“Aww,” Rhys said. “Our little boy is growing up.”

CHAPTER 29

Zee

   After Gentry got home from work on Tuesday morning, he took me to pick up my car from the police impound. From there, I drove straight to Mom’s house, which was worse than I remembered. The hutches were still standing in the yard with their doors hanging open. Smaller pieces of furniture were lined up beside the porch, and the stack of dead microwaves had toppled over and blocked the front steps. Everywhere else—every square inch of dead grass and weeds—was covered in cardboard boxes and trash. Like a tornado had hit the house.

Sitting in my car, staring at the mess, I didn’t even know where to start. Movers? Gasoline and matches?

When I walked into the front room, the shock of seeing it almost empty was nearly as fresh as it had been on Friday. There were maybe a dozen cardboard boxes that she’d managed to drag in herself. Or maybe a neighbor had.

“I told you not to come back here,” she said, after she lit a fresh cigarette off her butt.

“Are you still having a temper tantrum?”

That fast, I failed at the resolution I’d made not to snap at her.

“Go away. Just leave me alone to die. It’s what you want to do.”

“When’s the last time you ate?” I said.

“What do you care?”

She picked up the remote control and turned the sound back on her TV show. The cordless phone charger was there on the side table, but the cradle was empty, which explained why she hadn’t answered all weekend. I went to see if there was any food in the house. Someone had brought the mini fridge and the one working microwave and set them up in front of the sink. Mom yelled something I couldn’t hear, so I went back out to her.

“—cares more than you do,” she was saying.

“Who does?”

“Kevin. He helped me bring some of my things in.” Mom waved her hand at the boxes scattered around. Kevin was the same neighbor who got her cigarettes and brought her garage sale treasures, no matter how many times I asked him not to.

“Gentry and I tried to bring things in, but you wouldn’t—”

“Oh, I know. I’m not allowed to have an opinion about anything. I’m just supposed to sit here and smile like a doll, and be grateful for anything you do,” Mom said. To prove she wasn’t a grateful little doll, she picked up the pack of cigarettes and butt-lit another one. She was using a Peter Rabbit Melmac cereal bowl as her ashtray.

“Where’s your phone, Mom? I tried to call you a bunch of times.”

“I wouldn’t know. Maybe Mr. Mansur can tell you what he did with my phone.”

She took a big drag off her cigarette and did a French inhale. Then she turned the volume up on the TV. Some Hollywood doctor was talking to a thin blond woman about superfoods. Some berry that would just melt the pounds away.

Back outside, I walked up and down, looking in boxes. After almost half an hour, I saw the cordless phone’s antenna poking up out of a box of paperbacks. I grabbed the phone and an armful of books, and carried them back inside.

“What did you bring those in for?” Mom said, when I set the romance novels on the side table next to the phone. Like they hadn’t come out of her house.

“So you can have something to read.”

“Those old things? I’ve already read those.”

“Okay. Well, here’s your phone. I thought I might call some movers today and maybe a cleaning—”

“Mind your own business! If I want movers or cleaners, I’ll call them. I certainly don’t need your help.” She stubbed out her cigarette in the middle of Peter Rabbit’s face and picked up one of the books. “Don’t you worry about me.”

She read while I stood there trying to decide what to do. The phone nook was still unburied, and the poster board with Uncle Alva’s phone number and address. I tried to think practical thoughts, and what I kept coming back around to was that Uncle Alva knew Craig Van Eck, because he’d been in Van Eck’s gang, the White Circle. And Van Eck knew Barnwell and Ligett, because they were also in his gang. To me, it looked like Uncle Alva was already three steps closer to LaReigne than the marshals were.

He’d told me not to call him, but if I showed up at his house, he would have to talk to me. Plus, going to see him seemed less crazy than staying and fighting with my mother. In the ten years since I moved out, nothing had changed. Wasn’t that the definition of crazy? Doing the same thing over and over, thinking you’ll get a different result. I might as well have stuck my head in Mom’s oven as think anything was going to change.

I went outside and locked the front door behind me. Then I got in my car and drove. I went past Marcus’ school, but it wasn’t recess time. I drove out to the Gills’ house, and circled around their fancy lake. I drove by the restaurant where Kristi was probably getting ready to work my lunch shift.

Before I could think about it too much, I drove past Toby’s house to see if his car was there. Then to the Juarez Bakery, where I bought those pink conchas he liked. I knew he would still be in bed, and when I knocked, it took him almost five minutes to open the door. Just a crack, to peek out and see who it was.

“What the fuck are you doing here, Red?” he said.

“I brought you breakfast.” I held up the Juarez bag.

Maybe if he’d seemed mad at me, I would have done the smart thing and left, but he only looked surprised. Deep down, I wanted him to send me away, because if I was making a list of people I was scared of, Toby was at the top. Once, this woman had come to Asher’s, begging for a fix. No money. Making a scene. Asher had told Toby to get rid of her. Toby had punched her so hard her teeth went rattling across the floor like loose gravel. Then he’d thrown her down the stairs.

I should have left, but when Toby opened the door a little further, I didn’t wait for an invitation. I went into the living room and sat down on the couch. It was the only place to sit. He stood there barefoot, wearing nothing but a pair of old gray sweatpants. I set the pastry bag on the table and, after a minute, he sat down next to me and opened it.

“Seriously, though, what do you want?” he said while he was eating the first pan dulce.

“Can you get me a gun?”

He laughed, spraying crumbs on his coffee table. For a minute, he looked at me without saying anything. He had a couple of nasty bruises on his knuckles.

I shouldn’t have come to Toby.

“You for real?” he said.

“Yeah. Can you get me a gun?”

He stuffed another big bite of concha in his mouth and nodded. I stayed on the couch while he went into the bedroom, and a few minutes later he came back with something wrapped in a dirty rag. It was nothing fancy. A 9 mm.