Ask Him Why (7 page)

“I need to see you about a . . . what you do.”

His face twisted in a way I couldn’t quite make out. But I didn’t like it. One eyebrow was slightly up. Like he was asking me with his face if I was for real. Like maybe my very existence was only a joke.

“How old are you?”

“Fifteen.”

The eyebrow inched up higher.

“Okay, thirteen. But I have money. I have thirteen hundred dollars. Well. Minus the cab fare. I have about twelve hundred and eighty-five. Four.”

Kendrick sighed. Dropped his head and shook it.

“I guess there’s no law against hearing you out,” he said. “You’re lucky I have a fifteen-minute break before my next appointment.”

I walked into his office feeling numb. Sat on the edge of a wooden folding chair in front of his desk, which was piled with books and files and papers. He walked around and sat in a chair much more comfortable than mine. Leather, and the kind you can lean back in. With arms. The window behind his head looked as though it hadn’t been cleaned for years.

“I want you to find my brother,” I said.

I took all the money out of my pocket. Spread it on the only blank space on his desk. He just watched me, looking halfway amused. At my expense, apparently. I thought better of giving it all to him and took back twenty. For a cab back to school.

Then I just looked up at him. Waiting.

“That’s not quite how it works,” he said.

“Oh. How does it work?”

“Put your money back in your pocket and I’ll tell you.”

I scooped it all up and stuffed the ridiculous lump back into my jeans pocket again.

“I’m not so sure about working for a kid,” he said.

“I could just pay you cash. Who would even need to know?”

“This’s not the movies, kid.”

“Please don’t call me ‘kid,’” I said. Which took some courage. I could feel it. What it required. What it drained out of me.

But all he said was, “You haven’t bothered to tell me your name yet.”

“Aubrey.”

“Aubrey what?”

“Stellkellner.”

I watched his face change into something entirely different. He didn’t say anything for a minute. I didn’t, either.

“Is this a joke?” he asked in time.

“No. Why would I joke about that?”

“You want me to find your brother. That would be
Joseph
Stellkellner?”

“That’s right.”

“Well, that’s a joke, kid. Aubrey. Whether you meant it to be one or not.” He held up a section of the morning paper, but not long enough for me to see much of what it said. “I wouldn’t be the only one looking for him. Would I? The military is looking for him, too. He’s going to be court-martialed if they find him. Though why they didn’t just keep him while they had him, I’ll never know.”

“They didn’t think they would at first,” I said. “Court-martial him. At first they just wanted the whole thing to go away. They were just going to discharge him. But he said they could change their mind after the investigation. And they did.”

“Still don’t know why they let him off base, though.”

“They didn’t know about the mutiny thing when they let him off base. Not that it really was mutiny. But they didn’t know the extra stuff. You know. How he maybe talked to other guys about maybe not going out on duty.”

Telling the story now, looking back, it strikes me that it’s possible the army never did say Joseph could leave base. I only know he was briefly there, at our house. I don’t know that he had permission to be. At the time, that didn’t occur to me. I was taking everything at face value.

“Yeah, that sounds about right. That stunt he pulled . . . that idea about how you get to say no after joining the army . . . encourage other guys to say no . . . that’s not one of those things they want to catch on. They wouldn’t want anybody else getting similar notions. Look. Kid. I don’t think you see what you’re asking me to stick my nose into here. Your brother is a fugitive from justice. How am I supposed to find him if he’s hiding himself so well that the long arm of military law can’t find him? And another thing. How many reporters have you got camped in front of your house right now?”

“A few,” I said, hoping he wouldn’t push for a more exact number.

“I hope you don’t think I want them here instead. Or in addition. Because I don’t.”

“So you won’t do it?”

“I think it would be a waste of your money.”

“I’d be willing to try it. Even if there’s only, like, one chance in a hundred you could find him. I’d still like to try.”

He sat back. Rocked his chair back with him. Steepled his fingers that way grown-ups do when they want to look thoughtful.

“To what end?” he asked.

“I don’t know what that means.”

“It means
why
.”

“Then why didn’t you just ask why?”

Silence in the office. I wondered how many minutes were left of my fifteen.

I wondered why.

I knew on a feeling level in my gut. But I hadn’t talked it out extensively with myself in my head.

I wanted to create a pact with Joseph. A secret bond. I would know where he was. He would contact me, and no one would have to know. I would never have to feel cut off from him again.

Maybe I could even save him. Hook him up with some money. Or a lawyer. Or a place to hide. Or feed him the information he needed. I could come to his rescue.

That’s heady stuff, to be your hero’s hero. That’s the stuff of dreams right there.

Looking back, it was quite the naïve fantasy. But I never claimed to have been any more mature or realistic than the average thirteen-year-old.

I had lost something I couldn’t afford to lose. It really wasn’t much more complicated than that.

“Do I really need to tell you?” I asked him.

“Not sure,” he said.

“When grown-ups come in to hire you, do you ask them why?”

“I do,” he said. “The end use of the information is the most important factor in whether I say yes or no.” Another uncomfortable silence. Then he said, “Okay. Off the books. Just between you and me. I can do for you what I call a smell test. Two hours. That’s a hundred and eighty dollars. I stick my nose in. See how hard I think this is going to be. Then I can advise you whether I think you’re crazy to spend another cent on this. That sound okay?”

“Sure,” I said. “Thanks.”

Because he had given me the one commodity I needed so badly right then. The ability to walk out of there without having lost my last shred of hope.

I counted out the one hundred and eighty dollars. Gave him my cell phone number. Then we heard his next client come in.

I was all the way down on the street before I realized I’d have to walk around until I found a pay phone. And get change to use it. Also that I’d have to break another hundred to pay another cab driver for my ride back to school.

It was after ten when I got to school. I didn’t think I’d have to answer to anyone for being late. And I was right.

I was walking through a wholly changed world.

I ducked into science class halfway through. Which was good. It gave me time to decompress. It gave nobody a chance to talk to me.

When the bell rang, I was stunned. It felt like only a minute or two could have passed. I couldn’t remember a single thing the teacher had said.

I stumbled out into the hall the way I sometimes stumbled out of bed after being wakened from too little sleep.

The first thing I ran into was the brick wall of Kevin Connolly. And brick wall is not a bad way to describe Kevin.

“I wouldn’t be you for all the money in the world,” he said.

I put my head down and tried to walk around him.

“If that was my brother, I would be so ashamed.”

When I was six, I broke my arm and sprained my ankle trying to fly. I jumped out of the tree house in the giant oak, sure I could do it. I’d accepted later that day that I’d been wrong. Boys don’t fly.

But on this day, I turned that outcome back around again. I flew. There’s just no other way to describe it. I didn’t walk the steps between myself and Kevin. I didn’t run them. I lifted off and landed on him. It was all one giant birdlike movement.

Next thing I remember was a teacher hauling me off Kevin with one big arm around my waist. It hurt my ribs—that arm—because I struggled so hard against it. I continued to struggle all the way down to the principal’s office. I could feel the knuckles of my right hand. They felt bruised and achy. But I couldn’t remember hitting anybody.

When the arm let me go, I looked up into the principal’s face.

The owner of the arm, who turned out to be my science teacher, Mr. Nesbit, leaned over and said a few quiet words into her ear. Then he left us alone.

She looked into my face and sighed deeply.

“I’m not without empathy for your situation, Aubrey,” she said. Her words had that speechlike quality. Rehearsed sounding. “But I told you last time. I gave you one pass. I know everything must be very difficult and confusing for you right now. But this won’t do. I have to suspend you for fighting. I don’t have a choice about that. But I’m going to call your parents and talk to them about pairing you up with a counselor. Maybe a school counselor and a private one for your off hours, both. You obviously need some support to get through this.”

I said, “Yes, ma’am.”

Because they hold all the cards. Because there’s really nothing else you can say.

The following morning at nine o’clock, I got a call from Kendrick. My heart leapt again, the way it had when I saw Joseph had come home. Then I felt myself draw in. Guard that feeling. Because the antiaircraft fire could not have been far behind.

I was learning.

He called on my cell, of course. Because that was the only number I’d given him. So I was able to talk in private, up in my room. Where I was trapped in suspension exile.

“We need to meet,” he said.

“Did you find out something?”

He gave a snorting laugh. “In a manner of speaking,” he said.

I wasn’t sure what that meant. What difference did it make how you said it? I didn’t ask.

“I’m not supposed to leave the house,” I said. “But I might be able to sneak out for a few minutes.” I’d get in trouble if I got caught. But I really didn’t care. I cared whether meeting him could be prevented. Not whether it would be punished. “I couldn’t get all the way down to your office.”

“You want to meet near your house? Give me your address.”

“Don’t come here, though,” I said. “It’s a circus. You’d end up on the news.”

“Where should I meet you?”

“You know that Starbucks on Wilson?”

“Yeah. All right. I’ll be there in ten minutes. Fifteen tops.”

“Can’t you just tell me now? On the phone?”

“I need to give you your money back,” he said.

Which I knew was not a good sign.

There was something very adult about the way he was waiting for me. Like a real meeting. The kind a real grown-up would have.

At any other time, I would have been elated by it. But there was no space left inside me for elation.

I sat down across from him, and he laid my hundred and eighty dollars on the table. I grabbed it up fast and stuck it deep down in the front pocket of my jeans.

“So you don’t know where he is.”