by Jude Watson
He reached up to steady the fabric as Jules swung herself on. Izzy was now halfway down.
Oscar ran out on the terrace. He placed his hands on the railing and looked down. His face was twisted in fury as he let out a strangled curse, a howl of pure rage.
“Come on, Izzy!” March urged. “Hurry!”
Oscar disappeared for a moment.
“Do a drop!” March called out to Jules.
“I can’t! Not while Izzy’s on the silk!”
Oscar returned. He was carrying a knife.
“Long way down!” he called to Jules. He began to saw away at the material.
March locked eyes with a terrified Izzy. He stood, reaching up, but she was still about eight feet above him. He would have to catch her. He didn’t know if he could.
“You’ve got to let go,” he called. He planted his feet wide apart and braced himself.
Suddenly Darius stepped up behind him. “I’ve got this,” he told March. He held up his arms. “Jump.”
Izzy jumped. Darius caught her, staggering only a bit.
Desperately March looked up at Jules. As soon as Izzy was safe, she wrapped her legs around the silk, twisted her body, and dived. She dropped four feet. Half of the silk tore, and she dropped another foot. She righted herself, twisting her body again. Oscar now held the silk in both hands.
He began to haul her up. “How high do you want to drop from, Jules?” he taunted. The motion of the silk caused her to swing crazily.
Jules used the motion to kick off from the building. The momentum of the swing sent her toward the wall of the other building.
March gasped as she let go of the silk, flew midair, and grabbed the end of a fire escape with one hand. The other hand snatched at air.
She’s going to fall!
March ran underneath the fire escape. She was three stories above him. He couldn’t catch her. He would watch, helpless, as she fell.
His brain roared, Noooooooooooo.
Izzy gasped, her fist in her mouth. “Pleasepleasepleaseplease …”
He looked up at Jules swinging by one hand. Hang on. Hang on!
Jules’s face was contorted with effort. Slowly, she swung by one hand. The other one reached out, shaking with the effort….
Like the hand in my dream, shaking …
And suddenly he felt the moonstones in his secret pocket, as if they had weight and heat, and it was as though they were willing her to fall….
As if they both had walked into the prophecy and tempted it …
“NO!” March shouted. “Hang ON!”
… And her hand slapped against the railing of the fire escape. She grabbed it. For a moment her cheek pressed against the metal, and she took a breath.
“NOW!” March yelled.
In a series of movements that flowed like swiftly running water, Jules hoisted herself onto the fire escape. She ran down, around and around, grabbed the final ladder, released the mechanism, and the ladder clanged down. She scrambled down and jumped the last few feet.
“You won’t get away with this!” Oscar screamed. He turned and ran off the terrace.
“He’s coming for us,” March said, reaching for Jules’s hand.
Oscar charged out of the building, and Mikki hit the gas. She screamed onto the West Side Highway and gunned the engine.
“Nobody back there,” she said after a minute.
March removed his face from the car seat where he had buried it. Jules straightened up from where her face was pressed to her knees. Izzy gripped Darius’s hand.
“Close.” March managed to get out the word. He could still see Oscar’s face, twisted in hate.
“Gotta say, when I saw Oscar on the terrace and you all on that rope thing, I got a case of the nerves,” Mikki said. “But you pulled it out. Now relax.”
Relaxing was out of the question. They opted to breathe.
Mikki drove at exactly nine miles above the speed limit, because “they don’t ticket you at nine miles above the speed limit.” She constantly checked her mirrors. “He didn’t bother to try to follow us,” she said. “Everything didn’t go right, but you got away, you got your loot, so we’re good. Everybody calm down,” she said, even though nobody was talking.
Mikki checked the rear view again. She frowned. “I think I saw that blue Subaru back on the block.”
As the light turned yellow, she sped up and ran through the red.
“Lost him.” Her shoulders relaxed.
“That can’t be Oscar,” Darius said. “He didn’t have time to get to his car.”
“Don’t go telling me who is tailing and who is not. I’m the wheelman.” Mikki turned the wheel, hard, and with a squeal of tires they turned onto Fortieth Street. She gunned the engine, and they zoomed down the street at sixty miles an hour. Izzy closed her eyes and clutched the door handle.
“Mama? Can you slow down?”
“No.” She hung a right on Eleventh Avenue. Made a left on Thirtieth Street. A right on Ninth. Some blocks she sped, some blocks she cruised.
Finally she was satisfied. “I’ll drop you guys at Fifty-Sixth and Eighth. That way I can make a left on Fifty-Seventh and get back up to the Bronx. I don’t want to get caught in Columbus Circle.”
“Roast chicken on Sunday, remember?” Darius asked.
Mikki drummed the wheel. “Listen, D, while you were pulling the job, I got a call. There’s a job in Florida.”
Darius went still. “But you just got out. I only saw you once.”
“I know, baby, but I gotta take it.”
“What happened to Robin Hood’s arrow?”
Mikki’s face creased in annoyance. “So Robin Hood’s a crook; he’s got a crooked arrow. I can’t turn this down. It’s big money.”
“Never heard that before,” Darius said.
“Watch your mouth! I’m still your mama!”
Mikki swerved and braked at a bus stop. She twisted in her seat.
“You still my baby?”
Darius had the remote look on his face that March had come to know. “Yeah.”
They scrambled out of the car. Mikki peeled off with a honk and a wave.
Izzy slipped her hand into Darius’s pocket and leaned against him.
“My dad made better chicken anyway,” Darius said. “Used to be a chef in Paris.”
“Of course he was,” Izzy said.
Just then a car swerved over three lanes of traffic and pulled up in the crosswalk, blocking them. It was a blue Subaru.
A man in a sports shirt, jeans, and running shoes got out of the car. He had the blinding teeth of a media personality.
“It’s Detective Mike Shannon!” Darius said. “Whoa, I know you!”
“Of course you do,” Mike Shannon said, unwrapping a stick of gum.
“You’re going to get a ticket,” Izzy said. “Your car is in a crosswalk.”
“I don’t think so. People like me don’t get tickets.”
He put the gum in his mouth and chewed the stiffness out of it. Apparently they were required to wait.
“So. You know who I am. And I know who you are,” he said to March. “And you,” he said to Jules. “And I know you had a conversation with Carlotta Grimstone.”
“Is that against the law?” March said.
“Relax, kid,” Shannon said. “I’m retired, remember? I just want to talk.”
“About what?” Jules asked.
“I was tailing Oscar Ford tonight. He goes to a bar, watches the game, jogs home. I’m about to head home when I see you kids running out of an alley, getting into a Lexus, and taking off up the West Side Highway doing fifty miles per hour.”
“Forty-nine,” Darius said.
“And I ask myself, why?” Mike Shannon said, chewing.
“And I ask myself, why do you care?” March asked in a pleasant tone.
“I’ll tell you why, son of Alfred McQuin,” Mike Shannon said. “Ten years ago, a heist takes place — a fortune, right? One thief gets caught, one thie
f dies, and one thief gets away. Moonstones and a diamond disappear. And one cop, the one who noticed the open window, the boot print that belonged to Oscar Ford — the one who was in on the arrest? He is accused by Ford of stealing the Makepeace Diamond. Never proven, but he stops getting promoted. His career stalls. He goes on to have a better career — even becomes a TV star — but he never forgets Oscar Ford. Because he thinks Ford accused him to conceal the fact that Ford had the jewel. He hid it that night, and was planning to fence it when he got out of prison. Can we guess who the cop was?”
“It’s gotta be that old blowhard from the TV,” Darius said.
Mike Shannon gave him a stone-cold stare.
“What do we have to do with it?” Jules asked. “Sounds like this is between you and Ford. And it all worked out, right? You make lots more money as the host of a TV show than you would have as a cop.”
“I’m the star of a TV show and a media personality, and, no, little lady, it didn’t work out. Because my name was never cleared. I know Ford pulled off that penthouse heist, and I know he masterminded the museum job. He’s got cash in his pockets. And he’s got some kind of plan. You happen to know what it is?”
“No,” March said.
“Well, I think you do. I think he’s out to steal those seven moonstones back and sell ’em to Carlotta Grimstone. Word on the street is that she wants them bad. And I think you know where they are.”
“What are you talking about? We’re just kids,” Jules said.
“Kids who broke into a high-security building. And I’m guessing, took something valuable. Kids whose daddy knew where those moonstones are.”
“You’re making a whole lot of noise, but not much sense,” Darius said.
“Oh really? I know Carlotta Grimstone picked you up the other night — yes, I was there — and I’m guessing she offered you the same deal she offered Oscar.”
“Nah, she was giving us a ride.”
“She wants them in time for the blue moon in four days. Because she’s crazy and she believes they’re magic.” Shannon looked at their faces. “I’m not trying to muscle you. I just want to make a deal.”
“We don’t make deals. We’re kids.”
Shannon ignored March. “I want him behind bars again,” he said. “And since you know where the moonstones are, you know where he’ll be. When you know he has seven, you find out where the drop is, and let me know.”
“This is all interesting,” Jules said. “Barely. But what’s in it for us?”
“Try this one: I know your names. The police have run the surveillance tapes from the museum. The pressure’s on, and somebody sometime is going to background check those singers. I can make it so your photo IDs disappear, along with fingerprints. I can make you ghost boys and girls. But if you don’t help me, I’ll just tip off the police that I know exactly who tried to steal the Widow’s Knot.”
Shannon tucked a piece of paper into March’s pocket. Then he spit his gum out onto the pavement. “Think about it.”
Darius balled up his burrito wrapper and looked around the drafty train car. “I am seriously getting tired of these accommodations.”
“Izzy looked up the two next targets — Renee Rooter lives in Connecticut, but Blanche Pottage is a San Francisco socialite,” Jules said. “We’re going to have to rustle up some fake IDs to get on a plane. And the one place people notice kids is when they’re traveling alone.”
“Be easier to travel by private jet,” March said.
“Don’t torture me,” Darius said, his hands on his stomach. “I’m full of beans. Things could get nasty.”
March grinned. “I texted Carlotta Grimstone a photo of the four moonstones and told her the next target was in San Francisco, but we needed help getting there. We leave for San Francisco in two hours.”
“Private jet?” Darius hooted. “I haven’t been on one of those since my daddy hung out with Bill Gates.”
The others rolled their eyes. “Sure, D,” Jules said.
“I read Oscar’s emails on that flash drive,” Izzy said. “He’s already booked to fly commercial, day after tomorrow.”
“He’s not going to give up on the moonstones,” March said.
“Or us,” Jules said. “He knows we’re after all the stones now. And that we ripped him off. ”
The thought of Oscar coming after them cast a sudden chill in the air.
“Let’s focus on S.F.,” March said. “We’ve got the time difference in our favor — three hours earlier there. Best if we go tonight, catch what sleep we can, and be ready to go early Sunday morning.”
“Just don’t ask me to catch a cab,” Darius said. “They don’t stop for brothers in dreads.”
“No worries,” March said, waving a hand. “Carlotta is sending her car.”
* * *
After they’d pushed every button they could push from the backseat in the limo, tormented the driver by asking if Darius could wear his hat, turned the TV off and on, and poured sparkling water into champagne glasses, March got back to business.
“Izzy has researched our two targets — we’re lucky because these two have digital trails. We know where they live and about their routines.”
“What about the first heist — Particle Zoo?” Jules asked. “We still haven’t figured it out.”
“I’ve reached out to someone who might know where the first moonstone is,” March said. “FX.”
“FX? As in, special effects?” Darius asked.
“He’s not your ordinary dude.”
“Another uncle?” Jules asked.
“Sort of. He might be able to help. The thing is, he’s got this paranoia issue … won’t answer an email or a text. I had to send a card to a post office box. I’m hoping he’ll come through. Meanwhile, let’s get these two.” March tapped the paper.
“San Francisco is Wet Paint,” Jules said. “Let’s start there. What does it mean?”
“Details make the job,” March said. “Alfie always admired a jewelry store heist in Biarritz. There’s a bench in front of the jewelry store the gang wants to rob. The weather’s nice; people sit there all the time. So what does the gang do? They paint it, then put a wet paint sign on it. Nobody sits on it, they rob the store … no witnesses.”
“So … we’re supposed to paint a bench?”
“I don’t know if Alfie meant it literally. The lesson is, when you plan the getaway, you disable the thing that the target or the witnesses might be using. You make it so there’s no one around, or you shake someone out of a routine. I think it will make sense when we get to San Francisco. Alfie always used to say, ‘The map is not the territory.’ It means you can plan something down to the last detail, but until you’re actually right in the space, on the street, whatever — you don’t know it.”
“And what about the Connecticut job … what does ‘Plastic Replica’ mean?”
“Easy. The Tucker Cross. Named after Teddy Tucker, the diver who found it in a wrecked fourteenth-century ship at the bottom of the sea. Gold cross with seven big, fat emeralds on it. The government of Bermuda wants to get their mitts on it, so they buy it. Then one day, about twenty years later, the Queen of England is coming for a visit, and they take a look and find out it’s been replaced by a cheap plastic replica. The thief was never found.”
“Lesson?”
“Replace the item you’re stealing. Chances are no one will notice until you’re far, far away. But if Alfie made a replica of anybody’s jewelry, I haven’t found it. And we don’t have time to figure out how to make one. So for the last one, we’ll have to reach into Alfie’s bag of tricks and come up with his favorite rule.”
“What?” Izzy asked.
“Improvise!”
The plane was a Gulfstream, and it came with a pilot, a copilot, and a self-service kitchen with snacks, sandwiches, and sodas. There was a flat-screen TV and a couch.
“So this is how rich folks travel,” Izzy said. “No lines, no hassles … just drive up and get on.�
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“Everything is easier when you’re rich,” Darius said.
“Money can’t buy happiness,” Jules said. She tried to look nonchalant, but she settled into the leather upholstery with a sigh and ran her hands down the armrests.
Darius chortled. “Are you crazy? Of course it can!”
* * *
Izzy and Darius slept. Jules slumped in her seat, her earbuds in her ears, her eyes closed. But March knew she wasn’t sleeping.
He sat down across from her. Outside the window were just thick clouds and thin air. They were suspended, moving so fast they didn’t seem to be moving at all.
With her eyes still closed, she said, “You seem so confident we can do this.”
“Doubt is something that should be entertained privately.”
“Another Alfie quote, right?”
“I think I’m starting to get why he was so afraid.” March hesitated. “When I saw you dangling from that fire escape … I kept thinking you were going to fall. It was like the moonstones wanted you to.”
“I’ve never been so scared.” Jules shuddered. “And believe me, I’ve been up that high before. It’s like the prophecy is taking hold of us or something. Like, it’s going to push us. I felt it, too.”
“Maybe he felt it that night. He had all seven. Maybe our mother felt it. Maybe she felt pushed.” March felt the moonstones then, the weight of them in his secret pocket. “Last night the dream was worse. Scarier. I think it’s because I know you now.” He swallowed. “Losing you in the dream … is harder.”
“I know.” Jules swallowed. “Alfie believed it. And I think Hamish does. And now I do, too.”
March let out a shaky breath. “I think there’s a reason Alfie was going after the moonstones. It wasn’t just the money. I think he was trying to break the curse.”
“But how?”
March shook his head. “Maybe Carlotta Grimstone will tell us. Didn’t she say she cheated death? If we get them for her, she owes us more than money.”