I gave the heavy aluminum window frame another shove. It still didn’t budge. I took a quick look at the other three windows on the rear wall. I was at the right window. I gave it another push, my right shoulder almost touching the glass. Still nothing, but with my face pressed to the windowpane, I saw the problem. I don’t know how I could have missed it earlier. At the edge of each side of the window was an inch-and-a-half diameter wooden dowel blocking the track. A small but effective wooden wedge held the rod in place.
Good grief.
On TV, the bad guy always misses some little something and gets caught. Was that to be my fate?
For the first time, I seriously considered abandoning the plan and going home. No. The mission was too important. It was worth the risk. I refused to live one more day without knowing the truth.
I refused to turn tail and run. Instead, I did the suspicious look-both-ways thing you see every crook do before they break into some place. I had to laugh. The telltale move was an instinctive act. I knew it looked suspicious, but I couldn’t help it. I reached into my burglary toolkit, a small backpack I got for Christmas two years ago. It was too small for school, but since it was a present from Grandmother Nelson, Mom wouldn’t let me throw it away. It was the right size for a burglar tool bag. Granny Nelson would have a cow if she knew.
I pulled out the old shop towel I’d stuffed into the little pack to keep the wire cutters, fence pliers, and a small pry bar from clanking around.
Thinking it would help dampen the noise of breaking glass, I wrapped the towel around the pliers before giving the windowpane a quick but hard rap. I was wrong. The glass shattered with a brain-rattling crash easily heard halfway to Canada. I pressed my back against the wall and froze. Two cars drove by. I could tell by the light their headlights cast on the trees along the rear property line. Why didn’t Law warn me? Had he got caught? Had he chickened out? I held my breath.
A full three minutes passed before I moved again. I used the towel to remove the shards of glass protruding from the edges of the window frame. If the glass cut through my clothes or gloves I could leave DNA. If the Branard cops even had a crime lab.
Once inside, I took the small six-inch LED flashlight out of my pocket and shaded the upper part of the beam with my left hand to shield the light from the windows.
The ground floor of the two-story red-brick field house was divided into three parts. Dressing benches and equipment lockers took up the front section, free-weights and exercise machines filled one side, and the showers and restrooms the other.
The upstairs held the team meeting room and the coaches’ offices. Coach Newcomb had a private office, but the head basketball coach and the head baseball coach shared an office. The other coaches, Jamel’s dad—Coach Crockett—included, each had a small desk in a large open area they called the Bullpen. I had been all over the building dozens of times and could find my way around in total darkness if needed.
I crouched as low as possible without crawling on all fours and weaved my way through the equipment, lockers, and benches. I paused at the base of the stairs to catch a breath of air, but only the stench of stale sweat and mold spores filled my nostrils.
I took the steps two at a time and reached Coach Newcomb’s office in an instant. It was locked. I peered through the little window in the door. I half-expected to see Coach sitting there at his desk in the dark. Of course, he wasn’t.
On the umpteenth try with the pry bar, the door popped open. I went straight to the DVD rack labeled GAME DVDs on the far corner of his desk. Fortunately, the Branard School District hadn’t switched to flash or mini drives in keeping with the times. Those could have been stashed anywhere.
I turned my back to the window to block the light from anyone within the line of sight. I held the flashlight in my mouth and thumbed through the game discs. The Carthage High and West Cleary preseason games were there. Austin Kinney through Baytown High, the games played before I came to town, were there. I found Richfield High, my first game, South Denton, Houston Eisenhower, Houston Lamar, and Bellaire, but only an empty DVD sleeve where the West Cleary play-off game should have been. I rounded the gray metal desk to check the drawers. All locked.
I retrieved the pry bar from the backpack, but before I got the first drawer open, a bright light flooded the street-side windows. Someone was coming.
In a panic, I broke for the stairs, the flashlight still in my mouth. Using the handrails of either side of the stairway, I bounded downstairs taking four and five steps at a time. I stuffed the lit flashlight in my pants’ pocket as I raced across the dressing room and made a circus dive through the open window. I executed a perfect shoulder-roll somersault outside and came up running.
Halfway across the open area, I tripped over a brick or board. The hard crash to the ground took my breath away. I wheezed and gasped for air. I had to get moving, but for a brief moment, lying there in the darkness, I couldn’t remember the location of the bent fence pole I had used for a landmark. I shook the cobwebs from my brain and rubbed my scraped knee. A car horn blasted somewhere nearby. I checked over my shoulder and saw the silhouettes of two cars by the sports complex’s main gate.
Running in a low crouch, I made it to the concession stands. I stopped for a half-second to peek around the corner. A spotlight from a car on Patten Street scanned the field house and the adjoining areas. The cops.
Damn you, Law.
I faced one last moonlit area—the space between the concession stands and the maintenance shed at the far northwest corner of the property. I saw two courses of action. Run as fast as I could and hope the cops weren’t looking my way, or take ten or more minutes and belly-crawl the thirty yards. I opted for the run-like-your-pants-are-on-fire-and-hope approach.
Chapter Twenty-Two
I walked, ran, and shadow-lurked my way to the Stop and Grab on Franklin. Law was to meet me there after the mission if all went well. Obviously it hadn’t, but I wanted to check and see if he came anyway. Once my head cleared a bit, one big question gnawed at my gut. What happened to Law? I had been adamant. If the cops showed, call me. Not exactly rocket science. I also told him to go home if the cops came, but since he didn’t warn me, I didn’t know what to think.
I spotted his pickup, away from the streetlights in the café’s side parking lot. The owner of the Stop and Grab had converted an old convenience store into a twenty-four-hour burger joint some years ago but never bothered to change the name. We picked the place because we knew it wouldn’t be crowded in the middle of the night. Not that we’d ever seen it overrun with customers anytime.
Law sat in one of the rear booths. He looked like I felt—frazzled. When I slid into the bench opposite him, he gasped for air and grunted, “Man… am I…glad to see you.” He lowered his chin and shook his head. “We screwed up bad.”
I almost said, “You sure did,” but waited for his explanation.
He took two slow breaths and said, “The burn phone was a good idea except for one thing. We made sure it was charged up and all, but we didn’t think to make a test call.”
“So what happened?” I asked in a pant. My body was spent, but adrenaline had my brain in high gear.
“The first car turned off before I figured out how to unlock the screen. Then, with the other two, when I hit Send, I got a Device Not Activated message.”
I cringed. “What went wrong? I followed all of the instructions on the box.”
Law leaned forward as though he would say something but didn’t.
In our hearts, we both knew what went wrong. Once more, the cosmos winked at the devil and said, “Hey, there’s ol’ Todd Nelson. Let’s screw with him some more.”
Law leaned back in his seat and said, “Man, I’m sorry. I…I mean, I didn’t know what to do.” He spoke a mile a minute.
“We’re cool. It’s all on me, but to tell the truth, I was ready to strangle you when those cars came by and you didn’t call. Then when the cops showed…”
“I kno
w. I know. I almost lost it. I did run down to the truck and honk the horn when I saw those cops, though.”
“Good thing you did. Another couple of minutes and I would have been toast.” I took off my hoodie and used it to wipe sweat from my forehead. I said, “I guess the building had an alarm after all. I sure never saw any signs of one.”
“I’ve used that field house for three years, and I never noticed one.”
“I guess that’s the plan, but most places with alarms have those “This building protected by such and such security company” signs. Don’t they?”
“I guess.”
An awkward few minutes passed before Law asked, “Well, did you get it?”
“No. It wasn’t there.”
“What? You were in there a pretty long time.”
“Wait.” I held up a palm. I squeezed my eyes shut and sucked in a deep gasp of stale café air. As I gathered my wits, Law nervously picked at a hole in the worn red plastic tablecloth.
Peggy, our hundred-year-old sleep-walking waitress, approached our table. She was ghost pale and looked as if she hadn’t slept in a year. “What can I getcha?”
We ordered chili cheese fries and Cokes, not wanting to be squatters.
Peggy asked, “You boys are out awful late, aren’t you?” as she plopped our plates on the table.
Law and I shrugged.
She asked, “Anything else?” but shuffled away before we could reply.
My stomach ached too much for me to even try the fries. I shoved my plate toward Law’s. “You want these?” I dumped my fries on top of his.
“Whoa!” Law shoved his plate to the middle of the table. “My belly is tied in a million knots.”
Elbows on the table, I rested my head in my hands and closed my eyes.
Law asked, “What do we do now?”
“I don’t know. Right now, I’m zombiefied,” I answered without looking up. I checked my watch: 4:12 a.m. “I need to get on home. I hope Dad didn’t decide to look in on me last night.”
“And if he did?” asked Law.
“I’ll be grounded for life.” I slouched back in the seat. “Not that it matters all that much. My life’s already as deep in the crapper as it can go.”
“I’ll drop you.”
“Oh yeah, no ride.” I wasn’t thinking straight.
We paid the check and headed for Law’s truck.
I said, “Call me in the morning.”
“Morning? No. How about sometime midafternoon? This fine-tuned machine requires a minimum of eight hours sleep.” He raised and curled both arms to show off his guns. “You don’t come by a body like this by neglecting the essentials.”
»»•««
Josh and Dad were both gone by the time I woke at eleven twenty. Had Dad known I’d been AWOL all night, he would have waited up with a lecture and immediate punishment.
I splashed cold water on my face, threw on some clothes, and stuck two Toaster-Mates in the toaster. I ate more out of habit than hunger. I felt weak and queasy. More sick to my heart than stomach.
At two forty that afternoon, Law burst through the front door. “What say we get out of here? I’ve got some big news.”
“What?”
“Not here. I don’t want us to be interrupted.”
“What news?” I asked again, but Law repeated, “Not here,” and sauntered to the door.
His big news was probably trivial anyway. Law’s last big announcement was that Outdoor Mart had put Skyler graphite fishing rods on sale for 25 percent off.
I said, “This place is depressing. If I have to spend one more minute here, I’ll shoot myself. Let’s go.” I gathered up my trash and dirty dishes and wiped down the counter. No profit in provoking Papa Bear. He hated kitchen clutter.
As we stepped outside, a blast of heat assaulted us, full on. Late December, and we were sweating like a couple of polar bears in a sauna by the time we reached Law’s truck.
“Benny’s?” Law asked.
“Not there.” Another cold shoulder from Lisa would be more than I could take.
“Where to then?”
“How about Joe Java’s?”
Law started his truck. “Joe Java’s it is.” He squeaked his tires on the pavement as we pulled out.
“Careful, Officer Hightower drives this way on his way to work and back.”
“Thanks for the too-late warning.”
I said, “At least I warned you.”
“Don’t start. Last night was as much your fault as mine.”
We wagged our heads in unison.
“Yeah,” I said. “We’re a couple of real double-oh-sevens.”
“Besides,” Law said. “That wasn’t a peel-out. If I’d really sheared down on it, the FBI would’ve heard the squeal and smelled the burned rubber all the way up in Washington, DC.”
»»•««
Joe’s was teeming with customers. The order line was a mile long.
I asked Law, “Wanna try someplace else?”
He shrugged and grinned. “It’ll take just as long getting somewhere else, and you’re not gonna want to wait to hear what I figured out. And,” he added, “the sandwiches here are humongous.”
Law swayed from side to side as we waited, inching toward the ORDER HERE sign minute by excruciating minute. He never seemed to get in a rush. I envied his laid-back, easy style. As the son of a preacher, I was always told to “Be on time. Stand up straight. Don’t slouch. Tuck in your shirt.”
We ordered, took our number, and found a place to sit away from the other customers.
“Man,” Law said, “I can’t believe you actually got away last night. I saw you clear as day when you ran between the building and the shed. You were a perfect outline in the moonlight, but I don’t think the cops ever saw you.” He shook his head. “You were really lucky.”
“Lucky? I didn’t get the video.” I stared at my sugar-no-cream coffee in the heavy white mug.
“You were in there long enough to find it. What happened?” Law asked.
“I checked everywhere. All of the other discs were in the big black case on Coach’s desk, but not that last game. The sleeve was there but not the disc. He must have moved it.”
“Or canned it,” said Law.
“Yeah, but why?”
“I was thinking.”
I started to make a joke, but Law stopped me.
“Yeah, yeah, I do think, sometimes, and I figured out what happened on the play.” He scooted his chair closer to the table and leaned forward.
“Is this your big news?” I asked.
“You bet it is. Listen and learn, my friend. Unless the ref was hallucinating or something, he called the penalty on you by mistake. It was someone else who held.” Law took out a ballpoint pen and began to sketch out the play on a paper napkin. “Look, here is the lineup. This is West Cleary’s tailback”—Law darkened one of the X’s he had drawn—“and this is you.” He filled in the circle that represented me. He continued his demonstration, recreating every player’s predicted movement.
“Do you think I haven’t done this a hundred times on my own?” I asked.
Law ignored me and went back to his doodle. “Their tackle tries to push you wide outside left. You either spin left or spin right. As I remember, he was a giant.”
“Two-ninety according to our scouting report,” I said. “He pushed me to the outside. I ducked and spun counter-clockwise and slid by him.”
“Okay, their right guard pulled, and you were behind him, right?”
“Right.”
“That put the right guard between you and the left guard, the guy you were supposed to have held. I just don’t see how you could have grabbed any part of him,” said Law. “By the time you could make all the way around the right side, he would have been five yards up the field blocking our safety. How on earth could you have chased him down from that far back?”
“I couldn’t,” I said. “I know all of this, so what’s your point?”
“Look here.” He pointed to his drawing. He had drawn lines to show each player’s progression. “Ed was double-teamed on the inside. Troy was on the ground, that much I remember, and Parker was tackling the runner.”
Suddenly, it all made sense. It was as plain as the nose on a circus clown’s face.
Law saw it too.
“I’ll be…”
I stopped him. “Don’t say it.”
“Why didn’t we see this before?” he asked.
“You mean, why didn’t I see it one of the thousands of times I ran through it in my mind?”
“Yeah, that.”
“I guess I was always focused on where I was and what I was doing, not everyone else.” I shook my head and punched Law in the shoulder. “Who would’a thunk it? You are a genius, my friend. A genuine, gold-plated, dyed-in-the-wool genius.”
“Are you just now figuring that out?”
I bowed my head in mock embarrassment and said, “To my eternal shame.”
Knowing the truth only served to further fuel the ever-present anger that lurked just under the surface.
Coach knew all along but hid the truth!
Just then, my cell phone rang. “Todd, this is Gene Brunson. I’m headed over to your house now. I need you to meet me there right away. Something serious has come up.”
What now?
Chapter Twenty-Three
Law dropped me off at home. Once in the house, I found a note from Dad. It said, “More meetings tonight. Josh is at the Brunsons’.” I figured that Mr. Brunson’s something serious had something to do with Branard’s newest junior mafia.
Law said he probably ought to go, but I asked him to stay. We each grabbed a soda from the fridge and the last two ice-cream sandwiches from the freezer, but before we could sit, we heard a knock at the door. I peeked out. Mr. Brunson, my brother, Josh, and two uniformed cops waited on the stoop.
I told Law, “The little creeps just couldn’t stop. Now, I bet Josh and his buddy have been caught in the act.”
Half the Distance Page 16