by Mike Lupica
He just wanted his mom to come home.
Somehow in a world that seemed to have gone completely haywire, her presence in the apartment made things seem a little more normal.
The day she arrived back, he charged down the stairs and threw his arms around her the way he used to when his dad would come home from a long trip.
“I missed you,” he said.
“Missed you, too, pal.” She pulled back, concerned. “Everything okay?”
Zach said, “Now it is.”
After dinner that night, just the two of them, they went and sat on the balcony outside Zach’s room.
“I need to tell you why I’m throwing myself into the Kerrigan campaign so fully,” she said.
“I assumed it was because you just thought he was the best man for the job.”
They were eating ice cream, looking out at the city.
“He is the best man,” she said. “I’m convinced of that. But there’s something more, and it involves your father, and you have a right to know and I should have told you before this.”
Zach waited, thinking: What now?
More surprises.
“Senator Kerrigan asked your father to be his running mate,” she said.
“Say what?”
“It’s true,” she said.
“Vice president . . . Dad?”
“Bob Kerrigan approached him with the idea when he first decided to run. Your father just laughed. But it was no joke to Senator Kerrigan. And somehow he managed to convince your father.”
“But Dad used to say the only office he was fit to manage was his fantasy baseball team. And he always finished last.”
“Senator Kerrigan didn’t care. He said that this election was going to be about character and nobody—including him—had more character than your father. Besides, it’s not like President Addison was going to stay in office forever. Your father needed to think about his future.”
“And Dad . . . he really wanted to do it?”
“No, not at first. But he finally came around to thinking he was obligated to do it. He said he was getting too old to leap tall buildings in a single bound and that there had to be another way to help his country.”
“Leap tall buildings in a single bound?”
“It’s what they say Superman can do.”
Superman. The way he’d always thought of his dad. Now more than ever.
Zach said, “What did Uncle John think?”
He could hear Uncle John’s voice in his head, No one knew your dad better than me.
“He was a little funny about it, actually. He didn’t like the idea. Your Uncle John isn’t exactly the biggest Kerrigan fan. It was one of the few things those two actually disagreed about, other than baseball. Your father was nothing if not his own man, though. Once he had his mind made up, there was nothing anyone could say to make him change it.”
Zach took a deep breath, let it out. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?” he asked.
His mom turned and looked at him. “Because I thought it was one more thing that would make you sad. And I thought we had enough might-have-beens with your father already.”
“But you’re telling me now.”
“I’m telling you now because I look at the Kerrigan campaign as unfinished business for your father. And if I’m not around much over the next few months the way I want to be, and the way you want me to be, you deserve to understand why.”
“Vice President Dad,” Zach said again.
“Yeah,” his mom said. “And who knows, maybe down the road he even would have been President Dad.”
She took his empty bowl with hers and went inside. Zach sat there, wondering about unfinished business more than ever.
27
IT was Zach’s idea for him and Kate to spend spring break at the Harrimans’ house on eastern Long Island.
His mom was away again, on the campaign trail. Uncle John had come and left again, and it occurred to Zach that he traveled even more than his dad used to. He wondered, not for the first time lately, what Uncle John actually did besides being the family lawyer—and just how much he had been involved with his dad’s secret missions.
Anyway, with no one around besides Alba, Zach was eager to leave the city behind for a week. He remembered his dad telling him once that the best time to go to the beach was when you had it to yourself.
Zach, Kate and Alba took the Jitney out, Zach thinking that the last time he had gotten on this bus, he’d ended up a whole new person with a whole new life . . . even if that life seemed to be on hold right now, like somebody’s finger was on the pause button.
As soon as they were in the house, in the town between East Hampton and Montauk called Amagansett, Zach and Kate got their bikes out of the garage and rode them the half mile to the beach.
Kate had brought a blanket and snacks. They plopped down on the blanket and took off their sneakers. With the ocean in front of them, they felt as if the rest of the world were behind them. Staring at all that water made Zach feel small and normal again.
“Hey, stranger,” Kate said finally.
It made him smile.
“I have gone all strange on you, haven’t I?”
She said, “My general thinking is that developing superpowers will do that to a person.”
“You know,” he said, “I was thinking something on the way out.”
“Snoring is called thinking now? Wow. Who knew?”
“Seriously,” Zach said. “I was thinking that I miss the days when Spence Warren was the biggest problem in my life.”
“Yeah,” Kate said, high-fiving him. “Good times!”
She propped herself up on an elbow, turned to face him. “Did some new goon guy show up that you haven’t told me about?”
“Nope. But it’s not exactly as if I’ve been prowling around looking for any.”
When he’d gotten out of the hospital, he’d admitted to her about being scared—not only of his own powers, but of whatever powers were out there lining up against him.
“You can handle anything anybody throws at you,” Kate said. “With my help, of course.”
The brave girl, letting Zach know she was still there for him.
“I don’t recall winning any medals in my last event,” he said.
“You’ll be better next time,” Kate said.
“You sure?”
“Bring it,” she said.
He laughed. “Right: bring it. At least one of us feels invincible. It’s hard for me to even believe anything that’s happened over the past few months. At times, none of it feels real.”
Kate was quiet for a long minute. Then she said, “Let’s take a ride out there.”
They both knew where “there” was.
“You mean it?”
“I should have made you take me with you the first time,” she said.
They rolled up the blanket and dropped it at the house. Kate told her mom they were going for a bike ride. Alba told them to be safe and to be home in time for dinner.
“Zach,” Alba called from the kitchen. “You watch out for my girl.”
“Always,” he called back.
They put on their helmets, went out to Route 27 and headed east in the bike lane with Zach in the lead, occasionally yelling at Kate to pick up the pace.
“The only way for you to outrace me, Harriman, would be in a car.”
Maybe it was a ten-mile ride, maybe less. But the distance and time seemed to pass quickly. Once they passed through the town of Montauk, Zach remembered the route to the field as if his bike had a GPS attached to the handlebars.
When they got there, they leaned their bikes against the stone wall by the road, Zach half expecting Mr. Herbert to pop out from behind it and yell, Surprise!
But he didn’t.
It wasn’t as isolated as it had been back in November. There was an occasional car today. A couple of guys who looked as if they were training for the local track team ran by them on the road and smiled.
Zach and Kate smiled back, then hopped over the wall and headed into the field.
Five months since he’d been here.
But in a lot of ways, it felt like yesterday.
In a voice barely above a whisper, Kate said, “This feels like a cemetery.”
“Maybe because it is.”
New green grass had begun to grow where the nose of the plane had hit. The whole area generally looked more alive now. To Zach’s eyes it seemed like less of a crater, more like a wound that had begun to heal.
Kate just stared, not saying anything.
Finally she said, “Which direction did the old man come from?”
He showed her. Then pointed to where Mr. Herbert had run away from him, into the high grass. Zach told her again how he’d followed him into that grass and ended up in Central Park, before he’d come to find her at the Knicks game.
“Wow,” Kate said.
“So which is it?” he said. “Dream or nightmare?”
“Little bit of both.”
They looked around in silence for a few minutes. Zach realized there wasn’t much to see, really. There was just the tall grass and the sound of the wind through it and the faint crashing of ocean waves in the distance.
“You ready to head back?” he asked.
Kate nodded.
They made their way back to their bikes and strapped their helmets on. They could see the two track guys coming back from the direction of the ocean. A truck passed by.
Zach took one last look back, feeling like waving good-bye to this place. Knowing somehow in that moment he was never coming back. He’d found out as much here as he was ever going to find. If there were answers to be found, they’d have to be found elsewhere.
He reached into his pocket and felt both Morgan coins.
His and his dad’s.
No heat coming off them today. No light. Nothing.
More than half a year now since his dad had died. Already he was having a hard time recalling his father’s face.
“Let’s hit it,” Zach said, disgusted with himself.
“Whoa, nice bikes.”
One of the two runners.
He was a tall redhead. His friend had a crew cut buzzed so close to his head Zach thought for a minute he’d shaved it. Both wore T-shirts with cutoff sleeves.
The one with the crew cut had a tattoo on his upper left arm that Zach couldn’t make out.
He told himself they were just a couple of locals out for a run. No knit caps here. No giants.
No threat and no sweat.
“I’m sorry?” he said.
The redhead said, “I was just saying what nice bikes these are.”
He turned to his buddy. “Lot nicer than we ride, right, Eric?”
In a small voice Kate said, “Zach, let’s go.”
The one called Eric said, “Look like they cost more than my mom’s Taurus.”
“Easily,” the redhead said.
Eric said, “Always wanted a sweet bike like these. How many speeds you got on these babies?”
“You know something?” Zach said, keeping his voice even. “I don’t even know. But if you guys will excuse us, we have to be getting back.”
Eric reached out for the handlebars of Kate’s bike then and said, “How about if I just take yours for a quick spin?”
Kate tried to hold on, but Eric was too strong, pulling the bike toward him. Kate stumbled as she let go, nearly falling.
“Oops,” Eric said, draping a leg over the seat and sitting down.
“Give her back her bike,” Zach said.
“Make me,” he said.
It was on now, and they all knew it.
Zach felt a familiar heat. “Fine with me,” he said.
Maybe they were just a couple of high school kids thinking they could pick on a couple of younger kids because they were bigger, because there was no one around to stop them.
They were wrong.
Somehow Zach knew the next move that was made couldn’t be theirs.
So he covered the distance between him and the buzz cut with a blinding first step he hadn’t used in a while and lifted Kate’s bike right out from underneath him. Eric landed on the ground. He wasn’t down for long, though. Zach lifted him up by his T-shirt and tossed him over the stone wall and into the field.
It should have been just Zach and the redheaded kid then.
Only, they had company.
Zach heard the truck before he saw it, turned and saw it was the same truck they’d seen pass not two minutes ago. It had turned around and skidded to a stop on the side of the road. Two guys got out, one from the driver’s side and another from the passenger’s.
Coming to help?
The driver walked toward Zach and the redhead saying, “There a problem here?”
Something didn’t feel right. Zach’s senses were on fire. He shifted his eyes and saw the passenger about to reach for Kate.
“Zach!” she said.
Zach turned his head to her, just long enough for the redhead to get behind him and put him in a bear hug.
Worthless. Zach flipped him with ease into the driver of the truck, the force of the collision taking them both down.
And just like that, Zach knew he was back.
By now the other guy from the truck had Kate by the arm and was dragging her toward the truck. She kicked him, hard, in the only place she could reach—the back of his right knee. He yelped in pain and Kate prepared for another attack, but Zach beat her to it. He covered the distance between them in the air, like a gust of wind had picked him up and carried him.
Flying again.
He pulled the guy off Kate, dragged him away from her and pinned him up against the side of the truck, hard.
“Go!” he said to Kate. “Get on the bike and go!”
She shook her head. “I’m not going anywhere,” she said. And Zach knew she meant business.
The other three were all back on their feet and coming after him. No time to argue with Kate. He had to focus on them.
Zach felt someone’s hand on him, grabbing for his shoulder, trying to pull him off the guy he had pinned to the truck. And it was suddenly as if Zach were everywhere at once. Elevating, spinning in the air, backhanding all of them, one after another, watching them all go down. He landed, fists in front of him, ready to spring.
One by one they got back to their feet, slowly, all of them ready to make another run.
Zach stole a quick look at Kate, who didn’t look scared now or even surprised, who just stared at him and mouthed these words:
Bring it.
They spread out around him, moving in slowly. The driver of the truck was now holding a tire iron. He swung it at Zach, who slipped the shot with ease.
Keep moving, he told himself, remembering the giant.
No clean shots.
Then he rolled away from a wild punch thrown by Eric, spinning away and simultaneously kicking the legs out from underneath the redhead.
The passenger from the truck was the last one standing.
Zach looked at him.
“Bring it,” he said.
Then he heard a voice behind him.
“Stop!”
A voice he knew, even if he’d never heard it this loud.
The old man.
The passenger seemed to shrug. “Whatever you say,” he told Mr. Herbert.
Zach turned to the old man.
“They’re with you?” he said.
“They’ve all been with me, Zacman. From the start.”
28
NONE of the four hesitated. The two older men hopped into the front of the truck while the two high schoolers got into the back.
Zach and Kate just watched.
It had all been so real to them just a moment before. Now it turned out to be like they had all been actors in a scene, with Mr. Herbert the director who’d just yelled “Cut!”
“Go,” Mr. Herbert said to the driver of the truck, in the same tone of voice you’d use to
tell a dog to sit. He waved dismissively with the back of his hand.
The engine turned over, and Zach and Kate watched as the truck quickly disappeared, well over the speed limit, toward Montauk.
Toward the real world, Zach thought.
Kate spoke up before Zach.
“You staged all this?” she said. “For what—your own sick amusement?”
“It was a bit of a show,” Mr. Herbert said, “I’ll grant you that. But not in the way you think.”
“And what are we supposed to think?” Zach said, voice rising. “You put us both in danger, or at least let us think we were in danger. Was the giant with you, too? You’re crazy, you know that? You’re a twisted, crazy old fool!”
Mr. Herbert smiled.
“You’re angry,” he said.
“You noticed?” Zach said. “Yeah. I’m good and ripped.”
“Good,” Mr. Herbert said. “Use it. You’re much better when you’re mad than when you’re moping around feeling sorry for yourself.”
One more time, Zach looked down at clenched fists. His whole body feeling pretty much like a clenched fist.
“Maybe the one I should bounce around is you,” he said.
“We both know you’re not going to do that. I’m on your side.”
“Right. You’re such a good friend that you ordered the beating that sent me to the hospital. I guess you forgot to mention that the last time.”
“I told him not to hold back,” Mr. Herbert said. “It was an important lesson and you know it. Trust me.”
Zach remembered the words on his computer screen.
Trust no one.
“I don’t,” Zach said. “Trust you. My dad used to always tell me even about my favorite athletes: believe everything they do and nothing they say. That’s pretty much where I am with you.”
“Get over it.”
He didn’t sound like somebody trying to be a kindly old wizard now. Not somebody trying to be Zach’s friend or a friend of the family.
Zach stood his ground. “You don’t get to tell me what to do.”
“I do and I don’t.”
“Riddles again?”
“I’m trying to help you.”
