Chapter 16: Subtlety And Deviousness

Molly was at school the next day, but she looked terrible. No amount of makeup could cover up the big welt by her left temple. It looked like somebody had popped her with something abrasive, and she was walking around school slowly, as if her body hurt, too.

At lunchtime, I grabbed Austin, and the two of us went out in search of Josh. We found him outside, sitting under a tree with Andrea and a couple of other kids.

"Josh. I need to talk with you, man," I said.

He looked up, but made no move to stand. "Sure, Sean. What's up?"

"Alone," I said. I knew I was sounding like a bad spy movie, but I didn't have much choice.

He made a big production out of packing up the remains of his lunch, standing, and tossing the sack in the general direction of the trash bin. "I'll be right back," he said to his girlfriend, and then he stalked over toward the side of the building, obviously unhappy with the interruption.

As we caught up with him, he stopped and turned toward Austin and me. "Okay, we're alone. What's so freaking important?"

"Have you seen Molly today?" I asked.

His face fell. "Yeah," he admitted. "Looks like she took a hit yesterday."

Austin and I told him about what had happened at the barn the previous night. We held nothing back. We didn't want the blow softened at all. In fact, I wanted him mad, as mad as he'd ever been.

"Goddamnit. Goddamnit. Goddamnit! Now what?" He started pacing back and forth. He stopped and took two steps back to us. "What can we do about it? Have you got a plan?"

"No, I don't," I admitted. "But we don't have much time. It looks like she's the property of Del Toro now, but who knows what'll happen if he gets tired of her, or she pisses him off somehow."

"Shit, I know what'll happen to her. The same thing that's happening to Pammy right now," he said disgustedly.

"I don't know if we can do anything about Pammy, anyway, even if we can remove Molly from the situation," Austin said. "From what I've heard, she might be there willingly."

"Shit," I said. "What kind of a girl would want to get involved with the Bulls willingly?"

"Don't go there," warned Josh. "It cuts a little close to home."

"Yeah, sorry," I apologized.

"I've gotta get her out of this," he said, almost to himself. "But how?"

"I don't know, but we're going to need a plan," I said.

"And some help," added Austin.

"Yeah, you're right," agreed Josh. "You're both right. Man, I just want to kidnap her right now, but I know that's no good," he added.

"I would bet she's about ready to try to get herself loose of the Bulls," I said. "Molly's never been the kind of girl who would put up with that kind of shit. They've just got her beaten down right about now."

"Still, it's coming up on the weekend. What can we do quickly?" Josh asked.

"I don't know. I've got a game tonight, and you've got a football game tomorrow afternoon. The soonest we're going to be able to plan anything out is probably either tomorrow morning, or Sunday morning." I knew none of us wanted to wait that long, but it didn't look like we had a choice.

"And what if Jilly gets tired of her after tonight?" asked Josh sourly. "Does she become community property tomorrow? Fuck!"

"Josh, do you think you can talk to her, maybe find out what she's thinking?" Austin was thinking out loud. "If she's a willing conspirator, it might make it easier to get her out."

"I don't know. Wait a minute," he said. He looked over to where his girlfriend was sitting. I had noticed that she was glancing over toward us occasionally, and looking very concerned. "Andi, can you come over here for a minute?" he called.

"This is about Molly, right?" she asked as she joined us.

"Yeah, how did you know?" I asked.

She gave me a look, as if I was the dumbest creature she had ever had the misfortune to come across. It was a look I was getting used to seeing, unfortunately.

She turned to Josh, holding onto his shirt front for emphasis. "I didn't want to bring it up to you, not until you mentioned it first. But you've got to help her, Josh. She's in bad trouble, hanging around the Bulls, and the longer she stays with them, the worse it's going to get."

"Well, it's already started to get worse, according to Sean and Austin," Josh said.

We gave her the condensed version of the story. Andrea was a bright girl, and I knew she would be able to fill in the blanks without difficulty.

She listened without comment, until we finished. "So what are you planning?" she asked.

"That's just it, we don't have a plan," complained Josh. "Sean's got a game tonight, we're at an away game tomorrow. It looks like we really can't get together and work anything out until Sunday."

"That's okay," said Andrea. "Let's plan on meeting on Sunday afternoon. That'll give me time to find out what I can, and maybe recruit some help."

"Don't be talking up this story," admonished Austin. "We don't want too many people knowing about this. And we really don't want Del Toro and his thugs to hear about it."

I was gratified to see that Andrea didn't reserve those you are an idiot looks for just me, as Austin was rewarded with one.

"Gee, you think?" she said sarcastically. "Believe it or not, boys, I can be subtle and devious when I want to be."

"Of course you can, baby," soothed Josh. "You're a girl, after all."

The soccer team had to leave school about an hour early. Our game was at Lincoln Valley High School, over an hour away by bus. We were undefeated so far, and we were determined to stay that way, all the way to the State Championships. About midway through the season, Trent Abbott was the leading scorer in our conference, and Eric Johnson had the most assists. Most of our opponents had opened their offensive sets by testing our right side, mostly to see if it was as strong as rumored. Between Kevin Soranno in the midfield, me as defenseman, and Brett Oldman and Jorge Mendoza minding the net, nobody had yet scored by attacking that side. Even after switching to the left, they still had to contend with Brett and Jorge, along with Mike Evanson plugging up the middle, and a very tenacious Anthony Rogers roaming the defensive turf over there. In six games played so far, we had only had four goals scored on us. By contrast, we had never scored less than five goals, and our offensive production totaled thirty-eight goals. We were a scoring machine.

Even Coach Neville, a history teacher and a man prone to worry, seemed relatively relaxed and confident.

According to the scouting reports, Lincoln Valley had a moderately strong team. Study of the film at Thursday's practice had shown us that they had some weakness in the middle, but their defenders seemed capable, and they were especially strong at stopper and keeper, two key defensive positions. They were strong enough, it seemed, to be able to cancel out the deficiencies of their center midfielders and forwards, as they had only lost one game so far, to perennial powerhouse Rockton Heights.

When we got to the field, there was a slight drizzle falling. On the one hand, that would slow down the ball for our quick offense, but on the other hand, we might be able to press their middle harder in slower conditions.

We unloaded our gear and hauled it over to the playing field, and got ready to warm up. Eric and I liked to take a couple of quick laps around the perimeter of the playing field before we started, just to limber up a little, and we took off while the rest of the team stretched and finished putting on their shin guards and shoes.

On our first circuit, we were just passing the goal where some of the Lincoln Valley players were warming up, taking practice shots on an empty net. I heard one of them say to a teammate, "Look at that. Chocolate and vanilla."

His friend answered, "Yeah, all they need now is a freakin' Indian, and they could call themselves the Neapolitans."

This comment was apparently hilarious, as several of the players began laughing uproariously. I could sense Eric stiffening beside me, but we kept on jogging around, doing our best to distance ourselves from the other team.

On our next time around their net, I noticed that several of their players were clustered together. "I sure hope they don't try to play us too close today," Eric said, just loudly enough to be overheard by the group. "Just in case their stupidity is contagious."

"Hey!" I heard one of the guys yell out to us. I glanced back, and a couple of the players were being held back by their teammates, apparently taking Eric's remark a little too personally.

"Way to go, Eric. Get them riled up before we take the field. Good plan," I said sourly.

He gave me a big, toothy grin. "You been gettin' it too easy lately, Porter. I'm just tryin' to ratchet up the competition for you, so the press will notice you again. You can thank me later."

"Did you notice," I pointed out, "that it wasn't me who was mouthing off to them?"

"Mmm... hmmm," he replied.

"And don't you think they'll target the one with the big mouth?"

"Uh-uh," he said with a smile. "They're gonna think twice about focusing on a poor token colored player like me. They hardly even saw me when we were going past them. Besides, we all look alike to crackers like those guys. But you..." He grinned, and nodded at me with satisfaction. "You, they'll recognize. And focus."

"Focus," I repeated disgustedly. "What a pal. Just what I need, a little focus."

"You're welcome," he said, even though I didn't remember thanking him.

They focused, all right. On their first offensive possession, they attacked our right side, throwing every available player into my sector. Kevin Soranno came back to try to help out when he saw them cluster, and I moved up to meet the ball handler. Two other Lincoln Valley players came up and sandwiched me, trying to take me out of the play as I moved on the ball. Brett stayed home, guarding his turf, but Mikey Evanson slid over to help out, trying to cut off a passing lane. Robert Anderson, from his offensive midfield position, dropped back to cover Mike's area, and Anthony, on the left, was all alone. He slid up to help Brett and Jorge protect the net.

As the two forwards converged on me, I put on the brakes, digging my heels in for traction. I stopped, but they didn't, and they ended up colliding with each other, falling over each other to the ground. I dropped and tackled the ball out from beneath the ball handler's foot, right past Mikey, who had the good sense to let it go. The ball scooted over to Robert, who deftly trapped it, and passed it up to Eric. Eric one-touched it over to Javier, our forward in the middle, and he juked the last remaining defender before tapping it over to Trent, who shot a bullet into the back of the net.

As everybody was untangling themselves from my corner of the field, I heard one of the Lincoln Valley players say to another, "We'll get him next time."

"Yeah," came the reply, "we'll have to work him on an angle next time, so he can't evade."

"Work it any way you want to, little boys," I said to them. "It'll still result in a goal against."

They spun around to glare at me.