I nodded. “This is why you recommended me for this position, isn't it?” I asked. “Because of how I handled the boundaries at my previous school.”
He nodded. “We need a man who isn't afraid to get his hands a little dirty. To bend the rules. To do what's necessary for the greater good. You get my drift?”
“I do, Ben, I do. And after what you guys told me about the drug situation at this school, and how things were starting to spiral out of control with the last principal, I knew what I needed to do.”
“Good. Then I trust that you won't mind coming with me on a little 'lunch break' off the school premises.”
I grinned. “Not at all, Ben, not at all.”
“You know, of course, that we have to keep the details of our little field trips strictly between you and me, right Everett? If the school board were to find out about this stuff, they might not be too happy about it, you know? Both of our jobs could be on the line.”
“It's a risk I'm willing to take if it means we have a shot at stopping the flow of Rocket into the school,” I said, and I meant every word of it. “I was criticized by a lot of people for my hard-handed, old-school approach at my last job, but look at the results. I got the gangs out of the school, and I got kids who had been flunking out before to pass and even get good grades.”
“And that's exactly why I wanted you here. We have to get these drug-peddling bastards out of this school before they wreck any more lives. One death is one too many, and I will not have any more kids dropping out or, God forbid, dying under my watch.”
“I hear you, Ben, I hear you. Well, let's get this little 'lunch hour expedition' underway, shall we?”
“Yeah, let's go.”
I followed Ben out of the office block through the parking lot, and from there we walked across the football field and then headed out via the gate there.
“Where are we going, Ben?” I asked as he headed across a busy street and down an alleyway.
“There's an apartment building three blocks away,” he said. “Apparently, a lot of kids go there to buy Rocket, and plenty are using there as well. I figure if we can scope it out for a while, we might be able to learn something. You know, get closer to finding out the identities of the dealers themselves. If we can get a small-time dealer to squeal, we can start figuring out who's higher up the chain. Those are the fish we really wanna catch.”
“Alright. What's the plan?”
“You up for a bit of climbing?” he asked with a grin.
“I never say no to a good climb,” I replied. “What are we scaling?”
We headed down another alley, and things were definitely looking sketchier here. He pointed at a fire escape on the side of a building.
“If we can get up to the seventh floor via the fire escape there, we'll have a decent view of the outside of the apartment we're checking out. Only thing is, getting onto the fire escape itself – we'll need to maybe push a dumpster under it and climb up like that.”
“For a man who's almost 50, you have quite a sense of adventure,” I remarked with a chuckle.
“I just wanna get these damn drugs outta my school! Twenty-two years I've been working at JFK High. Twenty-two years, Everett. And I've never seen things get as bad as they were last year. This drug has to be stopped, and I'll do whatever it takes to stop it.”
“That's the spirit, Ben. I've got a feeling you and I are going to get along quite well. Come on, let's get up on the fire escape.”
We pushed a large crate up the alley, positioning i
t just below the fire escape. After that, because I was fitter and stronger, I climbed up onto the fire escape and then hung down and offered a hand to Ben to help him up, too. With a bit of effort, I was able to get him up.
“Alright, now let's head to the seventh floor. Keep your footsteps light; we don't want anyone to hear us out here.”
I nodded and crept up the fire escape with Ben following me and doing his best to remain quiet. We reached the seventh floor soon enough, and as Ben had said, there was a window through which we could see apartment 702, the one apparently used by the drug dealers. Not much seemed to be happening, though. We could hear someone was inside from the thumping bass coming through the door, we couldn't actually see anything.
“What time should we be back at the school?” I asked Ben.
“In no more than an hour, otherwise people are gonna start getting suspicious.”
“Let's hope something happens in that time. I would hate to have done all this for nothing.”
“Me too.”
We each took five-minute shifts watching, one person looking through the window and another looking down at the alley, making sure nobody had spotted us on the fire escape. Eventually, though, when it was my turn to watch through the window, the door finally opened.