How to Lead a Life of Crime (19 page)

My car ride ends in the short-term parking lot at JFK. I hop out and dump Mr. Martin’s wallet in the first trash can I see. I keep only the license and cash. I’m feeling good. It’s nice to have a change of scenery. Then I enter the terminal and find myself sucked into a crowd. Suddenly I’m a zoo animal, and the door of my cage has been left open. The wild half of my brain sees opportunity. The half that’s accepted a life in captivity is insisting that it’s all just a trick.

I haven’t been around this many normal people in months. Is this how they act? Their movements appear totally random, and they’re all talking at top volume. I didn’t think I’d have any trouble identifying the academy’s observers, but every face I examine appears perfectly ordinary. Maybe there aren’t any observers. Maybe everyone’s an observer. Maybe Mandel rented the entire terminal for the day. Maybe this isn’t even JFK. I didn’t pay much attention to the route we took. I need to be alone for a moment. Before I rush to the men’s room, I check the arrivals screen. My mark’s flight isn’t due in for an hour.

In the bathroom, there’s one stall open. The toilet is disgusting. They say you can’t catch STDs from a toilet seat, but I’ve never been sure about crabs. So I stand in the tiny space, listening to the sound of water rushing and bowels emptying. It’s comforting to know that no one can see me losing my shit. What’s wrong with me? I’m in public. I could find a way to phone the police. What would you tell them? I could contact the newspapers. What proof do you have? I could show a reporter the chip in my head. You’d never make it out of the airport. I could call my mother. There aren’t any phones where she is, you imbecile. I could try to reach Joi. You don’t have the balls.

Someone new just arrived in the restroom.

“It’s five days, Skylar. Five f—ing days!” The voice is pure frat boy. I peer through the crack in my stall and see a college-age guy on the phone. It’s forty degrees outside, and he’s wearing shorts. Either the dude’s taken too many lacrosse sticks to the side of his head or he’s heading off on spring break.

“I told you. It’s just guys. Nobody’s taking their girlfriends. Look, I gotta go take a dump. I’ll call you when I get back from Cancún.”

He enters the stall next to mine. I hear his bag drop to the floor. A fly unzips and a toilet seat clanks. I squat down. A duffel bag is leaning against the divider between our two stalls. The top is open, and I can see the corner of an iPhone sticking out. It’s possible that Mr. Spring Break is just an academy stooge, but I’m not going to look this gift horse in the mouth.

A little pick-pocketing always lightens my mood, and the paranoia begins to fade as I head for the airport security line. Mandel may be watching, but that doesn’t mean I can’t have some fun. I stop at a souvenir shop on my way to the gates. I use Mr. Martin’s cash to purchase a Yankees hat and an I
NY T-shirt. A quick trip to another restroom, and I emerge as a tourist. My own shirt is folded neatly inside the plastic shopping bag. I have thirty minutes before my mark’s flight arrives at one fifty. More than enough time to entertain myself. I don’t even bother to check for observers. Let them catch me in the act. I should get extra credit for what I’m about to do.

There are plenty of seats in the departure lounge, but I pick one in a section that’s being used as a playground by six feral siblings. I take a snapshot of Mr. Martin’s driver’s license with the iPhone. It makes a splendid photo for Simon Hodenfield’s new Facebook page. Then I put together an album using Mr. Spring Break’s pictures, which show bare-chested frat boys in various stages of intoxication. Finally I get to work on Simon Hodenfield’s profile.

Activities and interests:

(N)urturing the youth of today

(A)cting as a mentor to young men in need

(M)aking the most of our time together

(B)uying little gifts for the people I cherish

(L)aughing at those who can’t understand our love

(A)nal sex with high school studs

Favorite movies:

Anything with Taylor Lautner

Favorite books:

Lord of the Flies, the Abercrombie & Fitch catalog

Favorite quote:

You make me feel like I’m living a teenage dream. —Katy Perry

It looks like Simon never taught his spawn how dangerous the Internet can be. His son Nathaniel’s profile is public. I invite all of the kid’s buddies at the Browning School to be friends with his dad. I even send a few special messages:

You have a secret admirer!

I may be old, but I’m a lot of fun!

How about a sleepover?

Sexual predators need love too!

After I finish, I check the time. I was connected to the Internet for almost twenty minutes. The observers didn’t intervene—though for all they know, I could have been emailing the FBI. There’s something very strange going on here. My skin starts to tingle as the paranoia returns. I sit with the phone in my lap and watch the six budding delinquents pelt each other with caramel-covered popcorn. When I find myself caught in the crossfire, I start to wonder if they might be part of a trap.

Flight 3749 out of Chicago arrives, and I take my place outside the gate before it begins to deboard. My mark is out the moment they open the doors. He must have been sitting in first class. He’s got his iPhone in his hand. He’s making a call.

I step out in front of him and match my stride to his.

“I just got in. . . . Yes, the flight was fine. How are you feeling? . . . I know, but sometimes you just have to force yourself to get out of bed. . . . Maybe you should call Dr. Chung. Do you want me to do it? . . . Well, then have your sister come over till I get home. . . . Around nine this evening. I left the schedule by your computer.”

I’m impressed. Mr. Martin’s simulation is very thorough. If I didn’t know better, I’d think the actor was just a regular guy with an exceptionally clingy wife.

“Okay, honey, listen, I have to rush. I’ll call you right after the meeting. . . . Love you too. Bye.”

I give it a second. Then I turn around abruptly. The man rams into me. As we bump chests, the iPhone drops out of his hand. I catch it and slip it into my pants pocket. I keep my thumb scrolling across the screen so password protection won’t kick in.

“So sorry, mister,” I say, handing him Mr. Spring Break’s phone. “I just remembered I left my backpack on the plane!”

I jog past him before he can get a good look at my face. Then I quickly duck into a Starbucks and deactivate the phone’s password protection. I remove my Yankees cap and put my original shirt over the I
NY T-shirt. As soon as I’m out of disguise, I begin my investigation. Let’s see what Mr. Martin and Mr. Mandel want me—don’t want me—to find.

The iPhone belongs to an Arthur Klein, and the first few emails I browse are all about drugs. I guess Art’s supposed to be some kind of pharmacologist. Either that or he’s a junkie with an impressive vocabulary. His correspondence is so complicated that it might as well be written in ancient Greek. So I scroll through Art’s photos instead. There are dozens of them. Someone really put a lot of effort into downloading all these images. I click on the first one. It’s just a kid. He’s four or so, and he bears an uncanny resemblance to the guy I just robbed. It seems a bit strange that an actor would get his young son involved in a simulation like this. The next photo shows the little boy posing on the steps of what looks like a temple until I read the name engraved in the marble. It’s the John G. Shedd Aquarium. In Chicago. The attention to detail is absolutely remarkable. I scroll faster, searching for something scandalous. There’s nothing but the same goddamned kid. He gets bigger, less babyish. I stop on a photo of the boy in a scarlet graduation gown and hat. There’s a banner behind him that says Congratulations, class of 2010. Kindergarten. It’s so cute I feel nauseous. I keep scrolling, but there are only two photos left.

The kid is waving to the camera from the top of a playground slide. He doesn’t look any older than he did in the kindergarten photo. I can’t breathe. Why can’t I breathe? Shouldn’t there be more pictures on the phone? This one must have been taken over two years ago.

Something happened to the kid. This is the last picture his father took of him. This is all that’s left. This is real. This is very, very real.

Suddenly I’m running past the gates toward the exit, weaving around travelers, ignoring their startled faces as I hurdle over rolling suitcases. The only thing I can hear is the sound of myself pleading with any god that might be listening. Don’t let him be gone. Please, don’t let him be gone.

He’s not. He had a bag checked. A large portfolio case. I’m stuck on an escalator, but I see him haul the case off the conveyor belt and lug it out to the center of the baggage claim area. He stops and looks around. He must be expecting a driver to meet him. I see him rooting around in his jacket pocket. He’s going to call his secretary or the car company. When he pulls out Mr. Spring Break’s iPhone, I know what I need to do. I know how this all has to end.

I’m off the escalator. I’m less than a yard away, and I’m already running. I snatch the phone out of the man’s hand. It takes him a few seconds to shout.

“Thief!”

But no one comes after me. And I have to be caught. My plan won’t work unless I’m arrested. Then a little girl with a rolling Barbie suitcase appears in my path. I could leap over her if I tried. But I don’t. I’ll let the kid feel like a hero today. I trip over the bag and go sailing face-first across the floor. When I come to a stop, two Good Samaritans pin me down. My mark gets his phone—and his little boy back. I’m so goddamned happy that I start to cry.

CHAPTER TWENTY

FRANK

I
f there are really academy observers here, I’ve outwitted them all. I’m locked up in a detention center at JFK. The airport cops must not be part of the game. None of them seem very interested in me. I guess stealing phones doesn’t compare to being caught with bags of cocaine crammed in your rectum—or entering the country with endangered species tucked into your tighty whities. Plus, the guy I robbed didn’t have time to stick around and press charges. I was worried they might release me, so I informed the cops that I’m still a minor. They did exactly what I hoped they’d do. They made me call my father.

I wish I’d thought of this earlier. No FBI agent or newspaper reporter would ever take me seriously. But my father knows what really goes on at the Mandel Academy. He’s the headmaster’s enemy—the only one who can stop him. If I don’t graduate, my father will win his wager. If I don’t graduate, they’ll have to get rid of me. I’ll die, and that’s fine. I can’t rid the world of all of its monsters. But at least I can keep Lucian Mandel from murdering millions.

“I’ve been arrested at JFK,” I tell my father when he takes my call.

“Excuse me?” He sounds so polite. There must be other people around.

“I stole a phone.”

“I’ll have my assistant contact the academy,” he says.

“No. It’s over. I give up. I’m not going to help Mandel anymore. You have to come get me.”

There’s a pause. “Okay. I’ll be there in under an hour.”

I suppose I won’t be alive much longer than that. It’s a relief to know that my body isn’t going to be fed to the machines in Mandel’s lab. I should probably be reliving my fondest memories, but I keep thinking about the little boy in the pictures. My gut is still telling me that the kid was real. I wonder if Jude had something to do with what’s happened today. If so, I hope he approves of what I’m going to do. I won’t be able to avenge his death. I hope he’s not pissed off when I get to Never Land.

• • •

A lady cop unlocks the gate. “You’re free to go,” she says.

I’m shocked when I see my dad waiting by the front desk. He looks a few inches shorter and a decade older. It’s been less than a year since the last time I saw him. How could anyone age so quickly? His posture is still perfect. His suit looks brand new. But I see strands of gray in his chestnut hair. Crinkled skin around his eyes. A weariness inside them. For the first time since I’ve known him, my father actually appears to be mortal.

“Thank you for your trouble,” he tells the officers. “I’ll make sure that my son is properly punished.”

I follow him out the door. He stays three steps ahead of me. I’m so tempted to kill him. I could snap his neck with a single move. My brother’s murderer has his back to me. I’ve spent a year dreaming about a moment like this. Now it’s here, and I’m the one who’s surrendered.

My father’s car and driver are waiting at the curb. He opens a door to the backseat. “Get in,” he orders.

I slide inside. My father joins me. It feels like we’re observing a family tradition when we both keep our lips sealed. We’ve taken hundreds of silent car rides together, my father scrolling through his email while I watch the world pass by. But today his phone has stayed in his pocket and his eyes haven’t left the back of the driver’s seat. I don’t see any evidence, but I can tell he’s been drinking. The traffic is light and the man at the wheel is speeding. We’re approaching the Manhattan Bridge when I realize this may be my last chance to speak.

I lean toward my father and sniff the air. “You f—ing reek. Did you down a whole bottle of Scotch on the way to the airport?”

He doesn’t answer. But I can hear him sucking in air he doesn’t deserve, and it infuriates me.

“Must be hard living with yourself. Knowing you murdered your favorite son and all. Is that what’s got you drinking during the day?”

My father gazes out the window. “Jude’s death was an accident.”

“Tell that to someone who didn’t see his corpse. How many punches does it take to kill a sixteen-year-old kid, anyway?”

It used to be so easy to wind my dad up. When he sighs, I start to wonder if I’ve lost my touch. “I only hit Jude once. We were standing at the top of the stairs when it happened. The doctor said the fall broke his neck.”

“Yeah? And how much did you pay the doctor to say it? You know, I always thought you loved Jude.”

“I did. I . . . ” He stops without finishing the thought.

How dare he? How f—ing dare he lie to me now? He’ll suffer for that, I swear, even if the only weapon I can hurl at him is the truth. “Just as much as your dad loved you, right?” When he looks over at me, I make sure I’m smiling. “Mandel told me your dad loved you so much that you had to stab him to death.”

He stares at me until my smile is gone. “Lucian read my file, but he doesn’t know the real story. My father never drank before my mother abandoned us. I watched him fall apart. By the time I turned twelve, he was just a penniless drink. We needed money for food and rent, so I had to look for odd jobs. I thought my dad would be proud the first time I came home with a bag full of groceries. He knocked me down as soon as I stepped through the door. I couldn’t understand why he did it, and from that moment on, I despised him.”

“And then you grew up to be just like him. How ironic.”

He nods. He knows it’s true. “I tried to avoid it. That’s why I was thirty-five before I took my first sip of alcohol. But once I started, I found out why my father was never able to stop. I don’t even remember the first time I hit you. Or why I did it. That’s how much I’d been drinking. But when I woke up the next morning and saw what I’d done, I could tell that I’d lost you. And when your mother confronted me, I knew that I’d lost her too.”

“But you still had Jude, isn’t that all that mattered?”

“He was my last chance to get it right. And for a while I thought I had. Then I found out Jude hated me just as much as you do. I suppose he was just better at hiding it.”

Is that really what it was? When I was younger, I’d make Jude stand beside me in front of my mother’s closet mirror. We looked so much alike. I couldn’t see what the difference was—I couldn’t understand how my father could love one of us and loathe the other.

“Gee, Dad, that almost sounded sincere. If you weren’t the world’s biggest liar, I might actually believe a bit of your sob story. But do me a favor. Just kill me already—don’t bore me to death.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he says. “I’m not going to kill you.” He sounds exhausted.

“Why not? You bet Mandel that I’d never graduate from the academy, and we all know what happens to the kids they ‘expel.’ You bet on my life, Dad. I have to die in order for you to win the wager. So why draw things out any longer? I give up. I’m letting you take the prize. Just do me a favor and don’t let Mandel get his hands on my corpse. The way I see it, you owe me that much.”

“You’re not allowed to give up,” my father explains patiently. “Not yet. When we formed our agreement, Lucian said he might need two semesters. As you know, there’s a great deal at stake here. I must honor our deal. If there were any other way to dispose of Lucian, I would have done it long ago.”

“But you can’t because he’s got the goods on you. What I don’t understand is why Mandel would even bother with a wager if he could have your ass sent to jail for Jude’s murder.”

“He’d like to, but I have half the alumni behind me. Neither of us would benefit from a civil war among the graduates. Lucian can’t afford to lose half the people who pay his bills. And I refuse to put the Mandel Academy at risk.”

“Seems like you’ve got your priorities in order. Nothing’s more important than protecting a school that kills its own students.”

When he spins around to face me, I finally get a glimpse of a father I recognize. The one who always looked at me like I was a hideous boil on the ass of humanity.

“What do you know about priorities?” he spits. “For your information, every student the academy has ever recruited would have died without it. They had no families. No friends. They would have overdosed or been murdered or thrown themselves off bridges. The academy helps as many as it can. It gives them a chance to survive. That’s what people like you and Lucian can’t understand. You were both born with everything. You don’t know what it’s like to have nothing.”

“I had everything? You mean money and a big house? Is that what you call everything?”

“I made sure you had food, shelter, and warm clothing!” The volume of his voice rises a little with each word. “That’s more than I ever had!”

“So you think the Mandel Academy rescued you?” I ask. “I thought only weak people had to be saved.”

I brace myself for my father’s response, but his anger seems to have withered away. “Beatrice gave me something to fight for. I was the one who saved myself.”

“Beatrice? Beatrice Mandel?” Lucian Mandel said his mother and my father were close. She was his mentor. He was her masterpiece.

“After my father died, Beatrice brought me to the academy. It was a different place in those days. They didn’t put chips in our arms—or give us drugs that made us easier to control. Beatrice never toyed with us or treated her students like lab rats. She respected us. We were told that some of us would make it—and some of us wouldn’t. It wasn’t a game to Beatrice. It was life or death.

“When she offered me a place at the Mandel Academy, Beatrice made it very clear that the only thing I’d be given at the school was a chance. If I wanted more, I’d have to fight for it. At first I didn’t think I’d ever have what it took. But then Beatrice pulled me aside and encouraged me to observe the other students. Some were strong. Some were weak. And the only difference between them was a choice. Fight or give in. And that choice was mine. All mine. No one else could make it for me—and no one could ever take it away. In the end, I chose to fight.”

“Lucian Mandel would just say that your gene had been activated.”

“And there are many things I might say about Lucian Mandel, but I wouldn’t want to jeopardize our deal. I will tell you that Lucian has never faced the kind of choice I described. If he had, he’d know his little theory is wrong. If a gene were responsible, the choice would be easy. It wasn’t. I was ranked last in my class, and the instructors were lobbying to have me expelled. Beatrice Mandel made me an offer. I would be given another semester to prove myself—if I disposed of the student ranked second to last. His name was Franklin, and he was my only friend. I don’t think I’d have survived the first few weeks at the academy if it hadn’t been for him.”

Franklin. Franklin. The name means something. Then I remember the night I got punched for watering his fichus with a decanter of Scotch. Before my dad left me for dead, he’d whispered a name. “You killed Frank?”

“I had to choose between my life and his. It was the hardest choice I’ve ever faced. I knew he’d die anyway. Even Frank realized he had no hope of graduating. I struggled with the decision for days, but once it was made, there was no going back.”

So Beatrice Mandel took away my dad’s last good thing and replaced it with something rotten. But he’s so convinced that the evil bitch saved him that he’ll do whatever it takes to protect her legacy.

For a moment, I almost pity the man sitting beside me. But then I realize my father was right. He was given the option to fight or give in. The choice was his and his alone. And he chose to kill Frank. No amount of Scotch will ever help him forget it, and there’s nothing he could say that would ever make me forgive him for the things he’s done since.

“Wow, you’ve really racked up quite a body count. Anyone else you’ve had to murder?”

The sneer is back. “Of course you wouldn’t understand, you pampered little shit. It was me—or Franklin. I saved myself. What would you have done in my place?”

“Something else.”

“I’ll tell you what you would have done. You would have died. You’ve never had any fight in you. Remember when you were ten years old and that kid at school stole your bike? I ordered you to get it back, and you tried to convince me that you’d loaned him the bike. Your little brother had to fight the boy for it.”

That’s the story he’s been telling himself all these years? I loaned my bike to one of the townie kids in my class when I heard that a boy had been kidnapped on his walk home from school. My mom picked me up every day at four. I didn’t really need a bike, so I let the kid borrow mine. I figured his trip home would be safer on two wheels than it would be on foot. And Jude didn’t fight the kid to get the bike back. He asked our mom for the money to buy the boy a new one. I’m tempted to set my father straight, but he’d only call me a liar. Still, I’d like to see him slap me the way he did when I was ten.

“You always were your mother’s son,” I hear him saying. “That’s why I accepted the wager Lucian proposed. Even though so much was at stake, I knew it would be a safe bet. Your mother did her best to keep you sheltered and soft. Someday soon, you’ll face a choice just like mine. When that time comes, you won’t have what it takes to survive. Lucian will lose the wager, and I will win control of the school. I wish none of this were necessary. I really do. But I can’t allow Lucian to destroy the Mandel Academy. Your death will save hundreds who deserve to live.”

“Hundreds of kids like you? You know, Dad, you may be right. I don’t think I’ll be able to fight like you did. But just so you know, if Jude had been in your shoes thirty years ago, he wouldn’t have killed his friend either.”

My dad’s glare softens until his eyes don’t seem to be focused on me anymore. “Probably not,” he finally concedes. “But I think you’ll agree that Jude’s ‘something else’ would have been spectacular.”

“Mine will be too. I promise you that.”

My father leans forward and raps on the dark glass barrier between the driver and us. The car slows down and pulls to the curb. I look out the window. We’re already downtown.

“There’s something I need to ask you before I go,” my father announces. I hear something new in his voice. If I didn’t know better I’d call it concern. “I need you to answer me honestly. Have they put you on any medication?”