his naked arms. A man with superpowers would see everything, down to the last capillary, illuminated, but this is just Dan Carteret, hunched in the dirt under a tree in the Publix parking lot in Fort Jude Florida, wondering.
He needs to look into his father’s face and see.
How he will age. Whether he can be happy.
What he will become.
Too much bad coffee, no food and no sleep breed questions. They swarm round his head like gnats.
Batting them away, he lurches to his feet like Swamp Thing and goes into the Publix to refuel. He grabs potato chips, hot dog buns to sop up stomach acids – when did he eat? Nuts and Slim Jims for protein, Red Bull for that caffeine jolt and the essential sugar rush. He carts his stuff outside and sits down in the shade to eat.
He starts a list.
Scope the Archambault house, now that you’re here. Take digis and make notes so you can write a feature to justify your presence here. Find neighbors who lived here back in the day, before the neighborhood went to crap. Line up interviews for tomorrow, when you’re not so fried. Go back to the hotel for a WiFi connection and file a pitch. Then you can crash. Tomorrow, look for Lucy’s life before him, find it in the morgue at the Fort Jude
Star
.
Good, he thinks. A sensible plan.
But Lucy’s snapshots seethe in his pocket like unanswered letters or overdue bills: his smiling mother, clasping her notebook in front of Chaplin’s house. She was there that day for a reason. The more he thinks about it, more he knows he isn’t finished there. When the camera caught her with that lovely smile, was she coming out or going in? Chaplin damn well knows. What else does Chaplin know?
What she was really like, Dan thinks bitterly. Before.
Standing, he heads for Archambault’s, but his mind is stuck somewhere between here and there.
In the lexicon of next things, there’s one more thing he has to do today. If he can prove that Chaplin knows her, he’ll nail the bastard to the wall. Fuck yes he knew her. In a town this small, how could he not? All he needs is a clipping, yearbook, prom photo to link the two of them, or letters . . . just something he kept.
He has to go back to Pine Vista. Tonight. When you think your source is hiding something you lean on him, hard, but Dan is too messed up to tell whether Chaplin is hiding something or just plain hiding out in that Spanish stucco heap. This time he’ll go armed.
Bring takeout. This may take a while. Jumbo coffee. Maybe a six-pack. Eat while you wait. Black jeans, he decides, black T-shirt so nobody sees you out there in the night; sneakers, so they won’t hear you creeping up
.
He’ll hole up in the car for as long as it takes, waiting for him to go to bed. No, better. To go out.
Then he’ll break in.
9
Steffy McCall
The next person to meet Dan Carteret is Steffy McCall. The last thing Steffy wants to do is meet anyone. Not today, not with her mom and dad running around crazy, all ragged and disrupted. Something happened last week, and they have gone to a place that there’s no getting back from.
Steffy saw her very own mother from upstairs in this deserted house. Her mom came wandering out of the Publix lot and across the street. She was way too close to where Steffy and them hide out and smoke weed, like, right down there in the yard. She was
this close
! She plopped down under the banyan tree underneath the attic window, which scared the shit out of Steffy. Your mother, outside your private place!
Mom! She’d wreck everything if she found out.
Steffy and Carter Bellinger that she is secretly in love with, plus Billy and lascivious Jen, have been hanging out here ever since the day Carter broke in. For the first time, Steffy had her own safe place and it was wonderful. Then, last week – last week! – her clueless, fat-assed mom wandered across the street from the Publix and sat down under the big old banyan; you could see the top of her head from here.
They were all loaded by
He needs to look into his father’s face and see.
How he will age. Whether he can be happy.
What he will become.
Too much bad coffee, no food and no sleep breed questions. They swarm round his head like gnats.
Batting them away, he lurches to his feet like Swamp Thing and goes into the Publix to refuel. He grabs potato chips, hot dog buns to sop up stomach acids – when did he eat? Nuts and Slim Jims for protein, Red Bull for that caffeine jolt and the essential sugar rush. He carts his stuff outside and sits down in the shade to eat.
He starts a list.
Scope the Archambault house, now that you’re here. Take digis and make notes so you can write a feature to justify your presence here. Find neighbors who lived here back in the day, before the neighborhood went to crap. Line up interviews for tomorrow, when you’re not so fried. Go back to the hotel for a WiFi connection and file a pitch. Then you can crash. Tomorrow, look for Lucy’s life before him, find it in the morgue at the Fort Jude
Star
.
Good, he thinks. A sensible plan.
But Lucy’s snapshots seethe in his pocket like unanswered letters or overdue bills: his smiling mother, clasping her notebook in front of Chaplin’s house. She was there that day for a reason. The more he thinks about it, more he knows he isn’t finished there. When the camera caught her with that lovely smile, was she coming out or going in? Chaplin damn well knows. What else does Chaplin know?
What she was really like, Dan thinks bitterly. Before.
Standing, he heads for Archambault’s, but his mind is stuck somewhere between here and there.
In the lexicon of next things, there’s one more thing he has to do today. If he can prove that Chaplin knows her, he’ll nail the bastard to the wall. Fuck yes he knew her. In a town this small, how could he not? All he needs is a clipping, yearbook, prom photo to link the two of them, or letters . . . just something he kept.
He has to go back to Pine Vista. Tonight. When you think your source is hiding something you lean on him, hard, but Dan is too messed up to tell whether Chaplin is hiding something or just plain hiding out in that Spanish stucco heap. This time he’ll go armed.
Bring takeout. This may take a while. Jumbo coffee. Maybe a six-pack. Eat while you wait. Black jeans, he decides, black T-shirt so nobody sees you out there in the night; sneakers, so they won’t hear you creeping up
.
He’ll hole up in the car for as long as it takes, waiting for him to go to bed. No, better. To go out.
Then he’ll break in.
9
Steffy McCall
The next person to meet Dan Carteret is Steffy McCall. The last thing Steffy wants to do is meet anyone. Not today, not with her mom and dad running around crazy, all ragged and disrupted. Something happened last week, and they have gone to a place that there’s no getting back from.
Steffy saw her very own mother from upstairs in this deserted house. Her mom came wandering out of the Publix lot and across the street. She was way too close to where Steffy and them hide out and smoke weed, like, right down there in the yard. She was
this close
! She plopped down under the banyan tree underneath the attic window, which scared the shit out of Steffy. Your mother, outside your private place!
Mom! She’d wreck everything if she found out.
Steffy and Carter Bellinger that she is secretly in love with, plus Billy and lascivious Jen, have been hanging out here ever since the day Carter broke in. For the first time, Steffy had her own safe place and it was wonderful. Then, last week – last week! – her clueless, fat-assed mom wandered across the street from the Publix and sat down under the big old banyan; you could see the top of her head from here.
They were all loaded by
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