The Academy (4 page)

The cloud cover over Boston held the threat of rain like a fist wrapped around a sponge. Some people on the streets carried umbrellas, while others wore trench coats in preparation, everyone walking with hunched shoulders as if the rain were already falling. On the bank of the Charles River loomed an imposing structure. From the outside it looked like a cross between a stone library and a church. It was situated on a small weedy patch of mostly brown grass populated by a few withered and struggling trees that had once been mighty. A pair of resident squirrels skittered between the trees—trees that had outlived generations of Bostonians who had used this place.

The sounds were many: cars and trucks on Commonwealth Avenue, not far away; the insectlike buzz of an outboard motor spilling up from the Charles, interrupted occasionally by the rhythmic chanting of a coxswain; the whine of a jet aircraft on final approach to Logan Airport.

The building had seen many lives, many uses: for twenty years it had been a fraternity house for a famous university. For six years, a storage place for rowing sculls—owing to the property’s relationship to the Charles River. For one brief moment of glory it had served as campaign headquarters for a failed politician, draped in bunting with red-white-and-blue signs planted on the lawn.

Now, considered abandoned by most who drove past, it was commonly referred to as the boathouse, and it fell under the protection of the Boston Commission for Historic Restoration and Preservation, a pet project of a former mayor, a man determined to preserve nineteenth century architecture. The building was considered too beautiful to tear down, too far in disrepair to receive funding to rehabilitate, and so it languished in the shadows of more practical, if less satisfying, buildings that served as its neighbors. It was also known by some as the Corinthians because of the four stone columns that supported a false gable carrying a gorgeous frieze depicting Paul Revere’s famous ride. Some Boston blue bloods believed it haunted.

A small squirrel made its way along a narrow, well-traveled line in the grass where the unkempt and weed-ridden lawn met the building’s stone foundation. The squirrel’s tiny ears twitched at the onset of unfamiliar sounds, and it scurried more quickly, darting down the path with the erratic stop and start of an animal that believed it was being stalked. The squirrel reared onto its hind legs and sniffed the air as it reached the rusted stub of a decayed iron pipe that was layered with globs of cracked concrete where the pipe protruded from one of the stone columns. Hesitating for only one quick squirrel heartbeat, the creature leaped effortlessly and disappeared into the darkness, lifting its feet daintily to avoid the stagnant and foul-smelling water that had festered for years, decades perhaps, in the bottom of the pipe. If a squirrel could hold its nose, this one would have.

It raced blindly through a number of intersections, turning first left, then sharply right, then left again, the route committed to memory from a hundred other visits. Finally a faint glow appeared as the pitch-black melted into a gray fog. The squirrel reached a dead end and jumped straight up, its little feet scratching at the rim of a pipe flush with a wooden floor in a small room that echoed with the sound of dripping water. Across the floor, up a slanting board that had dislodged from the ceiling, the squirrel scampered and sprang into flight, traveling a full six feet into the air before reaching a dangling light fixture that swung first forward, then back, then forward again, the squirrel using the momentum to launch toward the next fixture. Its tiny claws on its equally tiny feet scratched across the floor above a ceiling as it danced from one room to the next, knowing little of the area below.

“You hear that?” a boy of fourteen said from where he sat on two stacked car tires directly below the route of the squirrel.

“Rats,” said another boy, who wore his nearly orange hair over his ears and down to his shirt collar in the back.

In the room were six of the currently nine boys at Corinthians, varying in age from twelve to seventeen. They sat on secondhand lawn furniture: pool chairs and a chaise lounge or two, some without all the original plastic straps. There were nine cots spread between two rooms, with fresh linens and towels provided once a week. (One of the boys held a job at a Laundromat.) A bench seat was pushed against one wall—the middle row from an SUV, complete with cup holders. The bench was occupied by Brian Taddler, who had made a point of lying down so that no one would attempt to share it with him. Taddler sometimes slept on the bench seat as well, and he farted a lot, clouding the surrounding area with rancid odors that would not go away.

“Squirrels,” Taddler said. “It’s squirrels.” He stated this absolutely, though he had no idea if he was right. He did this primarily to convince himself of it, for he was terrified of rats and found it hard to sleep if he pictured the rodents running around. A mental image of a cute little squirrel was altogether different, though he would never ever use a word like “cute” around this lot.

They were tough boys, each and every one. Not as tough as Brian Taddler, or so he convinced himself. He did not want to test the theory.

“I’ve seen the little black
rice
they leave behind,” Johnny said. “And squirrels don’t poop no black rice. Their stuff is more like pellets.”

“Well, I’ve seen plenty of pellets around.”

“So maybe it’s both,” Johnny said, not wanting to pick a fight. He was an okay boy who might have once played on a Pop Warner football team had he been dealt a better hand. He had wide shoulders and a thick, brutish chest. But his face was cherubic, his cheeks a constant violent red, and his voice had not yet broken, providing him a high tenor that was a good imitation of Alvin the chipmunk.

His mother and father took turns testing the physical limits of alcohol abuse. He’d run away in his fifteenth year, and had been briefly in residence in a city shelter, the same as Taddler and most of the others.

The boys spent a good deal of time in this particular room because its skylight was intact, and because a large hole in the plaster of the far wall offered access to a complex escape route that eventually led outside—an escape route that required one to be shorter than five foot four and less than one hundred and forty pounds, meaning if discovered by adults, the boys had a viable exit strategy. It was also a room that, in winter months, when the steam heat failed, as it often did, was small enough to retain some collective body heat.

Over near the hole in the wall, a group of car batteries had collected, all but one dead. A braid of wires ran from the live battery’s stubby terminals, including two that disappeared up through another hole in the ceiling, eventually reaching the roof, where they had been connected to a solar panel purchased through Amazon.com. The solar panel trickle-charged the car battery, filling it with power by day, so the boys could drain it at night with lights, PSPs, and iPods.

The other wires powered such luxuries as a seven-watt compact fluorescent bulb and a variety of improvised security devices, each installed at an entrance and collectively wired to a red taillight stolen off a motor scooter.

Presently, the taillight flashed once and stayed red for a count of three. Then it went dark. All six boys moved silently toward the escape hole, their eyes trained on the warning light. It illuminated once again for a count of three, then went dark.

The boys relaxed noticeably. That was the sign for “all clear.”

“I’ll check,” Johnny said. He headed out the door and through a maze of interconnected hallways and eventually into the building’s central gallery, a circular space holding what looked like a stone altar, and surrounded on three sides by smaller Corinthian columns. Stories about the altar included a human virgin sacrifice and the speculation that it was a pedestal for a missing statue, all part of the boys’ late-night entertainment, which also included ghost stories about bodies buried beneath the building.

Lending to the stories had been the discovery of six peepholes throughout the building, which afforded spying on adjacent rooms. In each case, a small slit had been cut into a wall, offering a vantage point, sometimes into a hallway, sometimes a meeting room, or into the central gallery, where Johnny now trained an eye.

A woman entered. Well dressed, like a librarian or schoolteacher, she moved comfortably and confidently in the dim room, waving directly at Johnny’s peephole. Johnny waved back, though his effort went unseen because of the wall separating them.

“It’s her,” Johnny confirmed, reentering the small smelly room.

Each of the boys shifted uncomfortably, trying to sit up straight.

“Was she bringing—”

“Yeah. Of course,” Johnny answered.

As the woman entered, Taddler wondered how a person could look so unremarkable. She had a plain yet somehow expensive look about her, which Taddler saw even if the other boys did not. Derek, one of the older boys, had claimed she was a parole officer. Taddler didn’t think so. A preacher’s wife, he thought. Or a single woman who took care of her aging mother by night and tended to a handful of young teenage boys by day.

Whatever the case, the woman had saved each of the boys, one by one, from a life on the street, and though they held their gratitude in check, it leaked out in small ways—radiant smiles, penetrating looks, and the occasional kind offer of a chair, or moving the room’s single light closer to her. The charitable Mrs. D. had put a roof over their heads and food in their stomachs. She arrived at the Corinthians each evening about the same time, bearing grocery bags of canned and preserved foods. Maybe she bought the food. Maybe she borrowed it from a shelter. Taddler didn’t care. She helped the boys earn small amounts of money, rewarded good behavior, provided them with food and clothing, and looked to place them either in schools, private homes, or other institutions. For now, the food was all that mattered.

She carefully set down the grocery bags. The boys knew better than to even touch them while in her presence. She demanded and won their full attention.

“Collection? Derek, it’s your turn, I believe.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Derek said, his tone softer than what he used on his friends.

“Sixty-seven dollars, ma’am.” He passed her the cash.

She accepted it, saying, “Very good. Not bad at all. That should buy you all enough food to see you through the weekend.” She stuffed the money into her purse without counting it.

The purse was real leather with a shiny interior. Inside was a fat, purple, leather wallet, a fancy pen, and some sunglasses. Taddler found everything about Mrs. D. intriguing. Her actions seemed genuine, though her purpose clouded. She claimed to want the best for them. He wasn’t so sure.

“There’s a job to do. There are papers in a guest’s room at the Haymarket,” she said. “Each room has a printer/copier, so all we have to do is find the papers and copy them.”

“And get out,” Johnny said, causing the other boys to chuckle. Not Mrs. D. She’d given them only the small piece of her name, just as she’d given them only a small piece of anything to do with her. Even the boys who’d been there more than a year knew precious little about her.

“There’s ten dollars in it,” she said, drawing a ten from her purse and waving the bill like a small flag.

Johnny sprang for it, and she snatched it back.

“The papers are personal letters addressed to a Mr. Ron Ungerman. They are printed on stationery bearing the emblem for the United States Department of Labor. You need to copy only those letters bearing the emblem. When the job is complete, John,” she said, “and I have the copies, you will be paid. Room 1426 at the Haymarket, arriving tomorrow night, departing the next day. He works out mornings from seven to seven forty-five, give or take a few minutes. Do you know what that means, John?”

“I want to arrive a little after seven,” John said, squinting his yellowish eyes, “and be out of the room no later than seven thirty.”

“Precisely.”

“Brian will accompany you,” she instructed. No one ever argued with Mrs. D. If Taddler objected to being assigned to the job, his residence at the Corinthians would be canceled.

And then what?

She handed Taddler a room card for the Haymarket. No more was said. He understood that this card would not open room 1426, but it would serve an important purpose. Mrs. D. had chosen him because he, of all the boys, was the most skilled pickpocket. She’d chosen him to join Johnny—a fast runner and smooth talker.

She seemed to be always assigning the boys these special jobs. Paying jobs. Sometimes it felt as if the other assignments—the panhandling, or playing music in the subway, or putting fliers on parked cars, or handing out giveaways at intersections—were nothing more than training runs to sharpen and hone their various skills. Travis was the boy who handled the computer work—copying the contents of a thumb drive, or burning a bunch of files to a DVD. They rarely were asked to steal electronics—only the
contents
of the electronics: a download from a phone, a PDA, or a laptop.

Maybe she was some kind of spy.