The Fourth Stall Part III (4 page)

L
loyd and Mitch escorted Vince and me to the cafeteria. Vince and I normally avoided the place, even now that we didn't have a business to tend to during the lunch period. For one thing the lunchroom smelled like rotten potatoes and cheap grandma perfume. Also, the lunchroom was like a bully's playground. Operating my business had gotten me on the bad sides of a lot of bullies over the years, due to the number of kids who came to me for protection or payback. So it was usually just safer for Vince and me to avoid the lunchroom altogether unless it was necessary, like last year when we had to come down here to investigate a case for Jonah the health freak.

Mitch and Lloyd led us toward a lone table wedged in the back corner of the lunchroom by the row of long windows. There was only one kid at the table, and he sat there with a plate full of something fluorescent purple in front of him. He gazed out the window while taking a bite of the purple stuff that looked to be more radioactive than edible.

We all stopped in front of him. He was a mostly normal-looking kid. Maybe sixth grade or so. I didn't recognize him, which meant he was likely new. At the start of every school year there were at least four or five new kids that came along with it.

Lloyd let go of my arm and nudged me forward. I rubbed the spot where his cyborglike paw had been clamped.

“What's this, guy?” Jimmy Two-Tone said. “Did you rough them up?”

Lloyd shrugged and then grinned. Mitch smirked.

Jimmy scowled at them.

“What gives, dudes?” Jimmy said. “I didn't say to do that! They're my guests. Apologize to them. Now.”

“That's all right. It's not a big deal . . . ,” I said.

“No, no, no, friend, it
is
a big deal. That's no way for someone of your reputation to be treated. No way at all,” Jimmy said. “So what are you waiting for, morons? Apologize!”

Lloyd rubbed his neck and then muttered, “Sorry.”

“Yeah, man,” Mitch said.

“To both of them,” Jimmy said.

They repeated their sorrowless apologies to Vince, and then Jimmy waved his hand and they both sulked off to a nearby table.

“Sorry about that, buddies,” Jimmy said with a smile. “Have a seat.”

He shoveled another spoonful of bright purple chunks into his mouth as we sat. He must have seen me looking at the plate trying to figure out what it was.

“Oh, I'm being rude. Want some pickled beets?” he slid the tray toward us.

I shook my head without trying to make a face at the horrible vinegar smell wafting toward me.

“No thanks,” Vince said.

Now that I was closer, I saw why his nickname was Jimmy Two-Tone. He had two different-colored eyes. One was light blue, so light it was almost white, and the other eye was dark brown. It made him look about as creepy as any kid I'd ever seen.

“So, you, uh, wanted to see me?” I said.

“Yeah,” he said before swallowing another huge bite of beets. “Jimmy heard about what you did for this school, guy. Pretty good stuff, pal.”

“Yeah?” I said, feeling pretty impressed that he'd heard of me.

“That's right, dude. Jimmy heard that you guys ran the best business this side of the Missouri. That you helped out lots of kids. Jimmy also been hearing stuff about you retiring now. Is that right, friends?”

Was he referring to himself by his own name instead of saying “I” and “me” like a normal person? What gives with this kid? Either way, though, he seemed nice enough. Besides, it's not like he was the only weirdo going to school here. This place was packed with oddball characters. It's part of why I loved it so much.

“You heard right,” I said.

Jimmy grinned then nodded. “Why? Why you guys retiring? I mean, lots of profits still to be made here, right, bros?”

I nodded. Today had shown me that much, maybe more so than any other day so far this school year. There were still plenty of kids with plenty of problems to be solved. Which meant there was a lot of money still sitting on the table.

“Well, if you heard all the rumors about us, then you must know why,” Vince said.

Jimmy grinned again and shrugged. “Well, yeah, sure Jimmy hears stuff. But he'd rather hear it from the goat's mouth himself before he believes it. I mean, you dudes gotta know you can't believe everything you hear, right, guy?”

Goat's mouth? I glanced at Vince and we exchanged a brief look. I tried to figure out if Jimmy was eccentrically brilliant or just another regular old weirdo.

“After a series of events last year, the heat was on. We didn't have any choice, not if we didn't want to be expelled. The Suits are still on us.” I nodded my head back and to the left.

Principal Dickerson was standing against the far wall pretending not to be staring at us. He'd followed us here. He kept an eye on Vince and me almost every lunch period.

“Yeah, that's quite some problem you got there, friend,” Jimmy said. “So the Suits are watching you, making sure that you aren't up to any funny business. But that means they can't be paying as much attention to the rest of us, right? It's a simple numbers game. There are more of us to monitor than they have the manpower for.”

“Numbers don't lie,” Vince agreed. I think he suddenly felt way more comfortable knowing we were sitting across from another numbers guy. Jimmy was strange, yeah, but he was also clearly pretty sharp.

“What are you getting at?” I asked.

“What about if someone new came along? Someone who the Suits would have no reason to suspect of wrongdoing. Someone with pretty good business savvy and a squeaky clean record. Someone who could step in and fill the void, solve kids' problems, fix everything that got broken last year. What would you say to that, friends?” Jimmy took his last bite of beets and then leaned back and stared at us as he chewed, his multicolored eyes seeming to play tricks on my brain.

I looked at Vince. He looked back. Neither of us knew what to make of it. I don't think either of us had ever considered handing off the reins of our business to someone else. Especially not to a new kid who we had just met.

I think Jimmy could read what I was thinking because suddenly he leaned forward and spoke in a low voice.

“Okay, Jimmy doesn't think he's going to come in and replace you, just like that. Mac and Vince probably can't ever be replaced, right, bros? But Jimmy also don't need you to show him the ropes or anything, because he knows that would be too risky with Dickerson on your tail the way he is. The thing is Jimmy ran a pretty similar operation back at his old school, so he knows what he's doing.”

I nodded for him to continue.

“Right, well, what Jimmy is suggesting is that he runs your business for you. Jimmy will take over that sweet office I heard you had and maybe some of your old contacts could become Jimmy's contacts, right? I mean, kids still got problems they need solved. And you can't help them anymore. But that doesn't mean that Jimmy can't help them. And here's the best part, guy: Jimmy will cut you in. It's your operation; after all, you did the hard part already. It's like a bike: it's a lot harder to build a bike than it is to ride one. So Jimmy cuts you in for ten percent of the profits, and if any trouble shows up from the Suits, Jimmy will be the one taking the heat. It's win-win-win. Kids still get their help, you still get paid, and it's risk free.”

“But why cut us in at all? You could have just come in and started your own business either way,” I said.

Jimmy looked offended. “Come on, guy! Don't be like that. Jimmy would never undercut another businessman on his own turf. What you take Jimmy for, some two-bit hood? It's the right thing to do, friends. Jimmy needs your blessings.”

“Can we have a few minutes to talk about it?” I asked.

“Of course, dudes,” Jimmy said, and then slid his chair loudly over to the table where Lloyd and Mitch were playing some sort of game that involved them repeatedly smacking each others' wrists.

“What do you think?” Vince said once Jimmy was clear.

“I don't know. I mean, first of all, can we trust him?”

Vince shook his head. We both knew it was a good question. I didn't like the idea of handing over my business to someone who might dirty its reputation. Then again, Jimmy, despite being weird, did seem to have things mostly in order. And he had gone through the trouble of making sure we were on board.

I pointed this out to Vince and he agreed. Besides, if Jimmy was untrustworthy, then he'd probably start his own business either way. So we might as well start out on his good side regardless. Especially if there was some mostly risk-free money to be made along the way.

“I mean, really,” I added, “making this deal is sort of our way of really getting out, right? If we hand over the business to someone else, then that's it. We're done except for the small franchise fee we'll be getting. This is what we wanted. . . .”

Vince nodded slowly. “Yeah, and then also all of these kids' problems can get fixed, too. We won't get harassed all day and have to feel so guilty all the time. Mac, this kid just made us an offer we can't refuse.”

“So we're saying we'll give him the okay, then? It all makes sense, but it just feels so . . . weird.”

“It's like my grandma says, ‘Nugget.'”

I waited. Vince just looked at me evenly.

“That's it? ‘Nugget'?”

“Yeah, some days she just wanders around the house saying ‘nugget' over and over again. It's weird.”

I grinned and shook my head and then signaled to Jimmy.

He rejoined us at the table. “So what's the deal, bros?”

“Make it fifteen percent of the profits and you got yourself a deal,” Vince said before I could respond.

Jimmy looked at each of us with his best poker face. Then a smile slowly spread across it. “All right, it's a deal, dudes!”

He held out his hand and we all shook on it. Then we got down to the business of discussing the intricacies of the East Wing boys' bathroom, the fourth stall from the high window, and most important, the method of payment for our cut of the green stuff.

I
'll fast-forward a few weeks here to spare you on the boring stuff. That's right, for two whole weeks nothing bad or crazy had happened to us. In fact, boring is about the only way I can describe the first two weeks following our deal with Jimmy. Or normal. Either word works.

But I'm not complaining. I mean, I loved it. Now that I was truly out, life couldn't have been better. Kids had even stopped coming to me to plead for help within days of our arrangement with Jimmy.

It didn't take long for the word to spread about Jimmy reopening my business. And apparently he hadn't been joking around: he was pretty good at it. The kids I'd talked to all said he was fast, fair, and efficient. I even heard he got JJ Molina his Roberto Clemente rookie card back. Some kids seemed to think Jimmy might even be better at running the business than I had been. Which was annoying. . . . I mean, it's like Jimmy said, building the bike is harder than riding it. But, whatever. If they were all happy, then I was happy. Especially since Jimmy was cutting Vince and me in on all of his profits just like he'd promised. He was making the cash drops right on schedule, every Monday and Thursday like clockwork.

We had a pretty good system for the drops, too. One of Jimmy's guys would package our cut and wrap it in sealed plastic, like in a Ziploc sandwich bag. Then with the cash hidden in his shirt he would go into the North Wing boys' bathroom at 12:02, just after lunch had started. He'd stash the money in the bottom of the trash can underneath wads of used paper towels. A place where no sane, unsuspecting kid would ever randomly decide to stick an arm into.

Then at 12:05 Fred would enter the bathroom and retrieve the bag. He'd enter a stall and remove the cash. He'd take his cut out, which was pretty minimal, and then conceal the rest of the cash in his backpack. Then sometime after lunch and before afternoon recess he'd walk past my locker and slip the cash in through the vents.

That might seem complicated. And, yeah, it was. But we just couldn't be too careful with Dickerson on our tail the way he had been. Vince and I learned over the years from watching a lot of mobster movies like
The Godfather
that dirty money had to be laundered to conceal where it came from. We wanted our link to the current business to be as weak as possible.

Anyways, on that third cash-drop Monday when I opened my locker, my knees almost buckled. There was a small lake of cash at the bottom of my locker. Seriously, I practically needed a boat just to fish out my gym shoes.

Later that day after school when I showed Vince and we counted the money, we could hardly believe it. There was more than one hundred dollars, all totaled.

“Mac, there's no way this is fifteen percent. It has to be more!” Vince said. “I mean, if this is actually fifteen percent, then Jimmy just beat our all-time four-day profits record by two hundred and ninety-eight dollars!”

“That's not just beating our record, Vince. That's obliterating it.”

“How is that even possible? He'd have to see like ninety customers per day. There's just not enough time for that to be possible. The numbers don't add up, Mac. And numbers don't lie. It's like the TINSTAAFL axiom in action right before our eyes.”

My social studies teacher had taught us about that on the first day of class this year: TINSTAAFL (pronounced “tin-staw-f”). It means, “There Is No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.” Which basically means if a deal seems too good to be true, then it probably is.

All money going out in business, in life, in the universe, eventually needs to equal or reconcile with all money coming in. If we were making this much money, then who was losing out?

“He must just charge more money than we did?” I suggested. “Also, he might offer more of an express type service. You know, faster results but less personal attention and treatment. He goes for volume.

Vince nodded. “I guess.”

And so we added the money to our Funds, and didn't talk about it again that week. Especially not after Thursday. Because that was when Vince and I realized Jimmy's business practices were the least of our problems.