“Thanks, homes.” Superfly rubbed his eyes and blew his nose. He leaned back and exhaled with a full-body shudder. “What can I do you for is what I meant to say.”

I wanted to know who ran prostitutes, who ran drugs, who made book. Who’d supplied the Jeffers Project?

“The what?”

“Big hole drilling to China, twenty, thirty minutes north. Are your brains scrambled? Should I hit you again? Second knock in the head usually does the trick . . .”

“Oh, you mean the Dig. Man, that’s old news. Place is boarded up and everybody’s gone.”

“Yet, very much alive in your heart. I guess you must’ve just missed the opportunity to cash in, huh? You were in school.”

“I graduated Valley that summer.”

“Wow, you’re a Valley High product,” I said. “Putting that diploma through its paces too. The alumni committee is undoubtedly beaming with pride. Maybe you met Sean Pruitt. He’s the guy who fell in that hole before it was closed.”

“Nah, man. I mean, I heard of him.”

“Darn it, you’re not much help. Where do I go? Who do I speak with?”

Several girls came near, chatting and giggling. Very young. One still wore braces.

“Go on, bitches!” He shooed them. “Bitches, I see you tomorrow!” They moved along with reproachful expressions. “Yeah, I got a couple of names. I don’t know what they know. Feel me? I don’t vouch for shit. Ask them whatever you want.”

He gave up a couple of individuals higher up the food chain.

“Thanks, homie. Another thing.” I described the group of “teens” in their archaic uniforms.

“Where did you see them? Up to the field? Nobody ever sees them.”

“Vulture Bluff?” I said.

“Vulture Bluff. That’s where they go when they . . .” He cast unhappy glances over both shoulders.

“Who are they?”

He became squirmier, as if he’d forgotten I could add more lumps to his noggin at my leisure.

“One dude used to be a cop or something. Another ran a construction company. The spooky cheerleader bitches had family money or fat-cat husbands. Did dominatrix shit on the down low. Freaky as fuck.”

“You’re yanking my chain,” I said.

“This is what people say. I bet you won’t never see them again. Nah, bro. They’re ghosts, urban legends, whatever.”

“Yeah? And?”

“And what? Man, this is bullshit—”

I made a fist around the brass knuckles.

“They belong to . . .” He massaged his head, frowning as he searched for the word. “A club? No! A fraternity. Fuckin’ fraternity. Called the Mares.”

“The Mares?”

“I didn’t pick the name, homes.”

“Who gets in?”

“The beautiful people. People of means. It’s exclusive.”

“Not you?”

“Hell no!”

“Sell them dope?”

“Freaks got their own supply. Got their own kicks.” By “kicks” he meant perversions. “Hang meat in the woods; bury mason jars of cow’s blood. Won’t eat the meat until it falls on the ground. Drink the blood curdled by the dark of the moon. Heard it’s called greening. The rotten-meat trip. Greening.”