The Tutor (19 page)

Tom nodded. “The Harvard coach called yesterday, in fact.”

“He did?” Scott said, glass halfway to his lips.

“Mostly to badmouth Stanford,” Tom said. “It wasn’t his finest moment.” Tom sipped his water. “You an alum too, Julian?”

“Negative.”

This was the place to say something about Julian helping out with Brandon’s academics, but Scott would be damned if he did.

Tom rose. “Got to drive him back up there, in fact,” he said. “Nice meeting you, Julian. Thanks for the game, Scott.” And left. The water trembled a bit in his almost-full bottle, still on the table. The magnanimity tide turned, or at least stopped flowing.

“I have a confession to make,” Julian said. “I didn’t just happen by. I called your house about the schedule and Brandon mentioned you were playing tennis. I couldn’t resist.”

“Yeah?” Everything was suddenly more comfortable, just the two of them at the table. “I appreciate that.”

“Honey-roasted peanuts?” Julian said, sliding the bowl across the table.

No magnanimity, but the core of his happiness was intact. Scott ate a few peanuts, took a big swallow of beer, heaved a sigh that would have been a blob of thick black tangles if sighs were visible. Julian was watching him, eyebrows raised. “Seven-five, six-two,” Scott said.
I won, I won, I won
.

Julian smiled, a smile of genuine pleasure, Scott could tell.
I’m making a new friend,
he thought, and said, “I can’t thank you enough.”

“Sure you can,” said Julian. He laughed. Scott laughed too. They high-fived.

“Another Bloody?” said Scott.

“To mark the occasion.”

Scott went to the bar, brought back two more drinks. “It went just like you said, Julian. Like we were following a script or something.”

“Very gratifying,” said Julian. “But I’m sure you would have come upon the same strategy eventually.”

That was a thought. Scott considered it. Julian was probably right. “Still,” he said, “this saved me a lot of time.”

Julian’s eyes changed a little, like when clouds go by and the ocean changes tone. “Happy to be of service,” he said.

“Thanks,” said Scott. He took another drink. “Whoo. I feel great.”

“Your brother seemed to take it well.”

“He’s got his code of behavior.”

“Doesn’t everyone?”

“Oh, sure,” said Scott. “I meant he’s more of a gentleman from the old school.”

“In what way?”

“Good question.” Scott put down his beer, leaned forward a little. “Here’s an example. Remember I was telling you about options, securities options?”

“Vaguely,” Julian said.

“I guess it’s all pretty boring if you’re not a business type. Your father really went to Andover?”

Julian went pale. What was this? “I don’t understand your question,” he said.

“I was just surprised, that’s all.”

“You think I would make something like that up? To impress your brother?”

“No, no,” Scott said, suddenly realizing that Julian was from the old school too, had some honorable code of his own. “No offense intended. Sorry, Julian.”

Julian gazed at him for a moment. “No problem,” he said. “Maybe it is a little hard to believe, with me being a mere tutor.”

“Hey,” said Scott. “Don’t talk like that. No one would call you mere.”

“Very kind of you, Scott. You were telling me about options.”

“This is more about short selling, actually.” Scott took another swallow. Beer and tennis—winning tennis—went together so well. “Have you met Ruby’s friend Kyla?”

“No.”

“Her father’s a broker. He’s a bit sleazy maybe, but that doesn’t change the fact that he gets good information sometimes. Tom can’t do business with anyone he wouldn’t have over for dinner. I’m not like that.”

“Of course not.”

“It’s a whole new world.”

“You said it. What’s this broker’s name?”

“Mickey Gudukas.”

“That was probably the end for Tom right there,” said Julian.

Scott laughed. “Exactly.” He told Julian the Symptomatica story—Gudukas’s tip, the margin requirement, Tom’s refusal to involve the business, mass death of the chimps, Boxster.

“Now I understand,” said Julian. “About leveraging a Boxster out of spare change. What an amusing way of putting it.”

“Thanks,” said Scott.

“But what I don’t understand—none of my business, of course—”

“Go on.”

“—is why you didn’t put up some other capital.”

“There isn’t any. Not in the amount I needed. You can’t touch retirement accounts for that kind of thing, and as for the house . . .”

“Not valuable enough?” Julian popped a honey-roasted peanut in his mouth.

“It’s valuable enough,” Scott said, “even with the mortgage.”

Julian stopped chewing, looked puzzled.
What the hell,
Scott thought,
it’s not a state secret.
“The problem is the house is jointly owned, me and Linda.”

“And that precludes this type of arrangement?”

“Not in a legal sense. It’s just that Linda never would have approved.”

“Ah.”

19

W
hen Ruby went downstairs Monday morning, Mom and Dad were already gone. Brandon sat at the table, eating a bowl of Mango Almond Crunch. He had gel in his hair, like some cool guy in the Abercrombie catalog. Did he have a secret girlfriend?

“Hey, Bran.”

“Hey.”

“Any more of that left?”

“Finished it.”

Ruby got a bagel from the fridge, sliced it, dropped the halves in the toaster. “I’m making hot chocolate,” she said.

“So?”

“Want some?”

“Yeah.”
Slurp slurp, crunch crunch.
“Thanks.”

Ruby made hot chocolate in a pot, using milk instead of water, and whole milk at that. Hot chocolate meant going all the way. She brought two steaming mugs to the table, sat down across from him. They sipped their hot chocolate.

“Good, huh?” said Ruby.

“Yeah.”

She spread cream cheese on the bagel halves, generously, like in a restaurant where the customer was always right. “How many jackets have you got, Bran?”

He screwed up his face. She wished he wouldn’t do that. Winston, dumbest kid on the bus and eater of nose pick, did the same thing, and Brandon wasn’t dumb. “What are you talking about?”

“Your West Mill jacket, Bran, for being on the varsity—how many have you got?”

“One. What’s wrong with you? No one has more than one. You just sew on the crests for every sport and add a bar for every year.”

“Where are you going to be on the ladder this year?”

“I don’t know.”

“Number one?”

“What difference does it make to you?”

She ate more bagel, sipped her hot chocolate. His bowl of Mango Almond Crunch was huge; he must have poured half the box in there.

“Got a theory on what happened to that jacket, Bran?”

“What the hell kind of a question is that?”

Oops. Was he thinking crack vial in the pocket? “Remember that night you came home late and kept Julian waiting? You told Mom you’d left your jacket at school, but it was hanging on the peg.”

“So?”

“So what do you think happened?”

“What do you mean, what happened? I forgot where I left it. You never forget anything, Miss Suck-up?”

She gave him a look, an X-ray look that said,
Keep it up, buddy boy, and that crack vial is on the six o’clock news.

“What’s that stupid look supposed to mean?” She kept it on him, pinning him to his chair. “All right, you’re not Miss Suck-up.”

“Apology accepted,” Ruby said, even though he might have muttered something about Ms. Suck-up. She took another bite of bagel, toasty crispiness plus creamy cream cheese, like the perfect married couple. “The problem is that when I got home from school that day, it wasn’t there.”

“What wasn’t where?”

“Your jacket. On the peg. I always look to see who’s home.”

“You must have made a mistake.”

“Nope,” Ruby said. “I remember.”

“So you remember. What’s your point?”

“My point is that one link can give you the whole chain.”

“What are you talking about?”

“When was the last time you had your jacket before then, that’s what I want to know.”

“Why, for fuck sake?” But he didn’t say it in an angry way, and his eyes shifted to one side, like he was thinking or remembering: some mental activity, thank God.

“I just told you—one link can—”

The side door, the one that led to the garage, opened and Dewey came in. Gel in his hair, too. “Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” said Brandon.

“You set?” said Dewey.

“Yup,” said Brandon, vacuuming up the last of the Mango Almond Crunch.

“Hi, Dewey,” Ruby said.

“Hey, Ruby, how’s it goin’?”

“Great. Want some bagel?”

“Thanks.” He took half. The Darwin thing was so obvious. Men had hardly evolved at all, were still pretty much neck-and-neck with the apes, except that some of them—not all by any means, as a visit to the beach always proved so shockingly—had lost their fur.

Brandon grabbed his books and they headed for the door.

“Try to remember, Bran,” Ruby said.

“Remember what?” said Dewey.

“Don’t pay any attention to her,” said Bran.

“The jacket,” Ruby said, pretty loud. The door slammed in response.

Ruby ate what was left of her bagel, started braiding her hair—a prim and proper crossover called Little Scarlett. Then a big surprise. Zippy came trotting over for a pat. He never did that, wasn’t the kind of affectionate dog other people seemed to have, more a different kind of dog with his own agenda.

“Zippy, you cutie pie,” she said, bending down to give him a big kiss. He gave her a big one back, if a lick up and down the face with his wet and scratchy tongue was a kiss, and Ruby knew it was. “I love you, Zippy,” she said. He wagged his tail. “And you love me, too.” The moment her back was turned, he got his nose in the cream cheese container. Didn’t mean he didn’t love her, though. Everybody had to eat. That thought led her right over the edge of a cliff: everybody had to eat, the Aztecs ate people, she’d forgotten all about her social studies homework, a worksheet on Cortès.

Why did the Spanish treat the Aztecs so badly?
That was the assignment. She had almost three inches to fill on the bad treatment question and Ms. Freleng was a stickler for filling those inches. Ruby started writing, big fat letters:
The Spanish, who are sometimes called the Conquistadors, which means “conquerors” in their native language of Spanish, sailed all the way across the mighty Atlantic Ocean from Spain to the New World, which was new to them but not to the Aztecs, who had been living there for some time, practicing the art of human sacrifice in peace and quiet. All that peace and quiet was gone with the wind when the Spanish, arriving in their ships, sailing ships because this was long before the days of motor boats
. . . and soon the three inches were packed nice and full. There was a bonus question:
What is plantain?
Ruby wrote:
Funny banana.
Homework done.

She glanced at the clock: and suddenly it was panic time. Two minutes. Mr. V. was never late, never early. He always said Mussolini made the trains run on time, whatever that meant. She could almost feel the school bus rolling down Robin Road,
rumble, rumble
. Ruby threw everything together, flung open the front door; and banged it shut just as fast. Coming slowly down the road was a cop car, and at the wheel of the cop car sat Sergeant D’Amario, his eyes on their house. Had he seen her? If he had, the game was up. He could probably arrest her for giving false information to an officer of the law—that waving in the wrong direction when he’d asked where she lived. She stood stock still in the front hall, hardly breathing, waiting for that knock on the door.

No knock came. After a while, she rose on her tiptoes and took a quick peek through the fan window. The coast was clear. She breathed a sigh of relief, opened the door and looked out. The school bus was just disappearing around the corner. Her backpack slid off her shoulders, mostly by itself.

Missed the bus: a first. And now what? She could walk to school, which would take ages, West Mill Elementary miles away, a mile and a half, anyway; or possibly three-quarters of a mile, she forgot whether Dad had been talking about her school or Brandon’s. But ages on foot, whatever the exact distance. Or she could ride her bike. It was cold for bike riding, and she’d never ridden in the winter, but Julian did, so it wasn’t impossible.

Ruby went into the garage. Her bike—blue, with yellow streamers dangling from the handlebar grips—hung from a hook on the ceiling, where Dad stored it for the winter. Ruby dragged over the stepladder, climbed to the top step—not the tiptop, which said Danger, Not a Step right on it—from where she could reach about halfway up the frame of the bike. Ruby had no choice but to climb to the tiptop, slow and careful. Now she could reach the handlebars. One two three, lift. And off it came in her hands, but very heavy, and all of a sudden the ladder was gone and she was in midair, like she was performing some amazing bike trick in the X Sports Games. Then crash, an incredible noise, cymbals gone crazy, and she rolled a couple of times on the cold cement floor and came to a stop, completely unhurt. Ruby got up—bounced up—invincible. She put on her backpack, mounted the bike and rode off, returning after a minute or so to close the garage door and start again. Zippy barked like a madman in the house. Invincible; that was pretty cool.

She pedaled down Robin Road in the direction the school bus had gone, turned left onto Indian Ridge. It wasn’t too cold at all. This was fun; fun, except she’d forgotten her helmet. Yikes. That was a big rule, like don’t talk to strangers. Too late to go back now, but whatever happened she wouldn’t talk to any strangers she met on the way to school, wouldn’t even look at them, to make up for the helmet violation.

Indian Ridge to Poplar Drive. Poplar Drive turned out to be downhill all the way. Funny she hadn’t noticed before. She zoomed, not even pushing the pedals until the road leveled out near the fire station. This was great. Why had she never ridden her bike to school? The bus was history.

But: the fire station? Had the fire station always been on the way to school? She’d gone past the fire station many times of course, but on the bus? No. Or at least not that she could recall. Had she taken a wrong turn somewhere? She hadn’t turned at all, was still on Poplar Drive, right? Ruby came to the next intersection, checked the street sign: Central Avenue. And the other street was Main. What was going on? Ruby had the strong feeling that the school was over there somewhere. She turned right on Main, pedaling faster to make up for lost time. Huff and puff, huff and puff, pedal pedal pedal, then
bumpity bump
.
Bumpity bump
—she’d gone over the railroad tracks, hadn’t even seen them coming. The railroad tracks were nowhere near West Mill Elementary, she was almost sure of that. She felt her lower lip quiver.

Hey! None of that. Eleven years old, and you’re not lost or anything—you’re in your hometown, for God’s sake, born and bred, like a native tracker. For example, here was the Shell station, always the most expensive gas in West Mill, according to Dad. And they had a pay phone, just outside the office. Did she know Dad’s work number? No. Mom’s? No. They were written down on the blackboard in the kitchen with the new area codes, but she didn’t know them by heart. Ruby rode into the station, got off the bike, leaned it against the glass window of the office.

Then it hit her: the pay phone! She was looking at the very pay phone where the anonymous caller had dropped the dime on Brandon and his friends, Saturday night. Case number two: The Mystery of the Anonymous Caller.

Ruby went inside, nice and warm. A guy in a Shell uniform that said Manny on the front was at the cash register, counting money. His fingers were huge and greasy, his oily fingernails surprisingly long. Ruby would have kept hers short if she was involved in garage work.

He looked up. “Something I can do for you?”

She’d meant to say,
Can you give me directions to West Mill Elementary, please?
But what came out was: “What time do you close on Saturday night?”

Manny blinked. “Say again?”

Ruby said it again.

“You taking a survey?” said Manny.

Good idea, thanks Manny. “Yeah. For school. I got the gas stations.” Oops. How was she going to get to asking directions to the school from this little corner she’d backed herself into?

“Close at nine on Saturdays,” said Manny. “Except on holidays. You need to know the holiday times?”

“No,” said Ruby. “So let’s say someone came by and used the pay phone around midnight, you wouldn’t see him.”

“How could I?” said Manny. “I wouldn’t be here.”

There was another cyclist on the road. He turned into the station and stopped by the air hose, on the far side of the pumps. From out of nowhere came a tremendous idea. “Have you got a security camera?”

Manny went all suspicious. “What’s it to you?”

“We’re supposed to ask. My teacher’s very strict.”

Manny pointed a huge blackened finger at a camera on the wall.

Remarkable, my dear fellow.
Ruby had no Watson to say it for her, so she had to say it to herself. “Just so I can tie them together,” Ruby said, which didn’t make sense, even to her, “does the camera take pictures of the pay phone?”

“Nope,” said Manny. “We don’t own the pay phone.”

“Ah,” said Ruby.

She thanked Manny and went outside, paused by the pay phone. She began reading the instructions for making different kinds of calls, mostly because it was hard for her not to read if written words were visible. It gave emergency numbers down at the bottom. Police—911. Ruby had never dialed 911 before, but of course the anonymous caller had. He’d picked up the receiver just like this, pressed these three little numbers and—

“Nine one one, recorded line,” said a man on the other end, a tough-sounding man, real fast-talking. “What is your emergency?”

Ruby whipped the phone back on the hook, like it might bite any second. Manny was watching her through the window. She gave him an innocent little wave as she got on her bike, but probably not convincing; her mind was elsewhere. Recorded line: that meant one thing and one thing only. The voice of the anonymous caller was on tape, down at the police station; like the camera solution, but a bit more complicated. All she’d have to do, Ruby thought as she rode across the gas station lot, was listen to the tape, then go around the neighborhood striking up conversations with all the neighbors until she heard the same—

“Ruby?”

Ruby turned. The other cyclist, over at the air hose, had called her. Surprise, surprise: it was Julian.

“Julian!” She was real happy to see him. For one thing, she was still lost, not lost, really, but he’d be a big help anyway. He always was.

J
ulian looked down at her. “No school?” he said. “Or am I missing something?”

“I’m on my way,” Ruby said.

Julian checked his watch. “At ten fifteen?”

“Ten fifteen?” How did that happen?

“And I thought the school was on River Drive,” Julian said. “The gas station is in the exact wrong direction from your house.”