The Fourth Stall - Chris Rylander [21]
That’s why it seemed so significant that a little kid like Fred could have a problem so huge that it was threatening the very existence of our business.
Chapter 8
The morning after Staples’s posse ambushed us went pretty smoothly. Especially considering it was day one of our war against Staples. We ran the business like usual during early recess. The only difference was that Fred sat in the corner of the bathroom where we could keep an eye on him. He was supposed to look at the customers and let me know if any of them were on Staples’s payroll, but mostly he just played his Nintendo DS.
Thankfully, most of the morning customers had easy problems, like wanting me to get them McDonald’s for lunch or other stuff like that. There was one customer, though, whose problem concerned me a little bit.
It was this fourth grader named Matt Murphy. He was known for picking his nose and eating his boogers in class. He’d try to hide the act by leaning over and huddling down near his desk, but that didn’t really hide anything from the kids sitting in front of him. He was pretty well known as an “eater,” and he was generally considered to be pretty gross by all the girls. I always thought he seemed like a good kid, though, despite his bad habit.
“What’s your problem, Matt?” I asked as he sat down.
“I’m, well, I’ve been told that you could help me with anything, anything at all, right?”
“Of course, as long as it doesn’t involve, like, killing a raccoon and then barbecuing it in the alley behind your house or something like that,” I said.
He smiled but it was humorless.
“I made some bets and lost and I don’t have the money to pay for them. And now I’m going to be collected, Mac!”
“You need a loan, then?” I asked.
“Well, maybe . . . I don’t know,” he said as he leaned over to play with his shoelaces.
“What do you mean you don’t know? How much do you owe?”
“Uh, like a hundred and fifty dollars,” he said.
This was the part where, if I’d been drinking something, I’d have sprayed it all over the desk. But I wasn’t, so instead I just gawked at him.
“I know, I know,” he said. “It’s just that Jacky Boy, my bookie, kept saying, ‘Double or nothing, Matt, it’s the only way. Come on, Matt; don’t be stupid, you’ll never pay it all back. You have no choice, really. Double or nothing, Matt,’ and on and on like that. I—I just never realized how high it had gotten.”
“I see,” I said as I regained my composure.
He was screwed. Flat-out. I had that kind of money, but I’d probably have to dip into the Emergency Fund. Which I wasn’t about to do for this kid. But I did have another solution in mind and it would help me on two fronts.
“Do you know who they’re sending after you?” I asked.
“The Collector, of course,” he said. “And he’s bad news, Mac. He already collected my friend Evan. The Collector hurt Evan’s hand pretty bad, and stole his bike and made him tell his parents that he lost it! How do you convince your parents that you lost a bike?”
I shook my head.
That settled it. Barnaby Willis would be the first to go. Evan had been on my baseball team the previous summer. He was a good kid and a really great shortstop. Anybody who would do something like that to Evan deserved to be taken out. If the assault on me yesterday morning and the beating he laid on Joe after school weren’t enough, this certainly was. Plus, taking out Willis seemed to be the natural first step to bringing down Staples. Hopefully kids would be willing to talk once he was out of the picture.
“Okay, here’s the deal. I’m going to buy you a little time. I’m not saying how I’ll do this, but just know you’ll be safe for a little longer. So you’d better start saving up some cash. Come back to me in a week or so and show me what you have and I’ll try to loan you the rest, okay?”
“Okay, Mac, thanks,” Matt said, looking relieved. He left the office as