Coin Heist (10 page)

I recognized the truth in what he was saying. He was so straightforward. It was refreshing.

“I get that,” I said. “I feel like I talk all the time but no one knows who I really am. Go straight here.”

He followed my directions. “Maybe they don't know you because you don't let them. Maybe you keep your secrets hidden too deep.”

“Maybe,” I allowed, looking out the window. We were getting away from the boutiques and cafés and into the residential area of town. The houses were smaller and closer together here, but the farther away you went, the bigger and grander they got. This was one of the richest zip codes outside of Philadelphia. It made me uncomfortable—I mean, I knew Benny and I didn't have much in common, we both knew that, but looking out from the car window now, sitting next to him, it was obvious that we were from vastly different worlds. “Possibly. But isn't that why they're secrets?”

“What are you afraid of?” he asked, looking over at me. His eyes were warm and sparkly.

I felt my heart speed up. Stupid. “I don't know.”

“Oh, come on. Sure you do.”

“No, I—that's a good question.” I pressed my lips together, thinking. “If I answer, then you have to, too.”

“All right then. I'd say, maybe it's that no one would like me if they really knew me. Not having money and stuff like that, that's a good excuse. But what if it's a personality problem?”

“Bear left at the fork.” I couldn't believe we were having this conversation. “I guess I could say the same thing. Like, if I wasn't the perfect person everyone expected me to be, maybe they'd realize that I'm just kind of boring.”

“You're not boring,” he said. “Not at all. But you're also not perfect, because nobody is. Stay on this road for awhile?”

All of a sudden, I got the strangest feeling that he knew me. Like,
actually
knew me.

We were on Evergreen Street, and for a moment I paused. I thought I would just have him drop me on the next block, at Alyson Siegel's house, which was a split-level from the 1970s with a normal-size yard. I mean, what would he think if he saw our long, pear tree–lined driveway, the stone gatehouse up front, the tennis court and pool house? My parents had named our property “Hedgerow”—there was even a little sign—and just thinking about it in the presence of Benny made me blush with shame. So freaking pretentious.

But at the same time, I realized he was sharing stuff with me, too. He wasn't ashamed of where he came from, so why should I be? It was no more his fault he was poor than it was mine that I was wealthy. We were both born into these lives by chance and, different as we were, we had that one thing in common. For the first time in a long time, I felt like I wasn't acting. I wasn't trying. I was just . . .
being.

“No,” I said. “Turn right here.”

Twelve

BENNY

It was time
to call in a favor. My boy LT—his real name was Lautaro, but he refused to go by that—owed me big-time for a batch of IDs I'd made for him and all of his cousins a few months ago. We needed a vehicle for Operation EagleFly, and none of us were old enough to rent one. Plus, we needed something that would be able to disappear quickly. LT was my best bet.

For some reason my mind went to Dakota, maybe because I could still smell her, like she'd left a little perfume shadow behind in the passenger seat the day before. It was cool, giving her a ride home from school. She was in my world for the first time, instead of me in hers. I'd never noticed that she was actually kind of smart and cool. The ass was that distracting. And yeah, she was a little uptight, and a little too wrapped up in what everyone thought. But there was something else inside her, a little spark, and that made her interesting.

A drive home was a drive home, I reminded myself. A plan was a plan. We were all just working together. And I had to do my part.

I pulled off Route 1 and exited at Broad Street. Back in North Philly. At least here you didn't have to have special gate codes or drive a mile to get down a driveway. Everyone was right where you could see them. I passed by the fried seafood shops and hair supply stores, then headed east on Lehigh. Back to El Centro de Oro—the heart of gold. That's what they called our neighborhood, the area around Fifth Street. It was also the heart of the Latino community, mostly Puerto Ricans and Dominicans, but some Mexicanos like my grandparents. (Of course, other people called it the Badlands, because of the drug dealers.)

On Fifth Street, the colors of the buildings changed to light blue and yellow, the Centro music store blasted salsa, and there were big murals stretching for blocks between fake palm tree sculptures. Lately they were trying to fix up the 'hood, which was pretty cool, but it still had a ways to go. You couldn't undo decades of struggle with a few pieces of art.

I turned again onto Cambria and parked in front of LT's house. Tuesdays were his day off from work. He was older than me by about four years, and he'd dropped out of school a long time ago to start working at my uncle's shop.

We'd gotten to be friends over the past few summers, when he helped me with the Mustang and I listened to all his girl problems. He had a lot of girl problems. But LT was cool. Of all my buddies, he was the only one who didn't make fun of me for going to school in the suburbs. “Don't listen to the haters,” he said to me. “You should go get yours.”

He'd had a few scrapes with the law when he was my age—petty theft type things, but he'd almost gone to juvie for helping some thug with a cut-and-shut. That was before he got serious about cars and turned himself around. He was a fast learner, and when he got good enough, he left the shop to go work for a fancy joint in the suburbs, doing custom paint jobs—the big time—but he still lived at home with his parents, along with his girlfriend Carlita.

He answered the bell in a t-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops, even though it was less than fifty degrees outside. He held the door open with one hand and scratched his head lazily with the other. “Hola, Benny. What's up?”

I gave him a hug and a handshake like we always did. Then I stepped in, closing the screen door behind me, and sat down on his mom's couch. “I need your help.”

“Oh no,” he said. “You didn't get her pregnant, did you?”

“Who?”

“Ha ha, that's right.” He pointed at me, laughing. “You don't have a girl. I forgot you're a virgin.”

“You know I'm not.” I was close to it, but technically I'd had sex with a girl I'd met at a party last summer. It was dark and we were drunk and she was, like, twenty and told me what to do, but it still counted. Anyway, I didn't want to get into that again. “I'm serious now, dawg.”

“Okay.” He smiled wide and I could see he was still making fun—he lived to annoy me.

“But you have to keep this a secret. If you want to help me you have to promise you won't tell anyone.”

He bowed his head to his fingertips to show me he meant business. “You got it, man. Always.”

“What if I needed a car?”

“You have a car, don't you? Did something happen to the Mustang?”

“I need a
car
,” I said with emphasis.

“Oh. A
car.
Right.” He sighed.

He was trying to keep his nose clean, I knew that. I wondered if this was such a good idea after all. Even telling him could get him into trouble. He was like the brother I never had, and the last thing I wanted to do was hurt him. “You know what, forget it.”

He waved his hand. “No no. Tell me what you need.”

“I don't want you putting yourself on the line.”

“I can take care of myself, Ben. What kind of car?”

“I'm not sure yet. Something untraceable.” I wasn't sure how we were getting into the Mint just yet, but I needed to know he could get me a vehicle to use when the time came. “If you can't do it, just say so.”

He shrugged. “So long as it's not a Bentley.”

“Naw, man. Something under the radar.”

“All right. I can get you something on a temporary basis, something I can return to the shop quickly.”

“A few hours is all we need,” I reassured him.

“Anything else?”

“The plates?”

“I can get those too, and switch 'em up for you,” he said, running a finger over his bottom teeth as he thought it over. “But Benny, this is gonna take some labor hours, hours I could be doing real jobs, plus like you said, there's the risk I'm taking here.”

“I'll get you some money,” I said, seeing where this was going. He was right. The IDs weren't really a fair trade. I didn't know where I'd get the cash, but I'd get it somehow. “Three thousand?”

He smiled again, his eyes gleaming but wary. “Now where are you gonna get that kind of scratch, son?” Then he held up a hand. “You know what? I don't even want to know.”

“No,” I said. This was a federal job, way bigger than anything he'd ever been involved with. “You don't.”

If I had to, I'd hit up some of my savings, sell the Mustang. Hopefully, it wouldn't come to that, but I wouldn't leave LT hanging.

We sat for a while and watched TV until I had to go do my homework. On the way out, I clapped a hand on his shoulder. “You know how much I appreciate this.”

His face was calm. “I've got your back.”

For a short little second, I was tempted to tell him about Dakota, but then I checked myself. There was nothing to tell. It would just sound stupid.

Instead I just gave him a hug. “Later, man.”

“Listen,” he said as we broke apart. “I'm not going to preach to you. Just do me a favor. Whatever you're mixed up in, think about your options, okay? Maybe there's another way.”

“Maybe,” I said.

Then I was down the steps, back out onto the familiar streets of our neighborhood.

I could see the top of her greying hair from the doorway. My grandmom was in the kitchen like always, sitting at the round table, eating vanilla sandwich cookies as she watched the afternoon news. My granddad was out working at the hardware store. He kept saying he was too old to haul lumber, but they'd have to fire him before he'd quit.

“How was school?” she called out in Spanish. She always wanted the full rundown, and I never had much to tell.

“Good,” I said. I went for the refrigerator and poured myself a glass of juice.

“You're happy there, right?”

“Sure,” I said, taking a swig. “I'm happy.”

I hadn't told her yet what was happening at HF. I probably should, about my scholarship and everything. But maybe we could fix it before I had to.

I looked at her little hands, which were picking up crumbs from the tablecloth to keep it spotless. She wanted so much for me, and if I couldn't deliver it, it would break her heart. I had to save HF, because that was my only shot.

And yet, if she knew how I was planning to do it, she'd smack me with one of her magazines, so hard my teeth would rattle.

I took my glass and my backpack and started up the stairs to my room.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“I gotta get to work,” I said.

Thirteen

ALICE

Eleven p.m. on
Thursday. Your average school night. Except instead of working on my latest art project to salvage my grade like I was supposed to, I was sitting in my room, making mental calculations as I stared at my iCal. Dakota had finally set a date for us: June 14.

We were nine weeks away and counting. Nine weeks was a long time—almost a semester. Whole GPA points could be created and torn down in that time. Entire cliques could shatter and regroup. But it was also, relatively speaking, a blink of an eye. You'd look at the syllabus and the test that seemed so far in the future was suddenly next Monday.

So there it was. June 14. And then what? I'd prove my mastery over all things computer-related, Jason and the rest of the crew would be eternally grateful, and all of my social math theories would be cracked open. My life would finally be different.

My life was already different, though. Jason and I were friends now. Real friends. Earlier today, when he and I had walked back from lunch to our lockers, which happened a lot these days, he'd told me that his dad was meeting with lawyers, and that he was going to plead guilty, try to take a settlement.

“How do you feel about that?” I'd asked.

“I don't know. It sucks that he's going to say he's guilty. Everyone will know.”

“But then he'll be home,” I had pointed out.

“Only if the judge allows it. And that's good how?”

“So he can do manly things around the house? I don't know, gas up the lawnmower? Lift weights in the garage?”

“Al, this is my dad. You know him. He watches five-part history shows in his spare time. He has a bowtie for every day of the week.”

Picturing Mr. Hodges doing bench presses in his bowtie, I'd smiled. “Can I ask you a question? Why do you always talk to me about this stuff? I mean, do you ever talk about it with your friends?”

“Not really,” he had said. “They're guys. And Zack is . . . Zack.”

When we talked like this, my imagination got away from me. We were members of the same set, finally. Maybe even
intersecting
sets.

“So he's not a guy
and
he's a bad listener?”

“Exactly.” He had laughed. “No, you're the only one. I mean, you're easy to talk to.”

I hadn't known what to say then, so I'd just hit him on the arm. All the time, though, I was memorizing exactly what he looked like and the precise tone of his voice so I could revisit that moment whenever I wanted.

My daydreaming was interrupted by the front door opening downstairs and then a few creaks on the floorboards.

“Dave?” I heard my mom call, practically bursting out of their bedroom with the first sound of him. “Is that you?”

He was busted.

“Hi, Hon,” he said. A shake of the keys, a few more steps, and then the slap of his briefcase being set down.

“What happened? I thought you were supposed to be here at nine.”

My mom's voice trailed through the house, which was old and echoey. Even from my little tucked-away bedroom that faced the creek in the back, I could hear everything they were saying.

“The meeting ran over. You know how those guys are. On and on. I'll be right up.”

Did he think that it was normal to stay out until eleven on a weeknight? For a meeting? I'd never had a job and even I knew that wasn't something people did. I mean, at least come up with a believable cover story.

Once again, I felt disgust burning me like an acid bath. I hated both of them. I hated him for doing this to her, for making her look like a fool. And I hated her for being one.

I wanted so badly to get in my dad's face, to let him know I knew, that he couldn't put one over on me. I thought of what Jason had said. Maybe it
was
better to just let the truth come out. How much longer could we go on like this?

Letting my anger fuel me, I stalked downstairs, basically intercepting my dad on the landing on his way up. He had his blue argyle sweater and typical khakis on, and his bald spot was gleaming under the antique wrought-iron hall light. He was so lame. I couldn't believe this was the guy I'd once looked up to, or that I actually used to think I'd go work at his company and invent something amazing like he had. So what if he'd saved lives with his cutting-edge cancer treatments? All the inventions in the world couldn't change the fact that he was a douchebag.

“Oh, hey kiddo,” he said absentmindedly, like I was an animal he was patting on the head. Did he not even notice that I was cornering him?

“Hi, Dad,” I said, steeling myself.

“Someone's overdue for bedtime. You're up late for a school night,” he said.

“I guess that makes two of us.” Did he feel nervous? Good. I wanted him to.

“Work has been so busy this week. Just crazy.”

“Has it?” I asked flatly. “Maybe you need to hire another secretary—you know, to help you keep things in order.”

He gave me a weird look and then we just stared at each other for a moment. Could I do it? Could I really confront him, once and for all, like one grownup to another? I felt the words bubbling up, finding their way through my tightened jaw.
I know what you're doing.

“Dave?” my mom called. “Are you coming up? Did you set the alarm?”

That broke the silence. And with the sound of my poor, unsuspecting mom's voice, I felt instant guilt. I was tough, perhaps, and bitter, yes, but I wasn't cruel. I just couldn't bring myself to say any more.

My dad seemed to realize he'd been saved by the human bell. “Excuse me, Al. I'm gonna turn in. You really should get some sleep too, so you can be fresh for tomorrow.”

Maybe I wasn't going to call him out, but I could still let him know that things were different. For starters, he didn't get to call me that anymore. “I'd prefer you to use Alice from now on,” I said curtly.

“Oh, have you outgrown your nickname? I hadn't realized.” He leaned in to kiss me on the forehead and I stiffened. “Well, good night. Alice.”

I let him pass. Then I wiped away all traces of him from my face, and I continued down to the kitchen, where I poured myself a glass of juice and sat with it, brooding.

I wasn't a kid anymore. If only he knew what I had planned.