Preppy, Part Three, The Life & Death of Samuel Clearwater (King, #7) Read online

  “You see, civilians have this thing about death. I think it’s all the blood, guts, and gore that bothers them.” I waved my cigarette in the air. “Things that hatred and revenge have a tendency to wash away with time. Things like a sense of right and wrong. Guilt. All that bullshit.”

  Kevin squared his shoulders. “I’m not a civilian,” he argued.

  “Oh yeah?” I cocked my head to the side. “Then what exactly are you?”

  He shrugged then looked as if he was thinking. His eyes met mine. “I’m a Clearwater.”

  I couldn’t come up with a response because for some reason his words rendered me stupid. Thankfully Jake interrupted by stomping down the door. Lighting a cigarette, he rolled his shoulders. His neck cracked with an audible pop. He pointed to the cooler at his feet. “All yours,” he said with a faint hint of a smile.

  “You want to take a ride with us man?” I asked, Kevin picked up one side of the cooler and set it right back down when he realized how heavy it was.

  Jake’s eyes lit up with amusement. He shook his head. “Can’t. My kids got a ballet recital at four.”

  “Got ya. Mine wants to sign up for MMA,” I told Jake. I couldn’t help but to smile as I remembered how Bo had pointed from the fight on the TV and then to himself about a thousand times while jumping up and down. Jake looked at me as if I’d sprouted a dick on the middle of my forehead. “Long story. I’ll tell you all about it over a body sometime.”

  I used to not get how Jake could go from virtual serial-killer type by day to doting family man at night. That was until I had a family of my own and now I respected the hell out of him for it.

  Growing up Grace had always told me that you can be a bad boy and still be a good man. I think I was finally understanding what that meant.

  Jake turned on a hose and started to wash out the interior of the trailer. Red tinged water sloshed into the drain and over the back of the truck in a mini bloody waterfall. He whistled-as-he-worked like a fucked up eighth dwarf.

  Kevin’s cheeks turned pink and then red, straining under the weight of the cooler as I helped take it over to the van and set it inside on garbage bags I’d already had laid out.

  I slid the door shut. “Now what?” Kevin asked.

  I smiled. “Now? Now we have some fucking fun.”

  Twenty minutes later we were on Billy’s old airboat, flying through the swamp. I switched my theme song from “Leave the Pieces” to “Piece of Me” by Britney Spears.

  I had a little bit of a theme going on that day.

  We stopped at my favorite spot. Well, my favorite spot for the kind of activity we were doing. It was a clearing next to a sand bar behind a wall of trees where the swamp met the river. Right behind an island King and I had dubbed Motherfucker Island back when we were kids.

  Kevin was helping me feed pieces of whoever had been in the bag (The MC’s deal, not mine) to the alligators surrounding the boat. “Well, kid. You wanted in,” I said. “Now you’re in.”

  Kevin sent a chunk of what I think was a knee sailing into the brush. A splash of commotion erupted as the gators fought over their dinner of human flesh and cartilage. Kevin laughed and set his feet on the edge of the airboat. The sun began to set. “Thanks, Preppy,” he said, wiping his hands on his shorts.

  I nodded and tipped over the cooler, letting any excess blood drip into the water. I set it back down and clapped a hand over Kevin’s shoulder. I smiled brightly. “Welcome to the motherfucking family business, kid.”

  “Speaking of family,” I said. “We haven’t exactly got around to talking about that. You ever gonna tell me how exactly you think I’m your brother?”

  “Not much to tell,” Kevin said, sitting on the edge of the boat with his back to the gator infested waters. “I was born up North. A little town outside Daytona to the same woman who pushed you out.”

  “So she told you about me?” I asked. “‘Cause I find it hard to believe that the woman who left me behind like a couch she didn’t want to bother moving actually spoke my name after she bolted.”

  Kevin shook his head. “Nah, never uttered a word about you. I actually don’t remember her speaking at all. A cop found me wandering around the highway in my diaper when I was just a toddler. They handed me over to social services. I grew up in the system.”

  “Believe it or not that makes you the luckier one of the two of us,” I said.

  Kevin blew out a breath and rolled his eyes. He paused his beer inches from his lips. “Sure, if you call getting beat by your foster parents lucky. Or not getting fed because I wasn’t one of their ‘real kids’ or maybe lucky was that time I was so desperate I let a trucker jack me off outside of a diner in exchange for a hot meal.”

  I felt for the kid. I really did but I couldn’t help the way my thoughts worked or the burst of laughter that bubbled up and erupted from my mouth.

  “You think that’s fucking funny?” Kevin said, standing up and rocking the boat from one side to the other.

  “Yeah, actually I do.”

  “Why?” Kevin asked, looking horrified and extremely pissed off. His fists balled at his sides.

  “Sit down,” I ordered. Kevin huffed as he took a seat, his arms crossed protectively over his chest.

  I leaned forward and rested my elbows on my knees. “You want to know why I think it’s funny?” I asked, no trace of jokes for this conversation.

  “Enlighten me,” Kevin snapped.

  “Because I would have killed to trade places with you. You think getting a handy from a trucker is a bad deal? Please, I’d trade a dozen fucking truckers jerking my dick.” I leaned in closer. “Anything would have been better than getting raped by your stepdad. Better than being left behind like unwanted furniture when your mom moves and leaves you alone with a fucking pedophile.”

  Kevin’s mouth opened and then shut. He scratched at his unruly head of hair. “So what happened to the stepdad.”

  “He died in a tragic on-purpose accident.”

  “You killed him?”

  “King did,” I said. I stood and pointed to the gators encircling the boat. “First notch on his gun belt. That’s how we first found out about this spot.”

  “Shit, man,” Kevin said, rubbing his eyes. “I’m sorry I didn’t think...”

  “So my childhood was a little more rapey than yours. I’m over it, let’s move on.” I waved him off. “So how the hell did you end up in Logan’s Beach?” I asked, reaching into the cooler, the one not designated for body parts. I pulled out two beers and tossed him one.

  “I came to find you,” Kevin said.

  “And?”

  “And you were dead,” Kevin said. His eyes looking everywhere but mine as he took a long pull of his beer. I did the same. We finished at the same time, crashed the cans against our thighs and wiped our mouths with the back of our hands.

  We both laughed when we caught each other going through the same motions and that’s when I started to notice the similarities between us. His hair was the only major difference. It was a few shades darker than my sandy blond. A thick mess on top of his head, several weeks over needing a haircut, but he had the same shape face I did although mine was covered with an exceptionally sculpted beard. We had the same hazel colored eyes although mine were set apart wider. He was even about the same height as I was except my build was much bulkier after having started working out with King several months earlier.

  King had called it my, ‘gonna get my bitch back’ workout routine. Now it was kind of our daily thing.

  Kevin popped another beer and tossed me one. “I’d actually only found out about you because when I turned eighteen, foster care was kicking me out. I didn’t have nowhere to go. My social worker did some digging, told me I might have a brother. Got your name and possible location. Nothing else.” He looked up at me. “Did you know that you’re kind of famous around here?”

  “Infamous is more like it,” I offered.

  “Whatever you want to call it. Alls I know
is that every single person I talked to knew you or knew of you. I even looked up your mug shot so I could see what you looked like. I drove by your house a time or two to see where you lived, before I heard you kicked it. Visited your grave once. Brought you a beer.” He chewed on his lip. “Well, I brought you a beer. I might have drank it for you.”

  I smiled. “How fucking thoughtful of you.”

  “I met Meryl and Fred when I was selling weed by the bus station. Nice guys. Let me crash with them a few times but they’re not around much. I tell you what though, when you showed up at their house that day, running from that cop I nearly pissed myself when I realized it was you.”

  I held up my index and thumb and looked at him through the small space between. “It was a bit shocking for me as well. Never expected to have anyone call me their brother,” I said. “Is your last name really Clearwater?” I asked, remembering what he’d said earlier.

  Kevin shook his head. “No,” he said like he couldn’t believe what he was about to say. “It’s Schmooter.”

  I laughed and toasted Kevin and his ridiculous last name, clinking my beer to his. “You need a nickname or something,” I said.

  “Yeah, I think you’re right,” he agreed.

  “I’ll come up with one for you...Schmooty?”

  Kevin shook his head.

  I started up the boat. “The Kev-ster? It’s very Home Alone. Very 1990.”

  He rolled his eyes.

  I threw down the throttle and shouted over the wind. “Handy-Kevin?”

  Kevin flicked me off.

  “What? Too soon?” I asked.

  “Fuck off,” Kevin said, trying to hide his smile with his hand.

  “I hate to bring this up when we’re having such a swell time and all,” I started, raising my voice above the sound of the engine and the wind as I sped us up faster and faster. Kevin gripped the metal bar attached to the seat between his legs. “But you know if I find out you had anything to do with what happened with Dre last night, or if you fuck with her or my kid in any way that makes me twitchy, you’ll be the one getting fed to the those fucking gators on the next go-round.”

  I don’t know how I expected him to react after I threatened him, but I didn’t expect him to smile, which was exactly what he did. “I didn’t doubt that for a second, Prep,” he shouted back.

  “I’m glad we’re on the same page.”

  I pushed down the throttle, zooming over the shallow water and tall grass. I made a few sharp turns and a few one-eighties for shits and giggles along the way. Kevin even sang along with me for a very off pitch rendition of “Piece by Piece” by Kelly Clarkson. Well, it was more ‘screaming into the wind’ than actual singing.

  In my gut, I didn’t feel like Kevin had anything to do with trying to take Dre, but I couldn’t be a hundred percent sure. At least not yet. And family to me was everything, but the saying that blood was thicker than water didn’t mean jack shit to me because I knew who my family was and blood was something we spilled for one another, not shared.

  “Maybe next time we come out here we’ll run the gators. See how big your balls are,” I said.

  “What the hell is run the gators?” Kevin asked.

  “I’ll show you next time,” I said.

  After I few minutes of silence I looked over to Kevin and burst out laughing. His mouth was wide open, his cheeks puffed out by the wind, exposing all this teeth and gums. He gave me a thumbs up.

  Silly little fucker.

  I kind of like my brother. I thought to myself.

  It would really suck to have to kill him.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  PREPPY

  Sixteen years old

  I was born minutes away from the beach and minutes away from the sticks, in Logan’s Beach, Florida. Saltwater in my veins. Dust on my soul.

  Which was probably the reason it never bothered me when Bear, King, and I didn’t spend our Friday nights like most teenagers in LB were. Kicking up shit in the woods or sneaking beer into the drive-in dollar movie theater.

  Then again, King, Bear and I weren’t most teenagers.

  Our Friday nights were spent a little differently. Like rowing out to an island to bury our ‘investments.’

  Although it didn’t have an official name, we’d dubbed the little five-acre slab of land separating the Bay from the Gulf as Motherfucker Island.

  MFI for short.

  Motherfucker Island was uninhabited and only about as big as a typical strip mall. Dense brush covered most of it, for the exception of a small clearing in the center made up of red dirt and shell. An almost perfect line of mangroves lined the perimeter.

  We’d started our ‘supply bunker’ a year before. It was really just a hole in the ground, but you could only reach the island by boat and the mangroves and alligator infested shallow waters around it didn’t exactly make it a hot-spot destination for anyone but three delinquent teens trying to hide newly acquired cash, guns, and drugs.

  The apartment King and I were renting wasn’t much by way of security unless you consider the flimsy chain lock on the door with rusted hinges secure. Hence the need for MFI.

  The sun was setting as we rowed toward Motherfucker Island in the tiny metal boat barely large enough to hold the three of us. The time of day when it wasn’t still day but night had yet to take over the sky. I liked to call it the time of day when I couldn’t see shit. The rays from the falling ball of fire in the sky reflected off everything in sight causing me to go half blind as I rowed, hoping King and Bear could keep us on target.

  A manatee blew out water a few feet from our boat. “Hey, buddy,” I said, leaning over the side and lightly patting the surface of the water.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” King asked with a laugh.

  “Making him come to me. I saw it on a TV show when I was a kid.” I continued to pat the water. “Come here, buddy. Come to Preppy,” I said, whistling like I was calling for a dog.

  “I’m pretty sure that only works for dolphins,” Bear said, a cigarette dangling from his lip.

  “Manatees are dolphins much fatter, slower cousins,” I argued. I either remembered that fact from somewhere, or made it up.

  Chances are I made it up.

  The manatee’s head disappeared. He flipped his tattered back fin in the air before disappearing back under the water, creating a circular ripple in the surface where he’d just been.

  “Anyone else think the manatee just flipped us off?” King asked.

  “He sure as fuck did,” Bear agreed. “Way to go dolphin-cousin whisperer.”

  I sat back up and glared at my friends. “It’s your attitudes that scared him off. It deters even the wildlife.” I reached for my lighter in my back pocket. “In addition to girls.”

  “I don’t have any problems with the girls,” King argued.

  “Yeah, they’ll fuck you, but they’re scared of you,” I pointed out.

  “Don’t bother me none,” King said, taking a deep breath. “Prefer it that way, actually.”

  “This town can be such shit,” Bear said, exhaling smoke. He pointed to his cigarette at the disappearing ripple in the water where the manatee had just been. “And then you see shit like that and it makes you think that maybe it’s not so fucking bad.”

  “I fucking love this town,” I said. “And we’re gonna own it someday. Well on our way.”

  “Then we’re gonna own one of those,” King said, tipping his chin to several huge homes on pilings, towering above the water. Some of them were dark, hurricane panels covering the windows and doors. A sure sign that they were owned by someone who only lived in them ‘in season’ which was somewhere from November to March.

  “What a fucking waste,” King said, echoing my thoughts. He pointed up to one such house. A three story stilt home sitting almost right under The Causeway. It was completely dark, storm shutters on every window and door. It had a huge backyard with a neglected fire pit, bricks crumbling from the pile.

  “Fuck
ing shame,” I agreed. “When we get one of those big ‘ol fuckers for ourselves I’m never leaving the place. Like a king in his castle.”

  King shot me a look. “We already got a King.”

  I knew he was goading me because he had this thing he did when he was trying to be serious but about to crack where the corner of his lip would ever so slightly twitch like he was physically fighting his reaction. “Like a Preppy in his castle then,” I amended.

  King smiled.

  “I’m glad you let that smile out, Boss-Man. I was afraid for a second that you were going to spontaneously combust. That or you had a serious case of constipation,” I said.

  Bear snorted. “Well, make sure that when y’all get one of them places that you make room for me,” Bear said, sounding defeated.

  “Uh, Bear. You’re in a biker gang,” I pointed out. I quit rowing just long enough to pass him the dented Pepsi can I’d made into a temporary bong after dropping my rolling papers into the fucking Caloosahatchee. “I hate to sound all mean-girls on you, but...you can’t live with us.”

  “It’s a motorcycle club,” Bear corrected, looking off into the distance. “And I ain’t moving in. Just make sure you have space for me if I need to crash.”

  King and I glanced at each other and understanding passed between us that Bear meant he needed a place to crash for when his ‘ol man, Chop, pushed him to the edge, which he was doing more and more of ever since Bear turned official Prospect for the MC.

  “Sure thing, man,” King said, casually.

  The three of us continued to survey the darkened waste of real estate until we came upon one that was different than the others.

  It was lit up and being that it was closer to the water than the others, we could see directly inside to where a family was eating dinner together at the dining room table. A mom, dad, and little boy. They were smiling and laughing together. “Didn’t know families actually did that,” I said, not realizing how sad it sounded at the time.

  “You don’t want that,” Bear argued. “Shit looks boring as fuck.”