Pop

  She found her brother on the sidelines, scanning the general area of the stands where the Popoviches normally sat. The last time she’d watched him play, his pregame concentration had been so absolute that he’d barely even noticed there was a stadium around him. The contrast was striking.

  “Troy.”

  He spun around, startled to see her. “Where is he?”

  She almost smiled. Her brother was alternately angry, impatient, and sarcastic about their father’s condition; he was constantly bugging Mom to stop bringing him to games. But deep down, Troy was twice as heartbroken as anybody. Sometimes that was the only thing that kept her from hating him.

  “He’s going to be late,” she said evasively.

  “What do you mean ‘late’? What’s going on?”

  “Walk with me. The whole world doesn’t need to hear this.” They moved a few feet away toward the visitors’ bench. “Listen—don’t freak out. Daddy went to homecoming at EBU.”

  “Don’t give me that! How would he even get there?” His eyes widened. “Your boyfriend?”

  Chelsea reddened. “He’s not my boyfriend. He’s a dead man when I get my hands on him.”

  “Jordan blew off our game, stiffed the team, and took Dad a hundred miles on that scooter thingie?”

  “I think he dug up some old friend of Dad’s and they went together. Anyway, Daddy’s fine. The police have him, and they’re driving him home.”

  “Why the cops? Now everyone’s going to know!”

  “How could we not call them?” Chelsea demanded. “You turn on the computer and see your missing person streaming live from across the state! What would you do? If he wandered away from there, he’d be gone forever!”

  “What the hell was Jordan thinking?”

  She shrugged helplessly. “He thinks he knows what’s best for our father. And I’ll tell you something. Today he was right.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The hall of fame,” she insisted. “Daddy totally got it. Wait till you see the video clip!”

  “Big deal, he got it!” Troy snorted. “Tell me he gets it now. Tell me he even remembers it.”

  She was adamant. “I guarantee he doesn’t remember it. That’s not the point. Our father achieved a lot in his life; he had the right to be honored for it. That’s what Marcus Jordan understood and we didn’t.”

  “He’s got you, too! The guy is like a cancer! He tries out for the team, and pretty soon everything revolves around him, including Alyssa! He randomly meets our father, and now he’s the real family, and we’re out! What next? Is he going to move in with us? How long before we have to go?”

  Chelsea regarded him in alarm. Did her brother notice that his voice was rising and even shaking a little?

  Ron came up behind him and slapped him on the shoulder pads. “Hey, Coach wants us to—”

  In one startled motion, Troy wheeled and threw a punch that resounded off the halfback’s Plexiglas visor with a sharp thwack. A helmetless Ron would have been out cold.

  “My hand!” cried Troy, grasping his fist in pain.

  “What’s with you, man?” Ron was furious. “Coach just sent me to tell you we’re starting!”

  “I broke my hand!”

  That brought Barker running, with Dr. Prossky hot on his heels. The team gathered around as the oral surgeon performed his examination.

  “No harm done,” the doctor pronounced. “No swelling, just a little redness.”

  “What happened?” the coach demanded.

  “Nothing,” said Ron swiftly. “It was an accident.”

  “No accidents on game day!” Barker roared.

  Troy tried to grip a football. It dropped from his nerveless fingers. “I can’t!”

  Dr. Prossky was dubious. “I don’t see anything wrong.”

  “What if a knuckle’s broken?” Troy persisted.

  “Unlikely. Not without swelling.”

  Coach Barker took his quarterback aside. “Popovich, is there something you want to tell me?”

  “I can’t play,” Troy replied, shaken.

  “Dr. Prossky says you’re fine.”

  The quarterback did not meet his eyes. “I can’t play,” he repeated quietly.

  No official decision was made to follow Officer Deluca and Charlie all the way back to Kennesaw. Yet there was Mac, Marcus at his side, right on the squad car’s tail.

  “I think Charlie might be asleep,” Mac commented. “He’s dropped out of sight, so he must be lying down.”

  Marcus was buried in guilt. “I’m sorry about this, Mac. I was just so focused on getting Charlie to EBU that I never thought I might get you in trouble with the cops.”

  “Don’t take this the wrong way,” said Mac, “but if you don’t stop apologizing, I’m going to have to throw you out of the car. Honest—I wouldn’t have missed this for anything.”

  “It was stupid,” Marcus muttered. “I mean, the risk! We could have ended up in jail.”

  “You know, Marcus, some things are worth the risk. I don’t know if I would have said that yesterday, but I believe it now. It’s more than just the hall of fame. That was the old Charlie back there—the real McCoy. You did that. His own family didn’t know how to do it for him. It wouldn’t have happened without you.”

  Marcus slumped in the bucket seat. It was good to hear it, even if it didn’t change anything. Yes, today had been great. But Charlie was still sick … and deteriorating. There had never been a case—not one—of somebody with Alzheimer’s getting better. No risk, even with the longest odds and the richest payoff, was ever going to make a dent in that.

  “I’d better lie low for a while,” Marcus mused. “Right now I’m AWOL from the biggest game of the season. Coach is going to cook me on a rotating spit.”

  Mac chuckled. “Lying low sounds like a good idea. After today you’re due for a little downtime.”

  Suddenly, the squad car emitted three sharp blurps and pulled over to the shoulder. Officer Deluca rolled down the window and indicated with hand signals that the Toyota should do the same.

  “What’s this about?” Marcus wondered aloud.

  Deluca jumped out of the patrol car and approached the passenger window. “Jordan!” he ordered. “Get into my car. Hurry.”

  Marcus was alarmed. “Is something wrong with Charlie?”

  “Yeah, Charlie snores. It’s annoying. Come on, get in the car.” He turned to Mac. “You—obey the speed limit. I’m not going to.”

  He hustled Marcus out of the Avalon and into the front seat of the cruiser. Then he took off down the road, siren wailing.

  “What’s going on?” Marcus queried anxiously. “Is it an emergency?”

  “Troy Popovich busted up his hand and Calvin Applegate is at quarterback, stinking out the stadium. The second perfect season is on life support.”

  Marcus stared. “You’re taking me to the football game?”

  “Barker asked for you by name.”

  “How did he know where to find me?” Marcus asked, mystified.

  “I’ve been keeping the Popovich family informed on our progress,” Deluca explained. “Troy knew you were with me.”

  Among the strangest parts of a strange day, surely this development was the most bizarre. “Officer Deluca, no offense, but we’ve been talking about kidnapping, arrest, jail, risking the life of a sick man—but all that’s forgotten because the Raiders might lose?”

  “Cops are practical people, Marcus. Nothing is going to change what happened today. But the game isn’t over yet.” They swerved around a transport truck. “Sit tight. We’ll be there in eight minutes.”

  Maybe that was why the glaciers had chosen this area to stop their advance, scattering the humongous boulders that Mom loved so well—even though the sport of football would not be developed for tens of thousands of years. On some ancient geological level of awareness, the Ice Age had realized that here, near Kennesaw, it had entered Bizarro World.

  Or maybe Officer Del
uca’s perspective came from the simple fact that, in a small town on a bleak rocky landscape, there was just nothing to think about other than the DNA Raiders.

  It definitely took a place like this to produce a Charlie Popovich.

  The neighborhoods on the outskirts of Kennesaw were familiar to Marcus now. As the cruiser barreled toward the center of town, cars pulled over to let them through. The police car roared up Poplar Street doing close to seventy. Deluca took the rise so fast that the tires actually left the road surface.

  The squad car bounced back to the pavement, jarring Charlie awake. He sat up, groggy and disoriented. “What—?”

  He looked around, blinking. They were passing by the towering trees of Three Alarm Park on their left. His bleary eyes finally fixed on the back of Marcus’s head. “Mac…?” he began uncertainly.

  “Yeah, Charlie, I’m here.” Marcus cast a meaningful glance in Deluca’s direction. This was not the time for a reality check.

  Charlie’s gaze swung to the cruiser’s opposite flank just in time to catch sight of Kenneth Oliver perched on a step stool, working with pliers to tighten the metal cockroach above the door of his exterminator’s shop.

  “Like he owns the world,” Charlie snorted in disgust. “What do you say we dump out every nail in his store?”

  “Next time,” Marcus promised in a quiet voice.

  All at once, Deluca slammed on the brakes, and the cruiser fishtailed to a halt. “Wait a minute—he’s the secret accomplice you’ve been covering for? Him?”

  Marcus peered very deliberately out the window and said nothing.

  “Don’t screw around!” the officer persisted. “You’re going before a judge for that!”

  “Great,” Marcus muttered. “So I save my skin, and it gets blamed on a guy with Alzheimer’s.”

  “You can’t protect him, Marcus. He’s not legally responsible anyway.”

  Marcus was not consoled. “Then you’ll use it as evidence that he’s mentally incompetent.”

  Deluca shook his head sadly. “It’s all out in the open now. You taking the rap won’t change that.”

  Marcus blanched. He’d thought he was helping Charlie, but he’d only made everything worse.

  Deluca read his mind. “You know, this isn’t my first Alzheimer’s case. They’re usually elderly, but it’s the same drill. They wander; they get lost. Even at home, things go wrong. New Paltz P.D. had an eighty-seven-year-old man who tried to microwave a stapler. Burned his whole house down around him. Poor guy survived D-Day, but didn’t make it through that. You want your friend to be next?”

  Marcus stared stubbornly into the police radio. Deluca was just trying to scare him, but the cop wasn’t wrong. If Charlie could try to pay bus fare with a walnut, who knew what else he might be capable of?

  Deluca put the car back in gear and off they raced, siren wailing once again. “You’re some piece of work, Marcus Jordan—some weird, loyal, stupid piece of work,” he said after a moment. “I think I’m starting to like you. I’ve always been a lousy judge of character.”

  Marcus shrank back into his seat amid a whirlwind of melancholy thoughts.

  Charlie nudged his arm. “What’s up with Dr. Demento?” he whispered. “I don’t think he’s right in the head.”

  A bitter laugh escaped Marcus. He caught an aggrieved look from Deluca behind the wheel.

  “Just relax,” he advised Charlie. “We’re almost there.”

  “Where?”

  “The football game.”

  That sounded reasonable to Charlie Popovich. He was going to a football game.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  The home stands were quiet at DNA’s field, and the scoreboard told the story. With Calvin at quarterback, the Raiders’ offense had fizzled, scoring only a single field goal. He had thrown as many interceptions as he had completed passes—two—allowing the Poughkeepsie West Warriors to open up a 14–3 lead. With the game now in the fourth quarter, Kennesaw fans saw their second perfect season circling the drain. To them, the sound of an approaching siren held little interest.

  When the squad car screeched to a halt in front of the field house, a mob of parents, students, and groundskeepers swarmed all around. The door was wrenched open, and Marcus was hauled bodily into the center of this mass of humanity. Helpless to move, he was relieved of his jacket, pants, shirt, and shoes. He could see equipment coming at him, passed from fingertip to fingertip across the top of the crowd, like beach balls at a rock concert. Shoulder pads somehow found their way over his head. A green jersey followed quickly. It wasn’t even his stuff, just random gear pillaged from the locker room. Time was ticking away, and not a single snap of potential comeback could be wasted.

  “I’ll do that!” He snatched the jockstrap out of the hands of somebody’s mother and stepped into it a split second before the football pants were run up his legs.

  He felt like Pharaoh being dressed by dozens of attendants. The multitude lifted him under the arms and carried him toward the field even as his shoes were being tied. Fully suited up, he was deposited on his feet in front of Coach Barker. A helmet was scrunched down over his ears.

  The face on the bobblehead was a thundercloud. “I’d kill you, but it’ll have to wait.”

  All Marcus could think to say was “My shoes are too small.”

  “You want to play quarterback? Curl your toes.” And, propelled by an encouraging slap on the butt, he was in the game.

  He got two strides from the sidelines when something cold and hard slammed against his chin protector.

  Troy stepped out to block his path. “Where’s my dad?”

  “He’s fine. They’re driving him home.” Marcus’s eyes fell on the ice pack wrapped around the injured quarterback’s knuckles. “Wait a minute—shouldn’t you be screaming your head off right now?”

  “Want me to start?” Troy warned.

  “If you’ve got a broken hand,” Marcus insisted, “there’s no way can you hit like that and stay standing.”

  “So now you’ve graduated medical school?” Troy demanded. “Get in there and do what you have to do! And when it’s done, you watch your back, because I’m coming after you!”

  “Take a number,” Marcus retorted, jogging onto the field.

  Ron’s was the first face he recognized in the huddle. “Jeez, Marcus, what the hell happened? Where were you?”

  “I’m here now. Come on, let’s do this.”

  The drive got off to a shaky start. On first down, Marcus fumbled the snap and was lucky when the center fell back and sat on it. Second down was a wobbly pass that sailed five feet over Luke’s head. Facing third and eleven, Marcus fumed his way through a short time-out. He was finally the first-string quarterback of the Raiders, and he was about to get the blame for blowing the second perfect season. Like it was his fault he hadn’t taken a single snap in practice for weeks. And all so Barker wouldn’t offend the great Troy Popovich, who was on the bench, hiding behind a broken hand … that wasn’t broken.

  Surely that gave Marcus the right to play this his way—the way he’d learned from the master. When in doubt, get out there and hit somebody.

  The play from the bench was a pass, but Marcus called an audible for a halfback draw. He dropped into the pocket, faked a throw, and slapped the ball into Ron’s breadbasket. Then he targeted the biggest monster on the Warriors’ line and planted his shoulder so deep into the guy’s abdomen that he knocked him back a full five yards. Expecting a pass, the defense was caught flat-footed. By the time they recovered, Ron was through the hole and gone. They managed to haul him down from behind, but by then he had galloped sixty yards. Two plays later, Marcus was in the end zone on a quarterback sneak.

  The fans came back to life, and so did Coach Barker, whose head was in full bobble as the crowd roared its approval.

  Marcus was so excited that he nearly botched the hold on the extra point. But somehow the kicker managed to get the ball between the uprights, and the Raiders had cut the
deficit to 14–10.

  On the sidelines Coach Barker greeted his quarterback with an ecstatic bear hug, then held him at arm’s length and bawled, “You’re not running my plays!”

  “It’s the shoes.” Marcus grinned. “They pinch.”

  Barker stared at him, perplexed, but he asked no questions. He did not want to argue with the sole ray of sunshine on this dark day.

  As Marcus took the field to play cornerback on defense, Alyssa grasped his arm as he passed her. “One more score, Marcus! I know you can do it!”

  He inclined his head toward Troy on the bench. “What happened to him?”

  “Can’t really tell.” She turned uncharacteristically serious. “I’m kind of worried about him.”

  And before he could reply, a whistle called him into formation.

  The Raiders’ defense held firm, and four plays later, Marcus was back under center, armed with another Barker play that he didn’t intend to execute. No football team had anything in the playbook that made a hard-hitting blocker out of the quarterback. But that’s exactly what Marcus was now—taking on much larger opponents, running right over them, and then looking for someone else to flatten. The Raiders’ offense ground out yardage with old-school smashmouth football, gaining five or six yards at a try, piling up first downs. Then, just when the Warriors had settled in to defend the running attack, Marcus uncorked a long pass to Calvin, who had snuck unobserved into the end zone: 17–14, Raiders. The crowd went berserk.

  Tasting victory, the defense returned to protect its three-point lead for the final four minutes. One more stop should do it, Marcus thought, lining up at cornerback. Then they could play possession and eat up the clock.

  Running out of time, the visitors grew desperate, launching hurried passes their receivers had little chance of catching. Soon it was fourth and ten, and the Warriors’ offense had no choice but to try a Hail Mary. The long throw was tipped at the line of scrimmage, and it twirled in a lofty arc—a high-flying bean in the late-afternoon sky, anybody’s ball.