Pop (9 page)

He staggered to his feet, biting the side of his mouth to keep from losing consciousness again. He took a few steps back. He'd become much tougher since training with Charlie, but this required reserves of courage even he wasn't sure he possessed.

Holding his breath, he ran forward at full tilt and slammed his shoulder into the solid granite.

He heard himself scream, and that was all he was aware of for several minutes. When he awoke, his lunch was all down the front of his shirt, and the pain was gone. In wonder, he flexed his shoulder, moving his arm up and down. He was fine. A little sore, but only a little. Fine.

Unbelievable! Charlie was right.

Charlie…

How could a grown man leave a teenager in such a condition? How could he just walk away like that, promising help and never coming back? Could anybody be so selfish? Did he consider himself so big a sports star that other people simply didn't matter?

I don't care how much he's helped me with football! I'm done with that guy
.

He started for the parking lot and his Vespa, still amazed that the terrible agony was so suddenly gone. To be utterly incapacitated and, an instant later, totally back to normal seemed almost like magic. Clearly, it had been no big deal to Charlie. He pictured an NFL locker room, with howling players bodychecking the cinder-block walls to autocorrect their various dislocations.

The bike's motor roared to life, and he tooled out of the main entrance of the park, more shaken by Charlie's behavior than the memory of the blinding pain. This man was supposed to be his
friend
. He had taken Marcus under his wing and generously shared his football experience. He had even greeted Marcus before going up to his own son at the Raiders-Steelers game.

What a jerk!

No sooner had Marcus reached Poplar Street than a shiny black Cadillac SUV crested the rise. A familiar set of broad shoulders was hunched over the wheel. It was Charlie, peering through the windshield with the intense concentration of a chess master pondering a critical move.

Marcus waved his arms. “Hey!”

The big Cadillac roared straight on past.

He didn't see me!

Marcus's brow knit. No, that wasn't quite it. More like Charlie
had
seen him—and had looked right through him.

He twisted the throttle, and the scooter took off in hot pursuit. Putt-putting around town, there weren't a lot of opportunities for the Vespa to show what it could do. Props to Comrade Stalin—it was a great gift, even with the many strings attached. He flashed past the SUV and then ditched the bike in the grass just in time to flag Charlie down from the side of the road.

The passenger window receded into the door frame.

“What happened?” Marcus demanded. “You were supposed to come pick me up!”

Charlie's face was blank. “What?”

“That's not funny, man!” Marcus exploded. “You left me screaming my head off with a dislocated shoulder!”

“What you have to do is find a good, solid tree—”

“It isn't dislocated
now
! I had to fix it myself when you didn't show up to take me to the emergency room!”

Charlie frowned. “Is this some kind of joke?”

“You can't act like you don't know what I'm talking about! It just happened!”

“Mac—”

“You know my real name!” stormed Marcus. “I've told it to you twenty times! I may not have played pro football, but I'm a person too. Where do you get off trying to stiff me for your half of that broken window? You owe me a hundred and fifty-five bucks!”

The former linebacker's eyes narrowed. “Are you trying to rip me off?”

“Forget it.” If Charlie wanted to screw a high school kid out of what amounted to pocket change for a guy behind the wheel of a seventy-thousand-dollar SUV, Marcus wasn't going to fight with him. It just reinforced the image of the egotistical pro athlete, so self-centered that he couldn't even devote a few minutes of his day to giving a teenager obviously in agony a lift to the hospital.

He got back on his bike, giving the SUV a wide berth as he made a left turn into traffic. He was burning again, but this time it was with shame. How duped he'd been by this old weirdo! How quick to mistake a few tackling pointers and a glitzy stat sheet for friendship! He felt like an idiot.

The sound of car horns behind him drew his eyes to the mirror. The Cadillac was making a U-turn. Was Charlie chasing him now? Well, if he was, he'd picked the wrong kind of scooter to go up against. A twist of the throttle and soon the Vespa was up to seventy, whizzing by Three Alarm Park, the SUV just a dot in the rearview.

He had already wasted more than enough time on Charlie Popovich.

The collage had once held a place of honor on Troy's bedroom wall. Now it lay at the bottom of his junk drawer, buried under old CD cases and a long-defunct Scooby-Doo puzzle with two pieces missing.

“Troy!” came his mother's voice from downstairs.

He ignored her, scrutinizing his third-grade handwriting on the construction paper:
Number 55 in Action
.

His father's eyes stared back at him from every conceivable angle. The artwork was a patchwork of dozens of football cards from the King of Pop's playing days. Troy made no move to touch it; he never did. But rarely did a day go by when he didn't open the drawer to look at it.

“Troy, get down here!”

“I'm busy,” he mumbled, using his pinky finger to slide an arcade token off Charlie's San Diego rookie card.

“Now!”

Mrs. Popovich was at the base of the stairs, practically shaking with anger. He caught an expression of mock sympathy from his sister. Chelsea the spectator—she was enjoying this.

His mother grabbed his wrist and towed him into the kitchen, where French doors led out to the driveway. There sat the black SUV, parked at an odd angle. A large dent marred the front bumper.

“Don't look at me,” he defended himself. “I can't afford the gas to take that monster around the corner. You probably got dinged in a parking lot.”

“I haven't been in a parking lot,” Mrs. Popovich said icily. “The car's been here all day.”

“Well, I didn't hit it,” said Troy. “Check my Mustang—it's clean.”

“He couldn't have hit it,” Chelsea put in. “The dent's on the wrong side of the car.”

Their mother was exasperated. “Then who—”

A loud, juicy crunch stopped her in her tracks. The three peered through the doorway to the den, where Charlie reclined on the couch in front of the TV, dismantling a pear.

Troy's brow furrowed. “Dad doesn't drive anymore, does he?”

“He took me to the cell phone place,” Chelsea supplied.

“Well, okay, if there's someone in the car with him,” said Mrs. Popovich. “But alone?”

“Where does he ever go that he can't walk to?” asked Troy.

His mother looked stricken, her lips hardening into a thin line. Wordlessly, she removed the Cadillac key chain from a wall hook and hid it deep inside a kitchen drawer.

F
or Marcus, cutting Charlie out of his life was both easy and hard. It was a simple matter to stop heading for Three Alarm Park after football practice every day. But he missed the former linebacker.

How dumb was that? Getting attached to someone who ripped you off, let you take the blame for what
he
did, and walked away when you were on the ground, howling in agony—it didn't make sense. And Marcus had understood from day one that he was dealing with a very peculiar guy. So what was it that he liked about the man? The NFL connection? No, Marcus had known Charlie long before he'd learned about his pro career. The man's larger-than-life personality? His unfailing willingness to play—not just football, but
life
? Maybe—but didn't weirdness trump charm?

That left just the hitting. Marcus missed that most of all. Even the dislocated shoulder hadn't dulled his longing for the crunch of physical contact. The King was gone, and he had taken the pop with him.

The only pop in Marcus's life now came at the Raiders' practice, and it wasn't the same caliber as he'd become accustomed to. Champions or not, no Raider could administer a tackle that had fourteen years of NFL experience behind it. All Marcus could do was throw his own body around with the skill and abandon he had learned from Charlie.

It set Coach Barker's head to full bobble. “Attaway, Jordan! Pay attention, you guys! This is supposed to be a full-speed workout, not a ballet recital!”

From the ranks of the cheerleaders, Alyssa added her expert judgment. “You don't hit like any quarterback I've ever seen.”

“Maybe that's why I get fewer snaps every practice,” Marcus complained.

His physical play impressed the coach so much that, in the Raiders' second game, his duties were increased to include offense. Not quarterback, of course—that was still Troy. Now he was a fullback, never to touch the ball, but to block for Ron.

To his surprise, he was good at it. High school line-backers turned out to be much softer targets than the rock-solid King of Pop. Ron had his best game ever as a rusher, which induced Barker to keep the ball on the ground, much to the consternation of Troy. It filled Marcus with a mammoth sense of accomplishment. If he couldn't play quarterback, the next best thing was to make the experience less pleasant for Golden Boy.

Troy was shaken by the change in strategy. Perhaps it was the endless handoffs that took him out of his usual confident rhythm. When he did throw a pass, he seemed hurried in the face of even the slightest defensive pressure. Coach Barker didn't seem to notice any of this. To him, offense was offense, and it made no difference if the yardage came from Troy's arm or Ron's legs. The Raiders were winning handily, and the second perfect season was moving forward right on schedule. Alyssa, however, scrutinized her ex from the apex of the cheerleaders' pyramid. And while her exterior may have been pure supermodel, deep down she had the soul of Vince Lombardi. She knew something was up.

Marcus was surprised at how unsettled he was by Charlie's presence in the bleachers. The former linebacker had really gotten under his skin. In spite of everything that had happened, the guy had brought out a dimension of Marcus Jordan, Football Player, that he'd never even known was there.

Troy got right in his face on the sidelines. “What are you doing, Jordan?”

“You're steaming my visor,” Marcus growled, refusing to be intimidated.

“You think I'm blind?” Troy demanded. “You've been staring up at my old man the whole game. What's he to you?”

“If he didn't tell you, why should I?” Marcus shot back, a little chagrined that his glances at the bleachers were so obvious.

“This is your last warning—get his autograph and back off!” He gave Marcus a heavy shove, sending him stumbling backward into a group of teammates.

Barker was there in a heartbeat. “You—Jordan. Hit the showers.”

“Me?”
Marcus was indignant.

The coach's head bobbed menacingly. “
Now
.”

Marcus's blood boiled all the way to the locker-room hut. He had blocked like a lion and played steadfast defense, while Troy had been adequate at best.

He was just kicking out of his cleats when the shaking of pom-poms signaled a new arrival. Alyssa.

“There are still a couple of minutes on the clock,” he told her irritably.

“Twenty-point lead. No cheers required.” She sat down beside him on the bench, resettling the short skirt of her uniform. Her confidence was infinite. It might have been a men's changing room, but Alyssa was welcome everywhere … because she was Alyssa. “Good game today.”

“Yeah, I'm sure Ron will tell his grandchildren about this one.”

She smiled appreciatively. “People notice blocking. And defense. And nice buns—things like that.”

“What about gun-shy quarterbacks?” he asked.

She thought it over. “Maybe, maybe not. Either way, coming off thirteen straight wins, you get the benefit of the doubt for a few weeks.”

He tossed a wadded-up sock into his open locker. “In other words, it's all my fault.”

“You're pissed. I understand. But there are ways of making you unpissed.” She leaned over and kissed him. “You're coming to the party tonight, right?”

“What party?”

“At Luke's. His parents are away for the weekend.”

He made a face. “My invitation must have been lost in the mail.”

She shrugged. “You're on the team.”

Marcus was unconvinced. He had worked hard to make a contribution to the Raiders, and most of the players acknowledged it. But there was only one player who really counted.

“It doesn't matter anyway,” she persisted, “because you also happen to be a personal friend of
mine
. And,” she said, sweetening the deal, “I know every nook and cranny of that house.”