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I’d gone to his house and drawn out the symbols and numbers for him. Asked him to see if he could figure it out. But I had sworn him to secrecy.
    Maybe his search for the answer had alerted someone to the secret. That’s what happened in movies.
    Crazy thoughts, I told myself. Crazy, crazy thoughts.
    Still, I grabbed my cell phone. I snuck back to the window to watch the person stillwaiting in the darkness inside the van. If he stepped out, I’d be calling 911 faster than Pookie had run from the skunk.
    Another minute stretched by. My mouth was getting drier each second. My thoughts wilder and crazier.
    Then I saw movement. Not from the van, but from the sidewalk.
    Someone had stepped from the Moore yard to the van!
    I recognized that person almost immediately. It was Vlad. Dressed in sweats. Looking around like he was going to do a drug deal.
    Maybe that was it. Maybe it was drugs. After all, I didn’t know Vlad that well. No one on the team did. Maybe it was drugs or steroids. That made me feel better than thinking someone had shown up to shoot me.
    Then, realizing it made me feel better suddenly made me feel worse. I was so afraid that it made me happy to think badly of Vlad rather than accept that I might be in trouble.
    I watched carefully.
    The man inside the van reached out. There was nothing that I could see in his hand. Vlad reached toward him. It looked like their hands had touched briefly.
    That was it.
    They had a brief conversation. Vlad nodded and turned away, back toward the house.
    Then the van pulled away. With the lights off.
    Like I was going to be able to fall asleep after this.

chapter ten
    I had an e-mail waiting for me the next morning. It was from my computer friend. I’d gotten so little sleep, and my mouth was in so much pain, that I found it difficult to see the words on the screen. I read it once. Twice. Three times. I kept blinking to make the letters clear. Even after I was able to focus, it still didn’t make sense.
    From: Abe Madison
    To: [email protected]
    Subject: weird stuff
    Ray,
    Spent some time in chatrooms with some Russian gamers that I know. Asked them to translate the Russian words you wrote down for me. It said “what did your papa call you when you were a boy.” Still don’t know what the numbers mean. Maybe some sort of code.
    Also, I asked them to look into Vlad’s background. He was a star over there, you know. Found out his father died in a mysterious accident. Rumors blamed the Russian mafia for it. What do you think about that?
    By the way, now you owe me tickets to the next game.
    Abe
    I shut down my computer.
    Russian mafia?
    There was only one person who could give me the answers to this. Vlad. But he didn’t speak English. And after last night, it didn’t look like I could trust him.
    There was a bright side, though.
    I was due at the dentist in less than an hour for emergency work on my broken tooth. The pain would at least take my thoughts away from all of this.
    â€œBig hit you took last night,” Dr. Dempster said. “Too bad about the jaw.”
    â€œUunnghhh,” I answered.
    Dr. Dempster had an assistant with him, a middle-aged woman with very nice teeth. She said nothing.
    Dr. Dempster, on the other hand, was one of those dentists who liked to talk. I was one of those guys who liked to be polite. Which meant trying to keep up my end of the conversation. That wasn’t so easy with a frozen tongue and clamps in my mouth.
    â€œGood thing you had a mouth guard,” he said. “This would have been much, much worse. I mean, Tidwell came in at you like a locomotive. But you took the hit.”
    â€œUunngghhh,” I said.
    â€œI’ve never seen you do that before,” Dr. Dempster said. “Usually you make plays by being smart, not by being stubborn.”
    â€œUunngghhh.”
    â€œThis new approach to hockey have anything to do with the new coach?”