Pop (12 page)

“With benefits?” she probed.

The staccato
blurp
of a police siren drew their attention outside. The cruiser pulled up to the curb, flashers on intermittent.

Alyssa pointed. “Isn't that the cop who busted you last time?”

Marcus had a vision of cascades of toilet paper draped over the metal cockroach, filling the doorway of K.O. Pest Control. He knew then that a lousy weekend was about to get worse.

Officer Deluca peered over his desk. “You know, Marcus, we could take a drive over to the county lockup and see about six hundred innocent men just like you.”

“I
am
innocent,” Marcus said stubbornly.

“Never said you weren't,” the policeman agreed. “But if you don't give me the name of the person who's guilty, this time you're going to get due process, just like I warned you.”

“That's not fair!” Marcus exclaimed hotly. “I don't know who did it, so that means it must have been me?”

“You
do
know who did it. Why would you cover for somebody who lets you take the rap?”

“Why would you call out the SWAT team over toilet paper?” Marcus countered.

“It isn't the toilet paper,” the officer explained. “It's the pattern of harassment. Mr. Oliver wants to press charges, which is his right as a citizen. It's not going to have a happy ending—not unless you tell me what you know.”

It should have been easy. Marcus wasn't familiar with the laws surrounding Alzheimer's, but Charlie probably wasn't even responsible for his actions.

On the other hand, how could Marcus rat out a sick man? The family seemed obsessed with keeping a lid on the King of Pop's condition. A court case would blow that up in their faces. Not that he particularly cared about the delicate sensibilities of Troy and his nasty sister. But there was Charlie to think about, too. The poor guy was on the precipice of a terrible deterioration. He had the right to hold on to his dignity—even if he would ultimately end up at the point where dignity wouldn't mean much to him anymore.

Marcus kept his mouth shut.

Deluca sighed heavily. “Suit yourself.” And he began reading Marcus his rights.

This time Mom was decidedly not cool about it. Her photo shoot had taken her deep into the mountains. Ninety feet up a cliff, her cell phone somehow managed to find a signal. There, surrounded by rocky peaks and glacial erratics, Barbara Jordan listened to Officer Deluca's message that she was urgently needed in town to get her son out of a holding cell.

When she finally arrived at the station, she was nearly hysterical. “You've been booked, Marcus.
Booked!
That's on your record now! Who are you covering for? Is it that girl?”

“What girl?” Marcus said bitterly. “That was never going to work.”

“Why?” she demanded, the trail dust swirling around her hiking gear. “Why are you so determined not to have a normal life here?”

“Well, for starters,” he shot back, “because every time I start to, I get arrested!”

Officer Deluca appeared with a steaming mug of coffee and a stale-looking donut from the staff kitchen. “Sorry it isn't fresher,” he said apologetically.

Mrs. Jordan was distraught. “You've been great, Officer. I'm so sorry about all this. I
guarantee
this isn't how Marcus normally behaves.”

“Work on him,” the cop advised. “The worst part of this is that it's unnecessary. There's no serial killer here. But the longer he clams up, the deeper the hole he digs for himself.”

Nor did the grilling end when Marcus and his mother left the station and got into her pickup truck.

“All right, Marcus, you've got to meet me halfway. Do you think I want to be a character in a sitcom, nagging you because ‘what will the neighbors say'? Do you think I want to be a drill sergeant like your father—God, just the thought of telling him this turns my blood cold.”

“
I'll
tell him.” He didn't feel guilty for any of it. But nobody should have to face off with Comrade Stalin over
his
problem—least of all Mom, who'd already endured enough of the good comrade to last a lifetime.

“You—right. You won't even return his phone calls.”

“I'll call this time,” Marcus promised. “I'll explain everything.”

“Then explain it to
me
!”

But he couldn't. He couldn't even explain
why
he couldn't. His silence upset her more than anything. They were a team—only child, single mom—cosurvivors of the Stalinist reign. He had always been completely honest with her. Yet now, with his future potentially on the line, he just couldn't open up.

By the end of the tirade, he was seated in her outer office at the
Advocate
, while she uploaded the shots from her interrupted trip to the Gunks. As if he were eight. She didn't even trust him enough to leave him at home on his own.

He slumped in a visitor's chair, trying not to listen as his mother plowed through the yellow pages, using her cell phone to call lawyers who specialized in juvenile cases. To make matters worse, the newsroom was decorated with dusty black-and-white photographs of the town of Kennesaw over the decades. His chair was directly opposite a picture of the legendary chili cook-off that had given Three Alarm Park its name. The place looked exactly the same, except there had been no Paper Airplane back then—and the trees were smaller, so there was a clearer view of the buildings across the street.

From force of habit, Marcus scowled in the direction of K.O. Pest Control, but the metal cockroach wasn't there. It was the same row of shops, but the sign was different. He squinted to make it out:

DINGLEY'S HARDWARE EMPORIUM

Dingley—that was the name Charlie called Kenneth Oliver. It wasn't just a misfire of a confused mind. It came from something real. There was even a man in the store window, scowling out at the festivities in the park. Old Man Dingley? It was easy to see how Charlie might confuse this guy with Kenneth Oliver. The two didn't look much alike, but they shared the same sour face and aggrieved expression.

The photograph was dated 1971. Charlie would have been sixteen or seventeen at that time.

He sees me in the park, and I become his frame of reference. He relates everything to his memories of himself around my age
—
Charlie and “Mac,” playing football in the park
....

He was suddenly struck by an odd thought, something that had never occurred to him before this minute: He'd always assumed that
Mac
was a name you'd call anyone, like
pal
or
buddy
. But if Dingley's Hardware Emporium was real, and Old Man Dingley was real, maybe Mac was real, too.

O
n Monday morning, Marcus arrived at school to see a slender, athletic brunette slipping a note through the vent of his locker door.

What was Alyssa doing? Was it so obvious that he wouldn't have the willpower to stay away from her? And even if this note was totally innocent, Golden Boy might see her planting it—or someone who reported to him might see, and that was practically everybody.

So much for “just friends.”

He walked up behind her, reached around, and pulled her baseball cap down over her eyes.

“Guess who.”

There was a sharp cry of shock, and a bony elbow slammed into his gut. “Get away!”

Chelsea Popovich.

“Sorry!” he wheezed, rendered breathless by the shot in the stomach and the realization that Chelsea filled out a pair of jeans well enough to be mistaken for Alyssa.

“I left you a note,” she said, studying her sneakers. Suddenly, her imploring eyes were gazing up at his. “How come you knew where to find my father when his own family didn't?”

Marcus hesitated, then told her how Charlie had crashed his solitary training sessions at Three Alarm Park, and how the two had begun to practice together. He'd done nothing wrong, yet for some reason it felt like a confession, a deep, dark secret. “It's Alzheimer's, right? Like the other NFL vets I read about?”

Chelsea looked shocked. The family had worked so hard to keep this a secret. They had probably imagined the moment the truth would come out, dreading it.

“I promise I won't spread it all over town,” he added.

Her nostrils flared in anger. “We're not
ashamed
of him! It's just nobody's business—including yours.”

Marcus nodded. “If he was my dad, I'd be busting with pride. I came to Kennesaw thinking I had football all figured out, but now it seems like everything I know about the game comes from these last few weeks of working with Charlie.”

Her cheeks flushed. “Then you're an idiot. You can't wait for the chance to knock your head until you've got no more brain cells left than my poor father!”

“I don't see Troy quitting,” Marcus pointed out.

“Yeah,” she snorted. “And there's my mom every week, cheering on her firstborn while he plays Russian roulette with his own skull. No—worse. In Russian roulette, at least you know right away when you've lost. You don't plant these tiny time bombs that go off over twenty-five years. So the next time you're basking in the worship of the crowd, don't expect to see me out there.”

Who could blame her for being upset? “I understand,” he said gently.

“Please. You figured out what's wrong with Daddy. You learned from him. Maybe you even like him. But there's no way you can understand
this
.”

For the first time, it occurred to Marcus that Charlie wasn't the only victim. It had to be just as hard on his family, maybe even harder.

“Well, anyway, sorry about the hat. I thought you were someone else.”

“Yeah, I've got a pretty good idea who,” she told him.

“What have you got against Alyssa?”

She made a face. “I've already taken up too much of your time.”

“I'm not in a hurry.”

“She's trouble,” said Chelsea. “For Troy or anybody else. Just my opinion.”

“So what do you care if I suffer?” Marcus asked, amused. “You've already made it pretty clear what you think of me.”

She looked away. “Maybe I was wrong. First impressions and all that. Thanks for bringing my dad home.”

He shrugged. “It was easy. I knew exactly where to look.”

“It isn't about easy or hard. It's about caring enough to do it. Do you think your girlfriend cares about anything beyond getting her jollies?”

“She cares about football,” Marcus pointed out.

“Wow—sainthood is right around the corner.”

“Stop worrying,” Marcus assured her. “She's not even my girlfriend.”

Chelsea scowled at him. “Who said I was worried?”

Coach Barker reclined in his chair, causing his big head to bobble backward and forward. “I'm loving your effort, Jordan. You put a body on a man as good as any kid I've ever coached. Gain thirty pounds and I could just about guarantee you a four-year scholarship at linebacker.”

“I've been working really hard to earn my shot at quarter—”

“This isn't about you,” Barker interrupted sharply. “I want to talk about Popovich. You notice anything about his game lately? Anything
different
?”

Yeah
—
he's afraid to get hit. Maybe Chelsea thinks he's playing Russian roulette, but he's got himself packed in Bubble Wrap!

He kept his mouth shut. You didn't bad-mouth a teammate to the coach. Not even Troy.

Aloud, he said, “Not sure what you mean, Coach.”

“He's not himself,” Barker explained. “It's like he's lost his guts. When you get under center, you don't think about what can go wrong. You think about the next big play, and you believe it's going to happen just right, as sure as the earth's going to keep on turning. Once that confidence goes, you're finished at quarterback. You know what I'm talking about? Sure you do.”

Marcus nodded excitedly. Winning the starting spot was going to taste twice as sweet because of who he was taking it from.

“And we both know why all this is happening, don't we?” Barker pressed on.

That sour note brought a frown to Marcus's lips.
Does Barker suspect that Troy's gone weak because he's afraid that what happened to his father might happen to him? Does the coach know about Charlie?

The bobblehead tilted forward and fixed its eyes on Marcus. “It's no secret that you two aren't exactly best friends. You've been after his job, and that's extra pressure. Then there's that Alyssa Fontaine. Don't look so innocent. You think I'm blind?”

Marcus was taken aback. “It's just that—no offense, Coach, but—you've got no business messing with your players' personal lives.”

“Wouldn't dream of it. Now find some other skirt to chase, will you?”