Nick leaned back away from the screen and rubbed at his forehead.
Dean suddenly realized that Nick and Mario looked worried. Knowing that a troubled Castano was like a powder keg, Dean wanted to be helpful. After a moment he turned and said, “Can I show you anything else?”
Nick was still rubbing his head. He looked like he had a headache. Dean glanced over at Mario to see if he had a request, but Mario was focused on Nick. Nick said, “Have you got any exterior cams?”
“Um, yeah. You want me to run them up to when you arrive?”
“Run them up until we leave.”
Dean clicked on the files and slid the button ahead to just short of the right place now that he knew approximately when in the video they’d arrived. He ran the vid at 8X until he saw them run into the store, then he slowed the vid down to 4X. When he saw them leave, he punched play. Since that camera had been watching the side of the store where they entered, they quickly exited the picture. “Need me to run it back any?”
“No, that’s the wrong camera. But, I’ll watch a little bit more of it anyway.” His eyes were tightly focused on the screen as were Mario’s, though Mario looked a little confused. Suddenly Nick said, “What the hell!
Dean’s eyes jumped back to the screen. A guy was walking across to it wearing a white poncho. He had on a balaclava and had pulled it down so it covered his entire head. The guy looked so bizarre it was hard to believe that the people on the street weren’t reacting, but they were continuing on with their business as normally as if they saw someone in a balaclava and poncho every day. The weird guy exited the screen on the same side that Nick and Mario had, so he’d been going the same direction.
Nick didn’t look away from the screen, but he snorted and spoke to Mario. “How did we not notice a crazy asshole like that?!” They watched the video for another couple of minutes, then Nick said, “Let’s see the one from the other cam.”
Dean queued it up and ran through it to the point where Nick and Mario had appeared. Slowing it, they watched as Nick and Mario left the store and walked off down the street to the left. The bizarre guy in the poncho and balaclava appeared and walked off down the street behind them. To Dean it almost looked like the weird guy was following them, though he couldn’t imagine why anyone would be insane enough to dress up like a Halloween character and follow the Castanos around.
Seemed like a good way to get yourself killed.
Once they’d all disappeared from the field of view, Nick said, “Make me a copy of all three videos.”
Nick didn’t offer a jump drive to put them on, so Dean dug through his drawer and found an old one to erase. He copied the three videos onto it and handed it over, noticing that Nick still looked worried. Nick said, “Do you know if anyone else has cameras covering the street further on down?”
Dean shrugged. He couldn’t help wondering why he had security vids running. He got robbed by the Castanos once a month and recorded it faithfully on video, but no one was going to do anything about it.
Nick and Mario left.
Dean puzzled over the whole thing for a while. When Chico came in, he asked him, “You notice a guy yesterday, walking the street in a white poncho and a black balaclava?”
Chico shook his head, looking at Dean like he was crazy.
***
Nick and Mario stopped in at three more businesses between Dino’s and their car. One was a new business where they hadn’t started charging insurance yet. They almost always waited 6 months for a business to get established before they started leaning on it. The other two were businesses that Nick didn’t visit until the next week. All three reacted unhappily to seeing Nick and Mario coming in their door.
With the new one, his displeasure suggested that maybe they should start charging insurance, since the owner obviously knew what was up. However, he didn’t have any security cameras. Nick took the opportunity to suggest that he set some up, “So’s you have a record of any vandalism. There’s people that can help you out with that, you know?”
The other two were just upset because they thought Nick was coming by to collect early. The expressions of relief on their faces when they realized he only wanted to watch security videos was palpable. However, one of the stores didn’t have any cameras.
The one that did have cameras caught Nick and Mario walking by, followed shortly by the bizarre guy in the poncho and balaclava. Nothing else looked weird.
Nick’s eyes narrowed. It really looked like the guy in the balaclava was starting to catch up to them just before they left the camera’s field of view. The guy’d never gotten close enough to actually pick Nick’s pocket, but no one else was following them. Even though Nick didn’t have proof, and he couldn’t imagine someone wearing a get up like that coming close enough to pick his pocket, he still wanted to have a talk with the dude.
A serious talk.
They ran back and forth through the video, trying to pick up anything recognizable about the weirdo, but the guy’s face was covered. The black and white security videos didn’t give great detail. The guy wore ordinary looking loose pants and shoes that didn’t look special. Nick couldn’t pick out brands or anything. The poncho, of course, would make him stand out in a crowd if Nick ever saw him again.
Unfortunately, unless the guy put the poncho back on, it seemed unlikely that Nick would ever figure out who he was.
Nick resolved to put the word out on the street to let him know if anyone saw some asshole wearing a white poncho. Or any kind of poncho.
Nervously, he wondered whether those tactics would satisfy his dad.
Nick had gotten a couple of aspirin from the owner of the last store. Now he took a couple of Rolaids for his stomach. He was standing there feeling like his world was spinning out of control when a guy coming out of the store bumped into him with the end of a long package he was carrying.
Before he’d given it any thought, Nick laid the man out with a punch to the back of the head. Nick realized then it’d been a complete accident on the man’s part, but hitting the son of a bitch had released a lot of tension.
Asshole should’ve been more careful, he thought, heading for his car.
***
When Hax arrived at school on Monday the teacher in his first class immediately sent him to see the school nurse. He couldn’t imagine what the nurse could do that his mother hadn’t already done for his abraded, bruised and swollen face. To his surprise, the nurse didn’t actually intend to undertake any treatment. She had him sit down, then sat across from him, “Who did this to you?”
Hax just shook his head. He didn’t want to tell her about Vito. She wouldn’t be able to do anything about the Castanos.
She reached out sympathetically and patted him on the hand. “Are things rough at home?”
Hax blinked. To him, this seemed like a non sequitur. “Yeah, money’s tight…” He stopped because he’d decided that how money was tight in their family didn’t seem like any business of hers.
She tilted her head then continued in a concerned tone, “Are money problems putting your parents on edge?”
Suddenly Hax understood what she was thinking. Horrified, he said, “My dad didn’t do this!”
“Who then?”
“Vito Castano…” Hax blurted, then stopped, feeling like he shouldn’t have spoken. What if the nurse didn’t know about the Castanos and got herself in trouble by saying something about it to someone?
However, it immediately became apparent that she did know about the Castanos. Her face paled and she got a sickly expression. Hax could tell she wished she hadn’t asked. Her mouth worked and over the next couple of minutes she made several abortive attempts to say something, apparently thinking better of each one. Eventually her eyes welled up and, with a tear trickling down her cheek, she said, “I’d like to help. But all I can do is tell you to stay away from him… Stay away from his whole family. They’re… bad news.”
Although he didn’t feel like it was true, Hax said, “
It’s okay.”
“No,” she said, “it’s not. But I can’t fix it. Everyone who tries to do something about them… dies.”
She offered him some antibiotic ointment and an icepack, but Hax just shook his head.
At lunch Hax sat in his usual location on the stairs. Several other kids nervously got up and moved farther away from him. He’d always felt isolated as the clumsy kid. He’d been hoping that his newfound coordination and martial arts skills were going to improve his social standing, but it looked like pissing off the Castanos was going to make it even worse.
When he heard footsteps clattering down the steps toward him, his first reaction was that Vito was coming to attack him again. He tensed and leaned forward and away from the direction of their approach, but it was Hallie. She’d run down the steps, directly to him, something that left him astonished by her bravery. Now she gently put a hand on his arm, knelt on the step just below his and stared up wide-eyed up at his face. “Oh my God! I heard, but I couldn’t believe it.” Her eyes glistened, “I’m so sorry!”
Hax shrugged, “It’s not your fault.”
“Yes, it is. I should never…” She trailed off without making it clear what she shouldn’t have done.
Hax wondered whether she felt most guilty for getting him involved with her programming request or for getting close to him which she had known would piss off Vito. He snorted, “Vito’s been beating me up for years.” He waved at his face, “This is nothing new.” He turned and looked out over the fields. “And it’s certainly not your fault.”
“But…” she mused, “you beat him when he attacked you here on the stairs. I mean, he looks scary, but he didn’t look like he had a chance once you guys started fighting. You move… I don’t know, like a cat or something.” She paused, searching for words, “It’s like you’re dancing…?
Having Hallie talk that way about Hax felt good, though he doubted she was much of a judge of fighting methods. He didn’t want to sound prideful though, so he tried to make a joke of it, “Can’t dance very well when a big guy’s got you in a bear hug from behind.” He tried to grin even though grinning made his face hurt.
Hallie’s eyes widened, “He had another guy hold you! Who’d even do that?”
Hax shrugged, “One of the Castanos’ goons.”
Hallie drew back in horror, hand over her mouth. “Oh no!” Her eyes brimmed again, and she said, “It doesn’t matter how well you can fight, you can’t fight all of them.” She looked around, “I’d better get away from you before he sees us together again.” She got up and walked up the stairs.
Feeling like he’d been deserted by his only friend, Hax sat on the stairs and stared out at nothing until the bell rang.
***
Just walking into the store made Roni feel uncomfortable. Since money had gotten tight, years ago now, she’d hardly shopped for clothes. When Tansey did take her to look for new outfits, they went to thrift shops. Roni vaguely remembered that new clothes felt different from old ones. The cloth felt stiffer or something, but it’d been so long since she’d had anything new that she wasn’t sure of the difference.
She’d have gone to the thrift shop today, but it was pretty far out of her way and this place was right on the way home. Besides, she had money now.
She wandered the aisles, occasionally touching a blouse or skirt. The new cloth did feel… crisper, she decided. Sternly, she reminded herself that she wasn’t there to get something cute. She wouldn’t be able to hide something like that from her parents.
Finding the outerwear section, she started looking around seriously. She wanted something with a hood. Ideally it’d be reversible so she could change it for a different look if she needed to.
She’d just begun to despair when she came on a rack of brightly colored reversible hooded windbreakers. In the past, she’d have ignored them because they were light weight, but as soon as she picked one up she realized that it’d roll into a small bundle that’d fit nicely in her backpack. Even better, each jacket had a small nylon bag dangling from it—just made for the jacket to be rolled up and stuffed into.
And they weren’t expensive.
A few minutes later she stood at the cash register, handing the cashier a couple of Nick’s hundreds. Somehow, she felt like the cashier would know the money was dirty, but of course he didn’t notice anything unusual about it. Roni left the store with three of the hoodies stuffed into her backpack. One was red reversing to black, one was dark blue reversing to white, and the other was dark yellow, reversing to light blue. Best of all, none of them were green like the old coat she hated.
She didn’t know why she cared, she hoped no one would ever see her wearing one of the new jackets. Well, except on video.
The shopping trip hadn’t taken long, but when a bus stopped nearby she decided to practice anyway. Hopping on the bus, she paid with the change from the hundreds. Tossing, her backpack in the seat at the very back of the bus she vanished, then pulled out one of her new hoodies. She’d bought them large, so once she pulled it out of its little bag it wasn’t difficult to pull it on right over her big green coat. She got off the bus much closer to home and wandered through another clothing store.
The store was aimed at women much older than Roni, so she had no interest in the clothing, she just wanted to see how she looked in the full-length mirrors. She posed a couple of different ways, thinking that a light jacket over her heavy coat made her bulky. In view of her old jeans, which weren’t cut very stylishly, she felt a little embarrassed to realize she looked like a boy. I guess that’s actually better, she thought, if they look at the videos and think I’m a boy, they’ll be less likely to be looking for me.
As she was walking out, she was caught by a display of diaphanous silk scarves. She picked one up and tried looking through it. She could see pretty well. Glancing in the mirror, she saw that it hid her face quite well from the outside. This is better than the balaclava! she thought.
The one she’d been looking at was a pale yellow and, even though her features weren’t discernible through it, she thought that it was still possible to tell that she had dark skin. She turned back to the stack of scarves. There weren’t any black scarves, but she picked up one that was a dark navy blue. Holding it up in front of her face, she thought it not only hid her features, but also her skin color.
A woman walked by and Roni suddenly felt self-conscious. She knew by now that the woman shouldn’t notice her, but she suddenly worried that her manipulations of the scarves might have been visible. To her relief, the woman walked by less than a foot away and obviously didn’t see her, nor did she notice the yellow scarf Roni had been folding back up. Roni took the Navy scarf and a dark brown one. On the way to the register, she pulled back her hood and let herself become visible between two racks of clothing.
Once again, paying for the scarves with Nick’s money… felt deliciously wrong.
***
Hax entered the kitchen in a sour mood. It was Saturday and he knew his dad had a lot of work for him to do in the store. He stepped over to the big cupboard that served as their pantry and grabbed a box of Cheerios while wishing they could afford eggs. “Mom, we’re out of Wheaties.” He liked Wheaties better, but his mother thought Cheerios were better for him. He thought fondly of the days when they’d had bananas to put on their cereal.
“Put ‘em on the list,” his mother said. When he turned from the cabinet, she said, “Here’s your bowl.”
When Hax turned to look at his mother, he saw she’d actually thrown the bowl to him! “Mom!” he said, snatching it out of the air. It was a plastic bowl so it wouldn’t have broken, but it still could’ve hit something. Hax felt lucky he hadn’t dropped the Cheerios.
His mother grinned at him, “I thought so.”
Hax frowned, “You thought what?”
“You aren’t clumsy anymore. In fact, I’ll bet you’re pretty well coordinated.”
Hax knew his coordination had been improving or he wou
ldn’t have been doing so well in martial arts. For that matter, he wouldn’t have won his fights with Vito. Somehow, he hadn’t connected that to the possibility that he might be able to catch things now. In his entire life he’d only caught a few things, those mostly by accident. He shrugged, “Yeah.”
She tossed him a spoon, “Throw that back and forth from hand to hand.”
Unthinkingly, Hax caught the spoon with a couple of fingers while still holding the bowl in one hand and the cereal box in the other. Stunned that he’d been able to do that, he set down the bowl and the cereal and tossed the spoon back and forth. This is dumb, he thought.
Though he knew he would’ve fumbled the spoon after a couple of tosses just a few months ago.
His mother pulled two more spoons out of the drawer and started tossing them back and forth from hand to hand, one spoon arcing over the other. Then she tossed him a second spoon, “Try that.”
Hax felt pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to do it, even though he recognized it as a very simple juggle. However, he tried it and found it wasn’t hard at all. His mother pulled two more spoons out and did a three spoon juggle. She tossed him a spoon so he had three. She lifted her chin, “Try that.”
To Hax’s astonishment, the three spoon juggle wasn’t difficult either. Until he tried it, he’d have believed that his coordination had gotten good enough that he could learn juggling, but he’d have expected to have to put in a lot of practice.
His mother watched critically for a moment, then said with a big smile, “Yep, you must have the gene. You’re already good, and I’ll bet you’re going to get a lot better. Practicing juggling should help stimulate your dexterity. I’ve got some old juggling balls upstairs. You eat your cereal and I’ll go get ‘em.”
The Girl They Couldn’t See (Blind Spot #1) (Blind Spot Series) Page 12