FOR THE NEXT WEEK, every free minute there was, I tried to think of some plan for getting Oggie’s money back. The money was the least of it, too. I had to find that red leather wallet that Dad gave him. Oggie was in bad shape without it. He kept his promise and didn’t tell Mom, but as the week went on, I could see he was hurting. He was like a ship with a leak, slowly going down.
“Where is it? When are you going to get it?” he’d ask me when no one was around.
“Keep a lid on. It takes a while to arrange these things,” I’d tell him.
I didn’t want to go up against the Night Riders for anything. I kept praying the wallet would turn up in a trash bin on the street, or that somebody might find it empty somewhere and give it back. It shows how desperate I was for ideas.
In the middle of all this, Monday night rolled around on Saturn, and Cyndi had one of her little fits. That’s what she called them, “one of my little fits.” She sent me down to Wong’s Market to get her cigarettes.
Mom made Dad quit smoking a long time ago. Dad kept telling Cyndi to quit, too, which she was trying to do. But every week or so these fits would come on and she’d have to have a cigarette. She’d call in an order when Dad wasn’t there and tell me to go pick it up in a brown paper bag.
It’s against the law for a kid to buy cigarettes, but Cyndi had it fixed with Mr. Wong, the store owner, that I wasn’t actually buying them. She’d pay for them later. I was just the dumb delivery kid who didn’t even know what I was delivering, supposedly.
“Archie, honeybun? There’s this teeny, tiny little package waiting down at Wong’s that I most desperately, desperately, desperately need. Will you be an angel-pie and get it for me? It’s our deep, deep dark secret. Don’t tell anyone, now! Off you go, sweetie. Watch out crossing the street!”
The way Cyndi talked made you feel as if someone was pouring glue on your brain. You’d end up staring at her mouth and waiting for it to stop moving.
It was about 9:30 P.M. when I got to the food store. The minute I walked in, I knew something was wrong. A bunch of Night Riders was in there in their eagle-snake jackets. They didn’t have their usual act going, though. They were huddled together, staring over at Mr. Wong, who was standing behind the cash register with his hands kind of frozen down at his sides.
The second I walked through the door, everyone wheeled around and looked at me. That’s when I saw the guy in the Blue Hawks cap. He was standing behind Mr. Wong, pointing a big gray gun at his ribs.
“Hi, kid. Just stop where you are,” the guy said in the most ordinary voice you can imagine. He even sounded polite.
I stopped dead. The door swung closed in back of me with a thud. Everything went silent.
The Night Riders were holed up in the bread aisle. About five of them were there. You could see this had nothing to do with them. They didn’t dare move an inch. After they checked me out, they put their eyes back on the hold-up man as if he was God Almighty himself, which I guess he kind of was right at that moment.
“Now you can open up,” the guy said to Mr. Wong. He meant the cash register.
Mr. Wong raised his hands real slow, hit a few keys, and the cash drawer slid open.
“Take it out,” the hold-up man said, still in his quiet, polite voice. He meant the money.
Mr. Wong began to take bills out of the drawer. There were a lot. Without even being asked, he lifted up the drawer and took out more money from underneath. He gathered the bills into a neat stack in one hand, then he stopped and waited to be told what to do next.
“Please pass it to me,” the hold-up man said, like he was asking for the salt.
Mr. Wong handed over the stack.
The hold-up man stuffed the bills in his jacket pocket with one hand and, with his other, brought the gun up so it was pointing into the side of Mr. Wong’s head. Nobody breathed when he did that. We were like frozen meat.
“Now I’m leaving,” the hold-up man said. “If anyone moves, I’ll shoot you, so don’t move. Stand exactly where you are.”
He looked over at the gang in the bread aisle. “Okay?” he asked.
“Sure thing,” one of them said. “You’re in charge, man.”
“Okay with you?” the hold-up man said to me.
“Okay,” I said.
The hold-up man nodded. He took the gun away from Mr. Wong’s head and came out slowly from the counter. He pointed the gun at the Night Riders as he passed by the bread aisle. He didn’t look at me. He sped up and went for the door.
I’m not sure what happened next, except that suddenly I felt a foot knock up against my foot and all at once the hold-up man was tripping and falling down against the door, which swung open in front of him. I guess it hadn’t been closed as tight as it looked.
The hold-up man crashed down on his stomach through the door and the gun flew out of his hand and landed right beside me. With no trouble at all, I bent down and picked it up. I put my finger on the trigger and pointed it at the hold-up man.
“Stay exactly where you are or I’ll shoot you,” I said.
Nobody else in the store moved. I think for a second they thought I meant them, too.
“Can somebody please call the police?” I asked.
“Blessed mother,” Mr. Wong gasped. “Holy smoke, you got him!”
The Night Riders still hadn’t moved. They were staring at me. Finally, one of them said,
“Hey, nice footwork, kid! How’d you do that?”
Another one let loose a kind of whistle. They came out of the bread aisle and walked over to where Mr. Wong was calling 911. One Rider came and stood beside me and looked down at the hold-up man.
“I don’t believe this,” he said. You could tell he really didn’t, too.
The hold-up man stayed down flat on his stomach. He didn’t try to look around, but just in case I said,
“I’m still pointing this gun at you.” I tried to sound calm and polite about it, like him. It seemed more professional.
The cops came in about five minutes. There are always a bunch of police cruisers riding up and down Washington Boulevard at night, keeping an eye on the Garden Street side. One cop told me to lay my gun down in the middle of the floor and go stand with Mr. Wong and the Night Riders. Another cop went over and picked up the gun.
They put handcuff’s on the hold-up man, patted him down, and found the money, which they counted and handed back to Mr. Wong. Then they took the guy to a patrol car with flashing blue lights at the curb.
A crowd of people was out there, craning their necks to find out what had happened. The cops told them to go on about their business. Then a plainclothes cop came in and interviewed Mr. Wong and the Night Riders and me, and we all told him the sequence of events about ten times. Finally the Riders said they had to go, and left. The hold-up man’s Blue Hawks cap was lying on the floor. I picked it up and put it on. Nobody even noticed.
“Can you call my house and say where I am?” I asked Mr. Wong. “I only came down here to pick up a package for Cyndi. She’ll kind of be wondering why I haven’t come back.”
I was careful to say “a package” instead of “cigarettes” so Mr. Wong wouldn’t get in trouble with the cops. I think he appreciated that, because he gave me a look.
“You’re a hero, kid,” the plainclothes cop said.
“He sure is,” Mr. Wong said in his Chinese accent. “Quick like fox, he trip that guy up. I never saw something like this!”
“Listen, kid. Don’t try that stunt again,” the cop warned me. “People have been shot dead for less.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t,” I told him. “I’m not even sure how it happened.”
“Very humble, too,” Mr. Wong said, nodding at me. He handed me the bag for Cyndi. “Go home now. I call your house. You come one Saturday, have lunch here, okay? Anything you want. I pay.”
“Okay!” I said. “Thanks a lot!”
I started out for home feeling pretty high. It wasn’t only that I’d caught the robber. Another thing was holding a gun like that in my hand, taking charge, and telling Mr. Wong to call the cops. Even if it wasn’t that much, I was proud I’d kept my cool and done it.
I didn’t have long to feel good. About a block down the street, some dark figures stepped out from an alley and stood under a streetlight. I recognized the Night Riders who’d been in the store. From the way they watched me come, I knew they weren’t there by accident.
“Hey big surprise! It’s the kid with the footwork,” one of them called out.
“And look, he’s got the guy’s cap on,” another one added. He meant the hold-up man’s Blue Hawks cap which I’d decided to wear home.
“That was some move, kid, tripping up that punk. You should be in the Olympics,” the first Rider said when I got close. You knew he didn’t mean it for a minute.
“Thanks,” I said, and started to walk by.
They wouldn’t let me through. Two of them stepped in front of me and two more stepped in behind. My whole heart lurched up in my throat and kind of stuck there.
“So, kid. What’s the deal with you? You still go to school or what?” a tall guy asked. He was wearing shades, even though it was night, and a plain brown leather jacket instead of the Riders’ eagle one.
“Yeah,” I said. I was having a little trouble taking in air.
“That’s a problem you gotta work out, don’t you?” he said, very sarcastic.
All the Night Riders laughed. I felt like a trapped bug. I wished I could fly on out of there.
“Here’s another problem. How’d you like to make a little co-lateral?” Shades asked. He was the leader, it turned out. He did all the talking from then on.
“What’s co-lateral?” I said.
Everybody cracked up again. I could see they had this special language of their own that they used to embarrass people. That’s the level they were at.
“Well, what is it?” I kind of gasped. The air had pretty much gone out of me, which is what it does when I get cornered. I was trying like mad to bring myself back to normal, but it wasn’t working too well. I kept looking at their belts, remembering what Oggie had said about the knife. I didn’t see it, though.
“Money,” Shades said. He looked a few years older than the other Night Riders, as if he wasn’t really part of the gang but above it somehow. You could tell he’d been around. “I’ve got some work that needs doing. I’m asking if you want a job.”
Well, I was about to say no. I mean, nobody in their right mind, whether they can breathe or not, would ever take a job with creeps like that. You’d probably end up dead or in the state penitentiary. But suddenly, I saw something red and leathery in the glare of the streetlight. It was in Shades’ shirt pocket, the one people usually keep their cigarettes in.
“What kind of job?” I asked, just to buy time. I tried not to stare too hard at the pocket. I wanted to be sure. Finally, I got a good look. It was Oggie’s wallet, clear as clear.
“We got a place over on Garden Street. Drop by tomorrow and we’ll work on it,” Shades said. “Number 5446. Apartment B-2. Come around back. I could use a kid like you—fast on your feet, good with a gun.” He gave me a wide grin. “Yeah, this is your lucky day. You’re a real soccer star.”
The gang moved off toward Washington Boulevard. I went on down the sidewalk. After everything that had happened that night, I was kind of in shock, if you know what I mean. It wasn’t a matter of bringing myself back to normal anymore. Normal wasn’t even on the horizon. My whole mind was in a haywire state, and the worst thing was, nothing was over yet. In fact, everything was just beginning.