David Levien - Where the dead lay

“Hang on, my babies,” Ed said, behind the wheel, and he pushed the throttle forward, jumping the big Evinrude outboard to life. Behr could see what looked like a large rubber banana with handles tied to the port side. As they reached the middle of the lake, Ed throttled down to an idle. He moved to the side and untied the yellow float, letting it pay out behind the boat on a long nylon rope. “All right,” he said, “who’s up for a ride?”

“I’m first,” Susan said, letting her skirt fall to the floor of the boat.

“No thong, Suze? Awwwww,” Chad said. Behr looked at him and considered punching him in the face.

“Shut it, Chad,” she said, jumping into the lake. A moment later she surfaced with a “Yeow! Cold.”

“How many does it hold, Eddie?” Chad said, peeling off his shirt. Behr saw Chad had a suntan over hairless washboard abs. It looked like he shaved or waxed himself down like a triathlete.

“Four,” Ed said, “unless Frank wants to go. In that case we should hold it to three.”

“I’m good for now,” Behr said as Chad hit the water with a splash. Jenny, a chunky thirty-year-old from layout, stripped down to a one-piece and lumbered over the gunwale.

“Wait up,” Jenny said, swimming toward them as Susan and Chad slipped and slid over the inflatable, finding their spots.

“Come on, Jenny-girl,” Chad said. Behr tried to spot a look of disappointment on Chad’s face at the intrusion, but the glare off the lake was too bright.

“Hold on,” Ed yelled and powered up. The boat cut the lake. Behind them the inflatable bounced and churned in their wake. The three riders howled and held on.

“Thanks for having me out, Ed,” Behr called over the roar of the engine. “Real nice spot.”

“Sure thing, Frank. The more the merrier. Been wanting to meet you. Susan always talks about you so-” Ed looked forward and turned the boat and his last words were carried away on the humid summer air. Behr didn’t bother asking him to repeat it and instead leaned against a rear-facing seat and looked behind them.

Susan’s smile traveled back to him over the forty-foot distance of the towrope. The sun bounced golden off her hair. Behr took a seat in the stern, his beer between his knees, and watched for a moment, then turned his face straight up at the sun until it burned white in his eyes.

Peanut Marbry sat in Killah, his stock-to-shock Dodge Neon, and fucked with the bass setting on the Alpine, waking up the Bazooka tube mounted in the back window. The car started to thump and shudder to “Soulja Boy.”

“When they come, I’m gonna go with them,” Peanut said over the music. “You follow. You know where we going. Let us back on down first, then you come next. Back on down too, don’t front in. Keep it runnin’, won’t be long at that point.”

Nixie Buncher, sunk low in the Katzkin leather passenger seat, nodded one time. Peanut knew he had the drill. Nixie only needed to hear a play once and he was locked on. That was why Peanut ran with him, even though homey was skinny as a greyhound track dog.

“You notice bad shit always go down when them Schlegels around?” Nixie asked.

Peanut said nothing.

“Hear they walk some dudes out they bar one night and nobody see ’em since?” Nixie said.

“Bad shit happen to good people, yo,” Peanut answered. “Ever notice we get paid when they around?”

“Shit-talking white boys,” Nixie said, tsking through his teeth. “What you oughta do is take him out. Charlie. Bim-bam,” he went on, sticking out a left-right combo. “The minute any one of ’em say shit. Once Charlie Boy’s on the ground, them others scatter.”

Nixie reached out a long arm and slapped the crown-shaped pump bottle on the dash two, then three times, filling the car with the scent of Tropical Rainbow.

Peanut shook his head. “Nah, man, first off that’s bad fiscals. Second, them Schlegels’d just keep coming.”

“They only three.”

“Don’t forget they daddy. He the worst of the bunch. Who knows, momma prolly too. I bet they got a basement full of ’em-they keep coming like ants out a hill…”

Nixie went to hit the air freshener pump again.

“Hol’ up,” Peanut said. Nixie looked to him, his eyes red even though he was only a little high. “Shit’s nineteen dollahs a bottle.”

Instead, Nixie eased a tiny squirt out on his fingertips and rubbed it on his hands as the Durango pulled up next to them.

The window slid down revealing Charlie Boy Schlegel behind the wheel and that Crazy Kenny across in the passenger seat. No doubt Deanie was in the back behind the smoked window glass.

“Whassup, my negro?” Kenny shouted across the front seat. Peanut’s face went granite. Nixie tsked and spat out his window.

“Yo, man, don’t be testing me like that,” Peanut said. Kenny just laughed.

“So we follow you, or we gonna do a Chink fire drill?” Charlie asked.

“Yeah, dat,” Peanut said, getting out of his car. More car doors flung open as Nixie went to take the wheel of Peanut’s car, Kenny got in the backseat of the Durango, and Peanut climbed into the front passenger seat. “You paying enough for full service-” He stopped talking when he saw the man in the backseat. It wasn’t Dean, but an older guy with black coal eyes and a nasty pink rope of scar running down the side of his face. “Where Dean? Who you?” The man didn’t answer, just stared at him.

“Deanie’s not feeling too good,” Charlie said. “That’s Knute.”

“Newt?”

“Yeah,” Charlie said, and took off.

The man shot a hand forward, gnarled, hard, and small. “What the fuck’s up?” Peanut saw the tattoo on the side of the man’s hand, a pale green shamrock. He knew the man had been to prison, and he knew damn well who it meant he was with. Then the dude wiggled his teeth.

Freakshow, Peanut thought, but he didn’t say shit.

“Chad doesn’t think we’re right for each other,” Susan volunteered after they’d said their good-byes to her colleagues and were well into the drive home.

“Is that so?” Behr said, steering around a chugging tractor-trailer.

“He says you’re ‘too dark’ for me.”

“What’d you say?” Behr asked.

“I thanked him for the input. But told him I wasn’t shopping opinions,” she said. “I would’ve told him you’d just lost your friend if I thought it was his business…”

Behr kept driving, trying to keep his hands loose on the wheel.

“He’s harmless, Frank,” she said.

“So you keep saying.”

“I wouldn’t have repeated it to you if I thought he was right. Guess I shouldn’t have anyway.”

Behr grunted a one-syllable response.

“You didn’t help things, standing out there like a freaking gargoyle on the shore,” she said.

“I tried, Suze,” Behr said, “I tried.” That was it for the talking until they reached her apartment.

He pulled up in front of her building and put it in park, the engine idling in the twilight. Their usual practice would have had them going out to dinner, or a movie, or both, and spending the night at one of their places, but this was no regular Saturday. Tonight something bigger than his mood was hanging over them.

“Here you go,” he said.

“Thanks for coming along today. I know you weren’t really up for-”

“Listen,” he interrupted. “I saw you holding those beers, carrying them around all day. And I saw you not drinking ’em. I’m thinking… Well, I don’t know what I’m thinking. What am I thinking, Suze?”

They looked at each other across the expanse of the front seat for a moment, and then she just said it. “I’m pregnant.”