The Grievers by Marc Schuster Page B

it slide.
    “Two words,” Dwayne whispered as Greg followed Sean out the door. “ Forcible commitment . We can do it tonight. Just lure him inside city limits, and we’ll lock him away.”
    “Maybe some other time,” Neil said.
    “Suit yourself, but you know where to find me if you change your mind.”
    Dwayne laid some money on the table. He’d love to stick around, he said, but his shift was starting in a little over an hour. Promising to send Neil a check, he rattled his keys and left the two of us alone at our long, empty table.
    “That was a great success,” Neil said, aping Groucho Marx as he totaled up the bill. “One more like that, and I’ll have to sell my body to science.”
    “ Animal Crackers ?” I said, taking a shot in the dark.
    “Close,” Neil said. “ The Cocoanuts .”

  CHAPTER SIX  
    A ll told, we raised $470. Neil kicked in an additional thirty to make it an even five hundred, and I wrote a brief letter to accompany the check that we forwarded to the Academy. The letter said that we’d always remember Billy as the kindest of souls and that our gift was the least we could do to honor his memory. It also listed the names of everyone who had contributed to the sum, including Greg Packer, whose donation of fifty dollars came in the form of a promissory note to Neil, and Anthony Gambacorta, who sent a check signed by his mother and a pledge of points on the back end of any and all future productions of Down in the Stalag. Though I didn’t know what this last piece of information meant, I included it in the letter anyway because it sounded like the kind of thing that Phil Ennis would love to mention on the AlumNotes page of The Academic. When he called for clarification three days after I mailed the check, however, all I could tell him was that I thought points had something to do with the amount of money a movie made after all was said and done.
    “I know what points are, Schwartz,” Ennis said. “I want to know how many we’re getting.”
    “I’m not sure,” I said, carefully pacing the lawn in front of the bank, one arm tucked inside my giant dollar sign so I could hold the phone to my ear, the other arm held limply aloft by the bouquet of brightly colored balloons tied to my wrist. “But I can probably find out.”
    “And you have this in writing? That Anthony pledges a certain number of points on the back end of this—what is it? A movie or something?”
    “It’s more of a musical,” I said.
    “Broadway?”
    “Not exactly.”
    “So we’re looking at what in terms of box office?”
    “I have no idea,” I said. “Did you get the check I sent?”
    “We received one check,” Ennis said. “From Neil.”
    “Actually, that was from both of us. All of us, in fact—everyone I mentioned in the letter. We thought it would be easier just to collect the money and write a single check.”
    “You mention four people in this letter,” Ennis said. “In addition to yourself and Neil.”
    “Right,” I said, quickly counting my friends on the fingers of one hand. “That’s six altogether.”
    “Yet the check was for five hundred dollars.”
    I sensed an unspoken only in Ennis’s statement and reminded him that he was also getting a percentage of any profits Anthony Gambacorta might make on Down in the Stalag . I was about to add that the promise of points on any musical based on Hogan’s Heroes —even one that had yet to be staged—was like having money in the bank, but the backdraft of a passing tractor-trailer knocked me off my feet before I could say it.
    “—a little disappointing,” Ennis was in the middle of explaining when, lying flat on my back, I regained my bearings and pressed the phone to my ear. “But you’ll be pleased to learn that we still have options.”
    “Options?” I said.
    I pulled my free arm inside the dollar sign and switched my cell phone from one hand to the other. The only problem was that the balloons were still tied to my wrist,