Akita was talking to some of his more senior level students at the end of a class. Hax approached, but then stood back and waited. After the students left, Akita looked around the nearly empty gym and saw Hax standing there. A big smile broke out on his face and he said, “Hax! Are you going to be able to come to the studio again?”
“Um, no Master Akita. I’m still out for football. My dad hopes I might be able to get a scholarship to college.”
Akita tilted his head curiously, “You said that before, but I’ve been wondering about it. I’ve been told football is a game for very large people? You’re tall, but not very… thick, so to speak. Will you really be able to compete?”
Hax drew back as if in great surprise, then said with a wink, “Master Akita! How could you say that?! You’ve been telling me that size is not so important for years now!”
Akita smiled at the jibe, “Not so important in a fight, perhaps. But I get the impression size is very important in football, no?”
Hax grinned back, “Well, yes, you’re right, but I’m trying to minimize it by using some of the things you’ve taught me while I’m playing football.”
Akita frowned, “Really?”
Hax nodded, “Yes, I’m playing quarterback, so they’re trying to tackle me…”
“Quarterback?”
At first he thought that Akita was surprised to think that Hax could play quarterback. Then he realized that Akita didn’t have any idea what a quarterback was. To his amazement, Hax found himself explaining the game of football to Master Akita. At first, he thought to explain the entire game, but quickly limited himself to what the quarterback did and how the defensive lineman tried to attack him. “So, when they come through the offensive line…”
“Wouldn’t the best thing be to just run away from them?”
“No, our team’s trying to move the ball forward, so if I run backwards that’s very counterproductive.”
“But, surely, if you’re having to hold onto the ball with your right hand, you can’t be fighting those huge men with just the left one?”
Hax shook his head, “I don’t have to fight them. I just need to keep them from throwing me to the ground.”
Akita seemed to find this problem an interesting one. He said, “Why don’t you try to do this ‘tackling’ thing to me? That way I can better understand what happens?”
Hax had Akita stand back and reminded him that he needed to protect the ball. “The coaches want me to keep both hands on the ball all the time until I’m actually throwing it. But my fingers are long enough that I can hold the ball pretty solidly, just using one hand. So I think I can use my left hand to avoid tackles if I have to. However, if you can teach me how to avoid getting tackled while I’m holding the ball with both hands, that’d be awesome.”
Akita just smiled and shook his head at the idea.
Hax charged forward in his best imitation of a lineman, trying to tackle Akita. Akita dropped to one knee, used his left hand to lift Hax’s body, and submarined under Hax, popping back up once Hax had gone by.
“Um,” Hax said, “that worked fine, but the quarterback can’t put a knee down. If I do, it’s the same as if I’d been tackled.”
After several more false starts, Akita began to come up with ideas that Hax thought might be legal techniques. Most of them involved dodging the tackler to one side while using the left hand to push him to the other. Especially, pushing the tackler’s arm off-line. Akita suggested that Hax turn his body to spin out of the way. Hax felt uncomfortable with the fact that such a move took his eyes away from the view downfield, but accepted Akita’s assertion that it might be worth it if it avoided a tackle.
The two of them switched places, with Akita playing the tackler and Hax trying to avoid being taken down. After each attempt, Akita would critique Hax to improve his technique. “I think, Hax, you know that your reaction times are not the fastest, yes?” At Hax’s nod, Akita continued, “So you must practice your moves hundreds of times until they become second nature. Then, when you see a tackler coming, you choose from your menu of actions and simply execute your roll to the left, or roll to the right, or dodge left, dodge right, etcetera. Just like you perform various throws in martial arts. It won’t be so much how well you react to your opponent as it is how well you execute the throw you’ve chosen.”
Akita let Hax practice the moves they’d worked out several more times, but then said he had to go home and suggested some ways Hax could practice them himself.
Hax hadn’t expected to receive so much of Akita’s time and thanked him repeatedly.
***
Randy Blodgett looked up to see a very tall woman walking purposefully his way. He hid the joint he was smoking by turning it back under his palm and watched her approach. He’d thought the gentle breeze was enough to carry away the odor of the smoke, so he didn’t think she knew he’d been toking up, but he positioned his long finger so he could flick the doobie away into the bushes if she turned out to be a narc.
When she got closer, he decided she was too young to be a narc. He relaxed somewhat, but then she plopped down on the bench next to him which caught him completely by surprise. “Hey,” she said, “I’m Indigo.”
She stuck out a hand to shake and Randy felt grateful that, being left-handed, he could reach out to shake with his right without having to toss his joint first. “Randy,” he said, still trying to process being accosted by a tall but pretty young woman since something like this had never happened to him before.
She lifted her chin interrogatively, “Can I get a drag off your joint?”
Nonplussed, Randy frowned at her and said as indignantly as he could, “I don’t have a joint!”
“Oh, come on. I’m sitting downwind of you. I can smell it.”
A little startled, Randy realized that sitting out here on a bench in the breeze and smoking a J in plain sight while thinking everyone would think he was just smoking a cigarette might not be as good a strategy as he’d thought. I’ll have to find a bench that isn’t upwind of people, he thought, passing his joint over to her. If she takes a toke, she’ll be just as guilty as I am, he thought. He felt some relief when she did so.
“Pretty good stuff,” she said savoring the hit. “Who’s your dealer?”
Randy stared at her for a minute, then said slowly, “He wouldn’t like it if I just gave his name out to anybody.”
She shrugged, “What I’m really looking for are roofies. You think he could get me some?”
Startled, Randy said, “Roofies? The date rape drug? Who’re you planning to assault?”
“It’s a pretty good sedative. A big dose of it kind of paralyzes you and puts you to sleep so people can do nasty things to you. But a tiny dose is really nice for calming my nerves.” She lifted her chin at him again, “Same reason you’re probably smoking that dope. But,” she arched an eyebrow, “people can’t smell roofies from a mile away.”
“Really?! You could smell it a long way away?”
“Nah,” she winked, “not until I got kind of close. I’m just pulling your chain.”
Relieved, Randy said, “I guess I could ask him. Are you in a big hurry?”
She said she wasn’t and left her number with him. As she walked away, he wondered how tall she actually was. He thought she looked pretty cute, and as long as he had her number, he realized he could try to ask her out. But he might be embarrassed if he turned out to be a lot shorter than she was. Aw hell, it wouldn’t hurt me to go out with a girl who’s taller than me.
At least once.
***
Emilio Garcia uncomfortably walked toward the back of the Lareta restaurant. He had two of his men with him, but felt little doubt that he remained in grave danger here, essentially deep in Romano’s den. He’d met Romano in the past because Garcia supplied Romano’s drug dealing network in Blayton. Now, in the absence of the Castanos, Romano had taken over Lareta in addition to Blayton and wanted to negotiate a drug supply for his new location. Ostensi
bly, they were meeting to negotiate arrangements for that supply. However, Garcia was sure Romano must also be wondering what’d actually happened to the Castanos.
In view of the fact that Garcia was rumored to have gotten into a war with and been the one who killed the Castanos, he expected Romano would have some sharp questions.
The restaurant’s hostess stopped before the booth at the very back and said nervously, “Here you are, Mr. Garcia, Mr. Romano. Your waitress will be here in a moment. Can I bring you anything while you’re waiting?”
Romano shook his head. Garcia did as well. The girl headed back toward the front of the restaurant as Romano waved a hand to indicate that Garcia should sit across from him in the deep booth. Garcia hated having his movements restrained by the fixed furniture, but sat down nonetheless. Romano looked up at Garcia’s men and said, “Why don’t you boys sit over there with my fellas? Get acquainted an’ all.”
Garcia looked up and saw his men looking at him. He gave them a nod and they moved uncomfortably away to sit at the table with Romano’s men.
Romano leaned forward, “So, now you’re going to be supplying two of my cities. I think I should get some kind of volume discount over what I’ve been paying in Blayton. Maybe 10%?”
Garcia shook his head, “My margins aren’t big enough. I could give you 4%?”
Romano smiled broadly, “6%?”
Garcia lifted his shoulders, “Five.”
“Okay, that was easy,” Romano said with another smile. He lifted a hand, “But, before we start doing business, I need to know what happened to my predecessor here in Lareta. Word is that you and his guys got in some kind of fight? In his own warehouse? And that only he and his guys got killed?”
Garcia shook his head. “Not true at all, though something bizarre happened.” He gave a puzzled shrug, “Honestly? I still don’t really understand it.”
Romano smiled again, though not very pleasantly, “Tell me your perspective. I may not understand it either, but at least we’ll be on the same page.”
Thoughtfully, Garcia said, “We’d had a meeting with the Castanos where we delivered some product and they paid us with a messenger bag containing cash. I checked the cash when they handed me the bag and counted the right number of bundles. We made the exchange and headed home, but by the time we got there, the bag was $200,000 short.” He shrugged, “Needless to say, I was pretty pissed…”
Romano interrupted, “Some of the bundles weren’t what they were supposed to be? Filler paper or something?”
Garcia shook his head, “No, the bundles that were in the bag were all exactly as they should be. Twenty of the bundles were missing.”
“You sure one of your guys didn’t get into the bag?”
“First thing I thought of. Can’t ever be completely sure of your men, you know?” He glanced at Romano and received a nod, “But I checked it every way I could think of. None of my guys had the cash on them. I checked every place I could think they might have hidden it short-term. We watched them for big expenditures or odd excursions to hide the money.” Garcia shook his head, “Finally I decided it had to be that Castano’d shorted me somehow. I called him and made the accusation, but of course he denied it.” Garcia paused to think about making what’d happened next more believable, and his own actions less menacing, but decided to go with the blunt truth. “I stewed about it for days, but then me and some of the guys headed over to Castanos’ warehouse in the middle of the night.” Garcia glanced at Romano, “You know, that’s where he kept his office too?” Romano nodded, so Garcia continued, “I figured, if we ran into Castano and some of his boys, we’d negotiate—hard, you know? If we didn’t run into anyone, I was planning to just take my piece out of whatever he had stored in his warehouse— kinda like he took his piece outta the messenger bag… somehow…” Garcia trailed off.
Romano didn’t look happy. He said, “So what happened?”
Garcia shrugged, “We got there and the warehouse guard said Castano was in one of the rooms off to one side of the warehouse. We went over to the room he was supposed to be in. It was locked and no one responded to a knock. We broke down the door. He was there all right. Dead. Him, his son, four of his guys… All dead. Essentially the guys who told everyone else what to do. His organization kind of fell apart without its jefes.” He looked at Romano and lifted his chin interrogatively, “Made a nice opening for you, huh?”
Romano narrowed his eyes, “How’d you wind up in the joint?”
“We didn’t know it, but someone’d already called the cops. I’d swear it wasn’t that warehouse guard though. The guy seemed just as surprised as we were to find Castano dead. We were still looking around for our 200 grand—or something else to make us whole—when what seemed like the whole damned police force showed up. They accused us of killing Castano and took us in, but they didn’t really have any evidence. We weren’t carrying any weapons that matched the bullets they found in Castano’s guys. Didn’t even have any gun powder residue on our fingers.” Garcia looked down at the table and chewed his lip for a moment, then looked back up with an irritated expression, “Our lawyers got us out, but it took weeks.”
Romano narrowed his eyes, “So, you’re saying they all died of gunshot wounds?”
Garcia nodded.
“Could they have gotten in a fight with each other?”
Garcia shrugged dubiously. “To be honest they looked like they’d been executed. Each one had a single gunshot wound to the head. But the bullet wounds were in the upper forehead, rather than the back of the head like guys usually do when they’re executing someone.” He licked his lips, “Kinda hard to imagine somebody getting six guys like those hombres to kneel in front of him and let him shoot them, you know? Their hands weren’t tied or anything. They were all carrying guns, but none of them had been pulled out.” Garcia shook his head as if he couldn’t believe it himself, “I just don’t know how anybody could have done it… not to guys like those.”
Romano’s disbelief was evident, “So you’re saying that these guys were all in a row, like somebody made them line up on their knees and then shot each of ‘em in the front of the head?”
“No…” Garcia said slowly. “Not in a row. They were scattered around the room some. Some of them had gunpowder burns around the holes in their heads and some didn’t, as if some were close to the shooter and some were further away. But it was like they’d all been facing the guy that shot ‘em… And either he was really tall, or they were down on their knees. They were all shot in the upper forehead.”
Garcia got the impression that Romano was kind of creeped out by the whole thing too. Romano said, “Maybe someone executed them one at a time somewhere else, then dragged them into that room?”
“Warehouse guard said he’d seen them all in there, alive, about an hour before we showed up. Besides, there were some blood spatters on the floor. Some of it’d been smeared a little, but none of it smeared into streaks as if the bodies had been dragged around through the blood.”
Romano lifted his chin interrogatively, “Maybe Castano had some of the guys hold the other ones?”
“Yeah, it wouldn’t have been Castano though, because he got shot the same way. But maybe some other group came in there, held these guys still and shot ‘em. There’s even a couple of chairs with straps in that room where you could immobilize the guys while you were shooting them. It’s just hard to imagine… I mean you’d have to have a lot of men to hold guys like Castanos’ still for something like that… And none of the Castanos even drew a weapon?” Garcia looked at Romano thoughtfully, “Here’s something scary to think about. My lawyer got to see the forensic reports and they think all those guys got shot with the same gun. Maybe not all one single weapon, but if there was more than one gun, then they were all the same model, etcetera.”
“Well,” Romano said, looking a little pale as if he’d been listening to ghost stories, “I won’t be shorting you on any agreements we negotiate.” He smiled, “We’v
e already agreed on a price, so we just need to decide on quantities, and the date, time and place of delivery, right?”
Glad to be to done talking about whatever creepy thing had happened to the Castanos, Garcia settled down to arranging the rest of the deal with Romano.
***
As Hax ran out onto the field with the rest of the team, his heart pounded and his fingers tingled. It was the first game of the season and Hax was still on the second-string. So, he was only expecting to sub in on the varsity if they needed him. He knew the coaches were keeping Davis, the third-string quarterback, available as well, even though Davis already played in the JV game earlier that day.
After all, Davis had actually played in a varsity game last year, whereas Hax had yet to actually play in any real games.
Hax wondered why he felt so very, very nervous. He’d been a starting player on the baseball team and had felt edgy then, especially the first times he pitched against real opponents, but his nerves had never been anything like this. Of course, playing baseball, the other team’s players weren’t actively trying to hurt you. And there were a lot more people in the stands for football tonight than there’d ever been for baseball. Hallie’d sent him a text telling him she was going to watch the game, which made Hax worry about what she’d think if he didn’t get to play at all.
Maybe part of it was just that the game was so much more physical. They’d played some full contact in practice but he felt pretty sure your own guys probably didn’t hit you as hard as the guys from other teams. Well, except for Elias, he thought. Some of it probably had to do with the fact that this first game was against one of the conference powerhouses. It’d been years since Lareta North had won a game against Benson.
He told himself sternly, I lived through the Castanos saying they were going to kill me! A game shouldn’t freak me out!
To his relief, by the time the team had finished its pregame warm-ups, his jitters had mostly faded.
The Boy Who Couldn’t Miss Page 8