Leslie's Journal - Allan Stratton [47]
I go into Happy Grocery breathing fire, pay for the milk and ask for a pack of smokes. The cashier asks for my ID.
“I don’t have it with me.”
“Then sorry.”
“Don’t sorry me!” I yell. “You’re the only stupid store in the whole world that asks for ID, so get real.”
The woman grabs a broom and tells me to get out or she’ll call the cops.
“Happy Grocery, my ass,” I snarl, and take off.
I go back to the pay phone, ready to rumble. I call Jason again. It rings I don’t know how many times. I picture him laughing to himself as he listens. Then I picture him slipping into a coma from his mother’s pills and booze. I go from mad to scared. I think about phoning the suicide prevention line or even the cops, but I can’t take the chance. What happens if there really is a note and a memory card for the cops? There’ll be an investigation. Mom’ll find out. I’ll be called a whore and a murderer.
I pace outside the phone booth, talking to myself. It seems to help me think. I remember to whisper and not move my lips. I don’t want to attract attention, like Marge with the shopping cart outside Katie’s church.
“What’s the big deal? Just go over,” I say.
“What, are you crazy?” I answer back.
“If Jason dies and you don’t go, you’ll blame yourself as long as you live. Plus, going means you’ll get the only remaining copy of the porn plus the letter.”
“But what if he’s bluffing?”
“He won’t do anything while he thinks you may have the memory card. He hasn’t touched you since you stole it, has he? And you left that note in your room for insurance.”
It’s settled. I’m going over. But not alone.
I call Katie’s cell.
“Hellew.” It’s Mrs. Kincaid, using her classy voice.
“Hi, it’s Leslie. Can I please speak to Katie?”
“I’m afraid Katie is studying for her exams.”
“I know. But this is an emergency.”
“It will have to wait till tomorrow.”
“But—”
“Goodbye, dear.” Click.
So Katie’s cell is confiscated. I wait a minute and call back on the Kincaid’s landline, hoping to get somebody besides the Witch.
“Hellew?”
I hang up. Another few minutes, and I call again.
But Mrs. Kincaid knows this game. “Leslie, am I going to have to speak to your mother?”
I hang up. I guess I’m going by myself after all.
There’s a drunk passed out on a nearby park bench. I leave the milk from Happy Grocery next to his booze and grab a passing cab. I can pay with the change from the twenty Mom gave me. Lucky I didn’t get smokes after all. Was that fate? Or a guardian angel?
Mom’ll be wondering where I am. She’ll be worried and mad. But I don’t have time to think about that. I’m on a mission of life and death.
Thirty-Three
The cab pulls up in front of the McCreadys’. There aren’t any cars in the driveway, the curtains are drawn, no lights. I ask the driver to wait, but he’s a little suspicious and wants to see some money. I’ve only got enough for the ride, which leaves me with two quarters. He swears, tells me to get the hell out and takes off.
I go up the walk, ring the doorbell. Nobody comes. I rap the brass knocker. The front door opens by itself. It must have been ajar.
It’s pitch-black inside. There’s light switches on the wall to the right. I reach in and flick them all on. Then I step in, leaving the front door wide open.
“Jason?”
Silence.
I take a second to think. The note and the memory card are supposedly on the pool table in the rec room, but they can wait. The first thing I have to do is find Jason. If he’s dying, I need to call emergency right away. If he’s not, I don’t want him coming downstairs after me, trapping me in the basement.
I figure if he’s taken pills, he’s probably upstairs on his bed. That’s where I’d be if I was going to OD. First, to be comfortable. Second, to be considerate to Mom. “She looks so peaceful, just like she’s sleeping,” she’d think. Even if that’s not a great comfort when you realize the person’s dead, it beats finding them with their bum sticking out of a gas oven and the house ready to blow. Or with their brains decorating the wallpaper.
The idea that Jason