Thief's Odyssey

by John L. Monk

  Who the heck is everyone?

  I wanted to ask her about it, but my eyes began to shut again and I forgot to stay awake.

  ***

  “Good morning, Bo,” Lawrence said, smiling cheerfully, carrying a box under his arm.

  During my wakeful hours, I’d spent a lot of time thinking about the trouble I was in. It had been almost a week since Agent Tucker and I had spoken, and I worried there was a federal manhunt underway. I also hadn’t seen Mrs. Swanson after that first day, and wondered what she was up to—mainly because it kept my mind off the awful events of that night at the abandoned office building.

  “Hi,” I said. “How soon can I get out of here? There’s an FBI agent looking for me and I don’t want you involved.”

  If what I said worried him, he didn’t show it.

  “Technically, you can leave now. I’m not sure how much milk you drank as a kid or if you eat rocks for breakfast, but if you can keep from any gunfights for at least another month, you’ll heal up nicely. You’re going to want to wait for your foster mom. She’s been busy, but she’ll be here today. I think she wants to talk to you about your legal problems.”

  That was a funny thing about Lawrence. He never referred to Mrs. Swanson as Mom, only as your foster mom.

  Lawrence put the box down on the chair next to me.

  “What’s that?” I said.

  “Mail,” he said good-naturedly.

  “What? From who?”

  “Why don’t you spend some time reading it before you talk to your foster mom? Ring the bell if you need me.”

  Still smiling, he walked from the room. A moment later, I heard him whistling.

  I grabbed one of the envelopes and tore it open. A family photo of a man and a woman and five kids fell out. It was a get-well letter from…

  “Who the hell are the Brenners?” I said, mystified.

  The letter read: Bo, we hope you are feeling better. We are all praying for you. If you ever need anything, please let John and I know.

  The next one was weirder. No pictures, but a similar thank you—and a hundred-dollar gift certificate to Walmart. It was signed by four different people in exceedingly bad handwriting, with hearts and flowers and stick figure people underneath each name.

  The rest of the letters were variations on the same theme. Get well wishes and prayers, money, gift certificates, and requests to come to dinner as soon I got better. It was spooky how they all seemed to know me while I didn’t know them. Was this what Samantha Donner had meant by everyone?

  The doorbell rang. Half-fearing a horde of people I’d never met, I felt a measure of relief when it was only Mrs. Swanson who walked in.

  “Oh, your mail arrived,” she said, smiling, eyes dancing. “Aren’t you the popular one?”

  Chapter 33

  “What’s this about?” I said, picking up a handful of letters. “Who are all these people?”

  Mrs. Swanson said, “If I thought you really didn’t know I’d be disappointed.”

  I held one of the letters up and read, “Dear Bo, we are sorry you got sick. I got sick one time but I got better. Love, Emily.” I put it down. “Hey, I’ll admit to the Jimmy thing. But all these other kids… Look, I’m not saying I haven’t been on a few dates here and there—”

  Mrs. Swanson burst into a peel of unladylike laughter.

  “I’m glad you’re amused,” I said. “I’ve been shot, you know.”

  Still laughing, she waved her hands at me, No more!

  After a moment, she settled down, coughed into her hand and said, “I’m sorry, Bo. You look so cute in your little robe and bandages, with that bewildered expression on your face. I so rarely get a good honest laugh these days. But first: I did not appreciate you leaving me at that airport. It was a devilish trick.” She grimaced. “Tom was impossible after that.”

  “You were saying? About these letters?”

  She arched an eyebrow and said, “I was not saying. But I’ll tell you. I asked some of the more trusted families in our association to write you as a way of … re-introducing you. To the family, so to speak. They are your foster aunts, uncles, and cousins.”

  “You can’t have foster cousins and uncles,” I said.

  Mrs. Swanson barked a short hard laugh. “Who says? You may not have realized who they were—on holidays, birthdays and social gatherings and the like—but you were with your family. Your only family, Bo, so cherish them.”

  The expression on her face as she said this reminded me of a preacher in a movie I’d once seen: passionate and unyielding in her vision, and more than a little scary.

  “So this thing you do,” I said. “McLean Investigations—you’ve extended your services to these families, haven’t you? Just like Anna, you watch out for those other kids after they’ve left their foster homes.”

  Mrs. Swanson smiled like I’d won the prize. “See? You didn’t disappoint me. You rarely have, you know. Even with all this funny business you’ve been up to.” Her eyes sparkled brightly. “It is intriguing, sneaking around and cracking safes and all that. If I didn’t have so many responsibilities, I might bother you to have me along one time.”

  Speechless, I gaped at her.

  “Of course,” she continued, “if I were to get caught, everything I’ve worked so hard for would vanish. That’s the trouble with responsibility, Bo: everyone gets to have fun but you.”

  Mrs. Swanson pointed at some of the medical equipment.

  “Look around you,” she said. “My son’s home has become a private hospital. We prepared it against the day we might need to perform surgery without the state knowing. If one of the children falls from a tree and breaks an arm or a leg, the state could take him or her away. At the very least there’d be an investigation, and some of these social workers—Bo, you have no idea. I shielded you from so much of that.”

  “Like what?” I said.

  Mrs. Swanson hesitated briefly, then nodded.

  “I’ll give you a recent example,” she said. “There was a woman we caught and successfully had fired. The state came in and terminated the parental rights of one of the children—you’ll find a letter from the little girl, Cynthia, in that box of yours. In circumstances such as this, the foster family is given the option to adopt. In the end, it is what’s best for the child that matters, regardless of any other factors. This should be the sole consideration. In this instance, the social worker had friends who were looking to adopt. They wanted a child of their own very badly, and having a corrupt social worker for a friend was a great way to circumvent the system. If not for our investigative services, a great injustice would have been done, as well as emotional harm to the child.”

  I shook my head. “It just seems a little weird. It’s like a secret society or something.”

  Mrs. Swanson smiled patiently. “We’re not secret, Bo. We even have a web page. Sure, there’s all this.” She indicated the medical equipment. “But it’s a very small part of what we do. We are a nonprofit association of foster parents. Most of our work is perfectly legal. We each contribute what we can for … oh, clothes, toys, that kind of thing, each according to our means, and—”

  “And you provide investigative services when kids get snatched away by the state,” I said. “Even though you’re morally obligated to leave them alone. When they grow up, do you follow their children, too? How about the extended family? You know, at a certain point you gotta rip the Band-Aid off.”

  Mrs. Swanson’s face took on a sudden sternness. She hadn’t liked my tone. Luckily, I was fine with that.

  “I was wondering,” I said. “That day my mom shot my dad. There was a period of time before that when she vanished. I must have been six or seven, I barely remember, but it seems like I was staying somewhere else during that time.”

  She sat there looking at me, her face expressionless.

  “You know,” I said, “I never asked for my records because I thought I knew my history. But when Mom was out there, all drugged-up or whate
ver, I was in the foster system, wasn’t I?”

  Mrs. Swanson nodded, just once.

  “After it ended,” I said, “I came home and found her at home like nothing happened. Kind of like when that kid Anthony kept getting sent back.”

  “Yes,” she said quietly.

  “When I got sent back to her, did … you didn’t know about it, did you?”

  She nodded again, her expression bleak.

  “And that passerby who just happened to have a sidearm that day—was he one of your people, sent to watch me?”

  Mrs. Swanson didn’t say anything, which said it all.

  We sat there for a while, neither of us meeting the other’s eye. When I finally looked at her, I saw her face had reddened and her cheeks were wet with tears. This woman who’d brought me into her home, cooked for me, bought me clothes, and made sure I did well in school. And now I’d found out she may have saved my life. All this, and she hadn’t told me about it until now, and only after I’d dragged it out of her. Bo Mosley, the most ethical man in the world, had made her cry because he hadn’t been consulted about his rescue.

  Donald the waiter was right. I was holding onto some things that just weren’t good for me.

  “Mrs. Swanson, I—”

  “Oh, Bo!” she said, and came forward to embrace me, flaws and all.

  ***

  A while later, Mrs. Swanson told me the good news. Tom, my fabulous lawyer, had worked out an extremely contingent plea deal whereby, upon my surrender, I’d admit to the identity theft, interception of U.S. mail, theft of gold bullion, and help them clear up any unsolved crimes I’d committed. I also had to pay back my victims and settle a few large fines, which Mrs. Swanson said she’d cover.

  I promised to pay her back, and I meant it. Very little of my stolen gold had been converted to cash, and I still had most of the money—along with about fifty thousand in Ted’s accounts, from my paychecks.

  Mrs. Swanson said, “You’ll have to spend a few months in prison. Perhaps longer. But it won’t be one of those Super Max horrors like they show on TV. Tom’s assured me of that.”

  If the sentence was less than a year, that made sense. He’d gotten me a great deal, and I wondered how I’d ever doubted the amazing Tom Harrington. I’d have to send him more Grumpy Cat memes.

  “Why are they letting me off on all those hacking and wire fraud charges?” I said.

  Mrs. Swanson’s mouth quirked in a brief smile.

  “Maybe you can tell me,” she said. “How well do you know someone named Sean Powers?”

  I shook my head, confused. “He was a coworker of mine. He slept a lot while I did everything. What about him?”

  “Well, you must have made an impression on him,” she said. “He’s being extremely uncooperative, saying all kinds of wild things about that undercover agent—Brian—tampering with the computers and, in his words, planting evidence against you. Your friend Sean is part of an Internet advocacy group with a lot of libertarian ideas on the law and free speech. On top of that, it appears you were mostly successful in covering your tracks, whatever you did.”

  “Allegedly.”

  “The very word,” Mrs. Swanson said.

  I had to laugh. “That guy… I barely talked to him for two years and he swoops in to save me. I’ll have to send him some flowers.”

  “Oh, and do you know an Isabella Rhodes, by chance?”

  Things were getting stranger and stranger. I asked Mrs. Swanson if she could hand me my backpack, hanging on a hook by the door. She got it for me, her expression curious. I opened one of the zippers, took out the autograph, and handed it to her.

  “Oh, how wonderful,” she said, smiling like a little girl opening a present. “You know, I’d never heard of her until Tom told me what you’d done. She called him to check on you. You’re a good person, Bo.”

  I didn’t feel like a good person but kept that to myself. She was happy, that’s what mattered.

  “So what did Isabella tell Tom?” I said. “Specifically.”

  “She wanted him to pass on her thanks for your discretion and said she won’t be going to the authorities.”

  I nodded. Nice of her, considering I’d invaded her privacy and scared her assistant.

  Mrs. Swanson said, “Tom got the idea to ask her to testify on your behalf, if it came to it, and she said yes. In my experience, character witnesses rarely contribute anything, even when they are admissible, but her interest in the case spooked that agent.” She sighed. “They would have turned you into a demon, you know.”

  We sat there for some time, not saying much. I noticed I felt stronger than the day before, and had even managed to watch a few hours of TV without nodding off.

  “So where’s Anna?” I said. “Is she coming? I’m going to have to get to know Jimmy, eventually. May as well start now.”

  “About that,” Mrs. Swanson said in a serious tone, taking my hand. “There’s something you should know, and I’m not sure how you’ll take it.”

  “What happened to her?”

  “Nothing happened to anyone. But Jimmy… Lawrence took samples of blood from you and Jimmy and ordered a paternity test. I’m sorry, Bo. You aren’t his father.”

  Until now, I’d lived my life according to my desires, picking my way through the world with a kind of lip-service regard for others. I’d left Anna alone in Ted’s apartment so I could rob a dirtbag car salesman for sport. Then along came Jimmy and the promise of a new life with responsibility and structure and report cards and bullies and first dates. Rather than deal with it, I’d stuck with the plan to rob Isabella Rhodes. I wasn’t father material, not right now, but as much as I felt relieved at the test results, there was a part of me that wondered whether it wouldn’t have been so bad, having a kid in my life to take care of.

  “Bo?” Mrs. Swanson said. “Are you okay?”

  I nodded and said, “Where’s Anna? You didn’t say anything about her.”

  Mrs. Swanson gave my hand a reassuring pat. “Anna’s in a drug rehabilitation facility. The best we could find. After seeing you almost die, she hates herself now more than she ever did. This self-hatred of hers—it’s why she does the things she does. Her father, he used to … abuse her. When her mother was at work.”

  She turned away and dabbed her eyes with a tissue.

  My jaw clenched so I wouldn’t say anything. I’d always worried it might be something like that. Part of the reason I’d never asked why she’d run away.

  A while later, the doorbell rang. I glanced at Mrs. Swanson.

  “Well, since you’re doing fine,” she said, “I suppose I should be off. There’s still the matter of that jeweler to deal with before we settle on a plea. Tom thinks Mr. Horton’s memory might be getting fuzzier with old age, and we still have all that cash you saved us.” Her eyes danced merrily, then widened in surprise. “Oh, I almost forgot—Kate’s agreed to take you in for your arrest.”

  Before I could respond to either outrageous statement, Kate walked in. She exchanged an embrace with Mrs. Swanson, the one towering awkwardly over the other, causing them both to laugh.

  Mrs. Swanson waved, said goodbye, and left.

  Kate shut the bedroom door, then came over and sat down very close to me. She had on normal clothes and even a little makeup, and she wasn’t scowling like I was accustomed to. She watched me carefully, taking in my bandages with an appraising eye. Then she set a cheap, throwaway cellphone down on the table next to me. I didn’t recognize it, but I knew what it was. Beside it, she placed something I recognized immediately—Marco the Narco’s gun, which I’d used to shoot Manny with. Covered in my fingerprints.

  “The coroner said Debbie died of a drug overdose,” she said at last. “The police heard my messages, called me, took my statement, and closed the case. Worst police work ever.”

  I didn’t trust myself to reply. I hated that I felt relieved. Debbie deserved more than what she’d gotten, but justice meant a widening investigation with Elvin and Lionel i
nvolved and eventually Fruit and Manny and those others who’d died. From there it’d move on to me, then Kate and Mrs. Swanson. Then they’d take the kids away.

  “Does Mrs. Swanson know how many people you—we—killed that night?”

  Kate pursed her lips and nodded once.

  “So the bodies…”

  “One thing about the PI business,” she said, “is it’s made up mostly by former law enforcement, sometimes with diverse backgrounds. In our case, very diverse.”

  I started coughing. My ribs hurt so bad I worried I might pass out. Kate got up and poured me a drink from the pitcher Lawrence had set out. She handed it to me.

  I took a sip and waited for the pain to die down.

  “How do you feel about killing that man?” Kate said.

  Since coming to Lawrence’s, I’d been either in pain or asleep. Both great excuses for putting off anything too deep until later.

  “You know all those movies,” I said, “where the young soldier shoots his first person, or a cop shoots someone for the first time, then takes a few steps away and throws up?”

  Kate nodded, unreadable as ever.

  “Well I don’t feel like doing that. I don’t like what I did, but I guess I’m not all that broken up about it, either. After what they did to Anna and those women, what Fruit threatened to do to Jimmy … I doubt the world’s going to miss any of them.”

  Those were my honest feelings. Still, I surprised myself that I could be so callous about it—especially to this strange, intense woman who already didn’t like me.

  “Bo,” she said, leaning closer, looking into my eyes. “When I shot Fruit, my first round got him in the arm. When he went down, he dropped his gun. While he sat there screaming and holding his arm, I walked over, took aim, and shot him in the head.” Her face was inches away now, intimidating and fascinating at the same time. “How do you feel about that?”

  Kate’s eyes seemed to bore into mine, as if sifting my soul for clues. I wanted to look away, but I also liked looking at her, strange as it sounds. She was beautiful in the same way a jungle cat was.