The Jealous Kind (Holland Family Saga 2)

“I stepped in a pile of shit.”

His eyes glistened. I tried to put my hand on his shoulder, but he stepped away from me, trying to smile, then got into his heap and fired it up. As he bounced into the street, he gave me a thumbs-up. He went through the Stop sign as though it were not there, then floored the accelerator and disappeared into the shadows of the live oaks that arched over the boulevard.

IN THE DARWINIAN world of American high school culture, I had learned only one lesson: The lights of love and pity often died early, and many friendships were based on necessity and emotional dependency and nothing else. I had the feeling that secretly Vick Atlas and Grady Harrelson despised each other, because each saw in the other his loneliness and the abandonment by his father. In the case of Vick and Grady, however, there was another ingredient: their jealousy over the affections of Valerie Epstein.

The following day neither of my parents was home when I got off work. I bathed and put on fresh clothes and tried to think. I had said that my family didn’t lie. That was true most of the time. But in an imperfect world, I figured, there were instances when a lie served virtue better than the truth. I fed Major and Bugs and Snuggs and Skippy, then pulled up a chair to the phone in the hallway and found Vick Atlas’s name in the directory. He answered on the second ring. “Hello!” he barked.

“Hey, Vick. How’s it hanging?” I replied.

“Who’s this?”

“Aaron Holland Broussard.”

There was a pause. “What do you want, wise guy?”

“You stopped those two phony cops from hurting Valerie. I owe you one.”

“You and I aren’t done by a long shot. If you think you can get on my good side, forget it. You’re going to be a long red scrape on the asphalt, Buster Brown.”

“Maybe your father told you that Valerie and I were in his office a couple of days ago.”

“You’re lucky you’re not on a meat hook.”

“Did somebody boost your wheels two nights ago?”

The line went quiet again.

“Did you hear me?” I said.

“Keep talking.”

“I was afraid you’d think it was me and Saber.”

“The thought occurred to me.”

“I know better.”

“How about Spaceman?”

“Saber? The same with him. Would we boost your car and then call you up to tell you we didn’t do it?”

“Then who did? The Montrose district is not the kind of neighborhood where you get your car hot-wired. You got a comment on that, wise guy?”

He had just set a verbal trap. The ignition had not been jumped. Vick was smarter than I thought.

“I was at Prince’s drive-in last night,” I said. “Some of Grady’s buds were talking loud in the next car. I heard one guy say, ‘Vick Atlas was getting laid when we took the Buick. He’s never going to find it.’?”

“Rich-boy jocks are hot-wiring cars? That’s interesting to know. You’re a gold mine.”

“I thought I’d pass on the information. Do with it what you want.”

“Why would Grady want to steal my car?”

“I don’t know, Vick. Somebody stole his convertible, and maybe he thinks you had something to do with it.”

“No Kewpie doll, earwax.”

“Sorry I bothered you,” I said. “By the way, your car wasn’t hot-wired. Not according to these guys. It had some kind of box around the back of the ignition switch.”