Robert Crais - L.A. Requiem

Joe Pike, age fourteen.

He loved the smell of the winter woods, and the peace that came from being by himself. He spent as much time as he could here, reading and thinking and following the exercise dicta of the Manual, which had become his bible. There was joy in exhaustion, and a sense of accomplishment in sweat. Joe had decided to join the Marines on his seventeenth birthday. He thought about it every day, and dreamed about it at night. He saw himself standing tall in his dress uniform, or sneaking through the Asian jungles in the war that was waging half a world away (though he was only fourteen, and that war would probably end soon). He enjoyed a thousand different fantasies of himself as a Marine, but, in truth, he mostly saw himself getting on a bus that would take him away from his father. He had his own war right here at home. The one in Vietnam couldn't be any worse.

Joe was still tall for his age, and beginning to fill. He hoped that if he looked old enough when he was sixteen, he might be able to get his mother to fake the papers so that he could join the Corps even sooner. She might do that for him.

If she lived long enough.

Joe pushed himself harder as he neared the end of his run. His breath plumed in the cold air, but he was slick with sweat and didn't feel the cold even though all he wore were red gym shorts and high-top Keds and a sleeveless green tee shirt. He had followed the creek upstream for almost an hour, then turned around, and now he was almost back where he'd begun when he heard the laughter and stopped. The creek ran along the bottom of a slope beneath a gravel road, and, as Pike watched, two boys and a girl appeared at the top of the slope and made their way down a well-worn trail toward the creek.

Pike slipped between the trees.

They were older than Joe, the boys bigger, and Joe thought they might be seniors at the high school where he was a freshman. That would make them about seventeen.

The larger boy was a tall kid with a coarse red face and zits. He was leading the way, pushing low-hanging branches aside and carrying a feed sack with something in it. The other boy brought up the rear. He had long hair like a hippie, and a wispy mustache that looked silly, but his shoulders and thighs were thick. A cigarette dangled from his lips. The girl was built like a pear, with a wide butt. Her features were all jammed together in the center of a Pillsbury doughboy face, her eyes two narrow slits that looked mean. She carried a one-gallon gas can like Joe used to fill his lawn mower, and she was laughing. “We don't have to walk all the way to Africa , Daryl. There ain't nobody around.”

When she said his name, Joe recognized the boy with the sack. Daryl Haines was a high school dropout who worked at the Shell station. For a while, he had worked at the Pac-a-Sac convenience store, selling cigarettes and Slurpees, but he'd been caught filching money from the cash register and been fired. He was eighteen, at least, and might even be older. Once, Daryl had gassed up the Kingswood, but Mr. Pike discovered gas splattered on the paint. He'd gotten the red ass and raised nine kinds of hell. Now, when Mr. Pike rolled into the Shell, he pumped his own gas and Daryl kept the fuck away from his car. He'd pointed out Daryl to Joe once, and said, “That kid's a piece of shit.”

Now, Joe heard Daryl say, “Just take it easy, baby. I know where I'm goin'.”

The girl laughed again, and her little slit eyes looked worse than mean, they looked evil. “I ain't gonna wait all day for my fun, Daryl. Just so's you don't chicken out.”

The kid in the rear made a chicken sound. “Bawk-bawk-bawk.” The cigarette bounced up and down when he made the sound.

Daryl hit the brakes and glared. “You want me to hand you your ass, you dumb fuck?”

The other kid showed both palms. “Hey, no, man. I didn't mean nothing.”

“Dumb fuck.”

Now the girl went, “Bawk-bawk-bawk,” looking at the cigarette boy.

Daryl liked that, and they continued on the trail.

Joe let them get ahead, then followed. He moved carefully, taking his time to avoid twigs and branches, staying off leaves where possible, and, where not, working his toes under the crispy top layer to put his weight on the damp matter beneath. Pike spent so much time in the woods that he had learned its ways, easily tracking and stalking the whitetail deer that fed through the area. He found comfort in being so much a part of this place that he was invisible. Once, his father had chased him into the woods behind their house, but Joe had slipped away and his father couldn't find him. To be hidden was to be safe.

They didn't go far.

Daryl led them up the creek to a small clearing. It was a popular spot for drinking parties, the ground scarred with the remains of bonfires and beer cans. The girl said, “Well, all right! Take it out of the bag and let's see the show!”

The kid with the cigarette said something Pike couldn't hear, and laughed. Yuk-yuk-yuk. Like Jughead.

Daryl put the sack on the ground and took out a small black cat. He held it by the scruff of the neck and the back legs, saying, “You better not scratch me, you sonofabitch.”

Pike slipped down into the creek bed, and eased along the soft earth there to work closer. The cat was grown, but small, so Pike thought it was probably a female. It made itself smaller against Daryl, its yellow eyes wide with fear. Frightened by the bag, and these people, but by the woods, too. Cats didn't like unknown places, where something might hurt them. The little cat made a squeaking mew that Joe found sad. It only had one ear, and Pike wondered how it had lost the other.

The girl unscrewed the can, grinning as if she'd just won a prize. “Splash it real good with this, Daryl!”

The cigarette boy said, “Shoulda got gasoline.”

The girl snapped, “Turpentine is better! Don't you know anything?”

She said it as if she'd done this a hundred times. Pike thought she probably had.

For the first time in two hours, Joe Pike felt the cold. They were going to burn this animal. Set it on fire. Listen to it scream. Watch it twist and writhe until it died.

Daryl said, “Get the can. C'mon, quick, before the bastard bites me.”

Daryl held the cat to the ground as far from himself as he could, while the cigarette boy took the can and splashed turpentine on the cat. When the turpentine hit it, the cat hunched and tried to get away.

The girl said, “I wanna light it.” Her eyes bright and ugly.

Daryl said, “Well, Jesus, don't set me on fire.”

The cigarette kid fumbled some safety matches out of his shirt pocket, dropping most of them. The girl snatched one up, and tried to strike it on the zipper of her jeans.

Daryl said, “Hurry up, goddamnit. I can't hold this sonofabitch forever!”

Joe Pike stared at the two larger boys and the ugly girl. His chest rose and fell as if he was still running.

The first match broke, and the girl said, “Shit!”

She picked up a second, scratched it on her zipper, and it burst into flame.

The cigarette boy said, “All right!”

Daryl said, “Hurry.”

Joe pulled a deadfall limb from the mud. It was about three feet long and a couple of inches thick. The sucking sound it made coming out of the mud made them look, and then he stepped up out of the creek bed.

The cigarette boy jumped back, almost tripping over his own feet. “Hey!”