “That poor, troubled soul.”
After dinner, I drag Davey up to my room and slam the door. “I don’t know why Dom was being that way.”
“No worries.” Davey shrugs. “Seriously, it was nice not eating alone.” He looks around at my bedroom walls—obviously awestruck by all the pictures of Diane Sawyer I’ve printed out. She’s pretty awesome—let’s face it. But unfortunately we don’t have time right now for admiring iconoclasts.
“Hey.” I snap my fingers to get his attention. “So tomorrow we’re going to Jim Steele’s—but after that, you know what we have to do, right?” I pull the NVCG pamphlet out of my pocket. “This is the next step in our investigation, Davey. This whole time I’ve been wondering how we might get inside the murderer’s head—and no offense but you haven’t been entirely helpful in that regard, which isn’t your fault, it’s just certain psychological roadblocks have gotten in the way.” I nod. “And besides, you and I are after the kind that hide, and that’s new to both of us.” I flick the pamphlet. “So what do you think?”
Davey just stands there, scratching underneath his bandage. “You’re smiling funny.”
“Davey! Come on!” I start pacing back and forth in front of my bed. “We have to come up with a strategy—you know Kim Jong Il, that North Korean dictator? Apparently he always wears platform shoes because he’s like supershort, and he won’t be around women who’re any taller than him because he’s got this humongous inferiority thing, like Napoleon, which meant Diane Sawyer couldn’t interview him, even though she really wanted to, because did you know she’s really tall? Like a beautiful giant. But she found a way around it—I mean, she didn’t just sit around eating hot dogs—she had casts put on her legs and got rolled in on a wheelchair! That way she’d be shorter than him, get it?”
“Why are we talking about Diane Sawyer?” Davey asks impatiently.
“Exactly, we’re past her—she reports on stuff, she doesn’t solve it. What about Agent Scully in that one episode where they need to uncover—”
“Kippy, out with it.”
I flap the pamphlet. “This is the key to our case—if we find the secretly violent, figure out their tendencies, pretend to be like them, then we find out traits of possible killers. Tomorrow Jim Steele is gone for the day so we’ll sneak in there—”
“You mean break in.”
“Right, and then the next day, it’s the weekend, and it’s straight to NVCG!”
Davey looks surprised. “You’re talking about going undercover?”
“Yes! You and me are the newest addition to the underground club of self-loathing bloodthirsties.”
He raises his eyebrows, teasing. “But won’t they know you? At this violent club place? Your dad said you went there.”
I shrug. “The instructor’ll just think I’ve relapsed.”
“You really do know a lot of psychobabble, don’t you?” Davey smiles with his eyes. “What were you there for anyway?”
Oof, I think, remembering my Banzai phase. Not even Ruth knew about it, actually. I mean, she’d heard about the thing that got me sent there because everyone at school was talking about it, but I never told her that I went to the church basement twice a week for a year to attend a support group for violent people struggling to overcome their urges. It just wasn’t relevant.
I kind of bite my lip and roll my head around, hoping Davey will change the subject, but he doesn’t.
“I used to be a biter,” I murmur. “Um”—I start counting on my fingers—“and I jumped on people, and I hugged too hard, and—” I put my hands behind my back. “It was lots of things.”
He laughs through his nose, still staring at me with his eyes all soft. “That’s not so bad.” He reaches out and squeezes my shoulder, and before he gets a chance to take his hand away I touch his fingers.
“You better have that bedroom door open,” Dom shouts from downstairs.
Davey looks embarrassed. He clears his throat. “I should probably go.”
“Don’t walk home,” I blurt. I don’t want him to leave. And I don’t want him to hustle down that stretch of highway like Ruth did. What if something happened? I could offer him my reflective safety vest but it didn’t do any good last time someone wore one. What is he trying to do, torture me?
“Geeze Louise, calm down, Bushman. When did I ever say I was going to hoof it home?” He reaches out like he’s going to squeeze my shoulder again, but then looks at the door and just grazes my arm. “Just give me a ride, okay?”
So I do. The ride is quiet but not in that buzzy, awkward way. I even manage to give him a parting hug without injuring either of us.
But probably the best part about saying good-bye to Davey is when he tells me, “See you tomorrow.” I think the thing about being a team is that you have to be clear what your schedule is.