Con Academy (23 page)

“I will.”

“It was a good con, wasn't it?”

“The best,” I say, and click off the phone, making my way to the door.

Walking down the pathway to the statue, I see Dr. Stanley and his wife walking toward the airport shuttle bus with their three young children, who are all dressed in Connaughton sweatshirts and bouncing happily forward.

“Dr. Stanley?”

He stops and looks at me, his forehead wrinkling in puzzlement as he shields his eyes to see who it is. “Yes?”

“Sir, I know that you don't know me, but I just wanted to say”—I hold out my hand—“that I'm really glad you and your family flew all the way here to visit the school.”

He doesn't speak for a moment. “It is very strange,” he finally says.

“What's that?”

“My family and I traveled here to your country, and we arrive here with great fanfare, only to find out that all the money that was raised for the orphanage has been embezzled.”

“I'm sorry about that, sir.” Reaching down, I pick up the briefcase I'd brought and hold it out to him. “I hope this helps.”

“What is it?”

“A minor contribution, on behalf of the alumni. In the hopes that you won't remember your visit here at Connaughton as being all bad.”

Dr. Stanley takes the briefcase and pops the latches, holding it upright so that the bundles of cash don't go spilling out. “This—” His eyes widen slightly. “How much is this?”

“I believe it's in the neighborhood of two million dollars.”

“I—I cannot possibly accept—”

“It's our pleasure.” I hold his gaze. “It was good to meet you, sir. I'd like to come visit your island sometime, if I could. In many ways I feel like I already know it.”

He just blinks and nods, glancing back at his wife and children, who have already climbed onto the bus. For an instant his eyes hold mine with an unexpected intensity. “Thank you,” he says simply. He closes the briefcase and steps onboard the bus, joining his family. The door closes and the bus pulls away, leaving me standing there next to the statue of our founder.

It's time for me to head out too. Shouldering my backpack, I turn around and start walking, making my way to the main gate. It's going to be a long hike to town, but I'm optimistic about catching a ride once I get there.

My pocket buzzes with an incoming text, and I pull out my phone.

It's a photo of a white-sand beach, the ocean blue and rolling in the distance, so clear and bright that the wave peaks look like glass. There's no message, just the picture taken from a beach chair or a hammock, legs with freshly painted red toenails in the foreground. I think I know whose toes they are. And I figure that wherever Andrea's stretched out at the moment, she's a lot warmer than I am, standing here.

I smile. “Good for you,” I murmur, and slip the phone back into my pocket.

“Mr. Humbert,” a voice says behind me, and right away I know who it is.

I
T'S
D
R.
M
ELVILLE.
H
E'S GOT HIS DOG
, C
HAUCER, WITH HIM
, and he's growling. Both of them are, actually. “Stay right where you are.”

“Dr. Melville . . .”

“You didn't really think you were going to get away with this, did you?” Stepping toward me, he takes out his phone. “No matter. I'm certain that the authorities will be able to clear everything up.” He offers me a dry smile
that makes tiny creases form in the corners of his mouth. “And I am equally certain that at the very least, you will be going to juvenile detention for a very long time.”

“Not if you don't want everybody to know about how the school was sold a fake Gutenberg by your father,” I say, but at this point the argument sounds weak even to me, and Dr. Melville literally laughs in my face.

“Please,” he says. “Once I'm through exposing you, do you really think anyone's going to care about you and your pathetic accusations?”

He's got a point. And I could outrun Dr. Melville right now, but I can't run forever. I think of my father, plotting and scheming and always looking over his shoulder, hurting the ones he loves. When does it stop?

“I'm not even going to bother taking you back to my office,” Dr. Melville says. “We're going to wait right here for the police to arrive. I assume you've got nowhere that you need to be?”

“Not really,” I say. “Not anymore.”

“I'm glad to hear that.” He's already dialing when a voice interrupts us.

“Let him go.”

Dr. Melville and I both turn around, and when we do, a half-dozen figures in black ski masks are standing there in broad daylight, with six more stepping out of the trees behind us. Either we've been surrounded by the most clueless group of bank robbers in history, or the Sigils have shown up just in time. Their appearance here is obvious enough that a handful of students on their way to class have already stopped to watch what's happening. Within seconds, the group of onlookers has grown to twenty, then thirty, watching the standoff and whispering among themselves.

Dr. Melville looks like he wants to say something, but his chin just twitches a little while his dog gives a growl.

“What do you want?” he asks.

“William Humbert is one of us,” the ski-masked figure in front says, and stares steadily at Dr. Melville. “You of all people should be able to appreciate what that means, Harold.”

Dr. Melville flinches a little at the sound of his first name being spoken aloud. “This boy is a criminal and a fraud.” He raises his voice so that all the kids standing around can hear him.
“He jeopardized the reputation and integrity of this school!”

“You did what you had to do to get into this school, Harold,” the masked figure says, just loud enough for everyone to hear. “Would you like to tell everyone how
you
got accepted here?”

The crowd stands completely silent and spellbound, waiting. Dr. Melville doesn't say anything, but the expression of alarm on his face tells me everything I need to know. He gets the point. His shoulders sag. He lowers his gaze. The masked figure takes a step forward and holds out his hand.

“We take care of our own,” the masked figure says. “Right?”

After what feels like an eternity, Dr. Melville finally reaches out and takes the leader's hand, and the two of them exchange a strange, ritualistic shake. Dr. Melville gives me one last look, then skulks up the path in the direction of his office with his dog padding along beside him. After a few moments, the group of spectators disperses, the students making their way to class.

The ski-masked figure turns to me. “Welcome to the Sigils.”

“But . . .” I shake my head. “I gave back the Gutenberg. I failed the assignment.”

“There are other ways of proving yourself worthy,” he says, then turns and walks away. The others follow suit, silently fading into the trees like a squadron of prep-school ninjas.

All but one.

After I've followed her around the corner of the arts center, where we've got some privacy, Gatsby peels off her mask. Her hair tumbles down over her shoulders. We step back into the light—the midday sun catches her eyes, and she puts on her glasses.

“Hey,” she says.

“Hey, yourself.” I look around to make sure there aren't any more surprises coming out of the woodwork. “So I guess I should thank you.”

“You could,” she says. “It really wouldn't be necessary.” She glances at her watch, then turns in the direction of the campus. “Walk a girl to work?”

We start down the pathway toward the library, neither of us talking.

“So I have to ask,” I begin.

And Gatsby says, “Yes?”

“Melville and his dad . . .”

“What about them?”

“They were con artists too? A father-and-son team? That's the dirt that the Sigils have on him?”

“Well, his father was,” she says. “Apparently Melville took the straight path once he arrived here.”

“That's . . . encouraging.”

“I thought so.” Gatsby raises her eyebrows. “Speaking of reforming,” she says, “have you heard anything about what happened to Andrea?”

“Well, based on everything I've seen, I can only assume that she took the hundred and twenty-five K and moved on.” I take out my phone and show Gatsby the photo that I received a few minutes ago. “This might be a clue. It just arrived on my phone, sender unknown.”

“The beach?”

“Looks like the Caribbean. Or Mexico.”

“Sounds like her. And you?”

There it is, the question I was not exactly looking forward to. I nod, squinting up at the sky as if maybe there's some wisdom to be found there. “I'm heading out too.”

“Where to?”

I shrug. We're standing right in front of the library now. Gatsby turns and puts her back to the door, then looks up at me.

“You don't want to stay?”

“I can't.”

“Why not?”

“I don't fit in here. I'm a con artist. I've spent half my life pretending to be someone I'm not.”

“Come on, Will.” Gatsby gestures around the campus and laughs. “What do you think half of these kids are doing?”

“Yeah, but in my case, it's kind of literally true.”

“People change.”

“Sure they do.” I try to smile, but it feels all wrong and I give up. “I'll see you around, okay?”

“Will?”

I turn around.

“Everybody makes mistakes,” she says. “What matters is what you do afterward.” Then she smiles. “Thanks for the Hawthorne.”

And she turns and goes into the library, leaving me out in the cold.

I stick my hands in my pockets and start to walk away, heading up the path toward the lacrosse field, acutely aware of my surroundings. Students are on their way to class, talking and hurrying along. The bell tower rings, chiming out the hour. Squirrels scamper in the branches.

I walk a little farther, thinking it through. If it's really true that what matters is what you do afterward, then I still have a choice, an opportunity to stop running and start living. Okay, maybe I still can't write a coherent essay on Wilson's Fourteen Points, but I studied harder for that exam than I've done for anything else in my life, and I actually
liked
it. My mind goes back to the guy in the ski mask saying, “Welcome to the Sigils.” And I think about Gatsby. If Connaughton really is the second chance I've been looking for, maybe I don't need to con anybody anymore, least of all myself.

Maybe I'll even learn to play lacrosse.

I stop and turn around, looking back in the direction that I came. Before I know it, my feet start moving, carrying me back to the library, and I open the door, stepping into the warmth and the smell of books and the soft lighting.

Gatsby's sitting behind her desk, checking in books. I walk over to her, and she looks up from behind a stack of dusty old hardcovers.

“Listen,” I say, “I was thinking, you know, since I'm already a Sigil and everything, maybe it would be for the best if I hung out here for a while.” A few students are looking up at me from their carrels, giving me annoyed looks, but Gatsby's just smiling. “Plus I heard there's a secret library hidden within the library, and I was thinking maybe we could find the hidden journals of Lancelot Connaughton. Who knows, maybe the old guy was something of a swindler himself, you know, before he—”

“Will?” Gatsby says.

“Yeah?”

She points to the sign that says
quiet, please
and puts her finger to her lips. And when she stands up and comes around the desk to kiss me, it's exactly as warm and soft as I'd always hoped it would be, and I realize that I'd be perfectly fine standing here with her for the rest of our natural lives, surrounded by the smell of old books. I think about what Roy told me on the phone.

In life, as in the big con, sometimes there is no angle.

Sometimes you just have to play it as it lays.

Describe a significant experience or achievement and the effect that it had on you. (Harvard)

“
You shot me,” I said.

I was lying on my stomach, wondering if I was going to pass out from the pain. Twenty feet away, she stood with the machine pistol in one hand and the sawed-off shotgun in the other, wiping the blood out of her eyes. It was three a.m. We were in my father's law office on the forty-seventh floor of 855 Third Avenue, or what was left of it. The cops were taking cover behind the couch.

She was talking but I couldn't hear anything. The gunfire had left me temporarily deaf

I thought about my father.

I took a breath and watched the room wobble at the edges. I was going into shock. The pain wasn't getting any better, and I thought that I would probably black out before I found out how this was going to end. Just as well—I was never particularly good at finishing things.