Pop (6 page)

Marcus reached in with a long twig and swept the sugar around, spreading the pile all about the floor.

Charlie rubbed his hands together in anticipation. “Look—ants are already investigating the chocolate syrup. By morning, this place is going to be a bug sanctuary!”

Marcus took note of the store hours posted on the door. “He opens at nine. We should he here by eight thirty.”

Charlie nodded. “That guy's going to rue the day he ever messed with us!”

Marcus couldn't escape the suspicion that this episode would provide plenty of ruing to go around.

W
hen Marcus awoke the next morning, he knew about eight seconds of tranquility before it all came flooding back.

Oh, God
.

What a stupid thing to do. What a waste of time and energy, not to mention sugar, syrup, chocolate sauce, and whatever else they'd spread around K.O. Pest Control. He didn't even have the consolation of having been just a spectator. He'd had a million chances to walk away, and yet something had kept him there. There had been no stopping Charlie, but Marcus supposedly had full use of his own free will! And if this prank turned out to be half as awful as he was pretty sure it was going to be…

He checked the clock on the nightstand. Six fifty-seven. Getting back to sleep was utterly impossible. He was too stressed. Sixteen years old and playing with bugs. How pathetic was that?

And yet he had to know. Had Charlie's concoction of sugar and spice and all things nice attracted enough insects to freak out an exterminator? The answer was a short ride away.

Downstairs, his mother was loading the pickup truck with tripods and equipment.

She looked at him as he appeared in the front hall. “You're up? You? Rip Van Marcus? What's the occasion?”

“You were up earlier,” he pointed out.

“My shift doesn't start till noon, so I thought I'd try to catch the morning light on the Gunks.”

That was the mountain range Mom was so hot and bothered about for her book—the Shawangunks, or Gunks for short. It sounded more like what was probably going on inside Kenneth Oliver's mail slot. Marcus flooded a bowl of raisin bran with milk and began to eat, still standing.

“Did you call your father last night?” she asked.

“What should I call him?” he mumbled, mouth full.

She looked at him reproachfully. “He phoned you.”

“Must have been a slow day at the Kremlin.”

She grew tight-lipped. “If you don't return the call, sooner or later I'll get a lawyer's letter accusing me of alienating him from his child. He, who invented alienation.”

“I'll e-mail,” Marcus offered. “I've got a busy day.”

“It's Saturday. What are you so busy about?”

I'm meeting my middle-aged friend down at the bug infestation
. Aloud, he murmured something about homework and football and Three Alarm Park.

She shouldered her camera bag. “Make the call,” she said. “And not because I don't want to get served. You only get one father.”

He watched her climb into the truck and drive away. She had guts, his mother, and not just for betting her professional future on a mountain range with a dumb name. He was almost in awe of her determination to succeed—Marcus didn't care that much about anything, except maybe football. Guts
and
character. She had more reason to hate Comrade Stalin than anybody. She knew that the phone conversation would be chock-full of glitzy, expensive inducements for Marcus to abandon her and move back to Kansas. Surely it had crossed her mind that one day her ex might dream up a carrot to dangle that Marcus couldn't resist. Yet she never let her son write the guy off.

Still, Marcus wasn't planning to call. Not on Bug Day. He wolfed down the rest of the cereal, scrambled into some clothes, and jumped on the Vespa, heading downtown.

He parked on the next block over and had to keep himself from sprinting all the way to K.O. Pest Control. Stupid, maybe, but now that it was a done deal, the suspense was killing him. He approached the store gingerly, trying not to step on the many ants swarming around the chocolate trails. Sure, there were a lot of bugs outside. The question was, had they gone in?

The early-morning sun streaming through the small window in the door provided the answer. The inside of the shop was alive. He couldn't see the floor for the black seething mass that covered it. And not just ants, either. There were June bugs, beetles, earwigs, ladybugs, caterpillars, grasshoppers, crickets, cockroaches, fleas, and spiders of all varieties. Flies, moths, and mosquitoes swooped and hovered. The walls crawled.

Marcus remembered from a science class in middle school that there were more than 800,000 species of insects. He was pretty sure that most of them were represented inside K.O. Pest Control that morning. If Kenneth Oliver enjoyed his work, he was in for a treat.

So was Charlie.

It probably wasn't a good idea to be seen hanging around the store on a day when neighbors and passersby might be asked if they'd seen anything suspicious. So he retreated to Three Alarm Park to await the arrival of his partner in crime.

It was just after eight—plenty of time to kill. He tried to catnap on a bench, without success. A few laps of the park were a good warm-up, but for what? He couldn't exactly tackle himself. He even tried to climb the flukes of the Paper Airplane and was gratified to note that the smooth granite didn't defeat him quite so easily anymore. It was a fringe benefit of his physical combat with Charlie. He was developing a lower center of gravity, which enhanced his sense of balance. He was going to be tough to bring down this season—if Coach Barker ever let him touch the ball.

He looked at his watch again. Eight thirty-five. Where was Charlie? Surely he wouldn't plan such an elaborate prank and then not show up for the payoff. The guy was inconsistent in his arrival time for training, but this was different, wasn't it?

He left the park and began to pace along Poplar Street. A few of the stores had opened, but there was still no sign of Kenneth Oliver.

And still no Charlie.

“There's a good spot, Daddy.”

Following his daughter's direction, Charlie pulled his car up to the curb in front of the cell phone store.

“Thanks.” Chelsea got out. “I just have to pick up my phone. It should only take a couple of minutes. Don't get out of the car, okay? Here—listen to some music.” She reached in through the open passenger window and switched on the radio.

Charlie regarded her peevishly. “I'm not an idiot. You don't have to tell me every little thing.”

“I know. I'm sorry.”

She entered the store and approached the repair desk, keeping one eye on the display window and Charlie in the parked car outside. She felt odd treating her father like an eight-year-old, but the alternative wasn't fun to contemplate.

Anyway, she reflected with a little embarrassment, her father wasn't the one who'd thrown jeans in the wash without taking the cell phone out of the pocket.

“Good news—we just had to change the battery,” the man told her. “No permanent damage.”

“Thanks.” She handed over some bills and accepted the protective pouch containing her phone.

“Say hi to your dad for me,” he called after her.

Always to Dad. Oh, they knew Mom existed, but she wasn't the one who mattered.

She exited the store and froze. The car was still parked out front. The driver's-side door was wide open, blocking half the lane.

Her father was gone.

Marcus watched the exterminator's Camry turn onto Poplar and ease into a parking space near K.O. Pest Control.

He couldn't believe it. Charlie wasn't going to show up for his own prank.

And suddenly, there he was, ambling aimlessly like this wasn't three seconds to Zero Hour.

Marcus raced down the street, grabbed his partner in crime by the arm, and began hauling him along the sidewalk.

Charlie shoved him away with such force that Marcus very nearly tumbled to the pavement.

“He's parking his car!” Marcus urged. “We're going to miss it!”

This galvanized Charlie's attention. “Lead the way!” He matched the teenager stride for stride, following him to a good vantage point behind a parked truck.

Oliver was out of his Camry, heading for the front door. His key reached for the lock.

“Daddy?” Chelsea ran up, the cell phone pouch still in her hand. She gawked at Marcus like he was an extinct reptile reborn and wreaking havoc on the streets of Kennesaw. “You!”

The exterminator opened the door and took a step inside his shop. Even from behind the truck, they could hear the sickening crunch of his shoe on the floor.

His howl of revulsion and shock cut through the morning like an air-raid siren. He backed out of the store on high-stepping feet, his head obscured by a cloud of flies and moths.

Charlie let out a whoop of merriment. “Sugared!”

A bubble of laughter burst from Marcus. “Big-time.”

Chelsea's eyes widened in outrage. “You've got no business involving my father—”

“Involving?” Marcus cut her off. “The whole thing was his idea! He's the one involving me!”

She took Charlie's arm and pulled him onto the sidewalk. “Stay away from him!” she rasped to Marcus. “You have no clue who you're dealing with! This is our family's private business!” To her father she said, “Come on, Daddy, let's go.”

Marcus waited for Charlie to put his big-mouth daughter in her place. Where did she get off telling this force of nature, who delivered hits like a rhino and scampered up fences and statues like it was nothing, what to do and who to associate with?

Charlie never said a word. To be fair, he was distracted by the spectacle of Kenneth Oliver trying to slap-dance the insects off his shoes and clothing. But he followed Chelsea almost meekly.

Marcus retreated to the cover of the park, the shine gone from his revenge. Chelsea's scorn ate at him. Like he was running around recruiting people's fathers to hang out with. Like he'd even heard of “sugaring” before Charlie. Charlie
Popovich
.

Well, that was his name, right? Chelsea was Troy's sister. And that meant Charlie was Troy's dad.

Didn't it figure? A jerk like Troy got the world's greatest natural athlete for a father. Comrade Stalin's sport of choice was barking orders at people, aided by a bullhorn voice and the unshakable belief that he was right about every subject, one hundred percent of the time.

Come to think of it, Stalin could probably take a few lessons from Chelsea. She wasn't exactly a charm school graduate, and she was pushy enough to make her father late for his own prank. Troy was obviously a major idiot, so if Mrs. Popovich was anything like her kids, no wonder Charlie was a little unfocused.

Marcus's brow clouded. That still didn't explain the shove. Sure, Charlie was a physical guy, but that was no friendly straight-arm. That was a genuine
get-out-of-my-face
. A few seconds later he was the same old Charlie, but at that moment he'd been a stranger—and not a very pleasant one at that.

Charlie Popovich—why did that name sound familiar?
Football
familiar…

Chelsea's words came back to him:
You have no clue who you're dealing with
.

Maybe it was time to get a clue.

G
oogle churned up more than 46,000 hits on the keywords
Charlie Popovich
.

Marcus sat forward in his desk chair. After the hours he'd spent wondering about the mysterious Charlie, he'd never expected the guy's life story to be so easy to find. Eagerly, he clicked on the top link.

It was an article from the sports section of the
Cincinnati Inquirer
of February 18, 1991:

Marcus exhaled sharply and realized he'd been holding his breath. Unbelievable. For the past three weeks, he'd been bashing heads with a former NFL linebacker! The King of Pop! Not a superstar, exactly, but a solid player with a fourteen-year career.

I should have known
, Marcus thought. No wonder Charlie was still such an athletic force. No wonder he could dish out hits like cluster bombs, even at his age. Marcus did the math. The veteran was in his mid-fifties by now. This also explained why Charlie had so much free time in the middle of the day. He wasn't unemployed; he was
retired
. And probably pretty flush, too. The money in pro sports wasn't as huge as it was today, but even in the seventies and eighties, NFL players were pretty well paid.