Boys Life

“That fat sumbitch says I’m stupid! Show his fat ass who the smart Blaylock is!”
    If a gun, a fast car, and being drunker than a Shriner made a man smart, then Donny was Copernicus, Da Vinci, and Einstein rolled up into one mass of doughy genius.
    We whipped past Saxon’s Lake and the red rock cliff. “Whoa! Whoa, Big Dick!” Donny hollered at the car as he stepped on the brake. We slowed down enough for Donny to turn the Chevy to the right and onto a dirt road without flying us into the trees. Then he put on the gas again, and we zoomed the fifty yards between Route Ten and the small white house with a screened-in front porch that stood at the end of that road. I knew the house. The red Mustang was still parked under the green plastic awning, but the old rust-gnawed Cadillac was gone. The rose garden was still there, all thorns and no flowers.
    “Whoa!” Donny shouted, and his Big Dick came to a throbbing halt at the door of Miss Grace’s house of bad girls.
    Lord help me! I thought. What was this all about?
    He got out of the car, gun in hand. He showed me its ugly snout. “You better be here when I come back! Better be here, or I’ll hunt you down and kill you! Understand?”
    I nodded. Donny Blaylock had already killed one man. Mr. Dollar had said so. I had no doubt he would do it again, so my butt stayed glued to the seat. Donny staggered to the door and started beating on it. Somebody hollered from inside. Donny kicked the door open and charged in, shouting, “Where is she? Where’s my fuckin’ woman?”
    I was in deep dookey, that was for sure. Somehow in my fear-seized brain I thought that Dr. Lezander couldn’t be the one who’d killed that man at Saxon’s Lake; it had to be Donny Blaylock. Mr. Dollar had heard about it from Sim Sears. Donny Blaylock was the killer, not Dr. Lezander!
    Donny emerged from the house less than thirty seconds after he’d crashed in. He had hold of a girl by her blond hair, and he was dragging her as she fought and cursed.
    That girl was Lainie, who’d furled her tongue at me that very first day.
    “Get in that car!” Donny yelled as he dragged her over the ground. She was wearing a pink halter top and purple hot pants, and one of her silver shoes had come off. “Get in there, and do it quick!”
    “Lemme go! Lemme go, you sumbitch!”
    Out from the doorway shot redhaired, stocky Miss Grace, who wore a white sweater and blue jeans big enough to house a barn dance. She had the look of hellfire on her face and a frying pan in her right hand, and she lifted it to strike Donny over the head.
    He shot her. Bam! Just that fast.
    Miss Grace screamed and grabbed her shoulder as the crimson blossomed against the white like the opening of a rose. She fell to her knees, crying, “You shot me, you asshole! You dumb bastard, you!” Two more girls, both brunette and one as plump as the other was skinny, rushed out to kneel beside Miss Grace, while another blond girl stood in the doorway shouting, “We’re callin’ the sheriff! Right this minute, we’re callin’ him!”
    “You stupid shit!” Donny yelled as he reached the car. “We own the sheriff!” He yanked the door open and threw Lainie in on me, and I scrambled over into the backseat as she clawed and kicked to get out. Donny said, “Stop it!” and he hit her across the face with his free hand so hard, one second I was looking at the back of her head and the next at her face, the tough but pretty features pinched with pain. Blood began crawling from the corner of her mouth. “You want some more, you just keep it up!” Donny warned her, and then he went around and slid under the wheel. The Chevy’s engine fired. I started to jump out, but Donny caught my motion in the rearview mirror and the pistol’s barrel swatted at my head. If I hadn’t ducked in time, I might’ve earned my wings for real. “Just sit there! The both of you!” Donny shouted, and he whipped the car around in a neck-wrenching circle and headed for Route Ten again.
    “You’re crazy!” Lainie seethed, one hand pressed to her mouth. “I told you to leave me alone!”
    “Do tell!”
    “I swear I won’t stand for this! Miss Grace’ll-”
    “What’ll she do? I shoulda shot her brains out!”
    Lainie made a move for the door handle. But just then we reached Route Ten and Donny laid on the gas. The Chevy’s tires screeched as we sped toward Zephyr once more. Lainie’s fingers were gripping the handle, but we were already