The Fourth Stall - Chris Rylander [40]
“Deal.” I took the keys and shook his hand.
The East Wing bathroom is a safe place to have an office because, really, the janitor is the only school official ever to go in that bathroom. Dickerson never would because of his unfortunate toilet seat incident, and all the other teachers have their own cleaner, bigger bathrooms in the teachers’ lounge, so I’m free and clear. And the students don’t complain either. Our business helps them out, and like I said before, squealing is not allowed here. The best part was that once word got out that I had orchestrated the unmasking of the Graffiti Ninja, our business doubled. So that’s how the janitor and I started our business relationship. He still comes to me for help from time to time to get kids to stop putting gum under their chairs and stuff like that.
So I can get pretty much any key I want from the janitor, no problem, no questions.
But that’s kind of what made this particular mission so dangerous. If we got caught in the school before it opened, I could potentially get the janitor fired and us expelled. Which would be about the last thing I’d ever want to see happen.
“Hurry up, Mac!” Vince whispered.
I nodded and slid the key into the small slot on the combination dial. I had to wiggle the key a little as I turned it, but eventually a metallic click was followed by the creak of the locker door swinging open. We were in.
I wasn’t sure exactly what we’d find, but I remembered from my meeting with Jacky Boy that he carried around a notebook of all the bets he’d taken. I just hoped he kept it at school. His locker was a disaster, and we found a surprising amount of loose dollar bills and, oddly enough, a nice collection of little bundles of hair of all different colors. We looked at one another, resisted the urge to ask because none of us actually wanted to know, and then kept searching.
Then I found it. Nestled way in the back behind a huge geography textbook. His little notebook. We flipped it open and scanned the pages together using a small flashlight. When we got to page thirteen, that’s when we saw it.
Brady’s name. And next to it a staggering dollar amount with a negative symbol in front of it. Then right after that in parentheses Jacky Boy had scribbled, Doesn’t have the money, will pay back with major favor.
We didn’t want to believe it, but it doesn’t get much clearer than that. Brady was our snitch. How could I have been so stupid? I blamed myself, really, for the information leak. The general rule was never to let anyone outside the business know what you’re thinking. And I had broken that rule by bringing in Brady.
“The little snitch. We should do to him what Ronald McDonald does to ketchup packets,” Vince said. From the look in his eyes I could tell it wasn’t a joke. That’s the thing about Vince that only I know: Most of the time when people think he’s only joking around, he actually is being serious.
Joe laughed, but he didn’t sound all that amused. “We should make copies of this book.”
I was just about to agree when the hallway lights flicked on. We froze. That meant it was 7:05. Teachers would be showing up any minute. There just wasn’t time. We shoved the book back into its hiding spot, slammed the locker shut, and took off sprinting toward the nearest exit. After removing our masks, we circled the block and came back in through another door as if we were just arriving.
Chapter 13
Later that day at lunch Joe escorted Brady into my office. I’d had to fire someone only once before and it hadn’t been pleasant. Plus, I still liked Brady. I couldn’t believe he would double-cross us like that.
“What’s up, Mac? Why’s everyone acting so serious?” he asked as he sat down.
“The jig is up, Brady. It’s over,” I said.
He shook his head and furrowed his brow.
“Don’t play dumb, Brady. I know what you’ve been doing,” I said.
“Mac, I . . . I’m not sure what you mean,” he said slowly.
“I think you do know,” I said. “And it’s over. You’re fired.”
“Why are you doing this, Mac? What about