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Grandad Mike had used to call dollars and sense. ‘When money talks, even if it’s in a whisper,’ he’d say, tapping the table top with a nicotine-stained finger, ‘you’ll find folks have a tendency to listen.’ He had been referring to politicians, whom he’d generally disliked and distrusted, whichever partythey belonged to, but that thought had, in the end, swayed Gabe and made him return the gold to the sanctuary of his backpack. Dollars and sense…

    Gabe dusted himself down and hoped he’d managed to get rid of the worst of the blood – tough to do with spit, an already-grubby tissue and no mirror. If he was lucky and managed to sneak unseen into the house he could finish the job off when he got home. At least he hoped that was the way it was going to go, because he hadn’t been able to come up with a single decent idea to explain away bloody ears to his mom.
    Unsurprisingly, the headache had come back. He’d tried to be Zen and pedal in time to its dull, insistent throb, but that hadn’t made it any easier to figure out what to do. He knew it’d be better if the gold wasn’t in the house. The only other place he could keep it that was even remotely safe was his locker at school. Hardly high security, but he couldn’t think of anywhere else.
    The first thing he should do was at least try and find out the value of what he’d got his hands on.And then there was the question of whether he went back to Mr Cecil LeBarron’s Studio City store or looked for somewhere else.
    As he turned into his street he thought that Mr LeBarron might be the best bet to start with. The man was interested, and knew he’d screwed up today, which Gabe figured kind of gave him the upper hand. If he hadn’t driven himself crazy before he could get there.
    “Hey, Gabe…”
    Anton? Gabe wobbled and nearly fell off his bike, jolted out of his thoughts by his name being called.
    “You OK, man?”
    Gabe braked to a halt and looked behind him. Anton was walking to meet him. “Yeah, fine… I’m fine. You? What’re you doing here?”
    “Kinda waiting for you.” Anton shrugged, his smile lopsided. “Missed you at the end of school, wanted to check how your day was, you know? You being so kind of out there this morning.”
    This morning.
    So much had happened since then… Benny, Stella, Cecil LeBarron, the weirdness up in the canyon. “No, I’m good, Ant, really…”
    “We go back a long way, right?” Anton didn’t sound so sure of himself.
    “Yeah, we do. Long way.”
    “We always talk about stuff, right? Like we always
have
talked about stuff…” Anton didn’t seem to know whether to stay where he was or move closer to Gabe. “Anyway, look, I just wanted to say, you want to talk you can, you know, talk … to me. Right?”
    “I know.” A feeling of extreme tiredness washed over Gabe. He knew he should talk to Ant, about everything. About how hard it was to deal with his dad being out of work, about being held over a barrel by Benny Gueterro and having Stella on his case. And the skeleton and the gold. Maybe, after a decent night’s sleep, he’d feel up to it, but not now.
    “Gabe?”
    “Sorry, Ant.” Gabe found it hard to look his friend straight in the face. “Really … I gotta get home right now, but I’ll call you. I will.”
    “Make sure you do.” Anton waved, looking over his shoulder as he walked away. “Blood brothers, Gabe, don’t forget that.”
    Gabe watched his friend turn the corner at theend of the street; Anton didn’t look back and for a moment Gabe wondered why that made him feel a bit sad, then the reality of his situation pushed the thought away.
    He was about to ride off when his phone rang, not one of his designated ring tones. He looked at the number, which he didn’t recognize, except that it was local. Ant had recently been chewing his ear off about how he was getting an upgrade and changing services, and it would be just like him to call when he was only round the corner.