Finding Mighty Page 15

  Now it was our turn to be surprised. “Where?” I demanded.

  “On St. Vincent Ave in the Bronx. Meeting the Fencers. I went there early to drop off a stack of newspapers where I know they have coffee every morning. I wanted to see their faces when they read the front page. Then who comes in but your brother. He was with someone—Michael.”

  “Who’s that?” Myla asked.

  I didn’t know and neither did Kai.

  “But the Fencers think your brother knows where the diamonds are,” she said.

  “He doesn’t!” I exclaimed. “If he did, he’d be home.”

  “Well, they’re giving him a week to find the diamonds for them.”

  “Or what?” Myla asked.

  From inside the store, someone called for Kai. “I have to go. But Peter, if your brother knows where the diamonds are, you have to tell him to turn them in. It’s his only way to be safe.”

  “How can I do that if I don’t know where he is?” I shot back at her.

  Kai shrugged. “Then find him.”

  After she went back inside, Myla and I walked on, shell-shocked.

  Then Myla said, “Let’s forget the diamonds—let’s find Randall. Maybe that friend of his, Nike, knows where he is.”

  I shook my head. “I tried that and it didn’t work. And now I can’t reach him anymore. No, we stick to our plan. We look for the diamonds.”

  “But isn’t Kai right? Whoever finds them should turn them in.”

  “You know what? I’m tired of all these shoulds. Randall is in even more trouble than I thought. If we find the stones, that’s the only bargaining chip we have with the Fencers, the only protection. Unless, of course, this dumb town beats us to it.”

  Myla looked at me quickly. “Listen, Peter, I know you’re worried about everybody looking and what chance you have. But everyone thinks Scottie Biggs hid the diamonds. They’re trying to read his mind, think the way he does. They don’t know about your grandmother.”

  “So?”

  “So, you know her better than anyone else. That has to make a difference. Just think, did she tell you anything that would help us find her Om?”

  It was so long ago, Grandma Rose was more like an outline than a real person filled in. “The only thing I remember is a purple sweater she wore. Ma said it was her walking sweater, that Grandma Rose walked a lot. I wanted a walking sweater, too, when I was little, just like her.”

  “Okay, a purple walking sweater. That’s important. Where would a walker hide diamonds in a small river town?”

  “In her apartment?”

  Myla shook her head. “Your dad would have checked all the usual places—her apartment, the bank, whatever. Think—where else?”

  “I don’t know! Don’t you see? I’m new here. Everyone else has a head start over me.”

  “I’m not new.”

  I didn’t say anything. But I couldn’t help thinking, what could two kids really do?

  At last we turned onto Walnut, where Uncle Richard worked. But thankfully I didn’t see him, just construction equipment and two-by-fours lying on the ground next to the old house.

  “They’re renovating,” Myla said as we passed by.

  “I know. My uncle Richard works here.”

  “My brother and I used think this place was haunted.” Myla looked thoughtful. “Would your uncle ever let us take a look inside just for fun?”

  Something about Uncle Richard crossing paths with Myla made me nervous. Actually, Uncle Richard crossing paths with anybody made me nervous. “He probably doesn’t have a key,” I said.

  “Of course he would. And I bet the key would be funky, too. One of those with the loops and . . .” Her hand went over her heart like she was going to pass out. “Oh, Peter. I just thought of something. Why didn’t I think of Margaret before?”

  “Margaret?” Why did that woman’s name keep coming up? It was as if she was still here in the house, like some spirit we couldn’t see, but we knew was there.

  Meanwhile, Myla’s eyes were wide open. “Peter, I know exactly where we should look for the diamonds!”

  Tops’s Gym was located on the Upper East Side, between a baby store and a hair salon. Inside it was pretty chill with lots of space and sunlight. Even so, the whole day I was flipping out. Maybe I shouldn’t have taunted Bernie. Maybe I shouldn’t have told him to watch his back. I’d pissed him off, and the other Fencers, too. But I couldn’t help it. I hated their smug looks. I hated being given orders. Most of all, I hated how no one cared that they had destroyed my family. It seemed the only choice for me was to get even. But what could a sixteen-year-old guy do in the dark world of diamond thuggery? Worst of all, I was sick thinking of Petey, or what would happen to him and Ma if I didn’t deliver the diamonds. If I found them at all.

  Monte, one of the gym assistants, found me downstairs. “Mighty, we need you, ASAP.”

  So I hauled myself upstairs. It was the pact I’d signed with the devil: Tops and I looked for the diamonds, and I worked in his gym for free. The second floor was decked out with purple and red mats, graffiti walls, fake brick, ladders, railings, metal bars, and stoops at different levels. Like what you’d find outside but a hundred times nicer with no rust, gaps, or broken glass.

  “What’s wrong?” Monte observed. “You’ve been dragging your feet all day.” So I tried to hustle as we moved mats. On the other side of the room, Monte’s brother, Dominic, was teaching.

  “You’ve seen climbers use this,” Dominic said, holding up his hands all covered in chalk. “It’s great for keeping the sweat off, and for giving you a grip. But some parkour purists don’t like chalk. Any guess why?”

  One guy said, “You slip on metal.”

  “Not really,” Dominic said. “Gymnasts use it all the time, right?”

  Another guy about a foot shorter than everybody said, “Leaves a mess?”

  “Right. Remember the PK motto: Leave no trace.” Dominic clapped, making a cloud of dust. “But chalk washes off. So it’s okay. Personally, I love the stuff. So does the owner of the gym.”

  I thought of the chalk in my pop’s duffel bag. Sometimes he left it lying around the apartment. The first time I thought it was for writing on the sidewalk. When I told him, he laughed and laughed. Only later I realized he used it for parkour.

  “Quit daydreaming, Mighty,” Monte said. “Grab the other end of the mat.”

  I sighed and did what he said. Though with all the worrying I was doing, you couldn’t call it daydreaming. It was more like living a nightmare.

  Tops called me to his office after he got back from the Bronx in the afternoon.

  “How to avoid the police,” I mimicked him. “How to tell reals from fakes.”

  “Oh, that.” Tops took out an egg salad from a brown paper bag, and a Snapple. “You don’t mind, do you? I missed lunch. Listen, I had to say something to get you to come. Bernie really wanted to see you. Now he has, maybe he’ll get off my back. We’ll go on as we planned.”

  This surprised me. “Wait, are you saying this morning was just a show?”

  “You got it.”

  I looked at him. “What does he have on you? Else you wouldn’t be jumping to his beat.”

  Tops took a bite of egg salad and washed it down with Snapple. “You always have a way of saying things, Mighty. I’m not jumping to anyone’s beat. But I’ve got a gym to run. And it’s a nice one, right?”

  “Sure, it’s dope.”

  “Well, it doesn’t come free. I did some stupid stuff as a kid—stealing gas, lifting auto parts. I got in trouble, but I cleaned up. Still, you think a bank is going to give a loan to someone like me?”

  “I guess not.”

  “So I had to turn elsewhere.”

  “The Fencers.”

  He shrugged. “I couldn’t have started this place without Bernie backing me financially.”

  I watched him eating his egg salad. “No offense, but what’s in it for him?”

  He wrinkled his eyebrows
. “I guess it helps I’m related.”

  I sat back. “So I was right. You are a Fencer.”

  Tops shook his head. “Bernie’s my uncle. But he’s into . . . cheese. I do parkour. Two totally different things.”

  “Yeah, but isn’t he also Scottie’s brother? I bet he’s just waiting for Scottie to get out of jail so they can be Kings of the Diamonds together.”

  Tops snorted. “Are you kidding? Bernie wants the diamonds before Scottie gets out. He wants to stay on top, and he’s only got a week.”

  “But they’re brothers.” I thought of Petey. I hope we’d never scheme against each other.

  “Well, they’re not nice brothers,” Tops said. “Sometimes the world works that way. And Bernie’s running out of time. Once he saw you were tagging Oms in the train stations, he had to find out if you knew where the diamonds were. It was like seeing Omar all over again.”

  “And I guess that’s where you come in,” I said quietly. “Bernie’s right-hand man. I was wondering why you showed up at a PK meet-up for ‘amateurs.’”

  Tops put his bottle of Snapple down. “Forget about Bernie. Forget about the Fencers. I meant it when I said I’d help you. Because of your dad. It’s the right thing to do.”

  “But your uncles—if they’re paying for your gym, they could take it away?”

  “They could.”

  “So Scottie and Bernie get the diamonds and you keep the gym.”

  He sighed. “That won’t happen, Mighty. Stick with me, and we’re gold.”

  I frowned. The whole time we were talking, we were avoiding the elephant in the room. Which was that my grandmother and pop were dead, and Bernie was threatening my life, too, and my family’s, if I didn’t comply. What was Tops going to say about that?

  But it wasn’t something I could put into words. It made me sound desperate, and I wasn’t going to stoop to begging Tops to save us. But also because there are some things that are just so awful, you don’t want to put them out there. So I just sat and stewed and stewed and hated Tops.

  I guess he sensed my thoughts. “Mighty, you’ve got to trust me. I’ll watch your back. Your family’s, too. I know what it’s like to have Bernie breathing down your neck.” An expression flickered across his face. It was like that angry look he made at the coffee shop when Bernie told him to stay back. But it went away as fast as it came. “Just tell me what you know. Anything you think that would help us find your dad’s hiding spot: notes he left behind, something he said.” He paused in a super-obvious way. “Or the black book, if you know where it is.”

  There it was again, the infernal black book. If there was one tune Tops hummed, it was that one. What was so special about that book, I didn’t know. But I knew the moment I owned up to it, any protection I’d have from Tops was gone.

  When I didn’t say anything, he nodded like he was answering some question inside his head. “So do you believe me? That I’m here to help, not to hand you over?”

  I looked out the window, at the tree blowing in the breeze. I began to wonder if Pop had ever told Tops his secret. Why would he trust this bozo? It was Tops befriending my father all along, trying to weasel out information from him. Now he was doing the same with me.

  But I could play that game, too. If Pop really hid those diamonds on one of his PK runs, I’d go on every run with Tops, I’d learn every PK move from him, and find the diamonds first. And who was to say I wouldn’t keep painting more Oms along the way?

  I stood up. “Yeah, we’re cool,” I told him.

  “Good. We start at six sharp,” he said. When I left, Tops was still eating his egg salad.

  Outside his office I wondered how I would kill time until then, when I saw who was in the lobby. I grinned and gave him a fist bump, our knuckles meeting in the air. “Nike,” I said.

  In the men’s room, I showed Nike the newspaper I’d stored in one of the lockers.

  “Mighty Man, you’re famous,” he said. “Course, I know it already because I was there.”

  “What?” I was surprised. “What do you mean?”

  “I was there. Exactly that. Who do you think sent your brother to that train station?”

  “Petey was there?” It was only two days, but I didn’t remember much. “And a girl.”

  “You better believe there was a girl. She’s the one who saved your behind.”

  “She told me to run,” I said slowly. Who was this girl that tipped me off about the cop? And the flash of those lights—

  camera lights I knew now. “Was there a news reporter, too?”

  “There was a whole army. I’ve never seen so many people.”

  I sat down on the bench. “Tell me what happened.”

  Nike described Petey coming to the store, and talking to him about where I’d paint next. Then Nike decided to go to the station to keep an eye on him. He was stunned by everyone he saw.

  “But why didn’t you warn me about the cop?” I asked. “Why’d you let a girl do that?”

  “Are you crazy out of your mind? Besides it happened so fast. Then Tops came and got you. That was him, right? So I followed Petey home. Turns out he and the girl are friends. Turns out they’re neighbors. Hear what I’m saying? I know where Petey lives. I know where your family is.”

  I got it. “Is that why you’re here? You’re coming to take me home?”

  He held his hands up. “Look, it’s a free country. Petey asked where you were, but I didn’t say. That’s your decision. I couldn’t come see you yesterday, it being Sunday, when my ma and me go to church. Don’t laugh. I don’t disrespect her.”

  I didn’t say a word. I knew there was another side to Nike.

  “So,” he went on, “you coming home? Maybe forget about the Ds.”

  “Forget about them?” My voice went up.

  “Yeah, it’s been a month, bro.”

  I sighed. “There’s more. But not here.” We headed outside, not stopping until we got to Fifth Avenue. I told him the stuff that went down this morning.

  “If you come home, maybe the Fencers won’t know where you are,” Nike said.

  I waved that off. “They’d find us.”

  We reached the Metropolitan Museum and sat down on the front steps.

  Nike looked thoughtful. “What you need is another plan.” He pointed to a banner:

  16TH-CENTURY EUROPE AND THE FINE ART OF JEWELRY MAKING

  “You want to go to an art show at the Met?”

  “Course not, fool. I’m saying, what if your pop never found the diamonds? Then they’re still where your grandma hid them. It’s time to figure out what she was doing.”

  Was Nike right? Here I was, going with what Tops said all along—that Pop had found the stones and hidden them somewhere else. But what if Tops was wrong? What if it was Grandma Rose we should be tracking? I felt a glimmer of hope. If she was the answer, then I wouldn’t need Tops after all. And I couldn’t wait to get rid of him.

  “Fine,” I said to Nike. “In that case, I know where to go.”

  When I got home I rushed to the kitchen. I grabbed the skeleton key from the drawer and stuffed it in my pocket just as Dad and Cheetah came in. “You took a long time,” Dad said. “Wondered where you were.”

  “Peter and I were talking,” I said. I was impatient to get to his house, where he was waiting. “I have to go. Peter and I are doing homework together.”

  “Okay, won’t stop you,” Dad said. “But before you go, take a look at your room.”

  I stopped. “Why? What did you do?”

  “He didn’t do anything,” Cheetah said. But he smiled like something was up.

  “Mom was the one who stayed home until lunch,” Dad said. “To let the delivery guy in.”

  “Delivery guy?” Then I suddenly knew. “But it’s too soon. I have to rearrange my room.”

  “You can do that now, Myla. You’ll like the new bed. Don’t worry.”

  “Who said I’m worrying?” I asked. “A bed isn’t a big deal.”

&nb
sp; “Then why did you make one out of stuff from the garage?” asked Cheetah.

  “Shut up. It’s your fault my bed broke.”

  “Myla,” Dad said.

  I let my backpack land on the ground with a thud. “Look, I’m not afraid, I just don’t like having a fancy bed, all right?”

  Dad and Cheetah looked at me like I was bonkers. So I hurried up to my room.

  As I pushed the door open, a sweet smell came from inside, like a mixture of pine and fresh laundry. There was the new bed, pushed up against the far wall, covered by a cream-colored bedspread with matching pillowcases, which I’d seen in a magazine. I heard Dad come in behind me.

  “Do you like it?” he asked. “Mom wanted to surprise you with the bedspread.”

  “It’s . . . nice.” I didn’t know what else to say. The bed was gleaming and gigantic and airy all at the same time. It was bigger than I’d expected.

  Dad gave my shoulders a squeeze. “Well, I’ll let you get going to Peter’s. And Myla, it’s a beautiful bed. Enjoy.” He went back downstairs.

  I sat down on it after he left, feeling the mattress spring under me. I remembered the last time there was a real bed in here. The frame was mahogany, with a Strawberry Shortcake bedspread. Every night Mom would tuck me in, put on different night lights, and sing songs. It didn’t matter. I would still end up in my parents’ room. Sometimes I woke up, yelling. Mom wore glasses all the time because she was too tired to wear her contact lenses. Then one night, silence. The next morning, they found me asleep on the green rug. That’s when they put the mattress on the floor and moved the mahogany frame to Cheetah’s room. Everybody slept fine after that.

  As I walked to the stairs, I saw Cheetah on the floor in his room, surrounded by paper. Seeing him there all by himself made me pause. “What are you doing, Cheet?”

  “Spelling club stuff.”

  I looked at the sheets filled with rows of words. “How do you remember all of that?”

  “I remember patterns. Like how words look.”

  “I could never do that.”

  “You do it all the time. It’s like seeing Mighty and Om and KINK when we go out.”

  “Those are tags, Cheet.”