Gone-Girl-by-Gillian-Flynn

around, as if he worried they’d overheard him. He leaned closer to me. ‘You
go at night, that’s when they’re there. Daytime, they’re down by the river, or
out flying a flag.’
‘Flying a flag?’
‘You know, sitting by the exits on the highway with those signs: Laid Off,
Please Help, Need Beer Money, whatever,’ he said, scanning the room.
‘Flying a flag, man.’
‘Okay.’
‘At night they’re at the mall,’ he said.
‘Then let’s go tonight,’ I said. ‘You and me and whoever.’
‘Joe and Mikey Hillsam,’ Stucks said. ‘They’d be up for it.’ The Hillsams
were three, four years older than me, town badasses. The kind of guys who
were born without the fear gene, impervious to pain. Jock kids who sped
through the summers on short, muscled legs, playing baseball, drinking beer,
taking strange dares: skateboarding into drainage ditches, climbing water
towers naked. The kind of guys who would peel up, wild-eyed, on a boring
Saturday night and you knew something would happen, maybe nothing good,
but something. Of course the Hillsams would be up for it.
‘Good,’ I said. ‘Tonight we go.’
My phone rang in my pocket. The thing didn’t turn off right. It rang again.
‘You gonna get that?’ Stucks asked.
‘Nah.’
‘You should answer every call, man. You really should.’
There was nothing to do for the rest of the day. No searches planned, no more
flyers needed, the phones fully manned. Marybeth started sending volunteers
home; they were just standing around, eating, bored. I suspected Stucks of
leaving with half the breakfast table in his pockets.
‘Anyone hear from the detectives?’ Rand asked.
‘Nothing,’ Marybeth and I both answered.
‘That may be good, right?’ Rand asked, hopeful eyes, and Marybeth and I
both indulged him. Yes, sure.
‘When are you leaving for Memphis?’ she asked me.
‘Tomorrow. Tonight my friends and I are doing another search of the mall.