Con Academy (19 page)

“Hey, don't look at me. You're the one who never bothered to learn your country's national anthem.” Her eyes narrow. “But I think Gatsby is starting to suspect something.”

“Gatsby already knows,” I say.

“What did you tell her?”

“The truth.” I start backing away.

“Wait—” Andrea starts thrashing around in the chair. If she's not careful, she's going to fall over. “Will, what are you doing?” she shouts. “You can't leave me here like this! Get this tape off me!”

“I can't right now,” I say, still backing away. “If I cut you loose, Dad will know something's up. I'm sorry, but if you just hang in there, I think we can both get what we want.”

“That's impossible!” she shouts. “What I want is for you to die a slow, painful death!”

“I'm sorry—I'll be back, I promise. My dad is harmless.”
I think,
I add silently.

“Will, you idiot!” Stepping out of the bathroom, I hear the chair legs rattling around in the tub. “I'll kill you for this!”

She's still yelling at me as I duck out the motel door.

B
ACK AT
C
ONNAUGHTON
, I
MAKE MY WAY ACROSS CAMPUS
and to my dorm. My room has definitely been searched and my stuff has been rummaged through—clothes, books, and papers strewn everywhere as if by some clumsy-fingered hurricane—but when I crawl underneath my bed, the Gutenberg is still there, taped up snugly inside my box spring.

I pull it out and walk to the library, carrying it up to the circulation desk.

“Gatsby.”

She turns around and looks at me, her face blank, as I place the Bible on the desk in front of her. She doesn't say anything.

“I just came here to say I'm really sorry. I was so wrong. I never meant—” I stop myself, cutting short the urge to somehow justify or explain. “I did a really crappy thing by lying to you.”

She still doesn't say anything. I've stood in front of suspicious cops and angry gamblers and hostile caseworkers, but those were all situations that I'd eventually managed to weasel out of or avoid completely. The only way out of this one is to go through it. I take a deep breath.

“And the worst part is, I really like you. You're different from everybody else here.”

“No,” she says.

“What?”

“I said no.” Gatsby shakes her head. “I'm not different,” she says. “If I were, I wouldn't have been so eager to swallow your stupid, pathetic, made-up story.”

“You trusted me,” I say. “Faith is a good trait to have.”

“Not in losers like you, it's not.”

“Okay,” I say, “valid point. But I just—”

“Stop, Will, okay? Just . . . 
stop.
” She's holding up both hands. “You've only been here a couple weeks, and it turns out now that I never really knew you at all. Honestly, I'd prefer to just leave it at that.”

I look at her. And now I know what I have to do.

“I need to show you something,” I tell her.

She turns away, shaking her head. “What makes you think—”

“Please.” I catch her eye. “I'll be back.” I look down at my hand and see that it's resting on the Bible. “I swear.”

Two hours later, we're standing by the helipad at the corner of campus while a high-pitched whine gets louder, the leaves and branches whipping around us. As a helicopter descends, there's too much noise to speak, but that's probably a good thing. The conversation at this point would undoubtedly be a little awkward anyway.

“Whose helicopter is that?” Gatsby shouts.

“It belongs to the Rush family.”

“What's it doing here?”

That's a more complicated answer. Essentially it involved my going back to Brandt and telling him that I needed to borrow his family chopper and pilot for the afternoon and evening. I made it sound like our scam depended on it and I didn't leave him a choice, and Brandt hardly even hesitated. I've discovered that when dealing with the very rich, reasonable requests only make them suspicious. Ask for the moon and you're golden.

“Where are we going?” Gatsby shouts as she climbs inside.

“Just get in, and—”

“Don't tell me to trust you.”

I don't say anything, just climb in behind her, and we strap the harnesses over our shoulders and laps. We're already climbing, rising up over the trees and the statue of Lancelot Connaughton, and as the chopper tilts, I look down at the grounds from an angle that I've never seen before, watching it shrink below me, first the lacrosse field and the dorms, then the pond and, farther out, the Atlantic coastline, until it's all gone beneath the orange and red blanket of New England foliage.

“We're heading south,” Gatsby says, gazing out the window. “What am I supposed to be seeing?”

“Nothing yet.”

She looks at me suspiciously for a moment, huddled on her side of the seat, as far away from me as she can get. I don't want to tell her any more because I'm afraid I'll change my mind, even now. I promised myself I wouldn't go back, ever. The truth is, my palms are already starting to sweat.

An hour later, we're crossing high above Manhattan, still heading south. When I look down again, the skyscrapers have been replaced by clusters of low buildings, warehouses and factories along the Delaware River. Heavy manufacturing. Urban enterprise zones. Neighborhoods of public housing. The world couldn't be more different from the one we just left behind. As the helicopter skims lower and lands on top of an abandoned warehouse, I can already see the sign on the Lower Free Bridge, and I hear her reading the words out loud.

“
Trenton Makes,
” Gatsby reads, “
the World Takes.
” She looks at me. “What are we doing here, Will?”

My voice is unsteady. I still can't quite believe I'm doing this.

“I wanted you to see where I'm from,” I tell her.

She looks out the window. I can hear sirens from somewhere across the river, and the sound of traffic, and that's how I know it.

I'm home.

W
E WALK FOR FIVE BLOCKS WITHOUT SAYING ANYTHING.

It's late afternoon, edging toward dusk and already getting dark on Parker Avenue, where the twilight seems to settle across the river like a dirty blanket. Immediately I feel all my old instincts coming back, a kind of heightened predator/prey awareness that creeps its way up my spine and tightens the skin across my scalp. I really don't want to be here. From this point forward, I know every crack in the sidewalk, every broken parking meter and ripped-out pay phone. Walking along, I keep my hands in my pockets because they're shaking a little and I don't want Gatsby to see. I can hear a baby crying from one of the buildings up the street. We stop in front of a three-story walkup with a fire escape hanging crookedly off the side.

“This is where I used to live,” I tell Gatsby. “After my mom died. My mom and dad used to run the wedding-planner scam from an apartment across the river, but the cops shut us down.”

Gatsby looks at me. “What's a wedding-planner scam?”

“Pretty much what it sounds like. You pick up the Sunday paper and read the engagement announcements and go around visiting couples, offering to do the wedding, the pictures, the flowers, the whole thing. They write you a check for a deposit, and you skip out with it.”

“You actually did that to people?” Gatsby asks. “Took their savings away?”

“For a while, yeah.” I hear sirens again, this time coming closer, and have to remind myself they're not for me—I don't have to look back or walk faster. “See that church?” I point past a parking lot enshrouded with a chainlink fence and a big sign reading no loitering. “Dad and I went there right after my mom died.”

“You went to church?”

“Not exactly,” I say. “Dad and I sold hymnals to the priest. Except there really weren't any hymnals to sell.” I shrugged. “I was nine years old at the time. It was the first time I remember lying to somebody's face.”

“And they just gave you the money?”

“That's right.”

“And you took it.”

“You'd be surprised what people will believe when it comes from a kid.” I point to a bar up on the corner. “See that place? Last year, we hustled a man out of five thousand bucks. It was his retirement money, probably everything he had in savings. He thought he was buying a time-share in the Outer Banks. I never saw him again.”

“Will,” Gatsby says slowly, “I get what you're doing, but I really don't think I need to know this . . .”

“It's not fun for me either,” I say. “But I need you to know who I am.”

We keep walking. After a while, we stop at an intersection, and Gatsby turns around, looking back at the old neighborhood. I can feel her trying to decide if this is just another angle that I'm playing, and I decide not to say anything. Down the block, the wind has begun to pick up, and it feels like it's getting colder by the second. Somewhere behind a fence, a dog keeps barking and barking. It sounds angry, hungry, or both. I can smell the chemicals across the river, and more than anything that takes me back to where I least want to be.

“I don't understand,” she says. “Why did you bring me here?”

There's a rattle of metal off to the left. I feel a hot surge of adrenaline pulse through my arms. Somebody steps out of the alleyway in front of us—a tall, almost skeletally skinny guy in a hooded sweatshirt—and stares at me for a long second.

“You,” he says.

I look back at him. “Richie?”

“Billy.” The guy grins, then cackles happily, sticking out his hand for a fist-bump and a hug. “Good to see you, man! I didn't know you were back! Yo, Lisa, look who it is.”

A woman in cornrows and a leather jacket comes around the corner, pushing a baby stroller, and gives me a shy smile. “Billy Humbert? What are you doing back here?” She glances at Richie. “It's been forever.” Her eyes flash over to Gatsby while the baby in the stroller starts crying. “You brought a friend with you?”

“Rich, Lisa, this is—”

“G,” Gatsby interrupts, holding out her hand, which Richie shakes. “I'm . . . a friend from school.”

“Nice to meet you,” Lisa says, reaching down to pick up the baby and rock her on her shoulder. “Billy and us go way back, don't we? Since he was growing up in the South Ward, and that was way back in the day.”

Gatsby looks at the baby. “Your daughter is beautiful.”

“Thanks,” Lisa says. “Her name's Corrine. You wanna hold her?”

“I . . . uh—” That's as far as Gatsby gets before Lisa thrusts the baby into her arms, still crying. Lisa looks at me while Gatsby tries rocking Corrine, bouncing her on her shoulder. “How you been, honey?”

“I'm all right,” I say, which is about as far from the truth as I can get. “Just came around to say hello, see how things were back in the neighborhood.”

“Going to see your old man?” Rich asks, and I can tell from the way he says it that there's more to the story already. On Gatsby's shoulder, the baby's crying louder now, but Richie keeps talking, raising his voice to be heard over the wails. “Last time I saw him, he looked pretty rough. He still living in that place above the market?”

I shrug. “Haven't seen him lately.”

“Rich and I were just heading over to St. Luke's for some dinner,” Lisa says. “You want to join us? They start serving at five.”

Gatsby hands Corrine back to Lisa, and we make our way up the street, past shuttered storefronts and darkened windows, heading for the church in the distance. When we get to St. Luke's, the line of people waiting on the sidewalk is already starting to move inside, and I can smell hot food and fresh coffee. Gatsby and I step in line, and she leans over to whisper in my ear.

“Will, isn't this the church that you said . . .”

I nod. At this point I have no idea what I'm doing here but it's too late to turn back now. Walking into the sanctuary, we each grab a styrofoam plate and join the long, slow shuffle of people, most of them men, most of them silent, heading for the long tables, where a mismatched group of college kids and suburban families are serving hot sausages, fresh fruit, coffee and bottled water, granola bars and yogurt. There are stacks of clean blankets, coats, and hats in boxes by the doors. It's about as far from the dining hall at Connaughton as I can imagine, but the familiarity of it cuts deep, like the smell of the river or the sirens on State Street.

Sitting down with Rich and Lisa, Gatsby and I find ourselves looking across the open room to the back, where a bald priest whom I recognize from a long time ago is talking to a couple guys wearing shirts from the local food bank. Lisa starts feeding Corrine, who's already got yogurt smeared across her face, while Rich looks over at Gatsby.

“So, what school you go to?”

Gatsby glances at me. “It's, ah, not around here.”

“Billy?”

I turn around and see the priest standing behind me, and just like that, his name pops into my head.

“Father Tom.”

“You're Billy Humbert, aren't you? You and your dad used to live up on Congress Avenue.” It's not really a question, because I already know he knows me and remembers the twenty-five hundred dollars that the parish handed over, eight years earlier, for the hymnals that never arrived. I stare at him. His craggy face is creased with deep wrinkles, but his blue eyes are clear and sharp. “How's your old man doing, anyway?”

“I don't—” I swallow hard. “I don't really see him that much anymore,” I say. Father Tom just keeps staring. It occurs to me that, in a really uncomfortable way, everything I've done up until now has led me to this moment.