He nodded.
“I think I’m ready to tell you. I think as president of the Teen Council on Moral Decency you should be aware.”
“Cody, I promise, you’ll feel so much better once you let it all out.” His eyes drilled into me as he absently unwound his cinnamon roll.
I folded my hands on the table, leaving the Danish untouched. It would only get in the way of my delivery. “Well, I know you’ve been going to the theater a lot lately, so you’ve probably noticed that sign next to the popcorn that says ‘Real Butter,’ right?”
“Sure. I get a carton every time I go.”
“And a small lemonade. I remember. But you see, Ernest, that sign, it’s a lie. A dark, dirty lie.”
His hand went to his mouth. The way he stared at me with his huge eyes, I felt like I was a movie screen. “What do you mean?” he asked.
“Last week I discovered the theater isn’t using real butter at all, at least not anymore. It’s using soybean oil with artificial butter flavoring.”
“No!”
“Yes. Apparently, Mike switched from real butter to fake as soon as he took over, and he’s pocketing the savings. When I found out I confronted him about it. I told him I couldn’t in good conscience keep a secret like that. He flew into a rage and said he’d fire me if I told anyone. I didn’t want to lose my job. It’s the first I’ve ever had, and I don’t want my parents to be disappointed in me. So when he said that, I just felt so powerless and angry. That’s why I wanted to do something to hurt him.”
Ernest grabbed the edge of the table with both hands. “Your parents won’t be disappointed! Not if it’s a matter of conscience! Not if you’re standing up for your beliefs!”
“You’re probably right. But after I got that talking-to from you the other day, I finally calmed down enough to really think, and I realized maybe I shouldn’t be so mad at Mike. Maybe I should feel sorry for him instead. Maybe the Lord called me to this job for a purpose. So I talked to Mike some more, and he’s not really a bad guy. Just misguided. Have you seen him at the theater? Do you know who I’m talking about?”
He gave a nod, and a flush of pink colored his cheeks. I suspected I wasn’t the only one to notice Mike’s Humphrey Bogart charm.
“I think somewhere deep down he wants to be redeemed,” I said. “But he needs someone better at redeeming than me. That’s why I thought of you.”
You should’ve seen it. I had him in the palm of my hand. He fanned out his fingers on his chest as if to say Me? He hadn’t taken a bite of his cinnamon roll, but he’d fully unwound it. The thing lay there on his plate like a snake.
“I think you should go to his house,” I said. “Talk to him. But don’t let on that you know about the butter. If he finds out I told anyone about that, he’ll skin me alive, and I bet he won’t talk to you anymore either. Make it seem like you’re just going around the neighborhood knocking on people’s doors to spread the Good News and talk about the church.”
“Yes.” His eyes shifted away from me and narrowed as he thought about it. “That’s probably the best approach.”
“But at the same time, be persistent. I really think with a little push, he’ll tell you everything.”
*
I kept watch all that afternoon through my bedroom window. Sure enough, at two o’clock on the dot, Ernest came marching up the Morettis’ front walk, his hair neatly combed, the excitement in his face visible even from that distance. I couldn’t see him once he got to the front door, but I kept an eye on the clock on my nightstand, and he didn’t reappear for a full five minutes, which meant at least Mike couldn’t have sent him away right off the bat.
The next day at the theater, I slid over to Mike’s office door again.
“What is it?” he said, giving me the same wary look he always did these days. I must’ve been making his life hell, showing up there every day with his girlfriend just a few feet away, but even though he was aware I had more to lose than he did if our little secret got out—which was true, by the way, because my parents really would kick me out—I guess he was just scared enough of me not to actually give me the boot.
“I know this is another really random question,” I said, “but you didn’t get a visit from a really enthusiastic Christian kid who wanted to convert you over the weekend, did you?”
He went stiff, just like he had when I’d asked him about the cop. “Why? Did you?”
“Yeah. I know him actually. Ernest Kimball. He goes to my church. He came by our house yesterday, and he specifically wanted to talk to me. I always thought he seemed a little odd, but yesterday he said something about the Lord telling him I needed help because I’d been victimized or something.”
He screwed up his face. “Victimized? What the hell was he talking about?”
“That’s just the thing. I don’t know. It was a really weird conversation, and of course I didn’t say a word about us, but . . .” I stood there wringing my hands.
“But what? What the hell are you talking about?”
“It just made me wonder. Like, if somehow he knows what we did.”
His face scrunched up even more. “How? You think the Lord was really talking to him? I thought you didn’t believe in that shit.”
“I don’t. But once he left yesterday, I watched him from my window, and I thought I saw him go over to your house. And after that weird police visit a few days ago, it made me wonder if they might be related. Mike, what if that cop was looking for something specific?”
His face hardened. In an equally hard voice, he said, “What do you think he would’ve been looking for, Cody?”
My hands continued to grab at each other. Ladies in noir movies did that all the time when they were anxious—or faking it. “Look, I should probably tell you something else. Last week after you got mad at me your first day here, I went to your office, but you were in the bathroom, and you’d left your phone on the desk—unlocked. So I went through it.”
“What?” he snapped.
“I was upset. I wanted to see who you else you were texting with. I found all those pictures of boys on your phone. And right after I got to the picture of me, I noticed Ernest Kimball standing at the door behind me. I thought he might’ve seen what I was looking at.”
It was almost the truth. That was the beauty of it. Maybe Mike even remembered hearing voices in the office that day while he was in the bathroom.
He smacked his hand down hard on the desk, making me jump. That I didn’t fake. “Get to the point, Cody.”
“So all those pictures of underage guys on your phone . . . Isn’t that possession of child porn? Technically, I mean? And isn’t that a felony?”