Payback Time

by Carl Deuker

  "That's not fair," Kimi said. "We didn't know any of this. Besides, we haven't published anything."

  "Not yet you haven't," McNulty said, looking right at me. "But you can still go to Chet the Jet. It's not the story you thought you had, but it's still one helluva story. You'll make quite a splash, and that's what this is all about, right?"

  He was right. It was a great story, and there was nothing to stop us from publishing it. I could rework what I'd written and the Times would jump at it: Hero Makes Most of Second Chance.

  I looked to Kimi. How much did making a name for herself matter to her? Our eyes met, and she gave her head a small shake. I turned back to McNulty. "We won't go to Chet the Jet, or to anyone. Not unless Angel says we can."

  "That'll never happen," McNulty said.

  "Then we'll never publish," I said.

  McNulty's eyes shifted to Kimi.

  "I won't tell anyone," she said.

  He smoothed his napkin with his fingertips. "Now I need to ask you a couple of things. Things that matter for Angel's immediate safety."

  "Go ahead," I said.

  "The guy in Philadelphia—his name?"

  "He wouldn't tell me."

  "He knows Angel goes to Lincoln, but what else does he know?"

  "Nothing."

  "You didn't give him Angel's home address? Angel's cousin told me you've been around his place."

  "He wanted Angel's address, but I didn't give it to him."

  "You're sure? Because if you did, tell me so I can get Angel out of there."

  "I'm positive."

  "All right, last thing. This guy—how did he sound to you? Gut feeling."

  My heart drummed in my chest. "Dangerous."

  McNulty's jaw tightened. He took out his wallet and dropped a five-dollar bill and two ones onto the table. "This is on me," he said, and then he left.

  Kimi finished her tea, and I finished my coffee. The waitress picked up our cups along with McNulty's money. "You can keep the change," I said.

  "Thanks, honey."

  After we trudged back to the car through the snow, I drove Kimi home. The sidewalks and lawns were white, but the heat from the car engines had turned the streets into gray slush. When I pulled up in front of Kimi's house, she stepped out of the car. Instead of closing the door and going inside, she leaned back toward me. "Gang guys don't forget, Mitch. They're all about payback. They'll kill him if they get a chance."

  "Kimi, Philadelphia is three thousand miles away. They don't know where Angel lives. It's not like they have an American Express credit card and they're going to use it to fly out here, rent a hotel room, rent a car, and then drive around looking for him."

  She stood holding the door for a long time. "We missed something before," she finally said. "What if we're missing something again?"

  PART FIVE

  1

  I DIDN'T WANT TO GO HOME, so I drove down to the Ballard Locks and walked out to the fish ladder. The salmon runs had ended, so the underground viewing room was deserted. I sat on one of the benches staring at the green, lifeless water.

  My mind circled back to the article McNulty had shown me. I'd read the words and I'd understood what had happened, but only in my brain. Now, as I sat shivering in the cold, the words turned into images. And as the images grew stronger, I started to feel what had happened.

  I could picture little kids walking to school, dragging their backpacks along the sidewalk, talking to friends. And then, in the street, two cars coming at each other from opposite directions. Both cars slow as they see each other. The closer they get, the slower they go, until they stop, side by side. The drivers roll down their windows. They talk a little, and then the talk turns to shouting and swearing. The little kids look over, scared but interested. That's when a hand holding a gun comes out of the window. Tat! Tat! Tat! Tat! And now more guns, more Tat! Tat! Tat! Tat! The little kids start screaming, start hiding behind cars. But one, Thomas Childress, is crossing the street when the guns start firing. He tries to run for cover, but a bullet strikes him and he goes down.

  That's when Angel runs out, bullets still flying, screaming, "Stop! Stop! Stop!" And the gang guys speed away, tires screeching, heading in opposite directions. Angel carries Thomas to the sidewalk. He lays him down and presses his hand against Thomas's skull to stop the flow of blood. He's waiting to hear the siren of an ambulance. Somebody must have called. Why is it taking so long? But it's no good—there's no stopping the blood. Angel feels the life go out of Thomas.

  Everybody in the neighborhood knows the cars, knows who was in the cars. They want to get the thugs off the streets, but they're afraid. The police come around: "I didn't see ... I wasn't there ... I can't be sure."

  Only Angel stands up. He points out the killers from a lineup and he points them out again in the courtroom. "It was him and him and him and him."

  "We're gonna get you," one of the gang guys shouts as they take him, shackled and wearing an orange jumpsuit, off to prison. "You can't hide from us. You're gonna die. You're gonna die."

  I stared at the water for a long time, thinking how close I'd come to giving Angel away. Finally the cold was too much. I wanted to go home, lie down on my bed, pull the covers over my head, and sleep—but there was something I had to do first.

  Angel.

  Face-to-face, I had to see him.

  I returned to the car and drove through the slushy streets to his house. I parked and looked up the walkway to the front windows. The blinds were drawn, but as I watched, a finger separated them.

  I got out, walked to the front door, pulled the screen door open, and knocked. The door opened immediately; Angel was on the other side, his cousin two steps behind him.

  "I'm Mitch True."

  "I know who you are," Angel answered.

  "And I know who you are ... now. I know what you did in Philadelphia. I didn't before. Before today, I thought—" I stopped. What did it matter what I thought?

  "Why are you here?"

  I took a breath. "I guess to say that I'm sorry." I stopped, but he just stared, his face blank. I felt desperate. "And to let you know that if there's anything I can do, I'll do it. Just tell me and I swear to God, I'll do it."

  "You know what you can do?" he said, his voice expressionless. "You can leave me alone."

  The door closed in my face.

  I returned to the car and sat, my hands on the steering wheel. What had I expected? Did I think he was going to tell me it wasn't my fault, and then toss a football around with me? I started the car and drove away.

  I'd gone about three blocks when my cell phone rang. I looked at the screen: Chet the Jet. I let it go to voice mail. When I got home, I did what I'd wanted to do earlier. I went upstairs, closed the door, turned off the light, and slept.

  2

  WHEN I AWOKE, I wondered if I'd slept through the night. I used my cell phone to check the time: 2:30 p.m. I sat up, but still nothing seemed right. Had I really met with McNulty, with Angel? So much had happened.

  My cell phone chirped at me. I hit a button and the screen lit up. Four Missed Calls. Two were from area code 215—Philadelphia. I wasn't calling that guy back.

  The other two were from Chet the Jet. I didn't want to talk to him, but I knew he'd just keep calling. I hit Call back, and he answered on the first ring.

  "What's going on, Mitch?" he said, his voice edgy.

  "What do you mean?"

  "I mean I got a call from a guy asking for Bob Bernstein, the reporter who covers the Lincoln Mustangs. You have any idea who Bob Bernstein might be?"

  "No," I said, fighting to keep my voice level.

  "No? That's interesting. Because right after he asked about Bernstein, he asked about Angel Marichal, which made me think that Bob Bernstein just might be Mitch True."

  "Did you tell him that?" I asked, fighting down the panic.

  "I told him nothing, which is when he started threatening me, saying I had to tell him where Angel lives or else. He did not soun
d like a nice person. So I'm asking you again, Mitch Bernstein: What's going on?"

  "Nothing's going on."

  He laughed, an angry laugh. "I was at the Lakes game; I saw Marichal play. For the first time all year I saw him. I spent this morning watching tapes of Lincoln's games. What you wrote about him—it was on the money. The stat sheets Coach Morris has been sending me are garbage. Now, Morris wouldn't feed me lies unless McNulty told him to, and McNulty wouldn't do that unless he had a reason. Do you know what the reason is?"

  "No."

  "No idea?"

  "I don't know anything."

  "I've been a reporter for thirty years. I can tell when someone is lying, and you're lying. So let me lay out the situation for you. You work for the Seattle Times. Something doesn't smell right about Angel Marichal. I don't know what's causing the stench, and maybe you don't know everything, but you've got ideas. You tell me what you know, I'll take it from there, and if it comes to something, we'll share a byline."

  "I don't know anything," I repeated.

  "That's it? Final answer?"

  "That's it."

  His voice went ice cold. "Wrong answer. Unless you call me back with a better one, you're finished with the Times. No basketball stories, no baseball stories. The summer internship you were hoping for? Gone. And don't even think about asking for a letter of recommendation for whatever fancy-ass college you want to go to. Goodbye."

  3

  THE AFTERNOON CRAWLED INTO EVENING. I wished my parents were home so that I could hear them moving around downstairs, but I knew they'd stay late at their office. Snow always messed up deliveries.

  Around six I went down to the kitchen, flipped through the newspaper, and half watched the Sunday night football game for an hour. Then I microwaved a frozen pasta dinner, ate it in front of the TV, returned to my room, propped up some pillows on the bed, and sat there, my legs stretched out in front of me.

  My parents came in around nine. I went downstairs and heard all about a delivery truck that had slid into a ditch in Shoreline. As I listened, I thought of my dad saying I could talk to him at any time. I wanted to talk to him now, but I couldn't think of a place to begin. By nine thirty I was back in my room looking out the window. Snow was falling, and the forecast was for snow all night. There'd be no school Monday.

  I fell asleep quickly. I had about a million dreams that night, but I remember only one: I was back at the Tacoma Dome. The title game had ended; the parking lot was emptying out. I was waiting by the players' gate for Angel, just as I'd waited after the semifinals. I had a notebook with a long list of questions for him, but as I looked at the questions, the words somehow morphed into a foreign language that looked like Russian.

  The players' door opened and guys started spilling out, walking down the long, brightly lit chute to the parking lot. I knew I should ask somebody something, but I couldn't think what.

  I was about to leave when the door opened a final time and Angel stepped out, alone. He started toward me, down that walkway. What do I want to ask him? And then, like a miracle, the questions in my notebook morphed back into English. At that exact moment a car pulled up at the end of the long chute. The car had a Washington license plate—I remember that detail as clearly as everything that followed. The window came down. A hand holding a gun appeared. Tat! Tat! Tat! Tat! Then the car was speeding off toward Interstate 5; Angel was down on the ground just like Thomas Childress had been, his blood staining the concrete, and I was sitting up in my bed sweating from every pore of my body.

  I'd never get back to sleep, so even though it was a little before six a.m., I put on about four layers of clothes and headed out into the frozen morning, making the first footsteps in the white snow as I walked up to Sunset Hill Park. I stared out over Puget Sound until the first rays of the sun lit up the peaks of the Olympic Mountains. There was something more than terror in that dream, some detail that gnawed at me. What was it?

  Frustrated, I grabbed hold of the chain-link fence and gave it a shake. Snow cascaded from the little wires where it had settled. Then, out of nowhere, I knew. The Washington license plates. In my dream those plates had been as vivid as the gunshots. But knowing what detail mattered only increased my frustration. Why did it matter? I had no answer.

  I turned and headed for home. I'd gone about one hundred yards when I stopped in my tracks. My phone call to Aramingo High ... what had the guy said to me? "We've got some homeboys out there who are going to pay him a visit."

  Homeboys in Seattle.

  The Washington license plates in my dream.

  Nobody had to fly in from Philadelphia. The Aramingo guys were connected to a Seattle gang; it was Seattle guys who'd be coming after Angel.

  I hurried home, frustrated that the snow slowed me. By the time I was back in the house, it was nearly eight. I didn't know whether Kimi would be up, but I called anyway. She answered right away. "You're going to have to make it quick."

  "Okay, I'll be as quick as I can. Remember what you said about missing something?"

  Then I described my dream and repeated the words the Philly guy had said to me over the phone. The phone stayed quiet. I waited. "Kimi?"

  "I remember the walkway by G-1," she said. "I remember thinking that it was perfect for photographers because it was bright and there was no place to hide. If gang guys figure out Angel's playing in the Tacoma Dome on Saturday night, they can get him. There's a big sign that says PLAYERS ONLY. They'd have to be blind to miss it. Going in or coming out—they can get him."

  "So what do we do?"

  "Call McNulty. Tell him what you told me. Tell him Angel can't play."

  "All right, I will. And then I'll call you right back."

  "That won't work, Mitch. I'm going out for breakfast with my father and my aunt; they're in the car waiting for me right now. Besides, I think we should talk." There was a pause. "Okay, I've got it. I'm meeting Rachel at the library at ten thirty to study for a chemistry test. See if you can get one of those study rooms. I'll meet you there at ten."

  4

  AFTER I HUNG UP, I took a shower and ate a cup of yogurt, mainly to let some time pass. I figured Coach McNulty was keeping late hours preparing a game plan. I didn't want to be the one to wake him. At nine, I called. The phone rang four times before he answered.

  "What do you want, Mitch?" His voice sounded annoyed.

  "There's something I didn't tell you at Hattie's Hat, something important."

  "So tell me."

  "The Philadelphia guy. He's got connections in Seattle. That time I talked to him, he said..." I raced through my explanation, knowing that I was talking too fast, but unable to slow myself. When I finished, I expected McNulty to ask me questions, but he didn't say a word. "This matters, doesn't it?" I said. "A connection with Seattle gangs makes everything more dangerous, right?"

  "I don't see how," McNulty said. "You didn't give Angel's address to anybody, right?"

  "I didn't. I know I didn't."

  "Then nothing has changed. Angel's not coming back to Lincoln and there's no way they'll find his house."

  "But there's something else," I said quickly, "something that goes with it."

  "I'm listening."

  For the second time, I described how easy it would be for some gang guy to drive a car to the end of the walkway at the Tacoma Dome, stick a gun out the window and fire, and then lose himself on the freeway.

  "Mitch, there's not a chance in the world anybody is going to try anything at the game. Police and security guys will be all around the Tacoma Dome. They'd never get away with it. I'm not yanking Angel off the field because of some vague feeling that—"

  "It's more than a vague feeling," I said.

  "No, it isn't. You've got no names, no car license number, no reason to think anything is going to happen." He stopped, and when he spoke again his voice was controlled. "Listen to me. You feel guilty about Philadelphia. Okay, I understand. You want to do something to make up for it. I understand that, too. But
this is your last phone call to me. Everything is under control, so stop playing Sherlock Holmes."

  The phone went dead.

  I bundled up and headed to the library. I thought it would be empty, but the snowfall had driven the homeless guys inside, and young mothers had brought their little kids, too. Lynn Miller is the librarian there, and she knows me. I asked her if there were any study rooms available.

  "Technically no," she said, "but the woman who signed up for Room C i sn't here. The snow might keep her at home. I'll let you use it, but if she does show up, you'll have to leave."

  I took Room C and texted Kimi where I was. Five minutes later she was sitting across a study table from me. She took her gloves off and blew into her hands to warm them. "What did McNulty say?"

  "That there will be police and security guys all around."

  "So he's going to let him play?"

  I nodded.

  "But that's crazy."

  "Maybe," I said. "But maybe not."

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "McNulty thinks I'm making stuff up because I feel guilty about blowing Angel's cover."

  "And you buy that?"

  "I'm not sure. I don't have anything concrete. No names or description of a suspicious car. It's all based on a dream."

  Kimi put her hands flat on the table. "I'm going to talk to my father, tell him everything. He'll know what we should do."

  My eyes widened. Her father? The funny little Asian man with his garden hoe and his rows of perfect petunias. What would he know about gangs?