I STOLE THE BALL from the half-court line and drove it all the way to hoop. I was on fire.
Goran had been in the middle of a scrimmage with his team, the Gary Coleman look-alike included. I guess Goran had figured this was a safe place for his team to play now that I was gone. I snatched the ball during a fast break and challenged Goran to a one-on-one. The Gary Coleman guy snickered. The rest of the team looked on with delight when I pulled two twenties out of my pocket and held them in my hand.
"Don't worry," I told his teammates. "This won't take long."
I played better than I'd ever played in my life. I got to twenty before he even made it to double digits.
"Why are you doing this?" Goran whispered when we scrambled for a rebound. He was imploring, not asking. I didn't even give him the courtesy of looking him in the eye.
On my last two points I threw him an elbow to his gut before sinking a jump shot from the top of the foul line. I walked out of the gym with the rest of Goran's team laughing. The jeers and the names were obvious. They were laughing at Goran's expense. It was worse than losing to a girl. He'd been beaten by the town faggot. I left the rec center—this time I promised myself it would be the last time ever—and I passed Goran's little brother in his karate uniform at the drink machine. He was fighting to get his quarters back.
He gave the machine a good thwack and then he saw me. "Hey, you're—"
Yeah, yeah, yeah, even the little kids had seen me on the news. I'd reached a new high: taunted by a second grader. My adrenaline was still pumping from the game, and I found myself restraining an urge to tell the kid off. Then he finished his sentence.
"You're my brother's friend."
I turned around and looked at him. "What did you say?"
"You're Thorn," he said, delighted to be talking to one of the big kids. "He talks about you all the time." He punched the ancient drink machine, then swung around and gave it a good kick. "I'm gonna be a hero one day, like my brother."
Not a very good one, I thought. He'd dented the side of the machine, but his drink was still lodged inside. I rubbed my hands together and placed them on each side of the machine.
"My mom and dad were soldiers," he said.
Okay. Not really sure what to do with that information, but thanks. "They're dead." He smacked the machine hard.
I shook the machine as hard as I could, heard some clunking around inside, and an orange drink dropped into the recep-tacle I handed it to the boy.
"Cool!" he said. "Thanks."
And then with a high kick into the air, he scampered off to the basketball court to find his big brother.
Sometime soon I'd have to think through what Goran's brother said, but I didn't have time right then. It would have been particularly bad form to be late to a meeting I had called myself. Especially when I wasn't even officially a member anymore.
shampoo in the shower, I could arrive at least fifteen minutes before my teammates.
Two high-top sneakers dropped from the sky and landed on the pavement in front of me. I looked up and saw that the shoes were attached to Goran. He'd leaped out from behind a row of cars.
He stood very straight, his chin held high, and stared into my eyes. I tried to move past him, but he jumped in front of me and blocked my way. I felt his shoulder crash into my collarbone. I ducked to move past him on the other side, but he pushed me back. My body trembled with fury, ready to fight, but all I could do for the moment was stare back at him.
Then he touched me again, but not to fight.
He reached out, grabbed my hands, and lifted them up to his face. He took my left hand and placed it palm down over his mouth, he took my right hand and placed it palm down over his forehead. He pressed my hands tightly against his face. I felt the warmth of his palms on the back of my hands, and the feeling shot a fiery sensation throughout my entire body.
He leaned forward, his eyes straining as if they were asking me to see something. I stared for a long time at those dark, deep-set eyes peering out at me from the tiny window made between my hands. I couldn't take my eyes off his. I didn't know what he wanted me to see, but I was transfixed. I gazed deeper and deeper into his eyes.
A car door slammed on the far side of the parking lot, and I suddenly pulled myself away from him. He
continued to stare at me, and I didn't take my eyes off him, either. I kept looking back at him as I slowly made my way out of the lot. He was still staring at me when I turned the corner.
I sprinted the rest of the way home.
"But we've been disbanded," Larry said through a hacking cough. "Technically, this group doesn't even exist anymore." He spit a phlegm globber into the face of a cartoon mouse printed on a thin paper napkin.
"I have to say I don't understand why we're here, either," Golden Boy said. "Especially after the stunt you pulled." It was hard to hear over the din of video games, but the backroom of the Chuck E. Cheeze was the only place I could think of to meet where no one would expect to see us.
Ruth offered Golden Boy a slice of pizza. Her way of shutting him up.
"We're here because there's a killer on the loose," I said with as much authority I could muster. "It's up to us to stop him."
"But we're going to be reassigned to other tryout groups," Larry said. "Well, most of us, at least, and I don't want to risk another shot to make the team."
"The League says we already have him." Golden Boy folded his arms.
"I've been through this before," I explained for the umpteenth time. "I was with him at the time." "How can you be so sure about the time?" Golden Boy challenged me.
"It's on the autopsy report," Ruth said in between drags on her cigarette and crunching on the fried zucchini. "But how can you be sure, Thom?" Larry continued.
"Just ask Ssnake," I said.
"You ask Ssnake," Golden Boy said. He's your boyfriend, I could hear him saying to himself. "Dark Hero was there too," I said. "He could vouch for the time." Golden Boy rolled his eyes.
"With all due respect, Thom," Larry said, "how do we know the League isn't right on this one?" "We just have to trust him."
We all turned around, and Ruth nearly fell out of her metal folding chair. It was the first time we'd seen Scarlett since she'd left.
No pizza jacket, either.
She made no effort to hide her colostomy bag. "I don't know about the rest of you suckers," she said to Golden Boy's stunned face, "but I'm with Thorn."
It was my idea to start off by talking to the victims' families. I suggested we track down a relative of Captain Victory first.
"But he wasn't murdered," Golden Boy said. "Maybe," I said. "Maybe not."
The old captain didn't have any immediate family. He had outlived his two children: one had died of meningitis at a young age and the other died a middle-aged spinster. His wife had died of breast cancer before she was fifty. But we did manage to track down his great-grandniece, a dietician in a hospital cafeteria in
Poughkeepsie.
We invited her to lunch so we could ask her a few questions about her illustrious relative. During the meal, she kept probing us for information about his will and how much money he had left. Apparently she'd only seen him a handful of times in the past thirty years, but she knew she was his closest blood relative. She accidentally spit a small glob of sloppy joe on Scarlett's hand when we told her we didn't know anything about Captain Victory's estate.
"Sorry," she said, and offered Scarlett a napkin.
Larry offered her an antacid, but she refused. Ruth returned from the lunch line with a warm plate of chocolate- chip cookies.
"Oh no, I couldn't possibly—well, maybe just one."
I deliberately reached for a cookie at the same time so our hands would touch. Once I had contact, I sensed a deep anxiety within her; her heartbeat quickened, and I wondered if she was hiding something or if the
palpitations were just a result of a bad diet.
"Are you sure there's not anything else you could tell us?" I asked. "Any detail would help, no matter how small you think it is."
The great-grandniece chewed on her cookie and thought long and hard. Then she leaned forward in her seat. "Fine, you got me." The rest of us perked up. "The last time I went to visit him," she said, "he told me I wasn't in the will at all."
King of the Sea had a brother who ran a successful pet shop in the city by the seaport. As soon as we walked into the shop, the customers whipped around to check out our costumes. Ruth found the brother working behind the counter, and we took our places at the end of the line.
When we finally made it to the front, King of the Sea's brother didn't look up from the puppy chow. "So what'll it be?"
I introduced myself and our group and asked him if we could borrow a second of his time. He looked at the long line of customers behind us. Then he took a beat to recognize my face from the news.
"Get out of my store."
That was it for the day. We piled into Ruth's car, and on the way back I told the gang we'd meet up first thing in the morning and continue down the list. I told them not to be discouraged, this was part of the process. We might have to get through a lot of people who didn't have information before we got to the people who did. Larry sighed loudly as we pulled into the parking lot. Golden Boy hopped out and raced over to open the door for Scarlett before the car had even come to a full stop.
"I can let myself out, thank you," Scarlett said, and then she blew right past him and went to her own car. It was almost hard not to feel a little sorry for Golden Boy.
Almost.
The house was dark when I got home. Dad was out again. It smelled like the neighbors had been burning leaves, which I thought was strange because it was the wrong time of year for that. I walked up the driveway, and inside, I turned on the front porch light for when Dad got home. I noticed something out of the corner of my eye.
The front yard, illuminated by the porch light, had been torched. Deliberately. The burned pattern left a message. YOU'RE NEXT, FAGGOT.
I dragged the thatch through the yard in the middle of the night. My hands ended up blistered and bleeding, but that would be small potatoes for my healing powers. I wanted to finish the job before Dad got home.
The wind rustled in the trees, and I looked up and saw shadows moving. Could have been a cape, could have been a tree branch, could have been nothing.
"Bring it on," I said out loud to the wind, out loud to whoever left the message. Bring it on.
I got up the next morning before dawn to get an early start with the rest of the group. Dad still wasn't home yet from his shift. I caught the bus to Ruth's place and rang the doorbell at the front door of her townhouse. I heard a dog bark next door. She didn't answer. I knocked hard on the door, but she still didn't answer. Suddenly I got nervous and raised my foot to kick the door in; then I noticed her car across the parking lot.
The old engine was thrumming, so she couldn't hear anything. I walked over and tapped on the windshield and flashed her my best early morning smile.
"Who wants to capture a villain today?" I said, and held up two fresh cups of take-out coffee I'd picked up on the way.
Ruth jerked her head around; she hadn't seen me until now. Her mascara ran tiny black rivulets through the deep crevices in her face. She'd been crying.
I rushed over to the passenger side and hopped in.
She sniffled and wiped her nose on her elegant sleeve. It was then I noticed she was dressed to the nines. "Wow," I said, referring to her dress. "What's that?"
"Vintage Chanel," Ruth said, and smiled weakly. The red of her dress matched her lipstick. "A girl doesn't need a specific reason to look her best, does she?"
I shook my head no. I guess not. Still, I wondered when the last time had been that she had worn that dress, and what had been the occasion? When had been the last time she had danced? And when she danced, did she think of her poor, lost fiance?
"Give me the coffee," she said, and grabbed it from me, cupped it in her hands, and took a long sip. "Here, hold this." She tossed her makeup bag into my lap and adjusted the mirror to see herself. "I've got to put my face
back on before we see the others."
She reached over and pulled out a cleansing pad and wiped the dark smudges off her face. She swabbed at her cheeks with so much force that I thought she was trying to smooth out her wrinkles. I wanted to say
something to comfort her, but I'd learned that sometimes it's just as good to sit by someone's side, just to let them know you're there.
"Hand me my base."
She looked into the mirror at her face. The makeup brush shook in her fingers. She didn't know where to begin. "Ruth," I finally said, "what's going on?"
"I'm a little tired, that's all. I've been up all night. Writing." "I didn't know you were a writer."
"I'm not." She snuffled and lit a cigarette off the car lighter. "Now, be a lamb and put those in the mailbox for me." She pointed her thumb hitchhiker-like toward the backseat.
I turned around and saw neat piles of carefully sealed letters in the backseat of her sedan.
As I walked to the mailbox at the end of her sidewalk, I wondered what had made her break down like this. Had she seen something in the future? Did she know about the message I'd found waiting for me in the yard?
Whatever it was, I wasn't going to get it out of her. She clung to this one herself. Whatever it was, it was hers and hers alone to carry.
After I'd filled the mailbox with all the letters, I hopped back into the car. "Thanks," she said, and revved up the engine.
I strapped on the seat belt and noticed Ruth wasn't wearing hers. "Ruth," I said, "seat belt." "Don't worry about it." She put the car in drive and sped off in her vintage red Chanel.
We met up with the rest of the team and spent the entire day talking to near relatives and close friends of the deceased heroes. Unfortunately, we hit five more dead ends in a row. One of the relatives, a groundskeeper for a state-run golf course, actually sprayed his water hose at us.
Still wet, we piled into Ruth's car.
"I'm gonna say one thing and one thing only," Golden Boy announced. "This is all a big waste of time." Nobody said anything, and the silence stretched out for a long time. My plan wasn't yielding results, and the troops were getting restless. Scarlett looked exhausted. She glanced at her watch.
"I've got chemo at five, and a mani-pedi after that, so let's make this the last one for today." She rested her head against the window and closed her eyes to catch a nap on the way.
We'd learned that our next target, the Spectrum's daughter, was working at an elementary school fair sponsored by the PTA, so we crashed it. Ruth asked a PTA member if she knew the person we were looking for, and we were directed to the bake sale. A concerned group of parents looked at our costumes curiously, and a few minutes later I saw them sidle up and whisper to a security guard. We found the bake sale. To break the ice, I thought it was a good idea to buy a whole tray of Rice Krispies Treats. I offered them to my teammates, who took one apiece, somewhat halfheartedly.
Golden Boy hesitated before he took a bite of his square. He looked off to the trees on the outskirts of the school.
He looked around the fair, past the student raffle, past the moonwalk, craning his neck in all directions. "Nothing," he said, although he sounded like he was trying to convince himself.
The woman behind the bake-sale counter was busy counting money. She thanked me for our generous contribution and asked if we wouldn't like to try the lemon bars.
"Actually," I said, "we wanted to talk to you for a minute." She put down her wad of dollar bills.
"You want to talk to me?"
"Yes," I said. "It's about your father." She went back to counting her bills.
"I've talked to enough of you people already. Please, if you'll excuse me."
Larry suddenly coughed up his Rice Krispies square into the trash can. "Jeez, how much butter did you put in these things?"
Scarlett elbowed him in the gut. I noticed Golden Boy was looking off in the distance again.
Ruth stepped in. "You know, I think I will try those lemon bars. How many can I get for a twenty?" She handed the Spectrum's daughter a crisp twenty-dollar bill.
"I already told you, I have nothing to say. I'd appreciate it if you left me alone now." She turned to go, but I put my hand gently on her shoulder.