by Tim Green
"Bob," Troy's mom said, "would you please tell Troy what you learned."
Bob McDonough took a swig, and his eyes flickered from Troy's mom to Troy before he set down the bottle, licked his lips, and sucked in some air.
"Troy," he said, "you're an employee of the team, and it's my job to look into these kinds of things, whether someone is working a con game on one of our players or someone's trying to get inside information on the team for gambling. I admit that this is quite different, but you're an asset to the team."
"Only for the rest of this season," Troy said, jutting out his chin. "I'm going to the Jets next year."
"Yes, your mom told me about that," Bob McDonough said, casting a worried glance at Troy's mom, "but what I have to say may change all that."
"Because you want me to stay!" Troy said, pushing back his chair with a screech and jumping up.
"Troy!" his mother said. "Sit down. You don't talk to Mr. McDonough that way. You know better."
"I don't know what I know anymore," Troy said, then lowered his voice. "But I'm sorry. I didn't mean anything by it, Mr. McDonough; it's just that all this is so crazy."
"It'd be a lot for anyone," Bob McDonough said, "let alone a twelve-year-old boy. But that doesn't mean I can keep the truth from you, Troy."
"What truth?" Troy asked. "Why are you two looking like that?"
"Troy," Bob McDonough said, "your father, Drew Edinger, he's in very serious trouble with the law."
"What?" Troy asked, frightened by the look on Bob McDonough's face. "What trouble?"
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
"YOUR FATHER IS MILLIONS of dollars in debt, Troy," Bob McDonough said. "He thinks you're his ticket out."
Troy remembered the man at G Money's card table who had referred to Troy as his dad's "ticket." He looked from Bob McDonough to his mom and back before he said, "That's not trouble with the law. People have money trouble. That's not a crime."
Bob McDonough shook his head slowly. "No, it's not, but when the fund he managed started to melt away, he took money from some very bad and dangerous people. He took the money that came from criminal activities and put it into legitimate real estate deals. It's called money laundering."
"Why? What are you talking about, laundering?" Troy asked.
"The money he got was dirty," Bob McDonough said, glancing at Troy's mom. "Money from drugs, gambling, extortion. Like I said, criminal activity."
"Even if it's true," Troy said, panic beginning to flood his mind, "he didn't do any of that stuff. No way. Never."
"No, he didn't," Troy's mom said, her voice soft, "but even taking that money the way he did and using it for those people is a crime. Troy?"
Troy opened his mouth but was too afraid to ask what, so nothing came out.
His mom looked at Bob McDonough, who nodded and said, "Your father is looking at about ten years in jail, Troy."
CHAPTER FIFTY
TROY BOLTED UP OUT of the chair, tipping it over this time. He ran out the front door. The pine branches scratched his arms and face as he batted blindly through the woods, heading in the general direction of the railroad tracks, not thinking or knowing where he wanted to end up. Behind him, he could hear his mother's cries to come back.
He kept going. When he broke into the open cut of the railroad bed, he leaped up onto the tracks and headed for the bridge. His mind swam in a hot soup of rage and disgrace and broken dreams. When his feet hit the metal trestle, he ran ten more strides and stopped in the middle. Below, the green snake of the Hooch slipped past. Jagged roots and rocks too stubborn to be swept away poked out from the red banks, and the leafless trees stretched their fingertips across the expanse, leaving only a narrow column of blue sky above.
Troy had jumped into the Hooch before. Less than two months ago he'd taken the dangerous plunge, frustrated then about the father he never knew. Now he wished none of it had ever happened. What good was a father who would soon be in jail? And Troy knew what his mom and Bob McDonough were thinking. He'd seen it in their eyes, in their faces. They believed--and Troy couldn't help thinking it now himself--that the whole reason his father had even showed up was because of the money.
Troy gripped the lip of a slanted steel girder overhead. He leaned forward, out into the empty space, and lost his lunch in a stream that spun and floated until disappearing with a faint splat into the river below.
Troy wiped his mouth on a sleeve, then felt his stomach heave again. Nothing came out, but his insides twisted painfully all the same, and his choking noises drifted out across the steady water. Tears coursed down his cheeks, and he let them fall freely from his face without wiping them. The small dots of salty water fell like tiny bombs, lost from sight after only a few feet, gone as if they never were--and that's the way Troy liked it.
After a time he sat down and dangled his legs over the water. The sun slanted low across the treetops, painting them with yellow light. Troy thought about football practice and laughed out loud.
None of that mattered.
He sat for a long time with his mind mostly numb. The shadows deepened toward evening, and the river below turned dark enough to hide its movements. When Troy heard the sound of his mother calling his name, he sniffed and shifted his seat, wiping the last smudges of tears from his face. For ten minutes he listened as her calls grew closer and closer until he heard the rap of her feet on the steel bridge. She stopped calling, but Troy heard her all the same as she moved steadily closer and the final sound of her footfalls ended beside him.
"You can't keep running away, Troy," she said.
"I won't," he said, his voice, like his heart, empty.
"Bob McDonough wasn't finished. He had more to say."
"I don't want to hear it," Troy said. "I know everything. I know what you know, and I'm done trying to defend him. I've known all along that I've got this bad side to me, and I knew it never came from you."
"Oh, Troy," she said, sitting down beside him and snaking her arm around his shoulders, hugging him tight.
"I'm done crying about it," he said.
"Good," she said, her voice a whisper. "But it isn't completely hopeless, Troy. There's something you can do."
"Like what?" he said, his voice dull and disinterested.
"You can help your father," she said.
A small spark of hope glowed deep in a pit in his mind.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean," she said, "that the FBI wants your help. Mr. McDonough's friend said you could help them."
"Help them put my own dad in jail?" Troy asked, looking up at her and blinking in disbelief.
"I don't know if anything can keep him out of jail for certain, Troy," she said, "but the way I understand it is if you're willing to help, they'll take it into account."
"What's that mean, Mom?" he asked.
She sighed. "He could get ten years in jail. If you help them, maybe it's only one. Maybe he even gets off with probation. It's not him they really want."
"Who is it?"
"The people with G Money," his mom said. "They say he started hanging around with some mobsters from Eastern Europe to help his image in the rap world. I guess a lot of the rappers associate with criminal gangs. He did something different, not a street gang, but something just as dangerous. For some insane reason, I guess it helps a person in the music business to have a bunch of crooks for friends. It's those people who gave Drew the dirty money."
"I saw them," Troy said. "Outside G Money's. Playing poker by the pool. They looked mean."
"They are," his mom said. "Very."
"But how can I help?" Troy asked.
"Well," she said, "if you'll come back to the house, that's what we're both about to find out."
"Why?" Troy asked. "Who's at the house."
"The FBI."
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
TROY SAW HIS GRAMPS'S pickup in the dirt patch along with a navy sedan in the deepening shadows beneath the pine trees. Gramps met them at the door.
; "Gramps?" Troy said. "What are you doing here?"
"Just providing counsel," Gramps said, smiling at Troy's mom. "Someone thinks I'm not only old but wise, too."
Gramps gave Troy's shoulders a squeeze before leading them into the kitchen. Bob McDonough sat at the kitchen table with two other men, both with short hair and wearing crisp, dark suits. Troy's mom pointed to a chair for him to sit in. She positioned herself by the sink, leaning back against the counter with her arms folded. Gramps took a stool from the corner and sat down on it next to her.
Bob McDonough introduced the men in suits as Agent Kerns and Agent Williams, with Williams having the friendlier-looking face of the two.
It was Williams who said, "Troy, do you know what kind of trouble your father is in?"
"I think so," Troy said.
The agent nodded and said, "And did your mom tell you that if you help us, we'll do everything we can to minimize the time he spends in jail?"
"She said one year instead of ten," Troy said, looking hard into the agent's eyes. "Or maybe he might not even go."
"Yes," Williams said, "that's right. Now, we can't promise anything specific other than that whatever would have happened, it'll be a lot better for him with this deal. We'll tell the judge that he helped us through you. And it is possible he won't go to jail at all. Maybe just lose his license to practice law and get probation."
"Can't you just leave him alone completely if I help you?" Troy asked, his voice desperate.
It was Agent Kerns who scowled and shook his head.
"Not completely, Troy," Agent Williams said. "I'm sorry."
"What if I don't help?" Troy said, raising his chin.
"We can't make you," Agent Williams said, glancing at Troy's mom and Gramps, then at Bob McDonough. "But like I told your mom, I think you'd regret it, Troy. No one wants his father in jail, and that's where he's headed right now. We aren't going away. We'll get these people. It may take years, but sooner or later they'll make a mistake. They've made one right now, but we can't take advantage of it without your help."
"Let's talk about what it is you want him to do," Troy's mom said. "He's not doing anything dangerous. No way. I told you all that."
"And we promised it wouldn't be," Agent Williams said. "No one will suspect a thing."
From his pocket, the agent removed a quarter. He flipped it in the air for everyone to see, then caught it and slapped it down into his palm. "All he has to do is drop this down behind a piece of furniture or slip it into the cushions on the zebra couch in G Money's living room. Not that anything could happen, but if it does, we'll be listening the whole time. We're set up next door, and we can be inside in a matter of seconds if Troy needs us."
"You saw the couch?" Troy asked. "Then how come you didn't do it yourselves?"
"We see the couch with spotting scopes and heat-sensing equipment from the neighbor's roof," Agent Kerns said in a stern voice. "That couch is where Luther Tolsky does all his business. They come and go and we can see them, but we can't hear anything. We get a listening device in that room and we can nail this guy good."
"Wait a minute," Troy said. "Luther Tolsky? The big, scary-looking guy? Bald with a thick black beard and a tattoo on his neck?"
Agent Williams narrowed his eyes at Troy and said, "You've seen him, right?"
"At the dome with G Money and my dad," Troy said, "and at G Money's pool, playing cards."
"That's our target, a very bad man," Agent Williams said, "but also a very smart man. He changes the place he conducts business every week. We never know where he'll be. He has a lot of contacts: people he can trust or people too afraid to tell him no. By the time we get the court orders for the wiretaps in place and figure out a way to get someone inside to plant one of these quarters, he's already moved on.
"But with your dad staying there, this will be easy."
"What if he can't get into the living room?" Troy's gramps asked.
"Look, we're not asking for guarantees," Agent Williams said. "We just want Troy to try. Nothing can happen. Look at this thing. It's a quarter."
The agent handed it to Troy's mom. She turned it over in her hand and passed it to Gramps before she asked, "What do you think, Dad?"
Gramps rolled the coin around with his fingers, then held it out away from him to see it better before he said, "Dropping this thing, I can't see how it could hurt, Tessa."
"No," the agent said, "it can't, but it could help. It could help us, and help his dad stay out of jail."
Troy's mom looked at Gramps. He sighed, gave the quarter back to Agent Williams, and nodded. In a quiet voice he said, "If he doesn't do it, Tessa, I'm afraid Troy will always look back on this moment and regret it. Jail is a horrible thing, and I think, good or bad, Troy loves his father. You know that."
"I wish his father loved him back as much," Troy's mom said.
Troy hung his head.
Softly his mom said, "I shouldn't have said that, Troy. I'm sorry."
Troy shrugged and said, "It's okay. I understand. I still want to help him, Mom. I'm not afraid, and maybe he's not as bad as they think. That's possible, right?"
Troy looked at the agents. Kerns's lips disappeared into the flat slit of his mouth.
Williams tilted his head and said, "Well, sometimes strange things happen; but in this business, it usually turns out just the way you think it will."
Everyone sat quiet for what seemed like a long time before, in a soft and serious voice, Troy's mom asked, "If we agree to this, Agent Williams, when would you want him to do it?"
The agents looked at each other, and it was Kerns who answered.
"Right now. Tonight."
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
"WHEN WE SAW YOU at G Money's the other night," Agent Williams said, "you just appeared out of nowhere. How did you get there?"
Troy bit his lip and raised his eyes toward his mom. She furrowed her eyebrows and said, "Wait a minute. He rode there with Drew last night, right?"
"No," Agent Williams said, "he just showed up on his own Sunday night."
Troy winced and studied the checkered tablecloth.
"Sunday night," his mom said, her voice as flat as a pancake. "Interesting."
His mom sighed loudly before adding, "Dad, I don't know what I'm going to do with him."
Troy snuck a look at his gramps, who said, "I know what you do. You just love the boy. He wants a father. He's wanted that for a long time. Everyone wants that, Tessa, and it's hard for those of us who've had a father to know what it's like not to. Let it go, darlin'. He's a good kid."
"Okay, Dad," she said. "You're right."
"Most times." He grinned.
"So," Troy's mom said, "how did you get there, Troy?"
"The wall," Troy said under his breath. "And Gramps's ladder."
"Great."
"Tessa," Gramps warned.
"Okay." Troy heard the sound of surrender in her voice.
"So, that's what we need you to do this time, too," Agent Williams said. "We can't risk having anyone see you being dropped off down the street. You just go in the same way you did before, only this time you'll be carrying our quarter.
"Now, do you have a reason to go see your dad?"
Troy knit his brow and said, "I guess the deal we agreed to, and my mom wanting to back out of it. I mean, it's something that might make me want to go see him. Not that I was going to do that."
Troy stole a look at his mom, who flashed him a mildly disgusted look.
"Perfect," Agent Williams said. "That's what you tell him. That will keep them all off guard, and I won't be surprised if this whole contract thing isn't part of their business."
"What?" Troy said.
"This contract," Agent Williams said, "how fast he put it together. I think Drew Edinger is under a lot of pressure. Your contract might be just what he needs to turn down the heat."
"Why would my contract do that?" Troy asked.
"The money, Troy," Agent Williams said. "Anything's po
ssible, but I think he's planning on taking it for himself."
"What?" Troy said with even more disbelief. "Even if he wanted to, how could he do that?"
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
"HE'S YOUR LAWYER," BOB McDonough said with a solemn face. "He can do a lot of things."
"Not take my money," Troy said, a gust of laughter escaping him in disbelief. "You can't take someone's money."
"It happens all the time," Agent Williams said, casting a glance at Troy's mom. "People trust their lawyers. They sign what's put in front of them without reading the fine print, and before you know it..."
"I signed something that agreed he could act as Troy's agent," Troy's mom said, staring at her own hands. "But...you're right, I didn't read it very carefully."
"Don't worry," Agent Williams said. "We get this bug planted in that living room, and even if they try something we'll get the money back."
Troy wanted to say that he didn't care about the money, if that was the case, because as disgusted and embarrassed as he was, he still had no wish to destroy his father and no wish to prove that Drew was as bad as Troy's mother believed. Instead, he looked at his gramps, who sometimes had the amazing ability to know Troy's thoughts as well as he knew them himself.
"The money isn't the most important thing," Gramps said, his bright blue eyes locked on Troy's. "Let's focus on the task at hand. Money has a funny way of taking care of itself, and if that's what you're really after--money--you'll never have enough of it anyway. It's like a dog chasing its tail."
"Good," Agent Williams said, "then we all agree? We have your cooperation?"
"Troy?" his mom said. "You're sure?"
"Yes, Mom."
"Dad?" she asked.
"Yes."
"So, we're in," Troy's mom said.
"Our people are already set up," Agent Williams said. "If you're ready, so are we."
