Close Out

by Todd Strasser

  Kai looked at Shauna. “Did you see that?”

  She nodded. “Was it a shooting star?”

  “I think so.”

  “I’ve never actually seen one before,” Shauna said. “Have you?”

  “In Hawaii a few times,” Kai said.

  “What’s Hawaii like?” Shauna asked.

  “It’s the best place on Earth.” Kai smiled. “I mean, I don’t know much about what it’s like on the big island or on Maui. But Kauai … Hanalei … It’s just the best.”

  “You really miss it?”

  Kai nodded. He missed it terribly, except for one memory so bad that he still wasn’t sure he could ever go back.

  “And that’s where you saw shooting stars?” Shauna asked.

  “Yeah. The sky there is much darker. You see tons more stars and they really shimmer. I guess it’s because there aren’t as many lights around. Sometimes at night my mom and I would put out lounges in the front yard and lie on them and look up.”

  “Let’s do it.” Shauna nodded at a pair of lounges by the pool. She and Kai moved over to them and laid back with their faces tilted up at the sky. The breeze came up again and sent the slightest chill across Kai’s bare skin.

  “Kai, what happened to your mom?” Shauna asked from the lounge beside him.

  “I told you. She got killed in a car accident.”

  “But there’s more, isn’t there?”

  Kai gazed over at her, wondering how she knew. “Yeah.”

  “You don’t have to tell me,” Shauna said. “Unless you want to.”

  He looked up at the night sky again. He’d never told anyone. The only people who knew were those who’d been there that day, or who’d read about it in the newspaper on Kauai.

  “I used to think I was really hot stuff,” Kai said.

  “As a surfer?”

  “Right. You think Buzzy Frank is competitive? You should have seen me.”

  “I don’t believe that,” Shauna said.

  “You think Sam is a jerk about being a local and trying to keep everyone off Screamers? He isn’t half the jerk I was.”

  “Kai, that can’t be true,” Shauna said.

  “Believe it,” Kai said.

  “Believe what?” Spazzy asked, coming back outside.

  Neither Kai nor Shauna answered.

  “Uh-oh, another big secret.” Spazzy started to twitch. “I’ll go back inside and leave you two alone.”

  “No, it’s okay,” Shauna said. “Guess what? We just saw a shooting star.”

  Spazzy pointed a finger toward the horizon. “Out over there, right?”

  “You saw it, too?” Shauna asked.

  “No, but that’s where the constellation Perseus is, and that’s where most of the shooting stars come from at this time of year.”

  “But they’re not really stars,” Shauna said. “They’re just meteors.”

  “Not even,” said Spazzy. “Most of them are particles of dust. No bigger than a grain of sand.” He looked around. “If you really want to see them, let’s go down to the beach and away from the lights around the pool.”

  Shauna and Kai got up and went across the walkway through the dunes with Spazzy, who explained that the shooting stars were mostly particles of dust left in the trail of the comet Swift-Tuttle. “Every summer around now, the earth’s orbit passes through this huge dust cloud left by the comet, and we get these meteor showers called the Perseids because it looks like they come from around that constellation.”

  “I always thought meteors traveled through space and burned up when they went through the atmosphere,” Shauna said.

  “Well, maybe some do,” Spazzy replied. “But most of the shooting stars we see are tiny particles just hanging in space. They don’t come to us. We go to them.”

  “I never knew that,” Shauna said.

  “Yeah, it’s amazing how much junk you can learn when you don’t have any friends,” Spazzy said.

  They got down to the beach and sat in the sand looking out at the horizon.

  “Know what, Spazzy?” Kai said. “It’s actually pretty cool that you and your sister know all this stuff. Maybe it wasn’t much fun learning, but at least you know it. I mean, face it, in the long run, what’s more important? Knowing where shooting stars come from or knowing how to party?”

  “Knowing how to party,” Spazzy and Shauna answered at the same time, and then laughed.

  “Yeah, yeah.” Kai grinned. Then he heard a sound that had grown scarce over the past week—the splash of a wave. Spazzy and Shauna stopped laughing. Kai knew they’d heard it too. All three of them turned their gazes to the water’s edge where a small set of ankle-slappers were tumbling onto the sand.

  “Could be the beginning of something,” Spazzy said.

  “Keep your fingers crossed,” said Shauna.

  Kai glanced at his watch. It was later than he thought. Time for Bean and him to go.

  “I gotta book, folks.” He started to get up.

  Spazzy frowned. “Where?”

  “Just something Bean and I have to take care of,” Kai said. “No biggie.”

  “Yeah, okay.” Spazzy and Shauna got up with him, and they went back to the house and into the game room. The loud clatter of air hockey and the pock of a Ping-Pong ball met their ears before they reached the bottom of the stairs. The room felt warm and smelled faintly of sweat. Over by the air hockey table both Booger and Everett were bare chested, their foreheads speckled with perspiration.

  “Hey, Kai,” Booger said. “Want to play the winner?”

  “Thanks, dude, I would,” Kai said, “but Bean and I have somewhere to go.”

  Bean checked his watch, registering surprise that the time had already come. Jillian frowned.

  “Go somewhere now?” she asked, more of Bean than Kai.

  “It’s okay,” Bean said.

  “Just you two?” asked Booger.

  Kai nodded. He’d hoped he and Bean could just slip away. He hadn’t meant to make it seem like such a big deal.

  “Is something wrong?” Jillian asked, and Kai knew at once that she was more than just book smart.

  “It’s okay,” Bean assured her. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  They went outside and got into the hearse.

  “Why can’t we just tell the police that Goldilocks has the boards and we think they belong to Curtis and they’re stolen?” Bean asked as he turned the key in the ignition.

  “Bean, if someone stole your surfboard and you found it, could you prove it was yours?” Kai asked.

  “Yeah, because I wrote down the serial number,” Bean said, steering the hearse out onto the dark street.

  “Right. But suppose you didn’t write down that number. Then could you prove it? Do you have any paperwork? A receipt?”

  “No. Who keeps a receipt for a surfboard?”

  “Exactly. Now the problem with Curtis is he never wrote down the serial numbers. Everyone knows they’re his boards, but no one can prove it.”

  “Why do we have to be the ones to get them back?” Bean asked.

  “Because it’s the right thing to do,” said Kai.

  “Why can’t we let someone else do the right thing?”

  “You’re joking?” Kai asked.

  “Yeah, yeah, I know,” Bean said with a sigh. “We’re the ones who have to do the right thing because there is no one else.”

  They drove quietly for a while, then Bean said, “You see how Jillian knew right away that something was up?”

  “Sorry about that,” Kai said.

  “It’s cool,” Bean said. “I just don’t want her to start thinking you’re a bad influence on me, you know?”

  They both grinned. It was kind of funny to think that Kai, at the age of fifteen, could be a bad influence on Bean, who was nineteen.

  “Maybe I am,” Kai said.

  “No,” said Bean. “Just different. And good, if you want to know the truth. Only it’ll be a lot better once this night is over.”
/>
  “I won’t argue with that,” Kai said.

  Nine

  Bean pulled onto Seaside Drive and headed for Belle Harbor.

  “You sure you remember the way?” he asked.

  “Pretty much,” Kai said. “We pass 88s and make the first left after the train tracks. It’s the road with the sod farm on the left and the woods on the right.”

  “That much I remember,” Bean said. “But then he made us put those bandannas over our eyes. It’s where we go after that that I’m asking about.”

  “I’ll let you know when we get there,” Kai said.

  Bean gnawed nervously on the side of his thumb. “Know what’s gonna happen if he catches us?”

  “First of all he’s not gonna catch us,” Kai said. “And second, even if he did, what would he do? Go to the police?”

  “I was thinking more along the lines of baseball bats,” Bean said.

  “He doesn’t strike me as the type,” Kai said.

  Bean turned to him with a raised eyebrow. “How would you know? You have any experience with anyone who would strike you as the type?”

  Kai didn’t answer. There’d been some people along the way. “Associates” of his father’s, who were probably pretty handy with baseball bats and not in any way that involved a ball. Not to mention those guys with the bulges under their shirts, who hung around the warehouse in Brooklyn.

  “Ever try to run and swing a bat at the same time?” Kai asked.

  “No,” said Bean.

  “It’s not easy.”

  “What if there’s no place to run?” Bean asked.

  “Then you duck.”

  They passed 88s. By this time of night the parking lot was almost full, and the dance club was brightly lit.

  Ahead, in the hearse’s headlights, they saw the yellow railroad crossing sign. A moment later the hearse bounced over the tracks. Bean turned left onto the narrow paved road between the sod farm and the woods. Kai closed his eyes and started to count.

  “What are you doing?” Bean asked.

  “Shush.”

  Kai counted up to twenty-five. “There’s gonna be a right turn coming up.”

  “Yeah, I see it,” Bean said.

  Kai opened his eyes just as Bean turned onto a dirt road that went into the woods.

  “What next?” Bean asked.

  “Quiet.” Kai closed his eyes and counted as they bounced down the dirt road. This time he counted to fifteen. “Left turn.”

  “Yup, there it is,” said Bean.

  They turned left. Kai closed his eyes and counted to twenty “Okay, stop.” He opened his eyes. The dirt road was hardly wide enough for the hearse.

  “This it?” Bean asked.

  “Not quite,” Kai said. “Where’s the flashlight?”

  “Behind you.”

  Kai reached behind the seat and came up with a heavy-duty flashlight—the kind that ran off a nine-volt battery. It was just what he’d hoped for. He rolled down the passengerside window and turned the flashlight on.

  “Okay, let’s go nice and slow.” Kai aimed the flashlight into the woods. Bean drove slowly. The dirt road was full of bumps and potholes and the hearse creaked and squeaked as it lumbered along.

  “You can see why Goldilocks prefers a Jeep,” Bean said.

  A small pair of emerald green eyes glittered at them from the dark. A possum. Bean practically came to a stop to give the sluggish creature time to get out of the way.

  “You’ve heard of guard dogs?” he asked. “There’s a guard possum.”

  Kai kept scanning the woods with the flashlight. “No offense, Bean, but was that supposed to be funny?”

  “Just nervous babbling,” Bean admitted.

  “I’m telling you, dude, there’s nothing to be nervous about,” said Kai.

  They drove a little farther. Kai swept the beam through the woods, looking for the shed.

  “You sure we re on the right road?” Bean asked.

  “Pretty sure,” Kai answered.

  “Seems like we should have found it by now.”

  “Don’t forget, last time we came down this road a lot faster,” Kai said. “So it may seem like we’ve been driving longer, but it’s only because we’re going slower. There it is.” Kai held the beam steady on the shed, just barely visible through the trees. “Get as close as you can and stop.”

  A few seconds later Bean stopped the hearse. “You know, something just occurred to me. Up till now I’ve been worried that Goldilocks was gonna nail us while we were stealing his boards.”

  “We’re not stealing,” Kai said. “We’re simply returning the boards to their rightful owner.”

  “Yeah, okay, Robin Hood, whatever,” Bean said. “But here’s what I just realized. It doesn’t matter whether he catches us in the act or not, because as soon as he discovers the boards are gone, he’s gonna know who took them.”

  “Not necessarily,” Kai said. “We don’t know who else he’s shown the boards to. Now come on, let’s do this fast and get out of here. You have the hacksaw and the WD-Forty?”

  “Of course,” Bean said. They got out of the hearse. Bean opened the back door and took out the hacksaw and spray can of oil. He and Kai walked through the dark trees toward the shed.

  “I understand the hacksaw, but what’s the oil for?” Bean asked.

  “Cuts down on the noise the saw makes going through metal,” Kai said.

  “Sometimes you scare me,” Bean said as they made their way around the tree trunks and through the brush.

  “Why’s that?” Kai asked.

  “Because when most people use a hacksaw, they don’t have to worry about how much noise it makes. The only people who have to worry about noise are the ones who are doing something where they don’t want to get caught. Know what I mean? So tell me Kai, where’d you learn this little trick?”

  Kai knew exactly where he’d learned to make a hacksaw work silently About a year before, a store his father had been using was suddenly bolted shut by the landlord for nonpayment of rent. It was one of those rare times when Pat had failed to leave town before the landlord figured out that he was getting stiffed. Since the store was padlocked with all the shirts, transfers, heat press, and computer still inside, the Alien Frog Beast had had no choice but to break in during the night. The only other option would have been to pay the rent he owed. Which, of course, was out of the question.

  “Just something I picked up along the way,” Kai said, taking the hacksaw from Bean and handing him the flashlight. “Shine it on the latch.”

  Bean aimed the flashlight. Kai had no intention of trying to saw through the padlock itself. That was case-hardened steel. It was the latch he was interested in. Especially where it crossed the gap between the old wooden doors. Kai placed the blade of the hacksaw on the latch and started to saw.

  “Give it a shot,” he said when the metal screeched. “Just a little.”

  Bean sprayed the oil, and continued to apply it each time the saw began to make noise. Kai sawed steadily. The latch was old and the metal soft. In less than five minutes he’d cut through it. He and Bean pulled open the doors. Bean flashed the light on the boards and Kai quickly counted. All twelve were still there. Kai felt himself smile. Except for the banana yellow Yater, Curtis was going to get his boards back.

  They carefully pulled the boards out of the shed and piled them into the back of the hearse, using towels and wet suits and anything else soft to keep them from banging against each other. When they were finished they pushed the shed doors closed and propped some large rocks against them.

  “Got any duct tape?” Kai asked.

  Bean went back to the hearse and got the roll he always kept. He gave it to Kai, who carefully taped the back of the latch together so it wouldn’t be immediately obvious that someone had broken in.

  “Smart,” Bean said as they walked back to the hearse. “So if Goldilocks drives by just to check, it’ll look like everything’s okay.”

  “If we’re
lucky,” Kai said.

  They got into the hearse and headed back out the dirt road. A few minutes later they turned onto Seaside Drive, went over the railroad tracks, and drove toward Sun Haven. Bean let out a loud sigh. “Man, am I glad that’s over.”

  “Me too.” Kai peered into the side-view mirror. Far in the distance behind them, a pair of headlights appeared.

  “I assume we’re going to the Driftwood to drop the boards off,” Bean said.

  “Not exactly.” The headlights behind them were growing larger. Whoever was driving the car was in a rush. Kai decided he was just being paranoid. Seaside Drive was a pretty heavily traveled road, and it could have been anyone.

  “Not exactly?” Bean repeated. “Where are we taking them if not to Curtis?”

  “I’ll let you know,” Kai said, trying not to sound distracted, but the headlights had now caught up to them. He resisted the urge to turn around and look through the back window. With the hearse curtain in place it would be impossible to see anyway. Seaside Drive was empty, and the dashed white line down the center of the road allowed the car behind them to pass if the driver wanted to.

  Only the driver didn’t want to. Instead he stayed behind the hearse. Kai reminded himself again that it could be anyone, and there were a thousand reasons why the driver might decide not to pass. They were coming to an intersection with a traffic light. The light was green.

  “Do me a favor?” Kai said. “Put on your left blinker and slow down as if you’re going to make a turn.”

  Bean instantly looked into the rearview mirror. “Why? We’re not turning, are we?”

  “No.”

  “Then?”

  “Just do it.”

  Bean flicked on the blinker and started to slow down. The car behind them put on its blinker. They were almost at the intersection.

  “Want me to turn?” Bean asked.

  “No. Speed up and go straight.”

  Bean sped up, and looked in the rearview mirror. Instead of turning, the car behind them did the same thing.

  “Shit,” Bean muttered. Now he understood.

  “Next intersection act like you’re driving through and then quickly make a right,” Kai said.

  “As long as it’s not a dead end,” Bean added.