The Child Thief (2 page)

I
n a small corner of Prospect Park, in the borough of Brooklyn, New York, a thief lay hidden in the trees. This thief wasn’t searching for an unattended purse, cell phone, or camera. This thief was looking for a child.

In the dusk of that early-autumn day, the child thief peered out from the shadows and falling leaves to watch the children play. The children scaled the giant green turtle, slid down the bright yellow slide, laughed, yelled, teased, and chased one another round and round. But the child thief wasn’t interested in these happy faces. He wasn’t looking to steal just any child. He was particular. He was looking for the sad face, the loner…a
lost
child. And the older the better, preferably a child of thirteen or fourteen, for older children were stronger, had better stamina, tended to stay alive longer.

The thief knew Mother Luck had smiled on him with the girl. She’d been a good catch, too bad about her father. He smiled, remembering the funny face the man had made as the knife slipped into his chest. But where was Mother Luck now? He’d been hunting for two days.
Nothing
. He’d come close with a boy last night, but close wasn’t good enough. Grimacing, the thief reminded himself that he had to take it slow, had to make friends with them first, gain their trust, because you couldn’t steal a child without their trust.

Maybe Mother Luck would be with him tonight. The child thief had found city parks to be good hunting grounds. Strays and runaways often camped among the bushes and used the public restrooms to wash, and they were always looking for friends.

As the sun slid slowly behind the cityscape, the shadows crept in—and so did the thief, biding his time, waiting for the falling darkness to sort the children out.

NICK DARTED INTO
the warehouse entryway, pressed himself flat against the steel door, his breath coming hard and fast. He leaned his cheek against the cold metal and squeezed his eyes shut. “Fuck,” he said. “I’m screwed. So screwed.”

At fourteen, Nick was slender and a bit small for his age. Dark, choppy bangs spilled across his narrow face, emphasizing his pallid complexion. He needed a haircut, but of late his hair was the last thing on his mind.

Nick dropped his pack to the ground, pushed his bangs from his eyes, and carefully rolled up one sleeve of his black denim jacket. He glanced at the burns running along the inside of his forearm and winced. The angry red marks crisscrossing his flesh crudely formed the letter N.

He tried to put the nightmare out of his mind, but it came back to him in heated flashes: the men pinning him to the floor—the floor of his own kitchen. The sour, rancid taste of the dish sponge being crammed into his mouth. Marko, big, thick-necked Marko, with his beastly grin, smirking while he heated the coat hanger against the burner. The wire smoking then turning red then…the
pain
…red-hot searing pain. God, the
smell,
but worse, the sound, he’d never forget the sound of his own flesh sizzling. Trying to scream, only to gag and choke on that gritty, soggy sponge while they laughed. Marko right in his face, Marko with his long, straggly chin hairs and bulging, bloodshot eyes. “Wanna know what the N stands for?” he’d spat. “Huh, do you fuckhole? It’s for
Narc.
You ever say anything to anybody again and I’m gonna burn the whole fucking word into your tongue. You got that you little prick?”

Nick opened his eyes. “Need to keep moving.” He snatched up his pack and unzipped the top. Inside the pack were some chips, bread, a jar of peanut butter, a pocket knife, two cans of soda, a blue rabbit’s foot on a leather cord, and about thirty thousand dollars’ worth of methamphetamines.

He dug through the hundreds of small clear plastic bags until he found the blue rabbit’s foot. The rabbit’s foot had been a gift from his dad, the only thing Nick had left of him now. He kissed it, then slipped it around his neck. He needed all the luck he could come by today.

He leaned out from the entryway, glancing quickly up and down the busy avenue, keeping an eye out for a beat-up green van. He’d hoped for some congestion to slow the traffic down, help him make it to the subway
alive
, but currently the traffic chugged steadily along. The day waned and soon the van would be just one more pair of gleaming headlights in the night.

Nick slung the pack over his shoulder and ducked out onto the sidewalk, weaving his way between the thin trail of pedestrians as he jogged rapidly up the block. There was a bite to the wind and people had their collars up and their eyes down. Nick pulled up his own collar, skirted around a cluster of elderly men and women lined up in front of an Italian restaurant, and tried to lose himself among the thin stream of returning commuters.

You fucked up Nicky boy
, he thought.
Fucked up big
. Yet part of him was glad, would do about anything to see the faces of those sons-of-bitches when they found their stash gone. It would be a long time before Marko was back in business.

A horn blew behind him. Nick jumped and spun—heart in his throat. But there was no green van, just someone double-parked. He caught sight of the trees and felt a flood of relief. Prospect Park was just a block away. He’d be hard to spot in the trees. He could cut across the park and come out at the subway station. Nick took off in a run.

THE SHADOWS TWISTED
and crowded together, layer upon layer, until darkness claimed the playground. One by one the sodium lamps fizzled on, their shimmering yellow glow casting long, eerie shadows across the park.

The parents were gone now, the playground empty. Garbage cans—overflowing with empty soda bottles and soiled diapers—stood like lone sentinels as the distant sounds of traffic and the steady thumping of someone’s pumped-up stereo echoed across the grounds.

The child thief saw the boy sprint into the park, saw him from far across the way, catching glimpses of his face as he dashed through the pools of yellow lamplight. The thief saw the fear, the confusion, and he smiled.

What had led this child here: abuse, neglect, molestation? All of the above perhaps? It really didn’t matter to the thief. All that mattered was something had caused the boy to leave his home behind and venture out into the night alone, a runaway. And like so many
runaways
, this boy didn’t know where to run away to.

Not to worry
, the child thief thought.
I have a place for you. A place where we can play
. And his golden eyes twinkled and his smile broadened.

NICK PASSED A
young couple on their way out of the park, giggling and clinging to each other like Siamese twins. He took a wide detour around a man and his dog. The dog—some sort of large poodle—gave Nick a shameful look as it went about its business. The man stared dully at his phone, texting away, seemingly unconcerned that his dog was laying down landmines along the public walkway.

Nick noticed a pack of youths far up the path. They were cutting through the park, shouting and acting up. They looked like trouble and Nick didn’t need any more trouble. He veered off the path and drifted into the trees.

Nick pushed through a dense line of bushes and jumped down into a wide ditch. His foot hit a slick chunk of cardboard and he stumbled, landing atop something soft. The something soft moved. “Hey,” came a muffled cry beneath him.

The something soft was a sleeping bag, worn and oily, like it’d been dragged through the gutter. The someone was a woman and she didn’t look much better—the smear of cherry-red lipstick over layers of caked-on makeup unable to hide the ravages of the street. Nick thought she might’ve been pretty once, but now her matted hair, hollowed eyes, and sunken cheeks reminded him of a cadaver.

She rolled over and sat up, got a good look at Nick, and smiled.

A bald man with a long, white, grizzly beard poked his head out from a nearby sleeping bag. “Who’s that?”

Nick realized there were several sleeping bags scattered among the bushes, along with cardboard boxes, blue plastic tarps, and a shopping cart full of garbage bags.

“It’s just a boy,” the woman said. “A tender little thing.”

Nick rolled off of her, but when he tried to get up, she grabbed him, her hard, bony hands locking around his wrist. Nick let out a cry and tried to pull away.

“Where you going, sweetheart?” the woman asked.

“You looking for something, kid?” the man said, climbing to unsteady feet. Other heads began to poke out from sleeping bags and boxes, dull, bleary eyes all on Nick.

“Of course he’s looking for something,” the woman said and smiled wickedly. “Ten bucks, sugar, and I’ll blow more than your mind. Got ten bucks?”

Nick stared at her, horrified.

The old man snorted and let loose a chuckle. “That’s a sweet deal, boy. Trust me. She’ll make you holler
hi-de-ho.
” Several of the other men nodded and laughed.

Nick shook his head rapidly back and forth, and tried to twist his arm free. But the woman held him tight.

“Five bucks, then,” she said. “Five bucks to blow your little rocket. What’d you say?”

Nick caught sight of two men moving around behind him; they looked hard and hungry, eyeing him like a free lunch.

“Let me go,” Nick pleaded, trying to peel away her fingers. “Please, lady.
Please
let me go.”

“You’re missing out,” she cooed and let go, causing him to stumble right into one of the men. The man snatched Nick by the hair and spun him around, got a hand on Nick’s pack. Nick cried out and twisted away, felt his hair tear loose in the man’s grip, but didn’t care so long as he still had his pack. The pack was all that mattered, all he had going for him now. He clutched it tightly to his chest, reeled, got his feet under him, and scrambled out of the ravine. He tore through the bushes and sprinted off, with their ghoulish laughter echoing after him. He didn’t stop until the ditch was well out of sight. He found a playground, collapsing against a big smiley-faced turtle, trying to catch his breath and get control of his nerves.

In a ditch, he thought. Is that where I’ll be sleeping tonight? And the next night, and the next? With creeps like that around.

He dropped his pack between his feet, heart still pumping. He searched the shadows, the trees, making sure no one was around or following him, before digging a wad of bills out of his pocket and quickly counting them.
Fifty-six dollars. How far is that gonna get me?
He hefted the pack.
No, that’s not all. Just as soon as I find a dealer I’ll have all the money I need
. Of course he hadn’t quite worked that part of the plan out: how a fourteen-year-old was supposed to go about arranging a major drug sale.
I can handle it
, he reassured himself.
Just have to play it smart. I’ll take it down to…take it…take it where?
“Fuck,” he said, then told himself that for now all that mattered was getting to the subway and getting the hell out of here.
Then what? Well?
He glanced at the bushes, realizing he didn’t even have a sleeping bag. It made him wonder if maybe his mother had been right. Maybe it would’ve been better to just stay out of Marko’s way. If he had, he’d at least still have a place to sleep, food to eat. He rolled his sleeve back and stared at the burn on his arm, and Marko’s hateful grin came back to him, his angry, bloodshot eyes.
No
, Nick thought.
This was her fault. All of it. She’s the one that let those bloodsuckers into Grandma’s house in the first place. None of this would’ve happened if she hadn’t been so selfish
. He felt tears coming and wiped angrily at his eyes. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck.”

A thump came from back in the trees. Nick spun around expecting to see Marko, or maybe the ghoulish woman with the painted lips. But there was nothing there but the trees and the yellow lights. He glanced about. There was no sign of anyone; the park had become eerily quiet.

He caught movement out of the corner of his eye. A boy-sized shadow climbed straight up a tree and disappeared into the branches. “What the hell?” Nick whispered, then decided he really didn’t want to know. He turned and sprinted toward the street.

NICK CAME OUT
of the park just down from the subway station. He waited for traffic to clear, then started across the street. He made it about three strides, then stopped cold.

“Shit!” he said. Propped against the station stairs was Bennie, one of Marko’s boys, one of about a dozen kids that ran his junk for him. A chill slid up Nick’s spine.
Does Bennie know what’s up?
Bennie had his cell phone pressed up against his ear.
Of course he knows
.

A car horn blew, reminding Nick he was in the street. He spun and leaped back to the curb. He ducked his head down and kept going, heading back toward the park.
Don’t run
, he told himself.
He didn’t see you. Just keep walking. Keep cool.
He ventured a glance back as he entered the trees. Bennie was gone.

Nick knew if Bennie had seen him he’d call everyone, and then they’d all be looking for him.
God
, Nick thought,
what am I gonna do?
He pushed deeper into the park, keeping a sharp eye out behind him.
Can’t stay in the park forever.

“Yo, cuzz. Whut up?”

Nick let loose a cry as someone came gliding up alongside of him on a tricked-out BMX bike, then wheeled the bike around and blocked Nick’s path.

The squinty-eyed boy looked to be a couple years older than Nick. He sported a puffy jacket at least two sizes too big for him and a pair of wide-legged pants with the waistband hanging low on his hips. His blond hair—braided into cornrows—sprouted out from beneath a Mets ball cap like electrified caterpillars.