Deep Zone

by Tim Green

  “The nerve?” Thane raised his head to look down at his knee.

  The doctor nodded and touched Thane’s shoulder. “If we can get the pressure off soon enough, you might still be able to play. That’s our goal here.”

  Thane’s face, already pale, went sheet-white. “Doc, what do you mean, might be able to play? I can play, right?”

  The doctor pressed his lips together but made no other motion. “Let’s just see where we’re at. That’s the goal, but I can’t make any promises.”

  Ty stepped back and sat down on a chair in the hallway. He felt sick.

  Chapter Five

  NO ONE SEEMED TO really notice Ty, and he fell asleep in the heavy reclining chair next to Thane’s bed before his brother even returned from surgery. When he woke, sun streamed in through the window, and Thane lay there in the hospital bed above him with tubes sticking out of his arm and nose. The tube from his nose hissed like a small garden snake, and the electronic equipment beside the bed beeped with a steady cadence.

  Ty got up to use the private bathroom near the door and when he returned, a nurse hovered over Thane, checking his tubes. The nurse looked like a young grandmother with short dyed-red hair. The deep lines in her face softened when she turned and saw Ty.

  “You’re awake,” she said.

  “Is he okay?” Ty asked.

  The nurse looked at Thane, whose face looked puffy to Ty. “They operated all night. You’ll have to talk with the doctor about the specifics.”

  Ty didn’t like the sound of that.

  “Someone needs to call your parents,” the nurse said, but not in an unkind way.

  Ty’s stomach turned and clenched. Even though the crash had happened more than a year ago, the word parents still did that to his stomach.

  “It’s just me and Thane.”

  The nurse looked back and forth between them.

  “Our parents died.”

  The nurse’s face reddened to match her hair. “I’m sorry. There must be someone you can call. You have school, don’t you?”

  “Yes. I can call Ian, I guess. Do I have to go to school?”

  “Your brother is going to spend the better part of today groggy and sleeping. I think if you have school, you should go. Who’s Ian?”

  When Thane got drafted by the Jets, he bought an enormous slate-roofed mansion in a hilltop neighborhood not too far from the training facility. But the house was a good distance from Halpern, the town where Ty had lived with his aunt and uncle and gone to school. No Halpern school bus came close to where Thane lived. In order for Ty to keep going to his old school, Thane had hired a limo driver to take him back and forth every day, and wherever else he needed to go. The driver’s name was Ian Goodman.

  “A friend,” Ty said, embarrassed at having a limo and driver to take him around.

  “Should you call him?” the nurse asked.

  “I’d rather stay with my brother.”

  The nurse studied Ty. Softly, she asked, “What do you think your brother would want you to do?”

  Ty winced. Thane talked constantly about the importance of school and never let Ty miss, even if he didn’t feel well.

  “Tough it out,” Thane would say. “Mom made me go to school unless I had a high fever. It got me into college and when this football thing ends, I’ve got my degree. You need that, too. School comes first, even before football.”

  Ty sighed. “He’d want me to go.”

  “Do you need a phone?”

  “I’ve got my cell phone.”

  Ty dug into the jacket he had draped over the back of the chair, took out his phone, and called Ian. Ian had a thick Brooklyn accent, and Ty liked the way his voice sounded.

  “I got a customer I’m dropping off at Newark Airport right now,” Ian said. “I can be over there in say, half an hour. I’ll take you to the house so you can change and then to school. How’s your brother doing?”

  “Okay, I guess. He’s still out of it.”

  The nurse left, and Ty watched Thane for a few minutes before he clicked on the TV, which hung like a picture on the wall. He went to SportsCenter and listened as they talked about the Jets loss and the possibly career-ending injury suffered by Tiger Lewis on the second to last play of the game. Ty watched the hit in slow motion as they replayed it several times. It was spooky to see the defenders in the deep zone converging on his brother like heat-seeking missiles all hitting the same target.

  In slow motion, Ty could see his brother’s leg twist in a funny way as he fell.

  “Now, this is a knee that Tiger Lewis had trouble with anyway coming out of Syracuse,” the announcer said to his partner, “but that was only an issue with the cartilage. This is being reported as a major reconstruction with possible nerve damage.”

  “And we know what that means,” the second announcer said with a dire face. “Maybe the end of a very promising career.”

  “Well, we’ll all be wishing Tiger Lewis the best and a speedy recovery,” the first announcer said; then they began to talk about the Ravens’ upcoming game against the Colts.

  Ty muted the sound and flicked the channel. He had no stomach for sports. The words “we know what that means” rang in his ears.

  Ty watched the local news without sound. Images of downtown Newark buildings, police, and firefighters flashed past without making any real impression on Ty’s busy mind. It wasn’t until he saw a face he recognized that Ty shot up straight in his chair.

  The dark, empty eyes seemed to stare out of the TV right at him. The bright red lozenge of a scar in the sunken cheek seemed to dare Ty to look at it, but even though Lucy Catalone’s face was nothing more than a picture on a screen, it choked him.

  Chapter Six

  WHEN TY HAD WORKED for Uncle Gus in his cleaning service, one of their accounts was Lucy’s, a sports bar run by the man with the red oval scar. Lucy was more than a bar owner, though. Lucy was a bookie, a man who ran an extensive gambling operation for the D’Amico crime family. Uncle Gus gambled with Lucy and lost big. When Lucy found out Gus was uncle to the Jets’ new star wide receiver, he came up with a payment plan.

  Uncle Gus could work off his debt by providing the crime organization inside information about the team, information that could make Lucy and the D’Amicos millions. Uncle Gus convinced Ty to help by allowing Ty to play football for Halpern Middle—but only if he got the information from Thane. Ty wanted to play football so badly, he chose to believe Uncle Gus’s story about a simple fantasy football website. He told himself there wasn’t any real problem in asking Thane questions and passing on the answers. It all seemed perfectly harmless, until the FBI showed up threatening to end Thane’s NFL career for his participation in the gambling scheme.

  When Lucy found out Thane was cooperating with the FBI, he took off after Thane in a fit of rage and planned to attack him at an autograph-signing event at the mall. Only Ty’s quick thinking, speed, and a well-timed shove that sent Lucy tumbling down an escalator saved Thane from a vicious blow by Lucy’s infamous crowbar. When Uncle Gus and his family had been shipped away, the FBI talked about a trial that wouldn’t take place for several years.

  Ty couldn’t imagine why Lucy was on the news now, and as he turned up the volume of the set, the image changed to the face of Big Al D’Amico, the boss of the entire criminal organization.

  “. . . and Big Al D’Amico are being held in federal custody awaiting the outcome of a grand jury this Thursday, when the government hopes to secure additional indictments that some say could put the D’Amico family out of business for good. Authorities are hopeful that years of work will finally put these allegedly dangerous men behind bars, but there is some concern for the safety of the prosecution’s star witness, Gus Slatz.”

  Now Uncle Gus’s face filled the screen, and Ty exhaled a ragged breath.

  “Slatz, owner of a Secaucus cleaning service and uncle of Jets standout wide receiver Tiger Lewis, has been placed into witness protection by the government. The last ti
me D’Amico was indicted, back in 1997, the star witness, Bartholomew Higgens, was killed before the trial could take place.”

  A serious-looking man in a gray suit appeared on-screen. Ty recognized the dark mustache and the tufts of hair bordering his bald head. The writing beneath his face on the screen confirmed that he was FBI Special Agent in Charge Dominic Mueller, the man who had overseen the investigation involving Thane.

  “We’ve taken every precaution to secure the safety of our witness,” Mueller said to the camera, “and we have every confidence in the world that neither Mr. Catalone nor Mr. D’Amico will escape justice this time.”

  The news anchor said she also hoped justice would be served, then turned her attention to the weather.

  Ty sat back and looked at his brother’s sleeping face. The sickness in his stomach turned into cold, creeping fear.

  That’s when his phone rang.

  Chapter Seven

  “I’M DOWNSTAIRS,” IAN SAID. “I made great time.”

  Ty gathered his wits. He looked from Thane to the TV screen and flicked it off. It almost seemed like the whole thing could have been a dream. Ty kissed his brother’s forehead and slipped out of the room. Just outside the lobby, Ian sat waiting in a silver Town Car. Ty climbed into the back. When he first starting riding with Ian, Ty had asked to sit in front, but Ian had said, “I’m a professional. I drive. You go in the back. Don’t insult me, okay?”

  Ty still couldn’t figure out why him sitting up front was an insult, but he went with it.

  “Home first?” Ian asked.

  “I guess,” Ty said, thinking of a shower and some fresh clothes, but also still thinking about Uncle Gus, Lucy, and Big Al. “Did you hear anything on the radio this morning about my uncle?”

  Ian glanced at him in the rearview mirror, his eyes showing concern even through the glint of his glasses. “I did, yes.”

  “He’s coming back to testify? I thought the trial was years away?” Ty sat forward and put his hands on the back of the passenger seat.

  “It’s for the grand jury,” Ian said. “That’s how these things go. I’m sure they’ll whisk him in and out without a problem.”

  “It’s just creepy seeing those guys on TV and thinking that they’re out there trying to kill Uncle Gus.”

  “That’s their business. Your uncle knew that when he started with them.” Ian drove down the ramp onto the highway. “Very dangerous people.”

  “But not for us, right?”

  Ian glanced in the mirror again. “You and your brother will be fine. They don’t go after civilians.”

  “Civilians?”

  “People who aren’t in the business with them,” Ian said.

  “That’s what the FBI said.”

  “If you’re in,” Ian explained, “you’re a soldier, like in a war. Civilians are the folks out of uniform. They leave them alone.”

  “But Lucy was going to break Thane’s knee with a crowbar,” Ty said.

  “In a fit of rage sometimes one of them will do something stupid, but believe me, it’s all business with these guys, especially when they’ve got time to think about it. Doing something to you or your brother would only make things worse on them. With your uncle? They got nothing to lose and everything to gain.”

  Ty nodded, but felt little comfort in this kind of talk.

  “You know what you need?” Ian asked. “A good bagel. While you’re getting ready for school, I’ll run around the corner and grab you a fresh one with whitefish. You like whitefish, right?”

  Ty nodded without telling Ian he wasn’t hungry.

  “Good.”

  Ian pulled up the curving driveway and Ty hopped out, going through the side door next to the five-car garage. Ty picked up the paper on his way in and flipped to the back, where a picture of Thane’s face grimaced in pain.

  JETS GO DOWN, HARD

  The headline and the picture sent a fresh wave of dread through Ty. He slogged upstairs, still wondering in the back of his mind if he’d wake up from all this. After a shower, he quickly changed and turned on his computer. The sight of his uncle’s face had got Ty to thinking about Charlotte. The last time he saw her was in the back of an FBI car, pulling away and leaving his life, forever. Out of curiosity, Ty had tried his old family’s cell phone numbers. Each had been disconnected, as had their email accounts. But there was one thing Ty thought might still connect him to Charlotte.

  While Aunt Virginia and Uncle Gus had sometimes been downright mean to Ty, they had been strict with Charlotte as well. One of the many things forbidden to Charlotte was Facebook. Aunt Virginia called it a den of iniquity. Ty looked up iniquity and learned it had two meanings. One was immoral behavior, but the second was grossly unfair behavior, and Ty always thought his aunt and uncle were iniquitous to him.

  Either way, Charlotte had a Facebook account. She went under the name Fern Arable, the little girl in the story Charlotte’s Web. Ty always thought it was a clever way to fool Aunt Virginia and he thought that Charlotte might keep using Facebook even though the FBI had forbidden any contact with her former life. Charlotte always seemed to have a knack for doing what grown-ups forbade without their knowing. But when Ty looked at Fern Arable’s page, he saw that no new postings had been made since before Charlotte left.

  Ty sighed and sent the same message he’d sent to her three times before: “R U out there?”

  He shut off his computer, went downstairs, and climbed into the limo. The bagel waited for him in a paper wrapper on the backseat along with a large orange juice. After Ty thanked him, Ian put the car into gear.

  Halpern Middle was a good way from home, and by the time they arrived, Ty had to sign in late.

  “I heard about your brother.” The school secretary wore a sad face. “I’m sorry.”

  Other sympathetic faces greeted Ty in his classroom, students and teachers alike. Everyone seemed to know about Thane, but no one mentioned Uncle Gus and the mobsters, and as bad as Thane’s injury was, the fear of Lucy and Big Al was what haunted Ty through the day.

  After school, Ian waited to take Ty back to the hospital. Ty wanted to ask if Ian had heard any more news about his uncle or the mobsters or the FBI, but he restrained himself, knowing that Ian would likely tell him if he did have any new knowledge. When they pulled up to the hospital, Ian told Ty he had to do a quick airport pickup and take a client into the city.

  “I’ll be back by seven thirty,” Ian said. “I figure you’ll want to be here that long anyway, right?”

  “Maybe they’ll let me stay all night?” Ty said.

  “Or maybe Thane can go home,” Ian said. “Either way, I’ll be back and you can decide.”

  Ty hopped out and hurried into the hospital, eager to see Thane. He waited impatiently for the elevator and huffed when it stopped on the two earlier floors to let people off. Finally they reached four, and he dashed off and down the hall to Thane’s private room in the corner.

  What he saw when he went in didn’t do anything to make him feel any better.

  Chapter Eight

  TY WONDERED TO HIMSELF if discomfort in your mind was worse than discomfort in a blown-out knee. Thane lay in the bed, awake, but staring out the window. Blood had seeped through the white gauze wrapping around his knee. Ty now remembered something he’d heard last night from the doctors. To rebuild Thane’s knee, they had screwed down a ligament taken from a dead body they called a cadaver before sewing his skin back together. The whole thing sounded like a monster movie.

  Outside the window, snowflakes had begun to dance in the sky.

  “They call it Super Sunday, you know,” Thane said, his voice groggy.

  “What?” Ty wondered if his brother was still loopy from the operation.

  “The whole thing. Like a national holiday. The Super Bowl.” Thane returned to the conversation they’d had on the train ride to Baltimore two days ago as if no time at all had passed, and Ty worried about his brother having lost his senses. “Down in Miami? The part
y lasts all week. If your team makes it, I’ll go down with you. That’s where the finals are, right? Just ’cause my team is out of it doesn’t mean I’m all wound up tight. The Players Association has a bunch of events down there they asked me to go to anyway. I got to believe I’ll be walking by then.”

  “I’ve got to make ‘my’ team first,” Ty said, looking down at hands that seemed to belong to an adult rather than a twelve-year-old boy. Mark Bavaro was one of the former Giants players who lived in New Jersey. Bavaro’s son played quarterback, and the former pro was putting together a 7-on-7 team in the twelve-year-old division to compete in the NFL’s Super Bowl 7-on-7 Tournament. The team was called the Raptors.

  Tryouts for the team—something Ty had forgotten about with everything else going on—were at the Giants’ practice bubble tomorrow night.

  “With your speed?” Thane smiled until he winced in pain. “And those hands? Let me see those hands. How many catches did you have this season?”

  “Sixty-seven.” Ty blushed even though it was just the two of them in the room. He held out his hand, and his brother matched it up with his own.

  “Look at that. Almost as big as mine,” Thane said, removing his hand from Ty’s. “You’d be an All-Pro in the NFL with a season like that.”

  “You want some juice?” Ty asked, reaching for the plastic cup on Thane’s tray.

  “I want you to be careful.” Thane’s voice was raspy from the tube they had jammed down his throat during surgery. He took hold of Ty’s hand again and squeezed.

  “Of what?” Ty tried to sound brave, even though he didn’t feel that way. It was hard with his big brother sounding worried. His big brother, the tough, fast, superstar football player.

  “I have to stay here another night,” Thane said. “They’re worried about my temperature. I got a little fever. They said you can’t stay here tonight, something about rules and your age. You slept here last night?”