Sammy Keyes and the Cold Hard Cash

by Wendelin Van Draanen

  “Grams, please. I’m trying not to think about it, okay?”

  She stopped midscoop, the gloppy wooden spoon looming over a bowl. “Oh, Samantha. You have got to stop blaming yourself! His heart was obviously in poor condition!” She thwacked the oatmeal into the bowl, put the pot back on the stove, and handed me the walnuts, brown sugar, and milk. “But I would love to know what he was doing there!”

  I sat at the table, suddenly not at all hungry. “Can we please not talk about it?” I leaned forward and whispered, “I killed a man, okay?”

  She flicked out a napkin and smoothed it across her lap. “You did not kill him. He obviously shouldn’t have been—”

  “I shouldn’t have been there! I’m not supposed to be living here, remember?”

  She zeroed in on me through her glasses. “But you do live here, and he doesn’t! He lives at the Heavenly.” She shivered a little when she said “Heavenly,” then almost right away added, “Or, I should say, lived.” She poured milk on her oatmeal. “I want to know what he was doing on our fire escape!”

  “Stop it!”

  “My,” she said, passing the milk. “For a girl who is usually too curious, it’s odd that you’re not at all interested in this.”

  I leaned waaaay forward and said, “I killed him, okay?”

  But she was right. It wasn’t just that. It was the money. The fact that it was a dead man’s money. The fact that I wanted to keep the dead man’s money. The fact that after an entire life of having nothing to spend, I now had more than I knew how to spend.

  Marissa helped with that little problem. She called later that morning and asked, “Can you meet me at the mall at eleven? I need to find a new swimsuit.”

  “Me too,” I said, realizing with a happy rush that I could actually afford to buy one instead of borrowing an old one of hers.

  “Cool!” she said. “You want to meet at Juicers?”

  “Sure!”

  I waited until Grams was in the bathroom to dig up some cash. I peeled off six twenties, not because I was planning to spend a hundred and twenty bucks on a swimsuit but because that way I’d be ready in case I wanted to buy…other stuff!

  I folded the bills in half and slipped them in my jeans pocket. I felt a twinge of guilt, but I shook it off. So I’d caught a lucky break for once. There was no crime in that—I just wasn’t used to it.

  I felt a little nervous leaving the rest of the money in a place Grams could find it if she had the mind to snoop, but really, Grams isn’t in the habit of snooping. I mean, where’s there to snoop? Except for my skateboard and my backpack, which both get stashed under the couch, everything I own is hidden in her bottom dresser drawer. And believe me, my backpack is not something tidy people like Grams would voluntarily snoop through. It’s tattered and kinda smelly from softball paraphernalia, and in order for Grams to find the stacks of cash, she’d have to get past my ball cap, catcher’s mitt, sweatshirt, cleats, and sunblock.

  So I shoved the worry from my mind, told Grams I’d see her later, checked the hallway for nosy old people, then beelined over to the fire escape exit and hurried to the mall.

  Brandon McKenze was working the counter at Juicers, which at one time would have immediately flicked on the spastic switch in my head. He may be Marissa’s cousin and someone I’ve known since the third grade, but him being a high school swim star and…I don’t know…tan all the time used to really twist me up, if you know what I mean.

  But recently I was forced to actually talk to him a few times, and for some reason it helped me get over being tongue-tied around him.

  “Hey, Sammy!” he said, rinsing out a blender. “Cruising for trouble?”

  I laughed. “Yeah. Goes by the name Marissa. Have you seen her?”

  He laughed, too. “No, but I’m sure she’ll show up. Trouble always shows up when you’re around.”

  “Very funny,” I said, and I felt strangely relaxed. Almost confident. This was the easiest conversation I’d ever had with Brandon.

  “Can I getcha anything?” He eyed me. “Probably not, huh?”

  Now, the reason he said “Probably not, huh?” is because I never buy anything at Juicers. Who can afford six bucks for some fancy juice?

  Marissa, on the other hand, always buys something. Marissa’s got money to burn. She’s even got her own credit card, if you can believe that. Grams says it’s her parents’ way of compensating for never being home, but whatever. It doesn’t bother me because Marissa doesn’t act like a rich girl. She’s generous, but in a quiet way. She just does little things—like offer to buy me Double Dynamo drumsticks or Juicers when we’re cruising around town, or she’ll spring for the movies so I can actually go with her.

  Anyway, the point is, I owe Marissa McKenze more Juicers than I care to think about. And all of a sudden there I was, with a fat wad of twenties in my pocket and a burning urge to buy something!

  “As a matter of fact, I think I’ll have a large orange-strawberry, and I’ll get Marissa an orange-pineapple.”

  He hesitated. “I can’t do it on the house, you know that, right?”

  I peeled a twenty out of my pocket and laid it on the counter.

  He studied me a second, then gave a nod. “Coming right up.”

  Marissa arrived just as I was tucking away my change. I handed over her drink and said, “Surprise.”

  “Seriously?” She eyed it suspiciously. Like it might be poisoned or something.

  “Take it, would you?”

  “Hey, Cuz,” Brandon called over the counter.

  Marissa and he exchanged some secret McKenze eye-twitching signals, which I think translated to no, he hadn’t done them on the house. Then Brandon said, “So! Pool party on Saturday. You’re coming, right?”

  “That’s why we’re here,” Marissa said. “We’ve gotta find battle suits!”

  Brandon laughed and waved. “Sammy’s on my team!”

  “Then so am I,” Marissa called. She slung an arm around me. “You can’t break us up!” And as we walked off sipping our Juicers, I felt really, really good.

  FIVE

  Swimsuits are embarrassing. I mean, who wants to run around in what’s basically just colorful underwear? One-piece, two-piece…they’re all ridiculous. Especially the ones that have stuff added to them. For example, what’s with the built-in belts? Whose idea was that? Do they think waterproof underwear looks better with a belt? Is it supposed to give you a sense of security? Wear these belted bottoms and save yourself from diving disasters.

  Please.

  And think about wearing a swimsuit as you cruise the mall. It would be mortifying! But when you’re at a pool, it’s just…normal.

  Well, as normal as walking around in colorful underwear can be, anyway.

  Most girls I know drape a towel over their shoulders or around their waists when they’re at the pool. Me, I just get in the water and stay there.

  Why else would I be in a swimsuit?

  Anyway, Marissa and I went to her favorite store, and I picked out a multigreen one-piece in about seven minutes.

  An hour later Marissa still hadn’t decided.

  “Why are you even looking at a two-piece?” I finally asked. “No one wears a bikini to war.”

  She laughed, then blushed, and finally confessed, “Danny’s going to be there.”

  “You invited him?” I rolled my eyes. “Oh, great. So what’s it gonna be? Flirting or fighting?” I pointed to the bikini. “You can’t expect to play water hoops in that.”

  She cringed, looking from the one-piece in her hand to the lime green ruffle-topped, belted-bottom bikini on her body. “I don’t know. What do you think?”

  “You know what I think,” I grumbled.

  And I wasn’t just talking about flirting versus war.

  Let’s just say Danny Urbanski is not my favorite person.

  “But don’t you think this suit looks great on me? I have never had a suit look this good on me!”

  It did look great
on her, but that wasn’t the point. “Are you going to flirt or fight? ’Cause that is not a water hoops suit.”

  “Fine,” she said, not sounding fine at all.

  I left the dressing room to let her change, saying, “You could always buy both.”

  Me and my big mouth. A few minutes later she emerged from the little changing closet with a great big smile on her face. “That’s exactly what I’m going to do!”

  I guess when you’ve got your own credit card, buying whatever you want is hard to resist.

  So we went up to the register, where a ratty-looking girl with a silver lip ring and a single streak of blue dye through her jet-black hair scanned in Marissa’s swimsuits without a word. Marissa slid her credit card through the machine and started to say something to me, but Blue Streak cleared her throat. “Hm-hmmm.”

  “Huh?” Marissa asked.

  Blue Streak just taps the card reader and eyes her.

  “Credit denied?” Marissa asks, then runs the card through again.

  CREDIT DENIED appears on the little screen again.

  Marissa does it a third time.

  CREDIT DENIED.

  “What?” Marissa says. Then she looks at lovely Miss Blue Streak and says, “There must be something wrong with your scanner. I’ve never had this problem before!”

  Blue Streak snorts and puts her hand out to me.

  So I pass over my swimsuit and whisper to Marissa, “Don’t you have cash?” because Marissa always has cash.

  She digs through her pocket and produces ten bucks and a little change.

  Blue Streak has already cleared Marissa’s sale and rung up my suit, so I hand over the cash to pay for it.

  “Wow,” Marissa says, because even though I’d tried to be sly about it, she’s spotted my wad of twenties. “Where’d you get that?”

  Now, I wasn’t expecting this. Why, I don’t know. I guess I thought I’d be able to be sly about it. You know, not get noticed.

  But there I am, busted with a fat wad of twenties. And I should have said something like, My mom’s sending me money, ’cause that would have made sense. I mean, my mom’s gone from starving actress to soap star, and she should be sending me money.

  But I didn’t think.

  I panicked.

  “Uh…odd jobs.”

  “Odd jobs?” she asks as I accept the change. “Where have you been doing odd jobs?”

  So while my brain scrambles around for some believable answer to that, my mouth pops off with, “Over at the Heavenly.”

  “The Heavenly? Since when?”

  My brain’s screaming, The Heavenly? What kind of insane answer is that? And to avoid digging myself in any deeper, I switch the subject real fast. “Hey, why don’t I pay for your swimsuits? Or…at least one of them.”

  “Really?” Marissa asks, all wide-eyed. Then she starts checking out my fast-shrinking wad of cash. “Do you have enough for both? I’ll pay you back tonight!”

  “Uh…how about just one?”

  “I’ll pay you right back?” she pleads.

  Blue Streak is tapping her black fingernails against the counter and wobbling her head from side to side, obviously annoyed. So I say, “All right, whatever,” and we go through the whole ring-up process again.

  And really, over the years Marissa has sprung for so many little things for me that I should have just bought both the suits as a gift, but that would have seemed weird.

  Suspicious, even.

  And although I was kinda planning to tell her about poor scared-to-death Buck Ritter from Omaha, Nebraska, all of a sudden I didn’t want to. For the first time in my life, I was understanding what Marissa has been complaining about her whole life.

  When you have a lot of money, other people want to use it.

  Like, if you have extra, you should share.

  Not that I minded that with Marissa, but I could see it becoming one of those it’s-not-really-your-money deals. Like winning the lottery, when everyone comes out of the woodwork and thinks they deserve a piece of the pie.

  Why do they think that?

  Because you didn’t earn it, that’s why.

  You won it.

  So standing there at the register, it hit me that I’d won the dead-guy lottery. I may have scared Mr. Buck Ritter from Omaha, Nebraska, to death, but he’d left me his winning ticket.

  Even though he’d made me toss it overboard.

  Into a bunch of bushes.

  Which was weird, but…whatever.

  So I decided that it was probably best not to tell anyone about my dead-guy lottery ticket—not even Marissa Moneybags McKenze. I mean, what if she slipped up and told someone about it? Or…what if she thought I should go to the police? That would be easy for her to say. It wasn’t her money!

  After we left the store, Marissa and I cruised around the mall for a while, but Marissa couldn’t really buy anything because at both other places where she tried to use her credit card, she got the same scanner message.

  CREDIT DENIED.

  “I am so embarrassed!” she said after the third time. “I wonder what’s wrong with my card…!”

  So we got burgers, and afterward she dropped the rest of her cash into games at the arcade. “You want to come over to my house?” she said when she was totally broke. “I’ve got to figure out what’s wrong with my card.”

  “Nah, I’d better get home.”

  “Why?”

  I could feel myself popping with sweat. “Uh…I promised Grams I’d help her clean house today.” I forced a laugh. “Lame, I know, but I promised.”

  So we went our separate ways, and as I walked out the north end of the mall, I felt kinda guilty.

  Kinda dirty.

  Kinda stupid.

  I mean, why was I lying to Marissa? Why didn’t I just come out with the truth? She wouldn’t care! She’d be happy for me!

  But way down inside I was afraid to. It was like I’d committed a terrible crime, and if even one person found out, it’d be all over.

  Somehow the money would no longer be mine.

  SIX

  On the way home I told myself I hadn’t really done anything wrong. It’s not like I’d stolen the money. It’s not like Mr. Heart Attack from Omaha, Nebraska, had asked me to pass it along to his children or grandchildren.

  He’d asked me to get rid of it.

  And hey, I was doing just that! I’d managed to power through over a hundred bucks already. Of course, Marissa was going to pay me back for the two swimsuits, but still. In the morning there’d been more money in my pocket than I’d ever had before, and now—poof—it was practically gone.

  Spending dead-guy lottery money didn’t bother me nearly as much as lying to Marissa did. Which I guess is why instead of going home, I found myself walking through the front door of the Heavenly Hotel.

  “If it isn’t my pal Sammy,” the manager growled when he saw me coming up to the counter. He put aside his newspaper and rolled the unlit cigar over to the side of his mouth. “Haven’t seen you in a while…. How’s life?”

  “Hey, André,” I said, sounding like life was not nearly as dandy as three thousand dollars being tossed in your lap should make it. “I’m wondering if you’ve got odd jobs. You know—vacuuming, dusting, taking out the trash…?”

  An eyebrow arched as he studied me. His cigar rolled to the other side of his mouth, then back again, like it was on some sort of invisible pulley, making deliveries. Finally he clamped it between his front teeth and said, “You’re what, thirteen?”

  I nodded.

  “Minimum age is fifteen.”

  “It doesn’t have to be official.” I looked over my shoulder. “And you really could use help around here. This place smells like rotten potatoes, and there’s dust everywhere….” I pulled a face. “When’s the last time someone vacuumed?”

  He shrugged and said, “I don’t own it, you know. I just manage it.”

  “So? Manage to clean it. Hire me!”

  He laughed, an
d that cigar stump teetered on his bottom lip for a second before he clamped down on it again. “So what are you suggesting I pay you?”

  I thought a minute. “Whatever you think I’m worth.”

  He nodded and was about to say something but got distracted by two cops stepping into the hotel. “Now what?” he grumbled through the stump.

  “This should be fun,” I muttered, and in my gut I knew that cops being there had something to do with the other reason I’d wandered over to the Heavenly.

  Mr. Buck Ritter from Omaha, Nebraska.

  “You know them?” André asked, eyeing the cops.

  “Uh-huh.”

  It was Squeaky and the Chick. I don’t know their real names, but I do know that they’re not really ready to be cops. For one thing, they’re kinda young. For cops, anyway. Squeaky’s all clean-cut with little apple cheeks, and the Chick wears fake fingernails and keeps her bleached-blond hair in a long braid that goes almost halfway down her back.

  She also wears enough mascara to retar a road.

  But the thing that bugs me about Squeaky and the Chick is that they act like they’re all smart and full of authority, when they’re actually kinda dumb.

  Not that I’m complaining. I mean, it’s a lot easier to get away with stuff—like, say, living someplace you’re not supposed to be living—when you’re dealing with cops like Squeaky and the Chick. But still.

  I stepped aside, finding a seat in one of the Heavenly’s funky green pointy-backed chairs, where I could disappear but still eavesdrop.

  “How may I help you?” André said when they were up at the counter.

  “An individual by the name of Buck Ritter was found to have expired last night. We have reason to believe he resided here, at your establishment.”

  I peeked around the chair and watched as André’s eyebrow arched at Squeaky. “You’re sayin’ Buck’s dead?”

  Squeaky nodded. “Unfortunately, yes, sir. That is correct.”

  “How’d he die?”

  “I don’t know that we’re at liberty to disclose the details of his demise,” Squeaky said.

  André arched the other eyebrow, and his cigar rolled lazily to the other side of his mouth. “Then I don’t know that I’m at liberty to disclose the details of his residence.”