Dead Right

"Okay, so you got me here," his brother said. "Where are we going?"

"You'll see," Dell said. "You'll see." He knew there was no way he could get Wenton here without a degree of subterfuge. He filled the other half of the glass with diet Coke and passed it over.

"Here, have a little somethin'."

Wenton took a sip from the glass and made a face like he'd just licked the underside of a turd.

"Gah—you put any Coke in this?" Dell flashed a smile to avoid answering the question. Wenton took another sip and he knew his brother would finish it. He'd always been respectful that way. It was weird.

"So where we going?" he asked again after a few minutes.

"Place I wanna show you." Dell looked out the window of the limo, trying to stretch the time. "It's sort of a surprise."

Dell desperately wanted to get his brother's life on track. He was the younger brother, but for as long as Dell could remember—way back to fourth grade, at least—he'd been self-sufficient. Dell never could say it out loud, but his brother was smarter than him. He'd just known how to do things that Dell didn't until he'd seen his brother do them. Wenton had kept him out of trouble after they were orphaned and the neighborhood kids picked on them. He was in debt to his brother.

Now Dell felt like he could pay a little of that back.

"Surprise, huh?" Wenton mumbled. "You're not taking me to an intervention, are you? Because I could stop shootin' H whenever I want."

Dell choked out a laugh. Wenton was always joking like that. At least he hoped he was joking this time.

"We got you calendared for an intervention next Thursday." Dell hated working in the mayor's office had gotten him using words like 'calendared'. It had never been him, but now it was like this whole other personality he'd had to adapt for work was infiltrating who he really was.

He watched the street. They passed several people milling about, maybe prostitutes, maybe drug dealers, maybe homeless, certainly at least a few of them were dead. He really did feel something for them, but he wondered if he was the right person for the job the mayor wanted done. Dell sighed.

"You're doing it again." He looked at his brother and made a face. "I asked where you were taking me and you looked out the window. You're stalling." They hadn't seen each other for a few months and it was so easy to forget there was another human being who knew him as well as he knew himself despite all the layers of bullshit he dressed himself in. He stole another glance out the window, not sure what street they were on until they passed a sign. Almost there.

"Really. Can't tell you. But you'll know everything soon enough. For real."

"Okay."

And just like that he knew it was okay. There wasn't another person in the world he could have been this circumspect with who would have trusted him like this. The truth of it was, had he told his brother what they were about to see he would probably slug him and jump out the limo the first opportunity he got, bad neighborhood or no. And Wenton would be absolutely right to do so.