CHAPTER 28

BREAKING IN

Saturday had arrived quickly, and the pre-game routine was well on its way to kick-off. Caleb was full of confidence and as determined to win as he had ever been in his life. CAU had moved up one spot in the rankings to #3 in the country, and the press was humming about Caleb and his exploits on the field.

The game itself went as others had before. Fresno kicked off to CAU and Thad returned it to the 35 yard line. On the first play from scrimmage, Luke took the handoff and went 65 yards untouched for a touchdown. Nobody except Luke had broken a sweat yet and CAU was up 7-0, 45 seconds into the game. Caleb had never seen a running back like Luke Donaldson, either on the field or off. A nice guy, real humble and quiet, just went about his business on the field without being cocky about it. After CAU had kicked off, Fresno went three and out and punted. Thad returned the punt 57 yards for a touchdown! CAU 14, Fresno 0. Caleb had played one offensive play and within the first two minutes was killing these guys.

CAU won the game 70 to 0, and even by the end of the first half, CAU was up 49 to 0. Luke had rushed for 213 yards in the game and never played in the 4th quarter, and Caleb threw one touchdown pass to Rory and ran for one of 12 yards. CAU was dominating so bad that the coaches quit throwing the ball after the first quarter, so Caleb’s stats weren’t so great, but Caleb didn’t care—a win is a win. Caleb never went on the field in the second half, but Jason and Henry got some game time, as did the whole 2nd team, and Caleb was happy about that.

After Caleb showered and the trainers looked him over, he dressed and went back to his apartment. First thing he did is call Mary and ask how his dad is doing.

“Everything was really good and he feels much better today. I think they’re going to let him go home on Monday if his blood work looks good. He’s happy with your win today, Caleb. He’s so proud of you.”

“That’s great news. I’ll call you guys on Monday and see how it’s going. Tell Dad I called, and thanks for taking care of him. Bye-bye.”

As he lay sprawled out on the bed, his phone rang—Anni. She congratulated him on the win and asked if he would like to come by her office around 11 tonight. Caleb smiled. “Sounds good. I’ll be there.”

“Do you think you could bring some of that white powder too? I need a good night’s rest.”

“Sure,” he said. “I’ll see you later tonight.”

Around 11:00, Caleb opened his gym bag, popped a new tape in the recorder, and put his drug paraphernalia in the bag. Almost nothing could beat a tape of Anni in her office having sex with a student and doing drugs. Caleb was building his case. He had a plan, and this was just one more step to cleaning out that safe.

Caleb walked into Anni’s office about 11:15, and Anni jumped up from her desk and said “Hi. Let me lock that door behind you.” She led Caleb back to her small bedroom, gave him a key, and said, “This key opens the back door to my office, so from now on, come up the fire escape stairs and into the back door. I know your dorm is about a mile from my office, but I would prefer you walk here when we meet. Coaches work really late, and your car sticks out like a sore thumb.”

“Okay, I like walking anyway,” Caleb said as he put his gym bag down.

“Anyway, I’ll be right back,” Anni giggled and went to the bathroom. Caleb placed his gym bag in a good recording position, turned on the recorder, got his drug bag out, and put it on the end table next to her bed.

Anni walked out of the bathroom already naked and ready to go. They had sex for about twenty minutes and were lying there relaxed on the bed, just talking about things. Anni asked Caleb about his dad and how he was doing and a bunch of small talk. Finally, she rolled over and said, “Well, I’m ready to rest now. Show me how you do this stuff. Last time you just jammed the needle in me, but I would like to see how you prepare it.”

Caleb replied, “Sure. It’s fairly simple, but you need to be careful that you don’t get too much. I have mine in packs of 1/10th of a gram, and I add about 10cc of water to the syringe. Get your spoon out and put the powder on the spoon and squirt the water onto the powder. Heat it up a little bit, but be careful not to burn it. Stir it up until all of the powder is dissolved, and then put a small bit of cotton from a q-tip in the mixture. Put the tip of the needle in the cotton and draw up the mixture with the syringe. Then turn the needle facing up, and if there’s any air in the mixture, tap it to get the air on the top and push the plunger to get the air out before you use it.

Anni looked at him, perplexed. “Caleb, I find it extremely disturbing that you know how to do all of this.”

Caleb laughed and said, “I rarely do heroin, and if you’re not careful you’ll end up dependent on it, and that’s a BAD place to be, Anni. I can’t stress that enough to you.”

She waved a hand dismissively. “I’m a very strong woman, Caleb. I can control anything. Don’t worry about me.”

He just looked at her with a smirk on his face and said, “Okay, don’t say I didn’t warn you.” He took her arm and found a vein. “When you’ve found a vein, some blood will rush into the syringe—that’s how you know you’re good to inject it.” He paused. “You wanna do it?”

“I’ll give it a shot, no pun intended,” she giggled. She took the syringe and stuck it slowly into her arm. When she saw blood, she pushed down the plunger and just fell back on the bed.

Caleb sat there and watched her for a minute to be sure she was okay, then got up and got dressed. The syringe was still dangling in Anni’s arm. He got his camcorder out of the bag and took video of Anni lying there naked in her office with a needle in her arm. When he was through with the tape, he reached over and pulled the syringe out of Anni’s arm, then ran some hot water through it to clean it.

While she was off in whatever world she was in, Caleb went to Anni’s office to see if that safe was open—it wasn’t. He pulled out her office drawers, looked in the bookcases, looked through papers, everything. He turned that office upside down looking for the combination, but no luck. He went back to Anni’s bedroom to check on her—she was out like a light. He noticed her purse in the bathroom. Well, I haven’t looked there yet. He opened the bag, and inside was a daily planner. On the last page were three numbers: 1-26-79. Caleb wrote the numbers on the palm of his hand and went back to the safe.

After a few skillful turns of the knob, he heard it click. He opened the safe and just stood there looking at all that frigging cash; there was more in there than the last time he saw it. He went back to the bedroom and turned off his camcorder, picked up his gym bag, and proceeded to take out $80,000 in wraps and $20,000 in loose hundred dollar bills and stuffed it all in his gym bag. He arranged the money in the safe so it looked exactly like it did when he opened it. Caleb knew you can shear a sheep many, many times, but you can only skin it once. He wasn’t about to skin that sheep yet. He doubted that Anni would notice it was missing; the accounting was just too loose, and to his knowledge, she didn’t write down the amount of money in there, she just tried to remember it. If she did see some is missing, who was she going to tell? The coach? The athletic director? The police? The A.D. and coaches didn’t want to know anything about that money in any way, shape, or form, and she sure couldn’t tell the police about it.

Caleb checked on Anni one more time, took his gym bag, and walked out the back exit, whistling a tune.