Lost Boy (19 page)

“Hey, old-timer.” The guard with the sunglasses smiled and his teeth flashed white surrounded by the dark beard and mustache. “Heard you started some trouble already. What're you doing out here in the street? You know you can't be here. You're gonna cause an accident.”

“Old-timer? Why don't you just call me Crooked-man?”

“Hey, no need to get hot.” The guard held his hands up in surrender and spoke in the pleasant tone of a friendly neighbor. “Why don't you two come with me? I can get you right inside where you won't get run down.”

The guard waved his hands at an oncoming car and he motioned for them to go around. Ryder tightened his grip on the chair and began easing it down the slope toward the driveway with the security guard waving cars aside. The crowd of fans gaped with open mouths when they saw Ryder and Mr.
Starr on the inside of the fence with a security guard escorting them.

Mr. Starr snickered. “See what I mean, Ryder? Grease.”

The guard led them right through the crowd and in through the player parking lot gates. Ryder looked over his shoulder, just praying for the blue Maserati to appear. It didn't, but the guard led them to a wide-open entrance leading into the stadium.

“This is where the players go in.” The guard waved his arm in welcome. “Come right in.”

“Well, we can wait out here,” Ryder said.

“No, you guys just come with me. I've got the perfect spot for you to wait, and you won't be getting in the way when people are trying to park. That could get me into trouble.”

“We don't want to get this fine young man into trouble, Ryder.” Mr. Starr's eyes blazed with delight. “And if he's got a better place, why shouldn't we take it?”

Ryder shrugged and the guard punched the button on an elevator. It dinged and the doors opened.

“Right this way, gentlemen.”

“The locker rooms are upstairs?”

“Actually, downstairs.” The guard smiled big.

Ryder wheeled the chair inside. The doors closed, but the elevator heaved upward.

“I thought the locker room was down,” Ryder said.

“Oh, this darn thing has a mind of its own sometimes.” The guard hammered the back of his fist against the buttons to prove it and the B light went on.

They stopped at the floor above.

When the doors opened, two Atlanta City Police stood
with their arms crossed, waiting.

“Well?” The sound of Mr. Starr's voice didn't contain an ounce of respect or fear for the police. “Are you getting on? Are you going down, or what?”

One of the cops, a sergeant with three gold stripes on his short-sleeved black shirt, smiled at the security guard, then Ryder, and finally at Mr. Starr before he spoke.

“No,” he said, “I'm not going down, and neither are you.”

“This man promised to take us to meet Thomas Trent!” Mr. Starr's shriek made Ryder's hair stand up.

Ryder stood aside as the sergeant stepped in and took hold of the chair, wheeling Mr. Starr right off the elevator. Ryder followed.

“You can't stalk the players, sir.” The security guard's friendly face had fallen flat. “Wheelchair or no wheelchair, you're being a menace.”

The guard held the button that kept the doors open and he asked the sergeant, “You need me to sign anything else?”

“No. We got your statement and we got your partner's.” The sergeant
gave a short nod.

“Because they were at it again,” the guard said. “Right out in the street, the two of them. I'm sure they were waiting for Thomas Trent.”

“Of course we were waiting! You promised us an autograph! An introduction! Now, you do
this
?” Mr. Starr struggled in his chair, as if trying to break free, but the second cop restrained him.

“Easy, sir. Don't make this worse than it is. Look, you're embarrassing the kid.” The sergeant surged ahead, rolling Mr. Starr down some back hallway.

Mr. Starr scowled at Ryder as though Ryder's silent horror somehow made him a traitor.

Ryder couldn't believe this was happening. He wanted to scream at them all. He was trying to save his mother's life, and Mr. Starr's approach wasn't getting it done. They should probably get out of there and make another plan. “Mr. Starr, maybe we—”

“I don't care! You people are liars! Where are you taking me?”

“You can't throw yourself in front of people's cars, and you can't wheel that thing around in a busy street. Where you go is up to you.” The sergeant rolled Mr. Starr through a door the other cop had swung open.

Ryder looked around and realized they were in the Atlanta Police's office inside the stadium, the same one he'd seen the officers gathered around the entrance to on the outside. Sitting in chairs along one wall were two men, bruised and bleeding, who looked like they'd been in a fight. One wore a Braves T-shirt while the other had on the top of a torn Dodgers uniform. Each had his hands zip-tied together. Both looked miserable.

Mr. Starr was wheeled into a side room with a table and
two chairs bolted to the floor. The sergeant nodded at the seat on Mr. Starr's side of the table and Ryder took it. The other cop appeared with a clipboard and stood while the sergeant sat down and began to write down Mr. Starr's side of the story.

The sergeant seemed patient, which made Ryder feel even worse about the whole thing and especially the way Mr. Starr didn't let up being grouchy. He talked to the sergeant the way he talked to Doyle, barking and growling and insulting him at every turn with words like “meathead” and “donut fiend.”

As the sergeant rose, Mr. Starr offered a parting shot. “I can't wait to see your face when they rip those stripes right off your sleeve. I'm going to come down on you so hard with the ACLU and the AAPD lawyers that they'll ban you and the next five generations of flatfoots in your family from working on a police force. You can't do this to me and you know it.”

The sergeant clenched his teeth and turned around to glare right back at Mr. Starr. “I don't know who you think you are, sir. I'm sorry you're not well and I'm sorry you're in a wheelchair, but it doesn't give you a free pass to break the law. Now, you want to talk about banning someone? Hear me on this, Mr. Starr. You're the one who's banned. You're banned from Turner Field. I'll pass your picture around to every security guard and cop at this stadium and if anyone so much as catches a glimpse of you, I'll have you two right back in here again, only next time, I'll load you both right up, chair and all, into the wagon and ship you downtown to the judge with the drunks and the fighters and you can tell him all about it. How do you like that, sir?”

Mr. Starr opened his mouth but nothing came out.

“Mr. Starr?” Ryder looked from his friend to the sergeant in panic. “He didn't mean it, Sergeant. He's just . . . grouchy, a little.”

“No, a lot.” The cop glared at Ryder now. “Son, it's over. You two are done here. Officer Brandy will see you back to your hotel, but I'm warning you . . . you two stay away from the Braves and Turner Field and especially Thomas Trent.”

When they got back to the hotel, Officer Brandy saw them into the front entrance. Mr. Starr sat silent and glaring in his chair without meeting the curious eyes of the two women at the front desk. When Ryder pushed him around the corner into the hallway Mr. Starr said, “Stop.”

Ryder stopped. “Are you okay?”

“Go see if the cop's still there,” Mr. Starr commanded.

Ryder peeked back around the corner and saw a flash of the black uniform as the cop disappeared in the direction of the stadium. “He's leaving now.”

“Good.” Mr. Starr put his hand on the controller, turned the chair around, and began motoring toward the front entrance.

“Mr. Starr?” Ryder hurried to catch up.

The entrance doors slid open. The chair rattled and shook as Mr. Starr powered it over the threshold and out into the sunshine.

“Are you coming?” Mr. Starr asked.

“You want to eat?” Ryder eyed the Bullpen Rib House just across the parking lot.

“Not the Bullpen.” Mr. Starr didn't try and hide his disgust. “You think we're going to give up that easy? We came all the way from New York City. You think that cop's really going
to keep us out of that stadium? Ha!”

“But . . . how can we get in? I think we need a different plan.”

“No way. Right through the front gates, that's how. He's bluffing. I know cops. I worked with them for twenty-seven years on the crime beat for the paper. They love to bluff. Bluff all the time. No one's going to notice us.”

“Really?” Ryder's spirits soared at the thought of getting into the stadium. “If we did get in, maybe we could get Thomas Trent at the dugout when he comes out for warm-ups.”

“Exactly. We'll scalp some tickets and go right in the front gate like everyone else. Now, get a hold of this chair and let's get going. It's faster when you push.”

They got nosebleed tickets for twenty-five dollars each from a kid in a hooded Falcons sweatshirt who pretended Mr. Starr didn't exist.

Ryder felt guilty at the money he had to take out of Mr. Starr's wallet, but Mr. Starr told him it was free. Ryder pushed Mr. Starr right up to one of the main gates in front. Above them, the green steel frame of the stands towered over the red brick of the stadium. The smell of beer and popcorn and hot dogs filled the air. People flowed through the sunshine and into the stadium wearing Braves hats and shirts. The security guard stopped them and Ryder's heart skipped a beat. But the guard just waved a metal detecting wand around Ryder and then inspected Mr. Starr's wheelchair.

“You're gonna want to go in that gate with the wheelchair.” The guard pointed to a big blue sign with a white stick figure
in a wheelchair. “Enjoy the game.”

Ryder pushed Mr. Starr toward the sign.

“See?” Mr. Starr sounded giddy, like an excited child. “I told you.”

Ryder stopped at the wheelchair access gate. The other fans streamed through a turnstile. A female guard opened the gate and took their tickets. Then she looked at Mr. Starr and closed the gate quickly. “Hang on.”

She walked over to another guard, this one a tall man with a big blond helmet of hair and a tan face. He looked at the tickets and then at Mr. Starr before taking out his iPhone. The guard looked at the iPhone and then at Mr. Starr again before walking over toward the gate with the other guard. When they got there, the tall man let himself through the gate before closing it.

“What's the problem?” Mr. Starr's voice had that shrill note suggesting hysteria.

“I'm sorry, sir,” the guard said, “you can't come into the park.”

“That is ridiculous!” Spit flew from Mr. Starr's mouth like misguided fireworks.

Ryder's heart sank. It was truly over now.

People all around were looking and the security guard's tan face reddened with shame for a brief moment. But the guard recovered his stern face and he shook his head.