‘… made a withdrawal at the ATM, was abducted and shot to death in her own car. A gang known as the Pikes has claimed responsibility. This is the same gang that claimed responsibility for the vandalism of Jefferson Davis’s statue in Hollywood Cemetery…’
Brazil was beside himself. He paced furiously, his fists clenched. He was confused and disbelieving as he envisioned Ruby Sink and remembered when she had called him last.
‘No!’ he exclaimed. ‘No/’
Brazil pounded the wall and kicked the trash can. It clanged across the floor, paper, fried chicken boxes and fast food wrappers spilling.
‘How could someone do that to a helpless old woman!’
His last conversation with her sounded in his mind. He could hear her voice. He had used her to make West jealous. Brazil clenched his fists so hard his nails dug into his palms. He grabbed Weed by the shoulders.
‘You know them, I know you do!’ he said in fury. ‘They just murdered someone, Weed! Someone I knew! Someone who never did anything to anybody! A human being with a name and a family and now people who loved her have to deal with what happened just like you do with Twister!’
Weed stared at him in shock.
‘You’re going to protect monsters like that?’
Brazil let go of Weed and walked across the room. Brazil tried to control himself. He was trembling, his heart pounding so hard he could feel it in his neck.
‘I tried to tell you on the computer,’ Weed said sadly.
Tell me? Tell me what?’
The fish map.’
Brazil’s mind had an electrical outage.
‘On AOL. A map with pikes on it,’ Weed explained.
‘Pikes as in fish?’ Brazil came back.
‘Uh huh. I did a papier-mache pike in Mrs. Grannis’s class. Trying to tell somebody where they are.’
‘Wait a minute.’ Brazil pulled up a chair and sat down. The fish on the map. That’s where the Pikes have their clubhouse?’
Weed nodded. ‘In the back of Southside Motel. Behind a big piece of wood.’
‘You’ve been there?’
‘I didn’t wanna be. I swear. But Smoke made me go and he hit me, too.’ Weed wouldn’t look up.
‘Who is Smoke?’ Brazil said.
‘He broke in the garage and took all them guns. He made me go along and I held pillowcases for him. So I guess I get locked up for that and everything and I don’t care ’cause if I go out, Officer Brazil, Smoke gonna kill me. I know it. He’s looking for me now. That’s why I told you to lock me up.’
‘Do you know Smoke’s real name?’
‘He’s just Smoke. Never heard no other name.’
‘He go to school with you?’
‘Uh huh.’
‘And you don’t know his real name?’
‘He’s a senior and I don’t know no seniors except the ones in art class, and Smoke never been in one of my art classes. Not the band, either.’
‘He get in a lot of trouble in school?’ Brazil asked.
‘I never even noticed him until he come looking for me and found me after school in the band room. He asked if I wanted a ride to school in the morning and something told me not to tell him no. And next thing he’s talking about guns and the Pikes and how nobody in the school deserved to be a Pike except the ones he picked. He said he had special things to do.’
‘Did he tell you what these special things were?’
‘All he kept saying was everybody was going to know him. He’d be more famous than Twister ever was, ’cause there’s still pictures of Twister and trophies in the glass cases so I guess that’s how Smoke heard about him.’
‘Think hard, Weed.’ Brazil put his hands on Weed’s shoulders. ‘Was Smoke planning something that might make him famous? Maybe something bad?’
‘I think he wants to shoot people,’ Weed said.
CHAPTER thirty-two
Brazil tried to figure out what to do. If Smoke was planning to show up at school with semiautomatics and take out as many people as he could, Brazil had to do something fast. He grabbed the phone and called West, waking her up.