The Fourth Stall Part III (8 page)

T
he Sunday after the most insane week I thought our school had probably ever had (yes, even more insane than when the SMARTs and everything had happened last year), Vince, Staples, and I were playing catch in the playground in Vince's trailer park. We were playing catch because Staples had said, “Having a catch is like the Super Bowl of Big Brother activities.” But also, it was sort of nice to escape the recent insanity with some relatively mindless Sunday afternoon baseball.

Even if Staples kept trying to kill us.

We had a classic triangle going. I stood near the sandbox (the very same one that Vince and I had used as our first-ever office almost seven years ago), Vince stood about twenty yards away near his trailer, and Staples was standing about twenty yards from each of us in front of this creepy small scarecrow that Mrs. King had erected next to her small garden.

At first we had all laughed at the small but oddly ominous scarecrow, but as the afternoon went on, I saw Staples stealing small glances over his shoulder at it. It was making him nervous. It was kind of bizarre and hilarious to see Staples getting so jittery near an inanimate object, but at the same time it only made the scarecrow seem even creepier.

I maybe would have even laughed at him if he hadn't been trying to kill us, like I mentioned before. Every time he threw the ball to either Vince or me, he basically just rifled it as hard as he could. And he could throw pretty hard. I was guessing he even could have ended up playing at least college baseball if he hadn't gotten mixed up in the crime world as a kid and if his life had gone differently.

He laughed the first few times when it caught us off-guard and we had to duck or flinch as we caught the ball. But after a few times Vince and I were handling his fireballs with ease. That wasn't to say that my glove hand wasn't sore, but we were both good enough to at least make the catch every time without flinching.

Anyways, after a little bit we both started throwing back at him pretty hard ourselves. He handled our throws even better than we caught his, mostly because we couldn't throw nearly as hard as he could, not even Vince. All in all, it was the most tense and hostile game of catch that I'd ever participated in.

But then, Vince threw Staples one of his signature circle changeups. It's by far Vince's best pitch. It looks just like a slightly slower fastball until it gets to you and just falls off the table. Not many seventh graders can throw a pitch that breaks as much as that one does. So when it got to Staples, even if he had recognized it for something other than a fastball, he still likely would have missed it.

The ball sailed right under his glove, hit the fake trailer park playground grass, and bounced up and nailed the scarecrow right in the leg.

“Ow!” yelled the scarecrow.

I swear Staples must have jumped seven feet straight into the air. Then he turned and backpedaled away from the talking scarecrow so quickly he tripped and fell back onto his butt. Vince and I would have been laughing if we also weren't pretty spooked ourselves.

Then the scarecrow climbed down from its post and took a step toward us. Its motionless burlap face with button eyes was fixed into a mouthless and dead stare. Staples was almost shaking, he looked so freaked out.

He climbed to his feet and took several steps back.

“If you come any closer, I'll tear your head off,” Staples said, although it wasn't too effective of a threat since you could plainly hear the fear in his voice.

The scarecrow stopped walking and then reached up and tore its own face off.

“Please don't do that,” the scarecrow said calmly.

But of course it wasn't actually a scarecrow. It was Tyrell.

“Who are you?” Staples demanded.

“He's a friend of ours,” I said.

“Man, you guys have some weird friends,” Staples said, shaking his head. “Who
does
that, seriously?”

I tried not to laugh. Tyrell, to his credit, just shrugged and smiled.

“What did you find out?” I asked. “Wait, let me guess. All of the sabotage of school events is somehow related to Jimmy after all, right?”

“It seems like it,” Tyrell said.

“Ha-ha, see? Who needs you? We can figure things out for ourselves!” Vince joked. “It's like my grandma told me once, ‘If you can see any of your own bones without a mirror, then everything is definitely not okay. Drink a milkshake immediately! And then call a banker!'”

We all laughed except for Staples. He stared at Vince and then said, “What the heck is wrong with your grandma?”

“She's a genius, that's all.”

“Anyway,” Tyrell said, “do you know
how
everything is related?”

“Hey, I gotta pay you for something,” I said.

He nodded and then continued, “Well, turns out that I spotted some younger kids hanging around our school a lot. I saw some sneaking around right before all of the recent
incidents
, like the recital and the swimming pool bloodbath massacre. And these kids definitely don't go to our school, Mac.”

This was all way too confusing. Why would another school be randomly sabotaging us?

“So how is that connected to Jimmy?” Vince asked. “I mean, he can't be paying them because those things are all causing him problems, too.”

Tyrell shrugged. “Well, then this next part will really surprise you. I caught Jimmy making cash payments to some of the same kids who I saw sneaking around the pool right after the swimming-pool bloodbath.”

I shook my head. This just didn't make sense.

“No way,” I said.

“I've got video evidence if you really need to see it,” Tyrell said.

Vince and I looked at each other. His head looked even more like it was about to explode than mine felt.

“So where are these kids from? Tell me you found out . . . ,” I said.

Tyrell grinned and nodded, then furrowed his eyebrows, showing that even he didn't quite understand the
why
of what he was going to say next.

“They're from Thief Valley Elementary,” he said.

I think all of us must have looked pretty funny just then with our mouths hanging open like idiots. After I collected myself, I handed Tyrell another ten-dollar bill.

“Well, thanks, Tyrell. Nice work as usual,” I said.

“No problem,” Tyrell said, and then seemingly vanished again. I mean, really, he just ducked behind some bushes, but once he was out of sight, it was like he had never been there at all.

Vince and I looked at each other.

“See?” Staples said. “That school is horrible. I've got to get my sister out of there before she gets involved in this crap.”

“What now?” Vince asked me.

“I don't think this changes anything. I still say we stay out of this. This is Jimmy's mess; he can dig our school out of it somehow.”

“Really? You're going to let this spiral further and further out of control just like that?” Vince asked.

“I'm not letting anything happen! It's not my job to keep the whole school out of trouble,” I said. “Besides, what can I do? Dickerson has been all over me. If I try anything, we'll get expelled, which won't help anybody.”

I really believed what I was saying. To a point. On one hand, I knew that I was probably the only kid who could fix the problem before the sabotage got so bad that the football games would start getting played with samurai swords instead of a leather ball. But on the other, the Dickerson element was still the ultimate deciding factor. My hands were essentially tied.

I thought Vince realized the same thing because he sighed and then nodded in agreement.

“You can't just let this go!” Staples said loudly. “I knew that kids at Thief Valley are bad influences. You saw that kid who was basically bench-pressing two first graders the other day! You need to put an end to whatever sort of conflict there is between the two schools because I don't want Abby getting caught up in stuff like this. She's a good kid; I don't want her to end up like me. Plus, it's going to look really suspicious for me if she somehow ends up in the middle of some serious acts of school warfare right when I'm trying to get back into her life, you know?

“Besides, I
told
you there was no such thing as halfway out. You guys thought you could reap the rewards of the business without any of the consequences. Well, now you're right back where you started, looking down the business end of an expulsion. You see what I mean now, don't you?”

Staples had a point. He'd warned us something like this would happen and we hadn't listened.

He moved closer to me, so close that his shadow covered my face in darkness. His stare burned right through my head and probably set the grass behind me on fire. I tried to swallow, but my body didn't seem to be functioning anymore.

“You're going to help me,” he said quietly. “Because if anything happens to my sister, then I won't have any reason to let you live anymore, will I? I'll have nothing left to lose. Not even the state penitentiary will deter me from exacting my revenge on anybody and everybody who could have stopped bad things from happening to my sister. Besides, I hope you realize that when the Suits finally sort all this out, it's going to lead right back to you guys anyway. Are you really that sure this Jimmy kid won't squeal?”

I glanced over at Vince. Staples made a compelling argument. That much was for sure. Plus, deep down I knew it really was the right thing to do. But not just for his sister—for all the kids involved. I had been lying to myself all this time. There was no retiring from this. Me trying to argue any further would be like a Great White shark trying to become a vegetarian. Fixing problems is what I do. It's in my bones, my DNA.

Besides, if I didn't help, then Staples was going to turn me inside out like a reversible sweatshirt. That by itself kind of made it an easy decision.

“Okay,” I said. “Let's do this.”

“I was wondering when you'd finally give in,” Vince said. “I think you know we should have never allowed this to happen in the first place. We should have just told Jimmy no.”

“Great!” Staples said, suddenly smiling. Then he punched my arm to show we were all good or something. “So where do we start?”

I rubbed my shoulder wondering why some kids learned to communicate with punching instead of words like the rest of us.

“Well, the next step is to arrange another meeting with Jimmy Two-Tone to see exactly what is going on here and why Thief Valley is even involved. But we need to get to Jimmy someplace other than in the East Wing bathroom. Someplace he'll be more exposed and vulnerable and won't have Mitch and Justin there for protection. And especially someplace where I know the Suits won't be watching.”

T
he next day, which was a Monday, I did my best to act normal and keep my distance from Jimmy's office. The last thing I needed was to attract even more attention from the Suits. This was going to be hard enough as it was to resolve without drawing attention. But I'd deal with that problem later. First things first, and the first thing was to get to Jimmy.

After school Vince and I went home just like on any other day. Principal Dickerson followed me home in his gray sedan just like on any other day. Once home all I had to do was wait.

The phone call came at 6:12 p.m. CST.

“Yeah?” I answered.

“He's with his parents at this Italian restaurant called Michael's,” Staples said. “I'll be there to get you in five. Be ready.” He hung up.

We'd given Staples the job of keeping track of where Jimmy went after school. Then as soon as he was someplace in public, either with his parents or alone, we'd make our move. We needed Staples for this job since he was the only one of us with a car.

I told my parents I was going to Vince's and then went outside to meet up with Staples.

The drive to the restaurant took forever. I needed to catch Jimmy there before they left. It was too risky trying to confront him at his house because he could easily just not let me inside. But at a restaurant I could get right next to him and he'd have nowhere to run or hide.

Staples pulled up in front of Michael's Italian Ristorante after about a fifteen-minute drive. I was just hoping it wasn't too late.

“I'll be waiting down the street. Don't mess this up,” Staples said with a menacing look.

I entered the restaurant at 6:34 p.m. CST.

Two men stood in the corner wearing tuxedos and playing string instruments slowly and softly like we were in some old-school Italian village. It didn't seem like a super nice or expensive restaurant in spite of the tuxedoed musicians, but it was apparently pretty popular, given how many tables were filled. The place had a relaxing charm about it that I liked.

It didn't take long to find Jimmy and his parents, since the place wasn't very big. They were seated in a red booth along the far wall—his parents seated on one side, Jimmy on the other. In the dim light they looked just like any other family out to enjoy a nice dinner. No one would suspect that at that table sat one of the most conniving kids ever born and the person apparently solely responsible for starting some sort of war between two schools that had escalated to the point where swimming pools were filled with blood, guts, and body parts (fake, but still).

“Can I help you?” the host asked. She was a cute teenager with short brown hair.

“I'm meeting someone,” I said, pointing toward the back booth.

“Oh, okay, then,” she said with a smile, and then stepped aside.

I made my way back toward their table. They still had food on their plates; I'd made it with time to spare. A few steps away I took a deep breath.

“Hey, Jimmy!” I said as I walked up to them.

Jimmy's eyes grew larger than the giant meatballs sitting on his plate. He dropped his fork. I could see the wheels turning inside his head.

“Oh, Jimmy,” cooed his blue-eyed mom, “is this a little friend of yours from school?”

Jimmy shook his head and was about to say something, but I beat him to the punch.

“Yeah! We're partners in crime, aren't we, Jimmy?” I said. “I came to discuss our next crime . . . uh, I mean, discuss some business.”

“Partners in crime?” his brown-eyed dad said, not sure if I was joking.

“He's only kidding, Dad,” Jimmy said quickly. “Could we, like, sit alone for a second?”

His mom looked uncertain.

“You know, Mom, middle-school stuff!” Jimmy said.

I saw his dad motion toward his mom that they should move.

“Oh, okay, Mom and Dad will go sit at the bar for a little bit,” she said.

“Dad is glad you're making friends, Jimmy,” his dad said.

I marveled at the fact that his parents also did that weird refer-to-themselves-by-their-own-names thing—something Vince told me was called speaking in the third person. Which made no sense since it only involved one person, but whatever. The point is this: his whole family was nuts.

Jimmy's mom and dad got up and took their plates of food and drinks to the small bar at the front of the restaurant. Then it was just Jimmy, me, a half-eaten plate of spaghetti and meatballs, and a candle.

I sat down across from Jimmy Two-Tone and folded my hands in front of me. I started by just staring at him without blinking. Something I'd learned from watching lots of mobster movies and TV shows about training dogs: unflinching eye contact shows your dominance. I tried my best not to blink or smile or even move as I stared Jimmy down in the booth across from me.

He shifted in his seat several times as he tried to match my stare, but he was clearly uncomfortable. Nervous, even. Then he broke eye contact first, losing the battle of dominance. He stuck his fork in his spaghetti and seemed to collect himself a little bit. He took a huge bite that left red lines of sauce all over his cheeks.

“What do you want, guy? Jimmy's trying to enjoy a nice dinner with his family,” he said with his mouth still full, spraying bits of meatball and noodles and sauce all over the white paper covering the table.

He was much less professional at the dinner table than when doing business.

I noticed that there were crayons lying near his plate. I'd seen this before at other restaurants. Sometimes they had huge sheets of white paper instead of normal tablecloths and then they gave your table crayons so you could draw on it. I noticed a few drawings that Jimmy had apparently done as well as a few games of hangman they'd apparently played as a family.

Jimmy's drawings were of a dog chewing on a ball and an eyeball floating in space with a small stickman looking up at it. And one drawing was of a cat sitting in a window. They were surprisingly good drawings.

Jimmy noticed me looking at them, and he shifted his plate so that most of the drawings were covered.

“Jimmy,” I said finally, having let enough silence sit between us to show off my power over him, “when you get into a business like this and you're not totally honest with people, bad things tend to happen.”

Jimmy looked at me and then swallowed before shoving more noodles into his mouth and chewing again.

“What do you mean by that, bro?” he asked, spraying more bits of food onto the table again. “Jimmy doesn't like riddles. Jimmy prefers, like, straight-up talking, dude.”

I reached over and grabbed his plate and slid it across the table and just out of his reach. He looked at me like he wanted to jab his fork into my hand. I picked up a gray crayon and a black crayon.

“This is what I mean,” I said.

I drew a black cat like the one in his drawing—mine wasn't nearly as good, but it looked enough like his that I'm sure he would get the point. Then with the gray crayon I drew a huge knife sticking out of the cat's back. If there'd have been a red crayon, I'd have drawn some blood for effect.

“Hey, bud, are you threatening Jimmy's cat? 'Cause that ain't cool, man, if you are,” Jimmy said, looking nervous. “Jimmy and his cat don't like threats, guy.”

“No, not me, Jimmy. The people you're making back-alley deals with to mess up our school! I don't have anything against you or your cat, aside from you giving this business a dirty name, but that's beside the point. What I'm trying to say is when you make back-alley deals and double-cross people, bad things will happen.”

With that I circled the picture I'd drawn.

“Look, friend, Jimmy doesn't know what you're talking about! Why would you stab Jimmy's cat, Scarface, with that, like, jumbo sword?”

Of course his cat's name was Scarface. That was too obvious. Only a
Scarface
fan would think to do something like that. I bet that like 90 percent of
Scarface
fans had at least one pet named Tony or Scarface.

“This is what I'm talking about,” I said.

I took out my phone and set it on the table. I pressed Play on the video clip Tyrell had forwarded me. He'd edited it so first you see the Swimming Pool Bloodbath Massacre in all its gory glory, then it cuts to two kids sneaking around near some bushes behind the school with bags of supplies that could be used to create a fake cannibal holocaust, then it cuts to them clearly being handed cash-size envelopes from Jimmy under a streetlight with the school clearly visible in the background. All were time-stamped with the same date and within a few hours of each other.

“So, want to tell me why you're making back-alley deals with kids from Thief Valley? Because I really need to know. I hand you my business and then you apparently pay to purposefully sabotage it and yourself? It doesn't make any sense, Jimmy.”

Jimmy buried his face in his hands and shook his head.

“Look,” he said, “Jimmy wasn't trying to sabotage his own business, guy. He was trying to
help
it.”

“I don't get it,” I said.

“Look, friend, right after you handed the business over to me, I was approached by this huge dude who claimed to be representing a rival business owner over at Thief Valley Elementary. Some guy named Ken-Co apparently has an operation pretty similar up there at TV. Ever heard of him?”

I shook my head. This was news to me. I was actually shocked. I had no idea that there was another business just like mine less than fifteen miles away.

“Well,” Jimmy continued, “he's apparently a pretty big deal over there. Makes this business look like a game of hopscotch. So they make Jimmy this offer he can't refuse, right, dude? I mean, they say they'll cause some problems and drum up some business for me in exchange for a small cut of the profits. And Jimmy is thinking, Well, what better way to make a splash with this new business than to show kids right away what Jimmy is capable of, right?”

I just looked at him and waited.

“Anyway, as you know, guy, this is a volume-based business. It's all about the numbers you can churn through. So Jimmy figures this deal is perfect. It's more money all around—more for you and Vince, more for this Ken-Co guy, and more for Jimmy. Win-win-win. But that's when things start to go wrong. At first it works like a charm, but then this Ken-Co guy starts doing too much. The problems he's creating are more than Jimmy can handle. Pretty soon Jimmy owes this guy money. Mac, I just . . . I can't pay my debts. Jimmy's in deep now. It just got so out of hand. I don't know why he double-crossed me like this. I really don't.”

I shook my head. “How deep are you in?”

“Close to four grand,” Jimmy said.

My head about smashed into the table.
Four thousand dollars?
That was insane! How could he have gotten that behind?

“You really think that if I don't pay him back soon, he'll, like, stab Scarface with some giant momma-jamma sword?” he said, glancing nervously at my drawing.

“Yeah, exactly like that,” I said.

“Dude,” he said.

I nodded.

“Guy,” he said, shaking his head in disbelief.

“Why didn't you come to me sooner?” I said.

“Because I knew you wanted to be retired. And, well, Jimmy was kind of embarrassed. Your reputation is a lot to live up to, bro.”

I shook my head and sighed.

“Tell me more about this Ken-Co,” I said.

“Well, Jimmy never really met the guy before. I only met his assistant, but Jimmy heard he's a pretty ruthless guy. I guess he runs a pretty good business. But I don't think he's going to stop sabotaging our school anytime soon.”

Out of the corner of my eye I saw his parents get up and start heading this way.

“All right, Jimmy, I'll be in touch soon,” I said, and then got up to leave.

“Are you going to help me?”

“We'll see,” I said, and then walked past his parents and out the door.

Once outside the restaurant I had to restrain myself from picking up this little dog that some guy was walking and punting it right through the restaurant window. Okay, okay, I'd never actually hurt a dog—I loved dogs—but being that angry can put crazy thoughts into people's heads. I mean, he owed over four thousand dollars? How was that even possible to owe someone that much in just a few weeks? And how was I ever going to find a way to fix this?