Page 52 of Body Count

The kid froze.The vape, I guessed.Or the weed that he had—either on his person or in his car.Or maybe more than weed.I mean, this was one of Sunny’s parties, after all.

It’s too easy sometimes.I didn’t even have to get out my badge.

“Vehicles parked on the side of the road need to have all four wheels on the far side of the line,” I said.“I’ve got to have a quick chat with Sunny, but when I come back, I’m going to start writing tickets.”

If anything, the kid’s eyes got bigger.

He was scrambling up from his sprawl as I went inside.

A wall of cool air met me, freezing the sweat on my forehead, the damp hair at my temples and nape, even the case of swamp ass that had been steadily building.The music was louder, and now the sound of voices mixed with the clink of glasses, a spill of laughter, a sudden, excited cry of “Bonnie, come here!”

The house looked the way I remembered it, only different.All that white wood.All the comfortably plush furniture, the pristine upholstery, the neutral tones and the natural textures.It looked better in the sunlight, I thought.The only bit of kitsch was the nautical junk—a lamp meant to look like an old wooden pile, a decorative ship’s wheel, driftwood.I mean, we were on a lake in the middle of Missouri.It’s not like this was the case of Blackbeard’s treasure.

The guests fit the house.With a few notable exceptions, they were white, they were wealthy, and they looked about as interesting as Wonder Bread.I worked my way through the main floor.It was mostly an open floor plan, but I wanted to get a look at the people inside, and part of the kitchen was hidden from view.French doors allowed the party to spill out onto a massive patio with a view of the lake, where more people mingled, and where a full second bar had been set up to make sure the party kept going.

I recognized a few faces from Wahredua—it was a small town—but they weren’t anyone I knew personally.The really disappointing bit was that there didn’t seem to be an orgy going on.No gimps.No ladies with their tits in those tit vices.Not even anybody getting pegged on a coffee table.There was one middle-aged guy who’d clearly spent way too much on a clear-coat manicure and talked a lot with his hands.I was pretty sure he liked getting his hair pulled, but that was as close as it got.

I stopped next to a group of three: two women and a man.Like most of the people here, they were white, middle aged, and three sheets to the wind.When I said, “Excuse me,” they looked at me like I’d tracked dogshit into their house.

“I’m looking for Sunny,” I said.“Have you seen him?”

They exchanged glances.And then the man said, “He’s in his office.”

“And where’s that?”

The shared look went on longer this time until one of the women said, “Upstairs.”You could tell by her tone she thought I’d been dropped as a child.

Upstairs, I knew.Upstairs, I was intimately acquainted with.I turned toward the stairs.And that’s when I saw him.

He was outside, on the other side of the French doors, and he wore a lightweight suit, tan, not linen.Wool.Summer-weight wool.His hair was perfectly mussed.He was tanner than I remembered, but then, it was summer.He was smiling as he shook someone’s hand, but then, he was always smiling.He was always everyone’s best friend.That suit had to have been expensive, I thought, but it was like someone else was thinking it.Stupid expensive.I wondered how he’d convinced Emery to let him buy it.

His father stood next to him, nodding at something another man said.The group was all men.All white men, all middle aged, all smiling and nodding and laughing as my boy said something else.He looked good, I thought.How was that fair?After everything that had happened, how could he still look so fucking perfect?

A woman stepped through the French doors, and for a moment, the sounds of the party outside carried inside.One of the men was honking with laughter at something my boy had said, and over him, another man shouted, “Gonna be a politician just like his daddy!”

My boy just grinned.He didn’t say no.He didn’t shake his head.He didn’t look uncomfortable.He took it all like it was his.Like they owed it to him.

I stood there.I couldn’t move.The party swirled around me, and I kept staring.The afternoon light raised highlights in his hair.When he stretched out one arm to shake a newcomer’s hand, a hint of ink showed at his wrist.He wasn’t wearing a tie, either, and he made it look casually chic instead of whatever I was doing—my best impersonation of a guy who’d gotten dressed out of the trunk of his car, I guess.I recognized the way he held his head, like he was listening.Which was strange because I couldn’t seem to hear anything.And his smile.If he smiles at me, I thought.If he even looks at me.

And then a woman stepped up to join the group.His mother.He turned toward her as she spoke, and it was like something unlocked inside me.

I made for the stairs, not thinking, more because that’s where I’d been going in the first place.My body was heavier than it should have been.And something was wrong with my eyes.It was like looking out at water.The lake.Like looking out at the lake, and it was a hot, bright summer day, and the sun turned the water into a mirror, so it was like staring at a second sun.You stared at it, and you were seeing the water, but the light made it impossible to reallysee, if that made any sense.It was like that.Like everything I was supposed to be seeing was behind a glare.

I had to stop halfway up.Whatever was wrong with my eyes, it was worse.My balance was off, and I thought I should grab the rail, but that was somebody else’s thought.My Xanax, I thought.And then: I can’t breathe.

But I could, obviously.And after a few minutes of standing there, trying to open up my lungs, I got one real breath.And then another.The worst of it seemed to drain out of me, and I felt hollowed out, aching with that emptiness when it was gone.I needed to go home, I thought.I needed to sleep for a week.The party was still going, the laughter and the music and the voices.Like nothing had happened.Like the world hadn’t just stopped for a second.

That was another thing I’d learned, though.The world never stopped.And people didn’t see what they didn’t want to see.

After a little while, my eyes were better.I checked my phone just to be sure; the whole thing couldn’t have lasted more than a few minutes.It had felt like an eternity.A woman came down the stairs, turning sideways to pass me, giving me one of those mildly curious looks people sometimes gave strangers.Why’s this guy standing on the stairs?Because I almost shat myself, ma’am.

When I got to the top, the room I’d been in last time was right there.That definitely wasn’t the office.Another door, to the right, opened onto another bedroom when I checked it.I followed a hallway toward the back of the house.The low roar of voices and music floated up to me.Instead of a wall to my left, a railing allowed me to look down on the floor below.I didn’t see my boy, and the angle was wrong, so I couldn’t look out the patio doors.

At the end of the hall, a door stood closed.I tried the handle, and it opened.The room was clearly an office, with no expense spared.The wall to my left had a massive bay window with a built-in bench; the window looked out over the patio and the grassy slope that rolled down toward the water.Dominating most of the space was an enormous desk, the kind that camewith bookcases and shelves as part of a set, some kind of wood with a rosy color to it.Cherry, maybe.Then, to the right, another window looked out over the woods.A pair of armchairs and a tufted chaise made up aconversation area.Two men were sitting in the chairs, and they looked up at me.

“I’m sorry,” I said.“I’m looking for Sunny.”

I knew it was him even before he spoke; you can tell when somebody recognizes their name.He was in his late forties, maybe in his early fifties, and he was keeping it tight.Salt-and-pepper hair.What my mom had called a Roman nose, but it went nicely with the strong features of his face.He wore a summer suit that looked somehow even more expensive than the one my boy had been wearing.The jacket was draped over the chaise, and he sat with his shirtsleeves rolled up to expose nice forearms with thick, dark hair.He looked like a guy who made a lot of money without actually doing too much; plenty of time to hit the gym.He didn’t necessarily look like a guy who paid for the opportunity to hurt women, but then, you never knew.

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