“I guess.” He supposed he could go if showbiz didn’t work out.
“The thing is, you can’t go off unprepared. You can’t take your big shot unless you’re absolutely ready. I had my shot once. Your uncle Buddy—well, let me just say, your uncle hung me out to dry. But I have myself to blame for that. I got cocky, believed everything he told me. Thought it was all in the bag, a sure thing, and that makes a man sloppy. I didn’t practice enough. We’re not going to make the same mistake with you.”
Frankie pulled up to a shop called Aces of Pawn and parked in front of a fire hydrant. “If a cop comes, move the car.”
“But—”
Frankie hopped out. “Two minutes, tops!”
Matty turned on the radio to WXRT, but his mind was on what Frankie had been saying about his “big shot.” He pictured himself walking into his mom’s room, putting a bundle of cash in her hand, and saying, “Pack your bags. We’re moving out of here.” Seeing that relief in her face. After she lost her job in Pittsburgh, she’d started hiding her desperation from him. Not that she was cheery, exactly—she’d never been one of those Brady Bunch moms—but she deflected any of his questions about jobs or money with an air of boredom, as if explaining why the electricity had been turned off was a story too tedious to go into. Moving back into Grandpa Teddy’s house hadn’t made the anxiety go away, and for a while it was worse. It was only in the past couple of weeks that the cloud had lifted a bit. Twice now he’d come down for breakfast and caught her whistling. Whistling.
Still, they were broke, and he knew it. His job as telephone installation apprentice wasn’t enough. Frankie was right. He had to score. Score big.
Fifteen or so minutes later, Frankie banged on the back door of the van, and Matty scrambled out. Frankie held a dolly, upon which was a black cube about a foot and a half on each side—a safe. Matty opened the van door. Somehow Frankie managed to lift the thing into the back of the vehicle. Sweat poured off him.
“I need a safe for my training?” Matty asked.
Frankie grinned. “Practice for the real thing. You’re going to love the next part.”
They drove a few miles, to the bar they’d visited that first day of work—Mitzi’s Tavern. Frankie backed into a parking space. Matty started to get out and Frankie said, “Hold up. We’re just looking.”
“At what?”
“Your target.”
Matty suddenly realized what Frankie had in mind. “You want me to, uh, look inside their safe?”
“No! What good would that do? I want you to get the combination of their safe.”
“But how—”
“You’re getting ahead of yourself. I’ll teach you. I have the plan all worked out.”
“I can’t just rob a bar!”
“You’re not robbing anything—I am. And that, Matty, is not just a bar. That place is the headquarters of Bad Shit Incorporated. In the back room, Mitzi’s got a safe full of money she’s taken from a lot of hardworking folks. You know what street tax is?”
Matty was too shocked to even pretend to know.
“Protection money. Protection from her, and her brother. Every bar, brothel, and bodega has to pay up. If you don’t, they make your life difficult. Even shut you down. Trust me, when I ran Bellerophonics, they took a slice, right off the top.”
“Why don’t the cops arrest them?”
“You’re adorable.”
“I was just asking.”
“It’s Chicago, Matty.”
“That doesn’t explain anything.”
“It’s a quote. Or a paraphrase. Don’t you watch movies?” He took a breath. “Mitzi’s brother, Nick Senior, runs the biggest crew in the Outfit. Organized crime. They tell people, if you don’t pay us, then the disorganized criminals will have their way with you. They tell you, we’re the dogs that keep away the wolves. And do you know why people pay up, and don’t squeal? Because it works. Any two-bit thug knocks over a protected place, Nick Pusateri Senior will take them the fuck out.”
“So they’re not all bad,” Matty said.
Frankie blinked, then doubled back. “That’s not all they do. They’re also loan sharks. They loan money to people at high interest rates, and then if you don’t pay—”
“Why don’t these people go to a bank?”
“Because a bank won’t talk to them. Loan sharks lend money to people that no bank would. For example, entrepreneurs who, despite having a dynamite business plan and a clear vision of the industry’s future, are nevertheless turned down on a technicality, like, say, a bad credit history, or no collateral.”
“So loan sharks are a good thing, right?” Matty asked. “Otherwise they couldn’t get a loan at all.”
“Right, except—look. These people are sociopaths. You know what a sociopath is? No conscience. They’d strangle a kitten if it owed ’em two bucks. All they care about is one thing—their money. They don’t care if you get sick or if your business goes bankrupt and you have no way to repay them, they just demand their money.” Frankie nodded toward the tavern. “Now pay attention.”
A tall, bulky man was unlocking the front door. It was the bartender who’d poured Matty a soda. “Ten o’clock, prompt as hell. That’s Barney. Pretty much works from open to close. First thing he does is walk to a keypad a few feet inside the entrance and turn off the alarm. There’s another keypad at the back door.”
“You want me to find out that number, too?”
“You’re learning. I’d also like you to peek behind the bar. I know he’s got a fungo bat behind there, and maybe a—well, just take a look if you get a chance.”
“You think he’s got a gun?”
“Not that you have to worry about. Come on, what’s that look for?”
Matty realized he was thinking of kittens. “Isn’t there somebody else we could steal from?”
“That wouldn’t be ethical,” Frankie said.
Barney went inside and closed the door. “They won’t be open for another hour,” Frankie said. “Mitzi comes in the afternoon, knocks off around ten or eleven.” He started drawing the layout of the interior on the back of a Tastee Freez bag, starting with the public area Matty remembered from his visit. Then there was Mitzi’s office, a tiny kitchen and supply room, and a cleaning closet. Past the two restrooms was a fire exit that let out to an alley.
“That’s where the second keypad is. And that—” He drew an X on the back wall of the office. “That’s where the safe is, right behind her desk. You just got to watch her, as much as possible, and find out what that combination is.”
“And then what?” Matty asked.
“Then you leave the rest to me.”
—
That afternoon, Matty left Frankie’s garage, closed the side door behind him—and stopped. Malice sat on the back stoop of the house. She’d looked up from her book and frowned at him.
“Do I even want to know what you and Frank are up to?” she asked.
“It’s nothing, we’re just…you know…” He felt his face heat. “Garage stuff.” She looked impossibly cool in a black tank top and black jeans—maybe a different pair than last night. He was suddenly aware that he didn’t own a single pair of black jeans, and might never.
God, now she was staring at him like he was a dork. Get ahold of yourself, Matty. You have no idea what you can do yet.
“So what were you up to?” he said, summoning testosterone. “In the middle of the night.”
“Did you tell Frank?” she asked.
“Of course not!”
She thought this over.
“You’re welcome,” he said finally.
“You’re mad at me.”
“You could have waited, like, two seconds.”
“You weren’t invited.”
“So invite me.” This was, by far, the bravest thing he’d ever said to a girl. And then he immediately chastised himself: She’s not a girl, she’s your cousin.
Not a blood relative, he replied.
; Shut up.
“Maybe next time,” Malice said.
“I’m staying over again tonight,” he said, putting half a question mark at the end.
“What? Why?”
He opened his mouth, shut it.
She laughed and raised a hand. “Oh, right. Garage stuff.”
“So tonight?” he asked, thinking: Second bravest girl/cousin statement ever. A new list.
She glanced behind him at the garage. “You won’t tell Frank?”
“I’m insulted you would ask,” he said.
—
Matty hadn’t counted on the difficulty of escaping the bedroom a second time. It had been so easy last night, but tonight it seemed as if no one would go to sleep. The twins got into a squawking slap fight, which forced Loretta to get up and separate them, and then fifteen minutes later Uncle Frankie clomped to the bathroom and back. Matty listened to all this from the lower bunk, with the covers pulled up to hide the fact that he was fully dressed—just in case someone decided to burst in and check on him.
Malice had told him to be ready by eleven. But at ten till, the twins were awake again in the living room, laughing instead of arguing, but still obstacles. The house was so small that they’d hear him even if he tried to go out through the kitchen. The window, then, was his only option.
He got out of bed and stepped up on the toy box. He pushed the sash as high as he could—which was still not all the way up. He’d need something like Uncle Buddy’s sledgehammer to manage that. Then he removed the screen and set it on the floor.
Are you doing this, Matty?
Yes, I am. And the name is Matt.
He put his head and shoulders through the window. Outside, the street was deserted, and Malice was nowhere in sight. Above the rooftops, the moon was wrapped in a blanket of clouds. He supposed he should be thankful for the extra dark.
His immediate problem was the six-foot drop to the ground, and the jagged artificial lava rocks that Uncle Frankie used as landscaping. The window was too small for him to get his knees through, so he’d have to Spider-Man it, headfirst.
He leaned out through the window, then reached down and pressed his hands to the brick. He dragged his crotch over the sill, bracing himself with his palms, and slowly brought one thigh through, and wedged his knee against the side of the frame. Then he shifted his weight, brought the other leg forward—
“Come on, already,” Malice said.
He pitched forward and crashed into the rocks. In an instant he scrambled upright. Malice had appeared, hands on hips. “I’m good!” he said. “I’m good!”
“Keep your voice down,” she said.
She strode away from him and he hurried to catch up. “So where are we going?” he asked. She didn’t answer. Up ahead, a car idled at the stop sign. A rear door opened and a girl jumped out, waving her hands at them. “Chica chica chica!” the girl said. “Ooh, and her little dog, Matty, too!” Bass throbbed from the open windows.
It was Janelle, the white girl who’d slept over with Malice at Grandpa Teddy’s house the night of his first OBE. He considered correcting her about his name, but then Malice was pushing him into the backseat and the girls were climbing in after him and they were off in a blast of static and piano and a rapper yelling, “Watch your step, kid.”
He decided to not take this as a warning from the stereo gods.
Two black boys sat in the front, bearing the brunt of the noise. The one driving was tall, his hair smashed against the roof. The one in the passenger seat turned to look over the seatback at them.
“Hey there, little dude!” the one in the passenger seat said, half shouting over the music.
Malice introduced them as the Tarantula Brothers, which made both the guys crack up. Matty laughed, too, because he was nervous, and then got angry at himself for being nervous. He then realized that his failure to say hello—or anything at all—had been transformed into an Awkward Silence.
“He just fell out a window,” Malice explained.
They drove across Norridge, or maybe out of it; in the Chicagoland sprawl it was impossible to tell. Malice was looser and happier than he’d ever seen her; she kept falling into Janelle, and the four of them—everyone except Matty—seemed to talk in a language composed entirely of in-jokes, sex slang, and the word “fuck.” He gradually caught on to a few things. The driver’s real name was Robbie and the passenger’s was Lucas; Malice had a crush on Kim Gordon from Sonic Youth; and Robbie was recently grounded by his father (a minister, or maybe a deacon) for listening to the Wu-Tang Clan.
“RZA’s from Pittsburgh,” Matty said, relieved to have something to add to the conversation.
“You listen to Wu-Tang?” Malice asked. He liked the amazement in her voice.
“They’re cool,” Matty said, not answering her question. “RZA lives in Pittsburgh” was a Key Fact at his junior high, and it was the sum total of his knowledge about both the rapper and the group.
Eventually they ended up at a Burger King. Malice and Janelle shared an order of fries and, at one point, a single fry.
“Fuck, ladies,” Lucas said. “Why don’t you just make out for the crowd?”
“Shut the fuck up,” Malice said. “Mike’s here.”
A pickup truck had pulled into the parking lot.
“Why don’t you go see your boyfriend, then?” Lucas said.
Malice held up a fry like a cigarette and said, “I think I shall.” She sashayed across the cement picnic area to the truck. No one had gotten out of the cab.
“Is that really her boyfriend?” Matty asked Robbie, on the theory that a preacher’s son was less threatening.
“Let’s just say they see each other on the regular,” Robbie said.
“Chronically!” Lucas said, and fell out laughing.
Malice stood at the driver’s side of the pickup, leaning into the window, her arms inside it. Then she pulled back and tucked something into the pocket of her shirt. A few more words with the driver, and then she was walking back to them, smiling. “All set,” she said.
The five of them got back into Robbie’s car and pulled out. “Kmart?” Lucas asked.
“No!” Janelle said. “Priscilla’s!”
“Not the fucking swing sets again,” Lucas said. “We’re going to get busted.” But minutes later they were hopping a fence and running across a wide yard to reach a playground in the shadow of a prison-like building: St. Priscilla’s Academy. Janelle and Malice ran for the swings, while the boys sat on the rusty merry-go-round.
“Those girls are crazy,” Lucas said. He held a cigarette to his mouth and leaned forward. Robbie lit it for him. “Kuh-razy.”
“So crazy,” Matty said lamely. The girls were now sitting on top of each other, trying to ride on the same swing. He couldn’t get over how different Malice was with her friends. She was happy. Robbie said, “Are we going to do this or what?”
Do what? Matty thought, but followed the group to the shadows below the walls of the academy. Malice produced a cigarette from her bra. No, not a cigarette.
“You know, you guys could pay every once in a while,” Malice said.
“Like it’s your money,” Lucas said, and they all laughed, even Matty, though he had no idea why.
Matty had smoked once before, in eighth grade, outside a CoGo’s, and had not detected any effect except dizziness. This time he inhaled with confidence, and then coughed for an uncomfortably long time. This brought out not laughter, as he’d feared, but concern, sympathy, and much coaching about technique. They kept handing the joint to him for another try. “Hold it in your lungs,” Janelle said. “That’s it.”
Malice patted him on the back after he managed to exhale smoothly.
“How do you feel?” Robbie said.
“Fine,” Matty said. “This is good stuff.” They all cracked up—but now he felt that they were laughing with him. He lay back on the cool cement and stared up at the sheer wall of the school and the black sky beyond. The clouds had pulled ba
ck, revealing bright stars.
He had no idea if this was good stuff, because he couldn’t feel any effect. Maybe he was immune. Maybe he was part of a special subset of the population with an innate resistance to the effects of marijuana. A mutant. A sober mutant. A sober, chubby, white, boring mutant. Captain Beige.
God he hated his body. It was kuh-razy that he had to carry this thing around with him all the time. What was the point of being a mind anchored to this dead weight—or dying weight, that was it, a blobby mass already becoming old, bubbling with latent cancers, each cell wall ready to rupture like a cheap sandwich bag and spill its chemicals back into the soil. If people had to be trapped inside something, why not a robot body made of something dependable, something solid, like that brick wall? God, the wallness of it, looming over him, holding up the night sky, a black ceiling decorated with star stickers. If he weren’t trapped like this he could climb that wall with his ghost fingers, so easy, like pulling himself, weightless, along the bottom of the pool, and then, at the top of the wall, look down at the school yard that had become as small as a child’s bedroom, the grass as luscious as carpet.
His body lay there, fat and unmoving as a Beanie Baby, but Malice and her friends were dancing, laughing, alive. Malice and Janelle swung each other around with half-assed square dance moves while Robbie and Lucas sang “You-ooh-ooh, why you wanna give me a run-around.” But there was so much more, beyond this yard. The sky lifted up and up like a box lid, teasing him, and he followed it up. Below him, the suburban landscape unspooled in all directions, porch lights and streetlamps as small as fireflies, and the highways winding through them, twin rivers of lights, white on one side, red on the other, flowing between the city and the suburban lowlands. He laughed to himself, surprised to find that he was happy, very happy, the happiest he’d been since moving back to Illinois. In the distance, the towers of Chicago waited for him like women in sequined gowns, all of them gazing up at their queen, the Sears Tower. Hello, ladies! How y’all doing tonight? Maybe he should—
Suddenly he felt himself yanked through the air. The world around him blurred—and then Malice appeared in front of his face.
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