The Fourth Stall - Chris Rylander [34]
“Yes, yes. I’m sorry. I only did that because I owe Staples a lot of money and Justin said that I wouldn’t have to pay him back if I beat you up. He said some- thing about avenging Willis or something like that, I don’t know . . . I hardly know the guy.”
“How did you know to find me out here?”
“This is just where Justin told me to watch out for you. That’s all I know, I swear. I didn’t even want to do it, but I had no choice.” His eyes nervously flickered back and forth between the stapler in Kitten’s hand and my face.
I nodded and took a step back. The kid pulled at the places on his leg where Kitten had stapled him and then whimpered like a puppy.
“Okay. I’m going to let you go. But I better not ever see you in this sort of situation again. Got it?”
“Yeah. I swear, I really didn’t even want to do it in the first place. Thanks, Mac, really,” he said, and then limped toward the school. I watched as he went inside, probably to the bathroom, where he could cry in privacy.
Justin had known that I was going to be out here today. And I’d had no idea to even watch out for that kid. Something definitely wasn’t right. First the Tanzeem thing and now this. I was getting a bad feeling that I had a snitch on my hands, and considering what I saw just moments before the attack, I had a good idea of who it might be. One thing was definitely pretty clear: I couldn’t really trust anybody outside our business anymore.
During afternoon recess I dismissed all of the bullies and my other employees except for Fred, Joe, and Vince. There was no sense in moving forward with any further plans until we took care of the snitch. As long as Staples had a man on the inside, none of us were safe. I scheduled a meeting for Joe, Vince, and me for later that night to discuss what to do about the mole.
At least the plan to neutralize Staples’s influence here was working for the time being. No bets were being placed and we had eliminated the Collector. That’s why it was too bad that it all came crashing down after school that day. A day I now refer to as Black Thursday.
Chapter 11
That day after school as Vince, Joe, and I walked Fred home, I heard someone shouting for help. It was coming from an alley that ran behind the houses across from the school. There were actually a few voices yelling for help.
“Hear that?” I asked as I veered off toward the alley.
“Yeah, Mac, but be careful,” Fred said.
We approached the alley with great caution, but there was no need to. We saw them almost immediately. It was most of my hired muscle.
Four of my bullies all sat next to each other right in the middle of the alley and two others stood nearby. We jogged over to them and I swore under my breath when I was close enough to see them clearly. Little Paul, the Hutt, Kevin, and iBully were all tied up on the ground. Some were crying. Only Snapper and PrepSchool were not bound, but they still looked pretty shaken. They were trying to untie the others, unsuccessfully. I knew immediately what had happened. I had ordered a hit on Staples’s hit man, so he responded by ordering a hit on my hit men.
“Help us, Mac,” Kevin said. Kevin was a seventh grader. A real tough kid, actually, and now his eyes were red from crying.
We freed the four of them and they all rubbed their wrists and tried to soothe their injured pride. These were the kings of the school and they had just been manhandled and made fools of. They weren’t even angry; they all looked more scared than anything else.
I addressed the Hutt, as he seemed to be the only one who could talk without crying or stumbling over a busted lip.
“How did this happen?” I asked.
“They were jus’ there waitin’ for us,” the Hutt said.
“Who?”
“It was a bunch a’ high schoolers and Justin Johnston. I was on my way home when these two high school kids grabbed me and forced me here. And then when I got here, they tied me up and then they brought everybody else here, too. There were like four or five high school kids and Justin and his friend Mitch. They, like, punched us and kicked