The Love Scam

by MaryJanice Davidson, Camille Anthony, Melissa Schroeder

  “You bet! I’m chock-full of O-positive goodness.”

  “You liked it?” Her astonishment was a little ego-deflating, but at least she was too surprised to shake her hand free.

  “What’s not to like? The finger stick is the worst of it and that takes, what? Half a second? Then you get to lie there for a few minutes and nurses fuss and say nice things to you and if you’re cold, you get a blanket, and then—cookies! And a sticker. That’s my favorite. Do you know how easy it is to talk to a woman you don’t know when you’re sporting a bright red ‘I donated blood today!’ sticker and have cookie breath?”

  “Gross.” From Lillith.

  “No idea.”

  “Supereasy. It’s just so easy.”

  “Yeah, shoulda known. Leave it to you to … nope. I won’t finish that, I’ll just let you have that one. Good for you.”

  Cookies and blankets and stickers were reason enough, but Delaney’s delight was better than a hundred stickers. A thousand!

  As they got farther into the street, it got more crowded, forcing them

  (yay!)

  to walk shoulder-to-shoulder. More people, too, and he had a minute to be glad, for a change, that he wasn’t carrying any cash, when Delaney reached back without looking and, spooky-quick, snatched at something. Rake looked and realized she’d caught a kid in the middle of trying to lift her wallet.

  “Terrible,” she said, looking down at the wide-eyed budding crime lord, and the weird thing was, she didn’t sound mad, or even irritated. She sounded almost … fond? “You should have come up on my blind side, especially at this time of the day—your shadow was here before you were. Stop that.” The latter because the kid was wriggling like an eel on a hook. A lovely gray-eyed hook with fingers like pincers.

  “You okay?” Rake asked, stunned. She had captured a thief! With her bare hands! Without looking! Like it was no biggie! An everyday thing! “He didn’t hurt you?”

  “Course not, how could he? He’s the size of a bag of dog chow.” She blew off Rake’s concern and kept her focus on the teeny thief. “Knock it off, kid, you’re going nowhere ’til we’re done.”

  “Fermalo! Lasciami andare, bitch!”

  “Yeah, yeah, tell me something I’ve never heard.” Far from being pissed, Delaney looked—well, it was hard to say. Her expression was a little strange. Not mad, but not happy. Not resigned, but not anxious.

  Lillith, meanwhile, chose that moment to speak up. “Don’t be scared,” she told the wriggling child. “She’s nice.”

  Delaney stepped to the side, bringing the boy with her, and Rake and Lillith followed. He watched her slide her fingers up under her shirt, deeply, deeply envied those fingers, then stared when she unzipped her hideous belly pack

  (“Hot-pink, Delaney? Really?”

  “Shut up, please.”

  “I saw it the other night but was too polite to laugh and laugh and laugh at it.”

  “Shut up.”)

  and extracted a twenty-euro note, stuck it in her teeth, tore it, and handed half to the kid, who was so surprised, he stopped trying to flee. Zipped up the belly pack again, pulled down her shirt. Easy-peasy, and the whole thing took maybe three seconds.

  And what was her expression? It was starting to make him a little nuts.

  “Rake, my Italian is shit. Will you translate?”

  “Sure.” This should be good. Delaney made things interesting almost as often as Rake himself did, and usually for better reasons. And her Italian was hardly shit; she spoke it about as well as someone who’d studied it for a couple of years. If she lived here, she’d be fluent in about a year. But she didn’t have a year, and whatever she was going to tell the kid, she wanted to be very, very clear.

  Lillith said something else to the kid, speaking in such a low voice that Rake couldn’t catch it.

  “You can have the other half in less than two minutes,” she told the kid. She loosened her grip but didn’t let go, then squatted so she could look him in the face. “How long have you been pulling?”

  The boy maybe wasn’t fluent, but he understood enough English to follow her question; Rake chalked up the quick answer to the boy’s surprise. He’d either never been caught before, had been caught but was always able to get free before, or the person who caught him had zero interest in talking to him, just wanted to dump him on a cop.

  “Due anni, signora.”

  “Two years,” Rake told her. And wasn’t that just fucking sad? The boy was maybe nine. Ten at the most, and all elbows and eyes and unkempt hair and astonished expression. He was dressed pretty well considering his day job—the jeans and orange-and-red long-sleeved T-shirt were worn but not tattered; his hands and face were clean; his shoes looked worn but “This is how the cool kids do it” worn. He was a cutie, too, with long dark hair to his shoulders and almond-shaped dark eyes.

  “You pulling for anybody special?” Delaney asked. “Or pooling?”

  Rake translated the rapid-fire answer: “His older sister. She’s head of the group. Parents are dead.”

  “Uh-huh. How’s business today?”

  “Great … two cruise ships so far.” Rake laughed. “Lots of stupid—” He started to say “Americans” but changed it to “tourists.”

  Delaney grinned. “You didn’t have to rephrase. We’re the worst.”

  Rake started to translate, only to be interrupted by the boy. “What’s wrong with you? I understand English.”

  “Some English. And you’re pretty mouthy for a crook who weighs less than a bag of Purina,” he snapped.

  “Both of you shush,” she said, exasperated. Then, to the kid: “Okay, so. I won’t ask your name, or call the police, or try to take you to them. I won’t try to take you anywhere. I’m not being nice to trick you and I’m not giving you money to make you do something you don’t want to do. I’m not a cop and I’m not CPS. I’m not a mandated reporter, d’you understand?”

  Christ. She’s nailing all the reasons someone might grab him, a Good Samaritan or a scumbag pimp. And it’s working! He’d probably follow her anywhere, but not to rob her.

  “Okay, signorina. I know this now.”

  “But what story do you tell?” Lillith put in.

  “Che cosa?”

  “Lillith, I can handle this.” He turned to the kid. “When you get caught. When a cop busts you, or a well-meaning tourist tries to turn you in. What do you tell them?”

  What followed in a terrible flood of words were some of the worst things Rake had ever heard out of a child’s mouth. And it wasn’t just that what he was saying was so horrible—though it was—it’s that he was so calm and not superpissed about it. Like it was NBD. Like most fourth graders lived that way.

  He talked about how he almost never got caught anymore. When he did, he could usually wriggle free. When that didn’t work, he made up stories about shelters just for kids and they always had plenty of beds and food. Or he had run away, but he missed his mom and dad and would go home now and stay out of trouble, cross his heart and hope to die.

  Sometimes they weren’t so well-meaning. Sometimes they grabbed him to hurt him, to … make him do things. But his sister had runners all over, so the locals knew better than to try that shit anymore, and the tourists who tried it usually went back to their hotel with his—his—his something sticking out of one eye.

  “Sorry, your what?” Rake asked.

  The boy showed them what he’d had his hand on the entire time; sunlight bounced off of the thing, making it shine. “Oh,” he replied weakly. “I did hear you correctly. You really said your ‘lucky corkscrew.’ How silly of me.” And ye gods, he’d never be able to look at a corkscrew again without picturing it in somebody’s eye. “Is there a reason it’s not an unlucky corkscrew? Don’t answer that!”

  “Wow” was Lillith’s comment. “You keep it really shiny.”

  “Why not a switchblade or something?” Rake asked.

  A scornful look—from him and Delaney: “This is Italy.”
>
  “Right, right. Sorry.”

  “Nobody thinks twice about corkscrews here, idiota.”

  “O-kay, I get it.”

  Delaney had been listening to the entire exchange, head down, and at last she looked up. “Okay, that’s pretty good. But next time you have to shake a grab, tell them you volunteer at Sorella Teresa’s. Tell them they’re always looking for volunteers and they can give you a safe place to sleep for a couple of days. A cop might let you go—depends on the cop. But a well-meaning tourist will almost certainly let you go.”

  “Perché dire che?”

  “Because it could be the truth. My friends and I are making it come true. A real shelter, but one that isn’t constrained by tiresome bureaucracy, one that doesn’t have to account for every penny and isn’t—never mind. If you go to this place now, they’ll give you a safe place to sleep. And they’ll keep the lectures to a minimum. Number’s on the back of my card, okay?”

  She stood, and tried to let the kid go, but Rake saw that the kid was now holding her hand. She gave him the rest of the euro bill and the card. “Buona fortuna.”

  “Grazie.”

  “That card works for your friends, too, and your sister. Anytime. I know summer’s coming, but it’s still pretty chilly at night. I’m not disrespecting your sister,” she added as the boy opened his mouth. “I’m sure she’s working very hard for you, like you are for her. But you’ve got other safe options for sleeping. And living. You—you do. They’re out there, you can find them. It doesn’t have to be one or the other.” Rake didn’t translate; the kid seemed to know exactly what she was saying.

  “Tutto okay, I get it. It’s fine, I’m okay!” That last was shouted, and Rake realized the kid had spotted someone at the mouth of the alley. He turned to look and saw another dark-haired street kid, only this one looked familiar.

  “Hey, I think I know that guy.”

  “Ciao du Nuovo!” Lillith called, waving. “Grazie per il telefono!”

  Rake snapped his fingers. “Got it! That’s the boy Lillith talked into letting me borrow his phone a thousand years ago.” At Delaney’s snort, he added, “What? It’s been a busy week.” Meanwhile, the kid Delaney had reeled in like a trout had joined his friend and they both took off for parts unknown, doubtless to clip wallets elsewhere.

  “Well, that was interesting.”

  Delaney snickered. “Don’t worry, I would have protected you from his corkscrew.”

  “Jesus! You knew he had his hand on that thing the whole time?”

  “Sure.” This in a tone of “Of course the ground gets wet when it rains.”

  “Because that’s what you do. Protect.”

  Another snort. “Don’t romanticize it.”

  I had an eventful childhood.

  Yeah, Rake thought, and not for the first time. I’ll bet you did.

  “Hey, can I have one of those?” He’d known about her belly purse, of course, but his mother hadn’t raised thieves, just snoops. He’d left the thing alone, and not just because of the color. But now he knew she kept cash, credit cards, and business cards in it. “D’you mind?”

  “My card?” she said, surprised. Her fingers dipped into the awful pink pouch and she pulled one out for him. “What in the world do you want that for?”

  “I like them,” he said simply. “If I had cards, they’d be just like this. Well, maybe with bloodred lettering.”

  “When I grow up, I’m using a hologram for a business card,” Lillith predicted. “Everyone will!”

  “Makes sense.” He tucked her card away. Twenty-two letters. Charity. I. C. Delaney. And he still hadn’t asked her about the results of the DNA test. And she still hadn’t volunteered them. He knew why he was waiting, but why was she?

  And, hours later, when he couldn’t sleep after the frightening texts from his brother, Rake was able to put a name to the expression on her face when she snatched the would-be nimble-fingered felon.

  Nostalgia.

  Twenty-five

  “So you buy boatloads of chocolate and stuff and deliver Easter baskets, and don’t run marathons, but do take in strays—children and stranded millionaires at least—anything else?”

  “No.”

  “Bullshit!” He was delighted and didn’t care who knew it. Every damned day with Delaney was interesting—fun, even! “So you help kids get off the streets? Well, duh, obviously … I mean, do you do that all over, or just in Italy?”

  “No, I don’t get them off the streets,” she answered with peculiar emphasis, like that’d be the last thing she’d do, like he was an idiot for even thinking it, much less asking. “They get themselves off the streets. Sometimes I can help. That’s it. That’s all it is.”

  “Why do you always downplay?” Lillith asked, doing her best eight-going-on-thirty impersonation. “Mama did the same thing. Like helping people was a secret no one should ever find out.”

  Well, sunshine, given that your mom’s idea of helping people was thievery followed by blackmail, it’s no wonder she didn’t like talking about it.

  “It probably goes back to their eventful childhoods,” Rake explained to Lillith.

  “Boy, that phrase really stuck with you, huh?”

  “Oh yeah. Mostly because I thought Blake and I had eventful childhoods. Comparably speaking, ours was a walk in the park.”

  “Yes. Even when you were poor, you had more than I ever did.” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Delaney looked shocked. “I— Jeez. I can’t believe I said that.”

  “I’m not offended,” he rushed to assure her. “Really. It’s fine.”

  “Thanks, but I was more alarmed about being indiscreet than offending you. You should’ve been a bartender—I always tell you more than I mean to.”

  He found that incredibly touching. Top Five Compliments Of All Time touching. Praise of any sort, he was discovering, meant a lot coming from Delaney. It could even be argued that she was a steadying, mature influence on him.

  Naw.

  “Come on, you impoverished jackass, your phone’s in here.”

  There we go.

  “Nice try,” he said, taking Lillith’s hand again and following Delaney off the sidewalk and up the steps to the FedEx service station, “but I can’t be distracted that easily.”

  “I’ll buy you some gelato on the way back to the hotel.”

  “Cantaloupe, please! Two scoops. No, wait … chocolate. No—hazelnut with a strawberry chaser.”

  “I can pay,” Lillith piped up.

  “I’ve got it,” Delaney said reassuringly.

  “Dammit! Don’t distract me, either of you, I want to talk about the cool thing that just happened. So you and Donna helped kids, but only sometimes, and you don’t want it romanticized even one time.”

  “No. Donna didn’t—she left us years ago, when she found out she was pregnant. We only saw her a couple of times after that.”

  “Oh.”

  At the short silence, Delaney elaborated. “Nothing against your mom. She just wanted a different life; she wanted you to be different. No shame in that, and we respected her wishes. Though there were some pretty bitchy email chains before the end of it all.…”

  “She told me she had to run to stop running.” Lillith shook her head. “I didn’t get it. I still don’t.”

  “The point,” Delaney continued kindly, “is that she loved you even before you were born, and wanted you to have a wonderful life. And she needed to make that happen on her own. But she always knew how to reach us. I think she thought of us as an emergency escape hatch. Only…”

  “Only it didn’t work, because she’s”—Rake glanced down at Lillith—“gone.”

  “Don’t do that,” Lillith said sharply, pulling her hand out of Rake’s grasp. “She’s not at the store. She’s dead. She’s not coming back. Ever. It’s not an errand.”

  “Sorry. You’re right, of course.” Rake figured it might be time to shift a bit. “So, Delaney, what about the others? Teresa and El
ena and Sofia? Do they help you with this side of it, too? Not just baskets at Easter and stockings at Christmas?”

  Delaney looked at him and sighed, doubtless seeing his firm resolve, how he would be unmoving in the face of this latest mystery, how he was unwavering and—

  “You’re just gonna bug me and bug me until I answer, arentcha?”

  “For hours.”

  “Fine. The others help me when they can. We’ve all got our own side projects.”

  “Sorella Teresa’s!” he nearly shouted. “That’s your Teresa. She runs a shelter for kids like the pickpocket.” For kids like you used to be, but I won’t press you on that. Yet. “No wonder she’s so bossy. Like nun-at-a-Catholic-school bossy. My mother bossy. My grandmother bossy.”

  “It’s an off-the-books shelter. But it’s not much of one.”

  “‘Off-the—’”

  “Less paperwork that way, and they don’t have to answer to city regs or explain where they get their money, and there’s not a shake-up every time there’s an election. When I’m in town, we get together and handle what needs to be handled. But it’s way too small and way too underfunded and there’s only one of them and we’d like several around the world. Which takes—well, a lot.”

  Rake could imagine. Not just money, though that was important. But time and research and commitment and any number of things causing any number of complications. It was a dream they’d had since they were kids stuck in what probably seemed like an impersonal and uncaring system. Their dream. A Big Pipe Dream, in fact.

  “You have this cool-yet-irritating way of answering questions that just raise more questions. ‘Handle what needs to be handled,’ are you trying to be sexily mysterious?”

  “No.”

  Her matter-of-fact response made him laugh. “Well, you are. So you and Teresa work together, but what about the others? They’ve all got day jobs, right?”