No Safety in Numbers (8 page)

Drew went to Shep’s Sporting Goods and got a football. Mike and the Tarrytown guys scoped out the best location for the game, settling on the first-floor lounge area outside Harry’s department store. Ryan tagged along, trying to look useful by carrying Mike’s half-empty Sportade bottle.

Drew came back with the ball and the guys started dragging the trash bins into some semblance of a goal post at either end of the lounge. Other kids sensed their plan and asked to join the game. By the time everything was set up, they had two sides of eleven players, and plenty of volunteers should they need more. A crowd developed around the edge of the lounge area’s rug.

Mike was running back and Drew a guard, so that left Ryan to take position as quarterback. Normally, he played wide receiver, but he was meant to be QB. In other words, he felt like a freaking god. The Tarrytown guys formed up opposite Drew—they were all linemen, as Mike had said. The stragglers from the crowd took up the other positions. Guys who looked to be from the local community college
asked Ryan where to stand and he told them without missing a beat. Mike smiled at him from his position near the planters; Ryan nodded his head in as cool a manner as possible.

A fat guy who claimed to coach a Pop Warner team offered to ref and someone in the crowd scrounged up a whistle. Drew had gotten colored socks from Shep’s to use as flags, and each player had a pair tucked into his waist, but from the grim snarls plastered across every guy’s face, Ryan was not sure they would be used. It didn’t take long for the trash talk to start—emotions were running high. They’d all been trapped in a mall for nearly twenty-four hours and none had had a decent night’s sleep. Everyone, even the crowd, was impatient to start the game. Ryan cracked his knuckles.

Ryan had memorized all the plays from the team’s book, but in this situation, Mike had simply said, “Throw to me.” It seemed as good a plan as any. When the whistle blew, Ryan took the snap from the center, then threw a short pass to Richter. He plowed through some scrawny kid playing linebacker and dashed for the trash-bin goal posts. The Tarrytown guys didn’t bother holding their positions; they made straight for Mike. The whole concept of “touch” football did not seem to have registered with them. Ryan guessed they had some unfinished business from Friday’s game, given the speed at which they hunted Mike. But Mike was like a freaking cheetah and beat them through the bins. He spiked the ball and everyone screamed like it was the final TD of the Super Bowl.

Ryan played as if his very life depended upon winning this game. Forget that they were in a mall playing touch
on a patch of rug barely half the size of a regulation field with a bunch of guys who’d last played football on an Xbox; this was Ryan’s first gig as QB and he was not going to blow it. When a Tarrytown guy busted through the line on the snap to sack, Ryan sprang over his shoulders and ran the play in for a touchdown. Mike screamed like some cannibal in from the hunt and hugged Ryan with a ferocity that felt like it left bruises across his back.

Even the crowd got into it, shrieking and hooting with each play. More and more people gathered around them, and crowds formed against the banisters of each of the floors above. The cheers echoed up and down the corridors of the mall. Ryan took a brief moment to take it all in and got smashed by a Tarrytown end.

Drew shoved the guy in the chest. “What the hell, Martin? He hadn’t even called the snap.” Drew hooked an arm around Ryan and dragged him to his feet. “You cool, J. Shrimp?”

Ryan rubbed his temple. “Yeah,” he said. “All good.”

“Kid was, like, spaced,” the Tarrytown guy said, defending himself from the boos of the onlookers. His teammates gathered around him; together, they formed a menacing huddle.

Mike strutted to Ryan’s side and slapped an arm around his shoulders. “I’m sure Thad will appreciate that you flattened his brother, no matter the reason.”

“Fuck Thad,” one of the dudes said.

“You upset that he nailed you on that first down Friday?” Mike asked. “Let me clear it up for you, it wasn’t an accident.”

The Tarrytown kid lunged at Mike. Ryan threw his
shoulder into the guy’s path and nailed him in his solar plexus. The kid fell to his knees, breathless.

The rest of the Tarrytown line stepped forward. One grabbed Ryan’s collar.

“Break it up!” A mall cop thrust his way onto the rug-field. He strode up to the group of them. “You boys have caused a bit of a ruckus.”

“It’s just a game, officer,” Mike said. The other guys loosened their fists, like they were all just pals playing a friendly game of pickup.

“We got to set up beds,” the officer said. “Clear out.”

A few other mall guards began breaking up the audience and the straggler players wandered back to wherever they had come from. The Tarrytown guys flashed Ryan a look like they’d see him later, and Drew smashed a fist into his hand to clarify that the Jumbo Shrimp was spoken for.

Mike jutted his chin at the Tarrytown guys as they disappeared into the masses. “Nice move with the shoulder, J. Shrimp,” he said. He smirked at Drew. “Now, I feel like gnawing on a Taco.”

“I need to pound something,” Drew growled.

Ryan had no idea what they were talking about, but he was not about to leave their side.

Mike led the way up to the top floor. The whole trip, Drew and Mike were doing a play-by-play of the game.

“When you tanked that skinny guy, I thought he was going to puke!” Drew honked a laugh.

“Nothing beats J. Shrimp here hurdling Leon and taking it in for the kill.” Mike noogied Ryan’s head, then
pushed him away with a laugh. It was something Thad would have done.

“Just playing the game, my brothers,” Ryan said, cool as anything, though inside he was bouncing like a five-year-old hopped up on sugar.

Mike led the way to the Grill’n’Shake and waited for the hostess. “We’d like a table,” he said when she appeared, “in
his
area.” Mike pointed at a scrawny kid laboring under a giant tub of dirty dishes.

“Marco?” the girl said. “He’s a busboy, not a server. This way.” She pinched three menus between her pink-clawed fingers and led them through a maze of tables to a booth in the back of the restaurant.

“We eating?” Ryan asked.

Mike scanned the restaurant. “We can eat,” he said, slapping his dad’s credit card on the table.

Ryan was fine with just a chicken sandwich and a Coke, but Mike and Drew ordered wings, a fried onion thing, potato skins, and two chicken sandwiches each.

“A growing boy’s got to eat,” Drew said, winking at the waitress. She rolled her eyes in response.

While they ate, Mike and Drew rambled on to Ryan about their conquests over the years. Ryan knew of Mike and Drew’s reputation for preying on the weak, but he’d had no idea how much time they devoted to their efforts. It was like every second they were off the field, they were at work on their latest target. They liked to study a kid, really get under his skin, then tear him apart from the inside.

“Remember when we caught VanEmburgh waxing his chest?”

“I had no idea that shit would actually rip his skin,” Mike said, holding his hands up like,
Whatcha gonna do?

With each story, Ryan found it harder to muster a laugh. If it weren’t for Thad, he might be on the wrong side of Mike and Drew’s equation and end up having his head dunked into a toilet for buying the wrong kind of chips.

“That brings us to Taco,” Mike said, swinging a thumb in the direction of the skinny busboy. “Dinged my car with his bike.”

Drew leaned in to Ryan. “We took care of the bike,” he said. “But the kid’s still got some pain coming his way.”

Taco—the hostess had called him Marco—did not look like he needed any more pain. His apron was wrinkled and dirty, and he looked like he’d been working all day without a break. Ryan knew that he should intervene, save this poor loser from whatever hurt Drew and Mike intended for him. But Ryan’s inner devil spoke the truth: Why stick your neck out for some kid you don’t even know, especially when it means driving off the only two allies you have in this place? Ryan kept his trap shut.

Mike and Drew loitered in the booth until the table next to them left and needed to be cleared. Marco had avoided their row since they arrived, but now he had no choice but to sling his empty bin over his shoulder and walk as bravely as possible into enemy territory.

“What’s up, Taco?” Mike said, turning in his seat and draping his arms over the seat back.

The kid didn’t even flinch. “I’ve got bigger problems than you,” he said. He dumped a soda into the bin, then stacked the plates and slid them on top.

“I highly doubt that,” Mike said.

The kid snorted—laughed, even. Ryan wondered if perhaps the guy had lost his mind from being overworked.

“Someday soon, Richter,” Marco said, “you’re going to feel like a real moron for saying that.”

Mike nearly hurdled over the seat back. Drew threw himself across the table and grabbed his friend’s arm, cocking his head to indicate the approach of an old balding guy.

The old guy—the manager, Ryan guessed—folded his arms across his chest and stood beside Marco. “We have a problem here, boys?” He looked like one of those old guys you messed with at your own risk.

Mike slid back into his seat. “No problem,” he said.

“I think it’s time for your check,” the manager said, sliding a black holder across the tabletop.

As he paid at the hostess station, Mike muttered, “This is so not over.”

A sinking feeling took hold of Ryan’s gut, which when combined with the greasy chicken, made him feel sick. But sick was weak and weak was shit, so Ryan stowed it and followed Mike and Drew out into the throng.

S
hay huddled under the bowed branches of the stunted tree stuck in the giant pot beside Nani’s table in the food court, a wrinkled scrap of paper pressed against her jeans. On it was one of her poems. She’d written it Friday, part of an assignment for English due Monday. They were studying haiku, and Shay had drafted several as she sat alone in the courtyard during her free period. The one in her lap had been her favorite:

Shay named the seasons of her life: the winter of the ice trees, the spring of chicken pox and mono. Last summer had been the summer of birds. She’d seen them everywhere, more than normal, always twittering in the
shadows. On the day of the move, a flock of crows lurked in the trees around her old house as if hoping to steal the boxes on their way to the truck. She’d tentatively dubbed this season the fall of dead leaves. Given her present situation, stuck under green leaves in the calculated warmth of the glassed-in food court, threatened by a bomb of unknown-but-not-nuclear composition, she felt a new name was in order.

Pulling a pen from her bag, she scratched out
leaves,
but left
dead
.
Dead
what?
People
had too many syllables.

She crumpled the poem and tossed it into the mulch of the pot. She turned up her iPod and tried to lose herself in the blaring bass line.

Nani was still hunched over her Sudoku. Shay had bought her a thick book of puzzles that morning after the mall cop announced that shoppers were allowed to roam the halls. Last night, a customer service rep had brought Nani some insulin. Nani, however, still did not seem one hundred percent okay. She sighed a lot. Her skin looked ashy. She had bags under her eyes. In the darkest moments—between songs, when someone’s shouts echoed around the mall—Shay couldn’t help but wonder if it had something to do with the bomb.

Shay hadn’t said anything to Nani or Preeti about the bomb. What could she say? “Oh, by the way, there might be a bomb in the basement and we could all be dead by sunrise”? Not the kind of thing to share over a dinner of fried rice and tofu. The only person she could talk to was the boy from the police car—Marco—and he was upstairs at the Grill’n’Shake. Shay was desperate to talk to him, if only to have someone nearby who was as petrified as she,
who knew what was really going on. The only problem was how to convince Nani and Preeti to leave the food court—to go to another restaurant.

Shay’s contacts were killing her, but she couldn’t ditch them entirely; she did not need the world to fall any further out of focus.
Time for another visit to the PhreshPharm.
Maybe her old friend at the pharmacy counter could get her solution and a case. She’d been so helpful the first time around.

“I need to get some stuff at the pharmacy,” Shay said, turning off her music and sliding down from the pot. “Can I get you anything?”

Nani did not look up from her puzzle. “Take Preeti with you,” she said.

“Do you need more medicine, Nani?” Shay asked, kneeling beside her grandmother.

Nani waved a hand at Shay. “Go, my love,” she said. “I am fine here with my puzzle.” She looked at Shay, pressed her palm to Shay’s cheek, then went back to the Sudoku. Even just that quick glance at Nani’s face revealed that Nani was anything but fine.

Preeti stood in the line for the Ferris wheel. She was giggling with some other girls who looked about her age. Shay wanted to scream at them. How could they be laughing when there was a freaking bomb in the basement? But they didn’t know about the bomb.
Thank god
—Shay could not deal with a shrieking mob of panicked fifth-grade girls.