“Really, Mr. Kropp?” He was smiling at me. My face felt hot, but I barreled on.
“Well, I’m not pretending to know how things work in the world of big business and conglomerations, but if I had a fight with a friend or he borrowed something and wouldn’t give it back, I’d invite him over to hang out, maybe play some video games, or you would probably have martinis, and I’d schmooze a little and then I’d ask for whatever it was back. I’d say, ‘Hey, Bernie (or Bernard or whatever you call him), I know you’re pretty sore, but that thing you took means a lot to me, been in my family for generations, and maybe we could work something out, because I’d hate to get the cops involved,’ or something along those lines. Have you thought about doing that?”
“You’re correct, Mr. Kropp,” Mr. Myers said, the same stiff smile frozen on his lips. “You do not know how ‘conglomerations’ work. Are you and your uncle turning down the job? Time is of the essence.”
“How come?” I asked.
“My, Mr. Kropp,” Arthur Myers said to Uncle Farrell. “How proud you must be of this boy. So direct! So thoughtful. So . . . inquisitive.”
“I’m all the family he’s got left,” Uncle Farrell said. “Plus he spends a lot of time alone, you know, because I’m sleeping during the day and away all night. It’s a miracle he isn’t in juvie hall, if you ask me.”
Uncle Farrell had opened the envelope and pulled out an eight-by-ten glossy photograph that he now held out to me.
I looked at the picture.
“It’s a sword,” I said.
“Yes.” Mr. Myers laughed for some reason. “And the Great Pyramid is just a headstone.”
It was mounted in a glass case, like a museum piece. A dull silvery color with a fancy handle. But “handle” wasn’t the right word. There was a word for the handle of a sword. I bit my lip, trying to think of the word. There was some kind of writing on the flat part of the blade, or maybe just a fancy design, I couldn’t tell.
“I took that picture years ago,” Mr. Myers was saying as I stared at the picture. “For insurance purposes. Samson was fascinated by our family heirloom from the moment he saw it. He offered to buy it from me at a fantastic price, but of course I refused. It is hardly worth what he offered, but its sentimental value is astronomical.”
“I know how that is,” Uncle Farrell said. “I’ve got a baseball from the 1932 Cubs that—”
“I have asked for it back,” Mr. Myers said. “I have even offered him money, all to no avail. I do not see that I have any recourse now but to seize it.”
“I say the old so-and-so has it coming,” Uncle Farrell said.
“I cannot do it myself, of course. And I understand I am putting your uncle’s very job in jeopardy. That is why I’m offering this bounty. Speaking of which . . .” He slid the leather case toward Uncle Farrell. “The down payment. I will pay the balance upon delivery of the sword.”
Uncle Farrell’s fingers were shaking as he undid the gold clasps. Inside were bundles of twenty-dollar bills.
“Oh, my sweet aunt Matilda!” Uncle Farrell whispered.
“Five hundred thousand dollars,” Mr. Myers said softly. “You may count it if you wish.”
“Oh, I trust you, Mr. Myers,” Uncle Farrell said. “You bet I do! Look at this, Alfred!”
But I wasn’t looking at the money. I was looking at the picture of the sword in its glass case. I had a hundred questions racing through my mind, but they were whirling so fast, I couldn’t get a grip on one.
Then Mr. Myers said, “As I told your uncle, Mr. Kropp, I need someone to retrieve the sword for me. A man of consummate skill and discretion. A man who is incorruptible, untouched by the temptations of evil men. I need someone who is indefatigable, Mr. Kropp. A man who will not give up or falter when all odds are against him. In short, I need someone who will lay down his life to recover a treasure that is beyond any value mortal men may place on it.”
“ ‘Lay down his life’?” I asked. “Uncle Farrell, he’s saying you might have to lay down your life.”
“He’s just trying to make a point, Alfred. Some people exaggerate to get across what they’re saying. You know, to get your attention. He doesn’t mean literally lay down your life. Right, Mr. Myers? Huh? Not literally lay down our lives.” Mr. Myers didn’t say anything. Uncle Farrell wet his big lips and said to me, “You should listen to Mr. Myers. You can learn a lot from a guy like him.”
Mr. Myers said, “I could turn to more . . . ruthless men for my purpose. I know such men, but I do not trust them. For the very quality that makes them ruthless makes them untrustworthy. I need someone I can trust. Someone who will not betray me.”
“Well, you’ve come to the right place, Mr. Myers!” Uncle Farrell said. “You can trust us. You can consider your fancy sword as good as returned.”
“Excellent,” Mr. Myers said. “As I mentioned, time is of the essence. Samson leaves for Europe tonight and will return in two days.”
“We’re going in tonight,” Uncle Farrell said firmly. “Or tomorrow night. Tonight or tomorrow, either one, but maybe Al has homework, I don’t know.” He looked at me. “Anyway, very soon, one of the two nights. Tonight or tomorrow night, right, Al?”
“How do you know the sword’s in his office?” I asked Mr. Myers.
“I don’t know for certain, but I do know for certain it isn’t in his home.”
“We don’t need to know how you know that,” Uncle Farrell said. “Right, Alfred?”
“What happens if it isn’t there?” I asked. “Do we have to give back the five hundred thousand?”
“Hey,” Uncle Farrell said. “That’s a pretty good question!” He was clutching the satchel to his chest as if he were afraid Mr. Myers might reach over and yank it away.
“Of course you may keep it,” Mr. Myers said. “That money is for your trouble. The rest is for the sword.”
We had a big fight after Mr. Myers left. Despite the money sitting there on the sofa that was ours to keep whether we found the sword or not, I still felt really weird about doing this. It just felt wrong. Maybe Mr. Samson really did take the sword and hide it in his office, but that didn’t make stealing it back the right thing to do.
“It’s not like he’s asking us to knock somebody off or do something really evil. And it’s a million dollars, Alfred. We could do anything we wanted, live anywhere we wanted, have anything we wanted!”
It didn’t matter how many objections I raised. To Uncle Farrell, money trumped everything.
He even said, “You do what you want, Al, but maybe I need to rethink this whole arrangement of ours—I mean, maybe you’re too much for me to handle . . . Maybe I should send you back to the foster care . . .”
That ended the fight. He knew I didn’t want to go back to foster care.
4
The very next day my math teacher informed me I was flunking. That was bad enough, but not as bad as being assigned a tutor to save my grade, because my tutor turned out to be Amy Pouchard.
We met for thirty minutes after school, just me—Alfred Kropp—and Amy Pouchard, she of the long golden hair and dark eyes. Sitting right next to her I could smell her perfume.
“Where are you from?” she asked me in that twangy east Tennessee accent. “You talk funny.”
“Ohio,” I said.
“Are you a resource student?” Resource students were either mentally challenged or from a really bad background, or both. I guess some people would say I was both.
“No, I just suck at math.”
“Hey,” she said. “Kropp! You’re the guy who had his IQ tested!”
“Something like that.”
“And you broke Barry Lancaster’s wrist.”
“It isn’t broken and I didn’t actually do it. Somebody else did, but it was my fault, which I guess is practically the same thing.”
“I hate tutoring,” she said.
“Then why do you do it?”
“Because I get extra credit.”
“Well,” I said, “I really appreciate it. It’s hard for me— math, I mean—and it’s been hard too getting used to a new place, a new school, and things like that.”
She put a piece of gum in her mouth and the spearmint warred with the musk of her perfume.
“I’m going to a shrink,” I admitted, at the same time not really sure why I was admitting it. “Not that I want to go, but my uncle is making me. She’s about a thousand years old and she wanted to know if I had a girlfriend.”
She smacked her gum and stared at me. She couldn’t have cared less. She was tapping the end of her pencil on the desktop, and her whole being was in a state of couldn’t-care-less-ness.
“So I told her I didn’t . . . have a girlfriend. Because a new school is hard, um, in terms of meeting them. Girls. Plus the fact that I’m shy and I’m pretty self-conscious of my size.”
“You are pretty big,” she said around her wad of gum. “Maybe we better work on some problems.”
“Like, I was wondering,” I said, my mouth now so bonedry, I would have mugged her for a stick of her gum. “About your ideas on dating somebody my size.”
“I have a boyfriend.”
“I was just searching out your ideas, really.”
“Barry Lancaster.”
“Barry Lancaster is your boyfriend?”
She flipped her hair over her right shoulder and nodded, and the gum went click-click-click in her mouth.
“Some guys have all the luck,” I said, meaning Barry Lancaster and in a funny way, me too.
Uncle Farrell had to pick me up that afternoon, since I missed the bus. We drove straight to the driver’s license place and I took my test for the third time. This time I passed, missing four questions, one less than the maximum allowable. To celebrate, I drove us to IHOP for dinner. I ordered the Rooty Tooty Fresh and Fruity. Uncle Farrell had the patty melt. He was wearing his black uniform and wetting his lips more than usual.
“So, what have you decided, Alfred?”
“About what?”
“About this operation for Mr. Myers.”
“I think it’s incredibly unfair of you to threaten me with a foster home to make me do it.”
“Forget unfair. Is it fair that you won’t help your only flesh and blood?”
“You just told me to forget fair and then you ask me if something’s fair.”
“So?”
“That isn’t fair.”
“Sometimes I think you’re toying with me, Alfred, which is incredibly cheeky for a kid in your position. Final time, last chance, do-or-die: Are you going to help me tonight?”
“Tonight? You’re doing it tonight?”
He nodded. He was on about his third cup of coffee and his nod was quick and sharp, like a bobble-head’s. “I have to. Samson is out of town and Myers wants his sword back ASAP. It’s now-or-never time. Fourth quarter, ten seconds left.”
“So you’re going to do it whether I help you or not?”
“I gave my word, Alfred. I made a promise,” he said pointedly, as if reminding me I should keep mine, although I couldn’t remember actually making any promises. “So the only question left is . . . are you going to help me?”
When I didn’t answer right away, he leaned in close and whispered, “You think I won’t do it? You think I won’t send you back to foster care?”
I wiped my cheek with my napkin, which was sticky with syrup, and I felt the stickiness on my cheek.
“Maybe if you try, I’ll tell the police you stole the sword.”
“Keep your voice down, will ya? I’m not stealing anything. I’m recovering it for the victim. I’m doing a good deed, Al. Now, last time I’m going to ask. Are you going to help me?”
I dabbed my cheeks again with my sticky napkin, and for some reason I thought about Amy Pouchard and the fact that Barry Lancaster was probably going to kill me when he found out she was tutoring me in math, and then I thought about my mom who died and the dad I never knew. The only person I had left was sitting across the table from me, slugging down coffee, nervously wetting his lips and drumming his fingers on the table.
“Okay,” I said. “But I’m a minor, so whatever happens up there they’ll blame you for it.”
“Whatever happens up there,” he said, “it’s gonna change both our lives forever.”
I would remember those words when Uncle Farrell turned to me and whispered my name, Alfred, right before he died.
5
In the car on the way to the Towers, I asked him, “Uncle Farrell, have you thought about how you’re gonna do this?”
“Do what?”
“Get the sword. What about all the security cameras?”
“We’re going to cut the power.”
“To the whole building?”
“No, just the power to the security system. Power goes out every now and then.”
“There’s no backup?”
“You can override it. If it stays down over ten minutes, though, a call automatically goes to police headquarters.”
I thought about it. “Okay, so we have ten minutes from the time you cut the power till the cops know.”
“Yeah. But it’s maybe another five, ten minutes before a cop gets there.”
“How do you know?”
“We’ve run drills before, Alfred.” He sighed, and his head went shake-shake-shake again.
“Okay. Let’s say a terminal window of no more than fifteen minutes.”
“ ‘Terminal window’? You’ve been watching too many movies, Alfred.”
“What if someone shows up downstairs while we’re in Mr. Samson’s office?”
“While you’re in Samson’s office.”
“Me?”
“Well, I can’t do it, Alfred. Why do you think you’re here? I’ve got to provide cover downstairs. I’ll get you in, you get the sword, and then we get out. Then I call Myers and we swap the sword for another cool half-mil.”
We drove in silence for a while. Samson Towers loomed ahead, silhouetted against the night sky.
Uncle Farrell said, “Now, stay right here in the car, Alfred.” He pulled into the underground parking lot. “I’ll come back and get you once the shift’s changed.”
So he left me there, hunkered in the front seat. My watch read 10:45. I have to admit, even though this deal seemed awfully fishy to me, I was excited. It was kind of like a spy movie, only we weren’t spies and this wasn’t a movie. So maybe it wasn’t like a spy movie but more like a fifteen-year-old kid and his uncle trying to steal a sword that may or may not belong to a guy who was paying them a truckload of money to steal it.
Uncle Farrell came back downstairs and I got out of the car.
“All clear,” he whispered. “I’ve already cut the power to the system. Hurry, Alfred!”
He popped the trunk and pulled out a beat-up old duffel bag.
“What’s that for?” I whispered. The garage was empty and I wasn’t sure why we were whispering.
“You want to be seen lugging a big sword into our apartment building, do you? Here.” He handed the bag to me.
We took the elevator from the garage to the main floor, where the fountain spattered and gurgled and our footfalls echoed eerily in the great empty space.
I followed him to the guard station with the bank of surveillance monitors. They were all dark. I noticed tiny dots of sweat beaded on his forehead.
“Okay, Alfred, let’s go.”
We got into the elevator and Uncle Farrell pulled out the key for the executive suite. He was sweating pretty bad by that point. I was sweating too, and my tongue felt very thick in my mouth. We didn’t say anything. Secretly I was hoping our quest would come up a big fat zero. That way we could tell Mr. Myers we couldn’t find it and be half a million dollars richer without actually taking anything that wasn’t ours and that might not even be his.
The elevator doors opened and we stepped out. I could feel my heart slamming in my chest and it actually hurt to breathe. I inhaled shallower and s
hallower, to lessen the pain.
The double doors leading into Mr. Samson’s office suite were directly ahead of us. Uncle Farrell looked at his watch. I had already checked mine.
“Okay, four minutes down; we’re fine,” he said.
He slipped the key into the lock and the doors opened silently. I felt for the light switch.
“No lights,” Uncle Farrell hissed. He pulled the flashlight from his belt.
“Somebody could see that too,” I said.
“Well, gee, Alfred, I left my infrared night-vision goggles at home, so I guess we don’t have much choice.”
He clicked on the flashlight and the beam of light glanced off the dark mahogany of the secretary’s desk.
“Where is it?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“But I don’t think it would be out here.”
He pulled a pair of rubber gloves from his pocket.
“Aren’t those for washing dishes?” I asked.
“I got ’em from the janitor’s closet. Here, put them on.”
“Where are yours?” I asked.
“I work here, Al,” he reminded me. “My fingerprints won’t mean anything.”
“But won’t the cops wonder why your fingerprints are all over Mr. Samson’s things?”
He stared at me for a second. “We only got one pair.”
I pulled off the left glove and handed it to him.
“I’m right-handed,” he said.
“So am I,” I said.
We stared at each other for a second.
“What?” he asked. “I can’t be expected to think of everything.”
I sighed, and put the glove back on. He swung his flashlight toward the left, where it glinted on the gold-plated doorknob of the door leading to Samson’s office.
“If it’s anywhere in this place,” he breathed, “it would be in there. Hold the light, Al.”
I shone the flashlight on Uncle Farrell’s key ring as his shaking fingers searched for the right key. I tried to check my watch, but it was too dark and Uncle Farrell needed the light.