“I figure that if I ever need surgery and they want to give me narcotics, I’ll decide then what I want to do about it. I don’t need to decide now.”
Simon isn’t sure why Charlie’s telling him all this. It’s none ofhis business. In the past twenty-four hours, Simon has learned way too much about Charlie’s private life. Charlie should be hitting the brakes, not dumping more sensitive information into Simon’s lap. He studies Charlie’s face, trying to figure out what’s going on. “Why are you looking at me like you’re expecting me to disagree?”
Charlie gives him an incredulous look. “I don’t know, Simon. Maybe because I’ve spent seven years listening to you disagree with everything I say?”
The disagreement went both ways, but Simon won’t say so, because that would be proving Charlie’s point. Besides, he wants to make it clear that heisn’targuing with Charlie right now.
“Giving you shit is my favorite hobby, but not about this.”
Simon doesn’t know if it’s a compulsion toward symmetry, or just not liking the sense that Charlie’s somehow outdone him, but when he opens his mouth what comes out is, “My parents forgot to pick me up at school so many times, the principal used to just take me home with him. It wasn’t, you know, neglect. It’s just that with two parents, two stepparents, two brothers and three stepsisters with drivers’ licenses, it was hard to keep track of whose turn it was to pick me up.”
If Charlie’s confused about why Simon’s telling him this, he doesn’t let on. He just kicks Simon under the table again. Simon kicks him back.
When they’re nearly done eating—a hamburger the size of a hubcap for Charlie, a vegetable omelet, hold the cheese, for Simon—Charlie squints over Simon’s shoulder.
“I know that guy.” Charlie gets to his feet. “Hold on, be right back.”
While Charlie’s gone, Simon gets the check.
“That was one of Dave’s friends,” Charlie says when he comes back. He doesn’t sit down. “He hasn’t seen Dave but said that last year Dave stayed with a friend of his.” He holds out his phone, open to the maps app.
“Okay, sure. Let’s go show up at a total stranger’s house.”
“You can sit this out, you know.”
Simon produces his most withering glare and heads for the door.
Chapter Eleven
They drive out of the little town and into the middle of nowhere. Fifteen minutes, and there aren’t even buildings anymore. Half an hour, and the road unravels into a single lane.
Charlie turns onto a street that’s just dirt and gravel and weeds, and which leads them up a hill to a house that looks like it was built from logs—like someone took the set of Lincoln Logs Simon never wanted to play with and used it to make an actual human-size house. It’s a cabin, but not the kind of six-bedroom, plate glass wall overlooking a strategically landscaped brook kind of cabin that Simon’s used to.
Parked in front of the house are two pickup trucks. Charlie engages the emergency brake, puts his head on the steering wheel, and lets out a breath. “That’s his truck.”
“If you want me to wait in the car, that’s fine.”
Charlie’s head is still on the steering wheel, but he turns to face Simon. “If you want to wait in the car, that’s fine too.”
“If you think I’m passing up a chance to see what a man who doesn’t answer his phone for a week looks like, guess again.”
“Maybe something happened and he’s in the hospital. And his truck is here because they didn’t know what to do with it.”
Recognizing an anxiety spiral when he sees one, Simon opens his door. “Only one way to find out.”
Two golden retrievers come bounding across a hill to bark at them, delighted to say hello. When Charlie and Simon head toward the front door, the dogs trot happily beside them.
“Worst goddamn guard dogs,” a man says from the front doorway. “And what do you want?”
“Is Dave Antonetti here? I’m Charlie. He hasn’t been answering his phone.”
“You’re Charlie,” the man says, like Charlie hadn’t just said so. He steps out of the house, and Simon can see that he has black hair in a ponytail and brown skin. “I’m Mike.”
“Are you the Mike who sold Dave that Impala about ten years ago? I worked on that bastard for months.”
“He sold it for a mint,” Mike says.
“I got seven bucks an hour.”
