“Okay, sure.”
I watched Fred and Joe exit together. They looked like a pretty funny pair. I would have laughed had the circumstances been different.
I sat inside my office, not even bothering to lock the bathroom door. Why should I care anymore? My customers had all pretty much given up on my business; hardly anybody lined up outside the bathroom anymore, even when my office was open. I thought word had started to spread about what Staples had been doing to me. The assault outside the Shed, my inability to protect my hired bullies . . . I was losing my cred. But who cared about that stuff? I had no partner anymore, no best friend. And I had no money because my greedy former best friend had stolen it.
After a few minutes I buried my face in my hands and tried not to think too much about Vince. My stomach and chest hurt like I’d just drunk a huge bottle of acid.
• • •
The bike ride to Vince’s house after school was hard. And it took forever even though it was just under a few miles or so. Most likely it was because I really didn’t want to have to face Vince. Not after everything that had happened.
It seemed like I was never going to make it, but eventually I rounded the corner onto his block. I parked my bike and walked down the leaf-littered path up to Vince’s trailer. My stomach churned in anticipation as I knocked on his door. I still had no idea what even to say to him. There was so much going on inside my head that I didn’t even notice that Vince’s mom had answered.
“Christian, dear, are you okay?” she said loudly.
“Oh, sorry. I was just thinking.”
“I thought you had heat stroke. Get in here,” she demanded, and stepped aside for me. I noticed that she was wearing sweatpants and a sweatshirt and looked as if she hadn’t showered in days.
Vince’s mom was such a riot. She usually made me laugh. Not today, though; nothing could make me laugh today. Betrayal can do that to a person.
“Vince is in his room. He’s not feeling well today,” she said with a smile.
“Thanks,” I said, and went down the hall toward his room.
Not feeling well because stabbing his best friend in the back made him feel horrible? Probably not. He probably just ate too much during his celebration lunch with Staples.
My forced smile quickly faded as I approached Vince’s door. It was closed and his “If I don’t know why you’re here, then why are you here?” sign was hanging on the outside. I remembered giving him that sign for his ninth birthday. I walked up to the door, took a breath, tried to clear my mind, and knocked.
“Come in,” came Vince’s voice.
I opened the door and stepped inside. He smiled like nothing was wrong.
“What’s up, Mac?” he said.
“Vince, we need to talk.” I closed the door behind me.
He sat on his bed wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt. His hair was sticking up everywhere as if he hadn’t left the trailer at all today, but I knew better.
“Anything you want to tell me?” I asked.
He narrowed his eyes, and then smiled. “Uh, yeah, I guess about not making it to school today . . . I’d meant to call you but it was—”
“It was what?” I interrupted. “Too hard to face your best friend after stabbing him in the back?”
“Huh?” Vince said. “What are you talking about?”
“Staples. I saw pictures, Vince. You can’t deny it; you met with Staples this morning.”
“Staples? Mac, I don’t know what you’re . . .” Vince started but then stopped. His eyes glazed over with the sudden realization that he’d been caught. When he spoke again, his voice was weaker, as if he could barely get the words out. “Staples. I should have known.”
“Yeah, you should have known I’d find out! How could I not? We’re supposed to be partners,” I said. “Best friends.”
“We are partners, Mac. Business partners and friends who spy on each other, apparently. So I guess this means you had Tyrell follow me, then? Me?” Vince jabbed his finger against his chest.
He had no right to be the angry one. A fact that was only pissing me off more than I already was.
“Yeah, well, it wasn’t such a bad move after all, was it?” I said. “Now where is my money?” I walked over to his closet and started to open it.
Vince pushed me out of the way, and I stumbled, catching myself on his dresser and almost knocking it over. “I told you, I gave it to my mom,” he said. “Why do you have to be so greedy all the time? You already have everything! Sometimes things are more important than your Funds. We didn’t start this business to get rich, remember—it was to help kids.”
“Me, greedy? Me? You’re the one who took it all! You stole six thousand dollars and you’re calling me greedy? ‘Gave it to your mom,’ pfft. You’re lying about that. You lied about that whole thing, didn’t you? I bet your mom didn’t even lose her job, did she? I bet you’re all just rolling in the cash laughing at me now, aren’t you?”
Vince opened his mouth and shook his head. It looked like he was trying to say something, but he just made a small croaking noise.
“Are you happy now?” I asked.
Vince shook his head.
We looked at each other for a moment. “Now, where is it?” I threw open his dresser drawer, fighting tears. “I can’t believe you’d throw away the Cubs game just like that. Or did you ever really even like the Cubs? Are you just a phony, like all the others? You pretend to be poor and you pretend to like the Cubs, and all for what? You stab your best friend in the back while hiding behind jokes. You’re not even that funny. But you are a coward. And a good liar, I’ll give you that.”
“Get out,” Vince said. He said it quietly and calmly but in a way that I’d never heard Vince talk before. His voice was tight like a wild dog on a short leash. “Get out, right now,” he repeated.
“Not without my money,” I said.
“Get out or I’ll make you,” he said, and shoved me in the chest so hard that I crashed into his bedroom wall and made the whole trailer wobble slightly. His face was blank as if emotion had never really existed on it at all. And it probably hadn’t. No one with real feelings, with an actual heart, could do what he had done to me.
I realized that all the time I’d been there in his room that afternoon, he’d barely even made an attempt to deny any of my accusations. He really had betrayed me. I felt tears burn at my eyes, but not from my sore head where it had slammed into his wall. That barely hurt at all compared to what else I was feeling. In fact, the lump on my head felt like a day at the carnival complete with cotton candy and funnel cakes just then.
I got up and left, making sure to nudge Vince extra hard with my shoulder on my way out. His mom gave me a concerned look as I walked past her in the kitchen. I heard her start to ask me something, but it was too late. I was already out the door and on my bike before she got past the second word.
The next morning I revealed the news to Joe, Fred, and the bullies. I told them that Vince was the rat. That he had stolen the Emergency and Game Funds. Which meant I was out of money and officially closing up my business.
“I’m sorry I can’t pay you what I owe,” I said to them solemnly and sincerely. “I’ve got nothing left.”
They reacted surprisingly well. Especially Great White.
They said stuff like, “It’s okay, Mac,” and “I’m sorry it went down like this.”
“Yeah, Mac, this all really stinks. Are you going to be okay?” Joe asked.
“Yeah, I’ll be fine. Now, you guys go on and do whatever you got to do. I’m going to stay here awhile and try to get some of my stuff cleaned up,” I said.
They all said good-bye and left. Except for Fred.
“Is it okay if I stay, Mac?” he asked.
“Yeah, sure. Whatever you want,” I said.
“Thanks. Mac?”
“Yeah,” I said, looking down at his face.
His eyes were brimming with tears that should have been mirroring my own, but ever since ye
sterday I hadn’t cried a drop. I’d have thought finding out that my best friend betrayed me in the worst way imaginable would have made me cry like a girl on Valentine’s Day, but it was as if I was too broken inside to cry anymore. I just felt nothing. Even thinking of the Cubs making the World Series for the first time in almost seventy years felt meaningless, like a cracked, dead leaf lying on the pavement.
“I’m real sorry about all this. It’s all my fault.” Fred sobbed.
I assured him that it had been bound to happen sooner or later, with Staples moving in on my school. I apologized to him for failing to protect him and take down Staples like I’d said I was going to. Eventually he stopped crying. I told Fred he was welcome to hang out here for the next few days if he still wanted to. I went into my office and paged through my Books. I wasn’t looking for anything in particular. I was mostly just thinking about the good old days when my best friend wasn’t also an evil heartless jerk intent on destroying my life.
Chapter 22
That night I decided to go to the junior high football game. I kind of just wanted a break from everything that had happened lately. But I also had some business to take care of. It wasn’t pleasant business, but it was perhaps the only way I could salvage the wreck my life had become.
The junior high football games were usually pretty fun. Tons of kids went, and we always sat up in the north corner of the stands away from the parents. Vince and I normally went to every game of the season together. This was actually the first game I’d ever gone to without him. Vince not being there would have felt worse if I didn’t ever want to see his lying rat face again.
I wandered the top of the cement bleachers alone. There was a concession stand and a booth where the radio guys sat and did commentary for the local sports station. Our town was really into sports, so even the junior high games got to be on the radio.
I found a seat near where the parents always sat, away from all the other kids. I just wanted to watch the game and think. As I watched, I began to notice something: Our star running back was playing like garbage. The offensive line would open these huge holes for him to run through, but instead he would try to cut it outside every time, and there was always a linebacker or defensive back just waiting for him. He never seemed to know where to go. It might have seemed odd to a normal spectator. But by this time I knew better.
By halftime he had ten yards on fifteen carries. I saw the coach screaming at him on the sidelines. At the start of the second half the running back was on the bench. The backup running back was in. But that didn’t help much, because he was really supposed to be the third-string running back. He was playing only because the usual backup running back had gotten kicked off the team for mouthing off to the coach.
I was clearly watching the handiwork of Staples. He must have paid the starting running back to play poorly on purpose. By the fourth quarter we were down by twenty-six points. A loss was inevitable. Staples must have made a load of money—the team we played that night was terrible and everybody had thought for sure that we’d win. All the fans were pretty disappointed. Plus, losing this game meant that we had to win next week if we still wanted to make the play-offs. The junior high football team had made it to the play-offs every season for over fifty years. People would be crushed if they didn’t make it this year, especially the old-timers who used to play themselves. This year’s team would be known as the biggest losers in school history—because they literally would be.
Near the end of the game I made my way over to the seats in front of the concession stand where the seventh and eighth graders usually sat. I had work to do now. I had avoided it all night, but it had to be done to keep anybody else from getting hurt. I looked at all of the faces until I saw Justin and Mitch. They were sitting right in the middle of a group of older girls. I cursed the odds. I always get a little nervous around older girls for some dumb reason. But it didn’t matter; I had something important to take care of, so I had no time to worry about girls.
I found an open seat just in front of Justin and went over and sat down. I felt people watching me. They were probably wondering where Vince was because we were always together.
After a moment I heard Justin’s voice. “What do you want?”
“I need to talk to you,” I said, turning around to face him.
“I need to talk to you,” he mocked me with a high-pitched and nasal voice. Everybody laughed. I didn’t think he did a very good job, I didn’t sound anything like that, but I just decided to stay quiet about his horrible impression. I just looked at him. I could tell it was making him uneasy.
“So? What is it then, dork?” he sneered. I heard a few giggles.
“I need to talk to Staples,” I said.
“Hey, anything you need to say to him, you can say to me, okay?”
“Okay. I want to accept his offer for me to come work for him,” I said. “I want to make a truce, I guess, in exchange for him letting Fred off the hook.”
It was one of the hardest things I’d ever had to say. Normally I’m not the type of kid to give up, but I still know when I’m beat. And dragging this out to the end was only going to bring Joe and Fred and the bullies more trouble than they needed. If I surrendered now, maybe I could avoid all the insult and injury headed my way. I had to keep telling myself that I wasn’t quitting. There are times when making a bargain just makes more sense than fighting to the end. This was one of those times.
Justin’s jaw dropped. I bet he hadn’t even known that Staples had made me that offer. Mitch whispered something in Justin’s ear. Justin nodded and finally closed his mouth.
“How do I know this isn’t some kind of trick?” he asked uneasily.
“You don’t.”
The kids around us all got quiet. They were all watching us now.
“Look, he made me the offer,” I said. “If you want to go to him and say you turned me away because you didn’t believe me and then have to deal with how mad he’s going to be, go right ahead.”
He thought about it for a moment. I could see him struggling to decide what to do. He’d never seemed all that smart to me. Now I could see why Staples wanted me to work for him. His current employees at my school were idiots. Except for one, of course.
“Okay, sure, I’ll tell him,” Justin finally said.
“Tell him to meet me in my office on Monday after school at three thirty. I’ll make sure that the East Wing entrance is left unlocked for him.”
I left Justin there gaping and walked back up the steps to the top of the bleachers. If I was going to surrender, then I at least wanted it to be on my turf.
Once the game ended, I saw the players heading toward the shower house. It was this small building off to the side of the field that had showers and locker rooms in it for the players. Parents and friends would always group around there and wait for the team. I saw Robert, the kid I’d helped right before Fred on that fateful Monday when everything changed forever, taking off his helmet. Robert, the last regular, simple customer in the history of my business. Robert, who paid with a small favor to help get him and a date into an R-rated movie because his dad’s a cop and . . .
His dad’s a cop.
And he still owed me a favor.
It wasn’t much, but I supposed there was still time for one last desperation play. A Hail Mary. They rarely ever worked, I knew that, but at the same time, people like Doug Flutie would swear otherwise.
I jogged down to the shower house and waited around until Robert came out. He went straight to his parents and this older girl. I assumed it was his new girlfriend because she rubbed his arm and gave him a hug. His dad patted him on the shoulder, consoling him over the loss.
I positioned myself behind his parents so that I knew he’d see me. After a few minutes I saw him say something to them and jog over to me. His parents went to get their car.
“Hey, Mac, what’s up?” he said.
“Hi, Robert. Sorry about the game.”
“Yeah, I don’t k
now what happened out there. We were opening the holes; he just wasn’t hitting them. . . .”
“Even the star running back has bad games, right?” I said.
Robert shrugged.
“Your dad is a cop, right?” I asked.
“Yeah, why?” Robert asked with raised eyebrows.
“I may need your help, and his,” I said.
He nodded. “Hey, I owe you.”
“I need to get someone’s name and address and criminal record. Do you think you might be able to get that from your dad somehow?” I asked.
He sighed and then said, “Yeah, I think so. He’s pretty careful about not using cop stuff for anything but business, but I think I can swing it.”
“Good. Okay, I’m looking for someone who goes by the alias Staples. If any hits come up for an address in the Creek, then you’ll know you got the right guy.”
I remembered from that first meeting with Staples in my kitchen that he has a tattoo that says “The Creek.” A lot of kids who live there are actually proud of it and they’re always drawing those words all over their notebooks and lockers and stuff. They wear “The Creek” like some sort of badge of honor. So I had a pretty good hunch that that’s where I’d find Staples’s headquarters.
“Do you mean the Staples?” Robert asked. “I thought he didn’t exist.”
“Yeah, well, he does. I need his real name, address, criminal record, and anything else you can dig up as soon as possible. Tonight, if you can.” I gave him a piece of paper with my phone number on it.
“All right, Mac. I’ll try. I’ll call you when I know more.”
“Thanks a lot, Robert, really.”
“No problem, Mac.”
I walked back up the hill toward my parents’ waiting car. I wished my plan felt more like a suicide squeeze than a Hail Mary. With the suicide squeeze you have the upper hand. The other side is on defense and always has to be wary of that guy on third base. The play is a thing of precision, timing, grace, beauty. It’s smooth and fast and sneaks up on the opponent like a dagger to the kidney. But my newest idea was much more like a Hail Mary: desperate, fleeting, clumsy, and chaotic. No thought, no timing, no synchronization; basically just chuck it up in the air and hope for the best. It’s more likely to lead to an interception than anything helpful. But it was all I had left.
The Fourth Stall Page 16
