Hero (10 page)

Or his dad’s face.

A Morgan silver dollar.

And not just any Morgan, Zach knew.

He knew of only two.

There was the one he was holding in the palm of his hand now and the one back home in the apartment, in his room, on the shelf above his bed. That’s where he kept it when he wasn’t trying to squeeze good luck out of it.

This was the one his dad carried with him wherever he went, to all the bad places. To this bad place.

Zach rubbed it against his jacket and then spit on his hand and cleaned it up a little more. His dad’s Morgan, no question. It was an 1879 and when he’d given one to Zach on his eighth birthday, he’d given this one to himself at the same time. Told Zach that day that from now on if he squeezed it hard enough, Tom Harriman would know, no matter where he was or what he was doing.

So Zach squeezed.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” a voice said.

THE
old man wasn’t much taller than Zach. He had snow white hair, a lot of it, and a wispy white beard to go with it.

He was wearing faded jeans and one of those old leather bomber jackets that hung on him a bit, as if it were a size too large. A plain gray sweatshirt showed underneath it, and he had on a pair of old Reebok sneakers that looked older than he was.

He was smiling, maybe as a way of telling Zach not to be afraid. Like that was going to work.

“What do you think you’re doing, sneaking up on me like that?” Zach shouted.

“Didn’t think I was,” the old man said.

“Well, you’re wrong.”

“Calm down, Zach,” the old man said. “I’m sorry I scared you.”

“You didn’t scare me,” Zach said. “And how do you know my name?”

“Friend of the family,” the old man said.

He smiled again, put out his hand. Zach ignored it. “Then how come I don’t know you?”

“Simple. You weren’t ready yet.”

“Ready for what?”

“For you to know me the way I know you.”

It had taken all of a minute for Zach to feel as if he were walking in circles, even standing still.

“You said you’d been waiting for me?” Zach said.

“So I did. And so I have.”

“You haven’t told me
your
name.”

“Call me Mr. Herbert.”

“Okay, Mr. Herbert. You live around here?”

The old man shook his head. “I was just out here observing, I guess you could say.”

“How come I didn’t see you before this?”

“Because I didn’t want to, Zacman.”

It startled him. Only his dad had ever called him Zacman. Ever. It had started as a joke, because when he was little, Zach was always eating on the run.

“I don’t need Pacman,” his dad had said to him one time. “I’ve got my very own Zacman.”

It had stuck. For his dad, anyway. No one else had ever called him that.

“Don’t call me that,” Zach said now.

“I’m sorry. I know that was your dad’s nickname for you,” the old man said. “Like I told you, kid. I’m a friend of the family.”

“Who’s been waiting for me out here.”

“Correct.”

He thought of the way the taxi driver had described this place. “The middle of nowhere.”

For some reason, Zach flashed to all the times he’d been told not to talk to strangers, the way all kids are told that from the time they’re old enough to walk out of their parents’ sight. Now here he was with this perfect stranger, this old man who seemed to know way too much about him.

And who talked in riddles.

“You keep saying you’re a friend of the family,” Zach said. “But I don’t recall my dad ever mentioning a friend of his named Mr. Herbert.”

“No reason for him to. There was a lot your dad never told you about himself. Am I right, Zacman?”

“I told you: stop calling me Zacman.”

“As you wish.” Mr. Herbert smiled. “And you can put the coin away; I promise I won’t steal it.”

Zach looked down, opened his hand, as if to make sure the Morgan was still there. He said, “How did you know . . . ?”

“Because I know about
you,”
Mr. Herbert said. “It’s what I’m trying to tell you. I know about your father’s death and I know about your life.” His eyes darted all around as he nodded. “A life that we both know is changing faster than the weather.”

Zach stared at him. This old man who not only knew what was in his hand, but what was in
him.
He thought about turning and running, getting away from him right now, but knew he wouldn’t.

Knew that somehow Mr. Herbert was the reason why he was here.

“There are things you need to know about your father,” Mr. Herbert said.

“Like what?”

“Like how much of his life was a lie,” the old man said.

 

A blast of wind nearly knocked both of them over as a huge thunderclap boomed from out east, over the water.

“My father didn’t lie,” Zach said. “Ever.”

“That may be a matter of opinion.”

“What do you want from me, Mr. Herbert?”

“Let’s start by taking a walk.”

He started to put a hand on Zach’s shoulder. Zach leaned away from it, like a boxer pulling back from a punch. The old man shrugged and made a gesture that said, follow me. Zach did, a few steps behind.

Maybe fifty yards from where the plane had hit, on the bay end of the field, was a stone wall he hadn’t even noticed. The old man sat down when he came to it, patted a spot next to him.

“Just a second,” Zach said, and pulled out his cell, checking the time on it. One-twenty. He couldn’t chase Mr. Herbert around this conversation forever, like chasing him around a video game. Or through a maze. The Jitney was scheduled to go back to Manhattan at two o’clock.

He thought about texting Kate. . . .

“Call her if you want,” Mr. Herbert said. “Won’t bother me. I was sort of hoping you’d bring her along.”

“How did you know . . . ?”

“You’re starting to sound like a broken record, boy.”

“So you know Kate, too?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“And I suppose you know Alba, and Uncle John?”

The old man smirked. “Even your buddy Spence.”

Zach thought:
It’s like he’s been following me.

He said, “Were you here the day the plane crashed? Did you see it happen?”

“Didn’t need to,” Mr. Herbert said. “What happened to him had been happening for a long time, and he was the only one who didn’t see it. On either side of the fight.”

“What does
that
mean?” Zach said. “You either saw the crash or you didn’t.”

“And the thing is, I tried to warn him.”

“You tried to warn him,” Zach said. “About what, exactly?”

“You ever hear the expression about people starting to believe their own press clippings? That’s what started to happen to your father.”

“You’re telling me that my dad did something that
caused
this to happen?”

The old man paused a beat before answering.

“In a way, yes.”

Zach Harriman was starting to get dizzy now, trying to keep up with this, all of it swarming around him like flies.

Mr. Herbert said, “It wasn’t just one thing, mind you. It was a lot of things, over a lot of years. Almost like he was another very smart guy accumulating too much debt.”

“Listen,” Zach said, “I have to get back to the city soon. So if you know something about my dad’s accident—even though I don’t think it was an accident—how about you just tell me.”

“You’re not ready for that yet,” the old man said. “You’re closer than you used to be, a lot closer. But still not there.”

Zach started to say something smart back to him, but the old man held up a hand, stopping him. “And there are things I could tell you, about both your father and yourself, that you need to find out for yourself. That’s the way it worked for him and that’s the way it has to work for you. The only way.”

“I wish I knew what the heck you were talking about,” Zach said. “But I don’t. And I don’t have any more time for this.”

Another smile. “Actually you do. Trust me.”

“Trust
you
?” Zach said. “I don’t have any idea who you are, really. Or if Mr. Herbert is even your name. Or if you really knew my dad at all.”

The old man put out his hand. “Let me see the coin for a second,” he said.

Something about the casual way he asked made Zach do it. Zach unclenched his fist, held his palm open and handed it over.

And when it was in the old man’s hand, it was as if a switch had been thrown, the coin suddenly as bright and brilliant as some kind of neon light.

Almost like the Morgan was on fire.

The old man’s face was lit by it, too.

“You should trust me because I was the one who first told your father he had the magic in him,” Mr. Herbert said.

He tried to hand the coin back to Zach, but Zach pulled his hand away, as if touching it would be like touching a hot stove.

“Don’t be afraid, boy,” the old man said. “You’ve got the magic, too.”

He flipped the coin in the air between them and Zach caught it.

Then the old man turned and began walking away.

What did
that
mean?

Zach knew he couldn’t just let the old man walk away like this, not knowing if he’d ever see him again. He’d come here looking for answers and now he had what felt like a hundred more questions.

The old man was moving faster than Zach expected, away from the crash site, deeper into the field, about to disappear into grass as tall as he was, grass that seemed to have sprung up while they’d been talking.

Zach ran after him, pulling out his cell, seeing that it was one-thirty already, knowing that his chance of making the two o’clock bus was disappearing as fast as Mr. Herbert.

And then, just like that, the old man was gone.

Impossible,
Zach thought.

He had only looked down at the phone for a second, long enough to check the time.

He ran harder to where he had last seen Mr. Herbert. Zach ran as though there was an engine inside him, propelling him, yet one more time he felt out of control, chasing the unknown. Only, this time, the need made him feel almost desperate.

Not life and death.

But close enough.

He had to find this old man, had to find the one person who seemed to know the changes that had been taking place inside him.

Who claimed to know his father and how he’d died.

Zach ran through the high grass toward the water, toward the darkest part of the sky, the Morgan trying to burn a hole in the palm of his hand.

He ran, ignoring the high grass as it whipped him across the face, feeling as if all the wind of the day were at his back now. Closed his eyes and ran, faster. Feeling like he was the one flying now, across this field where his father had crashed.

Like he’d become invisible.

When he opened his eyes—like he was coming out of some kind of dream—Zach saw that he was now running across the Sheep Meadow in Central Park.

Saw that he was home.

But . . .
how
?

Zach leaned against a tree, out of breath, put the Morgan dollar in his pocket and pulled out his cell phone.

One-thirty. The same time he had seen when he was still trying to make the two o’clock bus more than a hundred miles from here.

As if he had texted himself home.

As if by magic.

HE
started walking down Fifth Avenue, toward home, before remembering he couldn’t show up there without Kate, and the Knicks game wasn’t close to being over yet. Tip-off had been at one, which meant the second quarter was just about to begin.

Maybe I should just text myself over to the Garden,
Zach thought.

See if he could make himself appear at the corner of 33rd and Seventh the way he had in Central Park.

Thinking:
Okay, this is seriously weird.

Something
had just happened to him. Something that the old man said connected Zach to his dad. Something that made no sense, not in the real world anyway.

“Don’t be afraid, boy,” the old man had said to him. “You’ve got the magic, too.”

Like this was the movies, or TV, like he was in that show
Heroes
he used to watch. Or had climbed into an old Fantastic Four comic book.

Yet he wasn’t made up. And this was no movie.

Could he really have powers?

He needed to talk with Kate. Needed the power of
her
.

No secrets between them on this. Tell her everything, leave out nothing, hope that she didn’t think he’d lost his mind. Ask her to help him figure out what it all meant.

He needed to see her right now, prove to her that he was back in the city and not still out on the island getting ready to board that two o’clock bus.

Zach reached into his pocket. Not the one with the Morgan dollar inside it, his other pocket. Found the ticket to the Knicks he’d left there. He’d offered it to Kate before he left, telling her she could ask somebody else to go to the game with her.

She’d given him a look and said, “What, and blow your cover?”

Zach didn’t run this time, downtown and then cross-town to the Garden. He used conventional transportation, putting his hand up and hailing a New York City taxi and saying the words his dad used to let him say:

“Take me to the Garden.”

Once, saying that had seemed like all the magic he’d needed.

 

He didn’t text Kate on the way or call to tell her he was coming. Zach didn’t completely understand why he wanted to surprise her, but he did. Just be there next to her when she turned around.