Payback Time (8 page)

After that score, the game became a defensive struggle: Mater Dei would make a few first downs, then punt. We'd gain twenty or thirty yards, always because of Horst, but then there'd be a penalty or a dropped pass, and we'd have to punt. Subs came in on offense and defense, giving starters a blow. The entire second string rotated in for one full drive. I kept waiting for Angel to take the field, but McNulty never called his number.

It looked like neither team would score again before the break. Then, with a minute remaining in the half, Mater Dei's wide receiver caught a simple slant pass, broke Darren Clarke's tackle, and he was gone, racing seventy-three yards for a touchdown. The point after made the score 13–10, and around me it was so quiet that every cough echoed through the stands. After a couple more plays, the horn sounded and the players trotted off the field to the locker rooms.

I spent halftime checking the notes I'd taken on my laptop. I wouldn't be writing a recap for the
Times,
but Alyssa was giving me two hundred words in the
Lincoln Light.
When I looked over what I had, I saw it was a rerun of the three previous years. Horst, Horst, and more Horst—exactly what McNulty had predicted.

Mater Dei came out running an option attack, something they hadn't shown at all in the first half. After their quarterback took the snap, he'd work his way down the line of scrimmage, feeling out the defense. Sometimes he'd find a hole and snake through it. More often, he'd hold the ball until he was about to be tackled, then pitch out to the tailback. And what a tailback. The Mater Dei coach hadn't played him much in the first half, going with a power runner instead.

The program said the guy's name was Marcus Bintz, and he was rocket-fast. Once he had the ball he'd race for the corner, all the while looking to cut back against the grain. When he found a spot—
boom!—he
hit the hole hard, piling up yards that eventually turned into touchdowns.

Bintz would have blown us out if Horst hadn't matched him play for play. Time after time, Horst would dodge blitzing linebackers until he spotted an open receiver. And then the ball was gone, out of his hand in a millisecond. Nearly every pass hit a receiver right on the numbers. If he did misfire, Lenny Westwood or Coby Eliot would bail him out with leaping catches. The game was like one of those old Ali-Frazier fights they show on ESPN—Bintz and Horst traded blow after blow, but neither would crumble.

All we needed was one stop, but Darren Clarke was being eaten alive by Mater Dei. He didn't have the quickness to move down the line as the option play developed. When Bintz cut back against the grain, Clarke was too tired to do anything but reach out with an arm, and Bintz wasn't going down unless somebody laid a hit on him.

It was baffling. There sat Angel, off by himself at the end of the bench. Had McNulty forgotten about him? How does a high school football coach forget six foot three and 220 pounds of muscle in a game where his team is being outmuscled?

We were up by a field goal when Horst made his first and only terrible pass. It was third and eight, late in the fourth quarter. He was rolling to his right, the defense chasing him. All his receivers were covered, so he turned and threw back across his body into the center of the field. The ball wobbled in the air, and a Mater Dei linebacker picked it off. He had a clear field in front of him and a ten-yard lead on everyone else. I thought he was gone; everybody thought he was gone. Somehow Horst chased that linebacker down and tackled him, but not until the Mater Dei guy had made it to Lincoln's twenty-one-yard line.

Mater Dei's offense raced onto the field, pumped to steal the game. On first down, Marcus Bintz took the option pitch and beat everyone to the corner—an eight-yard gain. On second and two, Bintz cut his run back against the flow for seven more. If he hadn't tripped, he'd have scored. Still, Mater Dei had a first down and goal on the six.

Two minutes remained in the game. We were up by three, but we hadn't stopped Bintz before. Why would we be able to stop him now?

McNulty called time and had the defense huddle around him. What could he say that would rally them? The ref blew his whistle, the huddle broke, and the players trotted back to their positions. I sat bolt upright in my seat. Darren Clarke was out. Forty-four was lined up at middle linebacker.

Angel Marichal was finally in the game.

Mater Dei came up to the line. The QB took the snap, faked a handoff to his fullback, and started down the line, waiting, waiting. Finally he made the pitch. Bintz took the ball and headed for the corner, but Angel shed his blocker and drove his shoulder into Bintz, knocking him backwards.

Loss of two.

Clock running.

On second and goal the fullback took the quick handoff and drove into the middle. Angel was there again, stuffing him for absolutely no gain. And when Angel stood, he started flapping his arms, calling for noise from the crowd, pumping up his teammates. This from the guy who'd sat alone and silent for two hours.

Third and goal, with just over a minute left.

Mater Dei hustled to the line of scrimmage. I thought they'd go back to Bintz, and they did, setting up a screen pass for him. Angel read it from the start and dropped into the flat. The quarterback threw the ball anyway, and Angel jumped the route, stretched out, and snagged the ball. He took one step, cradled the ball in both arms, and then fell to the ground, protecting the interception.

The game was ours.

Mater Dei had no time-outs left. Horst took a knee, and then another one, and then 10,000 people roared as the clock went to 00:00. Lincoln High had beaten Mater Dei.

A
FTER THE GAME,
I quickly worked my way down to the field. As soon as Kimi saw me, she rushed over. "He's no senior." The words came out fast. "He's a grown man. The close-ups I shot of his face prove it, too. He's got to be a cop. Why else would an adult be in a high school? Come on." And then she was off, before I could say a word, heading into the bowels of the stadium.

"Where are we going?" I called out as I broke into a trot to catch up.

"To interview him."

"But McNulty said no."

"That was
before,
" she said. "He can't turn us down now that Angel has saved the game."

We worked our way to the door leading to the locker rooms. Kimi stepped back then and gave me a push. I stood tall, sucked in my gut, and knocked hard on the door. After a minute it opened. "I'd like to interview Angel Marichal," I said, flashing my press pass.

The security cop—a giant of a guy who could have been a poster boy for LA Fitness—looked at me as if I were a fly that might not be worth swatting. "You from a newspaper?"

"The
Lincoln Light,
" I answered.

"What is that? A school newspaper?"

"Does that matter?" Kimi said.

He looked past me to Kimi, and the edge in his voice softened.

"Wait here."

We stood for five minutes before the door reopened.

"Coach McNulty said no," the guy said, looking only at Kimi. "I'm sorry."

As we walked together out of the stadium, Kimi called Marianne. "Where are you?...No, don't come back. I'll take the bus ... Yeah, see you tomorrow."

"You don't have to take the bus," I said. "I can give you a ride."

"You sure?"

"Sure, I'm sure. We could go to Peet's if you want."

"That sounds good."

Twenty minutes later we were sitting side by side at the upstairs counter—what I was starting to think of as
our
counter. Kimi was glum, so I asked her to show me her game photos. She held her camera so that I could see. Lots of her photos were great, but the best was a shot of Angel, arms fully extended, making his interception, controlling the football with the very tips of his fingers. "Let's e-mail that one to Chet," I said.

She shook her head. "There's no point. The
Times
had a photographer at the game."

"I'll bet he didn't get a shot half as good as that."

"He was there, Mitch. They won't print anything of mine. You know that."

 

Sunday morning I checked out the online edition of the
Seattle Times.
The headline read L
INCOLN
S
TUNS
C
ALIFORNIA
P
OWERHOUSE
. In the right-hand corner was a photo of Horst Diamond unleashing a pass. I read Chet the Jet's article, expecting all the time that the next sentence would detail Angel's last-minute heroics. At the tail end, Chet wrote, "A late interception sealed the victory." And that was it. No name, no description of the incredible plays Angel had made on the previous downs.

It was poor writing. Chet the Jet should have led with Angel's plays as a hook, and then gone to Horst Diamond. My cell rang. "Have you seen the article in the
Times?
" Kimi asked.

"I just finished reading it and I don't get it. The only explanation is that he left early and didn't see Angel's interception."

There was a pause. "I have another idea," Kimi said.

"What?"

"Maybe Chet knows Angel is a cop. Maybe he's in on the scheme. Maybe McNulty told him he had to keep Angel's name out of the paper."

She was talking so fast, I was having trouble keeping up. "You think McNulty knows?"

"Think about it, Mitch. A policeman couldn't infiltrate a school without help. The undercover cops in Federal Way hung out with drug dealers for months before they made their arrests. The principal knew they were cops, and so did some of the teachers. If Angel is undercover, he'd have the same kind of support. McNulty ... the principal ... the teachers—they'd all have to know."

"You're pretty sure you're right about this, aren't you?"

"Only sort of sure, but I'm clueless about what to do next."

"That makes two of us."

I
SAID GOODBYE,
closed up my cell, and then opened my laptop and got to work. Chet the Jet had written a mediocre story for the
Times;
I was going to write a better one for the
Lincoln Light.

I had less than a page to describe forty-eight minutes of football, but lack of space wasn't my main problem. The final score would be in the headline, so there'd be no suspense. Somehow, I had to capture my readers—and that made my first sentence crucial. I typed, deleted, typed some more, deleted some more, thought for a while, typed, and then stopped and read over what I had.

In a game in which sixty-five points were scored, it took the last-minute defensive heroics of newcomer Angel Marichal to preserve Lincoln's
stunning upset victory over Mater Dei at Qwest Field in the season opener.

A little wordy, but acceptable. I moved on.

My next one hundred and fifty words recounted the accomplishments of Horst and Lenny Westwood and the other offensive players. I threw in a sentence on Marcus Bintz just to be fair. I closed by returning to my opening, but adding more bang, just like Mr. Dewey had taught me.

With an offense clicking under Horst Diamond's leadership and a defense strengthened by Angel Marichal, this year's Lincoln Mustangs have a chance to stampede all the way to the state title game in Tacoma.

I read the article over, made a few small changes, and then called Alyssa. "I've got both the preview and the recap finished. I'll e-mail them to you."

"That's great." I could almost feel her smile. "Mitch, I'll be working in the newspaper room at school all day tomorrow. Any chance you could help out?"

"Tomorrow? Tomorrow is Labor Day. How are you going to get in?"

"Teachers will be there."

***

She was right. The next morning the main doors to Lincoln were all open; at least a dozen teachers were in their classrooms working. It turned out that Alyssa had gotten nearly everyone on the staff to write something. I spent the day helping her format pages, and then I drove her to the printer in Pioneer Square, south of downtown.

Tuesday I drove back to Pioneer Square with Alyssa. We picked up the newspapers and took them to Lincoln High. She kept the first ten copies for herself, slipping them into a manila envelope so they wouldn't get wrinkled. Then we went from entrance to entrance, filling each rack.

"You know something, Alyssa," I said when we finished. "I bet this is the first time a newspaper has been printed and ready to go on the first day of school. And I don't mean just at Lincoln. I mean at any high school. What you've done is amazing."

She turned to me. "Thank you, Mitch. You don't know how much that means to me." And then she hugged me.

I didn't know what to do, so I wrapped my arms around her, not daring to squeeze for fear she'd think I was a pervert. I was sure she'd pull away, but instead she started sobbing, and she kept crying, so I finally did give her a squeeze, and she squeezed back, and I decided that having a real live girl in my arms was definitely an okay thing, and that doing it on a regular basis would also definitely be an okay thing. Finally Alyssa stepped back and wiped her eyes with her sleeve. "I'm sorry. I don't know what's wrong with me. I guess I'm just really, really tired." She snuffled once, and then she patted me on the chest. "You're a good guy, Mitch True."

I did my run/walk soon after I got home. As I plodded along, I thought about Alyssa. Since newspaper is just an after-school club at Lincoln, nobody has to write anything. If I'd been elected editor, I'd have been lucky to squeeze out enough stories for two or three newspapers over the course of the year. Alyssa might not manage to print one every month, like she hoped, but she'd come close. I hadn't been cheated out of the editorship; she'd been the better choice all along.

S
CHOOL STARTED THE NEXT DAY.
Wherever kids filed into the hallways, a stack of
Lincoln Lights
waited for them. I watched as student after student grabbed one, flipped through it quickly, and then stuffed it into a backpack.