Puck Read online

  I squeezed his hand. "Jesus, Puck."

  "I was seventeen. Just graduated high school. He was gonna give me Evelyn as a graduation present."

  "What happened? Did the police ever find them?"

  He was quiet for a little too long. "Nope. But I did."

  My blood ran cold. "You did."

  He nodded. "Found them, all four of them. And Evelyn. Seventeen . . . and I was pissed. Never really been completely stable, you know? Growing up with a hard-drinking gambler dad as my only parent, no mom, no real supervision? It wasn't a recipe for a nice, well-adjusted kid, let's just put it that way. So yeah, I found the fuckers, and I killed them. My dad had guns, and I grew up shooting. It was . . . easier than it should have been. And in that part of Arkansas, a few gunshots weren't going to worry anyone, so nobody called the police. Put the bodies in Evelyn, drove it to a spot I knew, an old quarry turned into a lake. Sent it over the edge, just like in the movies. Only, unlike in the movies, as far as I know, nobody ever found 'em."

  "Jesus."

  "And that was that. I bought myself a one-way bus ticket to Los Angeles, as far from Arkansas as I could get, joined the Army, and never looked back."

  "You killed four men at seventeen years old."

  He eyed me carefully, warily. "Might be worth mentioning that literally nobody else knows that story. Not Harris, not Layla, not Duke or Thresh, or anyone."

  I let out a slow breath. "Wow. Um. I'm . . . I don't know how I feel."

  "Scared of me now?" He sounded . . . resigned.

  I squeezed his hand. "My heavy personal shit isn't much nicer, and I'm still holding your hand, so you tell me." I touched the tattoo of the 1939 Ford. "That's a lot of story for one tattoo."

  He nodded. "The rest are the same."

  I examined his shoulder and arm--the M16 with the helmet on it seemed pretty straightforward, and something I guessed he wouldn't want to talk about just yet, so I traced the outlines of the cards and dice, the revolvers, and the pinup girl.

  "What about these?" I asked.

  Puck grinned. "You've got a nose for the interesting stuff, don't you?" He lifted his arm to look at the tats. "So, the interesting thing is, those three tats are connected."

  "How so?"

  "I did a tour in Iraq as a grunt, followed by a few months' worth of guard duty in Germany to finish out my enlistment period, and then I shipped back to the States. Of course, when I enlisted, I was a seventeen-year-old kid with no family who was also on the run from a quadruple homicide. Didn't exactly have a home to go to, you know? I knew the cabin was still mine, but it was in the middle of nowhere, literally, no electricity, no plumbing, nothing. So I hit stateside with no clue what to do or where to go. I'd spent four years as a grunt, most of that boots on the ground in Iraq doing CP--combat patrol. No real education beyond high school, no real skills other than shooting, marching, and pumping iron. The only other thing I knew how to do with any real skill was play cards. I learned how to gamble sitting on my old man's lap. He'd bring me to card games, and I'd watch him play. I knew the card suits and poker hands before I could walk. So I found a card game. Made enough money gambling to set myself up with a life, for a bit."

  I frowned. "So that explains the cards and dice, but how does that connect to the pinup girl and the revolvers?"

  He laughed. "Well, I ended up in what you might call an underground version of the world series of poker. All totally illegal, of course, but hey, it was good money. The whole thing was flashy and as blinged out as you might expect from high-dollar, cash-only, underground poker players. Fancy cars, velvet-covered tables, bottles of Cristal and Hennessy, all that shit. And real live pinup girls. Instead of strippers or topless chicks or something tacky like that, they hired these girls as waitresses and had them get hair and makeup done to look like old school pinup girls, complete with vintage bathing suits." Puck hesitated a moment or two. "I got involved with one of them. Raquel, her name was. At first it was . . . you know, just physical. But I kept going back for more, and she seemed interested in more, so we never really talked about it, but we . . . got together, I guess. I dunno what you want to call it. I ended up living with her. She was . . . Raquel was . . ." He hesitated again, this time hunting for the right words. "Not what you'd call a classy sort of lady, but she was the sweetest damn thing. She modeled some, mostly scantily clad or not at all, did some exotic dancing, some escort work--strictly nonsexual, she insisted. And she had the pinup girl thing going--she had a whole website for her work as a pinup girl. It was good business, I guess."

  "You keep using past tense," I pointed out.

  He nodded. "Because she's dead. First and only serious girlfriend, remember?" Puck tugged on his beard again. "She was always bugging me about doing something with my life besides playing poker. She'd yammer on until she was blue in the face about how I was so smart and had potential and if she were as smart as I was she'd be doing something besides modeling and dancing. I tuned her out, figured she was full of shit. I'd barely graduated high school, and I only did that much because Pops fuckin' made me. School was bullshit, and all I knew was gambling and guns." He touched the crossed revolvers. "I got this to piss off Raquel, along with the other two, the cards and dice, and the pinup girl. The pinup was for her, but it was also like, guns, gambling, and girls is all I'm good for."

  "What happened to Raquel?"

  Puck sighed and tugged on his beard hard enough that it looked painful. "She got hit by a taxi. Shouldn't have been a big deal, just a broken leg and some contusions or whatever. But she--she picked up an infection. The hospital bungled it all to hell, and she died. Fucking freak thing, you know? Staph infection or one of those flesh-eating things, can't remember what it's called. You generally only get them in hospitals. She got it, and they didn't handle it right, and she fucking died. She was twenty-three. Prime of her life, gorgeous, had her whole life ahead of her."

  "Did the hospital get in trouble?"

  Puck shook his head. "Nah. We weren't married, and she'd run away from home when she was just a kid. Nobody to sue them. They told me she'd died, that there wasn't anything to do, and I should just . . . fuckin'--go home. So I went home. Got her buried. I was the only one at her funeral."

  "Jesus, Puck."

  He laughed. "Running theme, I'm noticing, you saying 'Jesus, Puck.'" He squeezed my hand. "Twelve years ago, now. Old pain. It's fine."

  "Does it hurt less, now?"

  He shrugged. "Not really." He touched the tattoos in question. "So that's those three. The guns were just to piss her off, and because I thought they looked cool. The cards and the pinup were about how I made my living and about Raquel, the only good thing I'd ever really had in my life up to that point."

  "What about your dad?"

  "That's complicated." He waved a hand. "Short story is he was a drunk, and he wasn't always nice. I knew he loved me, but when he was at the bottom of a bottle, he turned into . . . someone else. He was angry. Life had dealt him a shitty hand. Ma died when I was a baby, he got laid off, all sorts of shit. But he was all I had, and he was . . . he was Pops. Like I said, it's complicated."

  I examined his tattoos. "I'm scared to ask about any others."

  He touched the M16 and helmet. "You can probably guess about this one . . . a buddy killed in action. Dirty Harry is there because that movie is the shit, and I love Clint Eastwood. The handcuffs . . ." he laughed, "that one's got a funny story attached to it."

  "Tell me."

  He lifted an eyebrow. "It ain't exactly a PG story, babe."

  I lifted an eyebrow back at him. "Does it seem like that's bugged me so far?"

  He conceded with a shrug. "Guess not. So after Raquel died, I figured the best way I could honor her memory was to do what she always wanted me to do, make something of myself. I enrolled in Santa Monica College--which I paid for gambling, by the way--because a counselor told me I could transfer to UCLA as long as I put two years in and kept a C-plus average. So I did two years at Santa
Monica, and then transferred to UCLA. I enrolled in a criminal justice class at Santa Monica, but only because it filled my requirements. Turned out I enjoyed it, and that sort of piqued my interest in forensics, so I ended up studying that at UCLA. But then right as I got my bachelors, a recruiter from the FBI talked me into a career in law enforcement. I thought that was funny as shit, all things considered. I mean, I paid for my degrees with illegal gambling, and there were four bodies at the bottom of quarry because of me."

  "Seems pretty PG to me, so far," I said.

  He chuckled. "That's all just background. So I ended up in the FBI, did my time at Quantico, made agent, got put into the forensics department. I spent a good year and a half, almost two, not really dating or seeing anyone during my time at Santa Monica, not even hooking up. I was focused on school, and losing Raquel was still kind of raw, you know? Once I got into UCLA, I started hooking up again, and at that point, I kept it basic, you know? Well, I had to work my way up, in the Bureau. Just because I had a bachelors in forensics didn't mean I was going to get the good cases right away, or be a forensics lab tech or whatever. I had to put in my time. Lots of legwork, boring cases, all that bullshit.

  "One case was investigating this woman suspected of being a madam. Nobody could pin anything on her, but there was lots of circumstantial evidence that she was running a multi-state ring of hookers."

  "Oh dear."

  He laughed again. "You have no idea. Well, I was sent to hunt down some leads. I found the woman, the main suspect, started an interview . . ." He sighed and shook his head. "She seduced me. I mean, it wasn't hard, but I should have known better. Anyway, I let her seduce me, and we . . . well . . . she liked some interesting stuff, let's just say that. I ended up handcuffed naked to a hotel room bed, and she was gone in a puff of smoke. Eventually someone went looking for me, found me, uncuffed me, and I got reamed out, disciplined, all sorts of fun shit. Well, I went out with some guys from the Bureau one night, told them the story over drinks, and ended up getting that tat to commemorate the occasion."

  I couldn't help laughing. "You let the suspect of an investigation seduce you?"

  He nodded. "And handcuff me to the bed with my own cuffs. She knew exactly why I was there and figured she had my number pretty well pegged. Correctly, as it turned out."

  "Was it worth it?" I asked.

  Puck laughed. "Hell yeah! She was older and experienced, and holy hell, did I learn some amazing new tricks from that woman."

  I frowned. "By older, you mean what?"

  He tipped his head to one side. "I was twenty . . . seven? Twenty-eight? And she was at least midforties, if not closer to fifty."

  I laughed again. "Jesus, Puck."

  He nodded. "That's me." He cut a glance at me. "So. Your turn."

  I sighed. "Really? You end on a funny note, and now I've gotta dredge up all my old shit?"

  He nodded. "That's the agreement."

  I sighed again. "Fine. So I had a totally boring, normal, two-parent, suburban life until I was sixteen. Mom was a dental technician, and Dad was the manager of a car dealership. I had an older sister, Danielle. I was a dancer, I was in the math club at school, had a perfect GPA, a cute boyfriend, my own car, I was popular." I swallowed hard. "My dad's parents were both dead, and my mom was the only child of elderly parents. Which meant I had one set of grandparents, who were in their eighties when I was sixteen. I had one uncle, my dad's brother, and his wife, but they lived three states away, and my dad wasn't close to them."

  "Not liking how this is sounding, babe."

  I nodded. "You can probably guess. My mom and dad were taking my sister to a fine arts camp for the summer--she was a painter, a really talented one. Well, a guy wasn't paying attention, crossed the centerline, and crashed into my parents' car head-on, doing sixty in a forty-five. Mom and Dad were killed instantly, and my sister died on the way to the hospital. My grandparents couldn't take me. They were in an assisted living place, my grandmother had dementia, and my grandfather could barely walk. Which left my aunt and uncle, Tammy and Craig. I knew them, but not well. They'd come over for Christmas every few years, but we just weren't close to them. They didn't have kids. Tammy couldn't, I guess, and they decided against adoption. I dunno much about any of that." I spent a few moments in silence, staring out the window at the passing buildings, trying to put my thoughts in order. "At first, living with them was okay. They were nice enough, pretty much just let me do my own thing, since I was almost seventeen. Senior year of high school, new school, new state, parents dead, sister dead, no friends, didn't know anybody . . . it was rough, as you might imagine."

  "That fucking sucks, Colbie, I'm sorry."

  I offered him a small smile. "That's just background, Puck."

  He winced. "Shit."

  I nodded. "Yeah. So I'd been living with Craig and Tammy for . . . six months, eight months, something like that. I came home from school one day, and Tammy was gone somewhere. Shopping, drinking with friends, I don't know. Craig was home. Got laid off, I guess, and got wasted. He was stumbling around the house, shirt open, pants undone. Saw me . . . made a pass at me."

  "What? Are you fucking kidding me?"

  I sighed. "I wish, Puck. I tried to squeeze past him, brush it off as just . . . a drunk thing. He . . . um--yeah. You know."

  "No." Puck's voice was hard. "Hell no."

  I nodded. "Yep. On the stairs." I swallowed hard again. "I went to the police, filed a report, had the whole rape kit thing done. Tammy visited me in the hospital . . ." I trailed off, finding it hard to finish.

  "And blamed it on you," Puck filled in.

  "Got it in one." I ran my hands through my hair, an agitated gesture. "So I had nowhere to go. Seventeen, an orphan, two months shy of my diploma, no work experience, nowhere to live, and no one to trust. I checked out of the hospital with the clothes on my back, not a cent to my name, not even a backpack."

  "Fucking hell." Puck squeezed my hand, and this time he didn't let up. "What'd you do?"

  "I was homeless. I lived in a homeless shelter, showered in the gym showers before school started, stole some clothes from a Goodwill store, got free lunch and breakfast at school . . . it worked out. I graduated high school with a 3.9 GPA. The second I had my diploma, I started hitchhiking north. I don't know why, I just figured New York was the place to be for a homeless girl."

  "Damn. 3.9 GPA and you were fucking homeless?"

  I shrugged. "I'd done well in school, and then when the accident happened, all I had to focus on was school. It was all I had, so I dug in hard, I guess."

  "How'd you go from homeless to where you are now?" Puck asked.

  "That's . . . not an easy story to tell, nor a short one."

  "SparkNotes?"

  I shook my head. "Wouldn't do it justice."

  "Come on, Colbie, you gotta give me something."

  "You told me a lot, so I kinda have to, don't I?"

  Puck blew a raspberry. "You don't have to tell me shit, Colbie. But I'm interested."

  "I got hooked on heroin." I blurted it out, a dirty secret known only to me, till now.

  "What? How?"

  "I got a job as a parking lot attendant. Had a spot in a homeless community, under an overpass, near some people who'd look out for me at night. Thought I could save money, you know? Get an apartment, make ends meet, figure things out. Build a life. Well . . . I made friends with some people, a couple girls who were in a gang. They looked out for me, protected me, got me a better job at a Footlocker . . . and they also pressured me into trying heroin. It was the thing, you know? What they did. They sold it, as distributors for another guy. And I got hooked. It nearly killed me. I OD'd once, got arrested a few times, started living for the next hit, that whole cliche."

  "Goddamn." His gaze was sharp as it swiveled to mine. "How'd you get clean?"

  "A counselor at a homeless facility. After the OD, I went there because I knew my friends in the gang wouldn't help me get clean, and if I went back to t
hem, I'd keep shooting up. The counselor, Miss Lewis . . . she took an interest in me. Somehow, she found out that I'd done well in high school, and as a way to keep me busy, convinced me to study for the SAT. So I lived in the homeless shelter and studied at the library, took the SAT, aced it." I smiled at the memory. "Miss Lewis then convinced me to apply to a bunch of universities, just for fun, she said. What if, you know? Like, what did I have to lose? So I applied to like twenty universities, Ivy League places and state colleges all over the country. And then Miss Lewis talked me into applying for grants and scholarships, had me write a million essays about why I wanted to go to college and whatever. For me, it was about not being homeless anymore, it was about the idea of a future. When I OD'd, I realized that . . . I had two paths in front of me--death or jail with my friends from the gang, or something else, a path that led to a future, a path that led to me being something, being someone . . . worthwhile."

  "So you got into a college?"

  I grinned. "I got into Harvard. And I got a scholarship, not a full ride, but a pretty big one. And Miss Lewis showed me how to take out school loans, and I got a job to cover the rest."

  Puck stared at me. "Harvard?" He sounded suitably impressed. "You went to Harvard?"

  I nodded, still grinning. "Sure did. Got a masters from the Harvard Business School with a double minor in Chinese and Russian."

  "After being a homeless heroin addict."

  "Damn straight," I said, with no small amount of pride in my voice; I figured I'd earned the right to be proud of that.

  He shook his head. "Colbie, that is impressive as hell. For real. You deserve major fuckin' props for that shit."

  "Wanna know how I supplemented my spending cash when I was at Harvard?" I asked.

  "How?"

  "Poker."

  Puck gaped at me. "The hell you say."

  I shrugged, and then winked at him. "I've always had a head for numbers. Some friends from my dorm talked me into playing poker one day, and I discovered I had a talent for it." I hesitated, because this was another little thing nobody knew. "And, um, I also figured out that I could keep track of who had which cards. Made it easy to make sure I won."