he says. “That’s not how it works, I’m afraid.”
“You’re afraid?”
“Mr. Sullivan, read your contract. The money is nonrefundable.”
At last, it’s time for me to get to my feet. I don’t want to be looking up the man’s nostrils at a time like this. “Do you actually think I’d let you kick my son out of this place and keep my money?”
“Mr. Sullivan—”
“Do you have any idea of how much I love money? I love money almost as much as this school does.”
“We do not love money.”
“You don’t exactly hate it, do you?”
“The school takes the loss as well.”
“The hell it does. The school year just started! Some poor slob on the waiting list will be here on Monday morning. When he gets here, give him this.”
I take the coiled tie from my pocket and throw it at his chest. Now we’ve taken it up a notch. Technically, I’ve assaulted him, but even a tight-ass like Peter Plymouth would be too embarrassed to file charges against a man who’s attacked him with a scrap of cotton-blend fabric.
In fact, he doesn’t even flinch. He picks up the tie and puts it in his jacket pocket. “Again,” he says, “I urge you to read your contract.”
Suddenly he’s oddly calm about the whole thing. He’s such a Caucasian that it’s almost laughable. In his head, it’s all over. He figures he’s got the law on his side, and that’s that.
I breathe deeply, force myself to remain calm. It’s time for me to roll out the heavy artillery.
“I’m not going to read the contract,” I say. “But if I don’t get my money back, you’re going to be reading something you won’t like very much.”
“What exactly does that mean?”
God, am I glad I haven’t told this man that I was fired an hour ago!
“It means that my newspaper has been sitting on a story about these ‘rave-up’ parties held at the homes of rich kids from schools like this one. Kids even younger than my son, boozing and drugging it up while their parents are away for the weekend, or running around Europe.”
I pat my inner jacket pocket, where I still have my New York Star notebook. “I’ve got names and addresses. The police have been called more than once, and I’ve got details from a few emergency room reports, the kinds of details you never read about in the headmaster’s monthly newsletter. For instance, did you know that one of the star players from your basketball team nearly flat-lined it at St. Luke’s/Roosevelt after he swallowed Ecstasy a few weeks ago? Best part is, he bought the drugs in this building, from a senior. An honor student, as I recall. But I’ll have to check my notes to be sure.”
I thought the headmaster had already turned as pale as he could, but I was wrong. Now he looks as if he’s just donated a gallon of blood. He tries to lick his lips, and his tongue actually sticks to his lower lip.
“I don’t believe you,” he lies.
“Well, maybe you’ll believe it when you read about it, and that phone on your desk starts ringing off the hook. Funny I should happen to have been the reporter assigned to check out this story, huh? I checked it out, all right, but I pissed on it to my bosses for the sake of my son. But that reason no longer exists. If I don’t get my money back, the story runs in the New York Star. With pictures.”
“Pictures?” The word leaps out of him as if he’s been jabbed with a needle.
I nod solemnly. “These kids today have everything. Cell phones with digital cameras in them! Suddenly everybody’s a photographer. Click, click. You throw ’em a few bucks, and they’re happy to e-mail them over.”
“Pictures of what?”
“Sixteen-year-olds being held upside down while beer from a keg is pumped into their mouths. Kids snorting something that isn’t powdered sugar. Of course, we’ll have to put bars across their eyes, because they’re just kids. But some of them, Mr. Plymouth, are your kids.”
“Was Jacob at these events?”
“Jake, as we both know, is no longer a student at this school. But I don’t mind telling you that he wasn’t there.”
Of course he wasn’t there. Nobody was there. I was making it all up as I went along. It’s funny how imaginative you can get with that kind of money on the line.
Peter Plymouth slams his hand down hard on his desk, and for the first time, it dawns on me that I could be in physical danger. He’s bigger and younger than me, and I know I’m pushing him in ways he’s never been pushed.
He can take a poke at me if he wants, so long as I leave his office with a check. But he won’t take a poke at me. He’s hit his desk in frustration because I’ve beaten him, and he’s not used to losing.
He pulls open one of his desk drawers, takes out a leather-bound book, opens it up, uncaps a fountain pen with a shaky hand and starts writing almost frantically, as if he’s just had a great idea he doesn’t want to forget. It only takes a few seconds, and when he’s through he puffs on the page to dry the ink, then tears it out of the book and holds it out to me.
It’s a check for seven thousand dollars and no cents. It’s actually slightly higher than the total I’ve paid so far for Jake’s senior year. I reach for the check, but he pulls it back, cocks his head, and narrows one eye at me.
“I assume I won’t be reading anything disturbing in the New York Star.”
“Not from me you won’t.”
He hands over the check. “Good-bye, Mr. Sullivan.”
I fold the check and slip it into my wallet. “I’ll be back if it bounces.”
“It won’t bounce.”
“Hand me Jake’s essay, will you? I may have it framed.”
He hands me the loose-leaf pages, which I carefully fold and slip inside my jacket pocket, next to my trusty notebook. I go to the door while Peter Plymouth returns to his chair. I turn to him one last time.
“You did the right thing here,” I say, patting my wallet.
“Is that so?”
“Yes, it is. I can see why you’re such a good sailor. The wind shifted, and you set your sails accordingly.”
“Leave now or I’m phoning security.”
I can’t help laughing. “Funny, that’s the second time today I’ve been threatened with security. Never knew I was such a dangerous person.”
His secretary doesn’t even glance at me as I go past her.
CHAPTER FOUR
Jake stands outside the building, leaning
