Payback Time (6 page)

Usually I flick off the light before I dry myself, but I'd been thinking so hard about the gun that I'd forgotten. That's why I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror.

A tub of guts—that's what I was. A beached whale. I'd been exercising daily, but nobody would notice. Put a helicopter beanie on my head and I could pass for Tweedledee.

I flicked off the light, dried myself, and dressed. Back in my room, I heard my cell phone beep, but I ignored it. I lay on my bed and stared at the ceiling, trying to erase the image of myself from my memory. The phone beeped again ... and again. I flipped it open and saw
New Voice Message
on the screen. I hit
Listen
and put it to my ear.

"Mitch, it's me, Kimi. Ms. Thomas is making the players go together on the bus. So if the ride to Yakima is still open, I'll take it. Call me, okay?"

A
WHOLE DAY WITH
K
IMI
Y
ON
—or almost a whole day. She'd be on the sidelines during the games, but there'd be the ride to Yakima and the ride back. Ms. Thomas might want the team to eat together, which would mean Kimi might be with me for lunch and dinner. It was all too amazing.

I arranged to pick her up at six a.m. As soon as I pulled up in front of her house, her front door sprang open and she was out. She was wearing an orange hooded sweatshirt with the word
Princeton
across the front. I could see her talking over her shoulder to her dad as she ran down the walkway. She made it to the car so quickly that I never turned off the engine. "Go," she said, slamming the door.

We stopped at Peet's for coffee. I was about to tell her what I'd seen on Elmore Street, but she hunkered down inside her sweatshirt and made it clear that she didn't want to talk. That was okay. We had a long ride in front of us.

After Peet's, it was back in the car and up into the mountains, the sun rising in front of us, the sky pink and purple all around. I wanted to nudge her and say,
Look! Look!,
but she kept the hood of her sweatshirt pulled tightly around her face and slouched against the window, her eyes closed.

We'd gone about sixty miles and had reached the resorts at Snoqualmie Pass before Kimi finally roused. The amazing sky wasn't amazing anymore. "Do you ski?" she asked as she gazed out the window at the ski runs that scarred the mountainside.

I'd once had a nightmare where I slipped and fell down a steep slope during a snowstorm. I rolled all the way to the bottom, out of sight from the road. With my heavy coat and snow pants and boots, I couldn't get myself turned right. In the dream, I lay like a beetle on its back, my legs and arms waving helplessly, the snow falling and falling, burying me. "No," I said. "I've never learned. How about you?"

"A little."

That was it. Five minutes passed. Ten minutes. Fifteen.

"Do you want to listen to music?" I asked.

She yawned. "That would be cool."

I had some jazz CDs in the backseat—Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie, stuff that was different and that I'd brought to impress her. Before I could reach for them, she pulled out her iPod, stuck the buds in her ears, put on sunglasses, and leaned against the window. She was gone then, her eyes closed, her music filling her world. Kimi Yon was two feet from me, but she might as well have been two thousand miles away.

I hated Apple.

T
HE ARENA IN
Y
AKIMA
is called the SunDome, so I had it in my head that it would be open and airy. I couldn't have been more wrong. The sun doesn't penetrate concrete. Watching games inside the dome was like watching games at Home Depot.

Kimi roamed the sidelines, snapping photos, while I sat up in the bleachers, laptop open, trying to find something to write about. During the breaks—and there were lots of them—she hung out with Marianne and Rachel. They slouched in the corners of the gym, talking and eating. Kimi never once looked up at me.

Between matches I interviewed Ms. Thomas.
Great bunch of girls ... one game at a time ... important thing isn't wins and losses, it's playing the game right.

The tournament dragged. I was lonely, and the excited cheers around me made me lonelier. I ate more than I should have—a hot dog, fries, and Coke at noon. Another combo at three thirty. A little before six o'clock, when the team had a ninety-minute break, Kimi walked out with Marianne, Rachel, and Erica Stricker. So much for eating dinner with her.

I slipped my laptop into its case and headed out. People might let me down, but food I could count on. Three blocks from the SunDome is a Mexican restaurant, Santiago's. A menu was taped to the window: enchiladas, tamales, chili con queso, fish tacos, flan, fried ice cream. I started to push the door open—and then changed my mind.

I walked up Yakima Avenue until the stores drifted away, turned, and came back on the other side of the street. There was nothing to see, but after all those hours in a hot gym, it felt good to move.

I stopped at a mom-and-pop grocery store and bought a peach yogurt, an apple, and a roll, all of which I ate while sitting on a bench in a tiny park on a side street. The yogurt was warm, the apple mushy, and the roll stale, but I felt good about my meal.

I returned to the SunDome for the trophy round of the tournament. Early in the day when the Lincoln girls had been playing inferior opponents, they'd dominated. Terri Calvo, Loaloa Toloto, and Chelsea Braker were good. If a decent set came to any one of those three, she'd pound the ball down, making a kill. But against the better teams, Lincoln's flaws became glaring.

If a bump went wild or a set wasn't right, Chelsea, Loaloa, and Terri would look at one another, roll their eyes, and shake their heads. The other girls—Erica, Marianne, and Rachel—would glare right back. An earthquake fault ran right through the team. With a big lead, they were awesome. But in close games decided by a few rallies at the end—those they lost.

The real story would have been about the rift in the team, but no school newspaper prints negative stories about high school players. I slogged away on the preview article, pumping up their prospects, depressed because I knew what I was writing was neither true nor interesting. This kind of story wasn't why I ached to be a journalist.

Finally the awards were passed out—the Lincoln girls got ribbons for taking seventh—and the tournament was over. I expected nothing from Kimi on the ride back, and that's what I got. She scrunched down in her seat, wedged her backpack between her head and the window as if it were a pillow, leaned against it, and closed her eyes. Within ten minutes she was asleep. Thirty miles from Ellensburg, I called my mom, told her I was going to be really late, and then drove and drove.

When we exited the freeway, the change in speed woke Kimi. "Oh my God," she said. "What time is it?"

"Two," I answered.

She opened her cell phone and punched in a number. A second later she started talking. I couldn't understand a word, but I could figure out what she was saying. And I could figure out her father's angry replies, too.

From the freeway exit to her house takes about fifteen minutes. As soon as I pulled into her driveway, she swung the door open, jumped out of the car, and ran to the front door. It opened before she reached it.

I pulled the car door closed behind her. "You're welcome," I said to the empty seat, and I drove off.

T
HE NEXT MORNING,
when I checked my e-mail, I saw that Kimi had sent me a dozen photos she'd taken at the tournament. I didn't bother to look. What did I care about her or her photos? I went down to the Locks and jogged over to Magnolia. But after my shower, I returned to her e-mail and opened the attachments, one by one.

All the photos were good, and one was flat-out great. She'd caught Erica Stricker, eyes closed, mouth tight, arms extended up and over the net, blocking a spike. It was exactly the type of photo the
Seattle Times
runs at the top of its prep sports page.

I stared at the photo on my computer screen. Kimi had treated me like a taxi driver. What did I owe her? Nothing. But I called her anyway.

"You really think the
Times
might use it?" she said, excited. "I wasn't sure if any were good enough for the
Lincoln Light.
"

"For sure Alyssa will use them, but it can't hurt to try the
Times.
"

"Should I e-mail it to them?"

My dad never used the phone if he was after a new client. "
They need to see you, Dan. That's the way of the world. Remember that.
"

"No, Kimi. You should bring the photo to them yourself."

The line was quiet. "Will you go with me?"

Now it was my turn to let seconds silently tick away. I wanted to say that I had other things to do, but I didn't have to work until later, and I wanted to be with her more than I wanted to save my pride. "If you want."

 

Chet Jetton, known as Chet the Jet, is the high school sports editor at the
Seattle Times.
I thought we might have trouble getting to see him, but once the receptionist looked at Kimi's photo, she pointed us down a narrow aisle. "Turn right at the plastic tree. Chet's cubicle is the second one on the left. I'll buzz and tell him you're on your way."

Chet is fiftyish with a gray goatee. He was wearing a UW cap, a beat-up gray sweatshirt, and baggy jeans. He had his feet propped up on his desk and was leaning back in his chair, a pencil behind his ear, reading glasses down on his nose. He stood when he saw Kimi and introduced himself.

"So, Kimi, let me see your photo." Not once did he look at me, something that always seemed to happen when I was with Kimi.

Kimi handed it over. He scratched his chin. "We might be able to use it. We'll pay fifty dollars if we do. No guarantees, though."

"She needs to know now," I said, amazed by the firmness in my voice. "Otherwise we'll run it in the school newspaper."

Chet cocked his head and peered at me. "You her agent?"

"I'm the sports writer for the Lincoln Mustangs. I'll be sending you the game reports."

"You're my stringer?"

I nodded. "Mitch True," I said, sticking out my hand.

We shook. "Glad to meet you, Mitch." Then he turned back to Kimi's photo, tapping it with his finger. "We'll buy it," he said at last. "Ask the secretary for the forms for freelancers. Fill them out, mail them back, and you'll get your check for fifty dollars in a few weeks. You get a freelance form too, Mitch."

"Will she get photo credit?" I asked. "Of course she will," Chet snapped. "This is a professional newspaper. Nobody here will ever cheat you."

A
S WE RETURNED TO THE
F
OCUS,
Kimi's eyes were shining. "The
Seattle Times
took my photograph," she said over and over. "I can't believe it."

"It was a great photo."

She leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. "Thank you, Mitch. This wouldn't have happened without you."

It was a kiss she might give a brother, but it was a kiss. I tried not to turn red, which only made me turn redder. The anger I'd felt about the Yakima trip—it was gone. I started up the car and roared—if a Focus can roar—out of the parking lot. "Let's go to Peet's," I said. "My treat."

 

"I found out more about Angel," I said once we were seated upstairs looking out over Fremont Avenue. I was glad she'd picked the counter and not a table. I liked being near her, but sitting face-to-face made it harder for me to talk.

I described how I'd stumbled upon Angel's house and how I'd seen him throwing the football with his friend. "Then a car came up the block, moving fast. Angel hid while his friend stared down the car. I'm not completely sure about this, Kimi, but I think his friend pulled out a gun."

"You're joking."

"I know it sounds crazy, but I'm almost positive."

"When did this happen?"

"A few days ago."

"Why didn't you tell me sooner?" Her voice was miffed.

I shrugged. "I don't know. I guess I was waiting for a time when we could talk."

She stirred her latte for a moment, and then leaned toward me. "Actually, it fits with something I've been thinking," she said, her anger gone. "In fact, it fits perfectly."

A gun didn't fit with anything I'd been thinking. "Tell me."

"A few years ago, two cops went undercover at Federal Way High School. In February, they busted a dozen students for drugs, including three brothers who were running a meth lab in a shed behind their lawyer parents' fancy house, and a doctor's son who was selling stolen prescription pills. Lincoln has its share of druggies. They're buying meth and other stuff, which means somebody is selling. If the police department sent undercover agents into Federal Way High, they could do it at Lincoln High. I think Angel is a cop."

"A cop?"

"A cop."

The more I thought about it, the more possible it seemed. Kimi's theory explained why Angel looked so old, why his friend would have a gun. And Lincoln did have its share of drug users. Laurie Walloch and her friends for sure, and other kids I didn't know by name. A whole bunch of them had spooky eyes and looked wired twenty-four hours every day. But would the police bother with twenty or thirty kids?

"I can sort of see it," I said. "Only why would an undercover drug cop try out for the football team? Druggies aren't football players."

Kimi chewed on a fingernail for a bit. "Say I'm right and he's an undercover cop. What does he do? Show up the first day of school at Lincoln looking old and with no friends? How would he ever get in with anybody? But if he plays on the football team, when he shows up the first day, he's connected. The cops in Federal Way joined the yearbook staff. That gave them an excuse to go all through the school. Being a football player is like having a pass—football players can do what they want at school. Think about this, too. If Angel is an undercover cop, he'd want to be on the team, but he wouldn't want to be the star. That would attract too much attention. When he was throwing the football around with his friend, he didn't know we were watching, so he let his ability show. In front of McNulty, he pretends to be middling. It all fits with him being undercover, with staying under the radar."