The Inn - James Patterson Page 0,12

cream. There were photography stalls selling sunset shots of the boats in the harbor. Nick and I observed the skinny kid in oversize clothes as we stood behind a stand selling nautical antiques, the jumble of polished brass navigation equipment and salt-encrusted buoys providing cover. Marni was casually flipping through tiles painted with colorful starfish on the counter of the stall. She glanced over at the boy when we pointed him out.

“Oh, him?” She laughed. “Can’t be him. That’s Squid. I went to school with that guy.”

“Makes sense,” Nick said. “Get a kid to deal to kids. He can walk among them without standing out.”

“Why do you say it can’t be him?” I asked Marni.

“Because Squid’s an idiot. He got expelled for putting a dead squid in the principal’s Lexus. The guy left his sunroof open. It was a hot day, too, and he didn’t get back out to his car until the afternoon.” Marni smirked. “I wonder how much it cost him to get that reek out of his car.”

“Where did he get the squid?” Nick asked.

“Science class. It was marine-life week.”

“Send him a message,” I said, keeping my eyes on the boy. “He’s standing where the guy said he’d be. It’s got to be him.”

Marni took her phone out and texted, and we watched as the kid patted his jeans and then took a phone out of his pocket.

“It’s him. All right, get out of here,” I told Marni. “I’ll see you back at the house.”

“No way, man,” Marni whispered. “I want to watch.”

“I said move it.” I pointed to the end of the street. Marni sulked off, and Nick and I approached the skinny kid sitting in front of the bookstore. I felt like a bully walking up to the weedy nerd in the schoolyard. The boy looked almost emaciated, he was so thin. Nick could have cracked him over his knee as easily as a broom handle. But I knew that what he had been spreading around was dangerous, lethal stuff. I had to put a stop to it now, before this young man spread his product farther through the neighborhood.

As we got closer, I saw that there was a black backpack over his shoulder, wedged between the kid and the front window of the store.

“Hey, punk,” Nick started. I braced myself to take off in case the kid ran, but he just looked at Nick lazily.

“’Sup, bro?”

“What’s up is you’re peddling toxic shit to schoolkids.” I grabbed the boy’s backpack and lifted him to his feet with it. “You don’t do that in our town.”

“Your town?” Squid grinned, then shifted the lollipop from one cheek to the other. I could see that most of his teeth were black. “Who the fuck are you? You ain’t the police. What, you think you got the local operation around here?”

“No, we’re not drug-dealing scum like you.” Nick pushed the kid hard enough that he thumped into the glass of the bookstore window. It was an old trick. Never let the perp get his balance. “We want you out of here.”

“Oh, man.” Squid laughed. “You keep your hands off me, bro. You don’t know who you’re dealin’ with right now.”

“Oh, really?” I said.

Squid lifted his white T-shirt and dragged an enormous gun halfway out of the front of his jeans.

“Yeah,” the boy said. “Really, bitch.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

THE STREET WAS full of people. There were kids gathered around the ice cream stand, families looking in store windows, Marni watching curiously from the other side of the street, only two stalls down from where I’d left her. I saw a trumpet player on the corner, his instrument case open in the sun, heard the clatter of quarters as someone threw change onto the pile. I was suddenly overwhelmed by the noise around me. The gun was comically big in the kid’s hand; the tendons of his wrist strained as he flashed the butt at me.

I made a grab for the gun. He shoved at me with his other hand and tried to drag the pistol up above his belt.

“Don’t even think about it,” I said.

“Fuck you, man,” Squid snarled in my face. He raised his voice. “Get your hands off my dick, old man!”

I didn’t flinch. “You get your hands off the gun or I’ll blast your dick all over the pavement.”

Nick stepped in, shielding our struggle from the crowd. All we needed was for someone to spot the gun, start screaming, and cause a mass panic. The kid released the gun