Sting

by Jude Watson

  Izzy swallowed. “What’s the second?”

  “Don’t fall off,” March said.

  Jules dusted her hands on her pants. “It’s about fifteen seconds of keeping your balance, and then you’re done. We get rid of the plank, and we’re out of here. They’ll think we’re hiding down there. By the time they stop searching, we’ll be gone.”

  He nodded, feeling the blood rushing in his ears.

  “I’ll go first,” Jules said. “Then, Iz, you stay behind me. It can hold both of us. Hang on to my shirt if you have to.”

  “But that will throw you off balance.”

  “It won’t.”

  Jules balanced on the narrow plank and started across. Izzy took a deep, steadying breath. Jules looked back.

  “I’m okay,” Izzy said. “I can do it.”

  Jules walked across, never looking down, one foot hitting directly in front of the other. Izzy seemed to drift across like a dandelion seed. They stepped off onto the roof on the other side, and March discovered he’d been holding his breath. He exhaled.

  March looked across the expanse at Jules. He took a few steps on the board, keeping his eyes on his sister. He could do this if he didn’t think about Alfie. He shuffled forward, keeping his eyes on his destination as Jules had taught him.

  Don’t think about that moment Alfie had teetered on the edge, had almost saved himself. Don’t think about how he fell, his body turning.

  Halfway across he heard the slam of the rooftop door. He stopped, his arms windmilling as a burst of adrenaline shot up from his tingling toes.

  “Keep it steady,” Jules called. “Just keep going.”

  “How many are behind me?”

  “Just keep going,” Jules repeated. “You can move, uh, a little faster, though.” He heard someone running across the roof. His foot slipped, and he hit the plank hard on one knee, gripping the edge and just saving himself from plummeting to the ground below. His ears rang with Izzy’s scream.

  Dizzy and barely holding on, March focused on the brick wall of the building. He could barely make out the ghost lettering on the wall.

  HOTEL AMSTERDAM

  Amsterdam. Where Alfie had died, falling, smashing against the hard stones.

  He was back there again, after a year of grief, a year of making a family, and he hadn’t really gotten anywhere. He was just like his old man, falling and dying, not for something noble, not for his country or justice or right, but because of a handful of gems.

  “March!” Jules’s call was so sure. “YOU CAN DO THIS.”

  Izzy’s voice was louder than he’d ever heard it. “MOVE!”

  Fifteen stories up is no time to philosophize, kid.

  March slowly began to rise.

  “NO!” Jules screamed, and the plank lurched to the side. He gripped it hard as sweat poured into his eyes. Jules held on to the plank on her side, and Izzy threw herself on the end of it, trying to weigh it down.

  “Don’t bother,” Blue called. “These guys are strong.”

  The plank bumped up, then down.

  “Just reverse-crawl back, March,” Blue said. “All I want are the stones. But I’ll get them off the pavement down there if I have to.”

  March looked at Jules with despair. Lost in a long moment in which everything mattered. They would lose to Blue again.

  Then the plank was yanked backward, out of Jules’s hands. March went down to keep his balance, cheek against the wood, straddling it. He risked a look over his shoulder. The two burly guys were pulling the plank back onto the roof, straight toward Blue.

  Inch by inch the plank moved, scraping against the roof edge. March could only hang on.

  He was cooked.

  He could see the desperate looks on the faces of his friends. Suddenly Jules turned and ran across the roof. At the same time the plank gave one last heave. Someone grabbed him hard and threw him on the roof. Gravel bit his cheek, and he tasted blood in his mouth.

  There were four of them. Plus Blue. The men looked far from friendly. Three of them were dressed in suits that didn’t hide their muscles, their strength, or a telltale bulge near the hip that Alfie had told him to always, always beware of. You see that, you just reverse and go out the door. No matter what the prize. But somehow it was the shorter one, the slim one, who scared him the most. Something about the eyes. March remembered a man on a street in Paris, turning, seeing him, and how that hatred had flared, all the way across the distance separating them.

  It was the wheelman in the Paris heist. The captain on the boat.

  He smiled and crouched down next to March. He made his fingers into a gun and poked March in the temple. “Bang.”

  Terror shuddered through him. He couldn’t feel his legs.

  “I can only hold them back so long, March,” Blue said.

  March reached into his pocket. He handed over Lemon’s necklace.

  “Keep going,” Blue said. “You’re your father’s son. I know you keep the loot.”

  He had run out of time. He fished out the Evening Star and held it up. But before Blue could take it, it was snatched out of his hand by the slender man.

  Blue rose to her feet in an instant. “Wait a second, Zef! This is my deal, remember? I handle the stones!”

  “Shut up,” the man said. “What shall we do with your nephew when this is done, Blue? Throw him off the roof?”

  “Why bother?” Blue said. “He’s harmless now.”

  “He’s seen my face.”

  “All right, then,” Blue snapped. “It’s up to you. Whatever you do to people who get in your way.”

  “And you feel that you are not in the way?” Zef smiled. “Without Dmitri here to protect you? He fell under your spell. Not me.”

  Blue faltered for an instant. The fear that flickered on her face passed so quickly it was converted into a shake of her hair. “That sounds like a threat.”

  March staggered to his feet. He took a half step back.

  “What, you will tell Dmitri? He’s my brother. He listens to me. You’re just …” The man waved a hand. “A detail.”

  “A detail that got you here,” Blue said. “A detail that got you a safe house. You’re the one who blew the deal in Miami!”

  “And you blew this one! Locked in a closet by a little girl!”

  March watched as Blue visibly contained her temper. She did what she always did when cornered, reverse direction and try a different way. Her voice was level. “Listen, this kid isn’t stupid. That could be a fake. March, give me the other one.”

  March waited. The heat of the argument was too intense for the two of them to stop.

  “Do you think I’m a fool? Is that it? You play with me? You think I’ve clawed my way to where I am because I’m a fool?” Zef’s face was dark with anger. The bodyguards stood, their faces rigid, but their gazes flicking from Blue to Zef.

  Which was good, because nobody was looking at March. He took another step back. March’s legs shook. He didn’t think he was capable of running away. But the tension between Blue and Zef was giving him something, the tiniest of moments to just do something. But what?

  Behind Blue he saw a tiny flare of movement. A hand curling over the roof’s edge. Then Jules’s head popped up cautiously. How did she do it? Even Jules couldn’t climb air. He gave the slightest shake of his head. Any moment they could turn and see her. With a tilt of her head, she told him to come to her. Somehow. Now.

  It was his last chance, and he knew it.

  March picked up fistfuls of gravel, threw them straight at the faces of the bodyguards, and hurtled toward his twin.

  Jules yanked him forward into thin air.

  He felt himself plummeting. Terror made him lose his breath. He couldn’t even scream.

  Then the silks stretched to their maximum and held. Jules was gritting her teeth, holding him while they bounced, once, twice, in the seat she’d made of fabric. It was strong enough to hold them both.

  March’s gaze raked the building. He could
only guess that his twin had climbed up the exterior trash chute, then somehow managed to jump onto the half-demolished fire escape. The silks were anchored to a hook near the roofline.

  She began to swing, hard and fast. “Brace yourself,” she panted. “We’re going down that thing.”

  “What?” March asked, just as the next swing landed him in the gigantic plastic chute.

  March’s legs shot out, almost as though her command had gone straight to his muscles. He wasn’t thinking now; he was only moving, bracing himself against the tough material of the chute. Jules’s face was white with strain, and she unwrapped herself from the silks.

  “We’re going to have to crab-walk down,” she said.

  “All the way?”

  “I got up this way. We can get down this way. GO!”

  Choking on dust and grime and grit and whatever residue still remained in the chute, his throat and nostrils clogged with mildew and debris, March half fell, half crab-walked down. He fell the last few feet, straight into the Dumpster. Out of breath, choking, he lay there for an instant before Jules landed next to him and Izzy’s face popped over the side.

  “Are you okay?”

  Up on the roof, he saw the heads looking down. Even from here he could feel the blind rage of Zef and Blue.

  “Yeah. They’re going to come after us,” Jules said. She waved at Blue, a final taunt. How she had the nerve he didn’t know.

  March pulled himself up and over the edge of the Dumpster. Izzy steadied him as he landed. Jules leaped out like a gazelle.

  “Time to go,” March said.

  * * *

  They didn’t stop running until they got to the subway. They changed lines three times, then circled back at last to Joey’s garage. When they got inside, Hamish was sitting in the office, slumped over the desk. The gang hardly recognized him. He had the shoulders of a ruined man.

  He stood up when he saw them and closed his eyes. “When you didn’t show up … I thought …” He stopped, letting out a long breath. When he opened his eyes again, they saw his relief. “I’m glad you’re back.”

  “Something did happen. The Top Cats showed up,” Jules said. “And Blue. But we’re all okay.”

  “They got the necklace. And the Evening Star.” March held out the remaining sapphire. “But we still have the Morning Star. They got distracted.”

  “Maybe this will be enough for Jimmy the Knife,” Izzy said. At Hamish’s look of surprise, she said, “Joey told us everything.”

  “Ah,” Hamish said. “I don’t know why I trust that kid.”

  “We’ll give you our cut,” March said, with a quick glance at the others. They nodded.

  “Still not enough,” Hamish said with a twisted smile. “And I wouldn’t do it anyway. I never go back on a deal.” He walked toward them slowly. “It’s time for me to say good-bye. I’m going to take a ride on the Pokey Express.”

  “You’re going to jail?” Izzy exclaimed.

  “No, I’m taking a ride on the Pokey Express,” Hamish said, showing them a bus ticket from a company called Pokey Express. “It’s a slow route to Saratoga, but it gets you there for fifteen bucks. I’m going to throw the rest of what I’ve got at one of the horses, see if I can get out of this mess, then crawl on my knees to Mexico and ask Keiko to take me back.”

  “You can’t do that,” Jules said. “You said you’d never gamble again.”

  “Plus, um, it doesn’t work,” Izzy said. “Remember?”

  “I’m out of options, young yogis,” Hamish said. “It’s this or a long ride on a short pier with Jimmy the Knife, and then I wash up in New Jersey.”

  March gripped the stone. What was it all for, then? He’d almost been killed for this cursed stone. He’d had all three, and he’d lost two. Lost his fortune.

  Just like his old man.

  Izzy brightened. “It’s a text from Darius!” She looked down at her phone. She gasped, her hand flying to her mouth. “No!”

  She handed the phone to March.

  The text read:

  TOP CATS GOT ME

  THEY WANT THE STONE

  March felt something drop, a weight that went down, down, threatening to drag him with it. Like drowning in a black river, tied to a bagful of rocks.

  Inside he was screaming.

  Not Darius.

  No.

  He handed the phone to Jules. She read it while Hamish looked over her shoulder.

  “How …” Jules said. “He’s in Florida with Mikki.”

  “Text him back, Iz,” March said, shaking.

  What do u mean?

  The next text came quickly.

  That will be your last communication with your friend until we have the stone.

  March took out his own phone with fingers that trembled. He dialed Mikki’s number. He swallowed against the dryness in his throat. Fear had wrapped itself around him, strangling him.

  “Hello, sugar,” Mikki answered. “You missing the sunshine?”

  She didn’t know. He couldn’t speak.

  “March?”

  “When was the last time you saw Darius?”

  “Last night. At dinner. I made us tuna fish salad. Isn’t it funny how you say tuna fish, but you don’t say that for any other fish? Like, you don’t say swordfish fish. Or salmon fish. It’s just dumb, isn’t it? I’m not going to say it anymore. I’m just going to say tuna. Anyway, I didn’t see him this morning because he left to go fishing with Dimmy.”

  “You mean he’s still not there?”

  “Well, he might be. I just got home myself. I’ll look in his room. You hang on.”

  March heard her footsteps down the hall. The creak of a door.

  “That’s funny. He’s not here. And he’s not by the pool. They said they’d be back by lunchtime. Then Dimmy texted me, told me they were having such a good time, they were staying out until dinner.”

  “Dimmy.”

  “I was happy Dimmy asked him fishing, because you know what? They weren’t getting along so good. He didn’t want to go, I could tell, but I kicked him under the table. He went to make his mama happy, because that’s the kind of boy he is … March?” Mikki’s voice wavered. “You’re starting to worry me, just a little bit. And you know I don’t like to worry.”

  Dimmy.

  Dmitri.

  Dimmy.

  Harmless, friendly Dimmy with the Euro accent and the beat-up truck, who had showed up out of nowhere. Dimmy, who’d always been around, clipping hedges or planting flowers by the pool where they’d planned the second heist. Wearing headphones so they thought he couldn’t hear them.

  Dimmy was Dmitri. Dimmy was the boss.

  Waiting for them to steal the sapphire so his crew could steal it from them.

  “March?”

  The hardest thing to do is to say the thing there are no words for. The thing he should have said to her son.

  “I’m sorry,” March whispered.

  When March finally hung up with Mikki, his legs shook so badly he felt as though he’d run ten hard miles.

  Izzy sat in a corner, her face against her knees. Jules sat on one side of her. Hamish sat on the damp floor, his head in his hands.

  March crossed to Izzy and sat on the other side. He exchanged a glance with Jules. It felt like Zillah was there in the room with them, whispering in their ears. Failure. Loss. Pain.

  “We’re cursed,” Izzy said, her mouth against her knee. “Zillah’s not done with us.”

  It isn’t the curse, March thought in despair. It’s me. If it hadn’t been for him, Darius would be here. He’d left him with Dimmy.

  His fault. Shame filled him, bitter and bleak.

  “What did Mikki say?” Jules asked.

  “She’s going to Dimmy’s house,” March said. “I don’t think they’re still in Florida. They’re bringing Darius here. He’d have to be at the transfer, when we give them the sapphire.”

  He took Izzy’s phone and typed back.

  We’ll give you the sa
pphire.

  The reply buzzed through.

  We’ll text details.

  Hamish’s face was sagging with worry. “Do you have an idea?” he asked. “A plan?”

  March stared at him for a second. There were still times, even now, when he looked to the adult in the room and thought, Tell me what to do. But the adult was looking at him.

  “We give them the sapphire,” he said. “There’s no plan except that. We can’t gamble with Darius’s life.”

  “I agree,” Hamish said. “But if they double-cross us …”

  March remembered Zef on the roof. He’s seen my face. Dukey in Paris. If you can ID them, you’re dead. The words bounced against cement. Boomeranged around March’s skull. Hard. Painful.

  His fault.

  March woke with a start. He was instantly awake. Instantly afraid.

  He heard Jules and Izzy breathing sleep-breaths, gently burrowed in their beanbags. He was glad they had finally dropped off to sleep. Exhaustion had swept over them. Tomorrow would be a hard, hard day.

  He flipped over on his back and stared at the ceiling.

  The words he never said. The words he did say. The look he gave. The gesture he didn’t make, the text he didn’t send.

  Darius had stayed in Florida because of him.

  His fault.

  For thinking that a house was so important, that it was the only way to get his life back. Sure, it was Alfie’s dream. But was it his?

  That place was just walls and floors.

  He thought back on that day, at their shock that everything could just be gone. Sitting on the floor, he’d made a promise that he’d get it all back. Without even thinking about what he needed to get back.

  March pressed his fingers against his eyes. He was so tired. He needed sleep. But he needed to think this through. He was missing something.

  Where was Darius? That was the question.

  What was the thread he needed to pull?

  He thought of Blue’s secretive smile at every encounter they’d had with her. At the gym, at the subway, on the roof. No wonder she was so smug. She had the Top Cats for backup. Dukey had said they had a contact in the United States. Blue had been that contact. She’d been working with them all along.