by Tim Green
Ty looked down at the crusty blood along the thin slice. “I’m fine.”
“Okay. I’ll be right here. Shout if you need me.”
“My brother said to put the alarm on.”
“You can do that.”
“Just don’t open any doors or windows.”
“Got it,” the agent said, taking some paperwork and a computer out of his briefcase and setting them in front of him on the table.
Ty looked over his shoulder before he left the room. He went upstairs and put on the alarm, punching the code into the keypad in the hallway between his and Thane’s bedrooms. After getting ready for bed, Ty dialed his brother’s cell phone like Thane had asked, but all he got was voice mail. Ty figured the pain medicine still had Thane out cold, so he left a message and clicked his phone shut. After he turned out the light, Ty peered through the curtains of his bedroom window down at the street, empty except for the FBI car in the driveway. In the army of shadows it wasn’t hard for Ty to imagine the Blade and Bonito out there somewhere. He tried to focus on the agent downstairs, sitting alert at the kitchen table.
“Like a big guard dog.” Ty spoke out loud, comforting himself with the sound of the words, and he climbed into bed, pulling the covers up over his head.
The wind groaned against the stone house and its slate roof. Ty tried not to hear the Blade’s past victims in the moaning wind, but his sleep was fitful. His hand began to throb and his dreams were scary, and in the morning he certainly didn’t want to get up for school.
When he woke, Ty reached out from under his covers to turn on the light and felt better once it was on. He climbed out of bed and turned on all the lights, peering out through the curtains at the street below, searching for signs of a big black Cadillac like the one he’d heard Al D’Amico drove before they locked him up. He felt better at the sight of the Ford Five Hundred.
Ty examined his hand. There was no new bleeding, but the skin around the cut was puffy. He winced as he dabbed on some ointment to keep it from getting infected and wrapped it in gauze to protect it. He dialed Thane and got voice mail, the same as before bed. He looked at the clock and hurried to get ready.
Downstairs, Agent Sutherland was right where Ty had left him, bent over his work and clacking away at the computer.
“Still at it?” Ty asked.
“Lots of paperwork,” the agent said. “They don’t tell you that part. You think it’s about guns and manhunts, but a lot of being in law enforcement is just clicking a keyboard.”
Ty offered the agent some breakfast, but Sutherland said he didn’t like to eat before he slept and that he would be taking a few hours off after he dropped Ty at school. As Ty sat crunching on Cheerios doused with milk, his mind turned to the 7-on-7 tryouts. He flexed his hand and wondered how well he’d be able to catch the ball. He pushed the doubts from his mind, drank down his orange juice, and rinsed his dishes before tucking them into the dishwasher.
That’s when his cell phone rang. Ty looked at the number and recognized it as coming from the hospital.
He answered. “Thane?”
“No,” said a man with a husky voice. “This isn’t Thane. I’m Dr. Suarez. Is this Ty?”
“Yes.” Ty swallowed. “Is my brother okay?”
The doctor went silent for a moment before he spoke.
“No, Ty. I’m afraid he’s not.”
Chapter Fourteen
EVEN THOUGH TY LOVED books and Avi was one of his favorite writers, Ty would never finish Crispin. The main character had only just met an enormous and hairy jester when someone knocked at Ty’s front door. Ty put the book he would never read again down on the lamp table. As he crossed the smoky room, he made a mental note to put another log in the wood-burning stove. He wore slippers and a sweater to fend off the cold.
Ty’s family lived on a wooded ridge in the country and they didn’t get many people knocking at their door. The sight of a tall man outside on the front step wearing a trooper’s hat made his heart jump. Ty opened the door, and cold air stormed the entryway. The trooper had eyes as dark as black marbles and eyebrows so thick they seemed made for winter. The eyes were serious and sad in a way Ty had never seen before.
“Are you Ty Lewis?”
“Yes.” The word barely followed the wisp of steam that escaped his lips.
“Can I come in?”
“Why?”
“I think you should sit down.”
“No. Tell me. Tell me, now.”
“I’m sorry, son,” the trooper said, shifting his feet so that the polished black shoes crunched the bits of ice on the front step. “There’s been an accident. Your parents are both dead.”
Ty had never felt a weight so heavy before or since, but the doctor’s voice on the phone came awfully close and reminded him of that moment only a year before.
“Where is he?” Ty asked the doctor.
“He’s here,” the doctor said. “He’s sleeping now, but he made me promise I’d call you in the morning. It was the only way I could get him to settle down. He’s developed an infection. It happens every so often.”
“But, he’ll be okay?”
“He’s fighting it.”
“That’s not okay,” Ty said, the panic rising like a flood, ready to choke him to death. “He’ll be okay, right?”
“He’s very strong, Ty, but I’m not going to tell you it isn’t serious. It is. We moved him to intensive care as a precaution.”
Tears spilled down Ty’s cheeks and dripped onto the place mat in front of him. He shook his head.
Choking, he asked, “Can I see him?”
“You can’t go into ICU, son,” the doctor said. “The nurse told me you live with your brother? You have no other relatives?”
Ty felt like he was tumbling in empty space and he choked on the word. “No.”
“Well.” The doctor paused. “We’ll get a caseworker from the county to look in on you if your brother isn’t out of ICU by the end of the day. Do you take the bus to school?”
“I have a ride.” The word caseworker flashed in his mind like the light on a police car. His last caseworker had stuck him with Uncle Gus, who had him cleaning toilets and sleeping on a mattress in the laundry room like a dog.
“Okay, good. You can call me later today, after school. We may know more.”
Chapter Fifteen
“WHAT’S WRONG?” AGENT SUTHERLAND asked as Ty pocketed his phone.
“My brother’s not doing well.” Ty flexed his aching hand.
“You want to go to the hospital?” the agent asked.
Ty looked away. “The doctor said I should go to school. Thane’s got an infection. He’s in ICU, intensive care.”
“My uncle was in intensive care for a week after open-heart surgery.” The agent’s voice was lighthearted. “That was like, four years ago. He whipped me in tennis last week. Your brother? They didn’t invent an infection that can take him down. Don’t worry, kid.”
On the ride to school, Agent Sutherland told the full story of his uncle. When they pulled up to the school, the agent got out and looked around like some kind of bodyguard. A second car the same make as Sutherland’s pulled up; Ty saw that it was Agent Chance.
“He’ll be outside the school while I go and get some sleep,” Sutherland said. “I’ll be back by three when you come out.”
Ty shook hands with the other agent, using his left hand. He liked the warmth in Chance’s blue eyes, but still he asked Sutherland, “You think I’m safe?”
“In school? You’re fine. And hey, I keep saying it: your brother will be fine, too.”
Ty said thanks and headed for the entrance. Behind him, the FBI agents stood like statues, watching.
The kids milling toward the entrance to Halpern Middle didn’t even blink at the sight of the two men, even though Sutherland stuck out like a sore thumb with his bald head and gold tooth. Ty’s schoolmates were used to a lot of strange things, from NFL players to white limousines. It was part of the l
egend that Ty Lewis had become, first showing up as an unlucky orphan, a skinny, quiet geek of a kid with small round glasses, toting his books around in a musty pillowcase, and a way of not looking people in the eye. Then his older brother became the Jets’ first-round draft pick, and Ty transformed into a star football player himself. He made the news for his role in saving his brother from the crowbar of what people called a “mafia maniac” and also helped Halpern Middle win a county football championship.
Ty couldn’t help wishing he was just a normal kid, back in Tully with both his parents. When he got to the top of the school’s steps, he looked past the FBI agents, scanning the street and half expecting to see Bonito’s leering face go by in a big dark SUV. There was nothing but soccer moms and classmates.
Ty didn’t love school, but he didn’t mind it. He had a great English teacher named Judy Weisman who never recommended a bad book, and a history teacher, Mr. Salter, who somehow made even the War of 1812 fun. In gym class, Coach V was doing volleyball, and even playing with just one hand was challenging enough to make the day move faster. After the final bell rang, Ty spotted the FBI agent’s car outside the school.
As he walked down the concrete steps, he dialed Thane’s doctor’s number, but only got voice mail. He left a message, and got into the front seat.
“Can we go to the hospital?” Ty asked.
“Agent Chance stopped by there a half hour ago, kid,” Sutherland said. “Your brother is still in the tank. That’s what I called it with my uncle, ’cause it’s kind of like a fish tank; you know, all the tubes and little blinking lights, and you can only watch through the glass.”
“I want to see him.”
“Well, we can try, right?” Agent Sutherland put the government car into gear, and they took off for the hospital.
“It’s weird.” Ty huffed his breath on the window. “It’s like, they can’t be out there, looking to grab me or something. Then I remember Lucy looking at me the way he did and the sound of him slapping that crowbar he always used to carry against his hand, and I know that they are out there.”
“They’re out there,” Sutherland said, “but we don’t know for certain they’re going to try to get you. We’re just playing it safe, Ty.”
“I know. Believe me, if my brother’s okay, I’ll be happy to run from the mob for the rest of my life.”
“We’re not running,” Agent Sutherland said. “I told you, we’re just playing it safe.”
Ty nodded but stayed quiet for the rest of the ride. When Sutherland let him out, Ty noticed how the agent scanned the area around them and kept looking over his shoulder as he walked Ty into the hospital.
Thane was on a different floor, and they wouldn’t let Ty in. Dr. Suarez was a short man with small green eyes and black hair. The front pocket of his white coat sagged with a handful of pens and a light for looking into people’s ears. He met Ty and the agent in a small waiting room by the nurses’ station.
“Who are you?” the doctor asked Sutherland.
Sutherland smoothed the sleeves of his suit coat and explained, and the doctor acted like everyone who came in had an FBI bodyguard.
“I’ve got a county caseworker lined up to take care of the boy,” the doctor said.
“We can handle it for a day or so,” Agent Sutherland said, winking at Ty.
The doctor nodded and turned to Ty. “Your brother’s a little better, but not out of the woods.”
“Can I see him?” Ty asked.
“Not yet. He wanted me to give you a message though.” The doctor removed a pad from his side pocket and flipped through it. “He was pretty upset and he said to tell you to make sure you ‘go to seven’? I’m not sure what that means. Then he said something about ‘Super Sunday.’ Does any of that make sense to you?”
“Yes. I know what he wants.”
“Okay. I’m sorry about not seeing him. That’s just the rules with ICU.”
“Can’t we just look?” Agent Sutherland said. “When my uncle was in the ICU, we could at least stand in the hallway and wave at him through the glass. I was telling Ty, it was like a fish tank.”
The doctor scowled at the FBI agent. “We don’t do that here.”
The agent shrugged.
“Hopefully tomorrow,” the doctor said to Ty before turning and walking away.
Chapter Sixteen
“SO, WHAT’S THIS SEVEN thing, if you don’t mind my asking?” Agent Sutherland wheeled the car out of the hospital parking lot, checking the rearview mirror, presumably for mobsters.
“Seven-on-Seven.” Ty explained the team Mark Bavaro was putting together. “Tryouts are at five thirty tonight at the Giants’ practice facility. My brother got me in, but with my hand? I don’t know if it’s even worth it.”
“Cut’s deeper than you thought, huh?”
“Deep enough.”
“Well,” the agent said, “football’s a tough game.”
“I’m tough.”
“I can see that in your eyes.”
Ty smiled. “Can we get something to eat before the tryouts?”
“Uncle Sam won’t spring for much more than a cheeseburger.”
“I love cheeseburgers.”
They stopped at a roadside stand Agent Sutherland said he’d been going to for twenty years. The people behind the counter wore red-and-white-striped paper caps, and the patrons sat huddled around the small tables without removing their coats.
Ty wiped some grease from his mouth and asked, “How old are you?”
“Why? I look old?”
“To me.”
“Thirty-two. Old?”
“Yeah.”
“You think you’re gonna make this team?” Agent Sutherland stabbed a fry into his mouth. “I remember watching Bavaro when I was a kid. The Giants won the Super Bowl. My dad painted his face blue.”
“I’m fast, like my brother.” Ty flexed his hand, wincing. “I’ve got good hands, too, but this isn’t good.”
“You keep going back to that.”
“If I don’t make it.”
“I bet your brother doesn’t make excuses.”
Ty put his hand down. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Those NFL guys? They’re out of their minds with determination. No excuses for them. Excuses give you an escape hatch. You can always quit at the end and get away from the real pain because you got that excuse.” Sutherland wadded up the paper wrappings and jammed them into his empty soda cup. “Thing is, you never really do the best you can do. You gotta go into it without excuses. Sometimes you fail. Life’s like that.”
“Were you a football player?”
“Me? No. Wrestler. East Stroudsburg. Second in the NCAA, Division Two.”
“Second?”
“I had a bad Achilles.”
“An excuse?”
Sutherland stood up and checked his watch. “You don’t want to be late for Mark Bavaro. That guy is old-school.”
“You know him?” Ty asked as they got into the car.
“I told you, I saw him play.” Sutherland pulled out onto the road. “How’s his son?”
“Great. He’s twelve and everyone says he can really throw. My brother made some calls to get me a tryout. My team won the county championship and I was the MVP.”
“Following in your brother’s footsteps, huh?”
Ty looked out the window at the passing utility poles. Dead cattails waved from the frozen swamps. Ice bearded the dark and rusted bridges spanning the waterways. The darkening sky held no birds, only blinking airplanes headed for Newark. “I’d like to.”
“And you don’t mind just going alone, showing up with an FBI agent?”
“No.”
“Lots of kids wouldn’t feel comfortable with that.”
“I’ve been alone before.” Ty turned his attention to the agent. “As long as I know I’ve got my brother out there, I don’t even think of it like being alone.”
“I see.”
The Giants’ indo
or practice facility looked like a big white barn next to the team offices. In the distance stood the new stadium. A security guard checked Ty’s name at the door, and Agent Sutherland got around any explanations with his FBI identification.
Inside, Ty felt like Pinocchio in the belly of the whale. Enormous arches of steel ran like the whale’s ribs for eighty yards, and the boys already there darted about on the green plastic grass like krill. The vast space swallowed up shouts and commands without offering up an echo. Ty flexed his damaged hand, and a shiver scampered down his backbone.
Mark Bavaro stood at the center of it all, wearing a Giants cap and a heavy gray sweatshirt and pants. Ty laced his cleats up tight and jogged out to the middle with the rest of them when Bavaro blew a whistle. The former NFL great had short dark hair speckled with gray, and his big eyes seemed heavy from years of hard work. Another man stood behind Bavaro, taller and even wider.
Someone whispered, “That’s Michael Strahan.”
And it was. Ty took a deep breath and looked around for a boy who looked like the famous Giants defensive end and thought he saw several candidates, boys so much taller and stronger looking than Ty that he wondered if this team really was just for twelve-year-olds. When he saw a boy with a gap in his teeth, Ty knew it was Michael Jr.
“Okay, guys,” Bavaro said. “We’ve got some drills set up for you. There are about twenty receivers, and we’ll keep just ten. We got five running backs and only room for two. Same thing with the defensive guys; we got about thirty and room for just ten, so don’t feel bad if you don’t make it. We’ve got some of the best kids in New Jersey, and we don’t have much time to get this thing going. If you don’t make it, I’m gonna suggest that someone get their dad to make up another team, and you’ll probably whip our butts down in Miami. You just never know with this tryout stuff. Anyway, let’s get going. Line up across this line here, and we’ll get you warmed up.”
Ty got on the line with the others and peered down the row of kids as they began doing high steps to loosen their hamstrings. He was the shortest, smallest kid there, and his spirits dropped. Once they had warmed up, though, Mark Bavaro had them line up on the sideline and sprint across in a race to see who was fastest. He kept removing the slower players, and after four tries, only Ty and three others were left.
