It was good to get back to my own side of town, and when we pulled into Topper’s parking lot, I was more than eager to hop out of that black sedan and get gone. Smiley wasn’t in such a hurry to let me escape, though.
“Wait a second, kid,” he said as I opened the door. “Let me see your phone.”
I’m like, “What for?”
And he goes, “I want to enter my number in there so you can call me if you come across anything new we need to know about.”
I told him I’d enter the number myself, and when I finished putting it in, he grabbed hold of my arm and stared into my eyes. “Son, if there’s anything you haven’t told us or if you find out anything, you’d better call my number. You need to understand that if you don’t, you’re going to be in a lot of trouble.”
“Sure,” I said. “No problem.”
Once I had my feet firmly planted on Topper’s parking lot and the black sedan had disappeared around the corner, I tried to muster up as much of a sense of relief as I could, but something told me I wasn’t completely free of Smiley and Mr. Browning quite yet.
“How about that mansion?” Randy said. “I’m going to get one like that someday, only I’m going to decorate it all in NASCAR stuff.”
“Go for it,” I said as I pulled my phone out, this time to check on who called while I was in the media room with Mr. Browning. The call didn’t come from Audrey. No, it was from Beto Hernandez.
He’d left a message asking me to call him back. He didn’t say what it was about, but the first thing that came to mind was that somehow he knew where I was and wanted to find out whether I suspected him of working for Mr. Browning. Or maybe whether Mr. Browning was ratting him out.
I wasn’t so sure I wanted to call him back right then, but it didn’t matter—I never got the chance. Just as Randy and I walked up to my parents’ car, who came walking out of the shadows but the scruffy sideburns dude who’d been sitting across the room in Topper’s earlier that evening.
He’s like, “Hey, losers, what’s up?”
And Randy’s like, “I don’t know, loser. Why don’t you tell me?”
Sideburns grinned a sly TV-serial-killer-type grin. “Well, look at you,” he said to Randy. “The ant with the almost-mustache can talk.”
And Randy goes, “You know what? We can’t all be werewolves like you.”
That’s just the way it was with Randy—always begging for a punch in the mouth.
Sideburns waved him off and walked up to me, stopping about two feet away. “You Dylan Jones?”
Randy told him it was none of his business, but I figured I might as well admit it since somehow the guy clearly knew who I was.
He leaned toward me. “I got a message for you, fat boy.” He paused and stared at me.
“Okay,” I said. “Since obviously you want me to, I’ll ask the question—what message might that be?”
“There’s some people don’t like the way you been poking your nose into places it don’t belong.”
He stopped again.
“And?” I said to prod him on.
“And you’re gonna stop it.”
“Wait a minute,” Randy cut in. “What places are you talking about? Me and Dylan go a lot of places, and we don’t like people telling us we can’t go there.”
In a whirl, Sideburns turned and shoved Randy to the pavement. Then the next thing I knew he grabbed my throat, pressed me against the car, and flashed a switchblade in front of my eyes.
“You like your nose the way it is?” I could hear that serial-killer grin in his voice, but I couldn’t look at anything except the knife blade.
“Yes?” I said.
“Well, you’re gonna be breathing out of a hole in your face instead of your nose if you don’t stop sticking it in this Ashton Browning business. How would you like that?”
“Not so much.”
“And you just stop thinking about collecting any reward money. That ain’t for you. Got it?”
Before I could answer, there was a loud crash, and Sideburns lurched forward, almost slicing off my ear. He let go of me and spun around. There stood Rockin’ Rhonda, holding up her now-busted stringless guitar like a battle-ax.
“What the hell?” said Sideburns. “You didn’t just hit me with that piece of crap, did you?”
Rhonda laughed. “Just like ringing a bell.”
“You must want your belly slit,” Sideburns told her. The only problem was he’d dropped the switchblade, and it was obvious that if he stooped down to grab it, we could all three jump him and that guitar might just crack his face open this time.
“Go for it,” Rhonda said cheerfully. “I’m gonna come at you like a cross-fire hurricane.”
Sideburns glanced at the knife, then back at Rhonda, his fingers twitching at his side as if they were arguing the case for making a play for the knife.
“Come on, Mr. Cool,” Rhonda invited. “Let’s rock and roll.”
Finally, Sideburns backed off. “Forget it. Kicking a homeless freak’s ass isn’t worth my time.” Then he turned to me. “But it is worth my time to kick your ass.” He jabbed a forefinger at my chest. “It’s plenty worth my time.”
“Hold on, I’m coming,” Rhonda sang, and shuffled closer.
“You better watch your back, freak,” Sideburns said as he eased away into the shadows. Then he was gone down the alley behind Topper’s.