Crazy Dangerous by Andrew Klavan Read Free Book Online Page A

each other a long time.
            ME: What do you think?
            JOE: It’s bad.
            ME: I know.
            JOE: Really bad.
            ME: I know.
            JOE: Dragnet.
            ME: I KNOW!
            JOE: You don’t have to shout.
    There was a long pause here. I stared at the monitor. As I’ve said, there was nothing much there but a bunch of letters: YHAP Rly? SA WDID . . . and so on. But I saw the whole conversation in my mind just as if it were all spelled out. It was not a pleasant sight.
    The pause went on a long while—and then I saw something that made my heart grow heavy in my chest. In fact, it made my heart sink like a rock, bang , straight down to the bottom of my feet.
    Three numbers appeared on the screen: 911.
    I groaned out loud.
    Nine-one-one was part of our personal code: it meant that a situation was so bad—that things had gotten so far out of hand—that there was no possible way out except to come clean and tell your parents about it.
    And my heart sank when I saw that because I knew Joe was right. And telling my parents about hanging out with Jeff Winger was not going to be a good time.
            ME: It’d have to be my dad.
            JOE: Right.
            ME: It will be bad.
            JOE: Major bad.
            ME: He will really give it to me. He will give me The Look.
    Once again, there was a pause before Joe answered. Then . . .
            JOE: Eat The Look. 911.
    I stared at the screen for a long time, but finally I nodded. I signed off. I got up, carrying my heavy heart with me. My heavy heart and I shuffled to the door.
    I stepped out into the hall—and was startled to see my dad standing right there in front of me.
    My dad is tall, thin, long-faced, and bald. I remember when I was a little kid, it was always easy to draw him. I just made a very, very long stick figure with a long bald head. Oh, and round glasses. He wears round glasses too.
    I stepped out into the hall and there he was towering above me—his back, anyway, because he was just passing by my room on his way to the stairs.
    “Hey, Dad,” I said.
    He turned around as if he was as surprised to see me as I was to see him. He blinked behind his round glasses as if I had woken him from a dream.
    “Hey, Sam,” he said.
    I knew right away that something was wrong. Usually my dad has a sort of serious-but-happy expression on his face. I know that sounds like it doesn’t make much sense, but it does when you see it. I mean, my dad’s not the kind of guy who always walks around with a great big grin or who’s always making loud jokes and guffawing (like Joe Feller’s dad, who’s a salesman). He’s more the type who’s always thinking about something, so he looks serious, but he seems to like thinking about it, so he looks happy too.
    But right now, he did not look happy. Not at all. In fact, even through the light glinting on his round glasses, I could see there was an expression of pain in his eyes.
    “You got a minute?” I asked him.
    He blinked again. He looked like he had to think very hard to come up with the answer. Then he said, “I was just heading out. There’s an emergency over at the Bolings’ house. Is it something urgent or can it wait?”
    I hesitated. I knew what "an emergency at the Bolings’ ” meant. Mr. Boling was a close friend of my dad’s—maybe his best friend. They had known each other since college, when Dad was a student and Mr. Boling was one of his professors. Mr. Boling had taught my dad a lot and even helped him decide that he wanted to become a preacher. Later, when Mr. Boling retired from the college, he had helped Dad get the job at East Valley Church here in Sawnee. I guess you might say Mr. Boling was Dad’s mentor. He was a lot older than my dad, obviously. And now he had gotten sick. Really sick. As in: things did not look good. I knew my dad wanted to be with his friend in case this was