Beyond the Chocolate War

  Obie told him, spelled it all out in detail, as much detail as he dared to risk, knowing Archie would want to provide the final finishing touches. Which he did, of course.

  “You surprise me, Obie,” Archie said as he opened the car and slid easily behind the wheel. “You’re developing a devious mind.”

  “I learned it all from you, Archie.”

  But Archie had already roared away, leaving Obie in a cloud of blue exhaust.

  As Carter turned into the main corridor, a book slid from the bunch he was carrying and dropped to the floor. The others also spilled out of his hands. Sheepishly, he bent to pick them up. Disgusted with himself, he pondered the possibility that he was losing his coordination along with everything else.

  A commotion farther along the corridor caught his attention. A group of guys had gathered at the trophy case across from Brother Leon’s office. Marty Heller, pimple-faced, greasy-haired, called down the corridor: “Hey, Carter, take a gander at this.…”

  Carter hurried toward the cluster of students, curious about what he would encounter at the trophy case. His case, because most of the trophies in it had been won through his efforts.

  Marty Heller stepped back and swept the other kids aside. “Look,” he said.

  Carter looked. Aware that the other guys were not looking at the trophy case but at him as he looked.

  It was a trophy case no longer. A trophy case has trophies and this case no longer had any. It was empty. But not really empty. On the middle shelf stood a small porcelain ashtray, the kind purchased in a joke shop or trick store. The ashtray was in the shape of a toilet.

  “Who the hell would steal the trophies?” Marty Heller asked in his squeaky off-key voice. His voice had been changing for three years now, was still totally unpredictable.

  “They’re not stolen,” somebody said, a voice Carter did not recognize, probably a Vigil plant, courtesy of Archie Costello.

  Stunned silence then, but a silence filled with the knowledge of what the voice meant. There was only one alternative to the theft of the trophies. The Vigils. And everybody knew that.

  “Jeez,” Marty Heller said, “Brother Leon’ll go ape when he finds out.…”

  But Brother Leon did not go ape. Because he never found out. He was away for the day at a conference of headmasters and school principals in Worcester. By the time he returned the next day, the trophies were mysteriously back in place, the small toilet gone.

  Marty Heller confronted Carter before the bell rang the next morning. “What the hell’s going on?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” Carter told him, hurrying on his way.

  But he did know, of course. The knowledge had kept him awake most of the night. And had given him nightmares when he slept.

  The cafeteria. First lunch period. A group of guys huddled around the table nearest the entrance to the kitchen. They were staring so intently at a hidden object on the table that everyone else felt it must be a pornographic magazine, something dirty.

  Richard Rondell stumbled away from the table in utter disgust. He had in fact expected to see a beautiful dirty picture when he made his way into the group—Rondell was the raunchiest guy in the senior class, with only one thing on his mind—and he was angered to learn what all the excitement was about. Newspaper headlines, for crying out loud.

  STUDENT BEHEADED IN MAGIC ACT

  And below, in smaller type:

  AMATEUR MAGICIAN

  GETS PROBATION

  The clipping was frayed and wrinkled, edges tattered, obviously ripped from a newspaper. Obie handled it delicately as he held it up for display. He had chosen this moment carefully, making certain that Bannister had been assigned to the second lunch period. The clipping needed only a minimum amount of exposure. Only a few students had to see it. But Obie knew the outcome. The word would be carried to all reaches of the school, exaggerated and embellished probably, racing from student to student, class to class.

  By the time the last bell had sounded and everyone headed home or to afternoon jobs, the effect of the newspaper story was firmly established. Now everyone thought that Ray Bannister was a killer.

  With a guillotine.

  Nobody knew yet that Ray Bannister and the guillotine would become the highlight of Skit Night.

  Nobody but Archie Costello and Obie, who’d had the fake newspaper made to order at the magic store in Worcester.

  The command came to David Caroni from the piano in the parlor as he went down the stairs on his way to take a walk. He had taken a lot of walks in recent days. Had to get out of the house. Away from prying eyes.

  The command was earsplitting, a chord played off-key, followed by another, as if a maniac were in the parlor playing madly away at a song no one could recognize.

  Except David Caroni.

  He walked to the kitchen, through the dining room, drawn by the sound of the broken music. The French doors had been thrown open. His mother, her hair hidden in the white cap she wore when she charged into her spring housecleaning, an event that shook up the entire routine of the Caroni household for at least a month, was dusting the keyboard with a white cloth. David stood transfixed, surprised but somewhat pleased that his mother was the medium through which he would receive the message. He had been waiting for so long. For the sign, the signal, the command, the order. Knowing that it must come and trying to be patient. And now it was here.

  He listened, silent, still. His mother, unaware of his presence, continued to produce the discordant music that was telling David what he must do.

  David listened, smiling. Listened to what he must do and how he must do it and when it must be done.

  At last.

  Bunting caught up to Archie at his locker, timing it beautifully, waiting until most everyone else had left the vicinity.

  “Hi, Archie,” Bunting said, a bit breathless and not sure why.

  “What do you say, Bunting?” Archie was arranging his textbooks on the shelf of the locker. Bunting realized that he had never seen Archie Costello carrying books out of the building. Didn’t Archie ever do homework?

  In Archie’s presence, he abandoned all his preconceived notions and the conversation he had been rehearsing in his mind.

  “Know what gets me, Archie?” he asked instead, going in a direction he hadn’t intended.

  “What gets you, Bunting?”

  “If I didn’t come to find you, you’d never come to find me.”

  “That’s right, Bunting.” Archie continued to shuffle his books around on the shelf.

  “Suppose I stopped coming around?”

  “Then you’d just stop coming around.”

  Bunting wanted to say: Look at me, will you? Instead: “Wouldn’t you want to find out why?”

  “Not particularly. It’s a free country, Bunting. You can come and go as you please.” Archie had opened a book, looked through the pages, speaking absently as if his mind were on more important matters.

  Dismayed, Bunting said: “But I thought—” And paused, wondering how he could say what he wanted to say delicately, diplomatically.

  “Thought what?”

  “I thought, you know, next year …” And let the sentence dribble away. Archie sometimes made him feel like he was still in the fourth grade, for crissakes.

  “Next year?”

  Bunting knew that Archie was making him spell it out. He knew he should just walk away, tell Archie Screw you and split. But knew he couldn’t. There was too much at stake.

  “Yes, next year. Making me, like, the Assigner. You know. After you graduate.”

  Archie replaced the first book on the locker shelf and took down another. A math book, spanking new, it looked as if it had never been opened.

  “You are going to be the Assigner, Bunting.”

  “What did you say?” Bunting asked, blinking.

  “I said, Bunting, that you are going to be the Assigner next year.”

  “Oh.” He had a desire to leap and shout, go bounding down the co
rridor, but maintained his cool. Let the “oh” echo. Had to play it smart. The way Archie always played it. “Don’t the Vigils have to vote on it or something?” Bunting said, knowing he had blundered as soon as the words were out of his mouth. Asking that question was definitely not playing it cool.

  Archie looked at him for the first time, a pained expression on his face.

  “Don’t you take my word for it, Bunting?”

  “Sure, sure,” Bunting said hurriedly. “I just thought—”

  “There you go, thinking again, Bunting,” Archie said, turning back to the locker, taking down another textbook, looking at it as if he’d never seen it before. “There’s one condition, however.”

  “Name it,” Bunting said.

  “You’ll need an assistant. A strong right arm, right?”

  “Right,” Bunting snapped.

  “I know you’ve got your stooges. Cornacchio and Harley. Keep them around, if you want. But your right arm will be Janza. Emile Janza …”

  “Janza?” Trying not to betray his dismay. Dismay? Hell, disgust. Complete disgust.

  “Emile will serve you well. He’s an animal, but animals come in handy if they’re trained right.”

  “Right,” Bunting said, but thinking: When you’re gone, Archie, I’ll be boss and I’ll choose my own right arms.

  “Bunting,” Archie said, looking up again, looking at him with those cool blue appraising eyes. “I’ll be telling Emile about it. Emile Janza will be looking forward to his job as your assistant. And Emile doesn’t like to be disappointed. He’s very unpredictable and gets very physical when he’s disappointed. Never disappoint Emile Janza, Bunting.”

  “I won’t,” Bunting said, trying to swallow and finding it difficult, his throat dry and parched.

  “Good,” Archie said, studying the book in his hand, turned away from Bunting now.

  Bunting stood there, not knowing what else to say. Wanting to ask a million questions about the duties of the Assigner, but not quite sure how to proceed. And afraid to ask another dumb question.

  Archie looked up, surprised. “You still here, Bunting?”

  “Oh, no,” he said, which was stupid. “I’m leaving. I’m just leaving.…”

  Archie smiled, a smile as cold as frost on a winter window. “We’ll go into details later, Bunting. Okay?”

  “Sure,” Bunting said, “sure, Archie.”

  And got out of there as fast as he could, not wanting to risk screwing up the biggest thing—despite Emile Janza—that had ever happened in his life.

  Later, leaving school, without any books in his arms, of course, Archie paused to drink in the spring air. He spotted Obie walking across the campus in his usual hurried stride, as if hounded by pursuers. Poor Obie, always worried.

  Obie saw him and waved, waited for Archie to catch up to him at the entrance to the parking lot.

  “What’s up, Archie?” Obie said, the mechanical greeting that really asked nothing.

  But Archie chose to answer. “I’ve just spent a few minutes guaranteeing the ruin of Trinity next year,” he said.

  And said no more.

  “Are you going to explain what you said or just let it hang there?” Obie asked, trying to mask his impatience and not doing a very god job.

  “I just told Bunting that he will be the Assigner next year,” Archie said, “and that Emile Janza will be his right-hand man.”

  “Boy, Archie, you really hate this school, don’t you? And everybody in it.”

  Archie registered surprise. “I don’t hate anything or anybody, Obie.”

  Obie sensed the sincerity of Archie’s reply. The moment seemed suspended, breathless, as they walked toward their cars. Obie wanted to ask: Do you love anything, then, or anybody? Or is it that you just don’t have any feelings at all?

  He knew he would never find out.

  Carter saw his chance: Archie parking his car in the driveway at his house, stepping out of the car, pausing as if testing the atmosphere, his thin body knifelike and lethal silhouetted against the rays of a spotlight above the garage door.

  The pause propelled Carter into action. Otherwise he might have hesitated, and then Archie—and the moment—would be gone.

  “Archie,” he called, walking toward him.

  Archie turned, saw him, waited, his head haloed by the spotlight.

  Carter stopped within a few feet of Archie, was tempted to turn away and get out of there but instead heard himself saying:

  “I did it, Archie.”

  “Did what, Carter?”

  “Wrote that letter.”

  “What letter?”

  “To Brother Leon.”

  “I know that, Carter.”

  What do I do now? Carter wondered. He had never faced Archie as an adversary before.

  “I want to explain about the letter.”

  “There’s nothing to explain,” Archie said, cool, unforgiving.

  “Yes, there is!” Carter cried, a tremor in his voice. He had to get this over with, couldn’t endure the waiting anymore, waiting for Archie to strike. He knew the trophy case was only the beginning and dreaded what would come later. “Archie, I wrote that letter to protect the school. I didn’t do it for myself. I was afraid the assignment would screw us all up. I didn’t do it to double-cross the Vigils.…”

  “The Vigils are more important than the school,” Archie snapped. “You should have come to me, Carter. Told me your doubts. I’m not the enemy. Instead, you went to the enemy—”

  “I thought it was the right thing to do.”

  “The right thing to do,” Archie mocked. “You guys make me want to vomit. With your precious honor and pride. Football hero. Boxing champ. Strutting the campus with your chest out and your head high. Carter, the ace of aces …”

  Carter had never heard such rancor, such venom in Archie’s voice, Archie who was always so cool, so detached, as he had been a moment before.

  “I’m sorry, Archie. I made a mistake. And I’m sorry.”

  Archie studied him for a moment and then turned away, his movement indicating finality, meeting over, so long, Carter.

  Panicky, Carter stepped forward, hand shooting out, almost touching Archie’s shoulder but stopping short at the last moment.

  “Archie, wait.”

  Over his shoulder, Archie asked: “Something else, Carter?”

  “No … yes … I mean …” Flustered. Groping for words and not finding any. But having to detain Archie somehow. “What happens now?”

  Archie turned full face toward him again.

  “What do you want to happen?”

  Is this the moment? Carter wondered. Is this when he should make his move? He had approached Archie with a bargain on his mind. First, to make his confession about the letter. Then, as amends, to tip Archie off to Obie’s plan for revenge, on Fair Day and Skit Night. He paused now, deciding to stall awhile longer.

  “I guess I want things to be like they were before. Hell, we’re almost ready to graduate.”

  “Tell you what, Carter,” Archie said. “Let things stay the same as before, like you just said. Let the last days come and go. Graduation. But that’s not the end of it, Carter. You were a traitor and you’re going to pay for that. Some way, someday. Not tomorrow, not next month. Or even next year, maybe. But someday. And who knows? Maybe next month, after all. That’s a promise, Carter. When you least expect it. When everything is rosy and beautiful. Then comes the payoff. Because you can’t be allowed to get away clean, without paying for it, Carter.”

  God, Carter thought, all those years ahead. He had never heard Archie’s voice so deadly, so somber, almost sad, and this sadness gave his words a devastating impact and power. Carter had thought graduation would be the end. Of Archie Costello and the Vigils and everything rotten in this world. He knew, too, that the bargain he had been about to propose would serve no purpose now, that his best course was to help Obie, although he shied away from what that meant, what Obie had in mind.

&n
bsp; “Remember that, Carter. Nobody double-crosses Archie Costello and gets away with it. When you least expect it, the revenge will come.”

  Without a further word, Archie stepped across the driveway, in front of the car, under the spotlight, and up to his front door. Then was gone into the house.

  He left Carter there, shaken, not only by the prospect of Archie’s revenge sometime in the future but by what he had almost done. He’d almost turned traitor against Obie. Which meant being a traitor a second time. Not once but twice. Christ, he thought, what have I become? Archie’s words rang in his mind as he stood there shivering in the evening air. You guys make me want to vomit.

  Carter left the driveway, empty, hollow, without honor or pride, like something haunted, and he was both the ghost and the thing that was haunted.

  Archie, Obie, and Carter always examined the black box just before Vigil meetings began. From that moment on, the box was not touched by anyone and rested on the small shelf in the crate Carter used as an improvised desk.

  Carter held the box aloft now, opened, the six marbles rolling and clicking together as he tilted the box this way and that, the black marble ugly and forbidding in sharp contrast to the five white marbles. Carter avoided Archie’s eyes. After the encounter in Archie’s driveway last night he wanted to avoid Archie altogether, but knew he had to play his part in Obie’s drama. Archie barely glanced into the box, indifferent as always. He nodded his satisfaction and turned away.

  That was Obie’s chance, a chance calling for swift movements in a matter of seconds. He passed his hand over the box as Carter began to lower the lid. Carter delayed the closing, paused, turning his head as if interrupted by someone calling his name. In that brief interval Obie deftly picked up three white marbles. Carter looked panicky, couldn’t help glancing at Archie, who was walking toward the center of the storage room. With his other hand Obie dropped three black marbles into the jewelry box, the sound of their dropping muffled by the velvet interior. So now the score stood: two white marbles remaining in the box and four black. Obie glanced at Archie, who was watching the members of the Vigils entering the storage room and taking their places. As Obie and Carter moved toward the desk, Obie’s hand shot out again, like a darting bird, and plucked up the other two white marbles, pocketing them.