Football Hero (2008) (19 page)

AFTER DINNER AND A
movie, Thane dropped Ty off in front of the house.

“We didn’t even talk about your game tomorrow,” Thane said. “It’s the big Brookfield rivalry, right?”

“Well, you know,” Ty said with a wave of his hand, “with all this.”

Thane nodded but said, “A football game is a big thing.”

“But I thought—”

“I know, you’ve got all this stuff on your mind, but think about it. You only play how many games?”

“Ten.”

“Ten games,” Thane said. “You work year-round getting ready for the season, lifting weights, running till you’re sick, then comes training camp, all those
practices, day after day in the heat. Then you only get ten or sixteen or whatever chances to really play the game. It’s something special. You can’t let anything get between you and that.”

“Even Big Al?” Ty said.

“Remember the car accident?” Thane asked, his voice taking on a somber tone. “I had a game the day after the funeral. I didn’t care about the game, about football. I didn’t care if I ever played again. But I had ninety other guys and twelve coaches counting on me. No one asked me to play. They would have been okay if I didn’t. But this game, it’s the ultimate team game. You need everyone to win it.”

“Coach V said if we lose, he’s gone,” Ty said.

“Fired for one game?”

Ty shrugged. “Brookfield is the best. They gave him five years to beat them.”

Thane nodded as if that made complete sense. “See? And they need you, right?”

“I guess.”

“A great player doesn’t perform his best when everything’s good,” Thane said. “He performs his best when it isn’t.”

“I never said I was great,” Ty said in a mutter.

Thane lifted his chin and looked him in the eye.

“Hey, look at me. You’re a Lewis.”

Ty set his mouth and nodded that he understood.

“Three o’clock, right?” Thane said. “I’m coming
straight over after the charity signing. I should be able to just make it for kickoff.”

Ty thanked his brother, got out, and watched him go. When he walked into the house, Uncle Gus directed him right back outside, loaded him into his truck, and drove straight to Ludi’s Meats. Three times on the way, Uncle Gus reached into his coat pocket and removed a roll of Tums. With a shaky hand, he popped the stomach medicine into his mouth straight from the roll, crunching it down and swallowing and leaving little powdery crumbs in his mustache. Even through the cigarettes, Ty could smell the sour odor of Uncle Gus’s nervous perspiration. When they arrived, Uncle Gus tripped on the curb and stumbled again on their way up the narrow stairs.

It looked like the same set of characters in the same smoky cloud to Ty, only this time, Lucy sat facing the door, right next to Big Al. Lucy threw down his cards and jumped up, his red scar glowing like the picture in Ty’s science book of the spot on Jupiter.

“There he is,” Lucy said warmly, opening his arms.

They all turned around, grunting their welcomes. Big Al leaned back in his chair and tugged a wad of money from his pants pocket. He counted out ten hundred dollar bills in a wheezy voice and waved them at Lucy.

“This is for the kid,” Big Al said, speaking without removing the stub of a fat cigar from the corner of his
mouth. “For college or something.”

Lucy took the money and circled the table, holding the money out for Ty. Ty folded the crisp stack of bills and tucked them into his pants without saying anything.

“So?” Big Al said in a bellow. “Where are we this week? The Jets are favored by one. How’s your brother?”

Big Al’s eyes sparkled at Ty with the ferocity of a snake preparing to strike. Ty opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. He gulped. Uncle Gus nudged him and cleared his own throat with a squeaky sound.

“Not going to play,” Uncle Gus said.

Big Al narrowed his eyes and removed the pulverized tip of the cigar from his mouth, pointing it at Uncle Gus but nodding his head at Ty. “I want to hear
him
say it.”

Uncle Gus nudged him again and Ty found his voice.

“He’s not going to play,” Ty said.

“Practiced all week but not going to play?” Big Al said with a glimmer in his eye that Ty couldn’t read.

Ty nodded. “That’s what he said.”

“Was he limping?”

“Yeah,” Ty said. “The knee’s all swelled up. It does that, poof, all of a sudden.”

“You saw it?” Big Al asked.

“Like a grapefruit,” Ty said.

“That’s a pretty safe bet then, isn’t it?” Big Al asked.

Everyone nodded and grunted and grinned. Lucy patted Ty on the back, nearly knocking him down.

Inside the truck, Uncle Gus held his hand out to Ty.

“What?” Ty asked.

“The money,” Uncle Gus said. “This is my deal, not yours.”

“He gave it to me,” Ty said.

Uncle Gus just stared at him and snapped the fingers of his outstretched hand until Ty removed the ten hundreds from his pocket and handed them over. Uncle Gus stuck them in his shirt pocket and began to whistle.

“That went well,” he said, pulling away from the curb. “You looked like you were ready to wet your pants in there.”

Ty flashed him an evil look and opened his mouth to say something but thought better of it.

“You could learn from me, boy,” Uncle Gus said, glancing over at him. “A lot of people see dirty toilets. I see never-ending business. You get it?”

Ty shook his head.

“No, you got no business savvy,” Uncle Gus said. “Just like your brother with that agent of his. Watch and learn.”

Instead of turning for home, Uncle Gus got on the highway and headed south. Ty fell asleep, only to wake as they pulled into the brightly lit circular drive of an Atlantic City casino. The clock on the dashboard
said one-thirty. Uncle Gus reached under the seat and removed a brown bag, peeking in at its contents and poking the tip of his tongue out from beneath the bristles of his mustache. He hopped out and gave the valet some money, telling him he needed only five minutes and to leave the truck right where it was.

“Watch and learn if you like,” Uncle Gus said, slamming his door closed.

Ty scrambled out and took off after his uncle.

UNCLE GUS WADDLED THROUGH
the towering doors of glass and gold. Ty followed him through a maze of colors and chrome, ringing slot machines, rattling roulette tables, and the call of dealers playing twenty-one. Uncle Gus disappeared through an archway. Ty followed and found a bank of televisions plastered across a huge wall. People sat with drinks at small tables, watching everything from horse racing to volleyball. Uncle Gus hurried to a long counter beneath a sign that said,
SPORTS BOOK
.

Ty crept up behind him and watched as he removed several stacks of bills from his paper bag, added the money he’d taken from Ty, and pushed it across the counter to a young woman in a red blazer.

“All on the Jets this Sunday,” Uncle Gus said,
slapping his palm on the countertop.

The woman raised her eyebrows and counted out the money, thirteen thousand dollars. The woman punched some numbers into her keyboard, then handed him a receipt. Uncle Gus turned, winked at Ty, and motioned for him to follow as he hustled back out to the truck. He fired up the engine and pulled back out onto the road, then interrupted his grin long enough to whistle a little tune that Ty recognized as “Yankee Doodle Dandy.”

When Uncle Gus roused him the next morning, Ty barely remembered getting home. Although tiny webs of blood vessels crept from the corners of Uncle Gus’s eyes, his call to get up suggested plenty of energy. Ty groaned and looked at his clock, then sprang up out of bed. They usually started their Saturday morning rounds at eight and finished by two. His game today against Brookfield was at three. The clock read 8:37.

He tipped his mattress against the wall, threw on his sneakers, scooped up the laundry bag that held his uniform, and dashed into the kitchen.

“We’ve got to go,” Ty said.

“Am I the only one with an alarm clock in this house?” Uncle Gus asked, sipping from a mug of coffee. Aunt Virginia sat in her robe reading the paper and shaking her head.

“My game is at three, Uncle Gus,” Ty said. “I have to be there at two for warm-ups.”

Uncle Gus looked at his watch, pursed his lips, and shook his head.

“I don’t know,” he said. “We’re gonna have to clean fast.”

Charlotte gave Ty a sympathetic look. She hopped up from the table and rinsed her cereal bowl in the sink. “I’m ready.”

“Off we go,” Uncle Gus said, taking his coffee with him and heading for the front door.

Ty cleaned like a tornado, finishing his work and diving in to help Charlotte with hers. The only thing Uncle Gus did to help was hang up the posters Thane had given him, proudly announcing to passersby that Tiger was his nephew. On Saturdays, they usually cleaned Lucy’s last, and that’s where they found themselves at ten after one. Since Lucy’s was only twenty minutes from Halpern Middle School, if they finished in half an hour, Ty could still get to the game on time.

He rushed in the back door with his supplies and charged right past the kitchen.

“Hey, kid,” Mike said, sticking his head out into the hall and waving his hand for Ty to come back.

The outside metal door behind Mike banged open, bringing with it Uncle Gus carrying his last poster and Charlotte toting the vacuum. Mike opened his mouth to speak, then closed it.

“I’m gonna be late,” Ty said, backing through the swinging door to the men’s room, banging his mop handle against the wall. “I got a game.”

Mike opened his mouth again to say something, but the door swung closed and Ty darted into the men’s room, spilling ammonia into the bucket and filling it with water before splashing it onto the floor with his mop and getting to work. The filth no longer made him ill, and even the stench no longer seemed like a shocking offense but rather a small annoyance. He flushed the toilet and turned at the sound of the door opening.

Mike held a finger to his lips, signaling Ty to keep quiet. He held the backpack Ty had seen before in his hand. Mike moved closer and in a low voice said, “Something’s up.”

Ty felt a chill.

“Like what?” he asked in a whisper. “Something with Thane?”

“I don’t know,” Mike said, removing some kind of wand from his pack along with an electronic box and a set of headphones all connected by black wires, “but Lucy banged his crowbar on the bar about twenty minutes ago and he’s been in his office ever since. Your uncle just went in there with him.”

On cue, the thin sound of Lucy’s shouting floated out of the vent inside the stall. Mike’s eyes shot toward the stall, then returned to Ty.

“If you put your ear to the vent, you can hear in there,” Ty said.

“How do you think I know so much about what’s
going on?” Mike said, raising the electronic equipment that Ty now recognized as a microphone and recording device.

Ty scurried into the stall and knelt down by the vent. Mike wedged himself halfway in, slipped the headphones over his ears, and poked the microphone over Ty’s shoulder, clicking on the recorder.

“Sit down,” Lucy said in a voice pleasant but laced with tension.

“Everything okay?” Uncle Gus asked. “Look, I got one of these posters for you.”

“Real nice,” Lucy said. “A charity thing, huh? Your nephew. This thing is right now, huh?”

“Next Saturday, too,” Uncle Gus said, his voice trailing off. “I thought it’d look good on the wall, you know, to make the connection with Tiger maybe showing up here sometimes. It’s a good action shot.”

“Yeah, it is,” Lucy said. “So, everything else okay?”

“Sure,” Uncle Gus said.

“You must be feeling pretty good about the game tomorrow, huh?” Lucy said.

“Sure,” Uncle Gus said, forcing a laugh. “It’s good for all of us. Nothing like a sure thing.”

The silence lasted so long that Ty wondered if they’d left the office, but just as he turned to Mike with a questioning look, Lucy slammed his crowbar down on what sounded like his desk. Ty jumped.

“Sure thing?” Lucy said, raising his voice to a roar.
“A sure thing going the other way! You didn’t think we’d find out? You put thirteen thousand dollars on the Jets down in Atlantic City and you didn’t think I’d find out about that?”

Uncle Gus began to whimper. “Lucy, I can explain.”

“Don’t you even
talk
to me!” Lucy said, screaming and smashing something with the crowbar. “I’ll tell you what’s going to happen
now
. That nephew of yours? You think he’s going to play in that game tomorrow? You think you can cross
us
? Well, that ain’t gonna happen.”

“Lucy, what are you going to do?”

“I’m going to save you
and
me from a swim in the Passaic River with concrete shoes,” Lucy said. “That kid plays tomorrow and Big Al’s gonna blame me, too, because I’m the one that brought you to him. Now, you’re gonna wait right here until I get back. Don’t you even move from that chair.”

“You’re not going to use that?” Uncle Gus said with a moan.

“You think he’s got a bad knee now?” Lucy said.

“Wait till I get through with his knee.”

Ty had barely digested Lucy’s words before the door to the bar owner’s office swung open and slammed shut again.

TY STRUGGLED TO GET
past Mike, pushing the giant to make room in the stall’s doorway.

“Easy,” Mike said, holding the recorder and microphone up in the air to protect them from Ty as he wormed his way out of the stall. “You’ll break it.”

Ty squeezed past him and dashed for the bathroom door, only to be yanked into the air. Mike had him by the back of his shirt.

“Wait,” Mike said in his low, rumbling voice. “I got to stow this stuff.”

Mike scooped up the backpack and stuck his listening equipment inside. “Settle down.”

“He’s going after my brother!” Ty said.

“You can’t go anywhere without me,” Mike said, zipping up the pack. “I don’t want any of the regulars
out there to see you and me shooting out of here. I’ll walk out, calmly, and after a minute, you follow me to the back. Don’t worry. We’ll find him first.”

“But Lucy’s already on his way there,” Ty said, pushing at Mike again, but without success.

“On his way where?” Mike asked.

“The mall,” Ty said. “Thane’s doing a signing. It’s on the poster. We’ve got to get him.”

“You telling me he knows where Tiger is?” Mike said.

Ty nodded and Mike spun around, yanking open the door, grabbing Ty by the arm and dashing through the back of the bar, down the hallway and out the back. They hopped into Mike’s rusty Jeep but had to stop when Charlotte appeared and stood with her hands held out, blocking their path. Mike leaned on the horn, and Ty shouted to get out of the way, but she stood her ground.

Ty hopped out and yanked open the back door. “Come on!”

Charlotte circled the Jeep and jumped in, slamming her door at the same time Ty shut his own. Mike’s tires shrieked, and off they went like a rocket.

Mike took one hand off the wheel, flipped open his phone, and hit a speed dial.

“Kline?” he said. “It’s me. We got a problem. I think we’re blown and Lucy’s on his way to the mall to do I don’t know what to Tiger Lewis.”

Mike paused to listen.

“Forget the case,” Mike said, raising his voice. “Get the locals over there. Everyone you can. Find Tiger and grab Lucy.”

There was another pause as Mike darted between cars and ran through a yellow light blaring his horn. Mike glanced at Ty and asked, “Do you know where in the mall?”

“No,” Ty said.

“No,” Mike said into the phone. “Just get them there.”

Mike ended the call and handed Ty the phone. “Call mall security and see if you can find out where your brother is.”

“Should I tell them someone’s coming to hurt my brother?” Ty asked.

“It’s worth a try,” Mike said, rounding a corner so hard that they nearly rolled over.

Ty got an answering machine, pushed zero for customer service, and got put on hold. Mike shot onto the highway, and when traffic clogged up, he passed everyone on the right, driving full speed down the breakdown lane all the way to the next exit. Ty could see the mall before they even got off. The Jeep fish-tailed as Mike wound his way through the maze of the parking lot. Ty searched the rows of cars and the other traffic for a sign of Lucy. Mike came to an abrupt halt right in front of the doors, and they
jumped out into the throng of people just as someone from customer service got on the line.

Ty asked if the man knew where the Tiger Lewis signing was, and the man put him on hold again. They ran up the escalators, searching frantically. There were four levels of shops. Ty ran for the center of the mall thinking it the most likely place for a charity event to be. Charlotte nearly kept his pace, but by the time they reached the center, Mike had dropped back. Ty spun in circles, his eyes aching for some sign of his brother. He looked up at the next two levels and down through the open center at the food court below. Mobs of people washed past him, with no idea about the crazy mobster ready to destroy his brother’s career.

He couldn’t stand there. He had to move, so he took off running. He’d cover every square inch of the place if he had to. Halfway down one section, he heard Charlotte screeching his name. He spun, eyes darting this way and that, looking for Thane, thinking she must have seen him. He didn’t see a thing, though, and he shot a frustrated look back at Charlotte’s pale face. She stabbed her finger at two people walking his way, a young boy with his father. Ty wrinkled his brow and threw his hands up, exasperated.

“What?” he shouted, jogging back toward his cousin.

By this time, Charlotte had caught up to the father and son, and she grabbed the older man by the sleeve.
Ty arrived, noticing now that the boy had a football under one arm.

“Did you get Tiger to sign that?” Charlotte asked the man, breathless.

“Anybody can,” the man said. “It costs twenty bucks, but it goes to charity.”

“Where?” Charlotte asked.

“Right here,” the boy said.

“But where?” Charlotte asked, her voice pitched to a frenzy. “Where here?”

“By the movie theater,” the father said, pointing.

“At the other end of the mall. The top floor.”

Ty took off on a sprint. He streaked past Mike, shouting that Thane was by the movie theater. Halfway there, he saw an escalator to the top floor thick with people. Over by a department store, he saw a set of stairs. He headed for them instead, shooting straight up to the fourth floor, taking the steps three at a time.

There were only a few people on the top level except for at the far end of the mall. Ty saw a crowd gathered in front of the movie theaters, where Tiger was signing autographs. A second escalator ran up the open space in the middle of the mall from the floor below, ending directly in front of the theaters. Two couples got off at the top, and halfway down, on his way up, Ty recognized Lucy. He held his right hand stiff to his side. Just below his knee Ty could make out
the clawed hook of the crowbar.

Ty shouted, but the crowd burst into applause and no one seemed to hear. The signing must be over. Thane would be a perfect target for Lucy as he made his way through the crowd.

Ty’s lungs burned from running and his side ached, but the sight of Lucy riding calmly up the escalator ignited something deep inside him. He found his burst of speed, raced down the last stretch, rounded the corner, and reached the head of the escalator just as Lucy stepped off.