The Chamber of Five (10 page)

My insides deflated like a gut-shot buck. “No.”

He leveled a stare at me. “You brought this on yourself. You could have taken care of things without violence, but you chose not to choose. Now I choose for you.”

Woodsie fidgeted, but said nothing.

I shook my head. “No. The deal’s off.”

“It will happen with or without you, Jason.”

“Fuck you.”

“You will be removed from the Chamber. And disgraced.”

I raised my head, staring at Carter. “Once you’re a member of the Chamber, you cannot be removed unless you leave the school voluntarily or are expelled. It’s in your own
unofficial
charter that your own stinking grandfather made up, so eat me, Carter. I’m not going anywhere.”

His face turned a shade of red. “Why are you doing this?”

“I’m not touching Thomas Singletary, and if you do, I’ll report it.”

“You have no power here, Jason.”

I laughed, my rage suddenly … liberating. I was beyond caring. “You think your drunk dad has power over me? You think
you do?” I stood, leaning over the table. “Come on, Carter, you know how the game works, right? Well, here’s the deal. You touch Singletary and I
will
be after you.”

Carter took a moment, then began clapping. Slowly. He looked around the table. “Anybody else care to join the mutiny? Speak now.”

Silence. Uncomfortable, nervous silence. Even Kennedy’s face went blank, the sarcastic smirk gone.

Carter spoke. “Are you done whining, yet, Jason? You have your orders, and you will follow them.”

I stared at him, knowing the terms of battle were clear. Then I walked out.

B
ROOKE SMILED WHEN
I met her at my car after school. “New windshield?”

“You heard?”

“Who didn’t hear?”

“Typical.”

“I also heard that you were the one who put up the judge poster.” She eyed me. “Did you?”

“Does it matter?”

“To me it does.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“You two have some issues, don’t you?”

I shrugged. “We don’t get along.”

“Be careful around him, Jason.”

I told her about the plan to break Singletary’s arm, and she looked down, silent.

“Mind if we make a stop before doing the posters?” I said.

She nodded. “I’m free until dinner.”

We drove, talking about the election, the platform that we’d campaign on, and school in general. She was nervous to be taking on the Chamber, and hadn’t dared to tell her mother yet. I reached to the backseat at a stoplight, grabbing Thomas Singletary’s file and handing it to her. “His address is inside.”

“Warning him?”

I nodded.

She looked at me, hesitating. “Did I do that much damage to your lip?”

I rubbed my tongue over the slightly swollen cut. “I ran into a door.”

She frowned. “Lame.”

“What?”

“You’re a horrible liar.”

I shrugged. “My dad.”

Silence.

“You don’t want lies, but you don’t want the truth, either. Not fair.”

“He hit you?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry.”

I shrugged, brushing it off. “He lost his temper.”

“You told him about the Chamber?”

I nodded.

She looked out the window. “Maybe I didn’t want to know the truth.”

“He’s not that bad. Just when he’s around.”

She didn’t laugh. “He’s a congressman.”

I laughed at that one. “And that’s supposed to make him any different?”

“Does he do it often? Hit you?”

“No. It’s been around a year since the last time.”

That seemed to make her feel better. On-and-off hitters were better than all-the-time hitters, I guess, and as we drove, I glanced at her profile. She was pretty. She noticed me looking. “What?”

I drove. “Nothing.”

“You were looking at me.”

“I’m not some kind of abused kid, Brooke. We just got into it. That’s all.”

“Okay.”

I shifted. “He’s just an asshole. The world is full of them.”

“He shouldn’t hit you.”

I cleared my throat. “So are you going to give me the address or are we going to drive around all day talking about the social ramifications of dickhead dads?”

She finally laughed, shaking her head, then gave me the address.

Slum city. I’d been through the Heights before, but it was different when you pulled from the main arterials and drove through the neighborhoods. Blocks of small houses, most with hash-brown front yards, led to concrete apartment buildings and complexes looking like cold-war-era bomb shelters. Guys hung on corners talking trash and giving hard stares as we passed, and I began having second thoughts.

This was what my dad called a necessary evil. On a grand
scale, these were the losers of society, and to have winners you needed losers. He’d told me once that keeping the losers centralized in areas like the Heights protected the regular people and gave the cops something to do other than handing out speeding tickets and sleeping in their cruisers.

We found Thomas’s apartment building, a thirteen-story concrete box on D Street, and I glanced around, unsure I wanted to be there. My brand-new red Mustang GT stuck out like the last ripe cherry on the tree, and I figured we had around ten minutes before it’d get ’jacked. Brooke looked around, then spoke. “Are you sure …”

“No. Not really.” I took a breath, pulling to the curb.

“We should leave, Jason.”

“I need to warn him.”

Just then, a guy in ass-dragging Lakers shorts and a white tank top bent down to my window. “What you need?”

I shook my head. “No thanks, man.”

He kept walking, his eyes lingering on the car. Brooke rolled her window up, and I looked at her. “Maybe I should take you home first.”

“No.”

“You sure?”

“We’re already here, and I refuse to be judgmental.”

I rolled my eyes. “Too late, you elitist.”

“You’re no better.”

I nodded, opening the door. “Come on. We’ll just go up, knock, tell him what’s up, then split.”

“Can’t you just call him?”

“I tried. Disconnected.”

She looked around. “What about your car?”

“Want to stay in it?”

She looked around. “No.”

I smiled. “They can have it for all I care. Come on. We’ll walk fast.” I got out, and after a moment, Brooke hopped out, shut the door, and came around. We walked down the sidewalk, past an old Chevy Corsica with one wheel missing and a concrete block holding the axle up, and entered the building. “At least he’s on the first floor. Twenty-three.”

She nodded, quickening her step down the hall, and soon we stood in front of his door. I knocked.

No answer. I knocked again, and a moment later, a little girl, probably around ten years old, answered, opening the door a crack and peeking out. She didn’t say anything, just stared with that one big brown eye.

“Hi. Is Thomas here?” Brooke smiled.

The eye narrowed. “No.”

Brooke leaned down to her eye level, smiling like some concerned social worker or teacher. “Will he be back?”

“Duh. He lives here.”

“Oh, dumb me. When will he be back?”

“Do I look like his babysitter?”

I choked down a laugh. Brooke went on. “No, you look like a pretty little girl. Do you know where he is?”

With that, her eye slid over and her tongue, stuck out at us, showed pink and spitty. “No.” Then the door slammed shut.

Brooke flinched, straightening. I laughed. “You’re good with kids.”

“Spare me.”

“No, you are. You really connected with her. I loved the way she slammed the door in your face.”

She sighed. “Then you try, jerk.”

I shook my head. “She’d shoot me. Let’s go,” I said, and as we walked out and down the sidewalk toward the car, I saw something.

Michael Woodside, dressed down in Levis, Nikes, and a T-shirt, ducked into an alley at the end of the building.

T
HE NEXT MORNING
, arriving at school, I answered my cell and Woodsie’s voice came through. “You here?”

I grabbed my pack from the passenger seat and watched as students filed into the building. My political posters lay on the backseat, and I’d arrived early to tack them up. Brooke and Elvis were supposed to be doing the same. “Yeah. Why?”

“Come to the Chamber.” Then he hung up.

I left the posters and walked, nervous, my mind on seeing Woodsie last night in the Heights, uncomfortable with what was going on in the Chamber, and worried sick about Carter following through on his threat against Thomas. I had to find him before they did. My pace quickened, and by the time I got there, my pulse was actually racing.

I stood outside the doors to the Chamber, trying to ease the flood of anxiety coursing through me. Was it a trap? I wondered.
I put my hand on the knob, turning it, and as I stepped inside, silence. Woodsie sat in his chair at the table, alone, staring at the object sitting there. His eyes met mine, then went back to the centerpiece.

The lead pipe from the day before stood on end. A single red rose, the stem taped around the top of the pipe, bloomed. I furrowed my brow. “What’s up with that?”

“I was hoping you could tell me, Jason.”

I looked at the lead vase with the flower on it and shook my head. “I have no idea.”

“This is bad, Jason.”

“What? That somebody dared come in here again?”

“You didn’t hear what happened, did you?”

“No.”

He stared at me. “Somebody left a note for Carter last night about who was playing games with him. They wanted a meeting. Said they’d tell him for a hundred dollars.”

“And?”

He gestured to the rose. “They wanted to meet in the rose garden at Manito Park.”

“What happened?”

“Carter showed up, and whoever it was broke his arm.” He pointed to the pipe. “With that.”

“Did he see who?” I said, hoping against hope that he had.

“No. It was dark, and the guy was wearing a ski mask. Carter called me last night when he got home from the hospital. The guy came from behind, nailed him in the back, pinned him down, then slammed his arm three times.”

I groaned.

“Then I get here this morning, and this is sitting here like a
present. I saw Carter put it away after you left, man, and now we have a problem. A big one.”

I stared.

He stood. “It’s one of us, Jason. It has to be. Who else would know about the pipe? Who would know Carter told you to break that kid’s arm today? It’s a member of the Chamber, Jason.” He studied me.

“It’s not me.”

He looked away, uncomfortable. “Then who? You’re the only one who has a beef with him.”

I paused. “I saw you yesterday in the Heights.”

He didn’t say anything.

I set my jaw. “What were you doing there?”

Silence.

“Don’t bullshit me, Woodsie. Carter sent you there for some reason, didn’t he?”

He shook his head. “If you’re the one, Jason, I’m not having anything to do with it. I can’t help you.”

I raised my eyebrows. “If I’m the one? You were in the Heights last night. What were you doing there? And what were you doing here this morning?”

He sat back down. “Just answer my question, Jason. Are you doing this?”

“Answer mine. Where do you stand with all of this?”

He looked at me. “I could ask the same damn thing. Why were you in the Heights?”

I grunted. “We’re done talking.”

A moment passed before he spoke again. “I was going to warn the kid about today, but he wasn’t home.”

“Well, so was I. And you’ve obviously got a problem with the
situation, too, so why couldn’t it be you who is gunning for Carter?”

“I’m where I’m at today because I know when to keep to myself, which you don’t know how to do.”

“Then why try to warn him?”

“Because there’s a difference between—”

“Taking a picture of a blow job and a broken arm?” I said. “You’re kidding me, Woods. Right?”

He looked away. “Don’t pin that on me, man. I took the picture. That’s all. And besides, I wouldn’t do it now. I was scared. And dumb. I was new to the Chamber and everything was crazy.”

I shrugged. “There’s no way I can be sure you didn’t break his arm, Woods, and you can’t be sure I didn’t do it. So where does that leave us?”

He shook his head. “Not my style and you know it. I’m out of here at the end of the year, Jason. I’ve no reason to have a beef with anybody. Singletary or Carter.”

“But it’s
my
style?”

He smiled. “Dude, you jacked Kennedy in the face. I’ve never even hit another person.”

I sighed. “This has to be stopped.”

“Make a deal?” he said.

“What deal?”

“Like I said, I’m out of this school at the end of this year and I’ve got nothing to lose by just keeping my mouth shut about everything. Then I’m free and clear. College, no more dad, and I can live the way I want to. Same goes for you after another year, huh?”

“What’s your deal?”

“That we trust each other, and that we work together to find out who is doing this. On the sly. Then we deal with it.”

“You’re afraid he thinks you’re in on it, huh?”

“I think anything could happen, but I know Carter would nail a dozen people just to get one, and I have no plans of being on the list. I’m protecting me. Remember that.”

“This is wrong, Woodsie.”

“I know it is. And that’s part of why I called you.”

“No, I mean the Chamber. This school. The Youth Leadership Group. It’s all wrong.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that as of this morning, I’m running for student council president, and I’m going to change it all.”

He gaped at me. “What?”

“Yeah. I’m doing it. The Chamber has no official power at this school, and I’m going after it.”

“Why not just kill yourself now?”

I shrugged. “I’m sure my dad will for me, but it’s wrong. The real students have no power.”

He nodded. “Not that it matters, because it won’t work, but what’s your platform?”

“Academic requirements will dictate who is a member of the Youth Leadership Group, and the Chamber will be reorganized as the board overseeing the YLG. Leadership Group open voting will decide who sits in the Chamber.”