“Otherwise, he’s out.”
“I’m afraid so.” He holds his hands up appeasingly. “No rush. Take the weekend and think things through.”
What he means, really, is that we should let Jake’s mother get involved in the matter, and she’ll straighten it out to everyone’s satisfaction. He’s trying to buy time, but my son won’t let him.
Jake gets to his feet. “You can have my apology right now,” he begins. “I’m sorry, truly sorry, that a man in your position can be this frightened and freaked out by words on a page. I’m also sorry you dragged my father into this mess. He never liked this school in the first place, and not just because it’s ridiculously expensive. Am I right, Dad?”
I lick my dry lips. “I’ve had some issues with it.”
I’m sweating from places I never even knew I had. The headmaster’s face looks as if it’s been dusted with flour. He manages to force a slight smile as he says, “Is there anything else, Jacob?”
“Yes, sir. I just hope that somehow you manage to develop a sense of humor. But it’s probably too late. It’s not really the kind of thing you learn. You’re pretty much born with it, or you’re not.”
The headmaster gets to his feet, which leaves me as the only one still sitting. “All right, Jacob,” he says. “Go and clean out your locker.”
There’s the tiniest of grins on Jake’s face, as if he’s on the opposite side of a chessboard and just suckered his opponent into the very move he’d been hoping for. Slowly, oh so slowly, Jake reaches for the knot in his tie, undoes it, pulls it from around his neck, and tosses it on the headmaster’s desk before walking out. A heartbeat later he pokes his head back in, looking only at me. Peter Plymouth no longer exists, as far as Jake is concerned.
“Meet you in front in five, Dad.”
“Okay, Jake.”
The headmaster picks up the tie, rolls it into a coil, and hands it to me, as solemnly as they hand folded flags to the mothers of dead soldiers. “I’m very sorry it had to happen this way, Mr. Sullivan.”
I stick the coiled tie in my pocket. I’m obviously expected to leave the office, but I don’t budge. We still have business to conduct, but Mr. Plymouth doesn’t seem to realize this.
“What about my refund?”
“I’m sorry?”
“The tuition. The school year just started and you’re kicking him out. You owe me my deposit, plus the first installment. I figure it’s about seven grand.”
His eyes widen in what appears to be genuine surprise. “Oh, no, no, no,” 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