Payback Time (10 page)

Game time was seven, so around six I drove to broken-down Memorial Stadium, Lincoln's home field, and found a seat on the fifty-yard line. A little later I spotted Kimi along the sidelines, camera bag over her shoulder. I waved to her; she waved back, and then she turned away.

I wanted to put Angel out of my mind, but throughout the game it was as if my head were on a swivel. I watched the plays on the field, watched Lincoln shut down Roosevelt, watched Horst complete pass after pass, watched all that and somehow watched Angel, too, sitting alone at the end of the bench.

He did play some. He was on the field for kickoffs, punts, and extra points. And right before halftime, Coach McNulty gave him one series at linebacker. For those three plays he dominated the field, shedding blockers and annihilating running backs. Roosevelt began that possession with first and ten on the thirty-one. By the time Angel was done with them, they faced fourth and twenty-two from the nineteen.

I tried
not
to think about Angel during halftime, but my mind wouldn't shut down. Kimi's theory was off base, I was sure of it, and I doubted she believed it anymore. Angel was too sullen, too much of a loner, to be an undercover cop. The police in Federal Way had worked as a team; Angel didn't talk to anyone about anything. He'd eaten lunch back with purple-haired Laurie Walloch and the other druggies on Wednesday, but on both Thursday and Friday he'd taken his tray to different sections of the commons. I had a feeling he wasn't going to sit at the same table two days in a row all year. He was doing everything he could to keep from being noticed by anyone.

But my theory—that he was a cheater—had problems, too. You can't cheat if you don't play, and for the second straight game McNulty was keeping Angel nailed to the bench. Why? Any coach looking for a college job wouldn't sit a stud like Angel without a good reason. So what was the reason?

 

In the second half, Horst Diamond continued his one-man show. Short passes, long passes, quarterback draws—you name it and he did it. He threw two touchdown passes in the third quarter and rushed for a third touchdown seconds into the fourth. The Roosevelt Roughriders were overmatched, but McNulty showed no mercy, leaving Horst in the game to pad his stats.

The score was 42–0 with just over a minute left when Angel returned. On third down, the Roosevelt quarterback dropped back to pass. Angel, blitzing from the blind side, hit him just as he brought the ball back. The ball skittered on the ground at Angel's feet. He scooped it up, righted himself, and broke into the open field. He was headed to the house; nothing stood between him and the end zone.

Angel should have scored easily, but at the twenty he slowed down, looking over his shoulder. At the ten-yard line he angled toward the sideline, running sideways instead of north-south, almost as if he was waiting for a defender. A Roosevelt wide receiver, the only player closing on him, shoved him out of bounds at the four-yard line.

I looked to the kids seated near me. It was obvious that Angel had been trying
not
to score, but with Lincoln leading 42–0, nobody else was paying attention. Horst came onto the field, took a knee, and the clock wound down to 00:00.

I worked my way down to the field, where I hooked up with Kimi. "We've got to get a story and a photo to Chet by midnight," I said. "There's a byline for us, and money."

"I know. He e-mailed me."

"Should we go to Peet's?"

She frowned. "Couldn't you just transfer my photos to your laptop right now? Then you could pick whichever one fits your story."

"Sure," I said, hiding my disappointment, "that makes sense."

After I downloaded her photos, she hurried off to join Rachel and Marianne. I drove home and forced myself to work. One hundred words aren't very many. I tapped away on my laptop, giving the
who, what, where, when, why,
and
how
of the game. At the tail end I stuck in a sentence about Angel Marichal's fumble recovery. Kimi had a photo of Horst crossing the goal line that fit perfectly. A couple of clicks and I'd e-mailed both the photo and my story to Chet the Jet. I'd have to write a longer version for Alyssa, but that could wait. There wouldn't be another
Lincoln Light
until October.

I woke up early the next morning to look at the
Seattle Times.
Sure enough, there were my one hundred words with Kimi's picture next to them. The article was tucked away in the bottom left-hand corner of the last page of the sports section, but it was there. I read it through, excited and proud to see my name in print. This wasn't the
Lincoln Light;
the
Seattle Times
was a real newspaper with a circulation close to a million. When I reached the end of my story, I stared at the page. Chet the Jet had cut the sentence that mentioned Angel Marichal.

D
URING THOSE NEXT WEEKS,
I spent almost no time with Kimi. We were both covering the football games and the home volleyball games, but she was on the court or on the field, and I was up in the stands. When the games ended, I'd download her photos, go home, write up the game, pick a photo, and e-mail Chet the Jet. I missed the time at Peet's and the excitement of chasing Angel, but mostly I missed being with her.

Lincoln's next four games were against weak teams—Lake Washington, Newport, Juanita, and Franklin. In each game, McNulty gave Angel a couple of series at middle linebacker, and he was on all the special teams. For the Lake Washington and Newport games he wore a new number, sixty-seven, but against Juanita and Franklin he was back to wearing forty-four. He was the only player whose number changed from game to game. No doubt about it—McNulty was trying to hide him.

Trying, but not entirely succeeding. Angel was just too good. On kickoff and punt coverage, he'd break through the opposing wedge as if it were made of sand. The Franklin game was typical. In the fourth quarter, Kenstowicz punted from deep in Lincoln's territory. The Franklin returner, hoping to break a long runback, didn't signal for a fair catch. He hauled the ball in, took one step, and then Angel jolted him with a teeth-rattling tackle that made everyone watching sit up. The ball popped free, and another Lincoln player recovered the fumble. The Franklin kid didn't get up for three minutes, and he never returned to the game. Angel forced fumbles in a couple of the other games, too, and had a couple of interceptions. Lincoln won all four games, pushing their record to 6–0 and moving them into the top ten in the state rankings.

I wrote up every game for the
Seattle Times.
My stories featured Horst, naturally. But when Angel did something great—like jarring the football loose in the Franklin game—I'd include a sentence about him. And every single time, Chet the Jet cut that sentence. The second time it happened, I called and asked him why. "I've been doing this for thirty years," he snapped. "You've been doing it for thirty days. Write your little story, take your fifty bucks, but leave the editing to me." After that I didn't have the guts to complain.

 

October is when the rain gets serious in Seattle. I knew it would be harder to run after school, but I didn't know how much harder. And not spending much time with Kimi sucked away part of my motivation. I skipped running one Friday, and then both Tuesday and Friday the next week. One day I had a hamburger and fries for lunch; a couple of days later I ate a Snickers. I was losing momentum, and I knew how dangerous that was. Roll a snowball down a steep hill, and it gets fat fast.

O
N THE
M
ONDAY AFTER THE
F
RANKLIN GAME,
Jessica Lathrop stopped me in the hall. Jessica's the best tennis player in the school, and she's the world's most out-front person—no beating around the bush with her, ever. "So you want to go to Columbia?" she said. "I didn't know that."

I looked at her, amazed. I'd told Kimi about Columbia, and I'd told my parents, but no one else. "How do you know about Columbia?"

"I'm a TA in the office. I file stuff for Mrs. Cressy. You had a meeting with your counselor last week. He wrote down your college choices and I filed his notes away. I can't help having eyes. You're not mad, are you?"

"No, I'm just surprised that something that small goes into my file."

"Your whole history goes in there, from preschool on. Some files are an inch thick. But why Columbia, Mitch? I'd be scared to live in New York. Crime and all that."

"Parts of Seattle are pretty tough, too," I said, thinking about the mini-mart. We talked about subways and gangs until the bell rang. I went to English, and as the other kids discussed a short story by Poe, a plan took shape in my mind.

I wasn't cut out for anything dangerous. I'd learned that lesson twice. But you don't have to walk down dark alleys at night or follow troops into battle to be a top-notch reporter. There are war experts who have never heard a single gunshot, who have never even left Washington, D.C. They study history, they pour over statistics, and they end up understanding more than people who are in the war zone. I could be like them. I could investigate Angel Marichal—from a safe distance.

The first thing would be to get a look at his school file. If I could somehow make a copy, I'd get some new facts about him. And those new facts might lead to more new facts. If I found a trail and followed it, I might learn the truth.

In the hall after class, I cornered Jessica Lathrop again, pumping her with questions about the office. Mrs. Cressy was sharp; there'd be no getting files while she was around, but she couldn't be there all the time. "Friday afternoon Cressy leaves early," Jessica told me. Once I'd heard that, my plan came into sharper focus.

That night I called Kimi. We talked about nothing for a few minutes. "I've figured out how we can investigate Angel but not run any risks," I said after a pause.

"How?" she asked, her voice interested yet doubtful.

"If we can get his school records from the office," I said, my words tumbling out fast, "we can find out where he went to school last year, what sports he played, that sort of stuff. Then we can call his old school and talk to people who knew him. If his story matches his records, we stop. If it doesn't, we dig deeper."

"But how can we get his school records?" Kimi said.

"I'm working on a plan. I just want to know if you'd be interested in doing it this way, where we'd do it all on the phone or on the computer."

There was a pause. "It sounds okay, Mitch. Only..."

"Only what?"

"If we were caught stealing files, we'd be suspended for sure. My dad would die of shame, and something like that would kill my chances for a top school."

"There'll be no risk for you," I said, thinking fast. "I'm not going to steal his file; I'm just going to make a copy. And I swear to you, Kimi, if I get caught, I'll never tell anyone you were involved."

A long pause followed, and then she spoke. "Before we resort to stealing things, there's something we have to try first."

T
UESDAY
I
MET
K
IMI
outside the commons at the beginning of lunch.

"You ready?" I said.

"I'm ready." She had on a brave face, but she was scared, too.

I pushed the double doors open and we strolled over to where Angel, head down, was eating. "Hey," I said, sticking out my hand and trying to sound breezy. "You're Angel Marichal, right? Special teams star and middle linebacker. I'm Mitch True. This is Kimi Yon. I write sports for the
Lincoln Light,
and Kimi's the photographer. I've got some questions for you, and Kimi wants to take some photos."

I was smiling like a used-car salesman, but Angel stared at my hand as if it were covered in warts. "Leave me alone," he muttered, barely lifting his head.

I sat next to him. "Come on, everybody wants his picture in the paper. There will be another
Lincoln Light
coming out soon. Just a few questions and a few photos and we'll leave you alone." I flipped open my notebook as Kimi took the lens cap off her camera. "Where are you from, anyway?"

Angel put his hand over the camera lens. "No questions, no pictures," he said, and then he picked up his tray and walked over to a table on the other side of the commons, where he sat down, his back to us.

I looked at Kimi.

"We had to try," she said. She paused, and then continued. "Every time I see him, he looks older. No way he's eighteen."

"His file would tell us exactly how old he is, where he went to school last year—all the things we want to know that he won't tell us."

Kimi leaned toward me. "Okay, so explain to me exactly how you think we can get his records."

For the next few minutes, I laid out my plan, step by step. "It sounds like something out of an old movie," Kimi said after I'd finished.

"Maybe," I admitted. "But that doesn't mean it won't work."

She looked down, closed her eyes for a moment, and then looked up. "All right, I'm in." She reached her hand toward me, and we shook. "But there's one more thing. You get caught; I get caught. If this turns out to be a big story, my photos are going to be part of it. I won't take the glory and skip the risk."

C
HASING
A
NGEL WAS THE MAIN THING
that interested me. I wanted Friday to come as fast as those photons I'd read about in science, but the hours and days plodded on. I had my schoolwork, and Thursday night there was a volleyball game.

I wouldn't have admitted it to Alyssa, but the more sports writing I did, the more I liked it. A sports season has a rhythm to it, and every game is like a new chapter in a book. But unlike a book, there's no flipping ahead to see how it will turn out.

I'd written recaps of all the games, and they were piling up on Alyssa's desk in the newspaper room. However, Danni Shea hadn't finished her interview with our new principal, and the sophomore in charge of Arts and Entertainment hadn't written a word on either the new video competition or the fall play. The newspaper couldn't come out until those articles were completed. Every time I saw Alyssa she'd complain to me: "You're the only one I can count on."