Page 115 of String Boys

Well, they didn’t teach you how not to smoke in rehab. Kelly guessed it was a habit his brother was going to keep.

“Where you off to?” Matty asked, but not like he cared.

“Hanging with friends.” The lie came so easily. Not talking about Seth had become like breathing. Even in the apartment, they all talked about Kelly’s boyfriend, or about “how things were in San Francisco” or about “next time you guys go to Disneyland.” Unless Craig was there, the hunger to hear about his son written so plainly on his face that it made Kelly ache, they didn’t actually say his name.

“Friends in Egyptian mythology?” Matty asked snidely, grinding the butt out under his shoe.

“Sure. Osiris, Ra—you’d like them. They’re righteous dudes.”

Matty advanced, breathing nicotine right up into Kelly’s face. “You can’t expose my daughter to that psycho pervert, you know that, right?”

Kelly kept his eyes guileless. “But wecanexpose her to a guy who committed manslaughter, right?”

“It was driving while impaired!”

“That’s because of random fucking chance and a broken legal system. Go ahead, tell me why you’re better. I changed her diapers, remember? She had diaper rash that could burn through ointment. We had to take her to the doctor, remember? Tell me why you’re so much better than I am. Tell me why you got any right to judge.”

“Because I know things you don’t!” Matty snapped. “And you, wiggling your ass for him because we grew up together, like that makes any fucking difference—”

“Matty, at this point, anything you could tell me on this subject is a fucking lie.”

“He killed Castor Durant!” Matty said the words, but his eyes darted to the left, and Kelly sucked in a breath. “You knew?” And Kelly ignored the little bit of triumph in Matty’s voice to focus on that look.

“I thought I did,” Kelly said, blinking hard. “I thought… I thought I knew, and I was okay with that. Because he got the shit beat out of him, and it was self-defense.”

“It wasmurder!” Matty hissed, and Kelly shook his head.

“No. Because you’re lying. I’m not sure what about, but… but you’re lying. What are you lying about, Matty? What is it you know that you think I don’t?”

“Don’t let that psycho near my baby!” Matty snarled, breaking free and heading for the stairs.

“He’s in Italy,” Kelly lied. “You got no worries.”

“Talk about lying!” The contempt practically dripped through the concrete. “If he was in Italy, he’d take you with him!”

Kelly shook his head. “I can’t go,” he said, and for once, he didn’t try to hide it—the anger, the bitterness, the hurt. “Some motherfucker left his daughter on my mother’s doorstep and then killed her husband. Some motherfucker asks our mother for money twice a month when welfare can’t make ends meet. Some motherfucker comes here and eats all her good food every Sunday and makes us all pretend we’re happy to see him. I’m too busy helping Mom pay rent to go to Italy, and I’m sure you’re damned proud of that, so don’t even fucking bother to say it. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got friends to see.”

He clattered across the parking lot then to Craig’s car, since Craig could drive his safer Toyota with the girls in it all weekend.

Once there, he stopped at a gas station before blowing through the night traffic to the Bay, his heart beating with righteous anger the whole time.

Fucker.

Motherfucker.

Thinking he knew something about Seth that Kelly didn’t.

Thinking he was going to shock Kelly about who killed Castor Durant.

Kelly knew.

Kelly had known since day one.

Two things going on at that crime scene.

But Matty had been lying when he said it, and now Kelly knew that. And he’d be wondering, fucking bothered by that until somebody broke and told.

But Seth acted like he couldn’t even hear the words, “What happened that night.” And Kelly—Kelly had tried to bottom a couple more times, and each time, Seth had calmed him down when it didn’t work, and talked about feeling helpless, being afraid, with so much passion, Kelly knew he’d been there.