Faces peep out of doors up and down the corridor. Behind the doors is hubbub, students surging from their desks, teachers trying to restore order.
“You okay, Dad?”
The cop accepts Rick’s helping hand to get to his feet. Breathing hard, he moves like he has wrenched some muscles.
“Yeah. Chapin isn’t. Is he shot too?”
“No, Dad. He took the door in his nose.”
“It’s Chapin’s gun,” Sam tries to explain.
“Yeah, Dad,” Rick choruses. “Sambo took it off Chapin.”
Holstering his gun, Woods starts down the stairs.
“Sergeant Woods,” Sam asks, “can I unfreeze now?”
Over his shoulder, the cop throws Sam a withering look. “No,” he says. “You just stand there till I tell you otherwise,” but the sarcasm in his voice countermands the order. Descending to Chapin on the next landing, the policeman calls “All clear” up the stairwell.
Through the window of the principal’s office, Sam can see the two police cruisers and the ambulance doors closing on the stretcher. A state police sedan pulls up and Poloniak trots down the steps of the main entrance and talks to the Smokey. The ambulance lights pulse on and then its siren and it spurts down the drive.
“There was white powder spilled in the stall and he had a tube of it in his breast pocket. He declined to say what it was. Now let’s have the straight shit from you,” Sergeant Woods says. “For a change.”
Sam relates the morning’s events with his usual terseness but without stuttering more than once or twice.
“So Chapin apparently got it into his head Dale Michaud trashing his car over Lexie was something you incited. It hadn’t occurred to me to look at it that way, Sammy, but did you put a bee in Dale’s bonnet?”
The only response Sam can make is an incredulous laugh.
“I had to ask,” Woods goes on. “Rushing in there, that was risky, Sam. Somebody could have gotten seriously hurt. Why didn’t you wait for us?”
Sam leans forward intently. “Deanie could have gotten dead, that’s why. Or somebody else.”
“This is all about Deanie, basically. You and Chapin going around about you taking his girl away from him.”
“She was never his. Not like that. He’s shit-paranoid. He’s afraid she’s gonna shop him. The fuckhead was there when Lord busted her face. It was Chapin’s shit Lord was fucked up on. He isn’t just a user, you know. He deals. I don’t mean laying off a little of this or that on some friends to pay for his share either.”
The cop nods. “You’re not telling me anything I don’t know.” He sighs. “If Deanie wants to shop him, we’ll listen, but a first offense is likely to result in probation. That’s if we get a conviction. A good defense only has to cast her as a spurned girlfriend and you as his rival. If Chapin were a little bigger, it might be worth the trouble, but—you understand? We bust him, somebody else picks up his business tomorrow. Anyway, he’s got himself a busted skull and I don’t know what else from that tumble down the stairs.” Woods wants to be warmer. But he’s convinced Sam is still holding back significant knowledge of what set off Dale Michaud. It makes him angry. “Sammy, I don’t give a shit who you promised not to tell or who you’re protecting about what but you think about this—if you have any knowledge of any felony and you don’t cough it up, you’re an accessory after the fact.”
Sam bites his lower lip. Slowly he raises his arms and his large hands lock at the back of his neck in a gesture Lonnie Woods abruptly recognizes as what Sam often does when a ref calls a foul on him. I’m guilty, it says. I surrender.
But though the policeman waits a long anxious moment for the rest of the confession, that’s the end of it. The arms come down, the hands hang slack between the kid’s knees, poking out of his jeans, and Sam hangs his head, brooding.
38
Rumor wires the entire school as if they’d all been tooting up in that stall with Chapin. A hundred versions of what happened circulate, wilder and more extravagant legends in the time-honored tradition of turning the swatting of seven flies into the slaying of seven giants.
Just before lunch, Coach again commands Sam’s presence. “You okay?”
“Yessir,” Sam assures him.
He is frantic to catch up with Deanie. By now, the tall tales must be scaring her witless. He has sent a reassuring message by way of Rick but he wants to make sure she is okay himself.
“You should have let the cops handle it,” Coach tells him.
How many more times will he have to listen to this piece of Monday-morning quarterbacking? Before he can get a mental list started, Coach breaks his concentration by shifting the subject to the day’s game. Fosse is out and there is nothing to be done about it except work with the remaining talent.
Half the lunch period is gone before Sam succeeds in escaping the Coach.
Deanie is in the kitchen, elbow deep in the pots and pans. Brushing the heel of her hand over her forehead, she leaves a smear of tomato sauce. He licks the ball of his thumb and wipes it away.
“I heard all about it,” she tells him.
“Whatever. One of these days, the asshole will get out of the hospital. You see him coming, you run the other way, okay?”
The smile she gives him is ironic. “Like you did?”
As if a berserk armed druggie were not excitement enough, this is the day of the home rematches with Ravenswood. And the Mutant is back. As
