The Fourth Stall (2 page)

Chapter 2

B
efore I tell you about the worst problem I ever faced, I should mention that it was also the worst time ever for it to happen. Because as everybody knows, the bigger a problem is, the more money it costs to solve. And at that moment in time, more than ever before, we needed to make money rather than spend it. We were saving up to go to a baseball game. But not just any baseball game. A Chicago Cubs World Series game.

The Cubs are Vince’s and my favorite baseball team in the world. We aren’t just normal fans either; we are basically obsessed. We’re
real
fanatics, like those crazy European soccer fans. We watch almost every Cubs game on TV and had been planning for years to go to the World Series together if the Cubs ever made it. And we weren’t just planning to go to the game like how most people make plans but never actually do them. We were serious. We’d even started a savings account for it, the Game Fund. Well, okay, it wasn’t an actual savings account at a bank or anything—it was really just a pile of cash that I kept in my closet. But you get the idea.

Vince and I had been saving for a Chicago Cubs World Series game for the past five years. One game might not seem like a big deal, but it was. The Cubs make the play-offs like once every ten years, and they haven’t made it to the World Series in almost seventy years, and haven’t won one in over a hundred, which is the longest a single team has sucked in all of sports history. So if we ever got to see a World Series game in person at Wrigley Field, it would be pretty rare. A once-in-a-lifetime chance, basically.

But get this: They are actually good this year. Really good. They are already in the play-offs and are just one win away from sweeping the Dodgers in the first round. I have a feeling that this is the year we’ll finally get our chance.

That’s why we’re trying hard to add as much as possible to the Fund. Getting Cubs World Series tickets will be expensive. Every Cubs fan in the world would want to go to the game, since basically nobody living has
ever
seen a Cubs World Series game before. The tickets would probably have to be purchased through this scalper website because play-off tickets sold out from the real box office in like four minutes flat, so World Series tickets would probably go in under four seconds. They would probably cost at least a couple thousand dollars per ticket, even for nosebleed seats.

We also had to save money to buy the awesome seven-dollar hot dogs, six-dollar sodas, souvenirs, and other stuff like that. Plus we’d need Vince’s older brother Victor to take us, which meant we’d have to pay for the gas it would take to drive us there. It’s only a few hours away, but gas is pretty expensive. Victor’s a cool guy, but he’d never do that kind stuff for free, not even for his little brother.

So it’s more important than ever to keep our money flowing in. Like I said, the Cubs are actually really good this year, which is shocking to everybody who knows anything at all about baseball. If everything goes well and they keep winning, their first appearance in a World Series game in almost seventy years is just over two weeks away. We’re already so excited that it sometimes feels like pure liquid sugar is being pumped directly into our veins through an IV, like you see in hospitals. I’ve never looked forward to anything as much as this. Not ever. Not even when my parents took me to Disney World when I was ten.

The problem is that we don’t have quite enough money yet. So at that moment every last penny really mattered, making it a horrible time for trouble to just waltz into my office like it did. Well, I guess it didn’t so much waltz as it did stumble, but you get the idea.

I heard my last customer of that afternoon shuffle through the bathroom door, his feet reluctantly scraping the floor as if he was being prodded by a stick. I heard Vince pat him down and say, “Hey, kid, you need to relax. No one’s gonna hurt you, okay?”

The stall opened and a young kid entered. He was pale with bloodshot eyes. His hands shook as he reached out for the chair. Then he stopped and looked at me. He was asking for permission.

I nodded my head at him and he sat down. He couldn’t have been more than a third grader. He looked at the stall’s wall to his left, eyeing the ancient graffiti. Middle school cave drawings are how I always think of them. I’ve spent plenty of time myself looking at the ancient writing. There are classics like “GaRy wuz HeeR” and “Mr JensEN SUX” and “Mitch
JuLie,” but there were also a few weird ones like “I WISH I WAS A PEACE OF CHEESE” and “Jason J fly’s kites at NitE” and “i eaT what i am.”

“What’s your name?” I asked, turning my attention back to the customer.

His head snapped toward me as if I had screamed at him. His eyes were big and brimming with tears. He looked like a deer staring into the bright doom of oncoming headlights.

“My name? Oh, it’s aah . . . uuh, my name is, umm, Fred.”

I studied him for a moment. He squirmed nervously.

“Okay, Fred, what do you need help with?”

“Well, it’s uh . . . it’s, umm, complicated. He’s after me, Mac, and I don’t really know where to start, I’m in so much trouble, it’s just a mess, it’s uh, it’s just so . . . oh man, I guess—”

“Fred.”

He stopped his chattering the instant I said his name. He looked up at me with his frightened doe eyes. This kid was making me nervous. I don’t like being nervous.

“Look, Fred, relax and slow down. I’m having a coronary over here just watching you. Take a deep breath. I can’t help you if I don’t understand what you are saying. Okay?”

Fred breathed deeply and nodded. He still looked terrified.

“Okay, Fred, let’s start with who is after you.”

“Staples.”

I hoped Fred couldn’t see my shock. That couldn’t be right.

Staples? Staples wasn’t even supposed to exist. The legend of Staples has been spread throughout the town practically since the beginning of time. According to the most often repeated stories, Staples was this kid who dropped out of school after fourth grade and never went back. His age always varied from story to story, but it was generally agreed that he was now between fourteen and twenty. Some kids claimed that he could do forty pull-ups with two seventh graders dangling from each leg. Others said he could pop a tetherball with a single punch. He also supposedly ran a mile in under six minutes and was smarter than Albert Einstein and Hermione Granger combined.

According to the legends, Staples had an intricate web of connections that spread throughout almost every high school, elementary school, and middle school in the city. He was even rumored to have people in the police department. He was untouchable.

They say he used his network to operate an illegal gambling ring. He’d take bets for pro sporting events like football and baseball games, but he mostly took them for local middle school and high school sports games. He also fixed the games. That is, he paid kids to lose on purpose. To miss free throws and easy layups in basketball and fumble the ball in football games and stuff like that.

Some of the rumors even say that Staples is to blame for the Cubs being terrible for so long. I heard some kid say once that Staples was the one who paid Mark Prior and Kerry Wood to fake injuries their whole careers.

And that was the problem with what Fred was telling me. Staples couldn’t be real. No way. I’d never encountered anyone who had actually seen him or claimed to have gambled through his network. And even if he did exist, there’s no way his business could have spread here. I would have known about it. I knew everything that happened at this school.

I rubbed my eyes and then addressed Fred.

“
The
Staples?”

Fred nodded and then looked at the floor.

“How can you be so sure?” I asked.

“Because I work for him,” Fred said, still looking down. “I used to take bets for him here.”

Then he started crying.

I sighed. “Vince?” I said loud enough for my business partner to hear me outside the stall. “You want to join us?”

A few moments later the door opened and Vince stepped in. Fred seemed too busy rubbing his eyes to notice. Normally nobody sat in the stall but me and the customer. But I made exceptions when stuff like this came around. Things as major as the revelation of the existence of a force like Staples. And Vince was the only person I’d ever made that exception for.

Vince gave me a look as he leaned against the stall’s wall beside my desk. He must have heard enough from the outside to know what was going on. Vince was the master of giving simple looks that could say a lot.

“I don’t gamble myself,” Fred finally continued. “I don’t even really get how it all works. But there are plenty of kids my age who do. I’d take their money and stuff and then give them their winnings if they ever did win, which was almost never. The legends are true, you know.”

“How long has he been operating here?” I asked.

“Umm . . . like three or four weeks or something,” Fred said.

“Why now?” Vince asked.

Fred glanced at Vince as if noticing him for the first time.

“He always said that grade schools are tougher to break into because it’s hard to find young kids to work for him,” Fred said.

“How did you get recruited, then?” I asked.

Fred shook his head. “My brother works for him at the high school in Glyndon. He talked me into it. I was too scared to refuse.”

A brief silence followed. The shock of Staples’s existence was starting to catch up with me. Especially the shock over how long it had taken me to find out that he really exists.

“Why is Staples after you, Fred?” Vince finally asked.

Fred lowered his head and bit his lip. He looked terrified, as if the very mention of why he’s being targeted could get him in trouble.

“Because I tried to leave. I told him I didn’t want to take bets anymore and he told me that it was too late. He said nobody quits. And then I said that if he didn’t let me quit, I’d tell Principal Dickerson what’s been going on around here. And he said that if I did that I would be a rat and rats get the worst punishment of all. He said I would have to eat my food through a straw after they were done with me. I’ve seen what he does to people, Mac, and I—”

“Hang on, Fred. Why exactly did you want to quit?” I asked.

“Because it’s not right, what he does. He’s been paying kids to play bad on purpose. Remember last Friday when Kyle dropped that really easy touchdown pass at the end of the game and we lost? Staples paid him to make sure we lost that game. He made a fortune on that one. Lately he’s been letting kids make bets even if they don’t have money. And . . . and then if they lose their bets, he’s been sending the Collector after them to get the money. But the kids don’t usually have the money, so instead they’ve been getting beat up real bad and the Collector steals their iPods and phones and stuff like that. And then they’re told that if they ever squeal, then they’ll really be in trouble—and one time Staples even threatened to kill this kid’s dog. I just can’t work for him anymore; the things I seen already . . . they give me nightmares.” He was finished, and I could tell that he was fighting back more tears.

“It’s okay, Fred. You did the right thing,” I said.

That was no way to run a business. I mean, sure, I’ve had my share of deadbeat customers who never came through on their end of the bargain, whether it be repaying a favor or making full payment. But I’d never rectify it by sending out some hoodlum to rough them up. That just wasn’t good business. There were other ways; I had my own method of dealing with welchers, and it had worked just fine this far without ever having to use physical force. In grade school there are bigger things than getting beat up.

“Who is this Collector?” Vince asked.

Fred shook his head. “He’s a mean guy. He’s an eighth grader, and I think his name is Willis or something like that.”

I nodded and rubbed my chin. I knew who Fred was talking about: Barnaby Willis. He was new here; he’d transferred from somewhere out east about a month ago. When I first saw him, I thought he might be trouble simply because of his size and the way he always strutted around like such a tough guy. But so far nobody had complained about him. And I’d heard from other eighth graders that he wasn’t much of a troublemaker. Either they’d been too afraid to tell the truth or Willis had been lying low while helping Staples get established. I looked at Vince. We both knew what this meant.

“You need protection, then?” I asked.