by Josh Berk
“I don’t get it,” I said. “I have a question for you. Why are you being so nice to us?”
“Because I am a nice man,” he said. “My father raised me to be a true gentleman.”
“I see,” Other Mike said.
“And also,” Famosa said, “I need your help.”
There was a pause then. A silence. No talking from our table. No talking from any tables. Just the sizzle of onions cooking and the quiet hum of the overhead fans.
“What can we do for you?” Maria asked in a quiet voice.
Famosa leaned in, bringing his massive head close to the center of the group. We all leaned in as well. It felt like we were in a football huddle or a meeting of infielders on the pitcher’s mound. It felt like someone was going to tell us to try the hidden-ball trick.
“I need you,” he said in a low, quiet voice that was at once friendly and completely terrifying, “to tell no one of my secret.”
We sat silently for another moment. People chewed. Maria spoke.
“What will you do for us?” she said. Was she crazy? Okay, Famosa wasn’t a killer, but he was still a huge man with a fake identity and a possibly insane bodyguard who’d just tried to steal my camera and tackle us in a food court.
“I am not sure you understand what I’m asking,” Famosa said.
“Oh, I understand,” Maria said. “You’re asking us to keep this thing a secret. This thing that everyone in town would get a kick out of. Everyone in the country, probably. ESPN would love it. The local papers would eat it up. Bedrosian’s Beard would basically go up in flames from all the shenanigans.”
“Are you blackmailing us?” Don Guardo asked.
“Did you just say ‘shenanigans’?” I asked.
“Blackmail, negotiation, call it whatever you want,” Maria said.
“I call it shenani-goats,” Other Mike said.
“Whatever. It doesn’t bother me,” she said. Man, she was tough. She was looking right at Famosa, jabbing a French fry toward him. “The point is, you want something from us, and we want something from you.”
Famosa sighed and shifted back in his seat. “Fine,” he said. “How much do you want?”
“Oh no,” Maria said. “We don’t want money.”
We don’t want money? Why was she saying we? There was no we in this blackmail. This was all her. But she continued, “What we want is your help.”
“I am listening,” he said.
“We want you to try to help us figure out who did kill R. J. Weathers.”
“I am not sure I can do that,” he said. “I am not even sure that he was killed.”
“Well,” she said. “We are sure. I can’t tell you why. But we need you to help us figure it out. If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. But without your help, we are stuck.”
“What do you need me to do?” he asked after a long sigh.
Without missing a beat, she rattled off the following demands: “One: we want you to leave tickets for us at the ballpark for the game next Monday night, with special instructions that we be allowed in the dugout. Five tickets under the name Norbeck. We’ll be there early. Find us during batting practice. Two: we want you to do some spying on your teammates to see if anyone hated RJ or has any theories. We suspect it’s an inside job.” She took an angry bite of the French fry that she had been using as a pointer. Then she popped the whole thing in her mouth, folded her arms over her chest, and sat back.
“Do you promise to keep my secret?” he asked.
“You have my word, amigo,” she said, and I knew she meant it.
“Me too, amigo,” I said. The Mikes also said it. Maria stuck out her hand and Famosa shook it. Then he shook each of our hands. Then Don Guardo shook everyone’s hands as well. It was a lot of handshaking, and I accidentally ended up shaking Mike’s hand.
“Why are we shaking hands?” he asked.
“Just go with it,” I said.
“You are a very impressive lady,” Don Guardo said to Maria. “I am glad to be on your side. But as to you boys—” He pointed at us. All I was thinking was, Please don’t mention how all the boys love her. “Why don’t you guys just play baseball instead of running around playing cops and robbers?”
There was a moment of quiet, and then I spoke up. “I did play once,” I said. “I was the worst there ever was.…” I let my voice fall off in that dramatic way. I always say that and always let my voice fall off in a dramatic way. I do this hoping that someone will ask me to tell the story. But, sadly, they never do.
“I was a pitcher,” Mike said. “Until I blew out my arm. If I can’t pitch, I don’t want to play, really. I’m not good at any of the other positions.”
Famosa smiled. “You should be a catcher, not a pitcher.”
“Really?” Mike said.
“Hey, I saw the way you caught that camera and blocked the plate. You are better at blocking the plate than I am. You totally stopped that angry, angry base runner.” He pointed to Don Guardo. Everyone laughed. Well, not everyone. Don did not laugh. He grimaced. He glowered.
“I totally did tag him out, didn’t I?”
“Indeed, you did,” Famosa said.
“I will get you next time,” Don Guardo said. “I will be safe. You will be out.” He was smiling, but he said it with a little more menace in his voice than I was comfortable with.
With that, lunch was pretty much over.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“Man, Maria, that was boss,” Courtney said once we were in the car. (I was stuck in the back-middle again, for some reason.) “Really just extremely boss. I can’t believe how you had them eating out of your hand!”
“Hey.” She shrugged. “When you’re good, you’re good.”
“Maybe you should have asked them for money, though,” Courtney said. “He’s gotta be rich! And he was totally ready to open his wallet.”
I rolled my eyes and muttered, “How many bikinis does one person need?”
Maria laughed. “The great trouble with baseball today is that most of the players are in the game for the money. For me, that’s not it. I’m in it for the love of it, the excitement of it, the thrill of it,” she said. Everyone was quiet for a moment. Courtney sped off, the car backfiring loudly, then lurching ahead.
“Um, that’s Ty Cobb. I’m quoting Ty Cobb,” Maria said.
She really was impressive. Who else had quotes from old baseball players memorized?
“You really want to solve this thing, don’t you?” Mike said.
“Heck, yeah, I do,” she said.
Someone blasted an angry honk at Courtney as she pulled wildly onto the main road. “Sorry!” She waved.
“You have fallen in love with a mermaid, and that mermaid is figuring out who killed R. J. Weathers,” Other Mike said.
“That was really awesome how Famosa said I should be a catcher!” Mike said. “You really think I could do it? A big league catcher! Said I had good form blocking the plate!”
“Yeah, but he really sucks at catcher, though,” I said. I don’t know why I said it.
“Good enough to make the majors! And that’s all I want. I mean, I think I’m going out for the team next year. Catcher. Famosa or Marte or whatever—he’s in the bigs, and he said he thought I was great at blocking the plate.”
“Technically, he said you’re better than he is at blocking the plate. That doesn’t actually mean you’re great at it, because he’s pretty terrible, but he is a big leaguer, so I guess it’s sort of …”
“Lenny! Let me have my moment here.”
“Sorry. Anyway, it’s going to be awesome, getting into the dugout, looking for clues about the murder.” I said. “So far all we’ve done is prove that Famosa is a liar.”
“And you can’t blame him, really. All he wanted was to play baseball. Nothing wrong with that,” Mike said.
“Yeah, yeah, we get it,” I said. “You’re going out for the team again, Mike. You’ve made that clear.” I can’t explain why, but it made me ang
ry. Okay, I do know why it made me angry. It was mean, but I sort of liked that Mike didn’t play anymore. I liked having him sitting with me, putting our energies into cheering. Into being fans. If he got back out there on the field, where would that leave me? I know what you’re thinking. I could go out for the team too. Maybe I already mentioned this a time or two before, but I did play once. And I was the worst there ever was.…
“I think that once we get into the dugout and get some information from Jesús on the inside, we’ll really figure this thing out,” Maria said.
I wasn’t so sure.
“We need Jesus and Jesús,” Mike said. That joke makes more sense speaking it than reading it.
“I’m not so sure,” I said. “I’m afraid we need one more thing.”
“A clue?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “A cardiologist.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Courtney pulled into the driveway of my house, and I jumped out as fast as I could. I wasn’t in a hurry or anything. I just wanted to get away from the Mikes, who had been sweating and farting the whole way home. Plus, I had to pee.
Courtney had her afternoon planned, of course. Trying on outfits and teasing her hair and tanning. Okay, I should really stop bad-mouthing Courtney because she had turned out to be sort of cool. Plus, she agreed to drive us into Philadelphia for the next Phils game.
Were we really going to be allowed into the dugout to look for clues? The whole thing was amazing. Millions of people had been watching Ramon Famosa all season. But only me, the Mikes, and Maria were able to solve the mystery. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the mystery we were trying to solve. It was like closing our eyes and taking a giant swing and connecting with a hundred-mile-an-hour fastball, smacking a massive drive … that ended up going foul. But it felt like we were getting closer to the truth. It was just a matter of timing the pitch right and soon enough we’d make contact. We’d figure this thing out.
Maria and the Mikes barged into the house after me. I hit the bathroom and came out to find the Mikes each on a couch. I took the recliner. It had been a rough day, but Maria wasn’t about to let us relax.
“What did you mean before when you said we need a cardiologist, Lenny?” she asked.
“Well,” I said. “We’re still waiting to hear from my dad about what he’s found out about the autopsy. We need to make sure it even was murder. It could have been an accident. Just a fluke thing. I mean, we were totally wrong about Famosa—”
She cut me off. “We weren’t wrong about Famosa,” she said defensively.
Other Mike started to say something, then stopped and went back to his paperback. Somehow he had pulled out one of those warlock books from somewhere and was already reading it. Did he stash warlock books around my house? Carry them in his pockets? Impressive.
“Don’t even say it!” Maria said. She sure was good at cutting people off.
“Well, yeah, Famosa was lying and disguising his identity,” I said. “But he had nothing to do with R. J. Weathers.”
“I guess if you look deep enough, every family has secrets,” she said.
I paused for a moment. “I don’t think every family has secrets. Not mine. The Norbecks are superboring.”
She smiled. “I believe that,” she said.
“Yeah,” Mike said. “Lenny’s dad is a bit of a dork, yeah—”
“Shocking to hear,” Maria said.
“But I don’t think he has any secrets,” I said.
“My dad was in a punk band in college,” Other Mike said. “The Lactose Intolerants.”
“My dad has a tattoo,” Mike said. “Don’t ask where.”
“No, the Norbecks have no secrets at—” I started to say. Then I gulped.
“Why did you gulp?” Maria asked.
“No reason,” I said, trying to play it off. “Just, you know, like a burp.”
“That wasn’t a burp. That was a gulp. I know the difference,” she said.
“Oh yeah, do you?” I asked. “Is the difference between a gulp and a burp something you picked up at the police academy, since you’re so obviously a trained detective, uncovering everyone’s secrets and finding hidden locked boxes under beds?”
Maria turned her head slightly to the side and pursed her lips. “Who said anything about secret clues in locked boxes under a bed?”
I gulped again.
“Hate to say it, Lenny,” Other Mike said from the couch. “But that was definitely a gulp, not a burp. You’re hiding something. Time to come clean, gulper.” He put the paperback down, and I knew this was serious.
Should I tell them that this summer had already presented another mystery to solve? I hadn’t mentioned it to anyone, but I had been thinking a lot about the locked box I’d found under my parents’ bed when I was hiding there the night RJ died.
“Okay, you guys, my dad has a locked box under the bed,” I said. “I found it the night RJ died.”
“Whoa!” Maria said.
“I’m sure it’s nothing,” I said.
“What do you think is in there? Secret cardiology things?” Other Mike said.
“Whatever that means,” Mike said. “It’s gotta be a clue.”
“Only one way to find out,” Maria said. She was already walking up toward my parents’ bedroom. I didn’t even know how she knew which room to look in. I guess parents’ bedrooms are always pretty much located in the same place in every house. They always get the largest room, with maximum bathroom-closeness. It’s not fair. I suspect some sort of a conspiracy.
“Dude, get back here!” I said. “I just said it’s locked!”
“Good thing I’m a master safecracker,” Mike said.
Maria came back into the living room. “You are?”
“Yeah, you are?” I asked. “Since when?”
“You’re not the only one who’s been reading books this summer, Len.”
“I know. Other Mike talks about wizards constantly.”
“Warlocks, Lenny. Warlocks,” Other Mike said.
“So you’re telling me that you got a book from the library about how to crack safes?” Maria asked. “What kind of library is Uncle Alan running over there?”
“An awesome one,” Mike said. “And, yeah, maybe I did read a book about locks. What kind of lock is it? A padlock? Chamber lock? Combination lock? Cruciform? Pin tumbler?”
“Dude, I have no idea. Cruciform? And how would I know what a pin tumbler is?”
“Try reading a book about something besides baseball,” he said.
“Don’t listen to him,” Maria said. “I’ve been reading a Ty Cobb biography. It’s pretty great.”
“Shut up!” I said. “Would everyone just shut up? You know Dad’ll come home if we go up there and start digging under the bed. He never comes home from work early. But it’s pretty much a guarantee that Dr. Jeff Norbeck’s shiny bald head will waltz right in early for the first time in the history of his life if we’re in there. We’ll totally be busted. I’ll be totally grounded. I won’t get to go to the ballpark to look for clues with Famosa—I won’t get to do anything. So let’s just forget it.”
I knew it was a long shot. I knew they wouldn’t forget it. You can’t just gulp a few times about how you found a secret locked box under your parents’ bed and hope that this crew would ever let you forget it. The odds that I could convince them to drop it and spend the rest of the day in a nice, relaxed game of Hungry Hungry Hippos were next to impossible. Worse odds even than me winning said game of Hungry Hungry Hippos. I hate that game. I never win. Stupid hippos.
“You know I’m not going to drop it, right, Lenny?” Maria said. “I mean, that was a nice speech and all. But no offense—I wasn’t afraid of Don Guardo and his pistol, and I’m not afraid of you.”
“Wait. Don Guardo had a pistol?” I asked.
“Sure. What kind of bodyguard wouldn’t?”
“Man, we could have been shot today?” I said.
“Not really,” Maria said. “We were i
n a shopping mall.”
I wasn’t sure I followed her logic. But, still, I knew she was right. There was no way I was going to get her to give up searching my dad’s locked box.
I sighed. “I think it’s a combination, Mike,” I said. “It felt just like the lock on the lockers at school. I didn’t really get a good look at it. It was the middle of the night. It was very dark under there.”
“You were under your parents’ bed in the middle of the night?” Maria asked.
“It’s a long story.”
“Dude, I break into people’s lockers at school all the time. I could have done that even before reading A Young Person’s Guide to Safecracking.”
“I really am going to have to have a talk with Uncle Alan,” Maria said.
We headed up to my parents’ room. How could I resist? I really was worried about Dad coming in, so I asked Other Mike if he would mind acting as lookout.
Specifically, he said, “Just as the noble warlock Vander cherished his role atop the lookout tower above Katch, I will gladly serve as watchman. If a single intruder sets foot in our sacred land, I shall ring the magic bells and summon you at once.”
“Um, just get us if you see my dad’s car. Or my mom’s.”
“Got it,” he said.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Mike, Maria, and I made our way up to my parents’ room. The house was empty—except for the noble warlock Vandey or whatever ridiculous thing Other Mike was calling himself—but we found ourselves sneaking. Very quietly we opened the door to my parents’ bedroom, as if we didn’t want to disturb a wild animal that might be sleeping inside.
Mom and Dad’s room did not feel like a doctor’s office waiting room. It was messy, filled with clothes and papers and junk. The door was always closed. The room was, in no uncertain terms, off limits. Mom acted like this was because she was “embarrassed about the mess,” but was it really because of the secrets? One thing that was not a secret: she loved pillows. The bed was filled with more pillows than anyone could possibly ever need. Who could sleep on forty pillows?