Smash & Grab

by Amy Christine Parker

  He’s right, but I wish I could go back and make sure.

  “Homeboy waved at her. You see that? And she waved back!” Gabriel looks at me and cracks up. “Player still has game even when he’s running for his life.”

  “Nah,” I say, but I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t noticed how cute she was. Even half crazy on panic and adrenaline, I couldn’t not notice.

  We ditch the van a couple of blocks down from a 7-Eleven and walk the rest of the way. Gabriel sends Carlos inside to buy us Slurpees while we get our new ride. A light blue Chevy Impala was left in the store’s parking lot half an hour ago by some of Soldado’s guys, with the keys tucked inside a magnetic key box behind the driver’s side front tire. In the movies dudes always torch their getaway cars, but in the real world that makes zero sense. It’s like sending the police a smoke signal. Literally.

  If we’re lucky, the van won’t catch anyone’s eye for hours, and no one will have any idea how it got where it is or who was driving it, because Eddie doused the interior with bleach so strong I’ll be smelling it on me for at least a week. The thing’s completely ruined, but that’s probably okay. Judging by how much ground-up crackers and crap were crushed into the carpet, I bet the lady who drives it will be relieved it’s totaled. If she has insurance. Which she does. She has to. Living in that neighborhood. Quit worrying about it, I tell myself. You had to have the car. It’s not your fault she left the keys inside.

  Carlos trots over to the car with a cardboard drink carrier and slips into the passenger seat, unwrapping a Milky Way bar the second he’s settled.

  I sip at my Coke Slurpee and look out the window as Eddie drives us toward the freeway and the Madison Street house. He turns up the music and drums the steering wheel in time to the beat, rapping along. Loudly.

  “Saint Jude got us through again,” Benny says, taking out his necklace so he can kiss the medal.

  I shake my head, smiling, and pull open my hoodie to do the same.

  Nothing.

  It’s not there.

  Heat surges through me, and my blood roars in my ears. I check the floor of the car and the seat under me, hands dipping into the crack between the seat cushions.

  “What’s up?” Benny asks, his eyes following my every move, one eyebrow quirked up.

  “My Saint Jude’s,” I whisper, hoping that the other guys aren’t listening. “It’s gone.”

  Benny lets this sink in. “You think you left it in the van?”

  “Left what in the van?” Gabriel asks, suddenly alert.

  “He lost his medal,” Benny says, outing me before I can tell him not to. It ticks me off, but I can’t really say anything. They need to know. My whole body goes numb. We have to find the medal. My name’s engraved on the back. It’s a freaking billboard sign pointing at me with the word guilty lit up in neon. Where could it be? The possibilities make me want to puke.

  Eddie jerks the car around in the middle of the road, tires squealing the whole time. The driver behind us honks long and loud, and Gabriel shoots him the bird.

  We barrel back to the street the car’s on. I get out alone, pulling my gloves back on, then dipping my hands into my pockets because who wears gloves this time of year? I move carefully to the van and open the side door. The bleach smell wrecks my lungs and makes my eyes tear up, so I put my shirt over my mouth and nose and do a quick pass of the backseats, ducking to look under them, then running my hand along the seat cracks here, too. I pull up more crackers and sticky, nasty kid mess, but no medal. I stumble out of the van, eyes weeping, coughing like mad, feeling like someone sandblasted my throat and lungs.

  “Well?” Gabriel asks, turning in his seat so he can look at me as I slide into the backseat again and Eddie takes off fast.

  “It’s not there,” I say. My voice is as shredded as I feel.

  A string of curses pours out of his mouth. “If it’s in the bank…”

  “I know,” I say.

  “No, I don’t think you do.” He runs a hand through his hair and glares at me. “If they find it…”

  “I get it!” I yell, more mad at myself than at him. I’m always careful. How could I have screwed up so badly? Gabriel slaps the back of my head, just hard enough to make it sting.

  “Hey, cut it out. He’s sorry, okay?” Benny leans between us so Gabriel won’t hit me again. My head throbs, but I don’t go after Gabriel. I deserved the slap. We could get caught. For the first time since we started doing jobs, I’m really freaking scared.

  “Any idea where exactly you might’ve lost it?” Benny asks. “Think hard, bro.”

  I run through the whole job in my head—going through the door, past the lobby, to the offices.

  The offices.

  That lady grabbed my neck. Or it came off when I ran into the girl outside. I don’t know…but the more I think about it, the more I’m sure it happened inside the bank.

  “The woman I pulled out of the bank office. She grabbed my chest. She could’ve pulled it off,” I say, surer with every word that this is what happened. Somewhere in that office the medal could be just lying there. Would it have gone under the desk? Or would it be in plain view—one giant, ridiculously good clue that will lead the police straight to us? I need to get back to that bank. It’s all I can do not to jump out of the car and run all the way there now. But that would be stupid.

  “Perfect. Just perfect,” Gabriel mutters. “The police are all over that bank right now. No way we can go back for it,” he says, reading my mind.

  “So what do we do, then?” Benny asks, and all of them look at me. I lost the stupid thing, so it’s up to me to figure out the next step.

  “I go back tomorrow. The police’ll be gone and it’ll be business as usual. I’ll find a way to get into that lady’s office and look for it. And if they have it already and they come for me…they get only me. No way I’d give any of you up. You know that. Ever.”

  “Yeah, we know,” Benny says.

  We keep quiet, each of us imagining the heat that could right now be headed my way. Much as they trust me to keep them safe and not rat them out, they’re already putting distance between us. But that’s okay. I’ve got bigger things to worry about right now. Once Soldado finds out, he’ll have to let his carnales know….

  “Look, we don’t gotta say anything to Soldado about this,” Benny says out loud, like he’s reading my thoughts.

  Gabriel stares out the passenger side window.

  “Gabriel, think about my mom and Maria. For their sakes, don’t,” I say, hating how desperate and scared I sound.

  “You have to find it,” Gabriel says. “Whatever you gotta do. Do it.”

  When the Madison Street house comes into view, my insides start to shake. Soldado’s favorite car is in front of it—a tricked-out Dodge Charger that looks like something from one of those Fast and Furious movies. Not the typical wheels for him, way too small to be comfortable for someone his size. He’s over 210 if he’s a pound, and at least six feet tall. The dude benches a sick amount of weight, and his arms and chest are ripped. I think if his dad hadn’t been in Florencia Heights when he was coming up and inspired his son to do the same, Soldado could have been a football player with a nickname like Bulldozer.

  “Let’s get this over with,” Eddie says as he climbs out of the car and grabs a duffel bag. “I got plans later.”

  “Yeah, with who?” Benny asks.

  “None of your business.”

  Benny laughs—it’s a nervous sort of sound, half amused, but riding on a current of fear. “Yeah, that means he’s got a booty call in with Theresa.”

  “So what if I do?” Eddie shrugs, but he won’t look directly at us. Theresa’s a girl who lives down the street from him, and as skinny as he is, she’s equally…uh…curvy. Carlos always ribs him about it, which makes no sense, given his own weight issues.

  Carlos looks ready to launch into a Theresa-bashing comedy routine when the front door of the house opens and one of Soldado’s guys appe
ars in the doorway, and the moment gets serious.

  We walk inside, nodding to Twitch, the dude in the doorway, nicknamed for his tic, this constant jerk of his head that happens every few minutes and makes him look perpetually nervous. He probably has Tourette’s syndrome, but I would never ask him about it.

  The house is hot and loud. It’s the middle of the day, but there’s a bunch of people hanging out, dancing, and drinking forties.

  Soldado has set up camp in the master bedroom. He’s got a couple of camping chairs around a card table on the concrete subfloor and is eating a foot-long Subway sandwich, his hand on another one like he’s afraid it’ll roll off the table before he can devour it, too.

  “It go smooth?” Soldado asks right out of the gate, and I feel my balls shrink up. I don’t dare look at the others or show any sign that something’s up, not with him and all his boys watching.They miss nothing.

  I wait for Gabriel to tell him about my medal. A month ago he wouldn’t have, no matter what. We’re family. That comes first. But now…after all the time he’s spent with the Florencia boys and the way they seem to get tighter all the time…I’m almost sure he’ll offer it up.

  Benny clears his throat. “Way smooth.”

  Soldado takes a bite of sandwich. Tuna salad. Ugh. I hate the stuff. The smell. It makes me want to gag. “Well, what are you waiting for? Unpack the bills.”

  We unzip the duffel bags and start stacking the cash in front of him while he eats. The pile is impressive, and his eyes light up. “Oh yeah. Now, that’s what I’m talkin’ about.” He puts down his sandwich and thumbs through a stack of cash. “Nice.”

  It takes him a while to count it and then count it again. Fifty thousand dollars. He stacks it into seven piles: one for each of us, one for him for arranging the getaway car and supplying the guns and equipment, and one for the Eme because any job done in their hood is subject to their tax, which amounts to half the take. Don’t pay it and they find out? (And they always find out.) You and everyone you love gets a hit put on their heads. It’s the cost of doing business. Simple as that. Still, it sucks to watch the Eme pile grow tall and see our skinny piles beside it. All that risk. All that work. And all we get is a little over four thousand dollars apiece. But I’d rather have four thousand and still be alive than more money and end up dead. Except now I have to worry about getting caught. It’s not enough money to go to jail for, not by a long shot.

  “You tell them about the next one?” he asks Gabriel.

  “Yeah. I mentioned it.”

  What is he doing? I dropped my medal back there, and now we’re talking about the next job? There can’t be a next job. Today cinched that. Even if by some miracle I manage to get the medal back, we need to stop. Today was a warning. The medal. The girl. It’s over. Besides, what’s the rush? We never do a job this close on the heels of another. Soldado knows how bad an idea that is.

  “I got my guys ready to start diggin’ now,” Soldado says. “You’re gonna hit on Fourth of July weekend. Bank is closed. Plus, there’s construction going on in the building. Makes it less likely anyone’ll hear any noise or worry about vibrations from underground. Gives these guys plenty of time to make sure they can bust through the vault floor and gives you guys time to empty it, plus the deposit boxes. The only time we’ll ever get the opportunity on this one. And this time you get it all. Every last cent. None of this petty smash-and-grab stuff anymore.”

  Before I can think better of it, I blurt out, “We didn’t agree to do it.”

  “What’s there to think about? You do this job and it goes well? You’ll be rich.” Soldado leans back in his chair and looks at us, smiling. “We’ll take a break. Even if we wanted to do more jobs, the heat’ll be too much.” He’s basically repeating what Gabriel told us yesterday. “Imagine that.” He smiles again, wide enough that I can see all his teeth. “You got my word.”

  I look over at Benny, Carlos, and Eddie, all of them extra anxious to leave, like me. And then there’s Gabriel, cracking jokes with Twitch, acting like the gun sticking out of the waistband of Twitch’s jeans isn’t even there. Like he belongs or something.

  “We can’t do it,” I say, and before Soldado can argue, I turn and walk out, eyes half shut as I push through the crowd outside the door, hoping like mad that Benny, Carlos, and Eddie are behind me and that Twitch’s gun is still holstered in his jeans.

  My alarm goes off, jarring me out of a nightmare about the bank robbery from yesterday morning. This time when the guy runs into me, he lifts his mask and it’s Harrison. He points his gun at my chest and it goes off. I have this phantom ache right under my ribs, just below my heart, and also a very real, very large lump on the back of my head. What is going on? I feel like I somehow dropped out of regular life and landed in the middle of some alternate universe where I’m surrounded by criminals.

  It’s Tuesday morning and I get out of bed, shower, and start dressing for battle. Even if Leo, Elena, and Whitney hadn’t been texting me constantly all day yesterday to give me the school gossip blow by blow, I’d be expecting the onslaught of whispering, pointing, and laughing that will rain down on Quinn and me. Scandal like the one our family is involved in doesn’t get ignored, even if up until now we’ve both been pretty popular—maybe especially because of that.

  I’ve got on my skinniest skinny jeans—the ones that are guaranteed to make guys stare at my legs and forget about what my father’s done—stacked-heel boots, and a shirt that adheres to the dress code and flatters in all the right places. I look sexy and confident. Good. I’m going to need all the confidence I can muster.

  It’s our first day back at Westwood Prep since Dad’s arrest. We missed yesterday to go with my mother to the bank and the lawyer’s office, but neither of us can afford to miss any more time, and besides, home is the last place I want to be right now. I have to keep moving. Stop and I risk thinking about everything too much.

  “You’re going all in,” Quinn says when he sees me, one eyebrow raised. He’s got on his usual jeans, T-shirt, and Converse combination. Guys don’t need the armor girls do.

  The day is nice—hot, but clear and a little breezy. We slip into the garage and stare at our bikes. The minute I got my license, the first thing I did was beg our parents for a motorcycle. That they gave it to me without a fight shows how much they like to spoil us. And that the following month Quinn got one just goes to show how committed my brother is to not letting me do risky stuff without him. My bike looks like bright blue-and-black death, a rocket with wheels, which is exactly what made me want it. What makes me love it even more is that it can go five miles per hour faster than Quinn’s bike.

  We strap our book bags to the backs of our bikes and roll them to the garage door.

  “You look to see if the press people arrived yet?” I ask Quinn.

  “There’s a couple, but it looked pretty quiet.” When Dad was arrested and the reporters started to show up, I pictured them camping out in front of our house 24/7, but it turns out most of them take off sometime after eight o’clock at night and don’t return until morning.

  “Should we mess with them a little?” I grab my helmet and slip it over my head.

  “Why not?” Quinn laughs as he does the same. It makes me feel good that I can always manage to cheer him up, even at the worst of times.

  We let the garage door rumble to life before we start the bikes. I can’t see or hear the people out on our sidewalk, but I can sense them scurrying into action, grabbing cameras so they can tape some footage of what they hope is my mother leaving the house looking disheveled and emotionally overwrought. A thrill goes through me. We’ll give them a show, but not that kind. I rev my bike and lean forward. The door is halfway up. When it’s at three-quarters, I glance over at Quinn and he nods and we both shoot from underneath it, bursting out of the garage like we’re being shot from a cannon, tires squealing. I spin sideways to the left, leaving a smear of black on the driveway, and feint like I’m headed straight for the
cameras. Laughing into my helmet as a reporter dives out of the way and face-plants into a patch of flowers, I correct my course and hurtle onto the street.

  There’s an unspoken dare in the way Quinn looks over at me and tilts his head once we leave the confines of our neighborhood. He wants to race—something we do often enough to earn us a ticket or two. Or four.

  I lay on the throttle in reply, and we weave our way into traffic. School is a fifteen-minute drive, but we’ll make it in ten. I’m laughing the whole way, mostly because I picture Quinn cracking up, too. We’re competitive, but half the fun is in the race, not the finish. It’s the feel of the wind on my face, the growl of my bike, and having Quinn right there next to me. Who needs coffee in the morning when you can have this to wake you up?

  We pull into the parking lot with Quinn just a hairbreadth ahead of me. He guns his bike so it goes triumphantly up on one wheel, and even though he can’t see it, I roll my eyes. Show-off. I might have lost, but I feel good as we cruise toward our designated parking spaces. My heart’s pumping and my gut is a cage of butterflies after all the close calls we made to get ahead of the traffic. Which means there’s no more room for nerves about what might happen at school.

  Our friends are milling around our parking spots, waiting for us.

  “I’m so glad you’re back!” Elena says once I’m off the bike. She throws her arms around me and squeezes hard, as if we haven’t seen each other in weeks. “So what happened yesterday? Quinn said you got mowed down by bank robbers or something. Is that true? ’Cause that robbery was on the news last night. They said the guys who did it have hit a bunch of banks. They’re like pros or something.”

  “Yeah,” I say, half embarrassed, though I don’t know why. “I was standing in front of the bank, and one of them basically tackled me.” I hesitate a second, remembering. “He was wearing a mask, but I did see his eyes.” The exact shade is still crystal clear in my memory. Thinking about it now, it seems like we stared at each other for a long time, but it was maybe seconds. “They were really dark brown. Nearly black, actually. And maybe it was just the sun on his face, but they sort of glittered. You know how some people’s eyes are like that? All lit up?” This sounds weird. I’m weird. Stop obsessing about his eyes.