Payback Time (24 page)

All I'd done was creep along a fence for one hundred yards, but I was drenched in sweat. I stayed still for a minute, letting my heart slow, before reaching into my back pocket and pulling out the knife. I unsheathed it and fingered the razor-sharp blade.

That's when the passenger door of the Civic opened.

Music spilled out, and so did a thin layer of light. I sprawled face-down into the gravel. The driver's door opened next. I slithered under the car, the gravel biting into my hands and arms and face. I was sure I was making noise, but the crazy-loud volume of the car stereo saved me.

I couldn't see them, but I could see their feet. They'd moved to the front of the car and were looking toward the Tacoma Dome. Were they going to move now? Was I too late?

They were talking, but I couldn't make out anything they were saying. Then one of them dropped a cigarette to the ground right by his foot and started walking toward the back of the car. I pressed myself deeper into the ground; my breathing stopped.

I watched his feet until he drew even with my face, but I didn't dare turn my head to follow his progress after that. Instead, I lay perfectly still. The footsteps stopped and a moment later I heard the hatchback door open, heard the guy fumbling around for something. He must have found it—whatever it was—because a second later he slammed the hatchback door shut. I flinched—it had sounded like a gunshot. But now the guy was moving again. He moved away from the back of the Civic up to the passenger door, opened it, and sat down. The driver got back in the car as well, and I listened to one door slam shut and then the other.

The added weight caused the carriage of the car to drop down an inch or two. That doesn't sound like much, but I had hardly any clearance before. I was terrified; I had a knife in my hand, two killers sitting not five feet from me. I wriggled like an eel to get out from under the Civic, the whole time thanking God that I'd lost weight. If I hadn't, I might have been stuck there, helpless.

Gravel was embedding itself into my forearms, and my pant legs were riding up, but finally I cleared the bumper. It was time. From a kneeling position, I ran my hand over the back passenger tire, feeling for a spot between the knobby tread. I found one, and pushed with the knife. The rubber didn't give. I fought down the panic. I pushed again. Still the rubber didn't give. I'd come this far—I couldn't fail. I brought the knife back one more time and then shoved the blade as hard as I could into the tire. For an instant the rubber resisted, but then it gave way.

The blade was in.

I left it there for a long moment before slowly working it out, rocking the blade back and forth to increase the size of the puncture. When the blade came clear, I heard a loud hissing sound. It sounded like a jet taking off to me. I expected the car doors to open and the guys to jump out and start beating on me, but then I felt the deep bass of the CD player, and I knew they'd heard nothing.

I listened to the escaping air until I was certain the tire was going flat. Only then did I start back along the fence line, first creeping on my hands and knees and then later crouching low as I walked. When I was one hundred yards away, I wiped the dirt off my hands and my shirt and my pants as best I could, and headed back toward the T-Dome.

I was sky-high as I walked out of the dark and into the light, so high I wanted to scream for pure joy. By the time I reached the dome the tire would be down on the rim. The moment those guys started the car up and tried to drive forward, they'd feel it for sure. The flat tire ended everything. No way were they flying up to the players' gate and firing shots and then racing off on Interstate 5. When Angel came down the walkway, they'd have the trunk up and they'd be looking at their silly undersize spare tire. After they changed the tire—if they knew how—they'd be poking along the frontage road at thirty-five miles an hour while Angel was headed ... where?

It didn't matter where.

He'd be long gone, off to some place that only McNulty would know.

I tossed the knife into a garbage can, took out my cell phone, turned it back on, and called Kimi.

"The police haven't come," she said, frantic. "It doesn't matter. There's nothing to worry about anymore. I'll be there in a few minutes."

B
Y THE TIME
I
REACHED HER,
the first players were coming out of the locker room and were heading down the walkway leading into the parking lot. They came in groups of five and six, and they were quieter than I thought they'd be. The game and the trophy presentation and the time in the locker room had worn them out. Kimi took pictures as they passed, and Horst stopped and posed. "Did you get me holding the trophy?" he asked, and when Kimi said she had, he smiled. The last two out were McNulty and Angel. Kimi had her camera up to her eye, but when she recognized them, she put the lens cap on and let the camera hang around her neck.

I nodded as they reached us. McNulty looked at me, but he made no acknowledgment. Angel didn't even look. As they passed, I saw the cousin waiting at the end of the chute. McNulty and Angel shook hands, a handshake of goodbye. Angel got in his cousin's car, and they drove off.

"So that's that," Kimi said.

"Yeah," I said. "That's that."

We walked to the other side of the dome where the Focus was parked. I had an odd feeling that it wouldn't start, but it did. I followed the orange cones to the exit. As I left the parking lot, I looked over to the back fence. The hatchback of the Civic was up, the light just bright enough for me to see two guys staring down into it.

"So the Civic wasn't there?" Kimi said when we were out on the freeway.

"It was there," I said.

"Then why were you so sure everything was so safe?"

I looked over at her. "Because I slashed their tire."

"What?"

I grinned. "I slashed their tire. Rear passenger tire, to be precise. Rocked the knife back and forth until I was sure I'd put a huge hole in it."

Her eyes were wide in disbelief. "You're making this up."

"No, I'm not."

"Show me the knife."

"I threw it away."

"Why?"

"Why not? I'm not going to make a career of slashing tires."

When we reached Seattle, we went to the Fremont Peet's. We sat upstairs and Kimi asked me over and over to describe how I'd slashed the tire of the Civic. It was the scrapes and cuts I'd gotten from the gravel that finally convinced her.

"That was really brave," she said, but then a little smile came to her face.

"What?" I said.

"Nothing."

"Tell me."

She shrugged. "We never saw a gun or anything, so we'll never know for sure that they were coming after Angel. They might have been there for some completely normal reason." She paused, and then reached over and put her hand on top of mine. "Don't get me wrong, Mitch. You were really, really courageous. But you see what I mean, don't you?"

I nodded. "Yeah, I see what you mean."

I drove her home. "Are you going to take photos during basketball season?" I asked when I pulled up in front of her house.

"I don't know. I've got AP tests to study for."

"AP tests aren't until May."

She opened the car door and stepped out. "I'll probably take photos," she said, and I knew right then that she wouldn't. I waited until she was inside her house before pulling away from the curb and heading home.

We'll never know for sure that they were coming after Angel.

As I'd been crawling along the fence, as I'd been hiding under the car, as I'd been plunging the knife into the tire—the whole time I'd known deep down that the guys in the Civic might be there for any of a thousand reasons. Maybe I'd been a hero, but maybe I'd been a vandal.

I turned onto my block and eased the Focus into the driveway. After I switched off the engine, I stayed in the car for a moment, too tired even to open the door, every muscle sapped of strength. After a minute I stepped out, locked the Focus, and started toward my house.

They appeared out of the darkness. There were two guys, both dressed in black, both bigger than I was. "You Mitch True," one of them hissed.

"What?" I said.

"You heard me."

"Yeah, I'm Mitch True."

He buried his fist into my stomach.

"Where's he live?" His voice was low but threatening.

"Wh-who?" I stammered, feeling the taste of vomit in my mouth.

"Don't mess with us. Angel Delarosa or Marichal or whatever he calls himself. Where's he live?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Yes, you do, you piece of crap." And then there was another fist, and another one. "We'll beat it out of you if we have to. Where's he live?"

"I don't know." I said, gasping.

I was bent three quarters of the way over, hunched in on myself. Mucus was coming out of my nose and my ears were roaring. I coughed, and phlegm mixed with vomit came up.

The guy stepped back. "You puked on me," he hissed, and then he hit me on the back of the head. I fell to the ground.

"Where's he live?"

"I don't know."

And then they were kicking me, both of them, kicking me and kicking me, saying I'd better tell them. I couldn't have answered even if I'd wanted to, because a blackness was coming at me, a deep inky blackness was coming to swallow me, and then it did swallow me, and I was glad to be swallowed.

I don't know how long I was out, but the next thing I remember is Big Red, Mrs. Marilley's dog, standing over me, his long wet tongue making repeated visits to my mouth, my cheek, my eyes. I moaned, and that made Big Red whimper. "Good boy," I said, and I managed to sit up. He backed up, doing a little tap dance on the sidewalk, and then he started barking at me. "It's okay," I said. "Shhh."

I struggled to my knees and then to my feet and took a few wobbly steps toward my front door. Big Red made a crazy leap, barked once, and then ran off—no doubt to poop on somebody's lawn.

I managed to open the front door, climb upstairs to my room, stagger into the bathroom, and turn on the shower. The hot water hurt and felt great at the same time. I let it cascade over me for a long time. When I'd washed away all the snot and puke, I dried myself, put on my robe, and fell onto my bed. I lay there, the world spinning, for a long, long time.

And then, in a flash, I realized what had happened, and exactly what it meant. My head was roaring from pain and my guts felt like somebody had put them in a blender, but I've never felt better than I did at that moment. And I don't think I ever will.

W
HEN MY DAD SAW ME
the next morning, he knew immediately I'd been in a fight. I told him that some Ferris guys had followed me home after the game and had beaten me up. "Why you?" he asked.

"I guess maybe they figured out I was a reporter."

"That makes no sense at all," my mother said, her eyes welling up with tears. "No sense at all."

My parents drove me to the emergency room. "Concussion," the doctor said, "and severely bruised ribs. Don't be surprised if you have headaches. A week home, minimum." It was Thanksgiving week—not a bad week to miss. I wouldn't have to make up too much homework.

When we left the hospital, my dad wanted to take me to the police station to file a report, but I talked him out of it. "I didn't get a good look at them. I'd never be able to recognize them."

That part was true. Even the time at school when they'd jumped out of the Civic, I'd been so scared I hadn't really
seen
them.

Kimi called Monday when I didn't show up at school. I'd thought about keeping what had happened secret, the way Clint Eastwood might. Clint would know what he'd done, and that would be all that mattered to him.

But I'm not Clint Eastwood. After I finished telling Kimi everything, she insisted on coming to my house to see me. She arrived around four. As soon as she stepped inside, she hugged me tight, told me how brave I'd been, and kissed me on the cheek. It was the way a sister kisses her brother—again—but that was okay. We drank a cup of tea in the kitchen, and I told her everything for a second and then a third time. Around five the doorbell rang. "That's Marianne," she said. "We're going over to Erica's to watch a movie." I walked her to the door and she hugged me for what I was sure was the last time.

Only it wasn't. The day I returned to school, she asked me to go to the Winter Ball with her. "Not with me alone," she added quickly. "There will be about twenty of us. We'll rent a stretch limousine. It'll be fun."

When the night finally arrived I was nervous, but the limousine and the twenty other people made it better. I danced with Kimi once and we had our picture taken together, but she spent ninety-nine percent of the time with Rachel and Marianne. I wandered around talking to this person and that. Around midnight I found myself standing next to a girl who went to Roosevelt High. We talked awhile, and it turned out she was the starting softball pitcher there. I told her I was the sports reporter for the
Lincoln Light
and that I'd see her pitch in the spring.

"Make sure you wave to me," she said.

I liked talking to her, and she seemed to like talking to me, because she didn't look around for her date, whoever he was. I would have kept talking to Amy, but Kimi came over and said that we were all leaving. If I'd been thinking, I'd have gotten Amy's phone number.

 

College letters came in the spring. The thick manila envelopes were good news, the thin white ones bad; but good or bad they arrived addressed to Daniel True. I liked seeing that name. It's too late to try to change things at Lincoln, but I'm through with being Mitch.

Columbia was a thin envelope, which was actually a relief. I've lost all desire to go to any place with mean streets. I did get into a little college in Kentucky that's supposed to be great. I don't know why I applied there, but now I'm thinking I might actually go. I still plan on making a name for myself as a reporter, but I'm not in a hurry anymore. Being out in the middle of nowhere, reading books, and learning things—that doesn't sound like a bad way to spend four years.