by Dan Koontz
“Well, I know I don’t,” Hansford replied. “But I also know that that man plans to make an awful lot of money off you, and he’s not about to do anything that would put you in danger.”
“I guess. But that didn’t feel right waking up on the court,” J’Quarius said shaking his head. “It felt like I was waking up from a full night’s sleep. But when I opened my eyes, I was on the court looking up at a bunch of complete strangers in the stands, just staring at me. I can’t explain it. It was like a nightmare or something. It just didn’t feel right. I don’t want to go through that ever again.”
“Well, we’ve just got to make sure you get a good night’s sleep tonight, honey. Stay away from caffeine and drink plenty of fluids before the game,” Arlene said.
“Maybe take it easy for the first quarter and see how things go,” Hansford chimed in. “That Ohio team has a couple guys who can play, but they can’t hang with you guys for four quarters.”
“Losing the game is one thing I’m not worried about,” J’Quarius said with a confident smile.
“Well, get to bed early tonight,” Arlene said. “We’ve gotta be in Cleveland by one, which means we have to leave around 6:30 in the morning. And don’t count on getting any sleep on the bus.”
“Leaving the Land of Jordan for the city where LeBron got his start,” Hansford mused delightedly. “Fitting for your last game as an amateur.”
~~~
Leonard Weinstien slowly turned the key to his empty Newark law office just before 10PM on Friday night. He had until noon Saturday to be completely moved out before the final inspection.
Where had the time gone? Five days ago, it seemed he had all the time in the world. Now he was staring down an all-nighter just to get everything out.
At sixty-eight with a dwindling client list and increasing rent and employee costs, he felt like he was being forced into retirement. He’d fought it the best he could for the better part of a year, but the inevitability of the collapse of his practice hadn’t been lost on his secretary of 23 years. So when she’d ashamedly submitted her two-week notice, having accepted a position at a bigger, younger firm for significantly more money, he’d finally decided to throw in the towel.
Weinstien moped through the empty area where his clients used to wait for him and cast a nostalgic gaze up at the wires protruding from the wall where the office’s small TV had been mounted. By force of habit he took a circuitous path to his office, veering around the empty space where his secretary’s desk had stood for the past two decades, and gave his door a nudge. A stack of collapsed cardboard file boxes inside stopped it before it reached halfway open.
Organization had never been Weinstien’s strong suit. Towers of unsorted papers, all protected by attorney-client privilege, rose from his desk and the surrounding floor. Legally these couldn’t go in the standard trash, and the commercial shredder had been removed from the office that morning. He was going to have to take all of this home, which, with a 1-series BMW as his only mode of transportation, meant he’d be making several trips.
With the luxury of procrastination officially spent, he finally forced himself to dive in. A few papers went into a file box; then a name would catch his eye and trigger a memory. Ten minutes later, he would find himself immersed in a document, reliving a fairly mundane case from a decade earlier.
An hour into his packing job, with a box and a half filled and at least twenty more to go, he promised himself a coffee break if he could just finish up the second box.
Having met his goal within fifteen minutes, and eager to claim his productivity bonus of a cup of coffee, he headed for the door carrying two deceptively heavy file boxes. But on his way, his foot dislodged something from one of the stacks on the ground. Just in front of him lay an unopened envelope, addressed by hand, with no return address and a postmark from five years earlier. His curiosity piqued, he picked it up and set it atop the boxes he was carting out. A mystery. It would provide some entertainment while he sipped his coffee.
Weinstien left his car running in the driveway, dropped the boxes off just inside the front door of his house, and set a course for a 24-hour diner he frequented midway between his home and office.
“Hey, Mr. Weinstien,” the waitress droned as he sidled up to his standard stool at the bar.
“Black?” she asked, already pouring the coffee.
“No, I think I’ll try your soy latte skinny Chai caramel mochaccino,” Weinstien deadpanned as the waitress slid the steaming mug of black coffee in front of him without breaking stride.
“Thanks,” Weinstien said, running his office key down the side of the sealed envelope and removing a letter written in blue ink on unlined white paper.
Dear Mr. Weinstien,
By the time this gets to you, I’ll be gone. First off, I want to thank you for your efforts in trying to help me connect with my son.
I don’t know if you’ll ever believe me that I was set up. I doubt I would if I were in your shoes, but I think we can at least agree that I no longer have a reason to lie. I don’t have the computer background to prove it, but I give you a dying man’s word: ALL the charges against me are false.
I know my life would have been a little easier (and probably a lot longer) if I’d never heard about my son, but I’m glad I got the opportunity to know of him. I never got the chance to meet him, but I love him. And as stupid as it might sound to you, I can’t live without him.
I promise you that he is being adopted by Avillage. Somewhere around the time you receive this letter, he’s going to be introduced as the second offering on their exchange. I’m asking you just one thing. Please make sure he’s taken care of.
I thought about sticking around and trying to fight for custody, but sitting there by myself in jail and then at home with nothing to do but think, I came to two conclusions: 1. We were never going to win the case against me. 2. He’s better off without me.
That first Avillage kid went to live with an educated mom and dad in the suburbs with all kinds of support and money to spend on raising him the way he deserved. I’m a single guy with a more-than-full-time job, a one-bedroom apartment in the worst school district in the state, an unreliable car, and no prospects for anything better. For me to adopt him (even if I could) just because I love him, would be selfish.
Tell him about me if you ever think the time is right – I want him to know he was loved – not abandoned. And again, please make sure he’s taken care of. I’m sending you this letter because I trust you. Sorry I couldn’t stay and fight with you.
Sincerely,
Melvin Brown
Along with the letter he’d enclosed a brief medical history from his side of the family so J’Quarius would have it for his doctors, a player photo from his college football days, and a smaller sealed envelope the size of a thank you card with the name J’Quarius written in cursive across the front of it.
Weinstien was frozen to his stool with his mouth agape. The feelings of utter shock from the day Melvin had died came coursing back through him, sending chills throughout his body. At the time, he’d taken Melvin’s suicide more as an admission of guilt than anything. Now the guilt was all on him.
If he’d gotten this letter five years earlier, around the time it had been mailed, he probably would have added it to Melvin’s closed file, blocked it from his mind and gone on with another typically hectic day. And he still wasn’t entirely convinced that Melvin was innocent. But after spending the last several months leading up to his retirement, with little to do but reflect, experiencing a gradual shift from self-congratulation for his successes to self-flagellation for never really making a difference, he couldn’t produce a defensible way to ignore this.
Leaning over in the direction of a man seated next to him intently watching the NBA playoffs on the TV above the bar, he casually asked, “Have you heard of this J’Quarius Jones kid?”
“Yeah. Sounds like he’s the real deal. Rumor has it he’s going to play in Moscow next year for ov
er 20 million bucks,” the man said without taking his eyes off the TV.
“He’s in Moscow?” Weinstien asked disappointedly.
“Not yet. His last AAU game is tomorrow in Cleveland. I think they scheduled it on an off day for the playoffs on purpose – probably more people want to watch him than the NBA right now.”
Weinstien threw a couple bucks on the bar, ditched the nearly full cup of coffee, rushed back to his office, haphazardly threw all the remaining papers into boxes, and piled the boxes up just inside his front door. After three breakneck round-trips home, he was done.
He forced himself to log a couple hours of sleep before getting back in his car. On his way out of town he made a brief stop at Kinko’s, swung through the McDonald’s drive-thru for a large coffee, and at 4:15 AM started the 8-hour trip to Cleveland.
~~~
Sara jumped as the sudden blast of a car horn shrieked through the Ewings’ great room, nearly causing her to spill her tea.
Ryan raced through from the kitchen, grabbing his backpack off the floor. “See you tomorrow,” he yelled on his way to the front door. Out in the driveway, his friend Jasper was waiting in the new Prius he'd gotten for his sixteenth birthday.
“Do you have your phone?” Sara asked, rushing over to intercept him.
“Yes!” he huffed indignantly keeping his hand on the front door without turning around to face her.
“And it’s on?”
“Yes.” His shoulders slumped. The same routine every time.
“And it’s charged?”
“Yes!”
Finally satisfied, Sara rocked up onto her tiptoes and gave him a kiss on the top of his head, which she could still just reach. “Bye. Have a good time.”
Ryan enjoyed significantly more independence than the average twelve-year-old. Having just completed his sophomore year, he was at least three years younger than anyone else in his class, and with the free-form curriculum at his school, he was actually taking most of his classes with even older kids.
There were certainly disadvantages to being the youngest kid in his grade, but the biggest advantage, from his perspective, was having friends who could drive. His parents didn’t share his point of view, but, conceding that he had virtually no opportunity to make friends his own age, they had reluctantly granted him permission to ride along with a select group of boys whose families they knew well on the condition that he keep his phone on him at all times.
His parents were then able not only to track his location continually with the GPS function on his phone, but also to call at random times, just to make sure he was ok. It really was more out of worry than lack of trust, and Ryan knew it. But he still resented it.
To become eligible for the privilege of spending the night at his friend Jasper’s house, he’d woken up that morning at six and started his day by running four miles in just under 30 minutes. He then came home for a shower and breakfast, practiced Japanese for an hour with his tutor in Kyoto on Skype, moved on to piano for another hour, and then spent the remainder of the morning re-evaluating his small but growing stock portfolio in the online trading account his dad had set him up with a few months earlier. After lunch, he’d powered through what was supposed to be two hours of homework in twenty minutes, thus completing his school-, parent- and Avillage-directed activities and leaving himself free to spend the balance of the weekend as he pleased.
He opened the passenger door of his friend’s Prius and hopped in. The plan for the day, as he’d described it to his parents, was that he’d be going over to Jasper’s house to work on a school project, maybe see a movie if they finished early, and then spend the night there. But his actual plans were very different.
“Hey, Jasper. Thanks for picking me up. And thanks for agreeing to do this. I owe you big time.”
“You don’t owe me anything,” Jasper snapped as if he resented the comment, but he couldn’t help but follow it up with, “So, did you start that project for Mr. Gilliam’s class?”
“It’s done,” Ryan said, patting his backpack.
Jasper laughed involuntarily, shaking his head with an incredulous smile. “How in the world did you finish that so fast?”
“It wasn’t that hard. I’ll show you tonight,” Ryan said matter-of-factly. “Can I see your phone?”
Jasper handed it over. Ryan popped the backs off of both his phone and Jasper's, switched out the SIM cards, and then gave his phone to Jasper.
“You can answer this if it rings. It’ll work just like your phone, but please stay at your house. My parents can track the location of my device – not my SIM card. If they’re looking, and my phone’s not at your house, I’m screwed.”
“So, what if your parents call your phone?” Jasper asked, not following him at all. He and Ryan were friends, but intellectual equals they were not. “And what the hell is a SIM card?”
“It’s a subscriber identity module... card. Kind of redundant. Anyway, it’s what makes this mass-produced phone yours. It pretty much ties your phone number and personal account info to your device.
“And now I’ve got my SIM card in your phone, so if my parents call my phone, I would just answer your phone, which I'll have with me,” Ryan said, opening the door as Jasper rolled to a stop at the street corner adjacent to the easternmost Cleveland RTA station. “Look, I doubt my parents are watching me that closely, but if you don’t mind, just stop through the nearest fast-food joint to here on your way home, so it looks like we had a reason for going this way.”
“Dude, you’re paranoid,” Jasper needled with a grin.
“Come on. I’m just trying to cover all my bases. I’m up against a one strike and you’re out policy,” Ryan said nervously. “Now hurry up, so it doesn’t look like we stopped for an inordinately long time. I’ll see you right back here at eight.”
Ryan slammed the door shut, as Jasper over-acted a suspicious glance to both rearview mirrors, sunk down in his seat, pulled the bill of his cap down and sped away. Ryan shook his head and allowed himself a quick chuckle as he sidled down the hill to the station.
Just before Dinosaurs and Aliens had been taken offline for good, Ryan and Dillon had planned this day for their meeting.
Dillon had already made plans to come to Cleveland for an app-development workshop being held at The Renaissance Hotel, which was adjacent to the downtown basketball arena, where the other big event in town happened to be going on – the AAU basketball game. It would be no big deal for him to sneak over for at least an hour or two. Ryan faced a bigger challenge making it downtown, but he was confident he could pull it off, and they both liked the idea of a crowded arena as the meeting place.
But there was another, stronger motivation for choosing an over-hyped high school basketball game as their rendezvous point. If they were going to stand any chance of chiseling away at the overwhelming positive public perception of Avillage, Ryan and Dillon knew their cause would need a face – someone relevant and recognizable, with mass public appeal. J’Quarius Jones was really the only choice. But at this point they had no idea if he’d be a willing participant. And it wouldn’t be easy to get to him. After he left for Russia, it would probably be impossible.
So far their improbable plan was running right on schedule. Ryan boarded the downtown-bound train right at 3:00, taking the seat directly behind the driver with his head resting against the window facing the inside track, his backpack occupying the seat next to him, and his heart racing 120 beats a minute.
~~~
Aaron Bradford gazed up at the arrivals board hanging above baggage carousel five at Cleveland-Hopkins International airport, then impatiently looked back down at his watch for a twentieth time in as many minutes. Their flight landed thirty minutes ago, and they’d already cleared customs in New York! The game started in half an hour. Where were they?
Finally at 3:30, three expressionless businessmen with eerily similar steel blue eyes, close-cropped brown hair and square jaws marched off the elevator in unison.
They strode over as a unit to claim their CSKA Moscow-embroidered suitcases, which were the only parcels left on the now dormant conveyer belt, and then stared in synchrony at Bradford, as if they’d been the ones waiting all along.
With crimson cheeks darkening toward violet, Bradford struggled to maintain his smile. The fact that he would be screwing them to the tune of 23 million dollars with damaged goods was the only thing that kept him from absolutely losing it.
Bradford waved the Russians outside where his driver, having been parked in a loading zone for half an hour, was locked in a heated argument with a homeland security officer. Unless someone was pointing a gun or a taser at him with real intent, he wasn’t about to take a chance on not being at the curb when Bradford walked out.
Noticing his boss’s arrival, he left the low-level officer screaming into thin air and scurried over to the Russians to collect their bags and help them into the back of the limousine.
“Please tell me you have the tickets...” Bradford sneered with one leg in the car, glaring at his driver. The color ran out of the poor driver’s face as he struggled to find words, while Bradford’s sneer slowly morphed into a grin. He held the tickets up and fanned them out to show that he had all four. Although he did take some degree of pleasure in pulling one over on his driver, what really delighted him was the power he wielded over his pathetic minion’s emotions.
“I do have the parking pass, boss,” his driver stuttered, taking a deep breath to collect himself as he shut the car door.
“Gentlemen,” Bradford started, leaning in toward his guests who sat stoically in the rear-facing seats closest to the driver in the passenger cabin of the limo. “It’s a pleasure to have you here in the States. Welcome to Cleveland. You are in for an absolute treat tonight. Have you seen J’Quarius play before?”