The Quick Fix Page 2

  Sitting to Vinny’s left was his right-hand man, Kevin Carling. Kevin’s roast beef sandwich sat in front of him, untouched. He was watching me with an expression I couldn’t read, which was unusual. Before he got tangled up with Vinny, Kevin was my best friend. I thought I had all of his expressions memorized and cataloged.

  A few weeks ago, Kevin had made it clear to me that he was going to try to leave Vinny’s organization. Yet here he was, still performing the duties of a loyal second in command. If he was going to leave, he sure was taking the scenic route.

  I leaned back in the chair and folded my arms. I stared at Vinny, my jaw tight, my expression blank but with a hint of contempt. “You owe me two bucks for the lunch your meatheads trashed,” I said.

  “If you bought it here, they did you a favor.”

  “Probably … but I had almost figured out what it was. Now the suspense is going to kill me.”

  Vinny snapped his fingers. Two dollar bills appeared on the table in front of me. I picked them up, folded them, and put them in my shirt pocket. “Thanks,” I said. I started to stand up, but a giant hand on my shoulder guided me back down, gently but firmly. I sighed.

  “I am about to offer you a job,” Vinny said.

  “Let me save us both a little time,” I replied. “No.”

  “You should hear the offer first.”

  “What’s to hear? You’re going to tell me that you’ll pay me a ridiculous amount of money to do some ‘easy’ job that we both know isn’t really easy. Do you think I forgot what happened two weeks ago?”

  Vinny smiled. “No. I just assumed you raised your rates.” He gave a quick look to the kid standing over my right shoulder, and a second later, a stack of five-dollar bills appeared on the table. I looked down at the money for a moment, then back at Vinny.

  “You won’t even touch them,” he said, laughing. “I would be insulted, except this is the very reason I’m hiring you.” He reached over and pulled the stack closer to the middle of the table, then fanned the bills out. There were eight of them. I counted them four times to make sure.

  When I looked at Vinny, he was smiling at me. “That’s just to start,” he said. “There are eight more when you complete the job.”

  I glanced at Kevin, but his expression was still unreadable. I looked back at Vinny. “You’re crazy,” I said. “Either that or you think I am.”

  “On the contrary. I think I know when to pay top dollar to get the job done right.”

  “Or when to pay extra for just the right kind of sucker.”

  “Matthew, you and I both know that you’re nobody’s sucker.” I started to speak, but he cut me off. “And if you insist on bringing up events from a couple of weeks ago, may I remind you that you are sitting here in front of me, safe and sound, while others are not.”

  “And you’re looking to change that?”

  “Please. I’m not in the habit of spending forty dollars on something I can get done for less.” He stared at me for an extra beat to remind me that this was not an exaggeration or a cheap threat, just the simple truth. “But let’s forget all that,” he said with a casual wave of his hand. “Our previous ‘disagreement’ was just business, Matthew. At least, for me it was. It certainly doesn’t alter my opinion of you.”

  “Which is …”

  “That you are one of the few people in this hovel who stood up for me when I was nobody.” He paused for a moment. “Less than nobody,” he amended.

  “Yeah, you’ve tried this tactic before, remember?”

  “It’s not a tactic, Matthew. It’s the truth. You are a rare breed in the Frank,” he said. “You have integrity.”

  “Paying for integrity. Novel concept.”

  “Anyway, either you’re in business or you’re not,” he said. “If you are, then I wish to hire you. Do you want to know what for?”

  “Does it matter?”

  He smiled in a way that indicated that it didn’t. “There’s a piece of wood that’s gone missing. It’s about this big.” He held his hands up, indicating that the four-inch space between them was the size of the wood. It was about the size of a piece of white bread. “It has a design carved into one side of it. Not a picture or anything. Just some decorative swirls.”

  “A decorative piece of wood,” I said, trying to keep my face and voice as even as possible.

  “Yes. As I’ve said, it’s gone missing, and I want it back.”

  “Was it yours to begin with?” I asked.

  “Of course.”

  We stared at each other for a minute. He knew I didn’t believe him, and I knew he didn’t care what I believed.

  “You have until Friday,” he said. He pushed the stack of fives closer to me.

  I didn’t touch them. “That sounds like a threat.”

  “Think of it more as an expiration date.”

  “For me or the job?”

  “Whatever motivates you, Matthew.” He paused. “Now, if you’ll excuse me …”

  One of the big kids picked me up again, but I wasn’t in the mood. I squirmed and jerked away, breaking his grip. He smiled at me and held his hands up in an “Okay, I won’t touch you” kind of way. As I was watching him, the other goon must’ve picked the forty dollars up off the table, because before I could react, he was shoving the bills into my shirt pocket. He slapped my chest once, to make sure the money stuck. It stuck, all right. It was practically embedded.

  Vinny was back to eating his spaghetti and pretending like I was made of clear plastic. Kevin had started to eat his sandwich, but he kept his eyes on me.

  I turned and walked away. I looked over at Melissa’s table, but she and her friends were gone.

  I headed toward the exit, trying to move quickly without being noticed. Finding Melissa without looking like I was trying to find Melissa was my new number-one priority. Vinny didn’t know that she had what he was looking for, but I knew it wouldn’t be long before he did. The hallways of the Frank have eyes and ears, and one way or another, they all belonged to him.

  was willing to bet most of my birthday money that the “decorative piece of wood” Vinny had just hired me to find was the same “decorative piece of wood” that Melissa’s boyfriend had given her to hold. This was a middle school, not a flea market … there weren’t a lot of fancy knickknacks floating around here.

  I had to talk to Melissa and let her know that the status of her case had changed from “somewhat concerning” to “watch your butt” faster than you could say “Go, team, go!” I had three classes to get through before the game started, and only a couple of minutes between each to try to talk to her. And I had to be careful. My social rank wasn’t high enough that I could just walk up to a cheerleader and start talking to her. Our chat this morning was a news item that might still be making the rounds; if we added an afternoon talk, we might start a full-blown rumor. And that might be just enough to make Vinny suspicious.

  I shouldn’t have worried so much. Talking to a cheerleader one-on-one on a game day was impossible. The few times I saw her in the hallway, she was surrounded by other cheerleaders. The best I could do was give her a few vaguely ominous facial expressions. She even tried to stop once, but the flock around her was in perpetual motion, all fluttering skirts and chirpy chatter, urging her along.

  When I wasn’t trying to get Melissa’s attention, I was trying to sort out the particulars of my plan. The first course of action I was going to suggest was that she give the piece of wood back to Will. It was nice that she wanted to help him, but she wasn’t seeing the full picture. Vinny wanted that piece of wood, and he would have no qualms about putting her in the Outs to get it.

  I didn’t know how it worked in other middle schools, but life here in the Frank was pretty cheap. It didn’t take much—just a splash of liquid below the belt—and you’d find yourself in the Outs, the least popular “club” in school. Then, for all intents and purposes, your life was over.

  Vinny had started the Outs last year. It was the last key
step in his rise to power.

  Once, Vinny was nothing more than a victim of ridicule, another chubby kid whose only seeming purpose was to be a whipping boy for the big, the mean, and the popular. Nobody bothered to find out if he was capable of anything more than absorbing abuse.

  It turned out that he was capable of a lot more.

  Vinny started building his organization right under everyone’s noses. He found kids with angelic faces and devilish attitudes, then paid them handsomely to steal answer keys to exams. It was a smart investment, and he used some of the earnings to branch out.

  He used his own weight issues to become the poster child for anti-obesity, convincing the administration that the sweets available in the school cafeteria had contributed to his weight gain. It worked. The vending machines got moved out, but everyone’s desire for junk food stayed put. And guess who was there to fill the void? Yep— Vinny. He had funneled some of his stolen-exam money into buying oversized bundles of candy from one of those wholesale clubs. He slapped APPROVED stickers on them, then hired some eighth-grade muscle to make sure that his was the only candy in the Frank. The result? Another fortune.

  Vinny’s organization kept getting bigger, but also harder for him to handle on his own. He came to me, asking if I wanted to become his second in command … mostly because when he was still getting picked on, I had gone out of my way to stand up for him. I turned him down. I saw where he was heading, and I didn’t like it.

  My best friend, Kevin, had a different opinion … and when Vinny went to him with the same offer, Kevin said yes.

  It killed our friendship.

  With Kevin at his side, Vinny dipped his fingers into forgeries. If you needed a doctor’s note or a hall pass or even a whole report card, Vinny supplied it, and at a reasonable price. Then he really got serious: gambling.

  Kevin and Vinny set up books on all of the school’s sports teams. Gambling exploded, doubling Vinny’s “earnings” almost overnight. The only problem he encountered was that some kids still viewed him as a pudgy little punching bag. Those bullies would convince him to front them the money for their bets. Then, when they lost, they’d refuse to pay up.

  Vinny had to make an example of them; otherwise his whole business would collapse. Beating kids up would draw the attention of adults. Plus, it might inspire some of the tougher kids to group together and fight back. No … he had to find a way to humiliate kids, knock them completely off the social board. That’s where the Outs came in.

  He started by targeting kids who had tormented him in the past. He had his hit kids squirt the victims in the front of their pants, to make it look like they had peed themselves. If you got marked with the pee stain, you’d find yourself instantly surrounded by a jeering crowd determined to destroy your reputation and your self-respect.

  Was it childish? Sure. Did most kids know the pee was fake? Yeah, probably. But it didn’t matter. Once a kid got marked, the rest of the school would gang up and make his—or her—life miserable. Whether the pee was fake or not wasn’t the point. The real point was that, in a lot of ways, middle school was rotten. Most kids felt like they were one false move away from becoming the class joke anyway—one little slipup, and they’d become a laughingstock. That’s what Vinny counted on. He turned that fear into a weapon. If everyone was laughing at someone else, that meant that they weren’t laughing at you.

  Once you were in the Outs, you were done for. You were an outcast. As far as everyone else was concerned, you didn’t exist anymore. Kids in the Outs were ghosts of their former selves, completely invisible—unless someone needed a whipping post … Then they were automatically elected.

  Kids in the Outs came in all shapes and flavors: ordinary kids who got themselves in over their heads with candy or gambling debts; populars who thought their status allowed them to get away with anything; former employees of Vinny’s who got a little greedy. No one was untouchable. There was no such thing as being too good or too tough or too popular. If you got splashed, you were in the Outs. End of story.

  I’d thought about trying to stop it—trying to turn the tide, trying to get everyone to stop buying into this whole stupid system. But I was just one kid. Greater forces than I wanted this system in place. If I tried to put a stop to it, I’d find myself up “Pee-Pee River” without a paddle, and then I’d be no use to anyone. The best I could do was to work with people who needed help but couldn’t figure out where to get it. And once I found them (or they found me), I did all I could to protect them.

  And that’s why, even though this case had grown into something a lot bigger and more dangerous than I had expected, I was sticking by Melissa. She was in trouble, and she’d hired me to help her. The size of the trouble may have changed, but that only meant she needed me more—even if she would never admit it. Cheerleaders were higher up on the social ladder, but they weren’t immune to the Outs. In fact, when it happened, they fell harder than others. I knew that if Melissa was stubborn enough to hold on to that piece of wood, she didn’t stand a chance. Giving it back to Will might be her best shot, because he might be the only kid in the entire school who couldn’t be put in the Outs.

  Why? Because he was in a social class all his own. Kids in the Frank worshipped him, not only for his looks and his ability on the court (although that was part of it) but also for his integrity. Everyone loved him. He could be the only kid in school that the other kids wouldn’t rush to humiliate, and Vinny knew it. If Melissa gave Will the piece of wood and Vinny tried to put Will in the Outs, it might not stick. Then the whole fragile house of cards could come tumbling down … and take Vinny’s entire organization with it.

  When the bell finally rang for my last class of the day, I ran out the door. If I made it down to the gym before the game started, there was a chance I could talk to Melissa alone. I might even be able to take some of the heat off her—

  He came out of nowhere, or at least it seemed that way because I wasn’t paying attention. In half a second, my back was against a row of lockers, and a pale white forearm was pressing into my neck. A matching pale, greasy face was staring at me, mouth in a twisted sneer, showing just a glimpse of yellow teeth. A ragged black line from the dye in his hair bled onto his forehead.

  “Timothy Thompson,” I said. “You handsome devil! When’s your book on beauty tips coming out?”

  His sneer widened, showing a little more of his corn-colored teeth, but he didn’t say anything.

  His sister, Tina Thompson, came sauntering toward me. “Matthew Stevens,” she said, dragging out every syllable.

  Tim and Tina were fraternal twins who were sure that nature had made a mistake by not making them identical, so they tried to correct it. They wore the same clothes and the same shoes, and had the same black hair (his was dyed), cut in the same short, head-hugging manner. If it wasn’t for the fact that they looked nothing alike, you wouldn’t be able to tell them apart. They were twice as creepy as they looked and four times as shady.

  In some ways, they were like me: kids who didn’t have any allegiance to any group. The difference was that I liked to think I had some morals … maybe even a little bit of honor. The Thompsons were ruthless. They wanted money, and a lot of it. And they didn’t give a damn how they got it.

  “Tina,” I said. “Tell your brother he can hug me all he wants, but pretty soon I’m going to start charging him.”

  “I think he heard you just fine,” she said. Tim squeezed my throat a little to show me that he had. “We have a job offer for you,” she continued, “and we want to make sure we have your attention.”

  “Do you always rough up your potential employees?” I asked.

  She stopped to think. “You know, we’ve never had employees before … only employers. You treat people so much better when they give you money, don’t you think?”

  “Are we going someplace specific,” I asked, “or are we just going to wander around all day, waiting for one of you to say something witty?”

  Tina looked a
t me. Her face was twitching. It took me a minute to realize that she was trying to look sad. “We lost something,” she finally said. “And we’d like you to find it for us.”

  “If it’s your individual identities, I think you’re out of luck. Nobody’s seen those in years.”

  Tim squeezed my throat again. I thought about biting his arm, but I didn’t want to risk catching any diseases. His sister put her hand up. Tim loosened his grip.

  “It’s a piece of wood with a pretty design carved into it,” Tina said.

  I clenched my jaw and tried not to blink.

  “Our grandfather gave it to us,” she continued. “Right before he died, and … well, we do miss him so.” She started to cry, but apparently her tears were the kind that evaporated on contact with oxygen. “We can’t understand why anyone would want to take it from us, seeing as it has absolutely no value except for sentimental.” Her breath hitched, and she cut off the flow of invisible tears.

  “Someone took it from you?” I asked. “I thought you said it was lost.”

  “It is. We suspect it may have been stolen, though.”

  “What makes you suspect that?”

  She looked at her brother, who gave her a subtle headshake. “I really don’t feel comfortable talking about it until we have an agreement,” she said. “Will you help us, Matt? Please?” She tried to make a sympathetic face, but all she could muster was one of hunger and desperation, with a little bit of disgust for having said the word “please.”

  “Sorry. I’m in the middle of a couple of things right now.” I reached up and grabbed Tim’s forearm with both hands, then twisted my hands in opposite directions. “Rope burn!” I yelled, apparently unable to contain myself.

  “Gah!” he shouted, and let go of me. I took hold of the front of his shirt with my left hand, and cocked my right in the ready position. His eyes went wide, anticipating impact.

  Then I heard the squirt gun click in front of me. It sounded like a big one. I looked up. It was.