"Here it is, let's play!"
Andy hadn’t thought this through. Oh, God. Memories with Ron come flooding back.
She then tosses the ball right at his chest, and he grabs it at the last second.
"Okay, if your Grammy will let you, I'll teach you how."
The little girl turns and sprints to the jungle gym, where she climbs to the top and waits for Andy.
“Come on, Mister.”
Andy sheepishly carries the ball toward the lady she calls Grammy.
"Hi. Your granddaughter wants to play a game with me. Will it be all right?"
"Sure, she was horning in on some of the other kids before and could use a distraction."
The other kids still tirelessly run around other parts of the playground. Low humidity, sunshine, and limitless energy, the perfect playground combination.
The little girl has her hands raised over the jungle gym rails, leaning her head against the vertical bars that support them.
"How do you play?" she asks through the bars.
"Here's the deal. I’m the troll. The object is for me to throw the ball and make it land on the floor where you are on the bridge, but it has to land between this side here," Andy points to a crack along one side, “and here,” he says, walking a few steps and then pointing to the crack at the other end of the bridge. “I get one point every time I throw the ball and it lands up there on the bridge."
"How do I get points?" the little girl asks excitedly.
"Simple. You bat the ball away and stop it from landing on the bridge. You get two points if you catch it or bat it away, and I get one point if I land it. We play until one of us has 12 points."
“What’s a troll?”
“Uh, old time stories talk about them. A troll is a strange type of person that hides under a bridge and messes with the travelers that cross it. The troll tries to rule the bridge by asking riddles or demanding money before someone can cross.”
Andy’s sadness temporarily lifts. He knows he can duck under the elevated walkway and run around the other side and try to surprise her, just like he used to do with Ron. He runs under the elevated landing, and before the little girl can get to the edge, he lobs the ball just inside the bridge zone, scoring his first point.
"Ha, I got a point."
The little girl picks up the ball with a crooked grimace on her face and tosses it down onto the wood chips. "I wasn't ready. Not fair!"
Andy grabs the ball and starts looking off in one direction, then the other, trying to fake her out. "Are you ready this time?"
"Ready."
Andy moves his arm quickly and fakes the ball toward the right and then tosses it to the far left, but the girl quickly bats the ball away from the scoring zone.
"Ha ha! Gotcha that time. Two to one. I'm winning!"
And so Andy and the little girl play the game of Troll, while Grammy sits on the park bench, happy to have a rest. When the score is 11 to 10 in Andy’s favor, he lets off a little bit, knowing that he has to let the little girl win. And she does, 12-11. She is happier than if a rainbow of candy had appeared in her bedroom. She demands that they play again, but Andy needs to leave. Grammy’s and the girl’s smile make Andy happy too.
"Next game is yours, Grammy," Andy says with a big smile as he walks away.
"Hey Mister, where are you going? Let's play Troll again." She balances the bouncy ball atop the bridge rails.
"I gotta go now," Andy says, spinning around and beginning to walk off the playground. When he looks back, the little girl is still standing on top of the jungle gym, and she raises her arm in a big wave. He waves back before turning again. Grammy can take over now since she watched the entire game.
Andy walks through the opening in the park’s metal fence, crosses the sidewalk and street, and then turns down the block to his house. As he approaches his house he sees Angie standing on the sidewalk beside her car, facing him.
"I’ve been looking everywhere for you. You didn't answer your phone, and the Perkins were sitting at the office waiting for you. What gives?"
"I left it on my desk. All my stuff is there. I don't even have the keys to my house, come to think of it."
"I told them we would have to reschedule, that you had a sudden emergency. Totally embarrassing. Were you in the park?"
"Sorry. I just couldn’t shut it out anymore."
Angie has a fairly confused look on her face. Then it dawns on her.
"Andy Michaels, you mean…?"
"Yeah."
"Is that why you were in the park?"
"Used to come here with my brother."
Angie sees that Andy's eyes are red. She feels really bad for accusing him of walking out on the Perkins family. Instead of walking toward his house Andy leans against her car, head down toward the strip of grass adjacent the street, and starts sobbing. Angie takes a few steps and places the fingers of her right hand on his shoulder. She doesn't say anything because nothing appropriate comes to mind. She takes her hand from his shoulder, quickly walks over to the car’s driver side, grabs some tissues and comes back.
"Here, some tissues."
He takes them from her, barely looking up, and dabs his eyes. A long minute passes.
"I’ll take care of rescheduling. Do you want me to tell them to come back tomorrow?"
"Yeah, whatever."
They hear a ruckus across the street. Andy looks up and the little girl is running in his direction.
“Hey, Mister!”
Grammy is trying to keep up with her.
“Look both ways before you cross!” Grammy shouts.
The little girl quickly looks both ways, then bolts across the street toward Angie's car.
"Mister, I wanted to give you this. It's a sparkly rock I found at the park. Look at all the colors it makes when you move it around.” She demonstrates how the light makes the rock appear shiny and iridescent.
“I hope the sparkles make you happy. You know, I saw the Lion King movie, when Simba was really sad, that part. His dad got runned over by the herd. He heard his dad’s voice say that it was part of the circle of life. Simba knew he would see his dad again. And that's what made Simba feel better. Mister, keep that sparkly rock, and when it shines, maybe you won’t be sad about your brother anymore.”
By now Grammy stands behind her holding the playground ball under one arm. She reaches out for the little girl's hand.
"We’ve got to go Gracie. Let's leave the nice man alone now."
“Mister, thanks for teaching me Troll. We should play again. See you at the park.”
The two of them are halfway down the block the next time Andy looks up. Andy glances back down at the little rock in his palm then drops it into his pants pocket.
“What a precious little thing. Do you know her?” Angie asks.
He never answers that question, but thinks somewhere, sometime, he must have met her or someone like her. Then Angie asks a new question.
“So you played in that park as a kid?” The wind blows a few wisps of her hair across her face and she moves them away from her nose and mouth.
They are both leaning against the passenger side of her car, facing the sidewalk.
“We lived a couple blocks from here, and there was a cut-through between two houses, so we used to ride our bikes to the park.”
“Is that why you live here now?”
“I don’t know, maybe it was subconscious. Maybe the wind just blew me in this direction.”
"How are you going to get into your house?"
"I have a hidden key. I'm fine. I'll see you tomorrow morning at the office. Just reset the Perkins appointment for 10 a.m. or whenever they can come back, will you?”
Andy walks away from her, rubbing his fingers over the rock in his pocket.
@Part III
Chapter 36
Amanda’s Halo
Although it was Iris’ idea initially, “Amanda’s Halo,” the Facebook page chronicling Amanda’s survival of the plane crash an
d the charity set up in her honor, was created by both Iris and Charlyne. They uploaded all kinds of pictures of Amanda at soccer games and parties, hanging out at school, you name it. Once launched, it took on a life of its own as other seniors started adding photographs and comments.
The online charity enjoyed similar success. Once the media jumped on the bandwagon, $10,000.00 in donations for Amanda flooded in within 24 hours. Andy was quickly appointed to handle the charitable contributions and a trust was created. When he announced that Amanda was going to donate the money to charity, Healing Heroes asked him to consider their charity for the funds. This fund had been started in the aftermath of 9/11 and was devoted to helping those who survived some kind of disaster. The honorary chair of Healing Heroes, Bobby Vail, called Andy himself.
"Andy, this is Bobby Vail. I don't know if you've heard of me, but I'm the chair of the Healing Heroes group. How are you today?"
"I'm fine, and I'm honored you called me," Andy replies.
"I don't know if you've seen our program before, but we've started an annual show at the Kennedy Center that honors survivors of unfortunate circumstances who have made a difference. We'd like to have Amanda appear on this year’s show."
"Well, it would certainly be an honor, but I need to run it by Amanda. Her condition is still a little uncertain. I think she’d be thrilled to do it, but I’ll have to get back to you."
"Great, let me know what she says. And please keep us in mind as a possible beneficiary of Amanda’s Halo.”
“Will do,” Andy says, wondering how Amanda will react when he tells her about Bobby Vail’s request.
Chapter 37
Snatched
Becca watches the “Real Housewives” of somewhere on Bravo in the great room, sipping her decaf green tea, and Andy sits at his desk in the spare room, trying to focus. How does Becca watch those fake housewives with their fake controversies? He would rather watch rust form on metal. Andy’s desk affords him a view out the window, and from a certain angle he can see part of Dumbarton Park. He has been reading the latest 30-page brief to be rolled out by the Franklin deforestation paper mill, arguing why no family member, attorney or their experts should get to inspect any part of the wreckage until the NTSB has issued a final report on the crash.
During one of his many gazes out the window, he sees the little girl he befriended walking down the sidewalk toward the park with Grammy.
“I am going over to the park for a few minutes, Becca.”
“What? Why?” she asks, not taking her eyes off the screen.
As he walks through the opening in the metal fence surrounding the park the little girl sees him. She begins running toward him and yells, “Hi there, mister. Let's play Troll!"
"I didn't bring a ball," Andy says.
"I’m sure we can find one somewhere." Her eyes dart around the park. Andy also looks, but there are no balls around.
"I actually came to give you something. Here you go." He hands her the little white plastic bag.
"What is it, what is it?" She opens the plastic bag containing a pink, green, and red Power Ranger. "Oh, cool! I love Power Rangers. We have all the episodes on DVD at home."
The girl beams from ear to ear. "That’s real nice, mister.” She walks up to him and hugs his legs with one arm. “Will you be here tomorrow? I try to come after church on Sundays."
"I'm not sure," Andy says, feeling great satisfaction in making her happy. She runs over toward Grammy and proudly holds the bag open to show her the gift. She leaves the bag there and runs back over toward Andy.
“Do you know my name?”
"Yes, it’s Gracie, right?”
“How’d you know?”
“Your Grammy said it that first day I met you. I have your shiny stone on my desk at my office.”
"I was wondering, what's your name?" she asks.
“Andy. Andy Michaels.”
“My Grammy says you are famous or something ‘cause you’re a lawyer for people who got killed in a plane crash. What’s a lawyer do anyway?”
Andy thinks about how to simplify things so his little friend will understand. “If someone runs over a person in the street with their car, and the driver who did it doesn’t want to pay, we try to make them pay the person who got hurt,” he finally explains, thinking about Gracie crossing the street herself.
“Well, if they hurt my Grammy when she was crossing the street, they know they need to apologize and pay for what they did wrong, don’t they? We learned that in Sunday School.”
A little girl on the jungle gym yells at Gracie, “Are you playin’ or not?”
She looks at Andy, fidgeting.
"Are you comin' to play chase with us or not?"
Andy helps her out. “I’ve got to get going, go ahead and play, Gracie.”
"Coming! Mister, thanks a lot for the Power Rangers," she shouts, running off to the jungle gym. Andy gives a wave to Grammy, seated on the bench on the other side of the park, and walks back home.
The little girl and Grammy never see it coming. As they walk along the sidewalk heading home from the park, a man jogging toward them swerves, rips the white bag right out of Gracie’s little hand, and momentarily slows his pace.
"Hey! Gimme back my bag!"
Grammy immediately yells “Hey!” and instinctively wraps her arms around his left arm in an amazingly powerful grip, hard enough that the jogger can’t shake her loose at first.
Then with martial arts precision the thief frees his left arm and cracks back viciously against Grammy’s face. Her body goes limp, and her head, followed by her body, crashes down on the sidewalk.
Gracie sees Grammy’s head strike the sidewalk, bounce up once, then land again on the sidewalk. A noticeable amount of blood leaks from Grammy’s ear.
Gracie stoops down over her. “Grammy? Grammy? Are you okay?”
Her eyes are wide open but no words come out to reassure her granddaughter.
A lady who witnesses the mugging jams on her brakes in the middle of the street. She runs over to the sidewalk.
“What happened, what happened to her?”
"A man just stole my bag of toys, then he smacked Grammy. Grammy won’t answer me now. Grammy, can you hear me?”
“Huh…huh…ahhh…” Grammy tries to communicate but can’t.
"I’m calling 911,” the lady tells Gracie. “They can help your grandmother.”
"It's right around here. He lives somewhere on that side of this street. I remember. Let's go find him."
“Find who?” the lady asks. “The bad guy ran off. Do you mean he lives near here?”
“No, my friend Andy Michaels. He lives somewhere near here. He will help us find the thief.”
“We need to get your Grammy help first.”
Tears soak Gracie’s face.
"I didn't even get time to play with them. Why would that man do that?"
"Nothing is safe anymore," the lady tells Gracie. "Bad guys will steal anything from anyone, even from little kids.”
The man literally throws the pieces of the Power Ranger figures across the room, right at the man in the jogging suit. The jogger ducks and holds both his hands out instinctively as the various pieces hit him, the wall and the shelf behind him.
"There's no chip, no embedded information, no anything. You stole toys from a little kid walking down the street for nothing. Worst of all, what if she tells Michaels, and this tips him off to our surveillance?”
The agent tries to defend himself. “We've had 24-hour surveillance on him. I'm telling you he is using that park as a drop. There’s no other reason he would have gone there. How can we be sure there is nothing embedded or hidden anywhere in those toys?"
"We have broken every piece down. We’ve done cross-sections, axial sections, metallurgy, chemical composition. There's nothing there,” Chun says.
"Then he must have dropped something somewhere and this was a ruse or a decoy."
Chun begins to pace around the small room. "You hav
en't turned up one clue, one item for us to go on. He must know something about what his brother was doing. They did everything together. We have to find something. Our key contact clearly doesn’t have all the details to reproduce the results."
The jogger dares to suggest, "It’s possible he doesn’t know anything."
Chun immediately disagrees. "I don’t believe that for a second. We need to pursue Michaels in addition to our mole. No telling who or what will lead us in the right direction."
Chapter 38
The Rave
The traffic is gridlocked for a few blocks on all sides of Café Loco. The limousine carrying Amanda and her entourage is stopped by a local cop. The limo driver rolls the window down.
"Can we get through here, Officer?"
"Yeah, I'm going to wave you through. Give me a few seconds to clear up a lane for you."
Massive numbers of high school kids – together with many parents – have come to the charity event, excited that it has garnered national news coverage. CNT has discussed it in several broadcasts over the last two days. A line snakes out the entrance of Café Loco and down the street.
The limo containing Amanda, Iris, Charlyne, David, and John crawls down the last block-and-a-half and parks in front, and the entourage – in their psychedelic garb – get out. They push through the heavy drapery toward the dance room, which is by no means large. The entire room is dark, lit only with black lights. The noise from the PA system is loud and pulsating, and everything appears to be in motion because of the disco ball mounted to the ceiling. A number of fluorescent hippie-like 1960s posters line the walls. There are already people standing in all corners of the large room and around several tables at the far side. Charlyne and Iris quickly guide Amanda over to the table reserved for them. It has a place card on a metal stand marked “VIP.” They see Andy, his girlfriend Becca, and Barbara and Steve Simon, along with some of their friends, and introductions are exchanged.
Taming the Telomeres, a Thriller Page 12
