The Extraordinary Adventures of Alfred Kropp

Betty answered. “Oh, Alfred, where have you been? Where are you now? We’ve been worried sick! We were about to call the police or 911, though Horace has been telling me we shouldn’t call 911 except in the case of an emergency and he doesn’t feel this qualifies since you’re nearly sixteen and old enough to look after yourself, but I told him you’re just a boy despite your larger-than-normal size, but we have been worried sick.”

“Don’t be worried, Betty,” I said. “I’m okay.”

“Where are you?”

“I’m going to be a while longer. I just wanted to tell you I was okay.”

“Oh, Alfred,” she said. “Alfred, please come home.” She was crying.

“I don’t have a home anymore,” I said, and I hung up.

There was somebody else I wanted to call, but it took me a long time to work up the nerve to do it. I got her number from the operator and almost hung up when a guy who sounded like he might be her dad answered the phone. But I didn’t.

“Is Amy there?” I asked.

After what seemed like a couple of years, I heard her twangy voice.

“Who is this?” she asked.

“Me. Alfred. Alfred Kropp.”

“Who?”

“The guy you’re tutoring in math.”

“Oh! The dead-uncle guy,” she said.

“Yeah,” I said. “The dead-uncle guy. Look, I just wanted to say—”

“I knew it wasn’t somebody I know,” she said. “Because you called this number. People I know call me on my cell phone.”

“Right,” I said. “Look, the reason I called. I—I don’t think I’ll be at tutoring tomorrow. Or ever. I don’t think I’m coming back.”

There was silence. I said, to break it, “I said I don’t think I’m coming back.”

“I heard you. Look, I know you must be really messed up right now. I know what that’s like. When I was twelve my big brother ran over my dog. I couldn’t get out of bed for a week.”

Why did I think she cared? Why was I thinking anybody cared? My own father hadn’t even cared. I was an accident everybody had to suffer from, like Barry with his sprained wrist.

I said good-bye to Amy Pouchard and started to walk. It was getting dark now, and there were a lot of people about, couples mostly, walking arm in arm, and I watched them as I walked. Something made me turn around at one point and I saw him, the tall guy with the white hair, about half a block down. He was standing by a newspaper rack, pretending to read. I walked to the intersection of Western and Central, turned left, and walked half a block to Ye Olde Coffee House, right next to the old JFG coffee plant.

I went in and ordered a grande with extra cream and sugar, and sat at the long counter against the window, watching the couples pass outside.

Halfway through my grande I saw him sit down at the very end of the bar, next to the bathroom. I picked up my coffee and walked over to sit down next to him.

We drank our coffee in silence for a moment. The end of his nose was red and runny; he had a cold. He pulled out the white handkerchief. It had a design of a horse and rider on it. The rider was a knight carrying a red banner. That clinched it for me.

“How is Mr. Samson?” I asked him.

“Dead.”

I thought about my dream and asked, “When did that happen?”

“Two days ago.”

“Mr. Mogart—he killed him?”

“Do not say that name.” He folded the handkerchief into a perfect square and tucked it back into his breast pocket.

“Who’re you?” I asked.

“Call me Bennacio.”

“I’m Alfred Kropp.”

“I know who you are.”

“We’ve met before,” I said. “At Samson Towers. I didn’t recognize you at first without your robe. But I recognize your hands. And your voice.”

He nodded. “The man you know as Bernard Samson was killed two nights ago in Játiva, on the slopes of Monte Bernisa in Spain.” He sipped his coffee. He had taken off the lid and I could see he drank it black. “I was given instructions to find you in the event of his fall.”

I thought about that. It didn’t make much sense to me, but, since Mom died and I went to live with Uncle Farrell, almost everything had stopped making sense. “Why?”

“To tell you of his fate.”

“That’s important—telling me?”

He shrugged, like he really couldn’t make a judgment on the importance of keeping Alfred Kropp in the loop.

“What happened in Spain?”

Bennacio kept looking out the window. “He fell. Four of our Order fell with him. I alone have escaped to bring this news to you, Kropp. It was his dying wish that you should know.”

He sipped his coffee. He had a sharp nose and dark, deep-set eyes beneath thick salt-and-pepper brows. His white hair was swept back from his high forehead.

“Two of the Order fell in Toronto,” Bennacio said. “They were the first, dispatched by Samson to stop the enemy before he could flee North America. Another in London. Two in Pau, before the rest of us arrived.”

I did the math. Mr. Samson had told me there were twelve knights left. “That leaves just two of you.”

Bennacio shook his head. “Windimar fell near Bayonne, the night before we discovered the enemy in Játiva. I am the last of my Order.”

He didn’t say anything for a while. We finished our coffee. Finally, I said, “I’m sorry, Mr. Bennacio.”

“Just Bennacio,” he said. I don’t think it really mattered to him if I was sorry.

I went on. “But there’s a lot of other people in on this, right? Mr. Samson brought in this secret agency, some kind of spies, I guess, or mercenaries; I don’t know what you’d call them . . .”

“You are speaking of oy-pep.”

“I am?”

He nodded. “O-I-P-E-P. Oy-pep.” He made a face like saying the word left a bad taste in his mouth.

“What’s OIPEP?”

“Did you not just say Samson told you?”

“Well, like a lot of things he told me, he kind of did but he kind of didn’t. But I’m not exactly what you might call quick on the uptake. What exactly is OIPEP?”

He glanced around the coffee shop. “We should not talk about OIPEP here, Kropp.”

He stood up. I don’t know why, but I stood up too. I followed him to the door and into the night. The late-spring air was soft and warm. He took out his white handkerchief again and blew his nose.