The Schwa Was Here

The Man Upstairs, I thought, and something began to trou­ble me. Because I knew a man upstairs, too.

“Uh ... Dad. What reason did they give for firing you?”

“It was the weirdest thing. They gave me this story about someone making a massive investment in our product develop­ment, but only if they fired me.”

1 suddenly felt my skin begin to pull tight, like shrink-wrap on the Night Butcher’s steaks.

“It doesn’t make sense,” he said. “Why would anyone do that?”

Someone gave a ton of money . . . but only if my dad was fired. There was only one person I knew twisted enough to do something like that. Someone who had made a threat to get my dad fired once before.

When I got to Crawley’s place, the old man didn’t seem sur­prised to see me. That was my first clue that my suspicions were right on target.

“I need someone to walk my dogs,” he said as he opened the door.

“I couldn’t care less,” I told him. “You got my dad fired, didn’t you, you twisted old—”

“Careful, Mr. Bonano. I don’t take kindly to crude insults.”

I paced away from him, my fists clenched. Controlling your temper isn’t easy when you really don’t want to control it. If I blew a gasket now, though, I knew it could be a whole lot worse. This guy could end up punishing my whole family for the things I did.

“You’re a monster,” I told him. “My father worked nine years for that company, and now what is he going to do?”

He calmly returned to his place on the living-room sofa. “Why is that my problem?”

I felt like charging at him, but instead let loose a scream of pure rage that got all the dogs barking. And when the dogs qui­eted down, Crawley said, “Perhaps I can offer him some menial position.” He gave me the nastiest of smirks. “Floor scrubber . .. janitor ... dog walker.”

I was about to tell him exactly what he could do with his me­nial position, but then he said, “Of course there is that new restaurant I recently acquired ...” He looked off, scratching his temple like this was something that just occurred to him, when clearly it wasn’t.

“What are you talking about?”

“I’ve decided one restaurant isn’t enough, so I bought a sec­ond one a few miles away. An Italian place.”

“My father is not sweeping your floors!”

“No, I don’t expect he would.” Crawley looked at me, drag­ging this out like a sick kid pulling the wings off a fly. “What I really need is a business partner for the new restaurant. Some­one who can run it. Someone who knows Italian cooking.”

I tried to speak, but all that came out was a stuttering, “Duh ... duh .. . duh.”

“Do you know of anyone in need of employment who might fit those qualifications?”

“H-h-how much does it pay?”

Crawley gri

How was I supposed to respond to this? Did Crawley get my father fired just so he could offer him what he always wanted? How twisted is that? It’s like the guy who throws somebody overboard just so he can rescue him and be the big hero. Craw­ley was so good at pulling strings, and at underhanded manip­ulation. Did I want my father under Crawley’s thumb? And then I realized with a little bit of relief that it wasn’t my deci­sion to make. It was my father’s.

“Tell him to pay me a visit,” Crawley said.

“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, sure.” I turned to go, in a bit of a daze. All that was left of my anger was a whole lot of smoke for me to choke on. But before I escaped, Crawley stopped me.

“One more thing. I have a job for you, too.”

“Walking dogs?”

“No.” He grabbed his cane, stood up, and crossed the room toward me. “I understand that you are no longer dating my granddaughter.”

“Yeah, so?”

“I would like you to pretend that you are when her parents return from Europe.”

“Excuse me?”

“You see, her parents absolutely despise you, so that makes you my best friend.”

“How can they despise me? They’ve never even met me!”

“They despise the concept of you.”

There are a whole lot of things about rich people I don’t think I’ll ever understand. But somehow I think it’s better that way. “I don’t want to be paid to date Lexie, so keep your money in your grubby little hands where it belongs.”

“That’s not the job I’m talking about.” He took another step closer, and for the first time, I sensed in him just a little bit of uncertainty. He squinted, like he was examining me, but I could tell he was deciding whether or not to offer me this “job” at all.

“For the monthly stipend of one hundred dollars, plus ex­penses, I would like you and my granddaughter to kidnap me once each month.” “Excuse me?”

“You heard me,” he snapped. “You are to kidnap me. You are to catch me by surprise. You are to plan some creative and ad­venturous event. And if I don’t threaten to have you jailed at least once during the day, then you shall be fired.”

Then he turned around and went back to the sofa, refusing to look at me again.

“Kidnap you, huh? I woulda done that for free.”

“Telling me that is bad business,” he grunted. “Now leave.”

Even before I mentioned it to my father, I called the Schwa. He knew Crawley—he’d be able to commiserate. But when I dial his number, I get this recording. The number’s been discon­nected. At first I thought it must be a mistake, so I dialed again, and got the same thing. There was no forwarding number.

The feeling I had deep down in my gut was even worse than what I felt when my dad told me how he got fired. It was sun­down now. Flurries were falling, and the wind had gotten bliz­zard cold. Still, I got on my bike and rode at full speed to the Schwa’s house.

There was a FOR SALE sign on the lawn.

It had red lettering and featured the picture of a realtor, her face gri

I hurried up to the Schwa’s front door, knocked, and didn’t wait for an answer before I tried the knob. It was locked. I peeked in the little window next to the door, and my worst fear was confirmed. I didn’t see any furniture. I went around the house, looking in every window. The place had been emptied out. There wasn’t even any of the usual junk left in corners when you move—the entire place was clean.

I was scared now, the way you’re scared when you come home to find someone’s broken in and stolen your stuff. I took down the number of the realtor and left. I don’t carry a cell phone, because my parents told me I’d have to pay for it myself, and there’s no one I’d pay to talk to. The nearest set of pay phones was by the gas station a few blocks away. Four phones. One had a jammed coin slot, two had no receivers, and the last one was hogged by some guy telling his life story. When he saw me coming, he turned his back to me, making it clear he wasn’t giving up the phone. It was only when I started hanging around his car, trying to look as suspicious as possible, that he got off the phone and left.

I fed whatever change I had in my pocket into the phone and dialed the realtor’s number. A receptionist put me through to Rona Josephson, million-dollar seller.

“I’m calling about a house for sale. I don’t want to buy it, I just need to get in touch with the people selling it.” Then I gave her the address.

“I’m sorry,” she said, not sounding sorry at all, “we can’t give out that kind of information.”

“I don’t care! I need the phone number!”

“Don’t you take that tone of voice with me! Who do you think you are?”

This was not going well. I took a deep breath and tried to pretend I wasn’t talking to an imbecile. “I’m sorry. The kid who lived there, he . . . he’s a friend and, uh . . . he left his medicine in my house. But now I don’t know where he is. I have to get him back his medicine.”