Free Daddy's Little Girl by Ed Gorman, Daniel Ransom Page A

sane kids in school wanted to do.
    Usually, Bobby didn’t mind the role he played, except for stray moments, like now, when he got jealous of Dave and all the things Dave could do.
    Such as fuck Angie Fuller, a sumptuous, teasing red-haired girl whose breasts and genitals Bobby had once seen outlined perfectly in a wet bathing suit. Since that time, he had suffered innumerable heartbreaking erections over her.
    And now Dave, another notch in his gun, was going to pick her off—and all he had to do was break into the Foster mansion and walk around in the basement.
    “Hurry up, man!” Bobby shouted.
    Footsteps slapped down the hallway. Closer. Ever closer.
    Dave finished the joint, killed the fire between his thumb and forefinger, then swallowed the roach.
    By the time Mr. Sanders, the math teacher, came into the toilet, Dave was zipping his pants just as if nothing had been going on at all.
    Bobby was the one who gave it away. Mr. Sanders took one look at him, sniffed the air, and Bobby started flushing and sweating and averting his eyes.
    “What’s that I smell?” Mr. Sanders said. A tall man with thinning hair and a very sincere face, he was generally considered to be a “nice” teacher.
    “Nothin’, Mr. Sanders,” Bobby said in his best hangdog voice.
    “Is that marijuana, Bobby?”
    Bobby looked desperately at Mr. Sanders.
    “No, Mr. Sanders.”
    Sanders paid no attention to either of them. He walked around in little circles, sniffing the air like a police dog on the prowl for drugs.
    “That is marijuana,” Mr. Sanders concluded.
    He walked over to Dave.
    Unlike his friend Bobby, Dave seemed to be enjoying this thoroughly. His golden locks appeared to dance and his blue eyes sparkled. With a great deal of contempt and amusement, he said, “No offense, Mr. Sanders, but I don’t think you’d know marijuana if it came up and bit you on the ass.”
    Dave glanced at Bobby for some laughs. But Bobby was too scared to laugh.
    Mr. Sanders sniffed again.
    “Being in possession of marijuana will get you expelled, Evans. In case you’ve forgotten. Which would mean you wouldn’t graduate.”
    Despite the smile that remained on his lips, Dave’s heart began hammering and he felt a small, annoying tic start flicking his left eyelid.
    Not graduating.
    His father, a prominent local businessman, would be ashamed beyond belief. Not graduating would mean that his family had been reduced to the status of “the dirtballs,” as his father often referred to people of less fortune than the Evanses.
    Dave checked out Bobby again.
    Bobby was in a case of terminal shock.
    “Were you smoking marijuana, Evans?”
    Sanders stood no more than inches away from Dave’s face. So easy to reach out and smash the pisshead. One punch and the wimpy bastard would drop for sure.
    But Dave knew better. All he had to do was think of all the things the old man would take away from him—the Trans-Am, the late-night hours, the thirty dollars a week spending money—and he knew better than to follow his instincts and punch out the math teacher, Mr. Nerd Sanders.
    “No, I wasn’t, sir.”
    Dave tried to swallow the “sir,” so that Bobby woudn’t hear him. To control somebody like Bobby, to keep him under your strict command, you had to convince them that you were totally fearless.
    Saying “sir” didn’t do a lot to further that impression.
    “You’re lying, Evans.”
    The word “lying” startled Dave. That he could recall, nobody had ever accused him of lying before, even though it was something he did often.
    “Are you calling me a liar, sir?” Dave felt blood fill his cheeks, felt his hands become stonelike fists eager to pound in the angular face of this nobody sonofabitch standing in front of him.
    “Yes, I am.”
    “I don’t think that’s a very good idea.”
    Sensing the rage in his friend, Bobby said nervously, “Hey, Dave, just keep—”
    “Shut up!” Dave snapped. He wheeled toward the teacher. Brought his fist