A touch of scorn in his voice, Rusty said, “Why would he want to get you?”
“To stop me from telling what I saw.”
I could think of other reasons he might want Slim. They made me feel cold and tight inside. I decided not to mention them.
A grin on his face, Rusty said, “Maybe he wants to stick a spear up your ass.”
“Real funny,” Slim muttered.
I punched him. My fist smacked his soft upper arm through the sleeve of his shirt.
Face going red, he gasped, “Ah!” and grabbed his arm and gazed at me with shocked, accusing eyes. As I watched, his eyes filled with tears. “Real nice,” he said.
I turned to Slim. She looked as if she wished I hadn’t hit him, but she didn’t seem angry at me. More as if she thought the punch had probably not been the most terrific idea.
Though tears shimmered in Rusty’s eyes, he wasn’t exactly crying. They weren’t streaming down his face or anything. Frowning at me, he rubbed his arm.
“I didn’t hit you that hard,” I said.
“Hard enough. It hurt, man.”
“You shouldn’t have said what you did.”
“I was just being funny.”
“You weren’t being funny,” Slim assured him. “And you wouldn’t be making cracks like that if you’d watched them with the dog.”
“Sorry,” he muttered, still rubbing his arm.
“And as a matter of fact,” Slim said, “that guy really might want to stick a spear up my ass. Or up yours. Anyone who’ll do a thing like that to a dog ... he wouldn’t think twice about doing it to a person.”
“Maybe we’d better forget about going to the show tonight,” I said.
Rusty’s mouth fell open. He looked as if I’d punched him again. “Shit,” he said. “We can’t not go!”
“I’m not going,” Slim said. “No way.”
He turned to me. “I wanta see the show, man! Don’t you? I mean, Valerie! If we don’t go tonight, we’ll never see her. You wanta see her, don’t you?”
“It might not be such a good idea,” I said.
“It’d be a lousy idea,” Slim said. “I’m sure not going anywhere near those people again, and I don’t think you guys should, either. They’re a bunch of sickos.”
“Just because they killed that stupid dog? Hey, Dwight tried to jump on the damn thing. Is he a sicko, too?”
“It’s different.”
“Dog would’ve been just as dead. Except he missed. He sure as hell planned to land on it.”
She glanced at me, shook her head, and said to Rusty, “You know good and well it was different. Stop being a creep, okay?”
“I just don’t wanta get rooked outa the show,” he said. “I don’t care what they did to that stupid dog. Look how it messed you up. It deserved what it got.”
“Didn’t deserve that.” Slim looked from Rusty to me and said, “Anyway, let’s get out of here. I want to go home and get cleaned up.”
Home.
I remembered what we’d done there.
It all rushed in: sneaking into her bedroom, looking at her things, Rusty fooling with her mother’s bra, and the awful accident with the vase and how we’d left the mess behind. A nasty flood of heat flashed through my body.
Rusty cast me a warning glance.
And suddenly an idea popped into my head. Trying to keep my relief from showing, I frowned and said, “Maybe we’d better go over to Lee’s house first and tell her about what happened. See what she thinks.”
Rusty looked pained. “She hears what they did, man, she isn’t gonna take us.”
I gaped at him, astonished that he didn’t realize a trip to Lee’s house would save us from going to Slim’s. The mess in her mother’s room was sure to be discovered sooner or later, but I preferred later. The longer we could put it off, the better.
“She shouldn’t take us,” Slim said. “None of us should go to that show.”
“Anyway,” I said, “we have to tell Lee what happened.”
“No, we don’t.”
“Yes, we do. Otherwise, she’ll be waiting for us.” To Slim, I explained, “We’re supposed to be at her house at 10:30 tonight.” To Rusty, I said, “We can’t just not show up when she’s expecting us.”
“So we do show up. I’ve got no problem with that.”