30
Once again, I’m back at the library for research, but this time, it’s easier. I only have to figure out how to get to Laughlin. The hard part is over.
I can’t quite believe it. I’ve been looking for All_BS for weeks, and at times, it has felt like chasing a ghost. But he’s here. I have an address. Last night Harry called me once more, this time with all of All_BS’s—Bradford Smith’s—contact information.
“You are a fucking genius, Harry Kang!” I told him.
“I don’t know about effing genius, but I’ll take genius,” he said. And I could hear the smile in his voice once again.
“Thank you, Harry. Thank you so much.”
“No. Thank you,” he said quietly. “It was fun. But it also felt good. Like maybe I could do something for Meg.” He paused. “Are you going to the police now?”
“I’m not sure. I was thinking I might go there myself first.”
Harry went quiet. “Be careful, Cody,” he said after a bit. “It seems abstract when you’re dealing with people online, but they are still people, and some of them are not nice people, not the kind you ever want to be in a room with.”
Sometimes you don’t even need to be in the same room for the damage to be done. “I’ll be careful,” I promised. “Thank you, again.”
“Like I said, I’m glad to do it. And it’s not that hard to find someone.”
“Really?”
Harry laughed. “Maybe not for me.”
And that’s when I had the other idea. “Do you think you might be able to track down one more person?”
x x x
The Greyhound to Laughlin takes thirty hours, requires three transfers, and costs three hundred dollars round trip. I have the money, and I can take off the time if I need to. But when I start to contemplate sixty hours alone on the bus, I begin to feel a little sick, the darkness clawing at me. I can’t do this alone, with only Bradford and Meg keeping me company.
I list the people I might ask to go with me. There’s no one in town. I’d never ask Tricia, and the Garcias are obviously out. The friends from school, never all that close, have fallen away. Who else? Sharon Devonne?
Maybe the Cascades people. Except Alice is still working at Mountain Bound. Harry is in Korea until mid-August. That leaves Stoner Richard. It’s not the worst idea in the world. He’s home in Boise for the summer, and that’s on the way. I could catch a Greyhound to Boise, and we could drive from there.
There is one other person. And as soon as I think of him, I understand that there is no other person. Because he is somehow as linked up in all this as I am.
His voice mail is still on my phone. I never listened to it, but I haven’t deleted it. I listen to it now. All it says is this: “Cody, what do you need from me?”
Words can have so many meanings. That question could be harboring exasperation, annoyance, guilt, surrender.
I listen once more. This time I let myself truly hear that familiar growl of fear and concern and tenderness behind his words.
Cody, what do you need from me?
And so I tell him.
31
Ben offers to come pick me up at home, but I don’t want him to come here. We arrange to meet in Yakima, outside the Greyhound station, at noon on Saturday. Then I call Stoner Richard.
“Cody, long time, no hear. What’s the latest and greatest?”
“What are you doing Saturday night?”
“Are you asking me out?” he teases.
“Actually, I’m asking if I can sleep with you,” I tease back, before explaining that I’m heading out on a road trip and need a place to crash Saturday night in Boise.
“There’s always room at the Zeller homestead. Just be prepared: if you come for a Saturday night, the rev might want you to do things the Jerry way on Sunday.”
“Okay,” I say, not sure what the Jerry way means, but figuring it’s some Jerry Garcia reference. “Also, there’s a slight catch.”
“Isn’t there always?”
“Ben McCallister’s going to be with me.”
I hear Richard inhale sharply. Either in dismay, or he could be taking a bong hit. “Are you and him, are you guys . . . ?”
“No, no! Nothing like that. I haven’t even talked to him in more than a month. He’s just helping me out.”
“Helping you out? I’ll bet he is.”
“It’s not like that. It’s about Meg.”
“Oh.” Richard’s voice goes serious.
“So can you put us up? We’re leaving here around noon, so we should get there around six or seven.”
“Easily. Speed limit’s seventy-five on I-84, but no one goes slower than eighty. You’ll make good time.”
“So, it’s okay for us both to stay?”
“There’s always room in Reverend Jerry’s manger,” Richard jokes. “We’re used to having lost souls camped on the floor. For you, we might even scrounge up a couch.”
“The floor’s fine.”
“So long as it’s a separate floor from McCallister.”
x x x
I wait until Friday night to tell Tricia that I’m going. I’ve already canceled my Monday and Tuesday cleaning jobs, figuring I’ll be back by Tuesday night at the latest. I don’t know why I’m nervous about telling her.
She gives me a long look. “Where are you going?”
Tricia doesn’t keep me on a leash. But if I tell her, it’ll wind up right back with the Garcias, and I don’t want them to know anything until I have something solid, something helpful. Also, if I tell her, I’m scared that Tricia, even hands-off Tricia, won’t let me go.
“Tacoma,” I say.
“Again?”
“Alice invited me down.”
“I thought she was in Montana.”
I should’ve learned my lesson from all my dealings with All_BS. The safest way to lie is to shadow the truth.
“She is. She’s going home for the weekend,” I reply, hoping Tricia doesn’t remember that Alice is actually from Eugene.
Tricia eyes me again.
“I’ll be back Monday night, Tuesday latest,” I add.
“You need me to clean any of your houses?”
I shake my head. Some messes can wait.