Loot

by Jude Watson

  March noted a round hole in the drywall, about the size of a fist.

  “Sometimes the discussion can get heated,” Pete said.

  “Can’t wait,” March said.

  “ ’Kay. Rules. Four p.m. to six p.m., that’s quiet time — for homework and whatnot. Lights-out nine thirty p.m. Doors are locked after ten p.m. No entering the pink house next door, ever, without permission. Mandy Sue and I will work out a schedule so you two can see each other.”

  Jules shifted. March looked at the hole in the wall. Did they want to see each other? Could he escape this place without her? Leave her behind?

  He thought of Alfie’s fluttering hand. Find Jules….

  “ ’Kay. Julia, Mandy Sue is waiting for you in the pink house. March, come with me.”

  March followed behind Pete. He led him to a whiteboard at the back door, a chart with all the boys’ names written down and a series of boxes next to them labeled GOALS. Under that category were listed things like CHORES, HOMEWORK COMPLETED, POSITIVE ATTITUDE! and GARDEN.

  “Everybody’s got to work in the garden,” Pete said. “It’s Mandy Sue’s thing.”

  March quickly scanned the whiteboard. Most of the kids had a bunch of green and yellow checks, with a few reds sprinkled in. All except for a kid named Darius Fray. Who had a line of red checks next to his name.

  “Green means you’re toeing the line,” Pete said.

  March had never met a line he hadn’t wanted to cross.

  “Yellow means caution, buddy, you’re in my sight line. Red means you’ve got one foot into juvie land. A total of twenty checks, you’re out — sent back into the system, which I guarantee will not be a picnic.”

  March counted nineteen checks in Darius’s column. Most of them were under POSITIVE ATTITUDE! He saw the phrase AGGRESSIVE BEHAVIOR!!!!!!! He counted the exclamation points. “So who’s the psycho?”

  “That would be me,” a deep voice said.

  March turned to find the boy he’d seen spitting out the window earlier.

  Darius was a six-foot tower of muscle topped with shoulder-length dreads. He had feet like canoes and hands like Easter hams. One swipe and March would face-plant in New Jersey.

  Darius took in March’s floppy green sweats and Mountain Dew T-shirt. “So this is Cuke Boy,” he said. “Welcome.”

  The words were perfectly normal. But the gaze said death.

  “Darius, meet March, your new roommate,” Pete said.

  He gave him a lazy smile. “Looks like you get the psycho, bro. Boo!”

  Pete held up a finger. “That’s enough. You’ve run out of options, big fella. After what happened to the last roommate … no funny business!”

  “Aw, what’s a couple of visits to the ER?” Darius asked. He winked at March. “And this one doesn’t look as accident-prone.”

  March took in a gulp of air. First sign of a bully, you have to go for it. If you wait, you’re dead. You might still be breathing, but it’s all over. You’re that guy’s puppy dog from then on.

  “Aside from that excess saliva problem, I’m sure we’ll get along,” he said.

  Darius tilted his head. He regarded March the way a lion might eye a gazelle, planning the fun of running it down before ripping its throat open.

  Outside the kitchen window March noticed a tiny girl with pigtails and an adorable face watching the encounter. When she saw him notice her, she smiled, two deep dimples appearing in her cheeks. Then she leaned closer and pointed at Darius, then March. Still smiling, she mouthed the words as she drew a finger across her throat:

  You’re dead.

  * * *

  It was like waiting for the other shoe to drop. A Frankenstein boot of doom.

  The suspense was killing March. Darius didn’t even flick his gaze once at him during dinner. Bedtime rituals began at nine, and lights-out was at nine thirty. March brushed his teeth and flicked out his light at nine fifteen. He heard the lonesome hoot of the commuter train as it approached the station a half mile away. He imagined running for it.

  Instead he lay awake and waited to be killed.

  At nine thirty Pete yelled, “Lights-out!” and the lights flicked off, one by one. March lay rigid.

  The floorboards creaked. An immense shadow expanded to fill the bed.

  March climbed out of bed. He was fully dressed.

  He held up a hand. “Dude. I realize you’re older, taller, and meaner than I am. And you possibly have a chemical imbalance. But let’s be clear. I’m not going to be your puppy in this kennel. So. What are we going to do?”

  Darius’s voice vibrated more with melancholy than menace, as if he were deeply sad at the damage he was about to inflict on March’s person. He stared down at him with hooded eyes. “Well, lookit you, Scooby-Doo,” he said. “Let’s take a walk. You and I are about to have a … conversation.”

  Every nerve was skittering as he followed Darius down the back staircase. Alfie had instructed him to get the first punch in, but March had never punched anybody. Why hadn’t Alfie told him where to aim?

  Pete’s office door was closed, but a thin line of yellow light showed at the door frame. They moved silently past it.

  Darius stopped at the back door. It was fastened with a padlock.

  “Open it.”

  March wanted to pretend he didn’t know how, but he had a feeling that wouldn’t fly. He didn’t know how Darius knew he was good with locks, but he wasn’t about to bluff.

  Alfie had taught him how to make a shim with assorted handy things — a soda can, a bobby pin, a paper clip. Next to the whiteboard was a bulletin board. March found the chore schedule, which was paper clipped together. He took the paper clip, straightened it, and wiggled the end into the padlock. He turned it, and when he felt the tumblers move and click into place, he bent the paper clip and used the tension to pull it to the right. The lock sprang open.

  It had taken him about five seconds. Darius raised an eyebrow.

  How smart was it to pick the lock to your very own doom? No choice. March pushed open the door to Mayhem City.

  His heart now hammering triple time, March followed Darius down the dark lawn, their footsteps whispering in the grass.

  Something alerted him, some sense of movement or sound, and March whipped around in time to see a shadow detach from the roof next door. Someone landed on the wide flat branch of the oak and reached out to swing a smaller shadow down.

  Jules and the tiny girl who had told him he was going to die.

  Jules lowered the other girl to the garage roof. The girl inched along to the edge while Jules kicked out with her feet to send the swing wide. Then she grabbed it, flipped over, swung hard, and, hanging on to the two ropes, did a double somersault to the ground.

  “Whoa,” Darius said.

  She went to the garage roof, climbed up a drainpipe, and waited for the small kid to climb on her back. Then she slid to the ground.

  “Hey,” she said. She folded her arms, addressing Darius. “How long?”

  “About five seconds, including straightening the paper clip,” Darius said.

  “Toldja,” Jules said.

  So Jules was the one who told the freak that he could pick locks. Betrayed already. And they’d only just met.

  Still, it looked as though she saved him from a Jersey face-plant, so …

  “Meet Izzy,” Darius said, indicating the petite girl. “We’ve got a deal on the table.”

  “And that is?” March asked warily.

  “You pick locks. That brings up opportunities for advancement.”

  “What do you have in mind?”

  “This is a corrupt system, and I want to maximize my experience,” Darius said, tilting back and crossing his arms. “One way or another, I’ll be out of here and on the streets, and if I have a stake, I’ll be better off.”

  “What do you mean, a corrupt system?”

  “You notice how beat every stick of furniture is? How everybody fights over the food, bad as it is? Mandy Sue a
nd Pete are skimming off the top. Scamming the state. What did we have for dinner tonight?”

  “Um, gray meat and canned corn?”

  “You see that vegetable garden? Mandy Sue found this organization that gives out grants to people who plant organic gardens for at-risk kids. So we weed it, and she takes pictures of us. Then she sells the produce to the farmers’ market and pockets the cash. Corrupt system, bro.”

  “So what’s your idea?”

  “Mandy Sue goes across the river to the big-box store and buys everything in bulk,” Darius said. “I know a guy who operates out of his trailer. Sells stuff that fell off a truck for cheap.”

  “Stuff that fell off a truck? You mean it was stolen.”

  Darius shrugged. “We can get an exchange going.”

  “Toilet paper and laundry detergent?” March tried to keep the disdain out of his voice, but, really. He’d gone from assisting a diamond heist to toilet paper?

  “Don’t knock it,” Darius said. “It’s cash in your pocket. All you have to do is pick a lock.”

  “Won’t she notice stuff is missing?”

  Darius pointed with his chin. “Izzy here fixes Pete’s computer, runs his programs. She can change the amounts in the inventory. She’s got his password.”

  “How’d you get good at hacking, Izzy?” Jules asked.

  Izzy shrugged. Her face seemed to close down.

  “Izzy doesn’t like to talk unless she has something to say,” Darius said. “Things go better for you here if you shut up.” He grinned. “Unfortunately I can’t seem to stay on that particular path.”

  Jules eased herself off the picnic table. “I hear you, Darius,” she said. “It’s a tough break for all of us, landing here. Especially considering Mandy Sue’s taste in sweatpants. But the way I look at it, we’ve got three squares a day and a bed to sleep in. Maybe a foster family down the line. I’ve spent my whole life moving. I’m ready to stay put.”

  Darius guffawed. “You’re looking at a foster family to save you? Talk to Izzy sometime about the swell folks she met up with in the system.”

  “So you won’t help us?” Izzy’s voice was small.

  “Sorry,” Jules said. “I know I used to swing on a trapeze for a living, but I don’t steal.” She smirked at March. “That’s more my brother’s line.”

  The next night Darius found him trying to read The Moonstone in his room.

  “TV night, Marcello. Lame, but it cuts the despair.”

  March followed Darius down the stairs. Kids thundered through the halls, slammed doors, skidded in their socks. In the den, they jostled for the best positions. Jules was already there, sitting on the floor with Izzy. The room was pretty much divided between boys and girls, and it would look weird if he sat next to her. Not that he wanted to. He sat against the wall.

  Pete and Mandy Sue had commandeered the armchairs. Mandy Sue was flossing her teeth.

  “Just don’t look,” Darius whispered. “And watch out for flying corn.”

  Pete stood up, holding the remote. “Anybody doesn’t follow the rules, it goes off,” he said. He held the remote for a few seconds longer, just to let them know who was boss. Then he turned on the TV.

  One by one the words splattered in lurid red type across the screen.

  THEY

  GOT

  AWAY

  WITH

  IT!

  WITH YOUR HOST

  DETECTIVE MIKE SHANNON

  Mist blanketed an alley. A man strode toward the camera in a belted trench coat and fedora.

  “Loser!” someone yelled.

  “Detective Stupid!”

  “Pipe down!” Mandy Sue yelled. “This is my favorite show!”

  He came closer to the camera. “I’m a former homicide detective, NYPD. You are surrounded by criminals. They’re out there, and they’re out to get you. And they. Are. Getting. Away. With it.”

  “Wooooo-hoooooo!” someone yelled. Catcalls erupted around the room.

  CRIME OF THE CENTURY: THE GRIMSTONE HEIST.

  Detective Shannon was now standing by a gray lake. “Ten years ago, on the night of a full moon, the peaceful community of Fortune Falls was invaded by a gang of thieves. Their target? The multimillion-dollar jewel collection of Carlotta Grimstone, one of the wealthiest women in the world.”

  “Fortune Falls?” Mandy Sue sat up straighter. “That’s just a half-hour away. We’re famous!”

  Fortune Falls was also Alfie’s hometown — where he was buried. March felt a prick of alertness, a sense that something was coming that he might not want to know.

  A photograph flashed on the screen, and Jules gave March a quick, startled glance. It was the woman who had accosted them at the cemetery! He recognized the deep grooves around her mouth, the unnaturally plump lips, the black hair drawn straight back and tucked behind her ears.

  Detective Shannon strolled toward the camera. “Carlotta inherited her wealth through the Grimstone family. You may have heard of them — Grimstone Tires, Grimstone Industries, and, of course, now the famous Grimstone Trust. Carlotta herself, at eighty, is still prominent in society life in Manhattan.”

  A shot of Carlotta in a red gown at some society bash.

  “Granny is rocking that tiara!” one of the kids hooted.

  “But that night, ten years ago, Carlotta was not at her lakefront summer home. Instead, three thieves were looting the house of her most precious possessions: her jewels. But these are not ordinary jewels.”

  A shot of Carlotta talking:

  “Yes, I collect jewels that are cursed. I don’t believe in curses. I believe in the anticurse, if you will. If I buy these stones and if I’m not afraid, I am gaining courage every day I own them.” She smiled. “In my younger days, they called me Fate’s Temptress.”

  Mike Shannon again. “That night, the thieves slipped in and out without tripping the alarm. Their prize? The twenty-five-million-dollar Makepeace Diamond. Cursed. The Crack in the Sky, the priceless turquoise stone rumored to have been responsible for the death and financial ruin of each of its owners. Catherine the Great’s emerald brooch, smuggled out of Russia in the nineteenth century. But there was one theft that Carlotta Grimstone couldn’t forgive.”

  Seven iridescent stones in a necklace flashed on the screen, worn around the scrawny neck of Carlotta.

  “The Seven Sacred Moonstones,” Mike Shannon said.

  March flinched. Jules turned around and shook her head at him as if to say, This is crazy.

  “Said to have been carved from Merlin’s cave. Rumored to tell fortunes, predict fates … and foretell the future. Which makes them magic. And … priceless.”

  March’s fingers itched to dig into his secret pocket. He thought of Carlotta Grimstone saying, They are rough magic. Cruel. But real.

  “It was this last theft that destroyed Carlotta Grimstone.”

  A shot of Carlotta again, this time looking haggard.

  “Carlotta believed in the legend. The moonstones were her protection against fate. Or so she believed. Who stole them? Police suspect the three most ruthless jewel thieves in the history of American criminals.”

  A face flashed on the screen. March smothered his gasp. It was Alfie.

  The photograph was an old one. Alfie looked younger, lean and handsome in a dinner jacket.

  Thieves avoid being photographed. If March wanted a photo of his dad, he’d have to reach for a mug shot. Now here was his father’s grin, his way of cocking his head slightly at you, as if he was inviting you in closer to hear something outrageous or to share a joke. March’s face felt red with the effort to look unmoved. He sat very still.

  “Alfred McQuin, aka Gentleman Alfie, successful jewel thief, second-story man, and con artist.”

  Jules stared straight at the TV, hugging her knees very hard.

  “Was he working with this man?”

  A mug shot of a handsome guy, smiling. Usually men in mug shots looked evil or unshaven or tired or pissed off, but this guy looked
like a frat boy on a beach with a frozen margarita. Blond, blue eyed, and smug.

  “Robert Oscar Ford grew up in Indiana. A farm boy, a basketball forward with a scholarship to Duke and a bright future. Instead he pulled off his first heist at seventeen, knocking over his fiancée’s father’s jewelry store. Then he disappeared. Within a few years he was on the FBI’s most wanted list. That night, ten years ago, he was caught red-handed with Crack in the Sky, as well as the emerald brooch. Oscar Ford was put away for nine long years. He is currently out on parole.”

  A photo flashed on-screen, one March had never seen before. His mother was leaning back on a blanket in the grass, laughing.

  She looked so young and pretty. Jules looked so much like her. If you took away the bad attitude and the scowl.

  “As for the last suspect, this mysterious, beautiful brunette could be the key. Maggie Barnes was a student when she met Alfie McQuin. It was love at first sight, and rumor has it that it wasn’t long after their hasty marriage that crafty McQuin lured young Maggie into being an accomplice on his jobs.”

  No! Alfie didn’t lure her! They loved each other!

  “The body of Maggie Barnes was found the day after the heist, washed up at the foot of Fortune Falls. Alfred McQuin disappeared.

  “What happened that night? Why did Maggie Barnes tumble down the falls? Why did Alfred McQuin disappear? Did they see their dark fortunes? Was it too much to bear? We’ll never know. Because only a month ago …” March closed his eyes as the headlines he remembered so well flashed on-screen.

  “… McQuin fell off a roof in Amsterdam in the middle of a heist, his pockets stuffed with diamonds. Oscar Ford was released from the penitentiary in April. If he knows anything about the missing jewels, he isn’t talking.” Shannon faced the screen, mist curling behind him. “What happened to the Makepeace Diamond? Are Merlin’s magic moonstones lost forever?”

  “McQuin,” one of the kids said. “Hey, new kid, isn’t that …”