Clay dried his hands on an old T-shirt and turned to look at Arlo Hall, pinned down in his chair by Harry’s heavy tattooed hands clamped down on weedy shoulders. Under Clay’s gaze, Arlo shifted uncomfortably on the hard plastic seat and gulped, the bob of his Adam’s apple jerky and exaggerated in his wasted throat. His lip was split, and one eye was halfway to swollen shut.
It wasn’t that Clay had any compunction about hurting people. He didn’t get off on it like some, but it would be specious to pretend he had any moral qualms at this point in his life,. He found it was just best to run on instinct and not second-guess himself.
“I told you I didn’t know where he was,” Arlo blurted out as he cringed down as far as Harry would let him in the chair. He licked the sweat off his upper lip. “Me and TJ ain’t joined at the hip, y’know. I just slip him some cash to run errands. That’s all. He’s his own man.”
Clay pressed his damp thumb between his eyebrows and sighed.
“He’s your son,” he said.
The blank look he got was all he deserved, he supposed. Arlo had the emotional range of a catfish. It wasn’t even the pills or the booze, although Clay figured they hadn’t helped. Everyone who’d grown up with the asshole, and in someplace as small as Sweeny, that was nearly everyone, said he’d been like this since he was a kid.
“OK, let’s try that again,” Clay said. “We’re not done here, Arlo. I’m just done punching you.”
Most people would have enough going for them to realize that was a threat. Not Arlo. He wasn’t even smart enough to hide the smug look as he thought he’d gotten away with something.
Idiot.
“Jesus Christ, Arlo,” Clay said, shaking his head as he pushed himself upright. “You’re a piece of work.”
He punched Arlo in the face. His knuckles mashed Arlo’s lumpy nose, which folded in on itself with a wet crunch and a spurt of blood. The blow knocked Arlo back in the chair, the front legs briefly up off the ground before Harry tightened his grip and brought them back down with a crack.
“What the ’uck,” Arlo slurred through his fingers as he reached up to cradle his nose. His voice thick and snotty as blood dripped down his needle-scarred arm. “You said you were done punchin’ me! Wha’ happened to tha’?”
“You made a liar out of me, Arlo,” Clay said. He wiped his hand on the leg of his jeans and nodded to Harry. The big man hauled Arlo and the chair over to the turned-up-to-the-max stove. It had been a while since it had been cleaned—if ever—and yellow globs of grease had melted off the tempered glass door and splattered over the floor. “Tell me something, you stupid fuck. Did you think we were going to roast some veg for your Sunday dinner?”
For the first time, worry crossed Arlo’s face as he looked back over his shoulder. He tried to squirm away from Harry, his whole body contorted into tight, awkward shapes.
Leaving Harry to keep Arlo from lizarding away out of the chair, Clay circled them both and pulled the door of the oven open. It was red-hot and the heat blasted out to scorch his knees. Arlo had left half a tray of ribs in there, and they’d cremated, the meat turned to charcoal and sauce baked into a crust. It smelled like it had already gone bad before the oven had been flicked on.
“What are you doing?” Arlo demanded. He dug his nails into Harry’s hands as he tried to squirm out of his T-shirt. “I told you. I don’t know any-fucking-thing!”
“Yeah, but I don’t believe you,” Clay said. “So if I were you, I’d think of some-fucking-thing to tell me before I see how much of you I can cram in here.”
He slapped the top of the stove. It was greasy and hot enough from the oven to sting.
Arlo swore, a desperate, slurred run of filth, and kicked desperately at Clay with grubby sneakers. One wild kick caught Clay in the thigh hard enough to hurt, and the next slammed the oven door shut.
“Ha!” Arlo yelled. “Fuck you. There! What you gonna do now?”
Clay stared at him for a moment. Some days the people he had to deal with made him regret throwing his lot in with Ezra. Not that he’d had another option.
Still, for fuck’s sake.
He reached down and pulled the door open again. “That,” he said.
Arlo tried to kick it closed again. This time Clay grabbed his ankle before he could connect and hung on.
“Where would TJ go if he was in trouble?” Clay asked slowly, in case that was the problem Arlo was having.
Arlo licked chapped lips and sniffed. “Fuck you,” he said, his voice strung tight with nervy defiance. “You ain’t gonna do shit.”
When Clay didn’t immediately “do shit,” Arlo’s lips twitched into a smug-bastard grin. He wasn’t a man that had many wins in life, so Clay gave him that one… for a second. Then he yanked on Arlo’s leg hard enough to drag him half off the chair and shoved his foot into the oven.
The tray of ribs cracked against the back of the oven as Arlo’s foot jammed in awkwardly between the two shelves. Grubby rubber melted against the hot metal, and Arlo squealed as the pleather trainer blistered and peeled.
“All right!” he screamed. “I’ll tell you, alright? I’ll tell you!”
Clay nodded. “Go on.”
