Nothing to Lose (5 page)

M
y father crossed over to the door and clasped Stan Rogers by the hand. The two of them stood in the doorway for a few moments, catching up. When my father finally got around to introducing me, Stan beamed.

“You probably don't remember,” he said, “but you sat on my knee, oh, a dozen or so years ago.”

“Stan used to play Santa Claus at the Christmas parties we had at the division where I worked when you were little,” my father said.

Stan was middle-aged and a little on the plump side. He had clear blue eyes that twinkled when he smiled. I bet he made a terrific Santa.

“I'm still on Santa detail,” he said. “Scheduled to suit up again in a couple of weeks. I can't believe that Christmas is only six weeks away. Where does the time go, huh?” He glanced across the room at Nick.

My father followed his gaze. “Nick D'Angelo,” he said. “Nick is a friend of Robbie's.”

Stan nodded stiffly before turning back to me. “So, I understand you want to report a theft.”

“That's right,” my father said. “Have a seat, Stan.” He gestured to an empty chair. “I'll get you some coffee while you take Robbie's information.”

Stan sat down, pulled out a notebook, and started to write down all the details of what he called “the incident”—the street where it had happened, when it had happened, the building I had been standing in front of, the make of my backpack, and a description of the thief. He also wrote down everything that had been in the backpack, like my sweater. “A really pretty robin's-egg blue color,” I told him.“Handmade, not machine-made.”

“Anything else?” he said.

“Three dead birds.”

“Oh?” He waited patiently for an explanation, so I told him about DARC and what I had been doing downtown.

“There was also some DARC stuff in my backpack,” I said. This was an official police report, so I figured I should be thorough. “The only thing that's really valuable is the banding equipment.”

“Banding equipment?”

Stan, my father, and Nick were all looking at me, curious.

“There's a professor at the university who works with DARC,” I said. “He's studying a certain kind of thrush. Whenever Billy or anyone else finds one of these thrushes and it's in good enough shape to be released, it gets banded. The band is a little radio transmitter, so the professor can track them. I think there were half a dozen of them in my backpack.”

“You had six radio transmitters in there?” Stan said. He glanced over my shoulder to where my father was standing. I knew exactly what he was thinking.

“You have to activate them before they start sending out a signal,” I said. “And they weren't activated.”

Stan shook his head. “Too bad. Do you think you would recognize the thief again if you saw him?”

I said I wasn't sure. The thief had been wearing a hat pulled down low over his forehead and a scarf pulled up high over his chin and mouth. The only part of his face that I had really got a good look at—and only for a second or two—was his eyes. Stan closed his notebook.

“I can't make any promises,” he said. “But you never know.” He stood up and tucked his notebook into a pocket. He glanced at Nick again but didn't say anything. “I'll be in touch if anything comes up.”

My father thanked Stan for coming and showed him to the door. They stood out in the hall for a few minutes. I heard them talking in low voices. When my father came back inside, he looked at Nick. His eyes lingered on Nick's turned-up collar. Nick started to squirm. Then the phone rang. My father answered it, carried the phone into his office, and shut the door. I turned to Nick.

“You know that cop, don't you?” I said.

“I've seen him around.”

What did that mean? “Is he a friend of Glen's?”

Glen Ross was Nick's aunt's boyfriend. He was also the reason that Nick was living on his own instead of with his aunt. The last time Glen and Nick had had an argument, Nick had ended up with a sprained wrist.

Nick didn't answer.

“Did you have another argument with Glen?”

“I haven't seen him in over a week,” he said. From his bitter tone, I guessed that he hadn't seen his aunt either.

“So how did you get that bruise on your neck?”

“What bruise?”

“Wrong answer, Nick.” I reached out and pulled down his collar.

“Oh, that,” he said. “I had a difference of opinion with someone else. It's no big deal.” He slipped an arm around my waist and held me close. I knew he was only doing it to stop me from asking more questions, but I have to admit, it felt good.

“It could be a big deal if the other person got hurt and decides to press charges,” I said. I felt him tense up against me.“I don't want you to end up in trouble again.”

“Neither do I,” he said. “Especially now.” Now that he was sixteen, he meant, when the courts could go harder on him if the trouble was serious enough. He held me tighter, then suddenly let go and stepped back. I didn't need eyes in the back of my head to know that my father had emerged from his office.

“So, what are you two up to this weekend?” he said.

Nick just shrugged. What was wrong with him? He and my dad usually got along great. Nick even told me once that he admired my father. But today he was closed up tighter than a bank after business hours.

“Nick has the weekend off for a change,” I said.“We're going to spend some time together.” I grabbed my jacket off the chair where I had dropped it when I arrived.

“I need a word with you before you go, Robbie.”

I looked at him expectantly.

“In private,” he said.

Nick shifted uncomfortably and stared at the floor.

“Excuse us for a minute, Nick,” my father said. I followed him into his office. It was one of the few “rooms” in the place that had a door, but my father left it open. “That phone call I just got—it was business. I have to go out of town.”

“No problem.”

“I probably won't be back tonight. I want you to stay with Henri.”

Henri is Henrietta Saint-Onge, girlfriend of my father's business partner Vernon Deloitte, another ex-cop. I like Henri a lot. She's an artist. She's kind of eccentric and is always interesting to spend time with. I've stayed with her plenty of times over the years, usually on weekends when my father had to work. He usually neglected to mention this to my mother, who thought that he should be able to arrange his life so that he could spend quality time with me every other weekend. I usually backed him up by keeping my mouth shut.

“Dad, I'm sixteen.” Both of my parents seemed to be having trouble remembering this. “I can look after myself.”

“I know you can. But I want you to stay with her anyway.”

“Dad, come on! Weren't you ever young?”

“That's the problem, Robbie. I was. Hard as it is to imagine, I was once sixteen. Your mother would have my head if she found out I left you alone with a teenage boy—especially that particular teenage boy—in the same building.”

“
Da
-ad!”

“Humor me, Robbie, okay?”

“But—”

“You know I never criticize your mother.”

Surprisingly, considering that they're divorced, that's true. Sometimes he pokes fun at her, but he never says anything negative. Not to me, anyway.

“And you know we both work hard at making sure that our problems don't become your problems.”

“Yes, but—”

“Your mother has reservations about Nick.”

“She
told
you that?”

“She did. She called me last night, Robbie. She worries about you. She still hasn't gotten over the Trisha Carnegie thing.”

Trisha was a girl who had gone missing. I'd helped to find her.

“She blames me for getting you involved,” he said.

“But—”

“It scared her. Things could easily have turned out badly.”

“But they didn't.”

“I love you, Robbie,” my father said. “I like that you can come around as often as you do. I like that you spend weekends here. I especially like that we manage to do it all in a relatively civilized manner. I'd like to keep it that way.”

“So would I, Dad.”

“So, do me—and your mother—a favor. Stay with Henri tonight, okay?”

“Okay,” I said.

“If you need me, you can get me on my cell phone. Any time.”

“
Okay
, Dad.”

He dug his wallet out of his pocket and handed me some bills. I could tell even without counting that it was a lot of money. “You heard what Stan said,” he said. “Christmas will be here before you know it. You might want to start looking for something for your mother.And Robbie? Be good.” He sounded exactly like my mother, which would have surprised her. “I'll be in touch.”

Meaning, he would check on me.

 

 

Nick led the way down the stairs. When we got outside, he said, “That was about me, right?”

“No, it wasn't.”

“What then?”

“My dad has to go out of town, and my mom's away on a business trip, so he wants me to stay with Henri tonight.”

“You need a
babysitter?
”

“Henri isn't a babysitter,” I said. “She's a friend. It's just that he thinks my mother would be upset if she found out I stay here alone.”

“Especially since I live right downstairs, right? He doesn't trust me, does he?” He sounded bitter.

“That's not it at all. He just worries about me, that's all.”

“Right.”

I stared up into his eyes. “He wants me to stay with Henri because of what happened with Trisha Carnegie,” I said. “And because of how my mom reacted.”

I couldn't tell whether or not Nick believed me, but he held my hand all the way to the bus stop. While we walked, his eyes never stopped moving—up the street, down the street, across the street.

“Expecting company?” I said as we reached the bus shelter.

“Huh?”

“You keep looking around. Like you're expecting someone.”

“I'm just looking for the bus.” He was lying. I knew it. I could tell by the way he avoided looking at me. “Here it comes.” He started out of the bus shelter. When I didn't follow him immediately, he took me by the hand. While we waited for the bus to pull up in front of us, he said, “Hey, Robyn? I had a lousy week—work and school and everything. I just want us to have a good time today, okay?”

I said okay. I wondered what he meant by
everything
.

The bus lumbered to a stop. We climbed aboard, paid our fares, and headed to the back. Only after scanning every face in the bus did Nick sink into his seat. I snuggled against him, but I couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong. Something he didn't want to tell me about—yet. Maybe if the day went well, he would open up. I decided to give him time to unwind.

“Where are we going?” I said.

“I thought maybe Chinatown.”

“
Chinatown?
” There were lots of things to do in and around the city—movies, museums, art galleries (which, to be honest, I would never have expected Nick to suggest), maybe a walk in the park. But Chinatown?

“Have you been down there lately?” Nick said.

“I was only a couple of blocks from there when I was robbed this morning.”

“Does that mean you don't want to go back?”

“No,” I said. “I'm just a little surprised, that's all. You've never mentioned Chinatown before.”

He shrugged. “There are lots of cool stores down there. I thought maybe I could find something for Jack for Christmas.” Jack was Nick's baby nephew. “And we could have lunch at a Chinese restaurant. Hey, you want to go to the Santa Claus parade tomorrow?”

“The Santa Claus parade?” I couldn't picture Nick at a parade that attracted mainly little kids and their parents.

“What's the matter?” Nick said. “You don't need a little magic in your life?”

“
Christmas
magic, you mean?”

“Yeah. My mom used to take me to the parade every year. Then we'd go and stand in line at one of the malls so I could tell Santa what I wanted for Christmas. My mom always used to have my picture taken, you know, sitting on Santa's knee. She had a whole collection of those pictures, from when I was a little boy till I was maybe eight or nine years old.”

So he was feeling nostalgic. Nick's mother had died a few years ago. Nick's stepfather was responsible. His stepfather was also responsible for the scar on Nick's face. He was in prison now. So was Nick's stepbrother, Joey. The only other family Nick had was his aunt and his nephew Jack, whom he had never seen in person. Joey's girlfriend had been pregnant when Joey went to prison. She moved out west to be with her family when she had the baby. All Nick had seen of Jack were a few pictures. And Christmas was on the way—the time of year when everybody thought about family. I squeezed Nick's hand.