Now what? He’d played darts, he’d looked at enough shaved pussies to last him. well, maybe not a lifetime but at least a few months, there were no murders to solve, so now what?

Vodka, he decided. That was what came next. He’d try a few sips just to prove he could, and so future brags would have that vital ring of truth. Then, he supposed, he would pack up his shit and go back to Murphy Street. He would do his best to make his adventure sound interesting — thrilling, even — but in truth, this place wasn’t such of a much. Just a place where the Really Big Kids could come to play cards and make out with girls and not get wet when it rained.

But booze. that was something.

He took his saddlebag over to the mattresses and sat down (being careful to avoid the stains, of which there were many). He took out the vodka bottle and studied it with a certain grim fascination. At ten-going-on-eleven, he had no particular longing to sample adult pleasures. The year before he had hawked one of his grandfather’s cigarettes and smoked it behind the 7-Eleven. Smoked half of it, anyway. Then he had leaned over and spewed his lunch between his sneakers. He had obtained an interesting but not very valuable piece of information that day: beans and franks didn’t look great when they went into your mouth, but at least they tasted good. When they came back out, they looked fucking horrible and tasted worse.

His body’s instant and emphatic rejection of that American Spirit suggested to him that booze would be no better, and probably worse. But if he didn’t drink at least some, any brag would be a lie. And his brother George had lie-radar, at least when it came to Pete.