“What the fuck was that about?” Rick demands.
Lowering his voice, Sam confides in his teammates. “That crazy fuck says he’s carrying a three-fifty-seven in his duffel. I think he’s booted to the moon, too.”
The three other boys are incredulous.
“I’m not shittin’ you,” Sam insists. “He had something shoved into my gut that felt like a gun barrel and he was threatening to blow me away.”
Rick shakes his head. “What an asshole.”
“We ought to take that duffel away from him, find out if there really is a gun in it, before he hurts somebody with it,” Sam says.
Kasten raises his palms and steps backward. “I’m late for my next class. I’m not messing with Chapin, guys, sorry. If he’s got a shooter on him, somebody should call the cops.”
“Me,” Todd volunteers, already pivoting in the proper direction. “I’m going to the Office.”
“I’m outta here,” Kasten says and trots down the emptying corridor.
“In the meantime,” Sam tells Rick, “I’m taking that gun away from Chapin.”
Rick grabs Sam’s arm. “Are you nuts? Let the cops disarm the asshole. If he really is freaked, you coming after him might make him totally psycho.”
Sam lowers his head obstinately. “Maybe. And while we’re being so careful, what if he takes it into his fucked-up head to go after Deanie? If he’s got a gun, I’m taking it away from him now!”
Sam strides back to the weight room and recovers his duffel, then heads in the direction Chapin took.
Rick skitters after him. “Where you going?”
“Senior lockers.”
“You really think he might leave it in his locker?”
“Not if he’s really freaking but it’s a place to start.”
Doors are closing up and down the corridor. A teacher hesitates in the crack of one. “Gonna be late, boys,” she warns.
“Yes ma’am,” Rick agrees and quickens his pace.
“Go to class,” Sam urges.
Rick gives him an exasperated glare. It’s one thing to face off with Pete Fosse and another to be messing around with a fucked-up druggie in possession of a Dirty Harry Special. He’d really rather be in class—except for the fact his next period is fourth-year French and Chapin’s taking it with him.
Another tardy senior hurries away from the lockers as they approach them. His footsteps fade down the corridor as Sam leaves his duffel in his own locker and drifts to Chapin’s. Rick plays lookout while Sam pops the padlock with a quick squeeze. No duffel inside.
Sam closes the locker and shakes his head at Rick.
“Okay,” Rick says. “Obviously he took it to class. Which happens to be my next class, too. If he looks weird, acts weird, I’ll take Madame aside and tell her about it. You go to the Office and tell Wild Bill.”
“I’m going with you as far as your class,” Sam insists.
Rolling his eyes, Rick gives up.
A glance through the window in the door, however, reveals two gaps in attendance: Woods and Chapin.
“Where is the busy little crab-ridden asshole?” Rick mutters.
“Calming his nerves,” Sam guesses.
He pivots suddenly and bolts back down the hall in the direction from which they came. Rick is a step behind him when Sam reaches the boys’ room around the corner from the stairwell. Holding a finger to his lips, Sam carefully pushes open the door.
There is no one at the urinals or basins and all but one stall door hangs open. As they let the door close behind them soundlessly, there is a sharp inhalation from the closed stall. They look at each other. The duffel is visible in the gap between the floor and the stall door. So are Chapin’s Reebok Pumps, and his crumpled jeans around his ankles.
Inside the stall, J.C. sighs, “Oh shit.”
Again Sam raises his finger to his lip. Rick’s eyes widen with curiosity: what next?
It happens as quickly as a practiced, flawless steal. Sam is next to Rick and then he dives across the room, sliding on his belly across the floor, long arms and outsized hands under the stall door and seizing on the duffel as the first startled gasp escapes J.C., yanking it out as Chapin screams in outrage. Sam rolls to one side, then onto his feet.
The stall door flies open and Chapin stumbles out, tripping on his jeans and shorts as he tries to haul them up and run at the same time.
“Son of a bitch!” he shrieks.
Rick holds the restroom door open as Sam bolts through it. Just before Chapin reaches it, Rick lets it go. It swings back and Chapin takes it full-tilt boogie with a satisfying thunk.
In the corridor, Sam has the duffel unzipped. He drops it and holds an enormous gun over his head in triumph. “Got it!” he crows.
“Freeze!” Lonnie Woods booms, skidding into firing position from around the corner and the stairwell.
Both hands grasping the gun high over his head, Sam goes rigid. He stops breathing and his heart jerks in his chest and flips into overdrive at the same instant that his bladder cramps.
“Shit!” Rick hugs the wall.
The boys’ room door bursts open and Chapin, blood pouring from his nose, staggers out, jeans and shorts hobbling him by the ankles.
“Freeze!” the cop shouts again.
Chapin staggers toward Woods.
“Goddamn it,” the cop screams at Chapin, “freeze!”
Arms outstretched, Chapin continues to stumble and lurch toward him, moving like a man struggling through deep, crusted snow. The cop takes an instinctive step backward and attempts to raise his gun above Chapin’s head, either seeking an angle to use it as a bludgeon or just trying to get it out of Chapin’s reach. Chapin trips over the strictures of his own clothing and pitches forward onto Woods, who tries to sidestep him. The two of them take a brief, grotesque dance turn together. Blood from Chapin’s nose spatters Woods’s face and blouson. Then the cop’s heel slips over the edge of the top stair and the two of them are suddenly no longer dancing.
They are falling. Woods grabs the newel post and Chapin grabs him. The cop has no hands to spare—one still closed around his
