Payback Time (11 page)

 

The girls had lost to Inglemoor on Saturday to drop their league record to 8–3. Inglemoor was the defending league champion, so it wasn't a bad loss, but they would have to beat North Shore to get back on track. Contenders or pretenders—Thursday's game would provide the answer.

I found a seat at the top of the gym. Kimi was courtside, camera in hand. As I watched the warm-ups, it all looked familiar. Terri Calvo, Loaloa Toloto, and Chelsea Braker were huddled together. The same was true of Erica Stricker, Rachel Black, and Marianne Flagler. If they hadn't been wearing the same uniforms, you'd have thought they were opponents.

North Shore jumped ahead early in the first game, scoring six straight on a series of spike serves that had the back line totally flustered. The streak of aces started the Lincoln girls sniping at one another, and they kept sniping the rest of the match. The one good thing was that it ended quickly—the trouncing took just over an hour.

I stood and looked over the court for Kimi, thinking she might want to go to Peet's to talk over our plan one last time. I spotted her huddled by the door with Marianne and Rachel, both of whom were near tears. No doubt the three of them would be going off together. I started down out of the bleachers, my eyes on my feet to keep myself from tumbling like Humpty Dumpty.

When I reached the court, I caught Kimi's eye. She gave me a small wave. I waved back and then walked alone into the parking lot. It had been cold and cloudy when the game started; now rain was pouring down. I ran across the parking lot, opened the door, and plopped down in the driver's seat. Before I started the car, my cell phone rang.

"Kimi?" I said, hopeful. "Is that you?"

"Mitch True?" a male voice answered.

"Who is this?"

"Who I am is not important. Just please listen to me. Leave Angel Marichal alone. Don't come to his house. Don't ask questions about him."

My heart raced. "Who is this?" I repeated.

"Angel is one of the good guys. What you're doing can only help the bad guys."

The line went dead. I stared at the phone, hands shaking. Around me, cars inched their way out of the lot.

Finally I started for home, my thoughts churning. The
Times
hadn't mentioned Angel at all, and there'd been only one article in the
Lincoln Light,
but somebody was already warning me off. Angel had a secret, and whatever it was, it was big. The stuff about him being one of the good guys—that didn't fly with me. Good people don't keep things dark. I'd heard that from my dad more than once.

Back in my room, I opened up my American Government book. For thirty minutes I flipped pages, but nothing was processing. Finally I shut the book and flicked off the light.

Who was it that had called? The friend Angel lived with? Had he seen me that night and somehow tracked me down? I didn't like the idea that somebody was out there watching me.

I closed my eyes and tried to sleep, but I couldn't.

Kimi.

Should I tell her about the phone call? The guy hadn't threatened me. All he'd said was to stay away from Angel. Well, that's what we were going to do. We weren't going to talk to him; we weren't going to go to his house. Investigate from a safe distance—that was the plan, and we'd stick to it. The phone call didn't change anything, so Kimi didn't need to know about it.

A
FTER SCHOOL ON
F
RIDAY,
I met Kimi by the office as planned. We milled around in the hallway for a few minutes. Sure enough, at three o'clock, Mrs. Cressy flung open the main door and strode out, headed toward the parking lot, just as Jessica had predicted. We watched her until she disappeared behind an SUV. Then I opened the office door for Kimi and followed her inside.

I did the talking at the counter. I told Mrs. Scott, the attendance secretary, that I wanted to interview her for the school newspaper. It was ridiculous, since I was the sportswriter, but she didn't know that.

She agreed, so I started asking questions.
What's the hardest part of your day? What do you find most rewarding?
I wanted everything to go fast, but Mrs. Scott talked on and on, telling jokes, and somehow bringing Australia into every other sentence.

Kimi cut her off. "I'd like your picture for the paper."

Mrs. Scott beamed. "Oh, how nice."

This was it.

Kimi snapped a couple of photos, then screwed up her nose. "The light isn't good in here. Let's go out by the flagpole."

Mrs. Scott shook her head. "I can't leave the office unattended. Mrs. Cressy would never allow that."

Kimi smiled. "Mitch can answer the phone."

Mrs. Scott looked me over. I felt as if I had the word
thief
tattooed across my forehead. "Okay," she said, and then she held up a couple of fingers. "Two minutes."

As soon as she and Kimi left, I hurried to the file cabinet marked
M-N-O
and pulled it open. Quickly I flipped through the
Ms. Madison ... Maguire ... Marino ... Martin.
Where was
Marichal?
It had to be there.

I flipped back. I'd been so nervous, I'd flown right past it the first time. I pulled the file out, closed the cabinet, and hurried to the copy machine.

On the way I peeked out the window. Kimi was snapping photos of Mrs. Scott standing by the flagpole—but they'd be back soon. When I reached the copy machine, I slid the pages into the tray and hit
Start.
A minute later I was shoving the copies into a manila envelope I'd brought along. Two minutes later I had the originals back in the file cabinet. When Kimi and Mrs. Scott returned, I was sitting in a plastic chair across from Mrs. Cressy's desk, paging through an ancient
People
magazine.

Once Kimi and I were clear of the office, I wanted to find some place to look at Angel's records, but Kimi shook her head. "My aunt's visiting," she said as we walked toward the parking lot. "I have to go home."

"You'd rather talk to your aunt than find out about Angel?"

"You don't understand, Mitch. She's not an ordinary relative."

What was that supposed to mean?

I shrugged. "Okay, if your aunt is that important. But when will we look at his records?"

"After tonight's game. You'll write your article and I'll pick out a photo, and then we'll see what we've got. Okay?"

I nodded.

She reached out for the manila envelope. "Let me keep that."

Instinctively, I pulled it away. "Why?"

"Because you'll look, and I want us to go through the file together. We're partners, right?"

She was right—I would go through the papers. I handed the envelope over.

I
WENT HOME AND READ UP ON
I
NGLEMOOR.
They were 4–2 and had a running back who'd been all-league the year before. Their weakness was at quarterback: a freshman who'd thrown a bunch of interceptions and had fumbled the ball away at least once a game.

As I drove to Memorial Stadium, I wondered if McNulty would stop hiding Angel and finally turn him loose. This was the game to do it. Stop the running game and you stopped Inglemoor, because they weren't going to beat you in the air.

Lincoln got the ball first, but went three-and-out because of a personal foul call on a late hit. After Kenstowicz punted the ball away, our defense ran onto the field. I watched closely, wondering if I'd see Angel at middle linebacker right out of the blocks, but McNulty trotted Clarke out for the first drive. It was a total mismatch—J.D. Dieter, the Inglemoor running back, dominated Clarke. In tight quarters, he ran right over him; in the open field, he had moves that left Clarke tied up. If you never have to throw the ball, what does it matter if your quarterback is shaky?

Dieter sliced through Lincoln's defense, carrying the ball play after play. When he broke a fifteen-yard run down to Lincoln's ten-yard line, McNulty called time-out. I leaned forward. Sure enough, when the team returned to the field, Angel Marichal was at middle linebacker.

I looked around me—no one else seemed to have noticed. I nudged the guy next to me, a kid I knew from calculus named Bill Diggsy. "Angel Marichal's playing. We'll stop them now."

Diggsy grunted. He had no clue who Angel Marichal was.

I guess I'd started thinking Angel was Superman, because I expected him to stop Dieter in his tracks. I'd forgotten that Angel was ice cold and that Dieter was a D-1 scholarship athlete firing on all cylinders. On first down, Dieter took a pitch, raced toward the corner, cut back against the grain, and waltzed into the end zone, untouched. The extra point sailed wide, making it Inglemoor 6, Lincoln 0, with half of the first quarter gone.

There was an uneasy quiet around me. The more people want their team to win, the more pain they feel when their team falls behind.

What surprised me was that I felt it, too.

Once, when my dad and I were talking about college, he told me that I could major in anything I wanted as long as it wasn't philosophy. "What's wrong with philosophy?" I asked.

"The logic part is useless," he said. "People have never been and never will be logical."

I thought about that conversation as both teams took the field for the kickoff. I didn't like Coach McNulty; I didn't like Angel; and I didn't like Horst. The first two were probably cheaters and the third had an ego the size of Mount Rainier. So I should want Lincoln to lose ... right? When I thought about the team before the game, I always thought of them as
they.
But while the game was going on, when they were right down on the field below and I was surrounded by cheering kids,
they
somehow morphed into
we.

Blake Stein returned the kick to the thirty-five, and Horst came out throwing, threading the needle with his passes and mixing in a run from Shawn Warner now and then, transforming the silence into cheers. Just when a touchdown seemed inevitable, Horst got clobbered as he let a pass go. The ball wobbled in the air, underthrown by five yards, and an Inglemoor cornerback dived for it, making an incredible interception and killing the drive. Back came our defense with Angel at middle linebacker, and back came J. D. Dieter.

What a battle that was. Dieter was the whole show for Inglemoor, but even though everyone in the stadium knew he was getting the ball on nearly every play, that didn't make him easy to stop. Sometimes he'd break through Angel's tackle and plow forward for seven, eight, nine yards; sometimes Angel would plant his shoulder pads into Dieter's gut and drive him back.

Dieter was too good to be bottled up; Angel was too good to be run over. So throughout the first half Inglemoor picked up a few first downs only to have Lincoln's defense stiffen. Twice Inglemoor got in field-goal range, but both times the kicks sailed wide right. The other drives ended in punts.

Inglemoor's defense wasn't strong, but if you're lucky, you don't have to be good. Throughout the first half, the football gods turned on Horst. The first two drives had ended with a penalty and then an interception; the next two ended with fumbles. And just before halftime, Lenny Westwood dropped a sure touchdown pass. The score at the half remained Inglemoor 6, Lincoln 0.

I don't know what McNulty said to the team in the locker room, but I bet it wasn't pretty, because it was a different Lincoln Mustang team that came out of the locker room.

After a short return of the kickoff, Inglemoor's freshman QB led his team onto the field. Across the line of scrimmage from him, the Lincoln defenders were jumping around, sky-high. Angel was playing middle linebacker; Darren Clarke was on the bench where he belonged.

On first down, the Inglemoor QB handed off to Dieter on what looked like a standard dive play. Angel shed his blocker and was moving in to make the bone-jarring tackle—only Dieter wasn't running. He took one step toward the line of scrimmage, and then turned and lateraled back to the freshman QB. It was the old flea flicker play, and our entire secondary—eager to make the big hit at the line of scrimmage—had dropped coverage. The Inglemoor QB had a weak arm, but his receiver was open by twenty yards. Sometimes when a receiver is completely open, that's the pass that gets dropped, but the Inglemoor receiver looked the ball into his hands and raced seventy-five yards to the house. Inglemoor 13, Lincoln 0. And just like that, Lincoln's momentum was gone.

Still, it was just two touchdowns. I'd seen the Lincoln offense put up four touchdowns in a half. Only this game Horst couldn't get untracked. He'd get a drive going, and then make a lousy pass, and out would come the punting team. Inglemoor pounded J. D. Dieter at us. He'd manage a couple of first downs on each possession, taking precious minutes off the clock and saddling us with lousy field position. The third quarter ended 13–0, and halfway through the fourth, that same score held.

Then something finally went right. After Angel stopped Dieter on a third and three, the Inglemoor punter shanked his kick. I don't think it went ten yards. Horst came back onto the field with great field position for once, and McNulty went for broke. On first down he sent Lenny Westwood streaking down the center of the field on a post pattern. Westwood soared up between the Inglemoor defenders and somehow pulled the ball down. The two defenders collided, knocking each other off the play. Westwood kept his balance and took the ball to the end zone. Inglemoor 13, Lincoln 7.

After the kickoff, our defense roared onto the field. There was still time; we just had to get the Inglemoor offense off the field. Stop them, score again, and sneak away with a 14–13 win to keep the perfect season alive.

On first down, Inglemoor ran Dieter wide to the right. Our entire defense chased after him. And again the Inglemoor coach caught us overpursuing, because it was a reverse. Dieter pitched to a wide receiver coming around, and no one was on the opposite side of the field to stop him. The guy ran like a greyhound. The forty ... the thirty ... twenty ... ten ... five ... touchdown.

Inglemoor 20, Lincoln 7.

And five minutes later, at the horn, that was the final score.