“Yeah, we moved in a month ago. I just started today.” She blushed a bit as she said it, and I could tell she was nervous.
“Well, welcome to the neighborhood. I’m Clay, and you don’t really need to know their names.” I smiled, nodding toward my friends.
“So you’re the one with the plan? They just follow?” She smiled back.
“In his dreams,” Slim laughed, almost shoving me out of the booth.
“Well, if you need anything, we’re always around,” I told her, regaining my composure.
“Thanks,” she said, walking off.
“What, are you sweet on her or something?” Sticky said, grinning his toothy grin.
“Why do you ask?”
“We usually give the new waitresses a hard time. That’s partly why there are always new waitresses to bug.”
“They’re usually old biddies. She seems okay.” I shrugged.
“She is a looker.” Slim turned around in the booth to watch her. I reached over and smacked him, and he looked back at me and grinned.
“I’ll see you guys later,” Sticky called, walking up the front steps of his house where we had dropped him off after leaving the diner. “Pick me up at eight.”
He planned on grabbing some clothes while his old lady was at work. My guess was that he would swipe some more of her booze on his way out, too.
“We gotta’ go pick Mark up,” I told Slim who was behind the wheel. Fry was asleep in the backseat.
Mark was sitting on the school steps when we pulled up. I’m not sure what he was waiting for; usually he would head on home.
“Want a ride?” I called.
He got up and hopped in the back of the car. “Hey guys.”
“You guys going home or what?” Slim asked.
“Let’s go to the park and see if Marty’s there,” I said.
Marty was nineteen. He always hung around the park. His brother had died there, just in front of the park on the street. I wondered why he tortured himself by going there so often, but I guess I had no idea how he felt.
The streets were pretty desolate as we drove with everyone at work.
“Is that Andy?” Slim asked, slowing the car down. I drew my attention off of the squirrel I had spotted scampering beside the road, and looked up at my best friend pinned against a brick wall.
“Sure is.”
Four guys surrounded him and two guys had him pinned against the wall of the bowling alley. Slim hit the brakes and I slammed into the dash, too distracted to brace myself. Fry woke up, realized what was going on, and reached behind his seat to grab a glass bottle.
All four of us got out of the car. Me and Slim had blades, and Fry broke the bottle and gripped it around the neck. Mark didn’t have a weapon. “Here,” I said handing him mine. I figured I had a better chance of being okay, since I was bigger than him.
“What’s going on here?” I called, seeing who it was. They were some of Haker’s gang.
“I’m gonna cut this kid to threads!” one of the guys holding Andy growled, spitting in his face.
“What are you doing over here, Dillon? This ain’t your turf,” Slim cautioned as we advanced.
“This little punk broke out the windows in my car! And I’m going to cut him up for it.”
“How you know it was him?” I questioned.
“I got witnesses.”
“I swear I didn’t do it,” Andy spoke up.
He sounded pretty in control of himself, for the situation. That was Andy for you, always in control of himself. I’m not saying he was never nervous, I’m just saying he never showed it. Andy was pretty quiet. He was tough and all, but he had a plan. He was determined to get out of this town. He was smart and had good grades, unlike me. He was a tall guy, proportionately built, with light-brown hair. His eyes flickered to me; his only display of nervousness.
“Stop lying you SOB, I know you did it!”
“Why? What would be the point of me breaking your windows?” Andy asked, sounding almost bewildered at the thought. Andy was not the type to run around raising hell. He kept to himself and backed us up when we needed it.
“I don’t know why you Locals do what you do,” Dillon growled, rapping Andy hard against the wall, “but you’re going to pay for my windows or I’m going to take it out of your ass!” He threw a fist into Andy’s stomach, doubling him up.
“Sonofa …!” Slim and I moved in.
“Take another step!”
Cold steel met my forehead; one of them, I couldn’t tell who, had pulled a gun. My focus stayed with the gun. My heart raced off. I glanced to his eyes; they were the color of the ocean. They bore into mine like the cold metal bore into my forehead.
Andy leaned against the wall, gasping. “Now, Brance,” Dillon called Andy by his last name, “I’m going to teach you a thing or two…”
“Let him go,” a powerful voice commanded from behind the crowd.
Everybody looked to see Ace. He had his own gun aimed at one of Haker’s guys—a pudgy kid who’s hair was a mess from the wind. “I’ll do it, kid. Don’t push me,” Ace threatened Dillon as he held a knife to Andy’s throat. “Back off,” he instructed in a steady voice.
“You heard him,” Dillon called to his group.
All the guys slowly started to back off. The two guys that had Andy let go and backed away. The guy with the gun on me stood still for a minute, almost challenging Ace, but finally thought better of it and stuffed the metal into his waistband. They were all long gone except the guy Ace was holding with the gun.
“Get outta here,” Ace growled, and the guy jogged to catch up with the others.
Ace put the gun in his belt, and Andy and me both let out a sigh of relief. I was sweating bullets.
No one said anything for a minute. “We’re even,” Ace finally said, looking straight at me.
“Yeah, we’re even,” I repeated, my heart still racing.
“I’ll see you guys around.”
He said nothing else, and walked down the street. We all watched him walk away. I think we were in shock. Ace was someone we were all scared of, but would never admit to it. I wondered if the Spades thought of AJ that way.
“Thank God he came around,” Andy said, sliding to the ground, too shaky to stand. “What did he mean when he said you were even?” he asked, looking up at me, sweat pouring down his face.
“We could have taken them,” Mark said excitedly, his adrenaline obviously still pumping from the encounter. Always an optimist, I thought.
“I saved his kid-brother from a couple guys last night,” I spoke up, taking a deep breath, glad they were gone.
“I want to know what he was doing over here,” Fry said, lighting a smoke.
We stood just down the street from the Greasy Spoon. This whole block was our turf, and I kind of wondered what he had been doing here, too.
Three
“Give me the salt,” Mark said, licking ketchup off his fingers. I gave it to him and he poured it on his fries. I watched in disgust. I’m pretty sure I would choke