Page 49 of Gonzo's Grudge
A third time and I forced myself to stop. Men like me didn’t beg into empty lines.
I typed:
Where are you?
The bubble remained without a read response or delivery notification.
I waited.
No response.
I typed:
Tell me who came to you.
Again nothing.
I typed:
I’m not who he told you I am. I’m a lot of fucked up, but whatever you were told, I’m not it. Don’t shut me out.
Green bubble. Failed to deliver.
Had she turned the phone off? Did she cancel her number already? Who got to her? The questions hit me like a semi-automatic handgun one after another in rapid succession.
The garage around me went quiet in that mean way that says nothing’s actually quiet. A ratchet ticked somewhere, someone’s radio bled a country song through a wall, and my brothers’ voices from the main room were smoke on the air. None of it got through the damn blue bubble message.
“Gonzo?” Burn’s voice from the doorway. “You okay, Prez?”
I didn’t speak.
“You okay?” he repeated.
“No.”
I pocketed the phone, walked past him, shoved through the clubhouse and into daylight. The sky was October-glass blue and cold enough at the edges to sting when you breathe wrong. I breathed wrong the whole way to the bike.
The Harley-Davidson fired up like the faithful bitch she was, and I pointed her toward campus without telling anyone where the hell I was going because everybody already knew.
Students moved in herds that afternoon—backpacks thumping, earbuds in, laughter careless. I parked in visitor spillover like I owned it and took the footpath past the statue of a founder who looked like he’d never punched anything harder than biscuit dough. I didn’t know which class she’d have; I knew where she normally emerged. After the window of time came and went, it was evident she didn’t attend class today.
That was enough.
I knew where she lived not far from campus. That was my next direction. Luckily for me, she lived in a high security campus owned apartment complex. Meaning it was treated similarly to a dorm to optimize the safety of the residents. This also meant a paper trail with a log of people coming and going and visitors. I was determined to get to the bottom of this.
The apartment desk had a kid behind it with a lanyard and a thick pair of glasses. “Sir, you can’t?—”
“I can,” I said. “And I am.”
“Only residents and registered guests past the lobby.” He swallowed like he’d just heard himself say it. “That’s… policy.”
I leaned on the counter, not touching him, but close enough for him to smell road and a morning that went bad. “You know a resident named IvaLeigh Walsh?”
He looked at his screen. He wasn’t supposed to. He did anyway. “She signed out. Says ‘home.’ This morning.”
“When?”
“An hour ago? Maybe two.”
