At that moment I had a flash of how difficult it must be to be a parent. The public fund didn’t exist. It would come from my generous monthly allowance, which I rarely spent through anyhow. But if I stepped in and covered for Victor, how would he ever learn? Maybe I should set up a plan for him to pay me back. What kind of stupid, attention-seeking move was that anyway, getting caught spray-painting cars at a high school?
Yes, what Victor Lang needed was tough love. Just not right now. Five high-school kids against a middle-school kid was unfair. So, I told myself, in this moment I was protecting the concept of fairness. Not enabling Victor and his obvious lack of social smarts.
“I love sucking pimples,” Wispy Beard said.
I cocked my head. So far the other four weren’t closing in on me. They would wait for Wispy Beard to give them the nod.
“Each to his own and all that,” I said, incredulous. “I mean, it’s not illegal, so who am I to judge? But seriously, people actually let you suck their pimples?”
Wispy Beard’s face flushed, the taut skin on his cheekbones tinged with white. “That’s what he spray-painted on my car. Those words. I love sucking pimples.”
I glanced at Victor and shook my head. “Really? Really?”
“I had to use little words that these morons would understand,” said Victor.
“And you know they are right here, listening to every word you say.”
“I used the word moron because it’s highly unlikely it’s in their vocabularies,” Victor said. “We should be good.”
Wispy Beard thumped himself on the chest. Like a gorilla.
“Listen, guy, I’m as mad at him as you are,” I said. “But five of you, all bigger than him? There’s nothing fair about this fight.”
“It’s not supposed to be fair, or even be a fight,” Wispy Beard said. “It’s supposed to be punishment.”
The skinniest of the five stepped toward me. Not that he was skinny in any sense. He must have outweighed me by forty pounds.
“Can you think of a better way?” Skinny Guy asked me. “Let the cops handle it and have us in court arguing that we don’t love to suck pimples?”
I turned to Victor. “Why would you do this?”
“To force Team Retribution to send in the bodyguards,” he answered. “Any moron could understand the brilliance of this. But maybe you’re not even qualified to be a moron. Looks like you’re going to have to take a beating. Maybe then the bodyguards will show up.”
I let out a heavy, heavy sigh. For Victor’s stupidity. And for the fact that I seemed to be down to two choices—let them beat him up, or stop them.
“They’re not going to beat me up,” I said.
“Good thinking,” Wispy Beard said. “We’ll let you slide on this one. Get gone.”
I locked my fingers and placed both hands on top of my head, palms down.
“What I meant,” I said to Victor, “is that if they don’t walk, I’m not going to let them beat you up. Painful as it is to help you out of this hole you dug.”
“Try not to bleed on me when they’re finished with you,” Victor said.
Could the kid be any more obnoxious?
I swiveled toward Wispy Beard, palms still on the top of my head, and said, “Bring it. You and me. I leave my hands on my head. You win, I walk away and he is all yours. I win—no hands—all of you walk away. Deal?”
I’d been hoping a direct challenge to him would make the others back off.
I was wrong.
NINE
Two of the goons stepped up and grabbed me by my biceps, keeping my elbows stationary. I kept my hands on my head, knowing it made my position look weaker.
First mistake—I could still move my forearms by releasing my locked fingers.
“Make him puke first,” the guy on my right elbow said. “Remember what happened last time when you broke the guy’s nose first and made him puke after? He almost suffocated.”
Second mistake. Now I knew how the attack would unfold. Punch to the gut, punch to the nose.
“Please don’t,” I said. “No one is going to like how this ends.”
Wispy Beard grinned. “You’re half right. You won’t like how it ends.”
He stepped in. I was watching to see how much hip and shoulder turn he’d throw into his punch. With the proper technique, a big guy like him could turn his fist into a spear.
My guess was that he’d been using his bulk to intimidate people for years and had never had any need to learn how to throw a good punch. My guess was correct.
The punch was long and lazy, something I could have sidestepped with my legs wrapped together by duct tape. I could see it would be mainly arm, with no turning of hips and shoulders to add power, so deciding not to slip the punch wasn’t much of a gamble.
I tensed my abdominal muscles and waited for the blow. I do three hundred crunches a day, so when the muscles are tight, it’s a decently solid wall. The difficult part was holding back a grunt at impact. That would have spoiled much of the effect.
He’d expected me to try to double over from pain and start puking.
Instead I gave him a calm smile.
As intended, it rattled him. Now he was wondering who I was.
“Last chance,” I told him, hands still on my head. His punch had stung pretty hard. It took a bit of effort to speak normally. “No one is going to like how this ends.”
His answer was to throw the next punch—the nose breaker—a move as predictable as a sunrise. And as slow to unfold.
I unlocked my fingers and swung both hands from my head toward the front of my chest. That took little effort. The guys on each side of me were holding my biceps and allowing my elbows to serve nicely as stabilizing points.
I used the downward momentum of my right hand to hit the inside of his forearm and deflect his punch away from my face. His punch slid past my ribs, grazing my shirt.
His own momentum brought him forward and off-balance, close enough for me to lightly slap his face with my left hand.
It wasn’t meant to be much more than a tap. But it did the job as a distraction.
His eyes opened wide, his focus on my hand.
That’s when I brought my knee up with as much force as possible, making direct contact in the center of his groin. He doubled over, falling into the guy holding my left bicep.
That, in turn, was enough of a distraction to allow me to yank my left elbow loose and pivot hard to my right. The guy holding the other bicep was locked into place, and I brought my knee up again.
Same result.
I swung back to my left and spent two seconds pretending the guy’s face was a speed bag. I pulled my punches as I hit him with a succession of jabs. I did not want to injure my fingers. I didn’t want to hurt him too badly either.
Two guys now doubled over. A third guy in shock. Two other guys uninjured but hanging back, slack-jawed in disbelief.
And Victor, drawing out one word in admiration. “Dude!”
“We stop right now,” I told the jocks. “Two of you can help carry the other three away. And I’ll make sure damages are covered on your cars. We don’t stop, you’ll each be going down, one at a time, until there’s nobody left to help carry any of you away. And no money to cover the damages.” I paused to let my words sink in. “Stop? Or continue?”
They were backing away. I took that as a sign that the choice was to stop.
“Get your contact information to Victor here,” I said. “You’ll see your money in about a week. Try to hurt him again and I’ll hunt you down. Are we clear?”
I waited for one of them to nod. Wispy Beard finally did, eyes on the ground.
“Thanks,” I said.
I looked at Victor. “And you. Five hours a week of community service at a place of my choice for the next eight weeks. That will cover the damages. You good with that?”
He gulped and nodded.
It was okay to wish we were in a world where people could talk things out. But since we
weren’t, it wasn’t a bad thing to be good at the alternative.
TEN
“Deanna Steele,” I began, wincing as I shifted in the booth across from Jo and Raven, “wants us to commit a crime.”
We were at a window booth in the local Denny’s. Always, we agree on a window. Need to see the streets. Tonight rain misted the pavement, and the lights reflected the rainbow sheen of oil in puddles.
We also always agree that facing the door is the best place to sit. Unfortunately, three on one side of a booth is awkward.
Our compromise is simple. We take turns choosing the location of our meetings. The person who chooses the place gets to sit with their back to the door.
Tonight it was my turn. Denny’s was always my pick. My entire life in the mansion had been based on pretense. I was tired of pretending and posturing. You didn’t see much of either at a Denny’s.
As a team—tonight, for a change, that wasn’t the reason I kept wincing with pain—we’d occasionally get together because of kids we were trying to help.
Jo recently had us tracking down a friend that no one else cared about, a runaway with a history of drug abuse. She’d ended up going undercover in some fight club.
Raven had done some undercover work as well, in a shady medical clinic after we’d learned that a series of teen suicides seemed to be linked.
They both owed me more than a couple of favors.
I wasn’t going to tell them about Victor Lang just yet, but in the meantime there was the Deanna Steele problem.
“Passing gas?” Raven asked.
I guess my wince was obvious. “It’s just a look I get when I realize I’m stuck with you two,” I answered. “Is there a tattoo for infinite pain?”
Jo grinned. “You two are so sweet. What kind of crime are we talking? Major? Minor? Deception? Full-on assault?”
“As you know from her video,” I said, “it’s a blackmail situation.”
“But she wouldn’t give details until someone met her,” Jo said. “We trust she couldn’t resist spilling her heart to you?”
“Nobody could,” I said.
Predictably, Raven rolled her eyes. She would have been disappointed if I hadn’t said that. I would have been disappointed if she hadn’t rolled her eyes.
“Her father is in the middle of some kind of corporate takeover,” I continued. “The blackmailer has compromising photos of her father with his secretary.”
“How does Deanna know her father is being blackmailed?” Jo asked. “Seems to me he’d want to keep that quiet. That’s the whole point of allowing yourself to be blackmailed.”
“My bad,” I said. “He’s not being blackmailed. She is.”
“The daughter?” Raven said. “And tell us what’s going on with the weird faces. Once or twice might be your attempt at being funny, but by the fourth time, we know something’s up.”
“Muscle pain,” I said. The fact that I had a bruise the size of a dinner plate on my abdomen was my business, not theirs. “From a boxing thing. And yes, Deanna is being blackmailed. The photos were sent to her. The blackmailers are demanding access to her father’s computer or they will release the photos.”
“How would photos about an illicit affair affect a corporate takeover?” Jo asked. “I mean, crappy as it is, lots of people have affairs.”
“I’d be impressed if one of you could tell me what Alaska Airlines and Forever 21 and Mary Kay Cosmetics have in common,” I said.
Raven said, “If I was here to impress you, I would have—”
Jo said to her, “Easy, girl.”
To me, Jo said, “Airlines and clothing and makeup. We could be here all day guessing at the connection. How about you just tell us.”
“High-profile companies with strong religious foundations. Alaska Airlines includes note cards with Bible verses on breakfast trays. Forever 21 puts Bible verses on the bottom of their shopping bags. And Mary Kay—”
“This matters because…” Raven said. Her photo would never appear in the dictionary beside the word patient.
“Some companies like that include morality clauses in their employment contracts,” I answered.
“Kind of like athletes sign when they accept an endorsement deal?” Jo asked.
“Exactly,” I said. “So if the photos get out, Deanna’s father loses his job, and the marriage is over.”
“Does the father know that the daughter knows about the photos?”
I shook my head. “Can you imagine what that must be like for her? She’s mad at her dad for being unfaithful to her mom, but she feels like she has to protect him, and the way to protect him is by stealing digital data from him. He’s betrayed their family, and she has to betray him in return.”
For once Jo and Raven gave me sympathetic looks. I didn’t kid myself. I knew those looks were meant for Deanna, not me.
“The plan?” Raven asked.
“Easy,” I said. “Identify the blackmailer, and to keep it all secret, find a way to blackmail them in return.”
“Right,” Jo said. “Easy.”
ELEVEN
“Chances are great I won’t die from cancer,” said Bentley.
He spoke with a studied casualness.
“The antioxidants from vitamin C in the orange juice?” I asked. “Or the omega-3 fatty acids from our salmon?”
We were sitting in one of our family courtyards, a scene straight from a glossy architecture magazine, complete with perfect sunshine bouncing off the perfect umbrella above our glass-topped table and wrought-iron chairs. The paving stones around the infinity pool had been imported from Italy, the designer furniture from France, the freshly squeezed orange juice from Florida, and the smoked salmon on cheese from Denmark.
“You should have noted the singular in my statement, and the absence of plural. Chances are I won’t die of cancer. Not chances are we won’t die of cancer. While we are sharing the biochemical benefits of orange juice and salmon, my use of singular implies that something limited to me means my chances of dying from cancer are lower than yours. Care to guess what that might be? Hint: I’m shorter than you.”
Not only was it unusual for Bentley to refer to his size, but there was also something in his tone that put me on alert. This was not our usual banter of one brother trying to out-intellect the other.
“Just got this great book out of the library,” I said. “It’s called Twenty Yards to the Outhouse.”
“Written by Willie Maykit,” Bentley said in an irritated voice. “Illustrated by Betty Wont. Reviewed by Andy Dint. Why did you hire a private detective to deliver an information dump when you'd already asked me to do it?”
“I’m not going to bother to ask you how you know,” I said. “I think the key point is why are you spying on me? This is just a routine missing-persons request.”
“Deflection isn’t going to work here, Jace,” said Bentley calmly. “If you’re looking for Elias Lang, I’ve found him for you.”
I had been reaching for my glass of orange juice when he said these words. I wanted to drop my hand. I couldn’t. That would reveal too much. I hoped my hand wouldn’t shake as I lifted it. That would reveal more.
I managed to sip without any trembling.
“At first,” Bentley said, “I was hurt. I thought you and I were a team. I thought you needed me. Going to someone else shows you don’t.”
I started to speak, but he waved me off.
“But your source isn’t that good,” Bentley said. “So at least I can retain a little pride and dignity. Your source is still looking for Elias. I’m not. I’ve found him. He’s in a remote village in the south of Ecuador.”
“You know this because…?”
“Don’t try more deflection. All the other times I hack for you and Raven and Jo, you don’t ask how I find it out. The methods I used matter little compared to what else I know. Like, take this for a bit of interesting trivia. Elias Lang has the exact same birthday as you. Mere coincidence, I’m sure, but still a little weir
d.”
My body felt as if my heart had actually stopped. Was Bentley toying with me? Did he know the real reason I wanted information about the Lang family?
“And like the fact that he’s in a village with a very high percentage of people with Laron syndrome,” Bentley said. “A community with one hundred people just like me. Any guesses as to why he might have run away to Ecuador without telling anyone? I mean, he’s your age. That’s not your typical teen-runaway destination.”
“He’s got Laron syndrome,” I said.
“Oh, so you did know that,” Bentley said. “Which makes me wonder even more about your motivation to look for this Elias Lang among all the runaways out there who need to be found. Pity for the short guys? Or were you thinking it would be nice to find a matching freak for your brother so I wouldn’t feel so alone in the world?”
Bentley had never referred to himself as a freak before.
“That would be so wonderful,” he continued. “He and I could start a club. We have so much going for us, matching genetic defects and all.”
Did Bentley also know about the results from the DNA test done on Victor Lang’s discarded tissue? I wondered if my heart would ever start beating again. I felt rigid.
“Yeah,” Bentley continued. “Matching genetic defects. He and I both have parents who each carry a mutated GHR gene. As you might know, that means Elias and I were born with defective receptors in the liver that ensure our bodies can’t manufacture the right growth hormones. Therefore, it’s extremely unlikely that we’ll ever face the runaway cell production typical of most cancers. And I know this because…”
I stayed silent. I didn’t trust my voice. Plus, my stopped heart made it difficult to breathe.
“Because,” he repeated, “the obscure remote village he picked as a runaway destination is a mecca for researchers trying to decipher the anti-disease properties that seem to go hand in hand with Laron syndrome. I’m sure that’s how he heard about it. He’s probably just hoping he can fit in there instead of trying to get around in a world like ours where people judge us for our size. I mean, now that I know about this place, I might have to visit it myself.”
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