Con Academy

by Joe Schreiber

  “Classic early nor’easter,” Epic Phil is telling everybody when I get to the dining hall, delivering this news with such authority that you almost expect to see a satellite map behind him. “Freak system must’ve blown in off the ocean overnight. We haven’t even played the Homecoming lacrosse game yet.”

  There’s an excited buzz among the students here, a sense of building anticipation that I don’t quite understand. People are filling thermoses with coffee and hot chocolate and carrying their trays out of the cafeteria with them.

  “So you think this qualifies?” somebody asks.

  “Are you kidding?” Phil says. “This definitely qualifies.”

  “Qualifies for what?” I ask.

  He’s about to answer me when the entire dining hall falls silent. Dr. Melville walks in, moving to the front of the room with a stiff-legged sense of purpose. I’ve already been here long enough to know that he doesn’t often appear in the dining hall among the students. Right away, I start wondering if this might have something to do with Gatsby and me sneaking into the rare books room over the weekend. What if somebody saw us coming out? I look around the room to see if other authority figures are here, but I don’t spot any. Off in the corner, Andrea is cuddled up on Brandt’s lap, the two of them watching the proceedings with sleepy-eyed amusement. If Gatsby’s here, I don’t see her.

  Dr. Melville ascends to the lectern at the front of the dining hall and holds up his hands, which doesn’t seem to be necessary since the whole room is still noiseless. “Some weather we’re having,” he says. This statement brings a mystifying burst of cheers and applause. Everybody’s watching the head of the school now, and Phil leans over to me and whispers, “If he puts his hat on, it means classes are canceled for the day.”

  “Why?”

  “First snowfall of the year is always Tray Day.”

  “What’s Tray Day?”

  “Now, I’d heard we were supposed to get some early flurries . . .” Dr. Melville is saying, and the crowd goes quiet again. “But I was still quite surprised when I went out this morning with my yardstick”—he holds it up and everybody draws in a breath—“and it looks like I’ll need to wear this.”

  He reaches down beneath the podium and pulls out a big fur-lined, Mad Bomber–style hat, then places it on his head. The entire dining hall explodes with laughter and more cheers. People jump out of their seats, hooting and whistling, and a chant starts going up from the back of the dining hall: “Tray Day, Tray Day, Tray Day . . .”

  “What’s Tray Day?” I shout at Phil.

  “Head out to Monument Hill,” he shouts back. “You’ll find out.”

  Monument Hill occupies the northernmost part of campus, an alpine slope covered in white, and by the time I get out there, half the school is already here. Even the faculty has joined in—I see Mr. Bodkins and Dr. Melville and my French instructor, Mademoiselle Lafitte, standing off to the side in ski parkas and mittens, sipping from steaming thermoses and watching the snowball fights, near collisions, and wipeouts. Collie Morgenstern is here snapping pictures for the school’s newspaper, The Connaughton Call. The snow is more than sufficient for sledding, and I’m at the top of the hill when my phone vibrates in my pocket. It’s a text from Uncle Roy, and I can practically hear him growling the words:

  Flight east canceled due to blizzard in Boston.

  Arriving tomorrow, weather permitting.

  When are you moving back to civilization, kid??

  “Hey, Will.” I look up and see Andrea walking over with her lunch tray. She drops it, takes a seat, and pats the open spot in front of her. “Want to ride down with me?”

  “A little snug for two, isn’t it?”

  “Not if we sit close.”

  “I’ll pass.”

  She sticks out her tongue, catches a snowflake on it, and licks her lips. “You know, Will,” she says, “just because we’re competing with each other doesn’t mean we can’t have a little fun along the way.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m heading back to the dorm. I’m way behind in U.S. Diplomacy, and—”

  “Blah blah blah,” she says. “Come on, tough guy. Go big or go home.” She nods at my tray, which is still tucked under my arm. “I’ll race you. First one to the bottom wins. Unless you’re scared.”

  I look down the hill. It’s a long way to the bottom, and the incline is so steep that half the kids are wiping out before they make it to the halfway point.

  I’m still deciding when I hear a scream—not a scream of excitement, but one of pain, followed by an eruption of laughter. When I look toward the sound, I see Brandt literally standing on top of a younger kid, most likely a freshman. The kid is face-down and Brandt is jumping on his back with his snowboard, pounding him into the snow. Brandt’s pals are gathered around, yukking it up. Everybody else is just standing there with the blank-eyed gaze of bystanders at a car crash.

  I act without thinking.

  The snowball is in my hand before I even realize I’ve scooped it up. After packing it tight, I cock my arm and throw it as hard as I can. Usually my aim isn’t great, but for some reason this particular throw is perfect, and it drills Brandt so hard in the back of the skull that it knocks him over.

  I grab my tray and take a flying leap down the hill.

  The lunch tray doesn’t handle at all like an actual sled, so I can’t steer, and I’m already going way too fast, careening down among kids climbing up the hillside. The sound of snow is hissing in my ear, and wet, cold flakes are flying into my nose and sticking to my eyelashes. Somebody’s built a ramp, and I go shooting off into space, airborne for long enough that I hear a voice shout, “Whoa!” Then I come crashing back down to earth with a rib-shattering slam, landing at the bottom of the hill in a pile of tangled arms and legs.

  A flash goes off in my face as somebody takes my picture, and then the pain follows, gallons of it, trickling in slowly at first, and then faster. I groan and lift my head in time to see a crowd gathered around me. People are laughing. A gloved hand reaches down and yanks me to my feet.

  “Careful, Shea,” somebody’s voice says, slap-brushing snow from my face. “Wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to you, now, would you?”

  “I think I broke my leg,” I mutter.

  “Walk it off,” the voice says, chuckling. “You’ll be fine.”

  I’m not so sure, but I start limping up the hill anyway. I pass Andrea, standing off to the side with a couple girls I don’t recognize. She gives me a wave.

  “Looks like you beat me, Shea.” She smiles. “Too bad we didn’t decide on the stakes, huh?”

  “Too bad,” I say, nodding.

  And I keep walking.

  By dinnertime, the flurries have turned to splattery rain, washing away whatever snow had accumulated. I’m on my way out of the dining hall when a kid I’ve never seen before comes up to me with the school paper.

  “Hot off the press,” he says, slapping it across my chest and walking away without breaking stride. I look down at the front page.

  “King of Tray Day,” the headline reads, above a picture of me lying spread-eagle in the snow, my limbs bent and twisted in several unlikely directions.

  Then I realize there’s something handwritten underneath the photo, two words in all capitals.

  CHAPEL. MIDNIGHT.

  And underneath it, a single stylized letter S.

  Seventeen

  WHEN I SLIP OUT OF MY DORM AND ARRIVE AT THE chapel at midnight, there’s nobody there. I stand outside the main entrance with my hands in my pockets, holding my breath and listening to the sound of melted ice dripping off the pine boughs in the dark, already feeling vaguely foolish. I have no idea what to expect, or how long I’m going to be kept waiting here, or if this is all just an elaborate practical joke at my expense. With every passing minute, the last option seems more and more likely.

  I’m getting ready to head back to my room when a voice says, “Wait.”

  Two figures step out in front of me,
both wearing ski masks. I hear a crunch of boots on snow, and when I turn around, three more people are standing there. A half-dozen more appear out of the shadows, and I realize I’m surrounded.

  “What’s this about?” I ask.

  “Follow me.” Without another word, one of the masked figures turns and starts making his way toward the cathedral, with the others shadowing him. I get in line to trail the pack. We walk past the arched wooden doors, heading around toward the back, where it’s so dark that I can barely see the person walking in front of me. Somebody up ahead flicks a flashlight onto the stone wall, revealing a smaller wooden door with an iron ringbolt on it. The leader takes out a key and unlocks the door, then sets it swinging open. I can see a flight of steps leading underneath the building, and the group makes its way down, single file, into a large bare room.

  It’s dank down here and even colder than it is outside, and it smells ancient and subterranean, like wet limestone and moss. The noise of our footsteps echoes in the empty space. Vaguely I can make out engravings on the walls around me, crests or insignias, images and writing lost to the gloom. The group has formed a silent circle around me. Their shadows dance and stretch across the walls.

  “William Shea,” the masked figure in front of me asks, “do you know why you have been brought here?”

  “Um,” I say, “is it because I’m the king of Tray Day?”

  Nobody says anything for a moment. I listen as something sprays against the stone floor, and I catch a whiff of lighter fluid and hear the scrape of a match. All at once the room bursts into flame, a huge letter S blazing on the floor in front of me, casting an orange light across the circle of dark-clad figures standing around it. I take a step back.

  “The Order of the Sigils has existed here at Connaughton for almost one hundred and fifty years,” the voice says. “Our membership is absolutely secret. Every year we invite at least one new student from each class into our ranks. If you choose to accept our invitation, you’ll be given an assignment. If you’re successful, you’ll be inducted into a society as old as the school itself. Your entire life will change, both at Connaughton and afterward. From your induction on, wherever you are, you’ll be a Sigil first and everything else second.”

  I stare at the flames. “What’s my assignment?”

  “Someone will be in contact with you soon,” the voice says, and just like that, somebody turns on a fire extinguisher and the flames gutter out, leaving me in total darkness. There’s a faint scuffle of footsteps, then absolute silence.

  I stand there for a moment, until my eyes adjust, and then slowly grope my way back up the steps and out into the night.

  Eighteen

  UNCLE ROY ARRIVES ON THURSDAY, WHICH IS TECHNICALLY Halloween, but I’m too busy to mark the holiday. By then the temperature’s shot up twenty degrees, the snow is almost completely melted away, and just like that, it’s fall again. People are already wearing light jackets and making jokes about our twenty-four-hour winter. I’ve never seen a blizzard come and go so fast.

  Meanwhile, I’d been thinking about the Sigils, asking around as unobtrusively as possible, trying to figure out what to do. From what little I can learn, invitations to join seem almost random. I’ve been told that they choose new inductees without regard to how rich their families are, or whether their ancestors came over on the Mayflower, or if they are one generation out of the trailer park.

  Which makes sense, I guess, considering that they invited me.

  At five o’clock that evening I’m walking back from a long study session in the dining hall when a gleaming gray Cadillac pulls up alongside me. For a second the car just sits there, as subtle as a flying saucer, and then the driver’s-side window powers down to reveal Roy’s deeply tan, wrinkled face behind a pair of enormous mirrored sunglasses. Teeth as white as Tic Tacs gleam out at me in a wide, perfectly even smile.

  “Jump in, kid.” He doesn’t even get out of the car, so I go around to the passenger side with U.S. Diplomacy Between the World Wars tucked under my arm. The leather interior smells like a familiar combination of spearmint gum, Brylcreem, and Camel Lights.

  “I missed you, Uncle Roy.”

  Roy reaches over to punch me in the arm. “Good to see you too, William.” He’s wearing a freshly pressed dark blue Italian suit and a red tie, knotted in a perfect Windsor. He lowers his sunglasses to look at the textbook in my arms. “Studying hard?”

  “I’ve got an exam tomorrow,” I say. “I’d like to pass.”

  “Sure you would.” He nods and swings the Caddy around with an authoritative sweep of the arm. “You got a sweet gig going here. Gotta make it look legit, am I right? Sell it to the citizens?”

  “Absolutely,” I say, and glance down almost guiltily at the history pages that I’ve been highlighting for the past two hours. The fact is, I started out making crib notes that I could smuggle into class in the palm of my hand and surprised myself by actually reading through the assigned texts and getting lost in the material—in a way that I realize is probably what people mean when they use the word learning. I decide to change the subject.

  “Nice ride.” I nod. “I wasn’t aware they still made cars this big.”

  “You bet,” Roy says, consulting the rearview mirror as he plucks at his tie, straightening the knot in some imperceptible way. “I told ’em at Avis that I wasn’t about to go driving around in some tuna can. They still got some actual Detroit muscle on the lot. You just gotta ask, is all.” As we drive out through the main gates, he whistles. “Beautiful setup here. A little cold for my taste, but classy.”

  “Uh-huh.” There’s a second of silence. I glance at him. It’s time to talk about why he’s really here. “Did you get a chance to check out an office space?”

  “North of Boston, a town called Lowell.” He accelerates, and the car surges smoothly forward with a low-throated rumble. “Be there in an hour at the most.”

  We arrive in style forty-five minutes later. The space in question is tucked away in an industrial park outside of downtown, a three-story walkup where all the lights are turned on. There are half a dozen anonymous-looking vehicles scattered around the parking lot and a janitorial van parked in the corner.

  “It’s perfect,” I say.

  “You like it?” Roy beams. “I rented out the second floor for a month. Got the office, conference room, reception area—the works. I figure it’s more than we need, but it was dirt cheap, and they even threw in a few phone lines. Got the whole thing for three Gs and no questions asked. Come on in and meet the fellas.”

  “Is everybody here?”

  “The whole crew.”

  I don’t ask the next question on my mind, nor do I need to. As we walk across the parking lot to the stairs, Roy shoots a glance over his shoulder at me.

  “I talked to your dad about an hour ago,” he says as he climbs the steps, in the same voice that somebody might use to say, I ran over a rabid skunk on my way to the leper colony. “Says he’s going to meet us here.”

  Before I can apologize, Roy swings open the second-floor door, ushering me into an empty lobby with faded orange carpeting, all of it just desperate enough to look real for our purposes. I can already hear voices. I follow Roy past a deserted reception desk and into a large, depressing-looking room where six men in their twenties and thirties are standing around, leaning against empty desks, drinking coffee and chatting. There’s a pile of computer monitors, phones, and office equipment in the corner and a coffee urn on a table. An open door at the back appears to lead to a smaller, private office. When the men see Uncle Roy and me walk into the room, they all stop talking and look at us.

  “Hey, there he is,” one of the guys says, holding out his hand for Roy to shake. “Good to see you again, Mr. Devore.”

  “Likewise.” Roy shakes everybody’s hand and introduces me around. “William, meet the boys—Rudy Morales, Southie McLaren, Iron Mike Mullen, Lupo Reilly, and the Righteous Brothers.” The grin on his face just gets wider. “
Fellas, this is my grand-nephew William. He’s getting his feet wet on this caper, but he’s the brains of the operation. You got any questions about how much cheddar we’re gonna squeeze from this chump, you direct them straight to him.”

  The guys nod and smile. It’s pretty obvious they’ve all worked together before, and they all seem honored just to be sharing a room with a grifter legend like Roy. I know exactly how they feel, and now that they’re all staring at me, I get the distinct sensation of being out of my league with men who are all much better at what they do than I am.

  “Go ahead, William,” Uncle Roy says. “Lay it out.”

  I draw in a slow breath and tell myself to take it easy. My heart’s still pounding hard, but I gradually manage to slow it down.

  “Okay,” I say. “I don’t know how much my uncle’s already told you, but here’s what it looks like so far.” I reach into my U.S. Diplomacy textbook and pull out a photo of Brandt. “This is our mark, Brandt Rush—heir to the Rush retail chain. On paper he’s worth about sixty million dollars, and that’s not counting the shares in his family’s Fortune 500 company, which grossed about twenty times that in the last fiscal year alone. We’re going to take him only for about two.”

  “Wait a second.” One of the guy’s eyebrows shoot up. “Million?”

  “For starters,” I say.

  Another guy, one of the Righteous Brothers, lets out a smoky chuckle. “You’ve got some oysters on you, junior, I’ll give you that.”

  “He gets ’em from his old man,” a voice says across the room, and that’s when my dad steps in. “How’s it going, Billy? Did you tell them it was all my idea?”

  Right away it’s like all the fun goes out of the room. Everybody stiffens, and I realize that Roy hasn’t told the others about my father being part of this play. Dad doesn’t seem to notice, though. He spins a swivel chair around and straddles it, settling in like he owns the place. I can smell the whiskey wafting out of his pores from here. For a second, nobody says anything. Then, from the reception area, I hear a pair of high heels clicking through the doorway, and a woman enters the room and stands behind Dad—the dyed blonde from his motel room.