Crusader (24 page)

"I'd like to try Greek food."

Suzie said, "Greek sounds good."

"All right!" Dad clapped his hands together. "Sounds like we're all set."

When I got home from school I found two more birthday cards in my mailbox, but these were nice ones. Mrs. Roman had sent a Hallmark card with a cool red sports car on the front. Inside was a ten-dollar bill and the words,
Happy Birthday, Roberta Darling, Love, Millie Roman.
Mrs. Weiss sent a Hallmark, too, with a white dove on the front. It had a hundred-dollar bill in it and the words,
Spend this on something important, like yourself. Happy sweet sixteen. Love, Isabel.

I stared in wonder at the hundred-dollar bill. I had seen such bills at Arcane, but I had never owned one. It looked like play money.

Once I got into the kitchen, I folded the hundred-dollar bill several times and stuck it inside my wallet. I set the two expensive cards out on the table, next to the cheap one from Dad and Suzie. Then it was time to leave. I picked up my backpack and headed out to the bus stop for another day as a TV intern.

I had only been waiting at the bus stop for a minute, absently watching the traffic speed by, when I spotted a familiar car. It was Uncle Frank's silver Volkswagen. Apparently the driver spotted me, too. The car stopped suddenly, and dangerously, in the left lane. Then it whipped around in a U-turn and sped back in the other direction. Now I could see who was in it: Karl was at the wheel, and Hawg was next to him. The car repeated the same U-turn maneuver down the road and pulled up right in front of me at the bus stop.

Karl called through the passenger-side window, "You want a ride, cuz?"

I looked in at Hawg, but he wouldn't look back. He said to Karl, "We gonna go or ain't we, Karl?"

Karl told him, "Yeah. Yeah. We're going. I just have to help my cousin out here." He looked back at me. "Where are you heading?"

"I'm going to the Channel Fifty-seven Studios. It's straight down Everglades to Fiftieth Street."

"Well, hop in!"

Hawg had to lean forward so I could squeeze into the backseat. I could tell he didn't like that much. Karl pushed down on the accelerator and we sped off.

We careened down Everglades Boulevard. Karl yelled back to me, "I bet this beats taking the bus."

I tried to catch Karl's eye in the rearview mirror, but he didn't seem to be using it. I yelled up, "So where are you guys going?"

Hawg looked over at Karl. Karl answered, "Let's just say we got a plan, cuz."

I saw the studios ahead. I told him, "Here. Drop me off at this light."

Karl squealed around the corner, turned the wheel hard, and jammed to a halt. Hawg leaned forward again to let me
squeeze out. I turned to thank Karl, but he accelerated away before Hawg could even get the door closed.

I found myself on the side street next to the studio's parking lot. I noticed a large sand-colored structure on the other side of the lot. I could see from the high pitch of its roof, and from its size, that it was a renovated church. The sign over the front door made me stop still in amazement. It read,
THE ETERNAL WORD STUDIOS—HOME OF
THE LAST JUDGMENT
TELEVISION SHOW
. I'd never expected that Stephen Cross broadcast from there, so close to me. I said, "Huh," out loud.

Arcane was dead when I got there today, and it didn't get much livelier at night. Neither Karl nor Hawg showed up, so Ironman kept away, too. Uncle Frank and I took care of the few scattered customers. Most of them did the Crusader experience. Uncle Frank asked me, "What are the numbers on Crusader?"

"Eighty-five customers last week."

"Is that right? God, if it wasn't for him, we'd be out of business."

"Really?"

"Pretty close. I'm packing up three more losers this week. At this point, if it's not a top moneymaker, it's going."

At eighty-thirty, Uncle Frank asked me, "Do you want to leave early?" I shook my head no, but he insisted. "Go on, Roberta. I can stand here and go bankrupt all by myself."

I asked him, "What about the closing checklist?"

"Let's not worry about that tonight. Why should we vacuum the carpet if nobody's walked on it?"

I was eager to finish
The Muckrakers,
so I agreed to go. When I got home I put a Kid Cuisine macaroni-and-cheese dinner in the microwave. There was one message on the answering machine: "Roberta? This is Kristin. Call me back."

I decided to eat first. I ate at the kitchen table and started to leaf through my birthday cards. But Kristin called back right away. She said, "Roberta? Thank god."

"Kristin? I was going to call you."

She was all business. "Listen: I have to tell you a bunch of stuff. The phone's been ringing like crazy here. Karl ran off with the Volkswagen today. He took that Hawg guy with him. I think the plan was to go to Georgia."

"Georgia?"

"That must have been Hawg's idea. I don't think Karl even knows where Georgia is. But anyway, they never got out of the county. They got arrested up in Atlantic Beach."

"What happened? Did the police call you?"

"No, Karl did. He was really spaced. He didn't even sound upset. He talked about going to Georgia like it was around the corner. But they stopped off at some place called the Bodacious Barbecue. Then they realized they didn't have enough money to pay, so they tried to sneak out. The waitress followed them and wrote down the tag number. And as she was doing that, Karl backed into a van."

"He had an accident, too?"

"Yeah. He smashed in the back of the Volks. It can't even be driven now. And, to top it all off, he was driving after dark on a restricted license. Dad's gone up there to bail him out. He's really pissed."

"I bet. What about Hawg?"

"I don't know. I think he's on his own. There's no way Dad would pay his bail, too."

I shook my head. "Is that all?"

"Isn't that enough?"

"Yeah." I paused to let all of it sink in. Then I asked her, "How are you feeling?"

"I feel sick, but I think it's getting better."

"That's good."

"I'm thinking about a lot of stuff, you know?"

"Like what?"

"Like who I am, like who I want to be."

"That's good. I guess."

Kristin paused. "It's good if I can think of somebody I want to be. Somebody, you know, with really bad skin." She sighed deeply. "Okay. I better get back to my cave."

"Thanks for calling, Kristin. I hope the guys get home tonight."

She said, "Yeah. Me, too. But I wouldn't bet on Hawg."

I detected a new smell when I got to the mall today—a sulfurous smell, like a wet match. From a distance I could see three people at the open plumbing grate. Suzie, of course, was at the center of it. Leo was on one side of her and the Ace Plumbing guy was on the other. The first thing I heard was from the Ace Plumbing guy. "What you smelled was
not
a dead animal; it was methane gas."

Leo answered, "I know it was methane gas. I said an animal got in there and died and
that
caused the methane gas to back up."

The guy said, "We have no idea what caused it."

Suzie added, "We don't
care
what caused it."

The guy continued, "I've sealed all the pipe joints. Now no more gas can escape."

"But that's dangerous," Leo told him.

Suzie yelled, "Enough! I don't smell anything. The problem is solved. Let's just make sure we keep it solved."

The Ace guy said, "For safety's sake, ma'am, let's keep the
tiles off the grate area. Let's leave it easy to get at in case we have to get down there and seal it again."

Leo grinned in disbelief. "So you want to just leave a hole in the middle of the mall floor?"

Suzie walked over and straddled the grate, like a storybook giant. "Problem solving, Leo. Have you ever heard of that? Problem solving? That's when you don't just stand around saying negative things. Instead you think of a solution. Here's a problem-solving idea for you: You place the Santa seat over the grate. Like this. No one will be able to see the grate. And if you have to get at a pipe, you just tilt up the seat. Okay? Problem solved."

Suzie stalked away toward the office. Leo was still grinning, like he was the only one who got the joke. I headed toward the card shop. I waited for Mrs. Weiss to finish with a customer, then I said, "Thank you, Mrs. Weiss. That was a great present. I can't believe you gave me that much money."

She shook her hand, like she was clearing away crumbs. "What else am I going to do with it?" Then she held a manila envelope toward me. "Here, Roberta. Have your father sign this. It's for my car insurance, so I can give you driving lessons."

I took the envelope. Another customer came up, so I said good-bye and slipped out.

Dad and Suzie were standing in front of Arcane, probably because no one was inside. Dad told me, "Your uncle Frank has been gone all day. And guess what?"

"What?"

"The business ran just fine without him."

"Where has he been?"

"Down at the county courthouse. They have Karl down there. He tried to walk out on a restaurant check, and then he got into an accident. Oh yeah, and he was driving on a restricted license."

"I know. Kristin called me last night."

"She didn't come in, either."

"She has the chicken pox."

"You're kidding."

"No. You didn't know that?"

"No." Dad seemed upset at that. He added, "Everything's a big secret with your uncle."

Just then, as if on cue, Uncle Frank walked in. He definitely heard Dad. He demanded, "What's a big secret with me?"

Dad tightened up, but he answered smoothly, "That Kristin has the chicken pox."

Uncle Frank told him, "That's no secret. It's just that—I've had more important things to do than to call you."

Dad smiled. "Fine. No problem. Do you know where she caught it?"

Uncle Frank took a deep breath. "No. I have no idea."

Suzie spoke up. "Well, that's an easy one. She caught it from those Brazilian girls."

Uncle Frank looked at her. "What?"

"Yeah, I was expecting thirty of them, but only half showed up. The rest were sick."

Uncle Frank stared at her, stupefied. "So you thought,
Why not bring them in here? To infect us?
"

Suzie tried to defend herself. "No! Who hasn't had the chicken pox?"

"Kristin! That's who."

The two of them stared at each other. Finally Dad tried to break the tension. He asked Uncle Frank, "So how's Karl?"

By now Uncle Frank was totally frazzled. He muttered, "I have to go to the bathroom. I'll be back out in a minute."

Suzie took off right away, without another word. Dad and I waited a lot longer than a minute, but Uncle Frank did eventually emerge from the back. He seemed a lot less frazzled. He joined us in the entranceway and started to talk.

"I had to go get Karl out on bail last night."

I asked, "What about Hawg?"

Uncle Frank winced. He shook his head and answered abruptly, "Nah. They wouldn't let him go."

Dad said, "What? He was there, too?"

Uncle Frank answered, "Yeah. He talked Karl into going joyriding. They'd be up in Georgia now if this hadn't happened." He got back to his story. "So I drove Karl to the county courthouse this morning for arraignment. We stood up there when our time came. The judge looked over the charges, and he looked over Karl's record. He was good. He was a real
judge,
you know? He gave Karl a real good tongue-lashing, which is just what he needed. He told him that it would be entered into the police computers, from this day on, that Karl Ritter was to be taken directly to the Positive Place for ten days' treatment if he ever got picked up for anything. Even littering. Well, Karl just about fell on his knees crying. He promised everything under the moon. So the judge dismissed the case."

Dad said, "Well, I guess he learned a lesson."

Uncle Frank said, "Yeah," and started off, but I called after him. "What about Hawg? What happened to him?"

Uncle Frank stopped; he came halfway back. "I don't know. I don't really care." Uncle Frank brooded for a moment. His face hardened; his voice turned cold. "I ran into lots of guys like that in the service. A fat slob like that would bring the whole squad down. Get everybody punishment detail until they got fed up with him. Then his folks would get a letter telling them that he'd been killed in a training accident. Of course, it wouldn't really be an accident, but no one would ever know. It happened all the time."

Uncle Frank went back to the office, leaving Dad and me looking at each other in disbelief.

I was amazed, then, by what happened just a half hour later. Hawg walked in from the mallway and went into the back room, with Ironman trailing right behind him. I was back near Vampire's Feast, so I drifted over to the door and waited for the explosion, but it never came. Uncle Frank never said a word to him.

Uncle Frank did come out into the arcade, perhaps to get Hawg out of his sight, so I slipped into the back. I asked him, "Did everything go okay at Juvenile Justice?"

Hawg looked at me quickly, then looked away. He muttered, "It weren't nothin' to me. Shouldn't be nothin' to you, either."

I told him, "It is, though."

He and Ironman started to crush up a small stack of cartons. Hawg addressed Ironman, but I could tell he was including me. "Well, let me tell you about Juvie. They put you in a big damn cage. You have to stand right out there in the open, like a gorilla in a zoo. And they make you wear one of them orange suits, like a damn orangutan. And you got one toilet sitting there, right out in the open, in the middle of the cage. Then what do they do? They bring in a damn school field trip to look at us."

I said, "No!"

"Yeah. A lady came in and hollered, 'I'm bringing in a group of fifth graders. How about you boys talk to them about staying off drugs and staying out of trouble?' Then, sure enough, a minute later she came back with a big line of fifth graders, about forty of 'em, and their parents, staring at us like we're a buncha monkeys. And that lady started in again, 'Some of you boys tell these kids how to stay out of trouble.'