“Rob Castro happened to my face,” he said. “Nick Barsanti happened to my neck, and John Simmons happened to my chest.” He lifted up his shirt, revealing a massive gash across his ribs. “They want their money back.”
“We’ve got a plan for raising the cash,” Clark explained, “but we need your help getting—”
“Yes,” I said, astonished and grateful and relieved that forgiveness could come so easily. “I mean, sure, I’ll totally help. What we are doing?”
Alf unzipped his backpack and removed a well-worn 64-ounce Big Gulp cup. It was just like the cup that the battery thief had brought to Zelinsky’s. “I figured we’d hit the record store. Pick up some new tapes and sell them for cash.”
“You’re going to steal four hundred dollars’ worth of tapes?”
“No,” Alf said, “I’m going to steal twenty dollars’ worth. Just enough to pay the guys who want to kill me today. Tomorrow there will be new guys ready to kill me, and I’ll steal more tapes to pay them.”
“Baby steps,” Clark said, nodding. “Rome wasn’t built in a day.”
This didn’t strike me as a very good plan. Stealing four hundred dollars’ worth of tapes would take weeks of careful effort—but this was no time for making arguments. It was my fault we were in this situation, and I didn’t have any better ideas, and I was anxious to get things back to normal. “You guys are geniuses,” I said. “Let’s go.”
The Wetbridge Mall was an easy bike ride from Baltic Avenue. Within the hour we were standing next to Cinnabon in the second-floor food court, scoping out Musicland from a safe distance. There were four different stores selling cassettes in the mall, but Musicland was the only one that didn’t wrap the cassettes in giant plastic contraptions designed to foil shoplifters. Instead the albums were piled high on giant wire racks, free for the taking.
“The place is packed,” Clark said.
“It’s looking good,” Alf agreed. Even with three cashiers working, there was still a line of customers. The manager would likely open another register soon, which meant one fewer sales associate on the floor.
“So what are we getting?” I asked.
This was always a highly contested topic. The trick was to set aside your personal preferences and find cassettes that would resell quickly, ideally for five bucks to the twelve-year-old girls hanging around the food court.
“How about U2?” Clark suggested.
Alf shook his head. “One-hit wonder,” he said dismissively. “I’m thinking Cutting Crew.”
“It’s fine with me,” I said. After hours of listening to All Your Favorite ’80s Love Songs, I was feeling out of touch with Top 40.
We entered Musicland one by one to avoid drawing attention to ourselves, but the aisles were so crowded, it probably wasn’t necessary. Most of the store was dedicated to cassettes and cassingles, and Pop/Rock was the large central aisle that ran down the middle of the store, A to M on one side, N to Z on the other.
Whitney Houston was on the stereo system, belting out “The Greatest Love of All.” Alf strolled down the center aisle, Big Gulp in hand, fake-sipping just like the kid at Zelinsky’s. Clark and I were supposed to be lookouts, but there wasn’t much to look out for. You could recognize Musicland employees by their red polo shirts, and they were all up front by the registers.
Alf stopped beside a mom dressed in a baggy white sweatshirt that said I HEART MY PEKINGESE. She was studying the Eric Clapton and didn’t notice him walking up.
Alf reached for a Cutting Crew album, checked the price sticker on the back of the cassette, and glanced at me. I gave him a nod, and the tape went in the cup. Then he reached for two more. I thought he was pushing his luck, but I looked around and the coast was clear. I nodded, and with another flawless bit of sleight of hand, the tapes dropped into the cup. By this point, Clark was already on his way out of the store. I turned to follow and saw Alf reach for another three tapes. Yes, it was possible to fit six cassettes into a single 64-ounce cup, if you positioned each cassette just so. But up until that day, none of us had ever mustered the courage to try it. I couldn’t bear to watch. I turned and fled.
Clark was waiting five stores away, on a bench outside the Hickory Farms. We only waited a minute for Alf to join us. He hurried over, Big Gulp in hand, grinning with satisfaction.
“Six tapes?” Clark asked. “Are you kidding me?”
“Three Cutting Crews and three Crowded House. That’s money in the bank, gentlemen.” He uncapped the Big Gulp and removed the cassettes, passing two to each of us. “Let’s unload these and we’ll go back for Whitney Houston. Some of that ‘How Will I Know’ crap. We’ll sell a ton.”
Over his shoulder, through a sea of people saddled with shopping bags, two figures emerged from the crowd, advancing toward us. One was a man in a jacket and tie; the other was the mom in the I HEART MY PEKINGESE shirt. She spoke into a walkie-talkie and then started to run.
“Shit!” Clark said.
We dropped our tapes and scattered. We knew the goal of loss prevention (as the stores called it) was preventing losses—so if you surrendered the merchandise, you were much less likely to be chased. I never looked back to see if anyone was following me. I just ran like crazy, darting into the Sears, ducking behind racks of men’s suits, sprinting down an escalator, and finally diving beneath a queen-size bed, where I waited for ten minutes, practically holding my breath. I had managed to escape—but just barely.
I went outside to the bus stop. All three bikes were still chained to a No Parking sign, but there was no sign of Alf or Clark. After twenty minutes of waiting, I biked home to Baltic Avenue, fearing the worst. Clearly my friends had been caught shoplifting, and now they were on their way to a juvenile detention center. Officer Tackleberry had warned us about these places—he’d spoken of rats and dripping cinder-block walls and basement shower facilities where new inmates were hosed down and dropping the soap had horrific, unimaginable consequences.
Instead of going home, I biked through the cemetery and stopped at the base of our old tree fort. I climbed the tree and waited in its branches, hoping and wishing and praying that my friends were okay. But an hour passed and still they hadn’t come.
I felt like I was going to be sick. If I hadn’t promised to get the alarm code, if I hadn’t expressed so much confidence, if I hadn’t lied to Alf and Clark, none of this would have happened. I could trace this whole awful event back to the roof of the train station, back when I promised my best friends I would get the code.
Eventually I got tired of waiting, so I left the fort and went home. I was unlocking my front door when Alf and Clark came coasting down Baltic Avenue on their bicycles.
“You’re okay!” Alf exclaimed.
“We thought you were busted!” Clark said.
“I’m fine,” I said. “Where have you been?”