“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 it 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 open
ed.
“Ben,” I hissed quietly and snapped my fingers to get his attention. I pointed in the direction of a scrawny-looking teenager dressed in hip-hop-style street wear with long, greasy blond hair was talking to a muscular, tattooed man in his twenties in the doorway. The man handed him a large bag of something, which the kid tucked under his shirt, and then he and the man performed some sort of elaborate handshake, after which the man went back inside.
“That damn kid goes to our school,” growled Ben. Suddenly he shouted through the window. “Hey, Panetti, we got you! What the hell are you doing here, huh?”
The kid spun around on his heels, his eyes wide with fright. Then he saw us looking through the window and immediately bolted.
“Damn it, Ben, why'd you do that?” I snapped as I pushed past him and raced down the fire escape.
“Sorry, Everett,” he called out as he hurried down after me, huffing and blowing. “I just lost my cool when I saw that damn kid!”
“If he gets away, we've wasted this whole hour!” I shouted back at him.
As I got to the second floor, I saw the kid burst out of the door below us. This was it, this was my only chance to get him, and there was only one way to do it.
“What the hell are you doing?!” shouted Ben as he saw what I was about to do. “Don't; you'll break your neck!”
But I knew what I was doing, and I knew I could make the jump – so jump I did. I soared through the air, accelerated with a terrifying speed toward the ground, and then landed with a tumbling roll, and came up running. I sprinted after the kid, gaining quickly on him. I grabbed the hood of his sweatshirt – and that's when he spun around and slashed at me with a knife.
I whipped my arm away just in time, but at the same time, I lunged forward and grabbed his wrist swiftly. I could have broken it, but he was just a kid, so I gave it a good painful jerk, forcing him to drop the knife, and then I yanked his arm behind him and pulled it up behind his back.
“Ow, ow, you're hurting me!” he whined.
“And you just tried to stab me, you lil' punk! Get the drugs out from under your shirt, now!”
“I don't know what you're talking about!”
“We saw you, Panetti,” Ben gasped as he came stumbling along, panting for breath and sweating profusely. “And what's more, I've got it on video. The drugs, and you taking a shot with the knife at Mr. James here.”
“And I believe that with those two charges put together – drug dealing and assault with a deadly weapon – you're looking at a minimum of 10 years in prison,” I said to the kid.
That was when he broke down, and tears started streaming down his face.
“I... I was just tryin' to make some extra cash, alright? My dad is a drunk, and he lost his job six months ago. My mom don't have much education, and she's tryin' to support our family on a waitress' pay. I'm sorry, Mr. Henderson, I'm sorry... I just needed the money.”
“Well how about this, Panetti,” I said. “That is your name, right?”
The kid sniffed and nodded.