As we headed into the city, he started asking about Trix, wondering if maybe she’d be at the pool hall. That possibility was the main reason Audrey wanted to go, but Randy, always up for meeting a new girl—any new girl—figured if Trix turned out not to be a lesbian, he might have a shot at her.
I’m like, “No way. If she’s not a lesbian, then I’m first in line in front of you.”
“Forget that, Dylan,” Audrey said. “You can’t ever ask her out.”
“Why not? If she’s not into girls, why would you care?”
“Because we’re best friends, and you don’t ask out somebody your best friend already likes. The g*y thing doesn’t make any difference.”
I hadn’t thought of it that way, but she was right. It wouldn’t feel so good to see her going around with some girl I liked. And I would never—never—in a million years want to make Audrey feel like that. Besides, I didn’t think it was a good idea to date a suspect.
Anyway, the Asian district is a cool part of town. There’s a healthy Vietnamese population in Oklahoma City, and they’ve opened up all kinds of interesting restaurants and shops. If you’ve never tried pho, which is this super-hearty Vietnamese noodle soup, then you need to. They have whole restaurants devoted to it. In fact, even though I’d already had dinner, I voted to stop in for a quick bowl, but Audrey and Randy vetoed me.
Trang’s, the Vietnamese pool hall, was on a little out-of-the-way side street in a building that I think used to be a carpet store. Although a lot of the Vietnamese places were all spruced up, Trang’s was pretty dingy on the outside, not a total dump, but not exactly welcoming either. I was pretty sure we weren’t going to fit in.
“Are you guys sure you want to go in here?” I asked.
“Why not?” Randy said. “My dad used to take me into worse places than this when he was still around.”
I looked at Audrey.
“We’re here,” she said. “We might as well check it out. Besides, how bad can it be if a Hollister boy hangs out here?”
I’m like, “It’s times like this I wish I had a derringer or something.”
“Oh, sure,” said Randy. “Someone would take that away from you in about five seconds and let the air out of your big belly with it. Now come on, let’s go in.”
That Randy. He sure knew how to reassure a guy.
My hope was that the owners had put all their money into decorating the inside. I pictured gold Buddha statues, fake exotic plants, a couple of big-screen TVs, maybe even a snack bar made out of bamboo. No luck. I guess all their money went into used pool tables. There were ten of them, each with plastic-shaded lamps, which were pretty much the only sources of light in the room. The walls might have been another color at some time, but now they were pretty much a shabby slate gray, except for the cue racks and a few signs with Vietnamese writing on them. Cigarette smoke hung over everything. Either this place was exempt from smoking laws or nobody bothered to enforce them here.
It wasn’t hard to spot Nash, being tall and blond and all. He and a buddy of his were the only non-Vietnamese guys in the room. Emphasis on the word guys. Not a single female in sight, except for Audrey. Nash looked up from the pool table where he was playing and waved. “Hey, Dylan, my man, I’m glad you could make it.”
He introduced me to his playing partner, another blondstatue Hollisterite, whose name was Holt, and to the two Vietnamese guys they were playing against, Huy and Tommy. I thought that was pretty gentlemanly of him to introduce everybody like that, so I introduced them all to Randy and Audrey.
Nash chalked the end of his cue and leaned over the table to take a shot. “Five in the side,” he said. He made the shot and looked up at me. “Ahhh, I’m on a hot roll.”
He missed the next shot, and Huy and Tommy laughed.
“Can’t make ’em all,” Nash said, smiling. He walked around the table and stood next to me. It was weird. In the dingy atmosphere, he seemed almost to glow. But I wasn’t so sure it would be a good idea for him to win the match. The regulars around here might not like that.
“So I guess these two are your detecting partners, huh?” He nodded toward Audrey and Randy.
“Something like that.”
“What’s the word? You found out anything new?”
“Not really. I was hoping maybe you had something to tell us.”
“Need a little info for your newspaper articles, huh? How about the one you were going to write about the search party? I thought you were going to send me a copy.”
“Yeah, I’ll send it to you. It doesn’t come out in the school paper till next week. The teacher liked it. Said maybe I might make an investigative reporter after all.”
“Oh, I have no doubt you will. That’s what I like about you—you have a passion for something interesting. Investigative journalism” He said it like it was the title of something grand. “Too many people are bland, but not you.”
I have to admit I swelled a little at that. It felt good to have somebody of Nash’s stature recognize that I wasn’t just another member of the herd.
Randy poked his head around to get into the conversation. “Where’s all the girls?”
“We’re not here for girls,” Nash said. “Girls come later.”
“There’s a couple things I was wondering about,” I said. “You dated Ashton, and it seems like you two stayed friends—how did she get along with her dad?”