CHAPTER 9
Truman
I began feeling more and more uncomfortable, sitting like a lame jackass in my car.
I yammered, “Did you see that piece in Alessio’s back pocket?”
“No. But I can’t say as I blame him.” Gunning had become so tough and extreme since meeting Alessio, like a younger admiring brother. “Didn’t you try to shoot your mother’s john when he kept raping her?”
He’d thrown me for a loop. I hadn’t made the comparison, to be honest. “Yes. I mean no. I mean, I picked up his gun but didn’t know how to use it.
” I glanced sidelong at Skinner’s window so often it was like I watched a tennis match.
I’d always felt like a loser picking up that fucker’s gun.
He’d just turned it around and bashed me over the head with the butt.
Gunning said, “I just hear a lot of yelling.”
I couldn’t make out what anyone indoors said.
“It’s so easy to escalate this sort of shit.
Remember”—how could he not—“the mass shooter came into the Establishment Club?” Bad example.
Gunning had saved who knew how many lives by shooting the guy down.
Still, the fuckwad managed to kill two recovering addicts.
“Yeah, if it wasn’t for me—”
“Fuck it!” I shouted. “I’m going in. Saner heads need to prevail!”
So that’s when I saw Alessio shoot and kill his abusive foster father.
Playing in slo-mo like some horrifying rewind, Alessio slapped the degenerate against the wall, right up alongside a normally soothing Thomas Kincade print that wasn’t even framed, just tacked up there.
Maybe my mind preferred to take a gander at the serene Creekside cabin instead of the way Alessio shoved his gun muzzle into that toothless mouth.
And then bam, a much shorter report than in the movies, just a flat bam and everyone knew the back of the guy’s skull was varnishing the wall.
“Alessio,” I remember saying.
He turned to me and shrugged. “Yeah? What?” When he let go of Skinner’s shoulder, the Halloween skeleton collapsed on the floor like a reverse balloon.
I clapped my hand to my forehead. “What did you fucking do?”
Denmark shouted, “Saved a bunch more boys from being raped, that’s what!” He wiggled his piece on a loose wrist, clear he hadn’t shot it.
“He’s a hero!” chirped a teenaged boy, while others came forward from the dining room, the stairs.
Dumb instinct led me to race over and kneel by the body.
Stupidity caused me to attempt to lift the head by the back of the neck.
The deflated stillness of the corpse prevented me from going any further.
And when I withdrew my hand, it was covered in bone shards and crimson blood.
Probably brain matter, I didn’t know, because my next instinct was to stride to the kitchen sink and wash my hands.
“He’s a hero!” the teen was telling the other boys. “We’re free! Do you know what this means?”
“Another foster home?” whispered a younger boy. They were all clad in tattered T-shirts, some with no shirts at all, and visibly dirty, like Dust Bowl kids.
Alessio approached me like a regretful late night host. “Truman. I did what I had to do. You wouldn’t believe what that fucking room is full of.”
I lost it then. “I don’t care!” I yelled. “You don’t go around killing people, haven’t you learned that yet? You go through the proper channels!”
About five dusty, tattered boys clung to Alessio as that one kid pointed at him claiming, “He’s a hero!”
His ire immediately raised. “Proper channels? What a fucking joke! Do you know how long, how many years people tried to have that fucktard’s license withdrawn?
Never happened thanks to the fucking bureaucracy, the lack of other foster parents—the Child Welfare Agency is a massive joke, man! Now these kids are free—”
“We’re free!” The teenager started a chant among the children. “We’re free! We’re free!” Alessio’s face softened and he replaced his pistol in his back pocket so he could wrap his long arms around the teen.
“OK, you know what to do, right, Tyler?”
“Yes sir!”
Alessio looked at me. His dolorous eyes actually seemed on the verge of tears, something I’d never seen in the tough guy. “Truman. Go look in that room.”
He indicated with a nod of his head, and I looked.
And was instantly sorry I’d looked.
Something giant shifted in me when I saw the magazines. The photos tacked to the wall—the photos on the screen saver. I must’ve only glanced for a half of a second, because the next thing I knew, I was standing by Alessio, grabbing his arm.
“Let’s go. We have to extricate ourselves from this. You can’t take the rap for this, and neither can Denmark.”
Denmark had holstered his weapon too. “I’m with Truman. We did what we had to do. Let’s square up and run before the heat gets here.”
With that, we ran.
The last thing I heard Alessio tell the kids was, “Tell them some stranger broke in and did that. Show them the room. Oh, and take that roll of cash I saw in his desk drawer.” There was no question of us taking that disgusting stiff with us and dumping it somewhere.
Gunning eagerly revved his engine out front. “Good show!” As Denmark flung a leg over his Harley’s seat, Gunning couldn’t resist adding, “Ride, Captain, ride! Upon that mystery ship!” But he couldn’t go anywhere without us leading the way.
I pulled into the street, Gunning and Denmark rumbling behind me. “You better toss that gun. The bullet’s stuck in the wall.”
Alessio shrugged. “I picked up the casing. They can’t trace this piece. Not to me, anyway.”
“You should toss it anyway. Your fingerprints.”
Alessio thought for a few seconds. “We need to get you one, too.”
I knew I was diving into a whole new world. A world of Alessio’s making.
And I wanted to be there when the shit went down.