The Fourth Stall Part III Read online

  “If you get into a fight and you’re both still standing at the end, then you’re both losers.”

  “Despite what people say, money can buy you happiness. Like, I’m not talking about eternal happiness or anything, but more on a day-to-day moment-by-moment basis. Let’s say right now I was to give you two hundred dollars with absolutely no strings attached. Well then, would you or would you not be happier than you had been just moments before? And that extra happiness would probably last you a good day or maybe even two. See, it’s simple logic: money can buy happiness even if it’s only temporary. Besides, isn’t all happiness temporary by definition?”

  “Stealing stuff is easy. It’s knowing what is actually worth the risk of stealing that’s difficult.”

  “Girls love to talk about themselves. If you like a girl, just ask her lots of questions about herself, you’ll get a date in no time.”

  “Never hesitate in anything you do, ever. That’s like a cardinal rule for all life on earth. In a duel between two sharks, two tigers, whatever, whichever side hesitates when the time to attack comes will end up dead.”

  “Don’t trust anybody completely. Ever.”

  “If you ever see a clown somewhere other than at a circus, rodeo, or party, then either run away or kill it immediately.”

  “Keep a roll of quarters gripped tightly in each hand if you ever get into a fist-fight. Trust me, they will help.”

  Anyways, the Saturday after he first showed up in Vince’s trailer, Staples wanted to take Vince and me to the go-kart track as a part of his Big Brother thing. At first, I didn’t want to go, but I couldn’t just bail on Vince like that.

  I was technically grounded, of course, but when I explained the Big Brother situation to my mom and about how Vince wanted me with since it was awkward to hang out with Staples on his own, she understood and let me go.

  When Staples showed up to get me with Vince already riding shotgun, I felt kind of dumb for being such a wuss about the whole thing. For one thing Staples apparently didn’t have that old red muscle car with racing stripes anymore. He showed up in a regular-looking, blue Toyota sedan. Also, he and Vince were actually laughing about something when they pulled into my driveway, as if they were actually having a good time. Go figure.

  I got in the backseat behind Vince.

  “I need to make a stop before we go to the tracks,” Staples said as he backed out of my driveway.

  Vince turned and glanced at me, indicating that he had no idea what was up. I shifted in my seat. I saw Staples glance at me through the rearview mirror.

  “Don’t worry. We’re not going to a drug deal or anything. I just want to stop by and see my sister for a few minutes. Her foster parents don’t like me very much, so I can only see her briefly and when she’s not home.”

  “I thought you were doing everything on the level,” I said. “Sneaking around her foster parents for covert meetings doesn’t exactly sound aboveboard.”

  “Hey, I just said they don’t like me. It’s not illegal for me to hang out with my sister for a little bit if I want. I just do it when they’re not around because there’s no point in me causing any unnecessary trouble right now.”

  “How often do you visit?” Vince asked.

  “I don’t know. As much as I can, I guess. Maybe a couple of times a month. I’m just . . . I’m trying to not overdo it until I work everything out with the courts as far as me getting custody.”

  “So, why did you trade in the sports car for this thing?” I said, trying to change the subject.

  “It’s a Toyota, Mac. There are billions of them. Look,” Staples pointed out the window at another blue Toyota parked on the street. “Same car. I figured it would look better for me to drive an ‘everyman’ car instead of my dad’s old attention-getter. You know that flashy sports cars get pulled over by cops way more than regular cars, right? Statistically. Plus, insurance on that thing was insanely expensive. So, once I lost my business . . .”

  He trailed off, but shot me a pretty nasty glance through the rearview mirror. I sometimes forgot what the consequences were of me taking down his business.

  An awkward silence followed as we headed out of town and in the direction of Thief Valley, a smaller town that was just about fifteen miles away. Then out of nowhere Staples started talking again.

  “My sister’s so freaking smart,” he said. “Smarter than me. And you guys look like morons compared to her, no offense.”

  “Uh, none taken?” I said.

  I realized that I’d never heard Staples talk this way before. Every time he talked about his sister, all traces of his sarcasm were gone. Instead he looked . . . I don’t know, like a little kid thinking about his first trip to Disneyland or something. It was weird and it kind of made me uncomfortable for some reason.

  “I mean,” Staples continued, “if it weren’t for her, I probably would be in prison or worse. But she needs me. I’d give anything to be able to hold her hand again the way I used to when I walked her to the playground when she was in kindergarten.”

  He moved a hand from the steering wheel to his face.

  Before I could stop myself, I asked, “Are you crying?”

  “So what if I am?” Staples said. Then he reached back and slugged me right above my knee. I grabbed my leg and winced and rocked back in my seat. It felt like I’d just got run over by a freight train loaded to capacity with African elephants.

  Staples reached over and got Vince on the arm, too, for good measure, I guessed. We didn’t say anything for the last several minutes of the drive. It was safer that way.

  We finally pulled up in front of Thief Valley Elementary. It was a Saturday, but apparently a lot of kids rode their bikes to the playground on Saturdays. That’s sort of how things worked in smaller towns, you made do with what you had. And in towns like Thief Valley, the schoolyard playground was likely the most fun place to hang out in grade school, even on weekends. There were twenty or so kids playing on the swings and monkey bars and the rest of the stuff. And there was even a small game of football going on behind the playground. Staples parked on the street right by the playground.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  “Us, too?” I said.

  “Yeah, why not? Come on.” He swung the door open and got out of the car.

  Vince looked at me and shrugged before removing his seat belt and opening his door. I followed him, and we jogged to catch up with Staples as he walked toward the playground.

  None of the kids was breaking away and running toward us, and I wondered what was going on. Finally, one girl who had been talking to some other kids behind the slide broke away and started walking toward us.

  I barely recognized her from the picture I’d seen in Staples’s office when we’d raided it last year. She was a lot older than in the picture. She was now in maybe third or fourth grade, and her hair was different.

  “What are you doing here?” she said, stopping at the edge of the playground.

  “Is it a crime that I want to say hi to my little sister?”

  “Probably,” she said. “Everything you do is a crime of some sort.”

  “Ooh, ouch,” Staples said playfully, but I could tell he was hurt by the comment.

  Vince and I exchanged looks. Staples’s sister apparently wasn’t quite as thrilled as he was about the idea of him getting custody. I wondered if she even knew at all that he was trying to.

  “Anyway,” Staples said, “these are Mac and Vince. They’re my new pals. Mac, Vince: my sister, Abby.”

  Abby eyed Vince and me up and down, clearly not impressed.

  “Why are they so young?” she said, even though we were at least several years older than she was. “Picking on kids your own age got too boring?”

  Staples sighed and took a knee so he was closer to eye level with her. “Listen, I don’t want to fight. I just came here to say hi. Mac and Vince and I are going to race go-karts, and I figured if you wanted to come—”

  “Why would
I want to do that? Besides, David and Linda would never let me.”

  I guessed that David and Linda were her foster parents. The whole thing was getting uncomfortable, and I glanced up at some of the other kids on the playground. This monster of a kid was terrorizing two other kids by the swings. From his face he looked no older than fifth grade, but the rest of him . . . Well, he was like an industrial barge with skin, limbs, and a face. Or a woolly mammoth. He was holding one of the kids upside down by his ankle, and he had the other one pinned to the ground under his foot. It was horrifying. I looked at Vince and caught his attention, then nodded toward where the beast was flinging around little kids like he was fluffing pillows.

  I made a move toward them. There was no way I could stand there and let that happen. But Abby held out her arm and stopped me.

  “You don’t want to do that,” she said.

  “But—” I started.

  “Trust me. You shouldn’t get involved with him. He’s pretty powerful and stuff. It’s best just to stay out of it. Those two kids will be okay. Besides, they kind of started it.”

  I wasn’t so sure, but I nodded and stepped back. Mostly because, in all honesty, I really didn’t want any part of getting into an altercation with a fourteen-foot-tall grizzly bear posing as a grade-school kid.

  “David and Linda,” Staples said, and then shook his head.

  “They’re not that bad,” Abby said.

  I’d been interviewing and reading people long enough to know how empty her words were. It was as easy to read on her face as if she’d written it right across her forehead: they were that bad.

  “You sure you don’t want to come?” Staples asked.

  “Definitely not with you.”

  “I’m going to make everything up to you,” Staples said, getting back to his feet. “I promise.”

  “Yeah, just like Dad said he would, too. Right. Besides, I don’t need you to. In case you haven’t noticed, I can take care of myself just fine.” Abby backed away a few steps and then turned and ran back to her group of friends behind the slide.

  Vince and I looked at each other uncomfortably. Were we, like, supposed to say something to Staples? Should I pat him on the shoulder? Of course the answer was no. That’d be like poking an already angry tiger in the ribs.

  “All right, guys, let’s go,” Staples said, and then started trudging back to the car.

  None of us talked much on the way to the race tracks. And we especially didn’t talk about Abby. We mostly just passed the time by talking about the current baseball season and how bad the Cubs sucked that year, which Staples found hilarious, of course. But then, he was a spoiled Yankees fan, so who cares what he thinks. At least Vince and I like a cool, authentic team, and once the Cubs finally break the curse, it will be a real championship, not a purchased one. Today’s Yankees fans don’t know what it’s like to earn anything, the real way. But whatever, back to the story.

  I have to admit that racing go-karts with Vince and Staples was pretty fun. Afterward we were all in pretty good moods. Which is why I thought during the drive back to our houses that it might finally be safe to bring up what had happened in Thief Valley. It seemed like the only time Staples was truly genuine was when his sister was involved or connected in some way to the conversation or events.

  “So, TV Elementary is a pretty rough scene, huh?” I said.

  “Yeah, did you see that yeti pummeling those kids?” Vince said, taking my lead.

  I waited nervously to see how Staples would react. I shifted my leg back as far as I could. It couldn’t handle another shot today. There was already a deep purple bruise developing where Staples had gotten me the first time.

  But he didn’t reach back again. This time he just nodded calmly.

  “Yeah, I went there back in the day,” he said. “It’s always been tough. Kids there like to . . . well, assert themselves a little more than usual, I guess. That’s part of why I want to get her out of there. I mean, going to that school and living with those foster parents . . . that’s two strikes against her having a good childhood and turning out happy as an adult.”

  I nodded.

  “Makes sense,” Vince agreed.

  “If I get custody of her, then she can go to your school, since I live in your district. You guys like it there, right?”

  I laughed.

  Staples gave me a confused look in the rearview.

  “Things are great there,” Vince assured him. “Mac’s laughing because we turned ourselves in, exposed our business last year—something we’d never thought we’d do—all because of how much kids love that school. So, yeah, I think Abby would be much better off there than Thief Valley.”

  Staples nodded but didn’t say anything else for a while.

  “Well, if I told my grandma about this, she’d probably say, ‘Just don’t ever trust a person with three hands. It may seem neat that they have three hands and all, but I ain’t never met a mutie that had a conscience. I also ain’t never met one that didn’t own a lobster for a pet; those muties sure love their lobsters. But don’t ever trust a person that gives a name to a lobster neither.’”

  “Mutie?” I managed to ask while laughing so hard I almost kicked the back of Vince’s seat.

  “Yeah, it’s what she calls mutants . . . which to her are basically anybody who doesn’t look like they could have starred in The Brady Bunch. Like, at the mall this one time we saw this kid with a Mohawk, not a fake one like tools wear but a real one, like two-foot-high spikes and the sides shaved to bare skin. She just kept screaming, ‘Mutie! Mutie! Someone check its pockets to see if it’s got papers!’ I don’t even know what she meant by that, but I was too busy laughing to ask her.”

  “Man, your grandma is the best,” I said through more laughter.

  Even Staples was laughing now, too.

  Then suddenly he hit the brakes and swerved the car to the curb, nearly taking out a mailbox.

  “Hey, you guys want some lemonade?” he said, pointing to a few younger kids with a lemonade stand on the street corner ahead of us. “Come on. This is exactly the sort of thing that Big Brothers were invented for.”

  We all got out of the car and approached a small table sitting on the sidewalk in front of a house. A couple of younger kids selling lemonade sat behind it. While it was kind of weird how suddenly Staples had pulled over for this, I couldn’t deny that on a scorching, early-fall day like today some ice-cold lemonade would be pretty awesome.

  Two small girls and one boy sat behind the table. They were probably third graders, give or take a year. They had a handmade cardboard sign taped to the front of the table that read: “Ice Cold Lemon-Aid Only $3 Bucks!! A Bargan! Clearance!!!” Three dollars was definitely a little steep for this neighborhood but whatever. They’d figure out how proper pricing could maximize their profit eventually.

  Staples ordered three glasses. They poured iceless lemonade into three tiny Dixie cups, and then one of the girls said, “Nine dollars, dude.”

  Staples grinned and handed her a ten-dollar bill. “Keep the change.”

  We downed our too-small drinks. And I almost had to spit mine out. Not only was it not ice-cold, but it was warm. And it was terrible. Given its color and consistency and temperature, I couldn’t be positive that what we’d just drunk wasn’t actually some kid’s pee with lemon flavoring.

  “Yuck!” Vince said while grimacing.

  Staples also spit out his nasty lemonade, but he didn’t get upset like Vince and I had. Instead, he just seemed mildly amused by this whole exchange.

  “Is this cut?” I asked them. “With water or something? You can’t charge a premium price for a product that’s been cut with water. This tastes like lemon carpet cleaner!”

  “We can do whatever we want!” one of the little brats said back.

  “But why would you do this?” Vince asked, trying a different approach. “Don’t you want people to come back?”

  “They’ll come back because every other stand a
round here serves the same stuff,” the little boy said. “They’re all owned by the same guy, so people got no other choice.”

  “And what about how warm it is? If you advertise ice-cold drinks, then they need to be at least kind of cold,” I said.

  “Hey, boss’s orders,” one of the girls said. “Boss says ice is too expensive.”

  “Who owns these stands?” Vince asked. “Who is your boss?”

  “Jimmy Two-Tone, duh,” she said while rolling her eyes at our apparent stupidity.

  Vince and I looked at each other. Why would Jimmy Two-Tone cut corners on something as simple as a lemonade stand? Especially when, up to this point, he seemed to be proving himself as a more than capable businessman. He was doing just fine without opening up a reputation-tarnishing lemonade scam.

  Staples smirked at us. “Still so sure that your deal with him was a good idea?”

  Instead of answering, I threw the Dixie cup at the little trash can next to the table. It bounced off the rim and landed in the yard behind the kids. Staples laughed while I stomped around and picked it up and then placed it into the garbage can.

  I wasn’t sure exactly what all this meant, but I intended to find out.

  The next morning at school I tried to track down Jimmy to ask him what was going on. But he was nowhere to be found. I checked the East Wing hallway, but the closed-for-repairs sign was up.

  So at lunch Vince and I went to find Ears. Ears was my main source of information. He was the biggest gossip in the school and heard everything. If you wanted to know what kind of cereal the kid that sat next to you in science class puked into a cute girl’s lap last year during homeroom one day, Ears could tell you that he had definitely heard that it was Corn Bran with sugar on it.

  So Vince and I found Ears behind the old metal slide on the playground to ask him what he’d been hearing about Jimmy. Ears always hung out by the old metal slide, and he was always there with three or four of the more popular girls at school. I had no idea what they talked about all the time, but something told me I didn’t even want to know.