I chained up my bike.
“We not talking?” he asked, which was funny, because he never used to want to talk to me, except to ask what Maureen was up to, if she was single, but ever since she’d gone missing, he couldn’t seem to get enough of gabbing with me.
“I haven’t got much to say,” I said.
He snickered. “That’s what I like about you, Head. You don’t waste words.”
He ground his cigarette butt into the side of the building, sparks flying, and held the door open for me. “I’m having a party tomorrow. Same quarry as the last one. Quarry Eleven. Want to come?”
I walked past him and into the kitchen. The cool air washed over me, along with the leftover smells of yesterday’s food.Ed and probablyeven Ricky, you can’t ever change men like them. Women always try, but men like that are born bad.“I’m busy.”
“It’s a party to honor Maureen.”
My hand floated in front of the row of time cards, mine, Claude’s, and Ricky’s in front. We worked the most shifts, so we got top billing. “Why?” I asked.
What I meant was, why wouldyoudo that?
He seemed to understand my intent. “She was a good kid, man. I’ve known her my whole life.”
I punched in, turned to him. “Were you dating her?”
He shrugged. “We messed around a few times. No bigs.”
“How about Brenda? You dating her?”
He held up his hands. “Whoa, Columbo, back your truck out of my garage. I like Brenda, sure. She’s a fox. We ain’t dating, though.”
“Ed says you are.”
Ricky’s jaw clenched. “When’d you talk to Ed?”
“Yesterday.”
“Shows you what he knows. Why don’t you ask her yourself next time you see her?”
I sure as heck would, but I wasn’t going to tell Ricky that. I busied myself preparing the front for opening, counting the seconds until Claude showed up. When I heard the back door open, I was so excited I about bowled him over.
“Ziggy!” I said, rushing to him.
He must have biked here, too, because sweat ran down his cheeks, curling the hair at his neck. He glanced at me suspiciously before punching in. “Since when do you call me that?”
“Since today,” I said. “Thanks again for having Junie over the other night.”
“I told you it was fine.”
“Mm-hmm.” I smiled at him, but he seemed to be avoiding looking at me. “You okay?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said gruffly, heading to the stockroom. “We’re going to be busy today is all. Not looking forward to it.”
I followed him, glancing over at Ricky to make sure he was out of earshot. “I need to talk to you.”
He was pulling a packet of straws off the shelf. His cheeks had gone pink. “I need to talk to you, too.”
For the first time, I reconsidered my plan to reveal all to Claude. Whatever had gotten into Maureen and Brenda seemed to have finally infected him, too. I didn’t think I could handle my last friend going south. “About what?”
“About time you knobs get your asses to work,” Ricky said from the doorway, startling us both. He held a spatula, which he aimed toward the front counter. “Customers.”
The next three hours passed in a hot dog–slinging haze. It was like all of Saint Cloud had decided to go shopping, and they needed club sandwiches and chips to fuel them. Every time I thought it was slowing down and I could feel out Claude, find out why he was acting so weird, more hungry customers would line up.
