Payback Time

by Carl Deuker

  "How much?" my father muttered.

  "Around twenty dollars. I'll pay you back."

  "If it has to do with school, we pay," my father said.

  Kimi was waiting on her porch at seven. When we pulled up in my driveway, Mrs. Marilley our next-door neighbor, was getting into her car. Mrs. Marilley isn't exactly my father's favorite neighbor. She works the night shift at Safeway, and when she gets home, she lets her hound out. "Big Red loves to run in the moonlight" is what she says. "Big Red loves to poop on our lawn" is what my dad says. Normally Mrs. Marilley pays no attention to me, but now she was waving, the whole time sneaking peeks at Kimi. I could see her mind working: "I wonder what that pretty Asian girl sees in him."

  When I opened the door to my house, I expected to see my mom sitting on the sofa, eager to meet Kimi, but the living room was empty. Instantly I knew that had been my dad's doing. I was going to have to find time to watch a game with him again, soon.

  I had cleaned my room and pushed two chairs up to the desk. We sat side by side as I logged onto the Philadelphia Inquirer's archive page. The fee was $21.95 for the right to print twenty articles. I entered the credit card information and looked at her. This was it.

  We tried different search combinations. Angel + high school football + quarterback. The results were weird on that one—2,754 articles, the fourth of which was about some Penn State quarterback who met Hillary Clinton in Indiana, and the sixth one about the Los Angeles Angels.

  "Add the years you think he played and put in the word Philadelphia," Kimi suggested.

  I did it—1012 articles, but at least most of the hits concerned sports.

  "Leave out Angel," Kimi suggested next, "and put Aramingo High School in its place."

  I typed, hovered my finger over the Return button, and then tapped.

  Eighty-four hits, and the entire first screen was about Aramingo High football. "If there's anything, it's here," I said.

  "Can you search inside these articles?" Kimi asked.

  I opened a drop-down menu. "Yeah."

  "Okay, now add Angel."

  I did it, then hit Return.

  Sixteen hits over four years.

  "Click on the oldest one," Kimi said.

  A picture came up first. The name below it was Angel Delarosa, but it was Angel Marichal. A younger Angel Marichal, an Angel Marichal with brighter eyes, but Angel Marichal. The headline read ARAMINGO HIGH RESTS HOPES ON TALENTED FRESHMAN QB.

  Kimi looked at me, and then wrapped her hands around the back of my head, pulled me forward, and kissed me on the forehead. "We did it, Mitch. We did it."

  I printed all sixteen articles, and for the next ninety minutes we flipped through them, helter-skelter, taking turns reading aloud every paragraph that mentioned Angel, both of us too excited to do anything systematically. Then, suddenly, Kimi stopped. "Oh my God," she said, looking at her watch. "I have to go home. I haven't done my calculus homework."

  In the car, neither of us spoke. As we drove along, the strange phone call I'd gotten after the volleyball game came back to me. Angel is one of the good guys. Why would the guy say that? What could he have meant? I wanted to tell Kimi about the phone call and ask her what she thought, but she'd ask why I'd kept the call secret, and how would I answer her?

  When I pulled up in front of her house, Kimi didn't get out. Instead, she looked out the window, away from me. "Somehow I feel sorry for Angel," she said. "Our story is going to make things tough for him."

  I was fighting the same feeling. The Angel in the Inquirer photographs had looked so young, so eager. "The guys we should feel sorry for are his teammates," I said, talking to myself as much as to her. "Because Angel and McNulty cheated, their season is going to blow up. And how about the players on the other teams, the guys that Angel dominated? They shouldn't have had to play against a grown man. That wasn't fair."

  She looked back at me. "You're right, Mitch. But his eyes—he just seems so sad."

  After she went into her house, I drove home. I made myself a cup of tea—I'd actually started to like tea—and carried it upstairs. I sat down at my desk and suddenly felt overwhelmed. I had to write a term paper for my government class and an essay on modern American poetry for English. I had calculus homework every night, and two physics labs due right after Thanksgiving. And there, on the floor, were sixteen articles about Angel, sixteen articles that I had to turn into a story that would destroy Coach McNulty's career, end the football team's dream run, and make me the most hated person at Lincoln High. I didn't know where to start, so I finished my tea and went to bed.

  6

  THE NEXT DAY WAS STRANGE. Kimi and I were on the verge of turning the school upside down, but no one else had a clue. It was like knowing about an earthquake before it was going to hit.

  Once the school day ended, I made my way down to Gilman Field to watch football practice, something I hadn't done in a long time. Coach McNulty was going easy on the guys. They had their helmets on, but there were no pads and no hitting. It made sense—after months of smashing into one another and players on other teams, the guys must have been sore to the bone.

  My eyes were drawn to the second and third stringers, the guys whose names and pictures were never in the paper. They weren't getting scholarships anywhere; they played because they loved the game. I wasn't the one taking the season from them. It was Angel who'd cheated, McNulty who'd let him cheat—but I still felt guilty.

  When I left the practice field, it was too late to run. I ate dinner, climbed upstairs, and did the calculus I absolutely had to complete that night. It had started to rain during dinner, and now the rain was pelting my window. I finished the calculus and then stared at the file holding the sixteen articles about Angel. For months I'd been searching for clues to Angel's past, but now I wished the whole thing would go away. Is that how all reporters felt, I wondered, when they were on the verge of nailing a story? Did they all feel sick at heart about what the story might do? Still, if I was going to be a reporter, I had to let the chips fall where they would.

  I opened the file and got started.

  There was still one way that Angel—and Coach McNulty—could be in the clear. If Angel had been injured early in one of his seasons at Aramingo High, there was a chance he might have been given an extra year of eligibility.

  The odds were one hundred to one against it. If Angel was eligible, why would he have changed his name? Why would McNulty have hidden him? Why would his school records be locked up in McNulty's office? One hundred to one? The odds were more like one thousand to one against it. But I had to check it out.

  From the upstairs closet I pulled out a roll of Christmas wrapping paper. I brought it to my room, cut off a six-foot section, and flipped it over to the white side.

  For the next three hours, I made a timeline of Angel's career at Aramingo, compiling as thorough a record as I could—freshman year to senior year.

  I finished around midnight. Angel had played about half the time as a freshman, was the starting quarterback as a sophomore, and was all-city by the end of his junior year. There was one odd thing—for the first five games of his senior year, his name was all over the sports page. Aramingo High was undefeated, and then—right in the middle of the season—he disappeared.

  I'd have liked to know what happened, but it didn't really matter. A guy plays five games and then blows out his knee, it's his tough luck. No conference is giving a player a year of eligibility back once he's played half a season.

  Besides, there was nothing in the newspaper about an injury, which meant it was probably something else. Maybe he failed his midterms, or got suspended from school for fighting or drinking or drugs. He wouldn't have been the first player to screw up.

  I pinned the timeline to the wall and stared at it. Numbers don't lie. I had the dates, the games, the touchdown passes, the wins, the losses. And pictures don't lie, either. I had photos proving that Angel Delarosa and Angel Marichal were one and the same. Angel hadn't been eligi
ble to play one down in Seattle, and he'd been in every single game. I had him, and I had Coach McNulty. I had them cold.

  I wrote the story the next night. I started right after dinner and finished around eight thirty. The timeline made it simple. When the facts are right, you lay them out and they speak for themselves. Once I finished, I called Kimi. "You got your photos?"

  "I got them. Let's go to Peet's. I can read your story and then pick the photos that will work with it."

  We sat at our usual counter upstairs, and I thought about how much I liked being with her. She read my article while I flipped through all her photos of Angel.

  "It's great," she said, looking at me when she finished. "It is so clear and convincing." I felt a surge of pride. "So what photos should we use?"

  "I think these," I said, pointing to ones she'd taken in the cafeteria.

  She looked disappointed. "Really? They're so plain."

  I had downloaded and printed a photo of Angel during his junior year from the Philadelphia Inquirer. I laid the Philly photo next to hers. Angel looked younger in the Philly photo, but there was no doubt it was the same guy. "Plain is better. The Times could print them like this. See?"

  "Yeah, yeah," she said, her head nodding up and down. "You know, Mitch, there's one last thing we have to do before we bring the story to the Times."

  "What's that?"

  "Show the article to Mr. McNulty and to Angel."

  It was like getting a cup of ice water in the face. "Are you crazy? McNulty will go berserk. So will Angel. Remember how he acted the last time?"

  "They've got to have a chance to give their side."

  "They don't have a side, Kimi. It's all there in black and white."

  "Mitch, what would a real reporter do?"

  That stopped me. "You're right," I said after a long moment. "And I need to call Philadelphia again, too."

  It was her turn to be surprised. "Why Philadelphia?"

  "Angel played five games as a senior, and then he disappeared. No mention of any injury, so probably he got kicked off for drugs or drinking or grades. But a newspaper can't publish probably. Readers want to know what happened."

  Once we'd finished our tea, I drove Kimi home and returned to my own house. I went upstairs, flicked on the light, opened my laptop, logged into my e-mail account, and clicked McNulty's e-mail address in my list of contacts. We need to talk about Angel Marichal, I wrote. I've written a story about his past you will want to read. M. True. I paused one second, then hit the Send button.

  7

  THE NEXT MORNING I checked my laptop to see if McNulty had replied to my e-mail. Nothing. Philadelphia was next on the list.

  I had the number of the guy I'd sent the fax to in my call log, the guy who'd called himself Juan Doe. I scrolled to it and hit the green button. The phone rang a couple of times. "Yeah," a voice said.

  "Hello, I'm Bob Bernstein," I said, "calling from—"

  "How come you didn't call back?" the voice interrupted, angry.

  "I'm calling now," I said, keeping cool.

  "So where does he live?"

  I gave my best attempt at an unconcerned laugh. "I told you: I don't know. Listen, I'm calling because I'm confused. Angel seemed to be having a good final year at Aramingo High, and then he just disappeared. What happened?"

  "You don't know what happened?"

  "No, I don't."

  There was a pause. "You give me his address, and I'll tell you all about what happened."

  "I don't know his address, and there's no way I can get it. He's not in the phone book."

  "But you know his school. So you tell me his school."

  "If I tell you his school, you'll tell me why he didn't play out his senior year."

  "That's the deal."

  "All right. He goes to Lincoln High School."

  "And that's in Seattle? Right in the city?"

  "Yeah, in Seattle. Abraham Lincoln High School. It's in the Ballard neighborhood. So now you—"

  The phone clicked.

  I stared at it, angry. What was the deal with this guy? I was done calling Philadelphia. I opened my computer and checked my e-mail. Still nothing from McNulty. I was trying to be a responsible journalist, but what can you do if people won't talk to you, won't read your e-mails?

  I've got an iPod Touch, and in my morning classes I used it to sneak peeks at my e-mail. Nothing, nothing, and more nothing. In the hall after lunch, I spotted McNulty. I looked him square in the eye, but he looked right through me.

  After school Kimi was waiting for me at my locker. "So, what did the guy at Aramingo say?"

  "He hung up on me."

  "How about McNulty?"

  "I e-mailed him, but either he hasn't read it or he deleted it without opening it."

  She stood still, thinking. "Then we have to confront him face-to-face. We can talk to him before he goes to football practice." With that, she headed toward the gym. I grabbed my coat out of my locker, slammed it shut, and hustled to catch up.

  McNulty was coming out of his office just as we reached the gym. Kimi looked to me. "Coach," I said, my voice loud, "did you read my e-mail?"

  He didn't even stop. "No, I didn't read your e-mail. I've got a state semifinal game to coach this weekend, in case you've forgotten."

  He strode down the hall toward the doors leading to the parking lot. The players were piling onto the bus that would lead them to Gilman Field for practice. Kimi and I stood watching, too bewildered to move. When McNulty opened the building door and stepped outside, I broke into a run. I caught up with him as he was stepping onto the bus. "I know about Angel and Philadelphia," I shouted, and his head jerked around. "Aramingo High. I've talked to people there. You won't get away with it."

  The color drained out of his face and his mouth dropped open. He looked as if he was about to say something, but before he could speak, the bus doors hissed shut. "Read my e-mail," I shouted as the bus lurched forward.

  8

  SATURDAY'S SEMIFINAL GAME was in the Tacoma Dome, an hour from Seattle. Kimi went with Marianne and Rachel, which was okay by me. I didn't mind having some time alone. Once I hit the freeway, I turned on the CD player and listened to the Beach Boys, loud. Those guys had it easy. Surfing and cruising and making out with girls—living back then must have been like not having a brain.

  I pulled off the freeway into the parking lot, showed the usher my press pass, and found an end zone seat away from most of the Lincoln kids, but still close to the field.

  Lincoln's semifinal opponent was Lakes High, a school near Tacoma. They looked great through warm-ups—big, strong, and fast. But then, there were only four teams left in the tournament. All of them were big, strong, and fast.

  After watching the Lakes Lancers for ten minutes or so, I turned my eyes to Lincoln. As usual, the team was warming up in small groups spread out from the fifty to the end zone. It was like every other warm-up before every other game except for one thing—I couldn't find either McNulty or Angel.

  My cell phone rang. Kimi. "Did you see Angel and Mr. McNulty?" she said.

  "No. What happened?"

  "They were arguing with each other. Really arguing. At one point, Angel got right up into McNulty's face."

  "What were they saying?"

  "McNulty's voice was low. But I heard Angel. He said that he didn't care if it was dangerous, that he wasn't running away again."

  "Where are they now?"

  "They're coming out of the tunnel. Angel's got his helmet on, so I guess he's playing." She paused. "Mitch, what's going on? Running away from what? And how could it be dangerous? Did we miss something?"

  The public address announcer told everyone to rise for the national anthem. "I don't know, Kimi."

  I closed my phone and stood. After the anthem, the captains strode to midfield for the coin toss. Angel was off by himself, but instead of having his head down, his eyes were scanning the stands.

  Lincoln had the first possession and promptly moved the ball d
ownfield. Around me Lincoln kids were cheering loudly, but I was only half there. I knew Horst was on target with his passes, and I knew Shawn Warner was running strong, too. I even took notes. But as play followed play, Kimi's question—Did we miss something?— kept gnawing at me.

  My eyes went back to the field just in time to see one of our wide-outs drop a third-down pass inside the ten-yard line. Lincoln's fans groaned, but a minute later were cheering when Kenstowicz, steady with his kicking all year, split the uprights from twenty-eight yards away. Lincoln 3, Lakes 0. The drive had taken six minutes.

  Lakes's receiver took the kickoff out to the thirty before he was tackled. The defense trotted onto the field. I sat up, and there he was, Angel Marichal, trailing the other guys, but on the field.

  For the first time he was a starter, and for the first time he wasn't right. He kept sneaking peeks into the stands, scanning every section, just as he'd done when he'd stood along the sideline. Who was he looking for?

  Lakes's star was Gene Wang, a running back with power but not much speed. He was a north-south runner—nothing fancy, just good old smash-mouth football—three yards and a cloud of dust. Lakes strung together first down after first down until they were inside the ten. Facing third and goal from the six, the quarterback handed off to Wang on a draw. Wang put his shoulder down and drove right into Angel, bulling through the tackle and into the end zone.

  Lakes 7, Lincoln 3.

  All year the center part of the field had been off-limits whenever Angel had been playing at middle linebacker. His focus had been 100 percent. But now his head was on a swivel, looking this way between every play. And so was mine. My eyes kept going around and around the stadium, trying to figure out what was going on.

  Football is intense. If your mind isn't in the game, your body's going to take a beating. And that's what happened to Angel. Lakes took the attack right up the gut, knocking him back, pushing him around, and eating up the clock.