Page 134 of The House of Wolves

Now I understood what he was talking about.

We got the ball back on our thirty yard line with three minutes left and began to move it again, really for the first time in the second half. I did keep both Chris Tinelli and Noah Glynn on the field, just like Money McGee had told me to. They were both getting chances to throw the ball and keeping the Basin Park defense off balance because of it.

Finally, there were twenty seconds left when we had a second down from the Basin Park five yard line. I had to call our last time-out. Both Chris and Noah came running over to me.

I gave them two plays. One that I promised them would get us the touchdown that would tie the game. And another for the two-point conversion that would win it.

“Really?” Chris said.

“Those are the plays?” Noah said. “Like, for real?”

I bumped them both some fist.

“We having any fun yet?”

Chris lined up under center. Noah was behind him. Chris took the snap and rolled to his right and threw a short pass to Noah, who caught the ball but had two defenders in front of him and no daylight.

But almost as soon as he caught the ball, Chris Tinelli was flying out of the backfield, and Noah lateraled the ball to him before he was tackled. Chris ran into the end zone untouched to tie the championship game 14–14.

Chris and Noah knew what to run next. Chris was back under center; Noah was lined up as a wide receiver to his left. Chris dropped back to pass. Now it was Noah flying around from his left, grabbing the ball out of Chris’s hand.

What had always been known as the Statue of Liberty play. The one Money McGee said really was still money.

Nobody caught Noah before he got to the end zone, the little guy a streak of light one last time this season as he got us the two points that won the Bears the championship game.

Bears 16, Patriots 14.

Final.

There would be a picture the next day in theTribuneof me jumping higher than I ever could before that moment. Looking happier than I had been in a long time.

The kids tried to hand me the championship trophy during the presentation ceremony, but I handed it right back to Chris and Noah. I looked into the stands and saw Money McGee grinning at me, arms out, palms facing the sky, as if to say,Told you.

We all went back to have a party at All Good Pizza, the place where Chris had eaten before he’d gotten mugged that night. Mugged, I was still certain, because of me. I’d always thought it was somebody John Gallo or my brother Jack had sent, even though I might not ever know for sure.

I had paid All Good to close the place down for us, both the front and back rooms. Before I left, I took one last look at the Hunters Point Bears and tried to remember if there was a single time that I’d had a day like this when I was in high school, when I was growing up in the house of Wolf.

I went outside and got into my car.

The guy was sitting on my front steps when I got home, as if he’d been waiting for me.

“My name is Erik Mason,” he said.

I asked him what he wanted. He told me that Mr. Michael Barr would very much like to meet with me and that he was prepared to drive me to Mr. Barr’s residence on Scott Street right now if that was all right with me.

“Not happening.”

Mason smiled amiably, as if we were pals.

“It’s not really a request.”

I told him I had already picked up on that. Then I told Mason that since he had come to my house, he obviously knew who I was.

“Jenny Wolf. That’s w-o-l-f.”

Mason frowned.

Then I told him that there was probably no way that either he or his boss knew who my father’s best friend had been since childhood, the man who had always been like an uncle to me.