Payback Time by Carl Deuker Read Free Book Online

watched, a man in his late twenties wearing a black leather jacket emerged from the driver's side—the same guy who'd been throwing with Angel before the first practice. They laughed as they bounded up the steps and into the house.
    I was about to step back onto the sidewalk when the front door swung open and the two came back out, only now Angel carried a football. They crossed to an empty parking lot outside a shuttered marine electric company. Angel stood on one side; his friend stood about twenty-five yards away. Then Angel's rifle arm was on display again. He threw with such power and grace, it took my breath away. His partner's throws back to Angel were baby tosses in comparison. After a few minutes of catch, the older guy started running patterns—down-and-outs, up-and-ins. Angel hit him with laserlike precision.
    They'd been playing catch for ten minutes when an old blue Cadillac turned right and headed straight toward the parking lot. Immediately both of them stopped and stared, like wild animals on alert. The older guy motioned for Angel to move behind one of the cars in the lot, and then reached into the inner pocket of his leather jacket and pulled something out. It gleamed silvery in the sunlight as he held it stiffly against his thigh. A gun? Was it a gun?
    The Cadillac continued without slowing. The older guy watched intently until it was past. Only then did he put whatever it was back into his pocket. The two went back to football, but there were no smiles, no jokes. After a few tosses, they quit. As they returned to their house, I slipped away, down Elmore to Commodore Way.
    Back home, as I showered before heading off to help with deliveries, I thought over what I'd seen. If it was a gun, what did it mean? And what should I do next? I turned off the water and stepped onto the bath mat.
    Usually I flick off the light before I dry myself, but I'd been thinking so hard about the gun that I'd forgotten. That's why I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror.
    A tub of guts—that's what I was. A beached whale. I'd been exercising daily, but nobody would notice. Put a helicopter beanie on my head and I could pass for Tweedledee.
    I flicked off the light, dried myself, and dressed. Back in my room, I heard my cell phone beep, but I ignored it. I lay on my bed and stared at the ceiling, trying to erase the image of myself from my memory. The phone beeped again ... and again. I flipped it open and saw
New Voice Message
on the screen. I hit
Listen
and put it to my ear.
    "Mitch, it's me, Kimi. Ms. Thomas is making the players go together on the bus. So if the ride to Yakima is still open, I'll take it. Call me, okay?"

2
    A WHOLE DAY WITH K IMI Y ON —or almost a whole day. She'd be on the sidelines during the games, but there'd be the ride to Yakima and the ride back. Ms. Thomas might want the team to eat together, which would mean Kimi might be with me for lunch and dinner. It was all too amazing.
    I arranged to pick her up at six a.m. As soon as I pulled up in front of her house, her front door sprang open and she was out. She was wearing an orange hooded sweatshirt with the word
Princeton
across the front. I could see her talking over her shoulder to her dad as she ran down the walkway. She made it to the car so quickly that I never turned off the engine. "Go," she said, slamming the door.
    We stopped at Peet's for coffee. I was about to tell her what I'd seen on Elmore Street, but she hunkered down inside her sweatshirt and made it clear that she didn't want to talk. That was okay. We had a long ride in front of us.
    After Peet's, it was back in the car and up into the mountains, the sun rising in front of us, the sky pink and purple all around. I wanted to nudge her and say,
Look! Look!,
but she kept the hood of her sweatshirt pulled tightly around her face and slouched against the window, her eyes closed.
    We'd gone about sixty miles and had reached the resorts at Snoqualmie Pass before Kimi finally