Thief's Odyssey

by John L. Monk

  Rather than murder him I said, “Where does Derek live?”

  “He’s coming with your things, man. Get out!”

  “He’s coming here?”

  “Yes, get out!”

  I told Donald what Eddie had said and waited by the van. A minute later, Donald came around and waited with me. By now, people had begun to gather outside on their stoops to watch. This wasn’t at all like the other night. Instead of pointing and laughing as I drove around looking for the way out, they stayed quiet and watched, anticipating a good show.

  A car pulled up and two people got out: Eddie’s brother with his bat, and Dreadlock Derek.

  “Where’s the scooter?” I said.

  They laughed like they had me where they wanted me, and I lobbed the rock through their windshield.

  Taking advantage of their momentary surprise, I rushed the guy with the bat and proceeded to beat him in the face with my closed fist. Absently, I noted a thudding somewhere behind me, but flicked it aside like the fly it was and continued to pummel the guy, loving how he resisted, feeding him my rage and fear one punch at a time. All my years without a real family and the taunts I’d endured in school when people found out. The humiliation. The real fear I had of prison and the life-destroying claustrophobia of my inner-inmate. In time, the blows on my back stopped, replaced by a voice yelling, “Calm down, Mr. Mosley! Let that man go!”

  Hands grabbed and pulled me back. When I looked down, Slugger lay curled up around his bat groaning. From my left, Dreadlock came over, glaring at Donald and massaging the back of his head. He handed me my passport and goggles.

  I glanced over at Donald and saw him rubbing his fist in his hand, expression grim, no longer laughing at the world and its tourists. Now he looked like a man who needed a drink and a woman.

  “Where’s the scooter, Derek?” I said, trying not to shake while ignoring the crowd that had gathered to watch. I needed to remain a tough guy long enough to get out of there in one piece.

  “Man, we took it back to the rental place! Okay? It was a joke. To get you back.” He shook his head at me like I was the stupidest person alive.

  The way he said it sounded true, making me wonder if I’d overreacted.

  “Why’d you steal my stuff then?” I said, holding the backpack up.

  He gaped like I was crazy. “You’re the one who hit Eddie, you stupid bastard! Why do you have all that shit anyway? What are you, a spy or something?”

  The last thing I wanted was for him to gain the moral high ground on me, surrounded by his people. And me, a strange white tourist who’d just beat up someone who, for all I knew, was a respected member of the community.

  Perhaps sensing this, Donald said to me, “We need to go.”

  Silently agreeing, I joined him in the van and held on as he backed away. The crowd circled the man on the ground, then gazed back at us. One of them reached down for a rock and threw it. The rock hit the ground and bounced off the grill with a loud whap. Donald stayed in reverse, putting as much distance between us and the mob as he could before backing into a lot and turning around. There was a car parked in the way, which he swerved to avoid, and I barely caught a glimpse of a young white woman in it.

  On the way back to the hotel, neither of us said anything. Oddly, I felt embarrassed. Also, I wondered about that car with the woman in it. When the headlights caught her full-on, she’d seemed familiar.

  Back at the hotel, Donald said, “Mr. Mosley, you want my advice?”

  I didn’t trust myself to answer, so I just waited.

  “You should find out why you are so angry. Until you do, you’re going to keep getting angry, and you’re going to keep hurting people.”

  Looking back to the incident in the alley, it seemed like Slugger’s swing at me would have missed. Like he’d only wanted to scare me. And tonight, if they’d wanted to beat me up, why bring the rest of my stuff? So they could beat me up before returning everything?

  I shook my head.

  “You see it now, don’t you?” Donald said.

  “Thanks for the ride, Don,” I said, then got out and went to my room.

  Chapter 17

  I woke up lying on my stomach, my body aching all over. I found a number of small cuts on my hands that I couldn’t recall getting. I could barely move without groaning, and my knuckles stung when I washed them with soap and water. Then I remembered: someone had been hitting me in the back while I’d whaled on Eddie’s brother. When I checked in the mirror, I saw blue-black bruises all over my back.

  It hurt less lying on my stomach. My neck hurt as I positioned it first to the left, then the right, then back again in a futile attempt to get comfortable. Eventually I slid my head off the side of the bed about halfway, and that worked enough for me to fall back asleep.

  When I woke up again, sometime after noon, I did so with a stiff neck in addition to everything else. I called room service and asked if they could bring me something to kill the pain and they did: exactly two miserable aspirin.

  Resigned to my plight and trying not to feel sorry for myself, I limped down to the hotel market I’d seen off one of the wings of the lobby. When I got there, a cute, slightly masculine-looking woman, maybe thirty years old, came over and stood beside me as I pondered what to buy.

  “Gel caps work the fastest but wear off quicker,” she said. She had a nice voice. Rich and strong. And oddly familiar, though in my discomfort I barely registered it. “If you take them with grapefruit juice you get an extra kick. Thickens the blood. You didn’t take any aspirin, did you?”

  “I didn’t?” I said, wincing as a small stab of pain overtook me.

  “Aspirin thins the blood,” she said, like she was giving a class on it. “You have to take more painkillers to get the same effect. Only an idiot mixes aspirin with ibuprofen. You should get some grapefruit juice.”

  “Great,” I said, rubbing my back. Then I realized that probably sounded the way I meant it and added, “Thanks.”

  I didn’t see her leave. I did grab a small bottle of grapefruit juice, rather than a bottled water. Any edge was worth a try. Back pain is the absolute worst, and there were about three backaches all vying for my attention. I didn’t think it was anything serious, but I’d be tender for a few days.

  Two minutes after crawling back into bed, someone knocked on the door.

  “Go away!” I yelled, figuring it was house cleaning.

  Whoever it was knocked again. I didn’t want to yell anymore—tensing up like that hurt.

  I got up and peered through the peephole. Something was blocking it. Wondering what was going on, I opened the door.

  “Guess who?” said the grapefruit juice fanatic from the store downstairs.

  That’s when I noticed she had a suit on, and then I figured the Feds had found me and were about to arrest me.

  “Aren’t you going to invite me in?” she said, giving me a familiar little smile that teased around the edges of my consciousness.

  “Don’t you need a warrant or something?” I said, eyeing her carefully. “Sorry, I’m not sure of the rules here in the Bahamas.”

  She wrinkled her brow and said, “Warrant? What, you think I’m a cop? As if.”

  She pushed the door open and stepped past, walking into the room as if she were footing the thirteen-hundred-a-night bill.

  “Classy,” she said, turning around, taking it in. “My room at the Palm smells like lighter fluid, I swear. I’m in the wrong business, Bo.”

  “You know, Miss, that’s a good point,” I said. “What exactly is your business?”

  She spread her arms, presenting herself to me. “Take a guess, Bo, I don’t mind.”

  Since she was offering, I looked her over. Tall and athletic-looking. Trying her best to look like a boy with that short brown hair, no makeup, and man’s suit, only to have the whole butch thing completely undone by her delicately high cheekbones and startling green eyes. Nice lips too. It had been almost fifteen years and she’d changed a
lot, but I finally recognized her.

  “You’re super tall,” I said, keeping it to myself for the moment.

  “Are you serious?” she said, her expression stony. “That’s all you see? You’re a real piece of work.”

  “I would say sue me, but I’m still not sure why you’re here.”

  “We’ll get to that,” she said. “So what’s your problem with tall women?”

  “Who said I had problems with them? But what’s a good-looking power forward like you doing in my room? That’s what I want to know.”

  A moment passed where I was sure she’d say something to hurt my feelings, but all she did was set her jaw in a hard line, reach inside her jacket, and pull out a set of photographs. She handed them to me.

  “I took these last night. You got in a fight. What was that about?”

  Instead of answering, I thumbed through the stack. My immediate thought was I’d get more out of my right hook if I remembered to pivot off my back leg.

  “So you’re that photographer,” I said. “How is Mrs. Swanson anyway?”

  She smirked. “Why don’t you ask her yourself? The FBI raided that address you left with her. She wants to know where Anna is. So where is she?”

  By now, Tom would have told Mrs. Swanson I was facing jail. It hurt a little, her sending a detective all this way to ask about Anna and not me.

  “I told her to go to the mansion.”

  “Oh, you told her?” she said.

  “You’re not going to burn your bra, are you? I don’t know about that dump you’re staying, but they got rules about that kind of thing here.”

  Shaking her head, she said, “You know what? Mrs. Swanson’s a genuine hero. She’s saved more than a hundred kids. They’ve written I don’t know how many articles about her for all the things she’s done. And what have you done with the life she gave you? You steal shit. You’re just a common, petty thief, lurking in the shadows and stealing crumbs from your betters. You disgust me.”

  “I had an article written about me once,” I said.

  It was true. Someone wrote a piece on that publicist I’d robbed. They made a big deal about how it was the same “gang” that had robbed a bunch of rich celebrities in Europe. But did she care about that?

  “Whatever,” she said. “And because you obviously don’t know: Anna’s not at the mansion.”

  Taken aback, I paused a second, then shook my head. “She probably went to Debbie’s instead. After I found her, she didn’t want Mrs. Swanson to see her. Not that I blame her.”

  “We’ll check with Debbie, see if she’s there. You better hope we find her, that’s all I can say.”

  She made for the door.

  “You got one thing wrong,” I said hotly. “I’m a better thief than you’ll ever be a private dick, foster girl.”

  Watching her leave, noting how pretty she was beneath all the contempt, I shouted, “Don’t bump your head on the way out!”

  She didn’t slam the door—wouldn’t give me the satisfaction. But she did toss out one parting salvo before walking out. “You’re angry at the wrong person, boyfriend. I’m not Richard.”

  ***

  Before there was Anna, there was Kate. I was thirteen and she was around fifteen, and whenever she and a bunch of foster kids from other families came over for parties or social gatherings, Kate declined to hang out with the other kids. She was a tallish tomboy so the boys didn’t know what to make of her. The girls despised her because she didn’t need to work at being pretty. She got them back by hanging out with the adults and getting to stay.

  It was Thanksgiving. I was watching an old Marx Brothers movie because Mrs. Swanson loved Groucho, and despite the lack of special effects, I actually liked it. And if the girls in the room thought I was sophisticated for watching something in black and white, so much the better.

  “Turn that shit off,” Richard said. He was older than me and bigger, and when he snuck cigarettes out behind the house his braces made his face look like a burning tractor.

  When I didn’t move to turn it off, Richard walked over, picked up the remote from the glass-topped coffee table, and started clicking buttons. Rather than turn off the TV, the VCR came on. A couple of girls laughed—a little too loudly, like they knew what they were doing. And being foster girls, they knew.

  “Looking for this?” I said, and held up the remote for the TV, which I always kept tucked in the couch as a natural defense mechanism. One thing you learned growing up in a house with a bunch of kids from different backgrounds: never leave the remote out in plain sight. And if you had to go to the bathroom, you took it with you.

  “Give it here,” he said, standing over me and glaring.

  Other than the voices of the adults in the kitchen, the room went quiet and still. The day had just gotten interesting and nobody wanted to mess it up.

  “If I have to take it, you’ll regret it,” Richard said quietly through clenched teeth. “I told you to give it to me.”

  Coming from a solid hour of Marx Brothers, I couldn’t help myself.

  “I’ll give it to you straight, pal,” I said, smiling and wagging my eyebrows. “You’re a dumbass.”

  This got another of those overly loud laughs from the girls. I was a real riot.

  Richard landed a heavy blow to my face that made me see stars. Then he hit me again and grabbed the remote.

  “Maybe if you weren’t such a faggot, your mom wouldn’t have shot your dad,” he said.

  When Bo looked up, Richard stood over him, sneering and holding the remote up like a trophy. Behind him, Groucho was starting in on Margaret Dumont again, but this wasn’t about the movie. It was always about Richard, or someone like him. Somehow, they always found out about his parents and what had happened.

  Bo was standing. Then he was pounding the other boy in the face again and again, and then they were on the ground and Bo was on top landing more punches.

  The room had erupted with excited cheers and suggestions on what to do:

  “Hit him back!”

  “Kick his ass!”

  “Hit him again!”

  The boy was screaming. Or maybe it was Bo. Then out of nowhere, powerful arms grabbed him from behind and pulled him away. Long legs locked around his waist, squeezing him and holding him tight. And then the strangest thing of all happened. Whoever it was, they were trying to suck the blood from his neck!

  Bo thrashed frantically and squirmed to get away from the thing, but it only held on tighter, like a wet, sucking magnet…

  And then I realized it wasn’t sucking, it was blowing—big, wet raspberries all over my face and neck, making a huge racket of bubbling fart sounds. It was the strangest thing in the world and I lay there shocked, frozen in place. And wonder of all: the red, enveloping rage I’d felt vanished completely.

  Richard was crying and blubbering how I’d hit him first and he didn’t do anything and all he’d wanted was to change the channel, but nobody was listening to him. They were looking at me. The adults crowded around me with looks of concern, and I felt a small chill of fear.

  When I looked at Mrs. Swanson, I saw concern, yes, but also something else: thinly veiled approval, but not for me. She was looking at Kate.

  “You can let him go now, Kate,” another woman said. It was Mrs. Donner, an incredibly pretty woman and Kate’s foster mother.

  “I don’t know,” Kate said, her mouth inches from my ear. “Now that I’ve got him, maybe I’ll make him my boyfriend?”

  One of the girls in the room giggled nervously, but she was the only one. I’d never felt so embarrassed.

  “Kate, we’ve talked about this before, now let him go,” Mrs. Donner said, somehow conveying authority without raising her voice. In a way, she was like a younger, prettier version of Mrs. Swanson.

  Reluctantly, it seemed, Kate released me. She stood up and cast a withering look at Richard, who was lying on his back and groaning while his foster mother attended to him.

  “You’re a smel
ly little shit, Richard,” Kate said. Then, to everyone in the room she added, “Oh yeah, I saw him smoking behind the house. Probably has the cigarettes still on him.”

  “Kate, that’s quite enough,” Mrs. Donner said. Then she turned to the woman hovering over Richard. “Sylvia, straighten that boy out or send him to respite.”

  By respite, she meant another family who’d take Richard so his foster mom could have a break. A temporary arrangement, usually lasting a few days, it was the most common threat used by foster parents who’d gotten in over their heads.

  Sylvia looked like she wanted to snap something back. Then she seemed to change her mind.

  “Get up,” she said, hauling Richard to his feet. “We’re leaving.”

  While all this was playing out, I’d been stealing glances at Mrs. Swanson to gauge how much trouble I was in. To anyone else, she probably appeared displeased, but I was the resident expert on the woman: she was amused.

  “Thank you, Kate,” Mrs. Swanson said, coming around to give the towering spit-girl a big hug. Then she looked down at me. “Bo, you have a temper. You need to learn to control it or you’re going to hurt someone some day. Kate won’t always be there, you know.”

  When I glanced up at Kate, she winked at me and mouthed, Boyfriend.

  I blushed and turned away and didn’t look at her again for the rest of that afternoon.

  Chapter 18

  That Thanksgiving was the last time I’d seen Kate. Over the years, I’d all but forgotten about her slobbery child-calming technique. Other than last night in Nassau Village, I hadn’t lost my temper since then. Not that I’d had many opportunities. After taking down Richard—a notorious bully—the other kids had been too freaked to mess with me. And how was that for coincidence, my old rage coming over me again after all these years and along comes Kate, back in my life again?

  It was good to see her, though I couldn’t have told her that. She’d seen me fighting again and it was embarrassing—like nothing had changed since she’d dragged me off Richard. And if she was the one responsible for all the photos of me coming and going from places I’d robbed, who knew what she thought now. That I was a thieving sociopath, that’s what. And maybe I was. Still, I was tired of being chased around by private detectives and their cameras.