Robbie Forester and the Outlaws of Sherwood Street (11 page)

“Maybe that was some sort of guidance,” I said.

“Possibly.”

“But getting back to the blog.”

Ashanti took out her phone, pressed some buttons. “Sheldon Gunn Is a Monster dot-com,” she said. We gazed at the screen, waiting for the page to pop up. “Hey!” she said. “What the…?”

I leaned closer, read the message:
The page you are
looking for can no longer be found.

“Are you sure you entered it right?” I said.

She gave me a quick glare. “Yeah, I’m sure.” But she tried again. Same message.

“Can you remember what was on it?” I said.

“Not the specifics,” Ashanti said. “There was all this stuff about people getting kicked out of their apartments, little businesses that can’t make the new rent, that kind of thing, but I don’t remember the… wait a minute—is there something called the Red Goat?”

“It’s a bar.”

“Where?”

“Near the canal. My dad and some of his writer pals used to go there, but then advertising guys started showing up. They didn’t get along.”

“Why not?”

I didn’t know. Meanwhile, we’d started walking, but not toward the brownstones down the street where I could see those two nannies sitting on a stoop and push-pulling their strollers. Instead, with no discussion, we were headed the other way, toward the canal.

W
e have this canal in Brooklyn. Long ago the Dutch fished and went clamming in its clear waters—I learned that at Joe Louis. No fish or clams now, of course: the water’s that same sickly green you see in the test tubes of mad scientists in the movies. As Ashanti and I crossed the bridge, a big fat gas bubble burst on the surface, and then another, rising up from the putrid depths. We caught the familiar stink, way worse in summer than now.

“Eww,” said Ashanti.

The Red Goat stood across the street from the bridge, one of those lopsided old buildings you see in Brooklyn sometimes, leaning like a drunk, which was kind of appropriate. A big carved red goat hung over the door.

“Cool sign,” Ashanti said.

“Yeah, and the building leans like—” I began to say, letting Ashanti on my little joke, but stopped when the
door opened and a man came out with a stepladder. He wore heavy work boots, shorts, and a T-shirt—one of those guys who dressed like it was summer all year round. He had a shiny bald head and a full beard, a look you saw from time to time, and which I found vaguely nauseating. In a moment or two, he’d set up the ladder and was at the top, working on the Red Goat sign with a screwdriver. He took out some screws, stuck them in his teeth, grabbed the goat by its front legs, and pulled. The goat came free. The guy put it on his shoulder and climbed down the ladder.

We crossed the street. “Hi,” I said. “Cool goat.”

The guy grunted and started toward the door.

“Cool goat” maybe hadn’t been the way to go, and time was running out, since we couldn’t follow him inside.

“Um,” I said.

And then Ashanti saved the day. “We’re doing a school project,” she said. “All about the New Brooklyn Redevelopment Project.”

The guy stopped and turned. “Got nothin’ to say about those”—and then came a word that kids are not supposed to utter, although adults do all the time.

“How come?” said Ashanti.

“How come? Because they’re the”—another one of those words—“that’s puttin’ me out of”—and one more—“business.
Why do you think I’m taking down Big Nanny?”

“That’s the goat’s name?” I said.

“Since 1959,” said the guy.

“It’s a great name,” I said.

“Well, forget about it,” said the guy. “Over, kaput, finito.”

“Because of the New Brooklyn Redevelopment Project?” Ashanti said. It hit me that maybe she outdid me a bit when it came to sticking to the point.

“Better believe it,” the guy said, plus some more bad language.

“What happened?” Ashanti said.

“Huh?” said the guy. “What’s it to you?”

“Like we said,” Ashanti told him. “A school project.”

He shifted Big Nanny on his shoulder in an impatient sort of way. A neck chain that had been hidden under his T-shirt popped out, with silver letters hanging on the end:
Duke.
“How’s talkin’ to a couple of school kids gonna help me?”

“Well,” Ashanti said, “there’s getting your story out there.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Like, fighting the PR war.”

“PR war?” said Duke. “Are you nuts? Those jerks own the PR companies.”

“They do?” I said.

“They own everything. That’s the point.”

“They don’t own you,” I said.

“Only ’cause I’m not worth anything no more,” Duke said. “This is late-stage capitalism—don’t they teach you nothin’ in school no more?”

That shut me up. I’d never heard of late-stage capitalism, and what if they really weren’t teaching us anything in school? But it didn’t shut Ashanti up.

“They don’t own us,” she said.

Duke squinted at her. “I was like you once,” he said. “Just wait.” He went inside the Red Goat and slammed the door.

Ashanti and I looked at each other. “Have you gotten to late-stage capitalism?” I said.

“Nope.”

“Maybe it comes in high school.”

“Can’t wait.” We moved away from the Red Goat. “We’re nowhere,” Ashanti said.

“Uh-huh.”

“We need info.”

“Right. What was the name of that blog?”

“Sheldon Gunn Is a Monster dot-com. Where did the stupid thing go?”

“You mean where do blogs go when they’re gone?”

“Yeah.”

“No clue,” I said. “Do you know any geeks?”

“Practically everyone I know is a geek,” said Ashanti. “Present company excluded, of course.”

“Hey. I’m just tremendously honored.”

“You’re more of the sarcastic type.”

“And you?” I said.

Ashanti’s eyes shifted. For a moment she looked very still and quiet, her aggression or chippiness or whatever you wanted to call it disappearing. “Maybe the same,” she said. At that moment, I actually did feel honored, if just the tiniest bit.

“The kind of geek we’re looking for,” I said, “is the techno-expert-type.”

Her face brightened. She snapped her fingers. Ashanti turned out to be one of those people capable of loud finger snaps. “Silas,” she said.

“Who’s he?”

“This kid I sort of know. Couldn’t be geekier.”

“He’s at Thatcher?”

Ashanti shook her head. “He doesn’t go to school.”

“Meaning he’s already graduated from college?”

“Who said anything about college? Silas is my age. He’s a homeschooler.”

When it comes to homeschooling, I think of rural places, like farms and ranches, or at least the burbs, but Silas lived in an apartment building just tall enough to be
called a high-rise, about a ten-minute walk from the Red Goat.
DOORMAN OFF DUTY
read a notice, which suited me fine: I can open my own doors, don’t need some guy dressed like an extra from
The Nutcracker
to do it for me. In the outer lobby, Ashanti looked up the apartment number and pressed the buzzer.

A few seconds passed and then a voice came through the speaker: “Stand and deliver.”

Yes, a geek for sure.

“Silas?” Ashanti said.

Through the speaker: “The one, the only.”

“It’s Ashanti. Let me in.”

Silas’s voice rose a few notes. “Ashanti?”

“That’s what I said.”

“You want to come up?”

“Right again.”

“It’s just me here.”

“Hitting the books?”

“Not exactly.”

Ashanti rolled her eyes. “Silas?”

“Yeah?”

“Press. The. Buzzer.”

Bzzz.
We went into the inner lobby and rode the elevator to the sixth floor. Silas’s apartment was at the end of the hall. He was standing by the open door in one of those toes-out postures, a roundish, red-haired kid
with freckles, about Ashanti’s height. Silas was dressed like a Thatcher boy—khakis and a collared shirt—except for one detail: he also wore a bow tie. He had one of those very expressive faces, like an actor. Right now it was expressing awkward surprise.

“This is Robbie,” Ashanti said as we drew closer. “Robbie, Silas. Silas, Robbie.”

“Hi,” I said.

“Um,” said Silas.

By that time we were at the door. Silas rocked back and forth.

“Haven’t seen you in a while,” Ashanti said.

“Day before Thanksgiving,” Silas said. “Schermerhorn subway station. You said you hated turkey.”

“Right,” said Ashanti. “There’s that photographic memory.”

“Well,” said Silas, “it’s not exactly photographic, if by photographic you mean—”

“We don’t really have a lot of time,” Ashanti said, “since we’re on our way home from school and all, so if you’ll just invite us in, we can get started.”

“Get started on what?” Silas said.

“Sheldon Gunn Is a Monster dot-com is—” Ashanti said.

“I agree,” said Silas.

“About what?” Ashanti said.

“Sheldon Gunn.”

“You know who he is?” I said.

“He bought the building where my mother works, and raised the rents,” Silas said. “Her boss says he’ll have to close the business.”

“Maybe not,” I said.

“What do you mean?” said Silas.

I explained about the missing blog. Soon we were in Silas’s bedroom, a small, tidy bedroom in a small apartment that was messy everyplace else. Silas sat in front of his computer, tapping away. I sat on a stool. Ashanti lounged on the bed.

“Who’s that on the wall?” Ashanti said.

“Turing,” Silas said, not taking his eyes off the screen.

“Who’s he?” I said. The Turing guy had heavy dark eyebrows and wore a tweed suit.

Silas turned in surprise. “Turing? You don’t know Turing? We wouldn’t be doing this without Turing.”

“Doing what?” I said.

“Anything on computers.”

“He invented computers?” I said.

“I thought that was Bill Gates,” said Ashanti.

Silas looked at her, then at me. “Where do you guys go to school, again?”

“Thatcher,” we said.

“You have to pay?”

We nodded.

He shook his head, then went back to work.

“How’s homeschooling?” I asked after a minute or
two.

“Not bad,” said Silas, one finger up in the air, hesitating, then coming down decisively on a key. “Calculus is pretty cool.”

“You’re learning calculus?” I said.

“I needed it for this app I’m working on,” said Silas.

“What does it do?” I asked.

“Well,” he said, his voice suddenly deepening into a manly register, then squeaking back up to where it had been, “there are some bugs to iron out, but it’s for opening combination locks.”

“How?” I said.

Silas turned to me, rubbing his hands, his face pinkening with excitement. “You load the app onto your phone, then point the phone at the lock.”

“That’s it?”

“The combination pops up on your screen.”

“Wow,” I said.

“It’s a few weeks away,” Silas said, “but I can show you some of the code, if you like.”

“Maybe some other time,” Ashanti said, getting off the bed. “Right now we need you working on the blog thing.”

“That?” said Silas. “It’s all done.” He hit a key. The printer on his desk came to life. “Name, social security number, address, e-mail, phone, and credit report.”

“What are you talking about?” Ashanti said.

“The blogger who runs Sheldon Gunn Is a Monster dot-com,” said Silas. “Isn’t that what you wanted?” A sheet of paper slid into the tray. Silas took it out and handed it to me.

And that was when we got a shock, the surprise kind of shock and the literal kind. In the exchange, while Silas and I were both still touching the paper, the electric ball hit me, the hardest hit yet, but also the quickest to go. At the same instant, Silas cried out in pain, and a split second later, the sheet of paper burst into flames. We both snatched our hands away; the burning page glided down to the floor, was mostly ashes by the time it landed. Ashanti stamped out the remaining embers.

Silas backed away, his mouth wide open in a big, silent O.

“You all right?” I said. “Headache, but now it’s gone?”

He rubbed his head, nodded. “But how did you—” He glanced at the ashes on the floor, just a few, hardly noticeable. “What—what’s going on?”

We sat him down, started telling our story. Silas had that easy-to-read face, so it was obvious at first that he
didn’t believe us. But his expression started to change when I showed him the bracelet and he felt the silver heart, much warmer than it should have been.

“It’s shaped like a heart,” he said.

“How observant,” said Ashanti.

“Not a real heart, of course,” Silas said. “Just the common misrepresentation.” Ashanti rolled her eyes. Meanwhile Silas had the heart on his fingertip. “Too heavy to be silver,” he said.

“Platinum, right?” said Ashanti.

“More likely palladium or rhodium,” Silas said. “We could expose it to various altering agents, I suppose, or get some electromagnets and—”

“Silas!” Ashanti said. “You’re missing the point.”

“What’s the point?”

“It has power—that’s the point,” she said.

Silas’s face wrinkled up, a very unpleasant look on him, showing he wasn’t buying it. “So if I put it on, I’d have the power?” he said.