The mood in the car went from light to sober in a snap. I regretted the playfulness that I’d exhibited and searched for the right words to convey my condolences. Grady beat me to the punch.
“I can’t believe he’s gone,” he said. He stared straight ahead as though focusing on a dead bug on the windshield. “We’ve been friends for as long as I can remember.”
I bit back the rumors that Kirby had told me. Grady didn’t seem like he held a grudge against Blitz for sabotaging his high school graduation and plans for college. Even if he had, asking him about it felt too awkward.
“Grady, I’m sorry for your loss.” The more I repeated the line, the more impersonal it sounded.
“Yeah, well, you win some, you lose some.” His whole demeanor changed, like he remembered he was late for an appointment and I was holding him up. He hit the unlock button on the door and released the emergency break. “See you around sometime,” he said.
“Sure. Thanks for helping me find my ride,” I said. I got out of his car and he pulled away before I had a chance to close the door.
*
AFTER riding along with Grady, I had a better understanding of how the roads of his development were laid out, and I ended up back on Main Line Road in a matter of minutes. It was getting close to five and I wanted to get back to the shop before Kirby left. I pulled into a gas station and started filling the small tank. Across the street, a giant playing card rotated on a pole in front of an auto dealer. The name BLACK JACK was below the playing card in large black letters that were illuminated by little round bulbs. The entire thing had a Vegas quality about it—out of place in our otherwise local, costume party–themed community.
As I watched, a dark gray RAV4 pulled into the parking lot. Tak Hoshiyama got out and went inside the dealership. I became so distracted by the scene that I forgot about the gasoline. It splashed out of the tank and onto the hem of my pants and my suede shoes. I jumped back, too late.
“Shi-oot,” I said, changing the instinctive curse word into something more PG-13. I’d been trying to convince Magic Maynard to drop his curse words when he was practicing his routine, and now my knee-jerk reaction was to self-edit.
“Shi-oot?” asked a tall man in a cowboy hat.
“I splashed gasoline on myself,” I said, “and I was trying not to swear.”
“Well, then shi-oot is right. Your costume is all messed up now. You are going to a costume party, aren’tcha?” He tore a length of brown paper towel off a roll that sat by the windshield wiper station and handed it to me. I blotted my hands dry and dabbed at the smelly liquid on my pants and shoes.
I could have asked him the same thing. He had on mirrored sunglasses that kept his eyes hidden. His shirt had mother-of-pearl snaps as buttons and was secured at the neck with a bolo tie shaped like a cow skull. A camel blazer, jeans, and lizard-skin boots finished off the outfit. If it wasn’t a hundred degrees, it was close. How he’d managed to not sweat through a few of his layers, I didn’t know.
“I always dress like this,” I said. “How about you?”
He laughed. “Me too. Cowboys and Indians. We should have somebody take our picture.” He held out a hand. “I’m Black Jack Cannon. Couldn’t help notice you staring at my dealership over there. See something you like?”
“You’re Black Jack?” I stammered. “What are you doing over here?”
“This here gas station is mine too. Buy a car, get a year’s worth of free gas. Nice incentive, don’tcha think?” He pulled a business card from his wallet and handed it to me. The back of his card was the same image as the playing card that was rotating on the pole.
“You’re Blitz’s dad, aren’t you?” I blurted out. Immediately, I backpedaled. “I mean, I’m so sorry for your loss,” I tacked on.
“Blitz was my wife’s son,” he said. “Tragedy, what happened yesterday. I hope they catch the killer soon or people are going to start thinking Proper City is like all those other desert towns around here.”
“We are a desert town,” I said.
“Not like the others. The people who pay the taxes around here make sure our money goes back into our own community. We pay the salary of the police who are supposed to keep us safe at night. We don’t need outside elements coming in here trying to change the way we live.”
For a moment, I saw a ray of light in Black Jack Cannon’s point of view. If he suspected that an opportunistic vagrant had killed Blitz—and he put public pressure on the police force to find said vagrant—then the police couldn’t spend time chasing Ebony for a crime she didn’t commit. It wasn’t much, but as far as theories went, I was willing to accept it.
“So you think somebody was passing through Proper City and saw the party? Maybe saw an opportunity to get something to eat or even rob a bunch of people, and was able to get in because everybody was in costume? Nobody would have noticed that there was a stranger among the rest of the partygoers.”