Main > Series > Chapters > Fame Book 2 > Chapter 5

Doris Schwartz, cat burglar extraordinaire, was finding herself up against a problem that none of them had considered. Finding St. Charles' had given her no difficulty, and the opening of your average grey steel locker with a straightened paperclip was just kids' stuff; it was the part in between, the move from the street outside the church to the locker room itself, that was the big hurdle.

The St. Charles' gymnasium was in a converted rectory that was connected to the main church building by a basement corridor. The gym was available to all of the athletic clubs in all of the churches in the immediate area; Doris's problem was that the members of these athletic clubs seemed to be exclusively males under the age of thirteen.

On either count, Doris was going to stand out. Hadn't the girls around here heard that this was the twentieth century? They ought to be out there, pulling on the boxing gloves, even if the only reason for it was to give Doris some cover.

In the end, she decided that a breezy manner and a message for some fictitious younger brother would be the next best thing to a cloak of invisibility. She went on in, and the caretaker in the office by the main door never even looked up as she passed. Two boys on the basement stairs were too busy discussing Luke Skywalker's true parentage to notice her. After that, finding the locker room was easy; it was simply a matter of following the scent trail of sweat and disinfectant.

She knocked, and there was no reply. She couldn't hear the sounds of showers, so she knocked once more to be certain and then opened the door.

Now she was going to have to be fast. There was a lot of soap-scented steam still clinging around the ceiling pipes in the windowless room, which meant that one gym seesion had recently ended and another was probably soon to begin. The lockers were identified by surnames only on slips of card in metal holders, and she had to read every one in the row until she reached Jordan.

Jordan, that was the coach. She pulled out her paperclip, and went to work.

Coach Jordan was certainly an untidy guy; what Doris couldn't understand was how he'd mananged to stack everything so that it leaned on the inside of the door and fell out as soon as she opened up. There were shin guards, old vests, tins of foot powder, a towel, a broken tennis racket, some rolled-up copies of Sports Illustrated - and the loose-leaf playbook. Doris had to shake it free from the straps of an undergarment that she wasn't inclined to inspect too closely, but she'd found what she needed. Everything else got bundled back into the locker, and then Doris was away.

She took a quick glance at the book as she stepped out into the basement corridor. What she saw was not encouraging. There were pages and pages of notes and diagrams, all of them seemingly written in some weird kind of basketball code. How long was she supposed to take to make a copy of this? One thing was for certain, Julie Miller had better be keeping Jordan well entertained; because if he came back and found that the playbook had been removed from his locker, they might as well consider the game thrown.

Ascending the stairs, she realised that she'd gone wrong somewhere.

This wasn't the way she'd come in. When she reached the top of the stairs, she realised that she'd followed the corridor through to where it linked with the main part of the church; she was emerging into the name of St. Charles'.

It was a quiet time of the afternoon. A few people were scattered around the wooden pews, lost in their own thoughts as they sat in the immense gloom vault of enclosed space that was the central part of the building. It probably hadn't always looked like this, but the rise of buildings outside the windows and the slow buildup of city grime had taken a lot of the air and light away from the church.

Doris was feeling more than conspicuous; she was suddenly feeling more Jewish than Woody Allen, and the playbook felt as if glow in the dark. She didn't even have a pocket to put it in; the ballpoint and the sheets that she'd brought to make the copy were tucked into the waistband of her skirt. What she needed now was some quiet corner where she could do what she had to do without being noticed.

She started to make her way down the outside of one of the aisles; there was a Burger King around the corner that would suit her purposes admirably. She could copy out the relevant plays and reward herself at the same time with a triple thick shake.

From halfway down the nave, she saw the street door open. The guy who walked in just had to be Jordan; he matched Danny's description of him perfectly. Danny had missed out on only one important detail; he'd under-emphasised the latent nastiness that was evident in the man's demeanour..

He was going to see the book. The book. Doris wanted to rip out a couple of handfuls of her hair and curse Julie Miller all the way up to the high vaulted roof of St. Charles'. But instead, she looked for the nearest way out.

She saw a curtain, and stepped through. Unfortunately, it seemed to lead nowhere but into darkness.

Well, even a cupboard was better than staying out on open display. Had a seat, too. She could stay here and peek through the curtain until Jordan had gone by.

But then a shutter slid open, and Doris realised that she wasn't in any cupboard.

'Yes, my child,' the unseen priest said. 'And what are your sins?'

For once, Doris was finding that she was in a situation for which she had no ready reply. 'Uh, gimme a second,' she said, and pulled the curtain open slightly to see if the coast was clear for her to run.

It wasn't. Jordan had stopped and was talking to some kid, probably one of his team. 'I'm in trouble now,' she muttered.

'We have all known trouble in our lives,' the priest reassured her. 'The Lord is always with you.'

But how come Jordan was back already? 'He wasn't supposed to be here until four o'clock.'

'He's always here. Simply open your heart to him, and . . . '

'He's going to look inside, and it'll be gone.'

The priest was shocked. 'Surely things aren't that bad?' he said, and doris suddenly realised what she'd been saying.

'Oh,' she said, 'I'm sorry.'

'That's all I needed to hear,' the priest said gratefully, and closed the shutter.

Jordan and the kid had moved away, but they were still talking. Mission abort, Doris decided; if Jordan found the playbook missing, he'd only have to change his strategy to invalidate the cribbed information. He might even claim the match by default, a greater ignominy that getting creamed out there on the court. She slipped out of the confessional, and then darting through the shadows as fast as she could without attracting too much attention, Doris raced to get to the locker room before Jordan.

Just in time; she got the playbook replaced with seconds to spare.

She also got the strangest look from Jordan, as the two of them passed in the locker room doorway.

Danny couldn't believe it. Doris had held the playbook there, in her hands, and what had she done? She'd returned it unread.

'So you get a new strategy,' Doris said. 'Why is it so important?'

'Because it is,' Danny said. He was pacing the makeup room as Doris adjusted the tacking on the denim waistcoat she'd been working on; she was hoping to have it ready for that evening, when she and Julie were due to keep their date at Kickers. Julie shrugged helplessly. 'I'm sorry, but Schubert just didn't do it for him.'

'You played him classical music? That was your best Mata Hari?'

'It's what I . . . he . . . Well, what did you expect me to do?'

'Don't answer that,' Doris interrupted quickly. 'Look, we messed up. At least we didn't get caught.'

For a moment, Danny did his King-Kong-in-chains impersonation, but then he said, 'I'm getting out of here before I get angry,' and went.

It took a moment for the dust to settle. Doris said, 'What's his problem? I mean I admit we didn't exactly save the day, but that boy's out of control.'

Leroy slowly uncoiled himself from the makeup chair. 'He wants to win,' he said. 'So do I.'

But Julie couldn't understand. 'Why is it such a big deal? You guys only agreed to coach the team.'

Leroy had no ready answer. Doris said, 'It's the Alumni Day show, isn't it? You figure if the team doesn't win, Miss Grant won't let you be in it.'

From the way that Leroy looked at her, Doris knew immediately that she was wrong. He struggled for a moment to get it into works, and then said, 'The way it's worked out, it doesn't look like I'm going to be in no show anyway. When Johnny Willcox gets here, it's goodbye Leroy and thanks. Well, that's okay. Means they think I'm the only one good enough to stand in for him, and if I know Miz Grant, she'll make sure that everyone knows about it afterwards. But for the rest of it, I just want to do right by these kids. Becuse they're depending on us . . . and maybe because one or two of them got to us.'

For once, Leroy was looking awkward. But it didn't last.