Pop (20 page)

“Look at his face!” Marcus breathed. “He gets it! He gets
everything
!”

Mac was pink with emotion. “To think I almost turned back!”

“Thanks, everybody,” Charlie concluded. “I'll never forget this.”

The cheers were deafening.

Two large tears rolled down the cheeks of Elizabeth Popovich. “You see that?” she said to her daughter. “
That's
your father.”

Chelsea nodded. “I barely remember him this way.”

Her mother wiped her eyes. “I don't think I realized how far gone he is—not until now, seeing him the way he used to be.”

“He looks happy.” Chelsea turned suddenly angry. “How come that jerk Marcus always knows more about Daddy than we do?”

“I've been so blind!” Mrs. Popovich exclaimed. “You and Troy told me again and again, but I wouldn't listen!”

“Don't think about that now,” Chelsea sniffled. “Look—it's a standing ovation.”

As the cheering roared on, Marcus and Mac got to their feet, leaping and high-fiving in triumph, their words an incoherent babble.

For Marcus, the exhilaration was double. The plotting, the machinations, the split-second timing—it was all worth it for this incredible moment. His life had become a muddy chaos of negative emotions: bitterness toward Stalin, regret for Alyssa, anger at Troy, resentment for Chelsea and Coach Barker—and even Mom, for moving him out of Kansas. Yet this felt astonishingly different—simple, crystal clear, and one thousand percent
right
.

On the field, the grounds crew was rolling the stage back to the sidelines. The ceremony was over, and the second half would soon begin. The Rogers sisters, flushed with pleasure, were being escorted back to their seats and—

Marcus froze. “Where's Charlie?”

It took all the wind out of Mac's celebration. “Don't tell me we lost him!”

Marcus mentally plotted a course from the 1988 medalists back to midfield. No Charlie anywhere along that route.

“What was he wearing?” Mac prodded urgently.

“An EBU warm-up jacket!”

They both looked around in dismay. Three quarters of the crowd was clad in East Bonaventure crimson—jackets, sweatshirts, even stadium blankets.

They ran, sprinting down the concrete steps to ground level.

“Hey!” bawled a security guard. “You're not allowed on the field!”

“Where's Charlie Popovich?” Mac demanded.

“Back to your seats!”

Marcus spied Charlie on the opposite sidelines, walking into the tunnel at the center of a cluster of people.

“There!” he shouted, and vaulted over the half wall onto the turf. Mac was barely a step behind him. They raced across the gridiron, dodging the entire Rutgers Scarlet Knights offense, jogging out for the third quarter.

“Charlie,
wait
!” bellowed Marcus.

By the time they reached the mouth of the tunnel, Charlie and the group surrounding him had disappeared.

They pounded down the passage, shouting Charlie's name. Marcus spun a three-sixty. The hall that led to the locker rooms was deserted. Another led to equipment storage. The third choice was a door that opened onto the VIP parking lot.

Marcus crashed through the heavy door. The King of Pop wasn't in the lot. Frantically, he expanded his search field. It was a busy homecoming Saturday at EBU. People were everywhere in the distance, strolling on walkways and relaxing on benches and blankets.

Mac burst onto the scene, shouting, “
Charlie
—” He scanned the bustling campus. “Uh-oh.”

Marcus was in an all-out panic. “We could pick a direction and look there, but it would be pure luck if we found him!”

“All right, stay calm,” counseled the CPA. “Let's try to think like Charlie.”

“You
can't
think like Charlie!” Marcus raved. “His mind is totally random!”

“Not necessarily,” Mac argued. “When it's sunny, he shades his eyes, right? His impulses are the same as anybody's. If he's hungry, he'll look for a hot dog stand. If he has to pee, he'll look for a bathroom....”

There was a momentary silence as they recalled the conversation on the drive across the campus. Then the two Macs looked at each other.

“The
fountain
!”

They took off in a full sprint, with Marcus in the lead. It was at least half a mile. Marcus made it in record time, and even Mac was puffing along, not far back. There was the fountain, but no Charlie. Marcus was distraught. They had gambled and lost. In the time it had taken to run here, and the time it would take to get back to the stadium, Charlie could be anywhere on the vast campus—or worse still, off campus. What if he hitchhiked again—or boarded a bus bound for Syracuse or New York City?

Unaccustomed to the half-mile race, Mac struggled to regain his breath. Heaving, he turned to a student who was sitting on the rim of the fountain, reading. “Have you seen a guy—a big guy, about my age—tall—curly hair—”

“Wait—he was with you?” the young woman exclaimed.

“He was here?” Marcus blurted.

“He sure was,” she replied. “He stood there for a long time, staring up at the statue. Then he stepped over the edge and started walking toward it—right through the water! When he got there, he was climbing up on the horse—”

“Where is he
now
?” Marcus interrupted.

She grinned nervously. “He got arrested. It took, like, six campus cops to drag him down.”

“Oh my God,” moaned Mac.

“No, this is good,” Marcus insisted. “It means he's okay.” He turned back to the girl. “Where would they take him?”

She pointed across the quad. “The redbrick building. Campus security.”

And they were off and running again. Now Marcus's fear for Charlie's safety was replaced by a less urgent but definitely more ominous feeling. Any chance of getting the King of Pop to and from EBU under the radar was gone with the wind. Marcus had always known he'd have some explaining to do. But he hadn't anticipated it would begin so soon.

This time, the older man's stamina was near its end, and Marcus opened up a quarter-mile lead, galloping for the security station. He blasted through the doors to find Charlie himself sitting on a bench, wrapped from the waist down in a heavy blanket.

“Marcus Jordan”—a voice that was definitely not Charlie's.

Marcus wheeled to find himself face-to-face with Officer Mike Deluca. He returned his attention to the King of Pop. “You okay, Charlie?”

The former linebacker looked from one face to another, sensing conflict and not much liking it. One thing was certain: The
old
Charlie, the real one, was no longer present. It was more than likely, Marcus reflected sadly, that he had already forgotten the honor of just twenty minutes before, the one he'd said he would never forget.

“He's fine,” said Deluca. “He's with me.
I'm
the good guy. I don't know what to call you anymore. Kidnapper, maybe?”

Mac reeled onto the scene in time for this last part. “Nobody's been kidnapped!” he wheezed. “Charlie needed a lift, so we drove him.”

Deluca glared at him. “And you are…?”

“James McTavish.”

Charlie stared at his high school friend. “You're not Mac! You're old!”

Mac indicated Charlie's reflection in the front window. “We're the same age, Charlie. Three weeks apart.”

Charlie rounded on Marcus, frowning. “But you're—”

Marcus shook his head, devastated. “My name is Marcus Jordan.” How could this day have gone so wrong? He and Mac had just taken the fundamental misunderstanding at the core of all Charlie's confusion and rubbed it in the poor guy's face. “I'm sorry.”

He turned to the policeman. “Mac had nothing to do with this. He doesn't even know Charlie isn't supposed to be here.”

Mac's eyes widened in shock. “What are you saying?”

“What he's saying, Mr. McTavish, is that Charlie's family knew nothing of his whereabouts until they saw him streaming live on the EBU website. That's when they called me to report that he'd been abducted.”

Marcus gulped. “It's my fault.”

Mac couldn't believe it. “You mean Charlie's family wanted him to
miss
this?”

“They were pretty specific about it to Mr. Jordan,” Deluca replied, stone-faced. “Then again, Marcus never has been one for doing what he's told.”

“Maybe he did something wrong, but he did it for all the right reasons,” Mac argued. “You can't arrest him for being loyal to his friend—our friend.”

The officer looked exasperated. “Do you see anyone being arrested here? Mr. Popovich is safe and sound and on the way home to his family. But just think about this—what if something had happened to him beyond wet feet? Whose fault would that have been? His own? I don't think so.”

Marcus and Mac exchanged an agonized glance. The nightmare scenarios were all too easy to imagine: Charlie falling from the statue, knocking himself unconscious, and drowning. Or wandering off, soaking wet, as hypothermia set in.

“The family has the right to file a complaint,” Deluca went on. “I'd be well within my job description to cuff the both of you and stick you in the back of my car. So if you're not under arrest, it's for no other reason than you were damn lucky—”

“I've got to get home,” Charlie interrupted, his voice plaintive. It was obvious that he was very tired. “My mom's going to be mad.”

Mac stared at his old friend in sadness and sympathy.

“Tell you what,” Deluca said to Charlie gently. “These fine folks have some dry clothes for you to change into. Then you can get in the back of the squad car, where you can stretch out and relax. I'll have you home in no time.”

And you can't escape from a police cruiser
, Marcus reflected grimly.

“We'll follow you,” Mac decided. “Come on, Marcus. Homecoming's done.”

Marcus nodded. Truer words had never been spoken.

T
he bleachers at Aldrich High School's football field were a fraction the size of East Bonaventure's stadium. But the stands were jam-packed, and the excitement became even more supercharged as kickoff time approached.

The town of Kennesaw had bought into the story of their Raiders one hundred percent. But Poughkeepsie West had sent four busloads of their own supporters, so they were well represented. There was an epic feeling about this game—the DNA juggernaut against the team that had last defeated them. The single major obstacle in the Raiders' quest for double perfection. An old rivalry ratcheted up to fever pitch.

Chelsea looked around the facility as if it had been designed to house some incomprehensible alien custom on a distant planet. Although she went to school just a few hundred yards away, she hadn't set foot in this place for more than a year. Ever since it had become apparent that football was the cause of her father's problems. The fact that Troy still played the sport—and their parents came to watch—made about as much sense to her as the medieval custom of tipping your own executioner.

She found her brother on the sidelines, scanning the general area of the stands where the Popoviches normally sat. The last time she'd watched him play, his pregame concentration had been so absolute that he'd barely even noticed there was a stadium around him. The contrast was striking.

“Troy.”

He spun around, startled to see her. “Where is he?”

She almost smiled. Her brother was alternately angry, impatient, and sarcastic about their father's condition; he was constantly bugging Mom to stop bringing him to games. But deep down, Troy was twice as heartbroken as anybody. Sometimes that was the only thing that kept her from hating him.

“He's going to be late,” she said evasively.

“What do you mean ‘late'? What's going on?”

“Walk with me. The whole world doesn't need to hear this.” They moved a few feet away toward the visitors' bench. “Listen—don't freak out. Daddy went to homecoming at EBU.”

“Don't give me that! How would he even get there?” His eyes widened. “Your boyfriend?”

Chelsea reddened. “He's not my boyfriend. He's a dead man when I get my hands on him.”

“Jordan blew off our game, stiffed the team, and took Dad a hundred miles on that scooter thingie?”

“I think he dug up some old friend of Dad's and they went together. Anyway, Daddy's fine. The police have him, and they're driving him home.”

“Why the cops? Now everyone's going to
know
!”

“How could we not call them?” Chelsea demanded. “You turn on the computer and see your missing person streaming live from across the state! What would
you
do? If he wandered away from there, he'd be gone forever!”