I go back to the motel to change. I’m not sure why, but I’ve brought one of my nicer outfits, which happens to be a skirt-and-top ensemble I wore to one of Meg’s many memorial services. Ben and I pay for another night at the Wagon Wheel, deciding, rather than leaving tonight, to get up at the butt-crack of dawn and power through the drive home, doing it in shifts, rock-and-roll-tour style.
At the front desk we get directions to Bradford’s apartment complex. It’s not that far from here, about a half mile away.
“Let’s walk,” I say. We have time, and I’m too nervous to sit around waiting, so we walk along the dusty streets until we find a sun-bleached stucco building surrounded by dead grass, with a cracked cement pool.
But we’re early. It’s only just five. “We probably shouldn’t hang out right here,” I say. So we walk back a ways toward a liquor store a few blocks away.
“What time do you want us to go in?” Ben asks.
“I should go at five thirty.”
“And what time should I go?”
“I kind of think I need to do this alone.”
Ben’s eyes narrow. “I kind of think you don’t.”
“I appreciate that, but I need to talk to him myself.”
“So you want me to lurk in the bushes?” He doesn’t seem pleased with this option.
“Bradford is cagey. If he so much as suspects that anyone is with me, there’s no way he’ll talk to me.” It isn’t that I’m not frightened of Bradford; I am. But it needs to be just me in there. “I want you to wait for me here.”
“Here?” Ben is incredulous.
“Here.” I am pleading.
“So I was just the ride, is that it?”
“You know that’s not true.”
“Then why am I here?”
Because I need you. That’s the truth. And it’s almost as frightening as what awaits me down the road. But that’s not what I tell Ben. “Because you’re wrapped up in this too.”
Recoil.
“So that’s what this is about?” His voice is hard, flat, angry, like the day he came for the T-shirt. “In that case, there’s no fucking way I’m letting you go see this guy. I already have Meg’s death on my conscience. I’m not adding yours to the pile.”
“He’s not going to kill me.”
“Why not? He killed Meg. Isn’t that what you’ve been saying all along?”
“Yeah, but not like that. He’s not going to pull a knife on me or anything.”
“How the hell do you know that? How do you know he doesn’t have an arsenal of shotguns? How do you know the suicide shit isn’t some side project? How do you know he doesn’t have a dozen bodies buried in the backyard?”
Because Bradford Smith uses a different type of weapon, and leaves you to do the dirty work yourself. “I just know,” I say quietly.
“You know what, Cody? You don’t know shit.”
I don’t know shit? I look at Ben and it’s like: Who the hell are you? I know where you came from too. We crawl in the same muck, Ben McCallister. I’m angry now. But that’s good. Angry is better than scared.
“Wait for me here,” I say.
“No way. You want to be like your friend and walk right into a trap? I’m telling you: don’t. I’m telling you, this guy is dangerous, and going to see him is a fucked-up idea. I never warned Meg, but I’m warning you. That’s the difference between you and me: I learn from my mistakes.”
“Ben, the difference between you and me would fill up a book.” I’m not sure how these words can feel so good and so false at the same time.
Ben gives me one last look, shakes his head, and then he walks away.
x x x
There’s no time to contemplate Ben’s desertion, which I think I’ve been expecting all along. It’s just me and Bradford. As it needs to be.
He lives in Unit J in a completely nondescript complex. White door. Levolor shades in the window. I can’t see inside. At the unit next door, a couple is out on the patio, drinking beer. They don’t so much as look at me, but it’s reassuring, knowing they’re there.
I ring the bell.
The man who answers has white hair and a beard. He’s wearing a pair of shorts and an oversize Hawaiian-print shirt that hangs over his gut. He’s grasping a large sweating glass in his hand, full to the top, the ice not yet melted. I’m not sure whether I’m relieved or disappointed. Because this can’t be him. This guy looks like a sloppy Santa Claus.
But then he says, “Can I help you?” And the voice: soft, guarded, familiar.
It takes me a second to find my own voice. “I’m looking for Bradford Smith.”
I can see something—suspicion, strategy—pinging across his face. “What’s your business here?”
What’s my business here? I had a story to tell him, a way to worm myself inside. But it vanishes from my head, and I can’t think of what to say except to blurt out the truth. He’s always had that effect on me, this person I’ve been lying to.
“You’re my business.”
He squints. “I’m sorry, but do we know each other?”
My heart is thudding so hard and fast, I swear he must be able to see it through my blouse. “My name is Cody.” I pause. “But you probably know me better as Repeat.”
He doesn’t answer.
“Do I need to repeat myself?”
“No,” he says calmly. “I understood. You oughtn’t be here.”
He starts to close the door. And all I can think is: I invited you to help me die, and you’re shutting the door in my face. It fires up my anger. Good. I need it now.
I wedge my foot in the doorway. “Oh, no, I should be here. Because I also know someone named Meg Garcia. You might know her as Firefly. Did you know her real name was Meg? That she had a best friend named Cody? A mother? A father? A brother?” The speech I rehearsed during the long drive is coming back to me.
Now that I’ve shown my hand, I half expect him to slam the door on me, but instead he steps outside. One of the beer-drinking neighbors throws an empty beer bottle into a garbage can; it clanks and shatters. Bradford appraises his neighbors, lips pursed. He looks at me and opens the door behind him. “Perhaps you’d better come inside.”
For half a second I think of Ben, the arsenal of guns, the buried bodies. But then I go in anyway.
It is spartan, and neater than any of the houses I clean—after I clean them. My legs are shaking, and if I sit, he’ll see my knees knocking, but if I stand, they might buckle. I split the difference and lean against the plaid couch.