Bait Dog An Atlanta Burns Novel - By Chuck Wendig Page 0,34
it is.”
Shane affects a haughty voice, holds his nose in the air along with an index finger thrusted skyward. “I consider the lack of a sweater-vest to be a glaring oversight. A vicious error that will surely have Monsieur Coyne dancing the watusi in his grave. Beware his fashionable zombie vengeance!”
They both get a small laugh out of that, a laugh that’s like a small light in a dark tunnel. But like the saying goes, sometimes the light at the end is really just a train, and that’s true here: because opening the door to that moment of mirth—of feeling anything at all—also lets in a charging locomotive of grief.
“He looked plastic,” she says. Mouth dry. He did, too. Didn’t really look like him. Looked like a wax representation of him. Good enough for fake. But bad because it was real.
She blinks away tears. It doesn’t work. Shane sniffs, too. Blows his nose. Turns away as if embarrassed.
More vodka for her. And Shane takes another stab at the bottle, this time keeping it down.
A few quiet moments linger between them. Stretching like taffy. Collapsing like a stepped-on Coke can.
“They murdered him,” Shane says, suddenly. A bomb dropped on the conversation. A bunker-buster, even—drops from orbit, punches a whole in the surface of the conversation, blows it to hell from beneath.
They: the Neo-Nazi gun-club monsters that Chris Coyne’s father hired to “scare straight” his son. Atlanta went to bat for Chris. Tried to teach those bullies a lesson so that they stayed away from Chris and anybody like him. Took her shotgun and thought herself righteous and indomitable. The spirit of justice given form. Captain America wouldn’t save Chris, but by golly, she could.
And now, Chris is dead.
Bad thoughts threaten to punch clean through Atlanta’s head like a cannonball through tissue paper.
More vodka. Everything feels slow, sluggish, hot. The drunk is coming on, now.
“Cops called it a suicide,” she says, her mouth a grim line dragging. Those slurred words taste bitter like the beer. Sharp, but not sharp like the vodka. Sharp like a rusted nail poking up through a flip-flop.
“You don’t believe that.”
“I don’t know.” But she does know.
“You said it yourself. Orly Erickson’s got a cop buddy in his pocket.” And he did. Or does. The dark-eyed man from the gun club. Chris’ bullies weren’t just other kids. They were the children of powerful men. Men like Orly Erickson—great white hunter, head of the gun club, and the CEO of something called TNC biologics.
“What about the suicide note?” she asks.
“It was a message.”
“But not from Chris.”
“No. Not from Chris.”
She wants to cry but suddenly finds that the tears aren’t there. Her eyes hurt. Her brain wobbles inside her head. On one side of her the sun is melting into the horizon like a glob of orange sherbet oozing on a hot sidewalk. On the other, the ghost of the moon is already showing its face. Full, round, pregnant with all the nightmares sleep will bring. Atlanta reminds herself to go to Guy, her dealer. Buy more Adderall. With what money, she doesn’t know, but he’ll comp her. He always comps her. Guy’s good like that.
“They killed him, Atlanta. They killed our friend.”
There it is. The twist of the knife.
She gives the knife a twist of her own.
“I killed him,” Atlanta says.
“What?” Shane asks. Like for a second he’s not sure if she’s serious.
“I did it. I stirred up the shit and didn’t know what I was doing. You poke the bear and the bear wakes up.” She bites down on the inside of her cheek to stop herself from crying further. The taste of blood brightens her tongue. “If somebody killed him, it’s because of what I did.”
“We all did it. It was all three of us.”
“No!” she says, angry. Not at him, but anger is anger and he shrinks back just the same. “I was the one with the shotgun. I was the one who marched into the barn, who set up Jonesy and Virgil—“ She doesn’t even mention that Jonesy ended up in the hospital with a broken nose and broken ribs, another vengeful spirit who will surely come looking for a pound of flesh. “It was me all the way. The hand on the stick, the finger on the trigger.”
“Atlanta, we have to find out who killed Chris. Make them pay. Bring them to justice.”
She laughs, but it isn’t a happy sound. “Justice. What are you? The Sheriff? The lawman who wants to bring order to