by Tim Green
"You just want me to take the ladder and climb the wall?" Troy asked.
"Whatever you did Sunday night," Agent Williams said, "do the same thing this evening."
Troy looked out the window and saw that the shadows had grown deeper still. It was truly dusk; the sun had gone down, and only its memory and a final glow remained in the west.
"Let me make him something to eat first," Troy's mom said, sounding so much like a mom that Troy had to smile.
The agents looked at each other. Bob McDonough held up his hands in surrender, and the three men stood up from the table.
"We'll look for you in about an hour," Agent Williams said as they moved toward the door. "And Troy? If you don't get the opportunity to drop it in or near the zebra couch, don't worry. We might get another chance. The thing we don't want to do is let Luther Tolsky know what we're trying to do. That could drive him so deep into cover that it would ruin all the progress we've made. You understand, right?"
"Yes," Troy said. "Absolutely."
Agent Williams held out the quarter, pinched between his thumb and forefinger. Even with a knotted stomach Troy held out his hand, and the agent dropped the coin into his palm.
"Spend it wisely," Agent Williams said.
"Don't worry," Troy said in a whisper. "I will."
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
TROY'S MOM WHIPPED UP macaroni and cheese for him and Gramps, chattering the whole time about the Ritz-Carlton Thanksgiving dinner while Troy and Gramps sat at the table with bottles of Coke, studying their shapes. Troy wasn't all that hungry, but he did his best because his mom was watching. Halfway through the meal, he remembered his football all-star team.
"Will you call Seth and tell him I'm not coming?" Troy asked.
"Maybe you should," his mom said. "No, that's not right. I'll do it. He won't ask questions if I do it."
"It's not like he's even starting me," Troy said.
"Troy," she said, "I spoke with Seth today about that. He said he had to do what he did because you showed up late. If you do what everyone knows you can do, and if you're healthy, you'll start."
"But now I'm missing a practice," Troy said. "Not that I care."
"So let's not think about it," his mom said. "But I will tell him. He's still your coach."
"Seth will understand," Gramps said, "and I bet you get to play in that game anyway."
Gramps held out his bottle to toast. Troy tapped the mouth of his bottle against Gramps's and took a slug of soda before finishing off the macaroni and cheese his mom had spooned onto his plate.
After dinner Troy helped clean up before his mom said, "Okay. So, you ready?"
Troy nodded, accepting the jeans jacket she took out of the coat closet before opening the front door. His mom gave Gramps a worried look and asked, "You sure, Dad?"
"He'll be fine," Gramps said, touching her cheek with the back of his fingers. "I wouldn't let him if I didn't know it. You know that, right?"
"Here," Troy's mom said, ducking back into the kitchen and returning with her cell phone. "Take this, Troy."
"Mom," he said, pointing to the quarter in his pocket, "they can hear everything. I'll be fine."
"Just take it, sweetheart," she said.
The look on her face made him slip the phone into his pocket.
"Well," Troy said, suddenly nervous but forcing a smile, "here I go."
He didn't close the door behind him, and he knew they stood there watching through the screen as he crossed the patch and hoisted the ladder on to his shoulders. He felt their concern as he disappeared into the pinewoods, heading for the railroad tracks and the wall beyond. When he emerged onto the railroad bed, the sky had gone from a pale, dying light to a deep purple bruise. He had to watch carefully where he stepped as he made his way closer to the wall.
It took some effort to get the ladder standing on its end and propped up against the wall, but his sweat dried quickly in the cool, crisp air. The trees crowded in on him with a pitch-black gloom. He put one hand on the cold, ribbed surface of a ladder rung and raised one foot.
The snap of a twig behind him made Troy gasp, jump, and spin around.
A cry got caught in his throat and he choked it back, terrified of making himself known. His fingers searched past his mom's cell phone for the quarter in his pocket. He prayed that the FBI agents were already listening.
"Gramps?" he whispered. "Mom?"
A small breeze sighed in the treetops above. Troy felt the current of panic racing through his veins with hot thoughts about criminal gangsters. His ears strained for more information. Then his body made the decision to run--not home, but up the ladder. He'd get over the wall as quickly as he could.
Troy turned and gripped the rungs, his feet scampering up. He'd nearly reached the top of the wall when he felt a hand rise up from the darkness below and grab his foot.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
TROY KICKED AND THRASHED, but the hand held tight.
"Hey!" came a shout from below.
Troy stopped kicking and said, "Tate?"
"Take it easy," she said in a hissing whisper.
"Are you nuts?" he said, letting go of the ladder rungs and dropping to the ground. He stuck his face into hers so that he could just make out her features in the dark. "You scared the heck out of me."
"Sorry," Tate said in a loud whisper. "I was trying to keep quiet. I saw you go across the tracks with this ladder practically from my house, and I followed you. What are you doing here?"
"What are you doing, Tate?" he asked, whispering himself now. "You've got football practice."
"So do you," she said, poking him in the chest with a finger, her voice still hushed. "I'm just the kicker. We need you if we're going to win this thing on Saturday. When Seth told us you weren't coming to practice, I hopped right out of his truck and told them to go without me."
"Well," Troy said, touching the coin in his pocket, "I can't tell you what I'm doing."
"Okay," Tate said, nodding as if she wasn't surprised. "I'll come with you."
"You can't," he said.
"You look like you're scared," she said. "Your face is as pale as a ghost's."
"I'm not scared, Tate," he said, growling. "Now leave me alone, will you? I've got to do something important, and I can't talk about it, okay?"
Tate stepped back from him, and without whispering at all she asked, "We're still friends, though, right?"
"Of course," he said, letting his head sag before holding it up straight. "We're always friends, Tate. You know that. But I have to go."
"Okay," Tate said, nodding at the wall. "I'm sure it's about your dad."
Tate peered at him through the dark, but Troy said nothing.
"I understand, Troy," she said, sounding a bit sad. "I'll be at my house if you need me. For anything."
"Thank you, Tate," he said, then turned and climbed back up the ladder, pulling it up behind him so that he could use it to climb down the other side.
When he finished lowering it, he turned to say good-bye, but Tate had already disappeared.
"Bye," he said, so softly it was swallowed by the breeze. Then he scrambled down the ladder and set off for G Money's mansion.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
THE SECURITY GUARDS AT the gate to G Money's driveway told him to leave. Troy pointed through the metal bars at his father's orange Porsche and told them he'd already been inside. They went through the same routine with their radios, and the gates buzzed and swung slowly open. One of the guards walked him up the curved drive and passed him off to one of the guards he recognized at the door.
"You're like gum on a shoe, kid," the house guard said as Troy followed him into the hall, past the enormous painting of G Money and into the very room where Troy needed to be.
"Your dad's coming," the guard said, leaving him alone.
Only the weak light coming in from the pool area and two dim floor lamps lit the room. Troy headed straight for the zebra couch, which sat facing the big glass windo
ws on the edge of a bearskin rug. His heart thumped up into his throat. He felt around the phone and pinched the quarter, his hand still deep in his pocket as he rounded the couch and gasped.
Luther Tolsky was lying sprawled out along the length of the black-and-white couch like a beached whale. The enormous man's fingers were intertwined and rested in the center of his chest. His eyes shot open. They widened, and he scowled at Troy through his rimless glasses.
"What are you doing here?" Luther Tolsky asked in an unfriendly rumble, the pink opening of his mouth flashing white teeth from its nest of black fur.
Troy snatched his hand out of his pocket, leaving the quarter behind.
"Nothing," he said, instantly aware that his answer wasn't good enough. "My dad. I'm meeting him."
Luther's face softened just a bit. "Yeah, you got the big money coming in, little man, don't you?"
"I think."
"You know," Luther said, scowling again. "Don't be a little daisy. You like daisies?"
"No," Troy said.
"No one does," Luther said. "Pretty little flowers that smell like junk. Say what you think. Think what you say."
Troy stood, frozen and scared.
Luther stared, waiting, then said, "So? You got the big money?"
"Yes."
White teeth flashed from the middle of Luther's thick beard. "That's a good boy. You do have it coming in. I heard about it. Big money. There is nothing wrong with money."
Troy just stood.
Luther sat up and scratched his beard, then flipped open his cell phone, dialed, and put it to his ear. Troy looked down at him, his eyes drawn to the tattered ear. One tail of Luther's silk shirt had escaped from his pants. The gold chain on his chest, resting in its bed of hair, glowed in the dull light from the pool. In Luther's eyes, Troy saw evil and death and the cunning of a warlock who could read your mind.
"Drew," Luther said, barking Troy's father's name, "you coming to meet your little man or no? Little Daisy woke me up from my nap. Come get the boy. In the zoo room. I got people coming from New York and that man from the Cayman Islands, and they won't want to see a kid."
Luther snapped the phone shut and looked around before he said, "Looks like a zoo in here, right?"
Troy nodded, glancing around at the animal skins laid out on the floor and stretched tight over the sofas, chairs, and footstools. Relief flooded his mind when his father appeared through a doorway on the far side of the enormous room, walking and laughing with G Money. Luther looked over his shoulder and nodded at Troy's dad and the famous rap star, then offered up a greeting that was little more than a grunt.
Troy's dad seemed to avoid eye contact with the grumpy big man. Instead, he gave Troy a wink and a clap on the back.
"Hey, partner," he said. "How's it feel to be a millionaire? G Money, my boy is in the big time."
"I hear you," G Money said, holding out a fist for Troy to bump. "What it is. New York is all that. You two gonna love the Big Apple."
"Hey!" Luther shouted. "Little man. You got any money now?"
Troy looked up at the enormous, scary man and blinked. Troy's father shot him a worried look, as if Luther were a fifteen-foot alligator loose from his pen. Troy waited for his father to save him, but no one said anything, and Luther's stare seemed to burn hotter by the second.
"What do you mean?" Troy said in a broken croak.
"Money," Luther said in disgust. "You know what that is, right?"
Troy nodded.
"How much money you got?" Luther asked.
Troy shrugged and shook his head, scared and unknowing.
"In your pocket," Luther said, slow and mean, dipping his chin toward the pocket where Troy held the FBI's quarter. "How much money you got in there? Go on. Dig in.
"Let me see."
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
TROY SLIPPED HIS FINGERS into the pocket.
He looked at his father. Drew gave him an odd half smile and tilted his head. Troy wondered if his father would keep him alive long enough for the FBI to get there in time, if they were listening.
His fingers closed around the cool metal disk and, hesitantly, he removed it from his pocket.
"Open your hand," Luther grumbled.
Troy's fingers slowly spread. The quarter gleamed up at them.
Luther began to laugh.
It started in low, then grew to a mad cackle.
"Twenty-five cents!" Luther hooted. "Look at your boy, Drew. Your little man is some kind of player, right? Five million in the pipeline, and he's got a quarter in his pocket."
Troy's father joined in the laughter, as did G Money; soon Troy realized it was real laughter, all of it. He broke out in a relieved laugh of his own, looking from one face to another. When it died down, Luther wiped a tear from the corner of one dark and red-rimmed eye and sniffed. Then from his own pocket he removed a fat wad of hundred-dollar bills.
"This is how you carry your money, little man, in a roll," Luther said, "if you're lucky enough to have this much. But you are lucky, right? Lucky for your dad, that's for sure. Lucky like a rabbit's foot."
Troy's father hesitated, then said, "I was lucky to find him."
Luther snorted, stuffed the roll of cash back into his pocket, and looked at G Money, who shrugged as though afraid to take a side.
"That and more," Luther said to Troy's dad with a scowl before he glanced at his watch. "All right. I got this meeting in two minutes, so you take this little family reunion someplace else."
Troy studied G Money, thinking that since it was his house, he'd have something to say about who would go where. Troy was wrong. G Money listened to the big thug like a schoolboy hoping to get out of the principal's office. The rapper flicked his chin, signaling Troy and his dad to follow him. Even though he hadn't completed his mission, Troy could only feel relief at the thought of being free from the horrible gaze of Luther Tolsky.
They hadn't taken two steps before a guard barged in from the entrance and said, "Hey, G Money. We got another kid now."
"What?" G Money said, rumpling his face.
That's when the guard reached behind him, grabbed hold of a collar, and shoved Tate into the big room.
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
LUTHER'S PINK GRIN APPEARED in the midst of his beard, G Money flashed his own gold grille, and Troy's dad joined in.
"Little man is some kind of Romeo," Luther said. "Come on in here, Juliet."
Tate folded her arms across her chest and scowled at them all.
"Tate," Troy said in disbelief, "what are you doing?"
"Making sure you're all right," she said, glaring at him like the whole thing was his fault.
"I'm fine," Troy said.
"Right," she said, drawing out the word to show her disbelief.
"You want me to bounce her on out of here, G?" the guard asked.
"You remember Tate, G Money?" Troy quickly said. "My friend from the Falcons game. Down on the field?"
"You can't take the little man's shorty," Luther said, laughing.
With the men's attention on Tate, Troy realized in a flash that he had a chance to do what he'd come for. The thought of his father going to jail forced his hand into his pocket. He clutched his mom's cell phone with the quarter pressed tight to its side. When he removed the items, he kept his eyes on the men and let the quarter slip from his hand so that it fell to the bearskin rug with the faintest thump.
"Oh, Troy," Tate said, obviously embarrassed by the men's attention and wanting to get out from under it any way she could.
"I think maybe you just dropped a quarter or something."
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
TATE POINTED AT THE floor, and the men's eyes all followed its direction, looking at Troy's feet. Troy made a show of looking down himself and bent to scoop the money out of the rug, holding it up in his free hand.
"Wow," he said, "yeah. Got it. Thanks, Tate."
Troy's face warmed as he tucked the quarter back into his pocket.
"Okay, scat," Luther said, jabbing his thumb toward the door as he stepped to a side table and poured himself what looked like a whiskey to Troy.
"Come on," Troy's dad said, motioning to them. "Let's go sit by the pool and we can talk."
"Yeah," Luther said, raising his drink, "and I'll call you when I need you, Drew. That Cayman Islands thing, right?"
"Right," Troy's dad said. "Sure."
As they crossed the big room for the doors, Troy heard the sound of men arriving at the front door, laughter, greetings, and the slap of handshakes.
When they'd passed through the sliding doors and were alongside the pool, Troy asked, "What's that Cayman Islands thing all about?"
His father flinched but then quickly gave Troy a smile and a wink and said, "Just business."
"With that guy?" Troy asked.
"He's G Money's friend," Troy's dad said, lowering his voice. "If G Money wants to do something with him, I've got to stay on top of the deal. I'm the lawyer."
"What kind of a deal is it?" Troy asked, hoping against hope that his father would come up with something to prove the FBI agents wrong.
"Nothing you'd understand, Troy," his dad said. "Stop asking questions, will you? Why'd you come over here anyway? Did you climb over the wall?"
"Yeah," Troy said. "Tired of fighting with my mom, I guess."
"I get it," his dad said, showing them to seats around the table on the terrace where the men had played cards. "Let me get you two something to drink. Coke? Grape soda? Mountain Dew?"
"Orange soda if you have it," Tate said.
"Coke," said Troy.
The instant his dad disappeared down the shrub-lined path heading for G Money's bar by the end of the pool, Troy said, "Tate, are you kidding? What the heck are you even doing here? Do you know what you just did with that quarter?"
Tate gave him a worried look and shrugged. "Saved you twenty-five cents?"
"It's the whole reason I'm here," Troy said in an urgent whisper that he also used to quickly tell her the story about the FBI.