Con Academy (13 page)

“You better vouch for her,” he mutters under his breath.

“Sure,” Dad says flippantly, and settles back as though the outcome was never in doubt. He turns to the other guys in the room, all of whom suddenly look as though they wish they were somewhere else. “You boys all know the online poker racket, or you need me to run it down with you?”

Uncle Roy shakes his head. “William's gonna tell it.”

“Of course,” Dad says, and smiles. “I wouldn't have it any other way.”

“It works like this,” I say. “I'm going to bring Brandt here and introduce him to the office. He's going to sit down to play, and halfway through the hand, he's going to get a text on his cell phone from one of you guys, telling him how to bet. The bet pays off, of course, and he doubles his money, so he wants to go again. In fact, because he's already got it in for my fake boss—Brian McDonald—he'll want to go big enough so that when he wins, he'll put the whole operation out of business. I'm figuring two million.”

“Wait a second. One thing I don't get.” One of the guys—Lupo Reilly, I think—shakes his head when I finish talking. “What teenage kid can actually get his hands on two million bucks?”

“I've personally seen it happen,” I tell him. “Since his dad's accountants let him manage his own portfolio, Brandt has got an almost unlimited trust fund that he can draw from. They let him play the market. They say it's good practice for when he takes over the family fortune. And best of all”—I take a deep breath—“Brandt already thinks that this McDonald guy is trying to get revenge on him for what Brandt did to his daughter Moira. So now it's personal.”

“You're sure about that part?” Uncle Roy asks.

“Trust me,” I say. “He's vindictive as hell.” I turn to face the group. “Tomorrow night I'll bring Brandt down here to check out the operation. He'll see how it all works. Dad will play Mr. McDonald, acting like he's still bitter about what Brandt did to Moira, but when Brandt puts down the cash I'm fronting him for the first bet, McDonald will start to change his tune and suck up to him. Hopefully it'll just make Brandt want to scam him for even more.”

“I like it,” Dad says, and shoots a grin at Rhonda, who's been busily chewing her gum. “Of course, I should. Since the whole thing's my idea.”

Uncle Roy grimaces. “That's my least favorite part of the whole deal.”

“I'll need about two thousand in cash to front Brandt tomorrow,” I tell him.

“No problem.” Roy opens his wallet and peels off a crisp stack of hundreds, handing them over. “And I'll have the boys here hook you up with some dummy credit cards. They bill to a shell corporation in the Caymans, so once the charges catch up to us in a few weeks, we'll be long gone. Just don't charge anything big. No real estate, nothing like that, you got it?”

“Got it,” I say, as Lupo Reilly hands me a Visa and an American Express. “In the meantime, I'll get Brandt buttered up for the deal, let him know how much Mr. McDonald has been talking smack about him.”

“Good, kid, but don't oversell it,” Uncle Roy says. “We don't want Richie Rich hating us so much that he decides not to come back.”

“Believe me, I know this guy,” I say. “The angrier he gets, the deeper he'll want to get involved.”

“Sounds like my kind of sucker.” Uncle Roy looks at me with narrowed eyes. “Is there anything else I need to know at this point?”

Andrea's face flashes through my mind, but I decide now is not the time to bring up our bet. I shake my head. “I don't think so.”

“So we'll see you tomorrow.”

I nod and turn to go. “I'll be here.”

“Hey, William,” Uncle Roy says, his hand falling on my shoulder, “you mind if me and the boys stick around for a while and talk through some of the details?”

“No problem,” Dad says, and grins at me. “I'll drive him home.”

“Y
OU DIDN'T TELL HIM, DID YOU?
” D
AD ASKS, OUT IN THE
parking lot.

“Tell him what?”

His face pinches. “Don't play me for a patsy, kid. I invented this racket.”

For a second we just stand there in the exhaust-reeking, cold darkness outside the office building. Rhonda has already climbed into Dad's old Chevy and now she's sitting in the passenger seat, having swapped out her gum for a Marlboro, fiddling impatiently with the car radio.

“I know why you're in such a hurry to pull off this scam,” he says, peering at me from under his eyebrows. “I know all about your Thanksgiving bet.”

I stare at him. “What—?”

“Your little friend from school paid me a visit the other day. What's her name—Andrea? She must have seen you leaving my motel in town, because she came by later and told me everything.” He tilts his chin up so that I can almost see a ghost of a smile tucked into the corner of his mouth. “Gutsy move on your part, seeing who can fleece this Rush brat first.”

I don't say anything.

“Don't worry,” Dad says. “Your secret's safe with me. Still, I gotta say, it's a good thing you didn't go against me on bringing Rhonda into it.” He makes a fist and chucks me on the chin, hard enough to hurt. “I'd hate to break up our father-son bond, right?”

“Just make sure you're here tomorrow,” I say.

“Oh, I'll be here,” Dad says. “For two million bucks, I wouldn't miss it for the world.”

We drive back in silence.

When I get to my dorm room, my weekend assignments are piling up on my desk—course packs, textbooks, unfinished papers, two chapters for Global Risk, and about a hundred pages of
U.S. Diplomacy,
plus math and English Lit—but I can't concentrate on any of it. I can't stop thinking about what Dad told me about Andrea, how she went to him with everything. Of course it makes sense that she'll do whatever she has to do to derail the con, and I know it means I just have to step up my game, but something in me is resisting.

I force myself to open a textbook and start reading about Wilson's Fourteen Points, but almost instantly there's a tapping on my window.

I go over and push the curtains aside. Gatsby's standing out there with her arms crossed, looking in at me. Her hair is tucked up into a black knit cap and her breath is steaming out in clouds. She looks cold. I flip the latch and swing the window open.

“Hey.” Her cheeks are flushed, and she tosses a quick look over her shoulder. “Can I come in?”

“Sure,” I say. “What's up?”

“It's complicated.” She climbs through the window, ducking her head down, and I notice that she's wearing a huge black nylon backpack. Whatever's inside is bulky enough that it almost catches on the window frame. Once she's inside, she shuts the window and yanks the curtains closed behind her, turns around, and looks at me. Her glasses are starting to steam up and she takes them off to rub the lenses on her scarf. “So,” she says, sounding out of breath and sitting down on my bed. “How are you?” She takes off her gloves and gives me a weak smile.

“Uh, fine,” I say. “What's—”

There's a sudden banging on my door. Gatsby shoots up like she's on springs, her head swiveling in all directions, looking around the room. The knocking continues, becoming more insistent.

“Who is it?” I say.

“Security. I'm looking for Ms. Haverford,” a man's voice says. It's familiar, but I'm not sure why. “I know she's in there. Open the door, Mr. Shea.”

I look at Gatsby, but she's frantically struggling with the backpack, taking it off and shoving it under my bed, where it barely fits.

“You've got the wrong room,” I say. “This is an all-male floor.”

There's silence for a second, and then I hear keys rattling outside the door. Apparently the guard has had enough with the small talk and is already letting himself in.

“Okay, all right,” I say. “Just hold on.” I'm trying to stall, but the door's opening. From the corner of my eye I see Gatsby crawling under the bed next to her backpack.

Seconds later, a uniformed man steps inside. It's George from the other night, the Kant-reading security guard who let me into Brandt's dorm. His face and neck are flushed like he's been running, and he smells faintly of tobacco.

“Where is she?” he asks, craning his neck to look around the room.

“Who?”

“Don't play stupid with me, Shea.”

“Look,” I say, “I told you, I'm alone here. And as you can see”—I point at my desk and the mountain of papers and books—“I've got a ton of studying to do. So if you don't mind . . .”

“Nice,” George says, lifting one of Gatsby's gloves off my bed and holding it up for closer examination. “Not really your color, though, is it?”

“I found 'em outside. Going to put them in lost and found in the morning.”

“Uh-huh.” After crossing the room, he opens my closet and starts yanking out my clothes. Once he's finished trashing my wardrobe, George takes another walk around the room and ends up next to the window, staring out at the night. Then he looks at me.

“I told you,” I say.

George's whole face clenches, and then he just shakes his head and walks out. The door clicks shut. I wait until I hear his footsteps fade down the wooden hallway. Then I exhale.

“He's gone,” I say.

Gatsby comes sliding out from under the bed, brushing herself off. “Wow,” she says, “you've got a lot of dust under there.”

“Are you going to tell me why security is looking for you?”

“I accidentally tripped an alarm in the rare books collection tonight.”

“What? Why?”

She reaches under the bed for the backpack, unzips it all the way, and pulls out the Gutenberg Bible. For a second I just stare at it, this historical artifact lying on my bed next to an empty Mountain Dew bottle and a rumpled T-shirt.

“Okay,” I say, “that's the Gutenberg Bible—”

“The
fake
Gutenberg.”

“You stole it?”

“Borrowed it.”

“Okay, but I'm pretty sure this particular item doesn't circulate.”

“Will, listen.” She looks up at me, absolutely serious. “We just need you to hold on to it for a while.”

“We?”

“It's important. Consider it an assignment.”

“An
assignment?
Wait, you mean . . .” For a second, it's dead silent, as if all of the air has been sucked out of the room, and Gatsby's face is expressionless. “
You're
in the Sigils?”

“Is that such a shock?”

“Well, kind of, yeah.” Then it hits me. “Are you the one who nominated me for membership?”

Gatsby allows herself the slightest smile. “I knew you were smart.”

“Why me?”

“For one thing,” she says, “you threw that snowball.”

“What?”

“At Brandt's head. On Tray Day. Nobody's ever done anything like that before.”

“That? It was just a lucky toss. I didn't even think it would hit him.” Then the implications of what she's saying finally occur to me. “Wait. You mean, Brandt's not a Sigil?”

“Are you kidding?” Gatsby laughs out loud at the thought of it. “The Sigils are the antidote to the Brandt Rushes of the world. We're outsiders, Will.” The laughter has drained away from her face. “Like you.”

I just look back at her. For an instant the room is absolutely quiet again. I'm an outsider, all right. She has no idea.

“Now,” Gatsby says, and nods at the Gutenberg, “in order to prove yourself worthy of the Sigils, you have to complete this assignment. Keep this in your room for one week. If you can do that without getting caught, you'll be inducted into full membership.”

I shake my head. “I don't understand. Why the Gutenberg, other than it's incredibly difficult to hide?”

“Funny you should ask,” she says. “It took some digging, but I did some research on the school's acquisition of the Bible. You know how I said it was purchased thirty years ago from a rare-book dealer in the U.K.? The school actually got it for a bargain-basement price, under one condition—that the book dealer's son got a full scholarship here. Any guesses what his name was?”

“I give up.”

Gatsby can't hide her smile. “Melville.”

“Wait.” I blink at her. “As in, the head of the school?”

“That's him.”

“Dr. Melville's father sold the fake Gutenberg to the school?” Now I'm smiling back at her. “That's unbelievable. Do you think he knew at the time?”

“Well,” Gatsby says, “the fact that Melville senior disappeared not long afterward, never to be heard from again, should tell us something, shouldn't it?” She lowers her voice. “I wonder if maybe Melville himself knew about it too, even then.”

The idea that Dr. Melville might have been in on it—a father-and-son con team—hits way too close to home, and all at once I feel myself straining to change the subject. “That thing's huge.” I glance down at the enormous Bible again. “How am I supposed to stash it in my room for a week?”

“I don't know,” she says. “Hang a picture on it and disguise it as a wall?”

“No, seriously. What if security comes back through here with Bible-sniffing dogs or something?”

“You'll figure it out.” She's getting ready to climb out the window and it occurs to me that in a few seconds she'll be gone, that all I'll have is the smell of her shampoo in my room and the emptiness where she was standing. And I realize that, no matter what happens, I need to mark this moment somehow in my mind so that I can come back to it again.

“Hey,” I say.

“What?”

I take a deep breath in. “You know how Homecoming is on Friday?”