The Big Splash (10 page)

I turned back to Kevin. He looked completely amused, as if he had just seen a comedy act instead of the complete obliteration of a kid's life. “You were saying?” he asked.

“You know, Kev, I used to think there was hope for you, that one day you'd wake up and realize that being Vinny's chump isn't worth it. But I was wrong. You actually like it. You're as big a jackass as he is.”

“Whatever you say, champ. In the spirit of our past friendship, I'm going to let your little speech slide. The next time you talk to me like that, you'll get to see the Outs from the inside.”

“Oh yeah? Well, in the spirit of our past friendship, here …” I put up my middle finger.

He laughed. “See you around, Matt,” he said and sauntered off.

I stood there, frozen with anger. Kids walked past me, still laughing about Joey. He had been a rat, and a jerk, and he had put a bunch of kids in the Outs, but I still felt horrible for him. Nobody deserved what he had just gone through. Nobody. I had the sudden urge to grab each laughing kid and wet the front of their pants, just to see how they liked it—to see if they'd still think it was funny. I took a deep breath and tried to pull myself together. When my anger subsided a little, I started walking to the nurse's office. I still needed to talk to Joey.

going to happen,” the nurse said to me, her voice hoarse from too many cigarettes.

“Just for a minute,” I pleaded.

“Beat it. Get to class.” She slammed the door in my face. I walked around the corner and waited. Twenty minutes later, a tall scarecrow of a woman walked briskly into the nurse's office. She looked exactly like Joey, if he were older and dressed as a woman, so I went out on a limb and guessed it was Joey's mom. She slammed the office door behind her, hard enough to rattle the two baby teeth I had left. She proceeded to yell for about ten minutes. The door
muffled most of the specifics, but the gist was easy to make out: She was a little upset. Suddenly, the door opened and Mrs. Renoni stormed out, dragging Joey behind her like a tin can on a wedding car.

They were almost out of the building when I caught Joey's attention. He looked at me with the most pitiful expression I'd ever seen. I almost asked him who the girl was that sent him that note, but the question froze on the tip of my tongue. Then he was gone.

For the rest of the day, I kept looking over my shoulder, half expecting the burly kids who dragged Joey off to be standing there, telling me that I had insulted Kevin for the last time … telling me that my time was up. In my mind, I would fight them off valiantly, beating them single-handedly as every attractive girl in school watched, cheering me on. Of course, when the last bell rang, I sprinted out of the building like a greyhound out of the starting gate. If they were coming, they'd have to outrun me.

When I got home, my mom was still at her day job, so I went down to my office to have a closer look at the
photo, the pass, and the note that Joey had given me. I turned on my task light and grabbed a magnifying glass, feeling a little like a bad cliché in a Sherlock Holmes story. The first thing I looked at was the torn photo, searching for any small detail I might have missed with the naked eye. Nothing. Even though it wasn't my style, I knew I was going to need some help. I picked up the phone and called Jimmy MacGregor, editor of the school paper. He picked up on the first ring.

“This is Mac.”

“Jimmy, it's Matt.”

“Hey, Matt. What's shakin'?”

“My hands from too much candy. Listen, you think you can do me a favor?”

“Today? Ha! Maybe you heard? Two biggest news stories of the century hit on back-to-back days.”

“Yeah, I heard. In fact, I had front-row seats.”

“Oh yeah?” he said, so eagerly I thought he was going to come through the phone. “You want to make a statement?”

“Maybe. You want to do me a favor?”

“Maybe. If it's taking an ugly cousin out for ice cream, my social calendar's pretty full.”

“I don't have any cousins. I have half a school newspaper picture. I need the other half.”

“My paper?”

“Is there any other?”

“Hmm. What's the picture of?”

“I'll show it to you.” I looked at the clock on my desk. 5:50. “Be at Sal's in half an hour.”

“I can't right now. Bring it by tomorrow, with your statement.”

“It's gotta be tonight.”

He paused for a second. I heard him shuffle a few papers around. “Does it have to do with Nikki and Joey?” he tried again.

“Off the record?”

“Yeah.”

“I'll see you at Sal's.”

“Fine, yeah, okay. See you at Sal's.” He hung up.

I put the phone down and picked up the day's edition of the school paper. Jimmy Mac must have photocopied liked a fiend, because even though it was only a few hours ago, there was Joey the Hyena on the front page. The picture was blurred, obviously taken in a hurry, but you got a full view of the main event. Joey's
eyes were the size of dinner plates. Even in black and white you could see the stains on his diaper. I crumpled up the newspaper and threw it in the wastebasket. I had enough visual images of Joey's destruction to last me several lifetimes.

I picked up the hall pass from Joey's envelope, opened the top left drawer on my desk, and pulled out the hall pass that Vinny had given me yesterday. Both signatures were supposed to be Mr. Allan's, the school's lone Science teacher. All it took was a glance to tell that the same person had forged both of them. Whoever did them was smart to use Mr. Allan, since his signature would work across all grade levels. I picked up the phone and called Vinny.

“Hey, it's Matt.”

“Hi, Matthew. Shame about Joey.”

“Yeah,” I said. “It's a bigger shame than you think. He didn't do it.”

“Didn't do what?”

“Play shortstop for the St. Louis Cardinals. What do you think?”

“Nikki? Are you sure?”

“Close to it. Listen, that hall pass you gave me yesterday, where'd you get it?”

“What hall pass?”

“The one you gave me so that I could ‘eat my lunch in peace.'”

“I have no idea what you're talking about.”

“You know, the fake hall pass.”

“Do you always accuse your clients of illegal activity?” he asked, his voice full of understated menace.

I almost answered, “No, just the guilty ones,” but stopped short. It rarely happens, but sometimes my survival instinct is able to leapfrog my smart-ass instinct. Vinny wasn't fond of being linked to illegal activity, even in a phone call, at night, nowhere near school property. I beat a hasty retreat. “My mistake. Can I meet with you at some point tomorrow? I have some things about the case I'd like to discuss.”

“Oh, we'll meet, Matthew. But I'm not sure you'll like everything I have to say.” He hung up.

I felt a tingle on the back of my neck, which was my body's way of telling me that I just screwed up. It's never a good sign when your client threatens you, especially when that client is Vinny Biggs.

I tried to put all that out of my head for now. I pulled the surfer girl figurine out of my pocket. It had been scratching my leg all day.

“You're a good luck charm? So far, I'm not impressed.”

Her mute smile seemed to say, “Well,
you
haven't been hit yet.”

I put her back in my pocket. She had a good point.

I picked up the two fake hall passes and stared at them, looking for any pattern that would help identify the writer. I reached into my filing cabinet and pulled out my report card from last year. On it was Mr. Allan's real signature. I compared it to the two fakes. The only thing that gave the fakes away was the loops in the letter “L.” They were a little bigger than the authentic ones. Fantastic. The key to the case was bigger “L” loops. All I needed were handwriting samples from the entire school and I'd have this case solved by the time I graduated high school. I sighed and checked the clock: 6:10. I went out the cellar door, grabbed my bike, and rode toward Sal's.

Sal Becker was a classmate of mine who ran a little place where kids could grab a sandwich and a soda, without all the hassles kids face in grown-up establishments. It was just an old tool shed, but Sal and his dad spent one summer putting in a bar and some tables. They made it
look nice, not too showy, just a simple place where kids could unwind after a long day. The menu was pretty limited: either a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (strawberry or grape) or a toasted cheese, washed down with either a root beer or a cream soda (the good kind in the glass bottles). Two sandwiches and a drink would run you just three bucks. Not bad on a kid's salary.

The cool air felt good on my face as I pedaled. It wouldn't be long before you'd see piles of leaves in people's yards, pumpkins on their steps, and cardboard monsters on their doors. You could already catch a hint of wood smoke in the air, like a whispered promise of things to come. That smell always reminded me of the clearest memory I had of my father. I was seven at the time. We were outside at twilight, laughing as I tried unsuccessfully to catch a football. My dad would throw it, I'd open my arms, and the ball would sail past, my arms not even close. Or the ball would bonk me on the nose. It was one of the foam ones, so it never hurt.

“Hell of a catch, there,” he'd say, then we'd laugh hysterically. Someone walking past might think that he was being cruel, making fun of his young son. They would be missing the mark. It wasn't my ability to catch
a ball that we were bonding over, it was my ability to catch his sarcasm. He refused to talk down to me. He was telling me that the intellectual playing field between us was even. When I threw the “Hell of a catch, there” back at him as he dropped a couple of passes, he'd wince and laugh, and shoot me a look that told me I had gotten him. I loved him for that.

We tried to get as many throws in before Mom called us for dinner. It was a perfect evening, and as you get older, you start to realize just how few of those you have in your life. Don't get me wrong—life is full of really great moments. But the number of perfect ones, where all the colors and sounds and smells combine in a way you can't quite believe is real, but wish would last forever: Those moments are much more rare.

By December, my dad had vanished. Over the years, my memories of him have gotten fuzzier and fuzzier; all except for the one of us playing ball and goofing on each other. I relive that memory every fall, when the air gets a little chilly and someone in town lights up their fireplace for the first time.

When I got to Sal's, I dropped my bike and waited a couple of minutes before going in. The brisk air had
made my eyes tear up. I wiped them on the sleeve of my sweatshirt, took a deep breath, and walked inside.

Sal's place was just the right temperature to take the chill out of you, all thanks to the two portable heaters he had going. The place smelled like toasted cheese and tree sap, a combination that I wouldn't necessarily think to put together, but it worked just fine. I climbed onto one of the bar stools.

“Hey, Matt.”

“Sal.”

“What'll it be?”

“Two cheeses and a cream soda.”

“Comin' up.”

He put my sandwiches in the small toaster oven he kept behind the bar, popped the top on my soda, and put it in front of me. I took a swig, then turned and looked around the room. The walls were natural wood paneling, covered with posters of local sports heroes. The floorboards were a few shades darker than the walls, due to age and heavy traffic patterns. A couple of floor lamps gave the room a warm glow that was easy to settle into.

Being that it was a school night, the place was pretty quiet. My only company was a pair of eighth graders sitting at a table in the corner. They looked like they were
lamenting a test they had taken earlier in the day. Sal came by and put down my sandwiches. I thanked him, then checked my watch: It went from 6:19 to 6:20. As it did, the door to Sal's opened and in walked Jimmy MacGregor. He was tall for a fourth grader; unfortunately, he was in seventh. His hair was black and sat in tight curls on his head. His skin was light brown and looked like it had been hit with a freckle stick. He walked briskly and sat on the stool next to mine.