Coach Amos (4 page)

“She’ll think you’re too grown-up to need one of those macho team names.”

Amos smiled. “You think so?”

“Sure. Girls go for the mature type every time. You gather up the stuff. I’m going to leave a note for Mr. Posey so he’ll know we took the jerseys.”

Dunc looked around on the desk for a pencil. He pulled open the top drawer. “Look at this, Amos. Mr. Posey has a list of every game that’s been played in this town since football season. And all the ones that haven’t been played yet. Everything from chess to soccer. He must really be into sports.”

Amos glanced at the list. “Hey, there’s our first game. I wonder why he wrote ‘ten-to-one’ out beside our team’s name?”

“Hmmm. Every game has a note like that beside it. Here’s one that says ‘five-to-one.’ ”

Amos put his finger on the last high school football game. “This one says ‘even money.’ ”

Dunc pulled out his note pad and started writing furiously.

“Now what are you doing?”

“Amos, I think this means something. There’s a phone number here. I’m not sure, but it could be important. I’m going to try and copy down some of this information. Watch the door.”

Amos started for the door. He didn’t make it. A barbell was lying on the floor. He caught his foot under it and sprawled into a stack of athletic shoes.

Jimmy Banes came barreling through the door. “What’s going on back here?”

Dunc moved around in front of the open desk drawer. He carefully reached his right arm behind him and slid it shut. “Nothing, Jimmy. We were having a little trouble finding the jerseys, that’s all.”

Jimmy picked up the bag near where Amos had gone down. “They’re right there in front of you. You two get out of here
before you wreck the place and get me in trouble.”

Dunc helped Amos up. He picked up the bag of jerseys and headed for the door. “Thanks, Jimmy. Try not to work too hard.”

“Amos, see if you can hit your mouth more often.”

Amos was in Dunc’s room throwing cheese popcorn in the air and trying to catch it in his mouth. Dunc was following him around the room with a dust blaster, sucking up the pieces that didn’t quite make it. Normally, Dunc was too neat to go for something like this. But today he was torn between neatness and the world record.

Somebody in Duluth had caught one hundred and fifty-seven pieces of popcorn in his mouth, nonstop, without dropping any.

Dunc figured, with a little practice Amos should be able to top that easily.

Amos wasn’t into world records, but he was into eating popcorn. So far, he had made it to forty-three pieces straight.

Dunc turned off the dust blaster. “I guess that’s enough practice for today. You’re getting better all the time. By my calculations, if we keep working, you ought to have it by Christmas.”

“As long as you supply the popcorn, I’ll keep practicing.” Amos plopped onto Dunc’s bed.

Dunc straightened the bedspread and carefully sat down beside him. He took out his pocket notebook and flipped through the pages. “I can’t quite figure out this case. It’s too weird.”

“I’ll say.” Amos reached for another handful of popcorn. “We’ve never had the mafia after us before.”

“We don’t have the mafia after us. I told you, that was somebody’s idea of a joke. Either that, or someone who’s afraid our team might win tomorrow.”

“Nobody in their right mind would be afraid of that.”

Dunc flipped another page. “I called around. Nobody rented any limousines yesterday. Whoever it was either already owned one, or they went out of town to get it.”

Amos wiped his mouth. “It doesn’t make sense. Who would go to that much trouble over a T-ball game?”

“Gamblers. I studied the notes from Mr. Posey’s desk last night. I don’t know why I didn’t see it before. The words next to each game are betting terms.”

“Why would gamblers bet on a little kids’ game? I thought they stuck to horse races and cards and stuff.”

“I’ve read that there are some guys who are so addicted to gambling, they’ll bet on anything that moves.”

Amos sat up. “Do you think Mr. Posey is betting on our game?”

“I can’t prove it, but it looks that way.”

“Do you think he’s betting for us or against us?”

Dunc tapped his chin. “Hard to say. But after tonight, we should find out.”

“What happens tonight?”

Dunc smiled. “Tonight we use the phone number I copied off that sheet at Posey’s store and set a trap for whoever’s trying to rig these games.”

“No.”

“What do you mean—no?”

“I mean no. I have other, important plans for my evening. And they don’t include setting traps for the mafia.”

Dunc frowned. “I told you … never mind. What kind of important plans?”

“Tonight’s channel sixteen movie is
The Worm That Slimed Los Angeles.
It was an old black-and-white, but they colorized it. It’s going to be great. Donny Wilson says the worm is kind of fake-looking, but he burps this really neat slime that turns people into sewer material.”

“Amos, I don’t think you’re getting the big picture here.”

“Yes, I am. Donny said I could watch it on his big-screen TV.”

Dunc sighed. “Amos. What I mean is—
this is important. There’s no telling how many games these guys have tried to fix. We owe it to our community to do something.”

“I don’t know.”

Dunc tried a different tack. “Your team will think you’re a hero. Ms. Fishbeck will be proud. She might even forget all about how you trashed her office. And Melissa …”

“What about Melissa?”

“Well, she
is
Sarah’s baby-sitter. She’s bound to be grateful if we catch these guys.”

“Grateful?”

Dunc nodded.

“How grateful do you think she’ll be?”

“It’s hard to tell. We won’t know for sure until tomorrow.”

Amos had another silly grin on his face. “Grateful …”

“I’m not too sure about this.”

“Would I ask you to do anything wrong?”

Amos stared at him.

Dunc leaned against the pay phone. “Everything’s falling into place. All you have to do is give your best imitation of Mr. Posey. Tell whoever answers the phone that the bet on the T-ball game is off, and if they don’t like it, they can come down to the game tomorrow and talk about it.”

“Why do
I
have to do it?”

“Because you have his breathing down. And besides, I made sure Mr. Posey would be at the game tomorrow, didn’t I? And I
also called Mrs. Johnson at the newspaper and explained everything to her so she would bring her video camera to the game. You want to get at least some of the credit for all this, don’t you?”

Amos looked skeptical. “I guess so. But breathing into the phone? I thought only weirdos and perverts did stuff like that.”

“It’s for a good cause.”

“If you say so.”

Dunc put in the quarter and dialed the number.

A man answered. “Hello?”

Amos held his hand over the receiver. “It’s the Godfather.”

“Talk to him,” Dunc whispered.

Amos started breathing in the phone as loud as he could. “This is Posey,” he said in a deep voice. He made a hoarse gasping sound. “All bets are off.”

“What?” The voice on the other end was irritated. “You can’t do that! You know how it works. Nobody can take back a bet once it’s made.”

Amos wheezed and coughed. “If you don’t
like it, I’ll be at the game tomorrow. We can discuss it there.”

“Listen, Posey. If you think you can welch—”

Amos interrupted. “Tomorrow, jerk-brain. And another thing—”

Dunc hung up the phone. “I think that ought to do it.”

“What did you do that for? I was just getting into it.”

“That’s what I was afraid of. Come on. Let’s go to my house and work on a backup plan.”

“What is there to work on? The reporter said she’d be there, didn’t she?”

“Yes.”

“And you talked Mr. Posey into coming down to watch the game, didn’t you?”

Dunc nodded. “He said he’d come.”

“Then there’s no problem. I’m going to catch the end of my movie. I want to see the worm slime people in living color. I’ll let you know how it turns out.”

“But Amos, what if—”

“I’m sure you’ll think of something.”

“Mrs. Johnson is set, Amos. You wouldn’t know she was a reporter. She looks like a typical T-ball mom videotaping her son’s game.”

“She
is
a typical T-ball mom.” Amos looked through the backstop at the bleachers. “I see Mr. Posey up there, but I don’t see the Godfather.”

“He could be here. We don’t know what he looks like,” Dunc said.

“Well, if something’s going to happen, it better do it soon. The game is almost over.”

So far, the game was even. Both teams
were having a little trouble making it all the way around the bases.

It was the last inning, and Sarah was up at bat. Sparky was on first. Sarah hit the ball. It fell off the T and rolled a couple of feet. She looked at Amos. He waved frantically for her to run. She turned and ran for all she was worth to first base. Sparky made a face, but when she got close to first, he ran on to second.

The pitcher from the other team picked up the ball and threw it toward first base. It went high and to the right.

Dunc yelled, “Keep going, Sparky! Run!”

Sparky made it to third, with Sarah close on his heels. The little first baseman chased the ball down and made a gallant attempt to throw it to third base, but it didn’t even come close.

“Come home!” Amos yelled.

Sparky stood on third for a few seconds. He shrugged and then jogged to home plate. Sarah slid in right behind him.

“We won!” Amos yelled.

“We did?” Sparky looked surprised.

“You and Sarah made points when you ran to home plate.”

Sparky’s face lit up. “We did?”

Dunc patted him on the back. “You were great.” He looked around at the team. “You all were.”

A thunderous argument erupted in the stands. A man was shaking his fist and yelling at Mr. Posey. “You’re the one who wanted to call the bet off! Now that you’ve won, you want to collect. It doesn’t work both ways, Posey. We’ve been betting on games in this town for a long time. You know better.”

A camera flashed. Mrs. Johnson had everything on videotape, plus she had taken a couple regular pictures for the newspaper. Now she was trying to get the two men to give her a statement. Mr. Posey sat down and talked to her quietly. The other man was still yelling.

Dunc grinned. “Looks like Plan A is working.”

“What was Plan B?” Amos asked.

“It was a good one. It involved you, the
guard dog down at the junkyard, and the police, and—”

Amos held up his hand. “On second thought, I really don’t want to know.”

Precious tugged on Amos’s sleeve. “Are those men over there being bad?”

“Yes,” Amos said. “They are. Very bad.”

“But we won’t worry about that now.” Dunc said. “Coach Binder is taking us all out for pizza. It’s party time.”

“Thanks for reminding them.” Amos sighed. “It’s like trying to feed wolves.”