“Temporarily, yeah. I mean, I sold my business. But do you know what I used to do?”

“You were a sports agent, right?”

“Right.”

I was using a wooden spatula to work my eggs.

“So that’s why they wanted to see you?” I asked.

“Pardon?”

Was Uncle Myron being intentionally thick? “Did Randy want you to be his agent?”

Myron’s words came out slowly. “I don’t think so.”

“What, then?”

“When I was training to become an agent, I went to law school.”

I knew about that. After Myron’s basketball career came to an abrupt end, he ended up at Harvard and became an attorney. “So?”

“So what people tell me is confidential.”

“When you’re acting as a lawyer.”

“Right.”

“So you’re Randy’s lawyer?”

“No.”

“I don’t get it, then.”

Uncle Myron started fidgeting. “Why are you so interested?” he asked.

“No reason,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant. Then: “Do you know he has a brother, Buck?”

“Yeah, I know. He’s a senior. He’s given you some trouble, right?”

“Not anymore.”

Myron nodded. “Mr. Schultz told me. Buck moved back in with his mother. Something about a custody dispute. He was pretty upset about it.”

“So was that what he wanted to talk to you about?” I asked.

“I’m not a divorce lawyer,” Myron said.

“Is that a no?”

“It’s a no.”

I waited. Uncle Myron started reading the back of the cereal box closely now, as though it were religious scripture. “You’re not going to tell me what you guys were talking about, are you?”

He didn’t bother glancing up. “No, Mickey, I’m not.”

“Could you tell me if it had anything to do with Buck?”

Uncle Myron weighed that request before saying, “It doesn’t.”

“So,” I said, “the fact that Randy wanted to talk to you and Buck all of a sudden had to go live with his mom—that’s just a big coincidence?”

“Yes,” Myron said.

But I could hear in his tone that even he didn’t believe it.

CHAPTER 23

I met Ema at the bus stop. “It isn’t a VCR tape,” she said.

“What is it, then?”

“Something called a Betamax. Sony made them. I guess they were popular in the eighties, but they’re obsolete now.”

“So how do we watch it?”

“I don’t know. We could look online, I guess. See if anyone is selling a machine on eBay or something. Or we could go back to Bat Lady’s house and use the one in the tunnel.”

“You heard her.”

Ema nodded. “Never go back. She was pretty adamant about that.”

• • •

The bus hit some traffic near the Tappan Zee Bridge, but still made it in less than three hours. There were three Farnsworth students on our bus—all wearing jackets and ties—so we followed them. Campus was closer than we’d expected, less than a half-mile walk.