The Quick Fix (22 page)

I checked the clock again: 5:30.

I picked up one of the photocopies I got from the
library and walked upstairs. It was time to find out what it meant to my mom.

She was in the kitchen drying the dishes. There was a mug of coffee on the counter that she was taking occasional sips from. She was working but obviously distracted, as she didn't hear me come in until the door closed behind me.

She jumped a little, almost dropping her mug. A little bit of coffee slopped onto her hand. “Jeez! Matt!” She was smiling, but she was nervous … jumpy. “Sneaking up on me?”

“In a way,” I said.

She gave me a funny look.

“There's a kid in my school named Vincent Biggio, but everyone calls him Vinny Biggs,” I said. “He used to be the target of bullies, but now he runs a whole criminal organization.”

“Matt, what are you—”

“Vinny controls just about everything that happens in school, illegal or otherwise,” I continued. “None of it is too bad … well, except for the test-stealing and the gambling ring.”

“Gambling?”

“But worse than that, he humiliates kids and ruins their lives. He started doing it last year as a way to get back at some of the bullies who had wronged him. And since he was focusing on jerks and bullies, giving them a taste of their own medicine, everyone went along with it. Then things started getting out of control. Vinny began using it as a punishment for anyone who crossed him, even in little ways. Kids who hadn't done anything to anyone suddenly found themselves in the Outs.”

“The Outs?” she asked.

“That's the club you end up in if you get marked,” I answered.

“Marked?”

“Vinny has his assassins mark the victims by squirting them with liquid in the front of their pants. The victim is then called ‘Pee-Pee Pants' and—hey!—welcome to the Outs! That kid's social status is ruined for as long as he stays in this town … and in more than a few cases, even if he manages to leave.”

She looked confused, as if she wasn't sure whether she should be concerned or amused. “Pee-Pee Pants? Seriously?” she asked. “Don't you think it's a little—”

“Childish? Yup, which is exactly why he chose that
method. Vinny knew what he was doing. He knew that he couldn't keep his operation a secret from adults forever. So he picked a method of humiliation that most grown-ups would look at and say, ‘Well, that's childish. They'll grow out of that soon. And no one's
really
getting hurt.'”

“So kids just laugh and yell ‘pee-pee' at each other?” she asked.

“Well, that's one way to look at it. Another way to look at it is that kids single out other kids to completely humiliate and destroy. Whether they yell ‘pee-pee pants' or ‘bologna breath' or ‘big nose' or ‘lard butt' doesn't matter, the end result is the same.”

“So, what's your role in all this?”

“Kids hire me to help them through their problems,” I said.

She nodded. “Like a private detective.”

I nodded.

“And you're in trouble?”

“Always. Not with my teachers or the principal or anything,” I said. “More like with the kids who do stuff and don't want to get caught.”

“So, I should stop this, right? I mean, I can't let this continue.”

“Yeah, well, you kind of have to. Vinny's already prepared for that scenario. You'll stop the whole squirt-gun thing, but then he'll just pick some other form of humiliation. It won't stop. And for me, things will get a whole lot worse.”

“What should I do, then?”

“No idea,” I said. “Vinny is smart, and he understands the system. He doesn't leave any evidence that could be connected back to him, so even if you'd convince the school administration that this is all going on under their noses, you might be able to take out a few of Vinny's foot soldiers, but there's no way you can stick him with the blame.”

She scrunched up her face. “Well, this is frustrating.”

“Yeah, I know. But I guarantee you, if you try to blow the whistle on him, I'll be beaten … relentlessly … for as long as we live here.”

“So I just have to sit here and watch this happen?”

I nodded. “But there is one thing you can do for me.”

“Anything.”

“Things are going to change for me tomorrow, and not for the better.”

“Matt—”

“It's okay. I've made my peace with it. In fact, in some ways it might actually be a good thing.”

“In what way?”

“It can't go on like this forever. I'm sick to death of it. Too many kids I know—good kids—have gotten hurt,” I said. “I didn't realize it until the other day, but there's a delicate balance to the Outs, and it may be reaching its tipping point.”

“And you think you might be the difference?”

I shrugged. “I don't know about that. But I might be able to give it a shove in the right direction.”

“What do you need me to do?” she asked.

“If it happens, treat me the same. Don't pity me. Don't ask me how it's going. And don't suggest things I can do to make it better.”

“Okay.” She nodded, then looked at the clock. It was a little after six. “So … uh … weren't we supposed to start at nine? Don't you think you jumped the gun a little?” There was a small smile on her face, but she looked worried.

“I got a little anxious,” I said. I pulled the photocopy I had gotten from the library out of my back pocket. I made sure the picture on it was facing up, then placed it on the counter next to my mom. “I found something.”

She gasped, short and sharp. She dropped the mug she was holding; it shattered on the tiles, splashing coffee on the floor in an amoeba-type shape. She didn't seem to notice. Her breath was coming in jagged gasps.

The picture was sixteen years old, based on the date of the newspaper. I didn't know the specific local event that it was from. It didn't say. It must have been some kind of party. My father was wearing a tuxedo. He was sitting, smiling at the camera. I had seen photos of him with a sincere smile; this wasn't it. Sitting on his lap was Roberta Carling, Kevin and Liz's mom; although she wasn't Mrs. Carling at the time. She was still Roberta Santini. Sitting next to my dad, and also wearing a tuxedo, was Albert Carling. My mom was sitting on his lap. Her smile looked as forced as my dad's. The caption read
THE SANTINI SISTERS AND THEIR MEN. ROBERTA AND HER FIANCÉ, JAMES STEVENS; KATHERINE AND HER FIANCÉ, ALBERT CARLING.

There were so many things about the photo that hurt, I didn't know which to focus on. It was like getting attacked by a swarm of bees and trying to identify which one had the sharpest stinger.

“Where did you—?” she started to ask. “How—?”

“The library,” I said. “As to how, there was a clue, a series of letters and numbers written on a piece of paper. They found it in the glove compartment of Dad's car.”

“I remember,” she whispered.

“I've spent the past few years trying to figure out what they meant. Today, I finally did. They led me to that.” I pointed at the picture. It was still on the counter. My mom hadn't touched it.

She was crying pretty steadily now. My eyes were starting to tear up, too, but I couldn't lose it yet. There were things I needed to know. “You and Mrs. Carling are sisters,” I said.

She nodded.

“You were engaged to Mr. Carling, and Dad was engaged to your sister.”

She nodded again.

“And somewhere along the line, you and Dad jilted them and ran off together.”

She let out a sob.

“So, he's my uncle, she's my aunt, and Kevin and Liz are my cousins.”

She nodded again.

“And Santini's is partially yours.”

She shook her head. “No. My dad—”

“My grandfather.”

“Your … grandfather left the restaurant to Roberta when your father and I ran off.”

“You left town?”

“We went to New York. Your father tried to make it as a musician. He was good, and he was starting to make headway when I got pregnant with you. But trying to make it as a musician in New York with a pregnant wife at home and no support is an uphill climb.”

“So he quit, and you came back here?”

“We thought that maybe things had died down enough—”

“Or your pregnancy might soften your family up a bit.”

“It didn't,” she said. “My father wanted to talk to me, I think, but Roberta made him choose between us. She wanted me to suffer. She and Albert had found some sort of relationship. I'm not sure either of them would call it love, but it was something.”

“So that's why Mr. Carling is so hard on you.”

She wiped her eyes with her hands, then took a deep
breath. “He's not,” she said. “It's all an act. If it weren't for Albert, we wouldn't be making it.”

I was confused, and then another seemingly random piece clicked into place. “He owns this building, doesn't he? He's ‘Big A.'”

“Big A?”

“The phone,” I said. “In my office. Sometimes it rings, and when I pick it up, some guy on the other line asks for ‘Big A.' When I try to take a message, he hangs up.”

“Yeah, Albert owns this place. He doesn't want to take rent from us, but I make him. He gave me the job at the restaurant, over Roberta's objections, and always gives me first pick of holiday shifts. If someone calls in sick, he calls me first.”

“But he acts mean to you because that's easier to explain—to his wife, to anyone that may know the story … to me.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Plus, I think Roberta really likes the idea of having me as her lowly employee … able to rub my nose in the dirt with the snap of her fingers.”

“Does he still love you?”

She paused. “I don't know.”

“Do you love him?”

She paused. “I don't know.”

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “So what about Dad? What happened to him?'

A hardness crept across her face. Tears still fell, but they seemed like remnants of her feelings from a couple of minutes ago. “I don't know.”

“Nothing?”

“No,” she said. “If I did, that's not something I'd keep from you.”

“You have an idea, though.”

She looked down at her hands, but there was nothing in them or on them to fidget with.

“When we came back, all he talked about was leaving again. The more we stayed, the more he realized that leaving wasn't going to be easy. And everyone that we knew …” She wiped her mouth with her hand. “No one wanted to talk to us. Our old friends, our families … no one. We even got some threats.”

“What?”

“The police checked them out,” she said. “They turned out to be nothing. Just some idiots sticking their noses where they didn't belong.”

“So, someone could have driven him off. Or hurt him, or …”

“Yes. Or he could have just run off,” she said, in a way
that made it clear which possibility she believed. “Here's the thing, Matt, and it took me a
really
long time to make peace with this: If someone did hurt him, or worse, there's nothing I can do about it. The only thing I can do is take care of you the best I can. That's it. I can't save him, or”—she took a deep, shuddery breath—“or bring him back, if that's the case. I can't even ‘find justice for him,' which always looks so easy in movies or on TV. I can't do anything like that. The best I can do is try to take care of
you
. Do you understand?”

My jaw tightened. I did, but I didn't.

“That's only because you're wired differently,” my mom said, as if she had snatched my last thought out of the air. “Do you at least understand that?”

I nodded slowly. I licked my lips and forced myself to ask the last question I had left. “And if he left on his own?”

“Then screw him,” my mom said, the color rising in her cheeks. “Let him stay lost.”

She stepped close to me and grabbed me by the shoulders. Her face was inches from mine. The tears were gone, her eyes suddenly clear and bright … and hard as granite. “Your dad loved you—I'm sure he still does—but here's the thing … no one—NO ONE—could
drive me away from you,” she said. “You got that? It's not possible. If someone even tried, they'd quickly wish they hadn't.”

“You're small, but you pack a wallop,” I said.

“When it counts … yeah. And kiddo, nothing counts more to me than you.”

She grabbed my head and planted a hard kiss on my cheek, then pulled me in for a hug … the big kind that has a little rocking-back-and-forth to it. She took a deep, sniffly breath, then pulled back and held me by the shoulders again. “You okay?”

“In some ways, yeah. In other ways … I'm not sure,” I said. “I still have my whole case thing to worry about, so that's at least a little bit of a distraction.”

“And when that's done?”

I shrugged. “I'll have a mental breakdown. But that might happen anyway when I get put in the Outs.”

“So, a nice little two-for-one deal.”

I nodded with mock enthusiasm. “Crazy, now at half the price!”

She laughed, then grabbed both my cheeks and pinched. “How'd you get so funny, huh?”

“Ow! All right, I'm done.” I moved my face away from
her pincers. “I think I need a pizza or three,” I said, and held up a twenty.

My mom shook her head, but I could tell she was impressed. “I think I chose the wrong profession,” she said.

I smiled. “Yeah … me too.”