Well, maybe not that.
He wandered toward the loading dock, and there, once again: jackpot. There were dozens of stamped-out cigarette butts at the foot of the concrete island, plus a few more of those tiny brown bottles surrounding their king: a dark green NyQuil bottle. The surface of the dock, where the big semis backed up to unload, was eye-high to Pete, but the cement was crumbling and there were plenty of footholds for an agile kid in Chuck Taylor High-Tops. Pete raised his arms over his head, snagged fingerholds in the dock’s pitted surface. and the rest, as they say, is history.
On the dock, in faded red, someone had sprayed EDWARD LITTLE ROCKS, RED EDDIES RULE. Not true, Pete thought. Rip-Ass Raiders rule. Then he looked around from his current high perch, grinned, and said, “Actually, I rule.” And standing up here above the empty back lot of the rest area, he felt that he did. For the time being, anyway.
He climbed back down — just to make sure it was no problem — and then remembered the stuff in his saddlebag. Supplies, in case he decided to spend the afternoon here, exploring and shit. He debated what to bring, then decided to unstrap the saddlebag and take everything. Even the magnifying glass might come in handy. A vague fantasy began to form in his brain: boy detective discovers a murder victim in a deserted rest area, and solves the crime before the police even know a crime has been committed. He could see himself explaining to the drop-jawed Raiders that it had actually been pretty easy. Elementary, my dear fucksticks.
Bullshit, of course, but it would be fun to pretend.
He lifted his bag onto the loading dock (being especially careful on account of the half-full vodka bottle), then climbed back up. The corrugated metal door leading inside was at least twelve feet high and secured at the bottom with not one but two humongous padlocks, but there was a human-sized door set into it. Pete tried the knob. It wouldn’t turn, nor would the human-sized door open when he pushed and pulled, but there was some give. Quite a lot, actually. He looked down and saw that a wooden wedge had been pushed under the bottom of the door; a totally dope precaution if he’d ever seen one. On the other hand, what more could you expect from kids who were stoned on coke and cough syrup?
Pete pulled the wedge, and this time when he tried the inset door, it creaked open.
The big front windows of what had been the Burger King were covered with chickenwire instead of boards, so Pete had no trouble seeing what there was to see. All the eating tables and booths were gone from the restaurant part, and the kitchen part was just a dim hole with some wires sticking out of the walls and some of the ceiling tiles hanging down, but the place was not exactly unfurnished.
In the center, surrounded by folding chairs, two old card tables had been pushed together. On this doublewide surface were half a dozen filthy tin ashtrays, several decks of greasy Bicycle cards, and a caddy of poker chips. The walls were decorated with twenty or thirty magazine gatefolds. Pete inspected these with great interest. He knew about pussies, had glimpsed more than a few on HBO and CinemaSpank (before his folks got wise and blocked the premium cable channels), but these were shaved pussies. Pete wasn’t sure what the big deal was — to him they looked sort of oogy — but he supposed he might get with the program when he was older. Besides, the bare titties made up for it. Bare titties were fuckin awesome.
In the corner three filthy mattresses had been pushed together like the card tables, but Pete was old enough to know it wasn’t poker that was played here.
“Let me see your pussy!” he commanded one of the Hustler girls on the wall, and giggled. Then he said, “Let me see your shaved pussy!” and giggled harder. He sort of wished Craig Gagnon was here, even though Craig was a dweeb. They could have laughed about the shaved pussies together.