Thieving Weasels (4 page)

A
FEW
MINUT
ES
LATER
I
WAS
SLUMP
ED
IN
THE
BACK
OF
Vinny's Hummer H2 as Roy cranked up some hip-hop, and Vinny pretended to be a tank commander. The music obliterated all possibility of conversation, which was fine by me considering how awkward it felt hanging out with my cousin again. Roy was only a few years older than me, but he was like a brother and father all rolled up in one larcenous package. It was Roy who had taught me how to fight, how to drive, and how to throw a football. We hung out together at family functions and broke into houses together as kids. We were thick as thieves because that's exactly what we were. And then we weren't, but Roy didn't seem to notice. He was as loyal as a puppy, and when I ran away I probably broke his heart as much as my mother's.

“This thing drives like a truck,” Roy shouted.

“That's because it's a freaking military assault vehicle,”
Vinny said, lowering the music. “All you need is a little body armor and an AK-47 and you could drive this bad boy straight through Baghdad.”

Roy laughed and ran a hand through his thick black hair. “And that really means something coming from a guy who's never left the tristate area.”

“Eat me. Just because you snuck into Canada once for an Oilers game doesn't make you an international man of mystery.”

“I'm the most mysterious person in this vehicle, that's for damn sure.”

“Oh yeah? What about our friend in the backseat?” Vinny turned to face me. “So, Skip, why'd you take off? Your boys back on the South Shore not good enough for you?”

“No,” I said. “That wasn't it.”

“Then what was it?” Roy asked. “What was so important that you had to dump your friends and family like a bucket of dead fish?”

I didn't know what to say. Of all the people in the world Roy should have known the answer to that question. Except he didn't. Because unlike me, Roy had never grown a conscience. From the moment he was born, my cousin was happy to steal anything and everything he could carry. He was the son my mother never had.

“It's complicated,” I said, trying to explain it in a way Roy would understand. “I guess I wanted to feel like a regular person for a while.”

“And how did that work out for you?”

“Okay, I guess.”

“Good, because it's time to stop screwing around and get back to work.”

His words sounded more like a threat than a suggestion, and I tried to estimate the seriousness of my predicament. My family knew where I lived, what I looked like, and the intimate details of my good name. But what they didn't know—although they thought they did—was
me
. They assumed that since I'd stopped scamming and stealing that I was weak, but it was exactly the opposite. In the years I'd been away I'd learned that honesty, perseverance, and all the rest of that Campfire Girl stuff they looked down upon was real.

It also didn't hurt that I had Claire waiting for me. But how supportive would she be if Roy or Uncle Wonderful told her who I really was? The answer to that question was too painful to think about, which meant I had just two weeks to extract myself from my family's loving embrace before classes resumed in January. I had my work cut out for me.

“Here we are,” Roy said.

I looked up from my brooding and glanced out the window. “Where's here?” I asked.

“Shooters,” Vinny announced, like we'd just landed in Oz.

“You mean that bar where you guys used to hang out like a million years ago?”

“You mean the bar where we still hang out,” Vinny said with a grin. “C'mon, let's go get trashed.”

“I can't go in there,” I said. “My ID says I'm seventeen.”

“Not this one,” Roy said, pulling out a New York State driver's license. “Welcome home, my brother.”

I took the license and was surprised to see that the picture on it looked just like me. Or at least it did if the person checking IDs was drunk, high, or legally blind.

“There's no way this will pass inspection,” I said.

“No worries,” Vinny said. “The guy who manages this place is a friend of mine.”

We climbed out of the Hummer, and a Taylor Swift song wafted out of the front door of the bar like a bad smell. I followed Roy and Vinny inside, and as my eyes adjusted to the light I was surprised to see that the place looked like a cross between a Hooters and the Country Bear Jamboree. The waitresses all dressed like cowgirls and wore these ridiculous gun belts stocked with liquor bottles instead of bullets. And if that wasn't corny enough, they also carried giant squirt guns that they used to shoot cocktails into their customer's mouths. Hence the name Shooters.

This was my first time inside a real bar, which was kind of ironic considering what an expert I was on fake IDs, but alcohol was strictly forbidden at Wheaton, and as a scholarship student, getting caught with so much as a beer would have gotten me expelled. Not that this was such an Earth-shattering sacrifice on my part. Unlike the majority of my classmates—most of whom had secret stashes of
booze in their rooms—I'd never developed a taste for the stuff.

I hung back while Roy ordered beers and was surprised when the bartender didn't ask to see my ID. I guess Vinny really did know the manager.

“Check it out,” Roy said, pointing toward a small stage where a blond waitress with a pink cowgirl hat was running a customer's tie around her neck like a boa constrictor.

“How does that feel?” Roy shouted across the bar.

“For twenty bucks an hour plus tips it feels fantastic!” she yelled back.

“Wow,” Roy said in awe. “She's good.”

Vinny handed out Heinekens, and we took seats near the stage. The waitress had finished messing with the customer's tie and was now engaged in the more serious business of selling a drink called Santa's South Shore Iced Tea. It may have looked like regular iced tea, she told us, but it was jam-packed with gin, vodka, rum, and tequila and was guaranteed to blow the back of our heads clean off. Her pitch worked like magic, and soon every guy in the place was lined up with his mouth hanging open to get booze shot down his throat.

The waitress was getting closer, and as ridiculous as it was to get shot in the mouth with Santa's South Shore Iced Tea, I didn't want to look like a total lightweight in front of my cousin. Unfortunately, all I had was two tens and three singles in my wallet, and I wondered if it was okay to ask her to make change. I'd blown all the money I'd made
that fall on Claire's Christmas present and had only fifty dollars left on my debit card until I returned to my job at the cafeteria. Seventy-three bucks. That would have lasted a month at school, but here in the land of twelve-dollar iced teas it was nothing. Note to self: next time you plan on getting kidnapped remember to have more money in the bank.

“Yo, Skip,” Vinny shouted. “Check out Mr. Big Spender.”

I turned and saw Roy holding out a fifty-dollar bill.

“Are you out of your mind?” I asked.

“I have to get her attention somehow,” he replied.

The waitress spotted the money and her face erupted in a huge smile.

“Is that all for me?” she asked.

“You bet it is,” Roy replied. “But you have to share the drink with me.” He opened wide and when his mouth was so full of iced tea that it poured down his T-shirt, he stood up and kissed the waitress on the mouth. The crowd cheered, and by the time Roy sat down every guy in the bar was holding out some major currency.

“I think you started something,” I shouted at Roy.

“I always was a trendsetter.”

The waitress cleared at least two hundred dollars by the time she ran out of iced tea, and as she walked off to count her money, Roy stood up and said, “I'm gonna go talk to her. Yo, Vin, if I'm not back in twenty minutes, leave without me.”

“You got it.”

Roy gave Vinny a high five then leaned over and whispered in my ear, “Swing by my apartment tomorrow afternoon. There's something we need to talk about, and I don't want Vinny to find out about it. Okay?”

I swallowed hard. “Sure.”

“Great!” He slapped me on the back and said, “It's good to have you home.”

Roy disappeared, and I took a long pull from my Heineken. It tasted gross, but it was cheaper than Santa's South Shore Iced Tea, so I took another sip and pondered Roy's words. The “something” he mentioned was probably a job that he wanted me to be part of. Damn my family. I'd been home less than five hours, and already they wanted me to put on my weasel costume.

“If you don't mind me saying so,” Vinny said, pointing toward the stage where a new waitress had begun dancing, “that girl's got way too much junk in the trunk to be shaking her tail feathers for a living.”

“That's classy, Vin,” I replied. “Real classy.”

“You know me. I'm all about the class.”

The new waitress was earning just a fraction of what the first waitress had made. The last thing I wanted was a shot of Marci's Magic Margarita, but I felt sorry for her and pulled out a ten and three singles.

“Thanks,” she said as she took my money. “What's your name?”

“Thomas Jefferson. What's yours?”

“Desirée.”

“That's a nice name, Desirée. What do you do when you're not shooting people in the face with overpriced cocktails?”

“Change diapers,” she said, and danced away.

“Hey,” I called after her.

Desirée turned around, and I held out the last of my cash.

“Here,” I said. “Buy your kid something nice for Christmas.”

T
HERE
ARE
MANY
T
HINGS
TO
LOOK
FORWAR
D
TO
IN
LIFE
. Your first bike, your first kiss, your first Yankees' game . . .

Your first hangover is not one of them.

I drank half as much as Vinny, but that was more than enough to transform my bed into a Tilt-A-Whirl, and my head into a pulsating pain machine. No matter which way I turned, I felt like I was going to vomit, and when I switched off the lights it only got worse. Finally, out of desperation, I untangled myself from the sheets and crawled to the bathroom.

“This suuuuuucks,” I moaned as an entire night's worth of beer and tequila came gurgling up along with the Double Baconator I'd inhaled at Wendy's on the way home. Even worse, I'd put the food on my debit card, and now had less than forty dollars to my name. At least I told them to hold the onions on the Baconator.

When there was nothing left to puke up, I slid down to the floor. The bathroom tile felt cool against my cheek, but my head still felt like the inside of a bouncy castle.
Why do people drink if they end up feeling like this
? I wondered as I curled up with the blue shag pee-pee-protector in front of the toilet. I closed my eyes and passed out swearing I'd never have another drink for as long as I lived.

• • •

The next thing I knew it was morning and sunlight was blasting through the windows. The throbbing in my head was still there, and I struggled to my feet to take a look at myself in the mirror. It was a toss-up which was worse: my hair, my eyes, or the imprint of the pee-pee-protector on my cheek. I threw some water on my face and looked around for some aspirin. There was nothing in the Skip O'Rourke Memorial bathroom, so I went into my mother's room to see if I could find some. Her nightstand was empty, and when I opened her medicine cabinet I stepped back in horror. Every inch of it was jammed with prescription medication. And I mean
every
inch. I didn't recognize the names on the bottles, but they all had pictures of drowsy men printed on them along with warnings not to drive or operate heavy machinery after ingesting.

I sat on the edge of the bathtub and tried to remember if my mother had always been a drug addict. I recalled plenty of trips to drugstores, but those were mostly for Whitman Samplers or the Jean Naté cologne she splashed on herself when she didn't feel like taking a bath.

No, the drugs were a recent development. And even though I didn't buy Uncle Wonderful's story that this was ALL MY FAULT, if I had been home I might have been able to stop it.

“I'm sorry, Mom,” I said to the shelves full of pills. “I didn't mean for things to turn out this way. I swear I didn't.”

The pills didn't reply, and I spent the next few minutes searching for aspirin, Advil, or rat poison. When I couldn't find any of those, I grabbed the least lethal-looking pill in my mother's arsenal and washed it down with tap water. It kicked in while I was in the shower, and I felt so much better I was tempted to take another. But I decided against it. The last thing I needed was to get hooked on pain pills. Not to mention that the gentle throbbing at the base of my skull would be a potent reminder to never drink again. Ever.

Roy and Vinny had abducted me before I'd had a chance to check out the car in the garage, and now I was curious. My mother had zero interest in automobiles, and I expected to find some old beater like the rusted-out Monte Carlo or puke-green Buick she drove when I was a kid. You can imagine my surprise when I walked into the garage and found a brand-new Mustang GT sitting there. And by new I mean there were less than fifty miles on it.

I climbed into the car and took a deep breath. The smell of Armor All and leather tickled my nostrils, and I could picture myself tearing up the roads behind Wheaton. Underclassmen weren't allowed to have cars, but seniors were, and
most of my classmates had returned that fall with major motor vehicles. Along with my scholarship and job in the cafeteria, my lack of a car was another brick in the status wall separating me from the other students. My biggest fear was that Claire would dump me for some jerk with a Porsche. A Mustang GT, however, was a perfectly acceptable Wheaton mobile—especially a black one with a retractable moon roof and custom detailing.

The clock on the dash read seven forty-five, which gave me a little more than an hour to take my new ride for a spin before visiting hours at Shady Oaks. I pushed the garage door opener and turned the key in the ignition. The engine roared to life, and I could almost hear a couple of real mustangs frolicking around under the hood. I put the car in gear and began backing out.

I was halfway down the driveway when I spied
O'Rourke
on the mailbox and hit the brakes.

“What are you doing?” I asked out loud. “This car isn't for school. This car is to keep you here. Just like this house and—”

Just like my mother trying to kill herself.

My chest pinched tight, and if I had any brains I would have started running at that very moment. Yes, I would have had to kiss Claire, Wheaton, and Princeton good-bye—not to mention my good name—but I was only seventeen years old and had plenty of time to come up with a new identity. My mistake had been to stay close to home. I should have left New York State entirely and relocated to a place where
my family had no connections. Utah, Canada, Europe—the world was full of cities where I could have disappeared forever.

Why didn't I run away? It wasn't the Mustang, and it wasn't the house. It wasn't even my mother trying to kill herself. It was more like all that stuff mashed together. That, plus a false sense of confidence. Deep down, I totally believed I could beat my family at their own game. So I fired up the Mustang and spent the next hour tooling around the Long Island Expressway and pretending to be free of them all.

• • •

“Where the hell have you been?” Uncle Wonderful hissed when I pulled into the Shady Oaks parking lot. He was standing there waiting for me.

“Driving around,” I said. “Why?”

“Because you were supposed to be here two hours ago. Your mother is waiting for you.”

“But visiting hours don't start for another three minutes.”

“Wrong, smart guy. Visiting hours
end
in three minutes.”

“But the clock on the dashboard says 8:57.”

“I don't care what the clock in your car says. Don't you own a watch?”

“I use the clock on my cell phone, but it's messed up right now so I didn't think to look at it.”

“Then un-mess it. Your mother needs you.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Save it,” he said, and opened the door to his car.

“Wait a minute,” I said, getting in his face. “I didn't ask for this. You were the one who showed up in my dorm room yesterday.”

Uncle Wonderful grabbed a fistful of my hair and smashed my head against the doorjamb. “Listen up, you little turd. Your mother's in this place because of you, so don't go telling me that you didn't ask for it. You want to go back to that rich kid's playground upstate? Then you give your mother a reason to go on living. Otherwise, I'll screw up your deal faster than you can say Jack Robinson, and your good name will be so dirty you wouldn't want to wipe your ass with it. You hear me?”

“Yeah.”

Then he squeezed my mouth open and jammed a cotton swab down my throat. I gagged and pulled away.

“What was that all about?” I coughed.

“DNA,” he said, jamming the swab in a test tube. “It's better than fingerprints and totally admissible in court. You cross me again, and who knows where this stuff might turn up?”

“Give me a break,” I said.

“I just did. And from now on you show up when you're supposed to, you leave when you're supposed to, and you do whatever it takes to make your mother happy. Got it?”

“Happy, huh? Is that why you fed her all those pills, Uncle Wonderful? To keep her happy?”

“I have no idea what you're talking about,” he said.

“Don't lie to me! I saw your name on some of those prescription bottles.”

“Your mother was in pain.”

“Then give her an aspirin, not a truckload of pharmaceuticals.”

“You weren't here.”

“Well, I'm here now and I'm emptying that medicine cabinet as soon as I get home. And if you feed her so much as a Benadryl—DNA or no DNA—I swear to God I'll tear your throat out. Got it?”

He glared at me.

“Good,” I said, climbing into the Mustang. “Now, if you'll excuse me, I gotta go see a guy about getting my phone fixed.”