Page 84 of Them Bones

Shane dragged his thoughts back to the present and flushed under the weight of Jerry’s stare, cigar smoke billowing out of his mouth and around his face. “I thought I was doing the right thing at the time, Jerry. You know I did.”

“I said it then and I’ll say it now, you can’t fight fate.” Jerry sighed, the wrinkles around his eyes deeper than ever. “You met the right girl, at the wrong time. Fate’s a cruel mistress, Shane, and she seems to have it in for you. So I’m warning you, boy…” Jerry stepped right up to him, chest to chest. “Iswear to Godif you get that girl pregnant under my roof, there’s no savin’ any of us. You hear me?”

Shane nodded.

Jerry put his hand under Shane’s chin and tipped his face upwards, looking at his nose.

“Don’ look broke to me, but that’s gonna hurt like a bitch for a week.”

Shane raised his wrapped fist. “I’m used to pain.”

Jerry’s eyes drifted toward the house, Laney and Dustin unpacking their school things at the kitchen table, visible from the window.

“I know, kid. I know.”

JOHN

John had never known the meaning of ‘stressed’ until now.

It had been a productive year, one of their best if he wasn’t mistaken (and he wasn’t) in a long while, but Cary was still on a rampage. In fairness, spending too much time in Windsor would put anyone in a bad mood, but he’d cleaned up the whole Detroit debacle only to come home to a new one.

It had been over a week, and they still hadn’t been able to figure out who ripped off the batch.

John believed that it wasn’t Nick. And he knew Cary well enough to know that he believed Nick, too. But with nowhere else to look and Nick responsible for quality control they were at a loss, and Cary’s temper had to land somewhere. Nick was taking the brunt.

Nick’s bruise was starting to fade, turning a yellowish brown that reminded him of baby shit. Cary said he’d ‘let himself into Nick’s place’ to wait for him, when Nick had turned up in a cab – still on E – with his face bashed in.

John had pressed for more details about where he’d been, but Nick remained vague. Said he’d been at a rave with some friends and gotten sucker-punched. Cary seemed uninterested in the story, much more focused on discussing production andmore particularly who had access to the last batch while it was being prepped. But it didn’t slip past John’s notice that Jerry’s boy, Shane, the one with the torch for Laney, had a busted-up hand and face when he’d swung by Jerry’s for some parts two days ago.

John told Nick to lay off the blow for a few days, at least while he was concussed. He wanted to tell him to lay off Cary’s sister, too… That between Cary and Shane it wasn’t worth ending up as a eunuch. But Cary hadn’t seemed to piece anything together yet and it was best foreverybodyif he didn’t.

Jerry was running some seriously magical interference on behalf of that kid of his.

John had been working with Cary for a long time. Sometimes, Cary felt more like a son to him than his own kids. He helped Cary build his business, grow his customer base, make connections… He was proud of the little empire they’d amassed; big enough to keep them all elbow-deep in cash and drugs, but not big enough to attract attention.

None of them needed real jobs. The diesel mechanic shop was a front, although they did help out friends here and there and had some good cross-border trucking clients who’d carry for them in exchange for free work. But John’s biggest contribution to their little operation was his ties to the community, a non-suspicious face hanging around at the shop. He worked at an appliance store two days a week, to further keep up pretenses.

He lived in another neighbourhood, about forty-five minutes from Cary’s. The kind with lawn sprinklers, and Block Parent signs in the windows.

He mowed his lawn on Saturdays. His wife, Suzie, hosted a potluck for the neighbours on the third Sunday of every month. He installed a wooden ballet bar and a wall of mirrors in his basement for his daughter. He and Suzie attended church on holidays.

Suzie liked blow as much as he did.

They’d been together since high school, gotten pregnant after spending a night at a beach party snorting more sand than snow, and in raising a son together found that they rather enjoyed each other’s company. They got married in their early twenties, had a second kid at twenty-six, and apart from the extensive drug use that they keptverywell hidden and the fact that John sometimes maimed people for a living, they were the very picture of thehigh school pregnancy success story.

John loved his wife, he loved his two beautiful children, and he loved his business partner like family.

Butfuck a duckhe didn’t need ‘Crazy Cary’ stress in his life, right now.

The man was carnage incarnate when he wanted to be. All the boys were nervous, and everybody was looking to John to fix things. The only thing that had been taking the edge off was Linette. But he didn’t like to think about that, too much.

“I don’t know what to do, Nick," John lamented. "Unless astrangerbroke in here and did this, I’m at a loss.”

“Maybe they did?”

“Why would a stranger bother covering their tracks by cutting the batch unless they planned to do it again? It has to be somebody on payroll. But I can’t for the life of me figure out who.”

“What about the women?”

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