Con Academy (20 page)

Behind me, Gatsby is holding Richie and Lisa's little girl on her knee while she chats with another woman and her teenage son. From the corner of my eye, I see her stop what she's doing and turn her eyes toward me.

I look up at Father Tom.

“I just wanted to say”—I clear my throat—“I'm sorry. About what we did.”

Father Tom just regards me. We have stolen money from this man's church, a lot of money, and there are plenty of things he could say at this moment—he'd be well within his rights to call the police and hold me here till they arrive—but in the end he just puts a hand on my shoulder. It's a heavy hand, but the weight of it feels reassuring somehow.

“It's good to see you again, Billy,” he says. “Don't be a stranger.”

Then he turns and walks away.

“What was
that
about?” Gatsby asks as we make our way back up State Street. Rich and Lisa have said their goodbyes at the corner, turning left and vanishing into the night, leaving the two of us alone.

“I'm not sure,” I say.

“The priest just let you walk away. Even after what you did.”

I nod. And then it occurs to me that Father Tom let me go
because
he knew what I did, even though I'm not exactly sure what that means or how I'd explain it to Gatsby—or even to myself. It seems to me that the things that we most need to be forgiven for are the offenses that are inarguably all our fault, the crimes that we can't possibly atone for. And I wonder if that's what people mean when they use the word
grace.
I open my mouth to try to put this into words, but then I stop.

Instead I just ask: “Are you cold?”

“I'm okay.” Gatsby glances up into the darkness to the top of a building. “This is us,” she says.

“Yeah.”

We go inside and start up the stairs toward the roof.

As we fly home, Gatsby falls asleep beside me, her head resting on my shoulder as I stare out the window at the glassy black expanse of the Atlantic coastline. I'm tired—exhausted, really—but my mind refuses to slow down. Something's changed, and it all has to do with that moment when Father Tom let me walk away, forgiven and clean, for no good reason at all, except that I needed it. I just wish I knew what it meant.

As we land, I feel Gatsby stirring, lifting her head and sitting up, rubbing her eyes. “Mm,” she says sleepily, and looks at me. “Are we back?”

Nodding, I help her to her feet and we step down out of the helicopter, then make our way across the darkened grounds as I walk her back to her room. The night smells like the ocean and dry leaves. The next snowstorm we get won't melt away so quickly. There's a sadness to it, a sense that fall is coming to an end, once and for all.

“Gatsby?”

She looks up at me sleepily.

“I almost forgot—I brought you something. I picked it up before Homecoming.”

I reach deep into my coat pocket and hand her the package. It's still wrapped in the faded old map of the Pacific. “You can just ignore the wrapping paper.”

She peels off the map and pulls out the copy of Hawthorne's
Twice-Told Tales,
turning it over slowly in her hands. “It's lovely,” she says, and then passes it back to me. “But I can't accept this.”

“Why not? It's the real deal.”

“That's not why.”

“Gatsby—”

“I need time, Will.”

I nod, and she just gazes up at me for a moment before stepping inside her room. I turn around, heading back toward my dorm, when a car swerves up in front of me, so close I have to jump backwards to avoid being hit. That's when I realize that time is the one thing I don't have.

“Get in,” Dad says.

The car smells like a distillery mixed with cigarette smoke. Rhonda's in the passenger seat, chuffing a Camel Light while playing Candy Crush on her phone, so I climb into the back, which still isn't far enough away from either of them. “What are you doing back here?”

“Shut up.” From the driver's seat, Dad looks back, his face twisted with anger. The car is idling, and Dad is showing no signs of putting it into drive. “What happened to Andrea?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I got back to the motel room and she was gone.”

Shaking my head, I give him my best blank look. “Am I supposed to know what you're talking about?”

Dad's right eyelid flutters and his lower lip droops down just slightly on that side, and for a second he looks like a man suffering a mild stroke. Then he manages to thrust his arm back over the seat, grabbing ahold of my collar. Since we're in a compact car, there's nowhere for me to go, and frankly, at this point I'm too tired to stop him. “The maid said she let you into my room. I know you were there. You cut her loose.”

“Dad, seriously—”

“I warned you about this. If you queer this deal for me, you'll be sucking your turkey and cranberry sauce through a tube this year, you understand?”

“A lovely holiday sentiment,” I tell him. “Can I go to bed now?”

Dad reaches out toward Rhonda with his right palm up, and she puts something in his hand. In the light from the dashboard, I see that it's a gun—a small black automatic. Dad looks down at it for a moment, and then his eyes flick back up to me. His voice has become very low now, almost inaudible, and there's something about his quiet tone that scares me more than any amount of yelling and screaming.

“You've been through a lot,” he says. “I know. So far, I've given you the benefit of the doubt. But you're a big boy now, and I'm just telling you this, man to man.” Raising the gun, he points it straight at my head. “If you or that smalltime grifter girlfriend of yours botch this for me, there will be repercussions, you understand?”

“You're going to shoot me now?” I'm trying to hide the quaver in my voice, with minimal success. “Seriously?”

“I
need
this score.” The gun doesn't move. “Don't mess it up for me, Billy.”

“You already did that yourself, a long time ago.” I pull the door handle and step out. “Oh, and Dad?” I lower my head to glance back in at him. “Father Tom says hello.”

I walk the rest of the way to my room without looking back.

I
WAKE UP LATE THE NEXT MORNING TO THE SOUND OF
squirrels chattering and squabbling outside my window. It's almost ten a.m. but it feels much later, and I roll over as thick fingers of daylight attempt to push their way under the curtains. The squabbling noises get louder, becoming progressively more animated and articulate, shaping themselves into words and sentences. Which means either Connaughton Academy has the most intelligent squirrels in the world, or . . .

. . . they aren't squirrels.

Pulling aside the curtain, I look out and see the Fox 25 TV news van parked across the lawn next to a platform with an empty podium and a microphone. There are several reporters out there already, along with mike booms and cameras, and a group of curious students has gathered outside a wood barricade.

This can't be good.

Somewhere in my dresser I find a clean set of clothes, and I brush my teeth and grab my coat before stepping out into the bright, cold morning air, which is when I see the new banner hanging from the trees overhead:

WELCOME, EBEYE CHILDREN'S HEALTH CLINIC, REPUBLIC OF MARSHALL ISLANDS!

Oh no.

From up the road comes the loud roar of a diesel engine. I can already see an airport shuttle bus pulling up on the other side of the barricade, and the crowd steps back as the cameras surge forward with the instinctive feeding frenzy that one sees only in certain predatory fish and the media. I can already make out Dr. Melville with his dog at the front of the crowd, but I can't tell whether he's seen me yet. Not that it matters now, I suppose; I've got nowhere to hide.

“Hey, Will. How was your night?”

I look around and see Andrea. She's standing there smiling radiantly, her hair and makeup perfect, the very picture of scholastic excellence. You'd never guess that the last time I saw her she was duct-taped to a chair in the bathtub of a Motel 6, swearing she was going to kill me.

“Hey, look,” I say, “about what happened yesterday—”

“No need to apologize,” she says, still smiling. Her eyes are positively sparkling, and I see that she's holding a huge cardboard check, like the ones that lottery winners are photographed with after they hit the jackpot. This one reads:
to the ebeye children's health clinic
, in the amount of $127,770.00. “Just get ready. It's your time to shine.”

“Hold it.” I look down at the big check, then back up at her. “What are you doing with that check?”

“Giving it to your people, of course. At least, you know, symbolically.” She flicks the hair from her eyes. “The actual money is going into my bank account, where I'll pick it up in cash on my way out of town tonight.”

“Wait. You're seriously keeping it?”

“Uh, let's see . . .” she says, putting her finger to her lips in mock consideration. “
Yes.
And, of course, fifty thousand of that money is coming directly from Brandt. Which means—oh, right . . .” She leans forward and whispers in my ear, “This is me beating you.”

“Andrea, the bet's off.”

“Why, just because you're about to lose? Forget it. You had your chance to bow out gracefully”—she cocks her head and gives me a little smile—“and now you can prepare to wallow in total, humiliating defeat.”

“Andrea, wait.”

Without another word, she starts winding her way forward with the big check held up over her head. Dr. Melville crosses the lawn to meet her, and when the door of the airport shuttle bus opens, I see a tall, weathered-looking African American man in khakis and a chambray shirt stepping down. It must be Nathan Stanley, the head of the children's clinic on Ebeye. He's clutching the hand of a middle-aged woman who I can only assume is his wife. The couple moves slowly, with the careful determination of people who have traveled a long way and see no point in hurrying now.

I look at Dr. Stanley. There's something about his face that I can't quite identify, something I've seen before, a kind of transcendent peacefulness amid all of this giddy chaos.

I feel a strange tightness take ahold of me as my heart starts to pound. I'm in the wrong place at the wrong time, and it's not getting any easier. A weird silence settles over the moment as Dr. Stanley gestures back into the bus. Two boys, neither of them older than five, come leaping and bounding down the steps, followed by a little girl in a long yellow coat. One of the boys stops in his tracks, eyes wide, and goggles at the fallen orange leaves scattered on the ground. The other exhales, staring in fascination as his breath streams out of him. The girl in the yellow coat squeals and jumps up into the woman's arms. I see Andrea talking to Dr. Stanley and pointing back at me.

“Will!” Andrea shouts, waving me over. “Get up here! Come say hello!”

My heart is pounding so hard that I can hardly breathe. Dr. Stanley and his wife are both looking at me expectantly while their children play around them in the fallen leaves. On the far side of the crowd, I see Gatsby standing there with her arms crossed, watching me through a sea of faces.

Waiting to see what I'll do.

I turn and run.

“W
HAT DO YOU WANT?
” G
EORGE ASKS.

He's just pulled up outside the main security building on the outskirts of campus, exactly where I asked him to meet me when I called him twenty minutes earlier. Now it's almost noon, and the Stanleys have finished their tour of Connaughton's campus and are at the dining hall, where Andrea and Dr. Melville are no doubt treating them to lunch while the TV news crews capture all of the action for the evening broadcast. Meanwhile, George stands in front of his truck, waiting for my answer.

“How would you like to get back at Brandt Rush?” I ask him.

He doesn't say anything at first, just runs his fingers along his long, freshly shaved chin, weighing his answer like a logic problem. “You've got thirty seconds to explain.”

“Do you remember a student named Moira McDonald?”

He nods. “Of course I remember Moira. She was a nice girl.” He frowns at me. “Why do you care?”

“If you remember her, then you know what Brandt did to her and why she had to leave. I'm giving you the opportunity to settle the score.”

“What makes you think I'd help you?”

I reach into my coat pocket and pull out a worn library book, flipping it open to the place I have marked. “In
Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals,
” I tell him, “Immanuel Kant says that when a man tears himself away from his duty to perform any act of altruism, then that constitutes his first true act of genuine moral worth.”

“That's a pretty superficial reading of the text,” George says.

“Yeah, well, I'm a pretty superficial guy.” I look at him. “Are you in or out?”

George doesn't budge. He drops his head, and some of the air seems to leak out of him, deflating his shoulders and chest beneath his uniform. “I can't.”

“Why not?”

“Carl.”

“What about him?”

George glances back at the truck. “He's the only reason that I took this job.”

“I know.”

“Did you know that I used to teach on the graduate level?” He rubs his neck and peers back at me as if trying to see whether I understand what he's saying. “You think it's not humiliating, taking orders from Rush? Reporting back to him like some lackey? Knowing that I'm doing this because it amuses him to see me driving around in a security truck? You think I don't hate him for it, every single day?” His eyes narrow. “But this is for my son. I'd love to help you burn Brandt, but . . .” He shakes his head. “I can't take the risk.”