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disgust. He looked from Deke to Donna, then back to Deke. “You’re shitting me.”
    Deke looked uncomfortable. “The old men can’t carry the vintage around with them,” he said. “Makes ’em crazy. You got to get it out of their bodies or they, I don’t know, overdose on it.”
    Pax shook his head. “So the boys take it. And then what do they do with it?”
    Deke looked at Donna. She shrugged.
    “What, damn it?” Pax said.
    Deke said, “It’s some sex thing. Rhonda sells it to the chub boys. And the chub boys take it because they think the stuff has some effect on the girls.”
    “You’re shitting me,” Pax said again.
    Deke started to smile, but then seemed to recognize that Pax was starting to panic. “I don’t know. Rhonda’s probably selling ’em a bill of goods. Does it matter? Let ’em do what they want—it doesn’t have anything to do with us.”
    “Not you, maybe. Me, I got knocked on my ass. I could have overdosed. You didn’t even call Nine-one-one, you called them, those chub boys.”
    “Come on, Pax,” Deke said. “They know how to handle it. Call the paramedics, they’d try to check your dad into a hospital.” He turned over one big palm. “It’s clade business. A charlie thing.”
    “Like hell it is. This is a father thing.”
    “And you’re his son, now?”
    Pax sat back from the table. He thought about saying, “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” But he knew what he meant. Pax hadn’t called his father in years. He hadn’t planned to come back to Switchcreek until the old man’s funeral. He just never planned on the wrong person dying.
    Pax stood. “You know better than anyone, Deke.
He
sent
me
away.”
    “Where are you going?” Deke said.
    “Just take me to my car.” He turned toward the door. His head still felt light from the dose, but he could move fine. Mostly fine.
    “Come on, P.K.,” Deke said. “You can’t just walk away every time you—”
    “Cut this out, both of you!” Donna said.
    Pax blinked at her. Deke started to open his mouth and she shushed him.
    “We’re all going to sit down and eat dinner,” she said. “Whether you like it or not.”
    The two men sat back down. When she turned back to chopping the vegetables, Pax raised his eyebrows.
    “Don’t piss off an argo woman holding a knife,” Deke said quietly, but of course his voice carried through the house.
    Pax said, “We’re not done talking about this chub thing.”
    “Didn’t think so,” Deke said.

Chapter 3
    T HE NEXT DAY , one of the chub boys was waiting for him at his father’s house.
    It was the blond one, spiked hair like a patch of dried straw. He sat behind the wheel of a new-looking Toyota Camry parked in the driveway. Metallic green paint job, shiny rims, everything gleaming in the morning sun. Pax pulled past the car and parked between it and the house.
    The boy sat with his elbow propped on the window, heavy bass thumping from the stereo. He nodded at Pax through the windshield, and kept smiling as Pax walked over to him. The music was some kind of slowed-down hip-hop, old stuff that sounded like eighties rap.
    “You mind turning that down?” Pax said. He had to shout to be heard over the music.
    The fat boy grinned at him, but didn’t reach for the stereo. His close, pink scalp showed between those carefully gelled and sprayed strands. Pax wanted to punch this guy in the mouth, a straight-arm right through the open window. It was a pleasure to know something so certainly, spoiled only by the equally certain knowledge that the chub could break him in half.
    Pax leaned on the car and felt the vibration of the speakers through the sheet metal. He smiled and said quietly, “You’re going to be bald by thirty, dough boy.”
    The chub’s smile vanished. He punched a button to silence the music and said, “What was that?”
    “Thank you,” Pax said. “Much appreciated.” He glanced back at the house. It looked the same as the other day: door shut,