Carousel Court Read Online Free Page B

leave them, lighting only one tree. So they have a lone skinny palm at 45900 Carousel Court towering over all the other houses on the street. The white lights flicker when the sun goes down. Yes, Phoebe finally agreed when Nick pressed, it’s a nice effect.
    Nick hears music, too loud, coming from the house next door.
    â€œBelieve this shit?” Metzger glares at the new construction identical to Nick’s. “What goddamn time is it?” He shines the flashlight on the house.
    â€œLate,” Nick says. “Good song, though.”
    Metzger reports that the neighbor has been in and out of his garage for the last hour, carrying boxes from his truck. This seems to agitate Metzger, for some reason. “And now this shit,” he says.
    â€œConnie Stevens?” Nick says quizzically.
    â€œYou think this is funny?” Metzger turns away from Nick and says under his breath, “Just watch.”
    The man living next to Nick and Phoebe looks about thirty. He has close-cropped blond hair, always wears a hoodie and shorts no matter how hot it gets, lives alone, and talks to no one. In the three months since Nick and Phoebe moved in, they’ve had one exchange: The man was ripping tiles from his roof and tossing them onto their driveway, where they shattered. Phoebe asked him to stop; he ignored her. His patchy yellow lawn has a couple of wilting date palms and aeucalyptus tree. Red spray paint recently appeared on the front door, a signal from the lender to interested parties: This house is dead and ours. The man added to it—a fuck-you to the bank—a red X on the wall next to the door, a white O and another red X, and a blue tic-tac-toe board separating the letters. His black pickup truck has huge wheels and looks new but, unlike Kostya’s, is filthy.
    Metzger tosses his cigarette toward the street, orange ash on black asphalt, squashes it. “Vietnamese are rotten,” he says, pointing at a house by the entrance to the cul-de-sac. “Mexicalis are rotten,” he adds, pointing out another house. He lights a new cigarette. His cadence is caffeinated, jittery. “Mormons are rotten to the core. That’s three houses right there about to get tapped.” He draws three fingers slowly across his thick neck, indicating a throat slitting. The cigarette dangles from his dry lips as he speaks. He’s flicking invisible ticks from his thumb at each of the nine homes in their cul-de-sac, referring to their neighbors who are still, after three months in Serenos, California, forty miles east of Los Angeles, mostly strangers to Nick and Phoebe.
    â€œSucked dry,” Nick says.
    Metzger shines the light on Kostya and Marina’s house. Aside from Metzger, and waving and smiling at the Vietnamese couple in passing, Kostya and Marina are Nick and Phoebe’s only friends.
    â€œThey’re fine,” Metzger says, “for now.” He shines his light on Nick’s house, the thick green grass. “Lawn looks good.”
    Nick nods.
    â€œBut these idiots,” Metzger says, gesturing around the street. “If they can just talk to someone at the bank!” He laughs. “Guess what? I was the bank. You owe what you owe.” He’s following Nick to his car, and Nick isn’t sure why. He walks with a limp. He wipes perspiration from his forehead with his thick hand. Nick has his keys out and the driver’s-side door open.
    â€œKeep an eye out?” Nick says. He grabs Metzger’s thick shoulder and motions to his own home. “Tonight. While I’m gone.”
    â€œFind any bodies yet?” Metzger says, and laughs.
    Nick starts the Subaru. He plugs in his iPod, cycles through tracks until he finds the song he wants.
    â€œBring me something. A flat-screen. Some golf clubs.”
    Nick laughs.
    Metzger is unmoved by the heavy bass from T.I.spitting lyrics to “Ready for Whatever.”
    â€œKnives. Good knives. I need some steak