Here Lies a Wicked Man – Snippet 19
“Bradley! Slow down.” The top of his son’s shaggy hair vanished through the trees. Booker rowed hard. No place to tie off at the bank. Finally bumping up to his pier, he tossed the rope over a post and levered himself from the boat. He could hear Bradley’s motorcycle ripping away in the distance.
The Buick’s tires spit gravel as Booker backed out of the driveway. He’d handled the damn drug business all wrong. Should’ve called an expert, a shrink. Should’ve heard the boy out before opening his own mouth.
When Bradley was a tyke, they could discuss anything from, “Where do babies come from?” to “How does light get into a light bulb?” Now the boy was at that awkward stage, nearly a man yet still a child, and as incomprehensible as the Moai statues on Easter Island.
Booker slowed at the stop sign then spun gravel again as he turned north on the state highway. Botched it. Botched it to hell. Bradley was probably on his way right now to do exactly what Booker accused him of doing.
Then again, he might gun that cycle all the way to Dallas. The boy’s granddad was his hero these days. His death-cycle buddy. As much as Booker despised the Harley, he’d rather lose his son forever to Brad Senior’s brand of danger than have him on crack. The bike was risky, but crack was a dead end.
And face it, the kid could’ve chosen a worse hero. Brad Senior might be rough as a cob and wild as a cougar, but he was also street smart. He’d know how to talk to his grandson about the disasters of drug abuse. The old man had danced with the monkey himself all those years ago.
Best thing Booker could do now was call his father and tell him the problem. Give the old man some time to mull it over before Bradley landed on his doorstep.
Yet… what if the boy didn’t head for Dallas?
Booker turned off the air conditioner and lowered a window to hear the cycle-buzz over his own engine noise. Sounded like the bike was headed north. Then again…
Clunk! The Buick shuddered and rattled.
“No, damn you! Not now!”
The engine clunked again and died. Smelling burnt oil, Booker glanced at the gauges. The oil light was on, heat gauge in the red zone. When had that happened?
The car coasted, slowing rapidly. Not a house or a business along this road for miles. The lodge would be nearer, straight back the way he’d come, a two-mile walk. The restaurant would be open for breakfast, and maybe Littlehawk would be there. Maybe someone was there to lend him a car or at least a phone.
He rummaged in the console for his cell phone and hit the power button. The display lit up with red letters: no service.
No surprise. He was still in the ten-mile vortex—no service, no grocery stores, no gasoline, no commerce. Wiping sweat off his forehead, Booker left the Buick and walked. The buzz of Bradley’s Harley grew fainter with every step.
CHAPTER 20
Bradley squinted into the wind and pushed the Harley’s engine as hard as it would go. Wind plastered his wet clothes to his skin, chilling him even though the morning sun had already turned hot. His hair still felt wet inside his helmet, feet squishing inside the soaked running shoes as he toed the gear up and down. He’d forgotten his sunglasses and was already catching a glare, but at the moment he just didn’t give a frack.
The whole scene with Dad had been a maximum embarrassment. Must’ve been brain deficient, thinking they could patch things up. After they got past the awkwardness of their first night, it’d felt like old times, him and Dad hanging together, shoving out in a boat before sunup.
For an instant he pictured his father’s surprised expression, surprised and sorry, the moment before Bradley dove from the boat. Well, he should be sorry. Why did parents turn stone-freakin-deaf anytime a kid tried to tell them anything? Should’ve known his mom and dad would back each other up. All he wanted now was time to think, something he hadn’t been hugely successful at lately.
The bass fishing, though, that part had been optimum, fish jumping right out of the water, grabbing his squiggly green frog.
He spied a road sign ahead and realized he’d have to turn at the next junction, where State Highway 3 would dead-end into US 79. His eyes ached from squinting and he hadn’t really thought about where he’d go now. Pretty much burned his welcome at two homes.
Slowing for the stop sign, he envisioned his grandfather’s silky gray hair, weathered face, leathery hands, and imagined asking him the questions he’d wanted to ask Dad. The picture ran through his mind like an old black-and-white TV sitcom, Gramps laughing, slapping his knee, saying girls would swarm like bees around a man on a Harley— just don’t worry so much— then wrapping Bradley with a wiry arm and saying, “Come on, boy, let’s put a tune on that engine.”
Gramps probably wasn’t the best person to ask about girls and their habits.
Stopping at the turn-off, Bradley studied two arrows, one pointing to I-45, which would take him to Dallas, 140 miles north. The other direction led to Austin, 117 miles west. He knew a few people in Austin, but nobody he could crash with, nobody he even wanted to be near right now. His mother had given him a credit card for emergencies, which he’d used only once, when he found himself short after offering to buy Rachel’s lunch, sweated bullets until the card came back approved. Maybe he could rent a cheap motel room, declare himself an orphan for a day while he sorted out his options.
He goosed the beast and turned toward Austin. Twenty miles later he saw a turn-off for Bryan-College Station, home of Texas A&M, Maroon U. He’d considered enrolling at A&M after high school, and right now a small college town sounded perfect.
The sun’s heat bounced up from the asphalt to melt the flesh off his bones. His clothes were nearly dry, his feet poached. He took the turn.
Just inside Bryan city limits, he saw a motel with a vacancy sign out front and hoped his mom hadn’t canceled the credit card. At the door to the motel office, he stalled. In less than three hours he could be in Dallas. Or he could turn around and, in about the same time, be at home in Houston facing his mother’s smug I-knew-you’d-be-back smile.
No, thanks. He’d rather return to Dad’s place than go home. At least his father had looked sorry for judging him.
Bradley shrugged away the options and pushed through the door to the motel office. A buzzer sounded as he entered. A skinny-faced woman in a pink flowered dress smiled at him from behind the counter. Her crooked teeth were enough to send him scooting away again, but her eyes were lively and inquisitive.
“Looks like you could use a drink, son.” She lifted a pitcher of ice water from a tray on the counter and poured a glass full. “Radio says it’s likely to hit a hundred and twelve today. All our rooms have individual air conditioners.”
“Yes, ma’am. I saw the sign.” Bradley laid the credit card on the counter. Suddenly parched, he picked up the glass and drank. “Thanks for the water.”
She held the card at arm’s length. “Bradley Carter Krane the Third. Quite a moniker. Must be your daddy’s.”
“He’s the second.”
She nodded. “Have some ID?”
Bradley handed her his new driver’s license.
“Forty dollars a night,” she said. “Two hundred for the week. Check-in before two is usually extra.”
Bradley glanced through the front window at the near-empty parking lot. “Guess I could come back.”
Her lively eyes twinkled at him. “Nah, I’ll make an exception, since most of our guests checked out early.”
“One night, then. For now.”
She rang up the sale and swiped the card through the scanner. While they waited for approval, Bradley felt a sweat bead beside his nose. He thumbed it away, crossed his arms, and tried to look unconcerned. Seconds later, she laid a pen and the credit slip on the counter.
“Duke’s Diner, about half a mile toward town, has good breakfasts and sandwiches, if you’re hungry.”
He took the key she handed him and, pushing the Harley, found his door three down on the right. Coming out of the bright August sunlight, the room looked shadowy and inviting, but the air felt hotter than outside. He located the air conditioner, a gray boxy thing under the window, and turned it on. As it groaned and blew dusty air, Bradley examined the room. He’d never been alone in a motel before.
A bed filled most of the space. Its nubby white bedspread, worn thin in spots, hung slightly crooked on one side and loosely covered a pair of thin pillows. For an instant he flashed on a vision of Rachel sitting there, stone perfect in her denim shorts and tank top. Propped on one elbow. Sandy blond hair falling long and shiny over her arm.
Bradley blinked, swallowed, and slouched into the bathroom. The pipes whistled as he ran cold water to splash his face then thumped when he shut off the faucet. He looked at his sunburned, sandblasted image in the medicine cabinet mirror and wondered what the freakin’ hell he was doing here. He sure hadn’t escaped any of his problems.
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