“I’ve never been over here,” Auggie said as he parked.
“Really?” Orlando said. “The Pretty Pretty’s a couple of blocks that way.”
“What’s the Pretty Pretty?”
“The only gay club in town. You haven’t been? Oh my God, we’ve got to go sometime.”
Theo didn’t do anything. He didn’t even move. But suddenly Orlando’s face was red, and he said, “Um, you know, um, um.”
“Oh my God,” Auggie said.
Orlando was still stammering.
“Did you threaten him?” Auggie said to the rearview mirror.
Theo just rolled his eyes.
“I can go to a gay club if I want,” Auggie said.
“Be my guest,” Theo said. “You’ll get eaten alive, and not in a sexual way. Well, not exclusively in a sexual way.”
“What does that mean?”
“Go to the Pretty Pretty and find out.”
“Maybe I will.”
Theo rolled his eyes again.
“And I can go with Orlando if I want.”
Sighing, Theo just unbuckled his seat belt and got out of the Civic.
The apartment building had clearly been extensively renovated: the brick was clean, almost new looking, but its dark red color matched the other brick buildings in the area; the windows were definitely new, the energy-saving kind that Fer had bitched about putting in the house in California; in the exterior corridors, the stairs and railings had glossy black paint, and the outdoor carpet tiles were a bright, yellow-and-blue check that the sun hadn’t faded yet.
“That’s Wayne’s.” Orlando pointed to a blue BMW. Then, gesturing to the empty stall next to it, he said, “That’s Cal’s spot. He drives a yellow Mustang, and I’ll text you the plate number in case it helps.” He led them up the stairs, down one of the exterior corridors, and stopped at the door marked 3F. He knocked once.
The man who answered had to be related to Orlando. He had the same scruff, although his was so thick that it was almost a beard, the same lantern jaw, the same thick brows. He was bigger than Orlando, taller and wider, and although he had the first hints of a gut pulling at the rugby shirt he was wearing, he still had an athlete’s build. His eyes were red, and his gaze drifted over them until settling on Orlando. Then he turned and shuffled back into the apartment, the door hanging open behind him.
“He’s not handling this nearly as breezily as Billie,” Auggie said.
Orlando just shook his head and went inside, and Auggie and Theo followed.
The apartment clearly belonged to bachelors. The living room furniture consisted of a pleather loveseat and matching pleather recliners, all three pieces arranged to face an enormous television. Auggie could see into the kitchen from where he stood: a Vitamix blender, tubs of protein powder, a frying pan and plates in the sink. The only ornamental items were a poster with the 2012 Mizzou Tigers football roster, a sepia-tone map of St. Louis, and a framed baseball card featuring Mark McGwire, first base, in a USA uniform—Auggie didn’t know baseball well enough to know if the card was valuable, but it looked old, and he guessed it hadn’t been framed for purely sentimental reasons. A short hallway led off the living room; Auggie could glimpse a bedroom through a partially closed door.
“I thought we were going to Cal’s apartment,” Auggie said.
“This is Cal’s apartment,” Orlando said. “He and Wayne live together.” Then he said, “Wayne, this is Auggie and Theo. They’re the ones I told you about.”
Wayne dropped into a recliner. The chair had a built-in cupholder, which was currently occupied by a can of Pabst. Wayne chugged the beer, crumpled the can with one hand, and tossed it. It made a cheery, clinking rattle as it joined the pile of cans next to the chair.
“Hi, Wayne,” Auggie said.
Wayne’s gaze finally moved to him, but his eyes were bleary and unfocused, and Auggie couldn’t tell how much Wayne was really seeing.
“What are we doing here?” Theo asked in a whisper.
“Trying to find out what Wayne knows,” Auggie whispered back.
“They’re helping us look for Cal,” Orlando said a little too loudly. “They want to talk to you.”
“So let them fucking talk to me,” Wayne said. He rubbed his big hands along the recliner’s arms. “Peepee, get me a beer.”
Orlando’s face turned to fire, and he very obviously tried not to look at Auggie as he headed to the kitchen.
“You don’t look so good,” Theo said.
“Right back fucking at you.”
Theo shot Auggie a look.
“I think he’s just asking if everything’s ok,” Auggie said. “You seem upset.”
“Upset?” Wayne said. “No, I’m not upset. I’m pissed off. And I’m drunk. My brother’s been gone for over a week. We’ve got a business to run. Personalized coaching. So I’m going to be doing double the work until Cal decides to show up. My sisters want to pretend nothing is wrong. And my other brother is such a royal fuckup that I can’t ask him for any help.” Orlando had come back with the beer, and when he held it out, Wayne snatched it from his hand and said, “Isn’t that right, Peepee?”
Orlando stared at his feet.
“He’s been gone for over a week?” Auggie said. “I thought it hadn’t been quite a week.”
“Nobody knows, really,” Orlando said.
“What? How is that possible?”
“I was out of town,” Wayne said. “When I got back, no Cal.”
“How long were you gone?”
“Weekend. Left Friday night, came back Sunday night.”
“Cal didn’t have any appointments over the weekend?” Theo asked. “Training sessions, practices, nothing like that?”
“Right before Wroxall starts up, we take a week off. Like a summer vacation for the kids who have been training. Cal was going to stay here and jerk off all weekend.” Waving lazily with the beer, he added, “We go back tomorrow, just like you.”
“He didn’t have a girlfriend? Someone he might have spent time with, I mean.”
“Cal and I are building a business. We didn’t have time for stuff like that. Not everybody’s lucky enough to go to school on Mommy and Daddy’s money, nights and weekends free to suck a few cocks. The rest of us, even the girls, we had to go on scholarship. We had to work hard enough to make the right team. We had to work our asses off to get a chance. Not baby Peepee.”
Orlando’s face, if anything, got redder.
“What’s that like, Peepee?”
“Maybe you should wait outside,” Auggie said to Orlando.
Orlando shook his head.
“Could I use your bathroom?” Theo asked.
Wayne waved at the hall, and Theo moved out of sight. A door clicked shut.
“Pretty sweet life, huh?” Wayne said, and then, faster than Auggie could believe, he slapped Orlando’s stomach. Orlando let out a grunt and stumbled back, both hands pressed over his abdomen. His face was white.