fakedudes:
“I don’t care about my reputation.”
Kaz strode forward with purpose, confident that he was not going to be left behind on this. Jamie may have been the one who stuck to this investigatory work throughout the years, but it didn’t mean he could do it by himself. There was value in a team. Maybe Jamie had forgotten that. Maybe he’d never really understood it, since he’d grown up awkward and lonely while Kaz flourished in the world of athletics. But this was their first significant progress on any case and they had done it together. Kaz knew that meant something, even if Jamie couldn’t see it yet.
The junkyard was far to the southeast of Gravewood. It was a hike from Marie’s, but neither Jamie nor Kaz owned a vehicle. They made decent time, but it was still late in the afternoon by the time they reached their destination.
“We really gotta get a team bus,” Kaz mentioned, sizing up the rusted barbed wire fence as they approached. “Maybe we’ll find something here that’s still got four wheels.”
The lot behind the gates was filled with clusters of garbage that nobody but scavengers wanted. Mostly the husks of broken down vehicles, now only good for scrap metal and parts. There was a furniture section, too, that had largely been crafted into a homeless community. Another corner was saved for random detritus that citizens of Gravewood no longer wanted but couldn’t fit into their regular trash cans. When times got rough financially for Kaz’s parents, they would sometimes search this section for useable items. His mother had always been assured that diamonds existed in the rough. As Kaz gazed upon the pathetic sight of the junkyard, he wasn’t sure how much he agreed with her.
Through the gates, the boys approached the unmarked concrete structure that was the junkyard’s main office.
“What’s our play?” Kaz asked, pausing in front of the door. “Good cop, bad cop? Or maybe you can pull some crazy Law and Order moves… you know, confuse him so much that he accidentally confesses without realizing it. If he bolts, I got us covered, but I’m not a pro at the interrogation stuff just yet.”
The smell of rusted metal and unwashed tarp alone was enough to unsettle him but the unnerving familiarity of it all made Jamie’s senses prickle on edge. It smelled like childhood and despair, hopelessness and Frank. He had to get this over fast.
“Just let me do the talking. Cops don’t get very far around these parts,” Jamie said before pounding on the door. When no one answered, he tried again with a little more urgency.
“I’m looking for Tod. Friend said he could help me with my sinuses.”
There was another beat of unresponsiveness before the lock clicked on the other side of the door. It cracked open and a man peeked out at them.
“You look awfully familiar,” the man said. “Have I seen you somewhere before?”
Jamie stared at him. “Are you Tod?”
The man paused before leaning into the crack, the light catching onto a gold-capped tooth. “Hey, ain’t you Ward’s boy? You know, yer old man owes me a whole lot of money. If he thinks sendin’ you is gonna make me forget about his debt, he’s got a whole ‘nother thing comin’.”
“I’m not here for Frank. I just wanna pick up. Are you going to open the door or not?”
“What makes you think I wanna do any more business with a Ward?”
Jamie stuck his foot into the doorway, wedging the crack open wider before shoving his shoulder into the door. It flew open far easier than he expected it to, but it was apparent as to why once they entered.
The man looked like a college dropout in the middle of a mid-life crisis, face aged by bad habits, but impeccably groomed for someone who dealt in a junkyard. He was thin and wiry, his baggy tank and gold chains a desperate scrabble to look relatable to today’s youth.
“You must be Hot Toddy.”
Tod brushed off his stumble with a kind of awkward bravado of someone who had manufactured masculinity in their own bedroom. It wasn’t hard to see why the guy attracted teenagers, aside from the fact that he was scummy enough to take their offers. Anyone old enough could see that the dude was nothing but a weasel.
“All you Wards are the same,” he scoffed, rubbing his chest under his chains. “So whaddaya want? I ain’t got no money to loan ya if that’s what you’re lookin’ for.”
Jamie entered the office. There wasn’t anything professional or clean about it, the junk lining the walls making it seem as if the owners couldn’t control the waste lurking outside. “What are you carrying? My friends told me you gave ‘em some good shit recently. I want more of that.”
Tod looked suspicious. “What friends?”
“This cutie I met at Gravewood High. Vanessa Birkinshire. Know her?”
Tod relaxed when Jamie said her name, laughing as if it were some kind of inside joke. “Pft, she’s out of your league, little dude. Saw her with some of them cads from the academy. They wanted to meet lucy. I was like, what era is this?”
“You mean, LSD?”
“Yeah yeah, whatever you wanna call it. I’ve got some but if you want fresh print, you’ve gotta wait ‘til next week. I ain’t gonna see my guy ‘til Saturday.”
Tod walked around the desk buried under paperwork and began scrounging around for a metal tin. He hauled it onto the desk and opened up the box. It was filled with baggies of drugs. Rocks, powder, paper. It wasn’t an excessive stash, but Jamie didn’t assume that what he saw was all of it.
“You notice anything about them?” Jamie asked.
“Like what?”
“The boys?”
“I wasn’t payin’ any attention to the boys,” Tod said disparagingly while giving Jamie a look like he’d heard a thing or two about him. Jamie furrowed his brows and looked at Kaz before taking a step forward. He put his hands down onto the desk, bracketing Tod’s box. He wasn’t particularly intimidating alone, but Jamie got the hint that Ward wasn’t a name he looked forward to hearing.
From looks alone, it appeared as if Hot Toddy was yet another unfortunate soul who withered under Frank’s demands. The debt, the job, the paranoia. It all came together like a puzzle. The mystery as how to Frank Ward managed to retain a job anywhere was solved.
“You know, my old man’s got a pretty foul temper. I’m sure you know all about it. That old bruise healing on your temple. Where’d you get that?”
Tod swallowed, grew defensive as he covered his box. “What the fuck are you gettin’ at?”
Jamie shrugged. “I’m just saying. Frank’s got a bad temper and that shit spreads like wildfire. I’d really hate it if something happened at home and set him off.”
Tod glanced between Jamie and Kaz, suspicion growing. “What are you really here for?”
“I just wanna know if you remember anything about Vanessa and her friends when you met them. Anything distinguishing features? They say anything?”
“They were rich kids with expensive cars, whaddaya want me to say?”
Jamie gave him a look. For a moment, it looked like Tod was at a loss until a glint on Jamie’s neck caught his eye.
“One of them was wearing a symbol just like that one. It was on a t-shirt. Didn’t think much of it, just thought it was some teen cult shit.”
“Did they tell you where they were going?”
Tod looked visibly irritated. “Kids come to me all the time lookin’ for a good time. What they do afterwards ain’t my problem.”
Jamie deliberated whether that had been enough information. A group of teenagers looking for drugs while wearing a satanic pentagram. It was another stretch, but he felt confident that perhaps this had been the missing piece he was looking for.
“I suppose I could just do this at home,” Jamie mused, flicking his fingers across Tod’s stash, causing him to double-over the tin protectively. “I’m sure Frank would partake if he knew it came from his good ol’ friend, Hot Toddy.”
“Do it at the quarry! That’s where everyone else goes,” Tod said.
Jamie pursed his lips, staring down Todd as if he were debating on whether to eat him whole. “Hm. Okay.”
He straightened and nodded at Kaz to head out, suggesting that they’d gotten what they’d come for.
“Wait, aren’t you pickin’ up?” Tod called after them, holding up a flap of stamps.
Jamie gave Tod a pitiful look over his shoulder. “Does it look like I have any money?”
“If you think yer just walkin’ out of here like that--”
Whatever had silenced Tod’s threat, also towered in the doorway, its shadow sucking up all the dusk light pouring in. By the stench of whisky alone, Jamie didn’t need to turn around to see who it was.
Frank Ward was an impressionable man for more than just his size and girth. Although he hadn’t had a single accomplishment to his name aside from being the worst thing to come out of of trailer parks, everyone knew to stay out of his way. A drunken wrecking ball of a person that destroyed everything in its path, and Jamie just happened to be in it.
Frank glowered over Jamie and the scene before him, scrutinizing the situation before he laid eyes on Kaz, the boy who hung out with Johnnie on the team. The air grew tense, even with Tod who suddenly lost the nerve to speak.
It was Jamie who decided to try and squeeze past Frank as if he hadn’t brought dread upon all of them. Frank caught him by the jaw, squeezing his cheeks between his fingers while while looming dangerously close, his acrid breath a toxic fog above his face.
“You better not be doin’ any of that shit, boy,” he warned as he passed. Jamie broke free and darted out of the door, scrubbing his sleeve over his cheeks as the white prints of Frank’s fingers turned red.
Jamie walked ahead without looking back, a surge of humility threatening to bury all the bravado he’d displayed back at the trailer. He had to keep his eye on the mission, and so far, he’d gotten the job done.
“Wiccans,” Jamie announced before Kaz could say anything about what had transpired between him, Tod and his uncle. The thought of having to address the untimely reveal of the unsavory parts of his life to Gravewood’s Golden Boy wasn’t a thought he wanted to have.
“Time said 03:22. Just before witching hour. I think I know what they were up to.”