I took a Coke from the fridge, popped the top, and dropped down into one of the empty chairs. The green vinyl top blew out some air from a hole in the side.
“Maybe you should have a beer, too,” Dunk said. “I think you’ve earned a beer. You’re going to be hurting once the shock wears off. A beer will help.”
When had Dunk started drinking beer? “I feel fine, really. I think my bike took the worst of it and I got lucky—the ground is damp and mushy. It cushioned my fall.”
Dunk leaned forward in his chair. “You didn’tfall, youflew. That SUV launched you like a retarded Superman, your arms flailing all around…” He waved and flapped his arms in the air and made this crooked face, I couldn’t help but laugh.
Dunk got up, went to the refrigerator, retrieved a beer, popped the top, then set it in front of me before returning to his chair. The kitchen smelled like mildew. Dishes piled high in the sink. An empty jar of peanut butter sat on the counter, a fly feasting on the rim.
“I really don’t want a beer.”
“You will.” He reached to the center of the table, to a copy ofBoy’s Life, and slid it aside. His dad’s gun was sitting under it.
I glanced from Dunk to Willy, then back again. As far as I knew, he never showed the gun to anyone but me. “What’s that for?”
“We need a new plan,” Dunk said.
“We don’t need a gun.”
“They tried to kill you.”
“They tried to scare me.”
“If they wanted to scare you, they would have driven close to you, maybe even forced you off the road,” Dunk said. “Instead, they sped up behind you, with the pedal to the floor, and nailed the back of your bike. The impact destroyed your ride and would have killed you if you weren’t such a lucky bastard. I’m surprised they didn’t throw it in reverse and back up over you to finish the job. I bet they would have if you didn’t go cartwheeling over the guardrail.”
“They were only trying to scare me,” I insisted.
Dunk leaned closer. “Whoever was driving didn’t even tap the brake pedal. They rode the gas. After they hit you, they sped up and drove off, didn’t even slow down. Even if you hit someone on accident, you slow down, at the very least just to be sure your car didn’t get all fucked up. Not a single tap on the brakes, not one. They tried to kill you.”
Willy took a sip of his beer. It made his eyes water. “You saw your bike, right?”
I nodded.
“You saw how mangled it was? When I rode up, that’s what you looked like—a twisted, mangled, mess. I thought for sure you were dead.”
Dunk drank some of his beer, and his eyes did not water. “Willy here flagged down a station wagon on Brownsville and convinced some old lady that his buddy got shredded in a hit and run and needed help. When he didn’t find us where he left us, he spent the next ten minutes trying to convince her that maybe it wasn’t as bad as he thought.”
Willy nodded. “She wanted to call the cops. I had to talk her down. At first she thought some half-dead kid was pushing his bike home. When we couldn’t find the half-dead kid, she got angry and figured I was pranking her—then she really wanted to call the cops. She grabbed my shirt and tried to get me in her car. I busted loose, got on my bike, and rode off into the woods, cut through the cemetery to lose her. That woman could scream. I heard her shouting for half the ride back here. I guessed you guys would come back here.”
My mind was churning. “They knew something was wrong. I don’t know how, but they must have figured out I wasn’t alone. They didn’t get out of the SUVs. It was like they came by just to tell me they knew I was up to something fishy, then left. When they realized I was trying to follow them, they stopped me. Like I broke the rules or something.”
“We don’t know the rules,” Willy said.
“That’s why we need a new plan,” Dunk said.
I nodded at Willy, then turned back to Dunk. “How much did you tell him?”
Dunk shrugged and took another sip of his beer. “I told him everything when you were in the shower. We need him, and he can’t be in the dark.”
I didn’t know Willy that well and had no idea if I could trust him. “You can’t tell anyone.”
“I won’t.” He crossed his heart. “Nobody would believe me, anyway.”
I took a sip of my Coke, the full beer can beginning to sweat beside it.
“How did they know something was different?” Dunk asked. “What tipped them off?”
“Maybe they saw us on our bikes,” Willy offered.
