Behind the Curtain

by Peter Abrahams

  “What’s it supposed to mean?” said Carl Senior.

  “Just what it says,” said Ingrid.

  He put on a pair of glasses and squinted at the writing, holding the page very close. His eyes were bad. Was it possible he hadn’t recognized her? He’d only seen her once, that time at Chloe’s.

  “Who’s this athlete?” he said.

  “Me,” said Ingrid.

  “You’re a girl.”

  “So?” said Ingrid. “I’ve got money.”

  “Think there’s other girls interested in this?” he said.

  “Interested in what?” said Ingrid.

  A long pause. “Getting stronger,” said Carl Senior.

  “You haven’t sold to any girls?” Ingrid said.

  “Not yet.”

  Wow. As close as you could get to an admission of selling to boys, digitally recorded. She tried to nail it down. “So I’d be the first.”

  He nodded.

  A nod was no good to her.

  “The very first,” she said.

  Another nod, this one barely perceptible.

  “And all the rest are boys,” she added.

  But he wouldn’t bite. Instead he peered down at her. “I know you from somewheres?”

  “No,” said Ingrid. “Did you bring the stuff or not?”

  “In a hurry, ain’t you?” said Carl Senior. “What’s the rush?”

  “You don’t have it?” Ingrid said.

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “It’s the”—what was the right kind of sleazy expression?—“good stuff I want,” said Ingrid.

  “The good stuff?”

  “That the boys get,” she said. “From Mexico.”

  “Mexico?” said Carl Senior. “What do you know about Mexico?”

  “Nothing,” said Ingrid. “I don’t even know how it gets here from Mexico.”

  Carl Senior went still. “What’d you say?”

  “Like all the stops along the way,” Ingrid said. “Or do you go down there and get it yourself?”

  Carl Senior came a little closer. Ingrid stepped back. “You ask a lot of questions,” he said.

  “Everyone says that,” said Ingrid. Breezy, all of a sudden. What was wrong with her? Had she gone insane? “If you’ll just sell me the good Mexican stuff, I’ll be out of your hair.”

  Carl Senior gave his head a hard little shake, like some bee was buzzing close by. “What’s all this about Mexico?” he said.

  “Forget I mentioned it,” Ingrid said. “I don’t know anything about Mexico.” But then another bit of insanity took over. “I don’t even know any Mexicans—except maybe that guy at the hospital.”

  Carl Senior slid one hand inside his coat. “Hospital?”

  “And he might not even be Mexican,” Ingrid said. “His name’s Rey Vasquez.” A quick shift of those sunken eyes. “Know him, by any chance?”

  “No.”

  “Then that’s that,” Ingrid said. “I’ve brought a hundred and two dollars. What does that get me?”

  “Let’s see the money,” said Carl Senior.

  “First I need to know you brought it.”

  “I brought it.”

  “You brought what?”

  “The pills, for Chrissake. The steroids. What else are we talking about?”

  There. At last, he’d spoken the magic word. She’d done it! Now just a quick exchange, money for—

  But at that moment, a third voice spoke. This third voice, metallic and soulless, spoke from her pocket.

  “Remaining recording time two minutes and ten seconds.”

  Carl Senior’s gaze dipped to her pocket, then rose back up to her face. His own face went through quick changes—confusion, understanding, rage.

  In one motion, without a thought, Ingrid jumped right through the hole in the tree house floor. She clutched at the tree trunk, got a grip on one of those footholds, lost it, and fell. A long fall—hands flailing at the bark, fingernails breaking—that ended with a hard landing in damp leaves, the wind knocked out of her.

  Ingrid looked up. Carl Senior’s booted feet came through the hole, felt around, found a foothold. He started down.

  Ingrid sat up, sucked in air. Carl Senior’s boots scraped against the tree. Ingrid got to her feet. His head appeared through the hole. She turned for home, not feeling great, but good enough. No way she couldn’t outrun this old man.

  She ran. Back onto the path, back up the rise, a minute or two from being in her locked house and dialing 911. Around the bend, running hard now, almost full speed, and—

  A man stepped out from behind a tree, cutting her off. Very tall, huge hands, that same beaky nose, comb-over: Carl Junior.

  Ingrid spun around. Carl Senior came over the rise, walking stiffly but pretty fast with—oh my God—a noose swinging in his hand.

  Ingrid looked left, then right. Left led deeper into the woods, but wouldn’t right take her toward the long rutted drive behind 113 Maple Lane? She bounded off the path, heading right. Turning it on now, with hard footsteps fast behind her, Ingrid dodged around a tree, leaped over a boulder, ripped right through a clump of those purple brambles, tripped over a tree root, regained her balance, and charged through a little clearing—straight into the arms of Carl Kraken the third.

  His fingers dug deep in her shoulders. “Hey,” he called out. “This is her—little snoop I was tellin’ you about.”

  “Hold her right there,” Carl Junior called back.

  “Don’t worry, Pop, I got her.” One hand still digging into her shoulder, the other grabbing her hair. That hair grabbing: Ingrid had never hated anything more in her life. Grampy’s words came to her: I kicked him in the place where sometimes you got to kick a guy.

  Ingrid kicked Carl the third right where Grampy said, hard as she could. When it came to kicking, Ingrid wasn’t at the level of big girls like Stacy and Glastonbury’s red-haired sweeper, a long way down from that.

  But good enough. The air went whooshing out of Carl the third, and he let go of her and crumpled down on the forest floor, making agonized noises. Ingrid took off. The problem was, those agonized noises were so loud, she hadn’t heard Carl Junior coming. He tackled her before she’d gone two steps.

  Ingrid tried to wriggle away. No good. Carl Junior was strong. He flipped her over, locked both her wrists in one of his huge hands, stuck a knee in her back.

  Carl Senior came hurrying up, stepping over his writhing grandson without a glance. He was breathing hard, a foamy ring around his mouth. “She’s got some kinda tape recorder in her pocket.”

  “Goddamn,” said Carl Junior, pressing harder with his knee.

  “I’m gonna kill her,” groaned Carl the third.

  Ingrid started to scream, but Carl Junior clapped his other hand over her mouth. His hand smelled horrible. Carl Senior leaned down, squinted at her. Recognition dawned.

  “By God,” he said. “Aylmer Hill’s little darlin’.” He felt his crooked nose. Then he smiled, a horrible smile, all brown pointy teeth and a strange white-tipped tongue. That scream of fear ballooned inside Ingrid, bottled up by Carl Junior’s stinking hand. She was about to bite it when someone shouted, “Freeze!”

  Someone Ingrid knew.

  They all looked up. Chief Strade stepped into the clearing. He had a gun in his hand, pointed right between Carl Junior’s eyes.

  “Whether you see another day, Junior,” said the chief, “depends on how fast you let go of her.”

  Carl Junior turned out to be very fast.

  “Hands up,” said the chief.

  The Krakens raised their hands. By now, Carl the third was on his feet. He started backing away toward the trees, his mind easy to read: How’s he going to cover us all? That was when Sergeant Berry, who played Santa in the Christmas parade, came huffing and puffing into the clearing from the direction of the tree house, a few other cops behind him. Carl the third froze again. Sergeant Berry clapped the cuffs on him.

  “Entrapment, that’s what
it is,” said Carl Senior, giving Ingrid a furious glare.

  “Cuff him,” said Chief Strade. “Cuff ’em all.” The chief looked even more furious than Carl Senior. He came closer, stood beside her. The chief had a piney smell. “Sorry, Ingrid,” he said. “You got started a little ahead of schedule.”

  Things fell into place. “That was you in the closet?” she said.

  He nodded.

  “You picked the tree house?”

  He put his arm around her shoulders. “I’ve been working on this operation for some time,” he said. “Just not with your kind of efficiency.”

  “Then you know about Rey Vasquez.”

  “Who’s he?” said the chief.

  Ingrid explained.

  “Sergeant Berry, go pick him up,” said the chief.

  Sergeant Berry took a hit off his inhaler and headed off.

  “What else you got for us, Ingrid?” said the chief.

  “Nothing, really,” said Ingrid. “Just this recorder. Oh, yeah, and some DNA.”

  He smiled down at her, anger draining out of him. “I can see you’ve got a question,” he said.

  “Joey’s monster truck tickets,” said Ingrid.

  “Just my dumb attempt at keeping you out of harm’s way,” Chief Strade said. “Not my only dumb move.”

  “Meaning you believe me?” Ingrid said.

  “Be a fool not to,” said the chief. “Let’s get ’em locked up.”

  twenty-six

  FROM The Echo:

  STEROID RING BUSTED

  Four local men have been arrested on charges of trafficking in steroids, according to Chief GilbertL. Strade. More arrests and more charges, including kidnapping, are possible, the chief said.

  In an exclusive interview with The Echo, Chief Strade described a web of deceit that stretched from clandestine labs in Mexico all the way to the athletic locker rooms and gyms of Echo Falls. Few details were available at press time, but the chief made a point of emphasizing the assistance rendered by a Ferrand Middle School eighth grader.

  Without the help of this student, whose name is being withheld, “the bad guys might still be on the loose,” said Chief Strade.

  Currently being held without bail are Rey Luis Vasquez, 34, an orderly at Echo Falls Hospital; Carl K. Kraken, Senior, 80, employed as a caretaker in Echo Falls and said to be the ringleader of the group….

  And the rest of the Krakens, but not a word about Ty. His name never came up, not in The Echo and not with Chief Strade.

  “I’m not going to bust anyone for possession,” he said, standing in the kitchen at 99 Maple Lane late Sunday night, Ingrid and her stunned and sunburned family gathered around. Ingrid had already shown him where the kidnapper had parked behind 113, and handed over the Yankees cap with the four precious hairs inside, plus the nail clippings from Carl Junior’s office.

  “Not this time,” said the chief. “I don’t even want to know who they are, for now.” Impossible to tell if Ty was turning red, he was so red already. “But I am speaking to every single coach in town, and all the players.”

  “And after that?” Ingrid said.

  “All bets are off,” said the chief. “Besides being illegal, it’s poison and it’s not happening on my watch.”

  He didn’t look at Ty when he said that, but Ingrid did. Her brother’s eyes met hers. Complete understanding passed both ways.

  “We’re behind you one hundred percent, chief,” Dad said. He went over and put his arm around Ty, patting him on the back. “It’s just infuriating to think how hard Ty here works to get in shape and then find out that some kids are doing it the easy way.”

  “I’m sure it is,” said the chief.

  That was where the chief stood on possession. Selling was another matter, which left Sean Rubino on the hook. But his name never came up either. Instead, after Chief Strade discovered that Sean was on a job with Mr. Rubino the morning of the kidnapping—easily remembered by everyone involved by how hard it had been to get him out of bed; and after he’d checked the trunk of the Firebird, bare metal so rusted out at the bottom that any human being—even Ingrid’s size—would have fallen right through, the chief made a deal with the Rubinos.

  Stacy called Ingrid to tell her about it.

  “What deal?” Ingrid said.

  “Sean has to go to a military prep school.”

  “Or else?”

  “They never got to ‘or else,’” Stacy said. “He just handed my parents a list of schools.”

  “And?”

  “Sean leaves for Smoky Mountain Military Academy tomorrow. It’s in Kentucky or Oklahoma or some place.”

  “Oh my God. What did he say?”

  “Not a word. Mr. Strade had a private little talk with him first.”

  “Wow.”

  “You know the way Sean’s so into his hair, gels it up and everything?” said Stacy.

  “Yeah.”

  “They shave the cadets bald the second they get off the bus.”

  “Does he know?”

  “Oh, yeah,” said Stacy. “He’s been staring at himself in the mirror all day.”

  A few nice things happened. The Ferrands sent flowers. No one had ever sent Ingrid flowers before. Red roses—two dozen!—and an engraved card with a picture of the Ferrands’ house and a handwritten note: To Ernst and Alicia—thanks for everything, see you in Anguilla. A note meant for Ernst and Alicia, whoever they were, who must have got the note meant for her, whatever it said—the kind of mistake that might happen easily to people in the habit of sending lots of flowers, people like the Ferrands. Mom needed two vases to get them properly displayed. Dad wondered aloud who Ernst and Alicia were.

  Another nice thing: Ms. Groome stopped Ingrid on the way out of math class and said, “I understand everything worked out.”

  “Yeah,” said Ingrid.

  “A cause for celebration, I suppose.”

  “Thanks, Ms. Groome,” said Ingrid.

  And one more. She talked Mom into buying her Rollerblades at Sportz and went blading with Joey on the bike path after school. Ingrid could blow Joey away in a footrace, especially a short one, but blades were different. Joey had this effortless technique that somehow got him zooming. Ingrid couldn’t keep up with him. Right from the start he jumped out ahead and then kept increasing his lead till he was out of sight, not exactly what she’d had in mind.

  Joey was waiting on a bench at the end of the path, not too far beyond the falls. Ingrid sat beside him. The bench was angled so they could look back at the falls, the water so black at this time of year, the foam a muted cream. The falls did their shhh thing, but this wasn’t one of those spots where you could hear the double shhh that had given the town its name.

  “How are the Blades?” said Joey.

  “Good.”

  “I could maybe take them down to the shop,” he said. The Strades—just Joey and the chief, his mom not around after the divorce—had a whole workshop in their basement. “If you want.”

  “And do what with them?” Ingrid said.

  “Customize,” said Joey. “What else?”

  “Sounds good,” Ingrid said.

  Not long after, they were in Joey’s basement, Ingrid’s Rollerblades on the workbench, separated into all their component parts and maybe a few more. Joey switched on a strong light.

  “See these things?” he said.

  “Those?” said Ingrid, pointing; their hands touched for a moment.

  “Yeah,” said Joey. “I’m going to put in better ones.”

  “Better how?”

  “More titanium.”

  Titanium—one of those words you heard from time to time, but Ingrid didn’t know much about it. “What’s so special about titanium anyway?” she said.

  Joey, working with a tiny screwdriver, the tip of his tongue sticking out, paused. “Strong as steel and half the weight,” he said.

  “Yeah?”

  “Plus it won’t corrode.”

  “How do you know all th
is?”

  Joey shrugged and went back to work. At that moment, maybe because of the bright light he was working under, Ingrid noticed that his ears were kind of nice. Ingrid had never really noticed much about ears before, couldn’t say what exactly made Joey’s nice. She leaned a little closer. That was when she got the idea—not an idea, more of an urge—to give his ear a quick little kiss. She was just about to do that, her lips so close—although Joey, bent forward in concentration, seemed oblivious—when the basement door opened and Chief Strade came in.

  Ingrid rocked back, so hard she almost fell off the stool.

  “Hi, kids,” he said, facial expression and voice neutral. “What’s doing?”

  “Not much,” said Joey, reaching for an even smaller screwdriver.

  “Joey’s customizing my Blades,” said Ingrid.

  The chief’s mouth opened as though he were about to say something—maybe something funny; Ingrid could see that in his eyes. But the look faded quickly, and all he said was “When you’ve got a moment, Ingrid, I’d like a quick word.”

  Joey glanced up. “About what?”

  “Is your name Ingrid?” said the chief.

  Ingrid followed the chief upstairs and into the kitchen. Ingrid saw the first snowflakes of the year drifting down outside the window. Chief Strade opened the woodstove and tossed in a log.

  “There’s been a little hitch,” he said. “Not with the steroid investigation. That’s a slam-dunk—they’re all headed for prison. This is about the kidnapping.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  The chief leaned against the table; its legs creaked under his weight. “I’m having trouble fitting it all together,” he said. “The problem is that everyone’s got an alibi for where they were on MathFest morning.”

  “They do?”

  The chief ticked them off on his huge fingers. “The Krakens were deer hunting the whole weekend in Pennsylvania.”

  “All of them?”