Loot

by Jude Watson

  The lights went out, the music stopped, and spotlights suddenly spun crazily. They came to rest on Blue, high up in the rigging. She wore a corset and a tutu shot through with spangles. Her eyebrows were drawn on, high above her azure eyes. Her blond hair was slicked back with gel. A long froth of tulle studded with crystals wound around her top hat.

  “Welcome to Particle Zoo,” she said.

  The crowd let out a thundering roar.

  Blue threw herself out, spinning on the cloud swing, then flipped over and spun again, finally reversing and letting herself gently hit the ground.

  She began to play her ukulele. Her voice was strident and strong. It wasn’t off-key, exactly, but somehow you expected it to crack at any moment.

  “Oh, quarks, I just don’t get you.

  I know that you are small.

  They measure you in flavors

  Like ice cream at the mall.

  Truth and beauty are one flavor,

  Always were a mismatched pair.

  Strange rocks that subatomic vibe

  Snaring charm with extra flair.”

  March caught a blur of movement. Jules was climbing the scaffolding.

  “I guess it means you’re everywhere

  But are you on the moon.

  Down here on Earth we struggle,

  Stuck in our particle zoo.”

  Jules drifted down on two ribbons of silk, twining herself in them and spinning as she drifted closer and closer to Blue, who continued to sing. Blue lost the beat of the song, unable to conceal her surprise.

  Then Jules soared over Blue, hanging by her ankles, and plucked the top hat right off her head. She swung back to a platform on the scaffolding and plopped the hat on her head. She bowed.

  Darius leaned in. “Look who just showed up.”

  It was Oscar, threading through the crowd, trying to get closer to the action. Jules climbed down the scaffolding, lifted the hat briefly to the applause, and then took off through the crowd, ripping off the blue crystals and tossing them as she ran, unwinding the tulle from the hat. Audience members let out thrilled screams and dived for a memento.

  March caught a flash of pale fire, and suddenly, he understood. “The moonstone!” he cried. “All this time … it was on the hat! Come on!”

  He took off down the tunnel after Jules. Away from the lights, she was just a shadow moving. Oscar was behind her, and gaining.

  March’s legs pumped, but he knew he couldn’t catch them. Darius was right at his heels, and he could hear Izzy’s ragged breathing as she ran. The tunnel was muddy here, and he had to dodge the dozers and borers and the gigantic coils of electric wire.

  Jules suddenly stopped short.

  Blue had somehow made her way faster — maybe from the many branching tunnels? — and dropped down in front of her, leaping from a bulldozer.

  Blue put up a hand to Oscar. “Don’t come any closer.”

  Her voice echoed in the tunnel. March crept forward.

  “You’re not going to harm this girl,” Blue called. “Everybody just … calm down.”

  “That little girl stole my rocks, lady,” Oscar said.

  “Rocks? Jules?”

  “Why are you acting like you don’t know each other?” March called out. “Back when you were Becky Barnes?”

  “What?” Jules asked. She looked confused. “You know him, Blue?”

  “Once, a long time ago.” Blue lifted her chin. “So what? My sister consorted with criminals. I met a few. But what are you doing, Jules? Why did you …” She took a breath. “The hat. You’re after the moonstones, aren’t you?”

  “Alfie gave me a moonstone,” Jules said. “I didn’t figure it out until today.”

  “Wait. Now you have all seven?” Blue asked.

  “I have all seven.”

  March’s gaze went from Blue to Jules and back again. It was clear that Jules hadn’t known that Blue knew Oscar. But who was fooling who?

  Blue put her arm around Jules. “But, darling, they don’t belong to you,” she said. “You see, you have to give them up. Do you want to be a thief like your mother? Die that kind of death? Is that the life you want?”

  Jules hesitated.

  Blue held out her hand. “Jules. I … I know I was careless and distant sometimes. But I do love you. I took you in and gave you the only life I knew. And I’ll protect you. Give me the stones. We’ll solve this together.”

  “But … there’s a prophecy.”

  “I know all about the prophecy. Alfie told me about it ten years ago. It was a tale told by a con man who wanted to get rid of a child —”

  “No!” March shouted.

  “You don’t want to be like him. Or your mother. Choose me. Choose family.”

  A sudden thought pierced March. If Blue truly cared about Jules … shouldn’t she care about March, too? She was his aunt. She’d barely given him a glance at the airport, or here….

  March saw naked emotion on Jules’s face. He recognized it because it lived in him. Yearning. The need to believe.

  Believe against the odds.

  Believe you are loved.

  “Enough of this, Blue,” Oscar growled, and took a step forward. “Give me the stones, kid.”

  “Stay back, Oscar!” Blue held up a hand, and in that gesture, in the commanding look she gave Oscar, in the way he obeyed, March suddenly saw it all. He saw that Blue was not just the ringleader of the Stick and Rag, but Oscar, too.

  They were in this together.

  Which meant …

  … she was a liar and a fake …

  … and a thief.

  “Jules, don’t!” March shouted.

  But Jules dug into her pocket. She spilled out the moonstones into Blue’s palm.

  “You made the right choice,” Blue said. She withdrew a small silk pouch from her pocket and dumped in the stones.

  No, no, no, no …

  And she tossed the pouch to Oscar.

  “Sorry, darling,” she said to Jules.

  Jules went very still. “You’d sell me out for seven million dollars?” she asked.

  “Ten million,” Blue said. “We struck a better deal.”

  They made it to the surface, Jules crying hard all the way. Izzy leaned her head on Jules’s shoulder. Darius hung close, his big hands dangling.

  “It’s okay, Jules,” he said. “You didn’t know she’d double-cross you.”

  “I thought she meant it,” Jules said. “I thought … I thought maybe she finally wanted me. All my life, I felt like some kind of burden. The Stick and Rag people are the ones who took care of me. Blue was the star. So I thought … she really wanted me.”

  “You traded seven million dollars for family?” Darius asked.

  Jules wiped her wet cheeks with her fists. “Wouldn’t you?”

  “Actually? No,” Darius said.

  The elevator let them out in the abandoned construction hut. They walked out to the cool night air of Second Avenue.

  “I remembered the last moonstone,” Jules said. “I can’t believe it took me so long. Alfie gave me so many jewels — fake ones. Bags of them. I was in charge of the costumes. I remember him giving me a pretty stone and saying to keep it for myself. What he didn’t know was that I was so mad at him, I would do the opposite of what he said. So I sewed it into the ribbon on Blue’s hat. When I saw that photo of her on the poster … when I saw Particle Zoo … I realized what I did.”

  “You didn’t know the name of the show?” March asked.

  Jules shook her head. “She never told me. I guess Alfie asked. I never cared what the show was called. I was like a performing monkey. ‘Do this, do that, swing up, swing down, don’t complain about blisters, be glad for what you’ve got, Jules!’ ” She ended in a ringing, cruel tone and then burst into tears again.

  “Why did you leave us?” March asked. “Why didn’t you tell us what you were doing?”

  “I was afraid she knew it was there,” Jules said. “I was afraid of Oscar. I thou
ght, if I could just sneak in and get it … but I was too late. She was already in costume. I blew it. Blue and Oscar get the money … and we lost our chance to reverse the curse. It’s all over. I’m sorry. It’s all my fault.”

  “It’s okay,” Izzy said.

  Jules scrubbed her face with her fists. “I was so stupid!”

  “Nah,” Darius said. “If I told you how many chances I gave my mom … well, stupid doesn’t even cover it.”

  “She doesn’t care about me at all,” Jules said. “It hurts, you know?”

  “Well, you can’t choose your family,” Darius said.

  March stopped short. He looked at his friends. He knew, at that moment, smack in the middle of failure, he found something real. Jules hadn’t betrayed him. Izzy and Darius hadn’t deserted him.

  For the briefest stretch of a moment, the fear dropped away. He forgot he was supposed to die, forgot that a fortune had slipped through their fingers. It was just enough to stand there and shrug at each other at how awful things had turned out. Maybe they were facing disaster. But right now, they were together.

  “Of course you can,” he said.

  Sometimes moments were so true and right, they were embarrassing. They quickly started walking again.

  March glanced at the ornate bank clock in front of them. “Two hours to midnight. We’re in the middle of Manhattan. No cliffs in sight. Plan A: We stay on the ground and wait it out.”

  “That’s definitely the smart thing to do,” Jules agreed.

  There was a pause.

  “Or, there’s Plan B. We could endanger our lives by double-crossing Blue and Oscar, getting the moonstones, reversing the curse, and grabbing the money,” March said.

  They walked a few more steps.

  “Let’s try Plan B,” Jules said.

  “We need a short con,” March said. “The simpler the better. Bait and switch.”

  “Bait who and switch what?” Darius asked.

  “Bait Grimstone, switch moonstones,” March explained.

  “We don’t have any moonstones,” Jules pointed out.

  “I know someone who does.”

  March punched out Hamish’s number. When Hamish answered the phone, he sounded groggy.

  “I am asleep,” Hamish said.

  “Could you wake up for a cool million?” March asked.

  Hamish cleared his throat. He sounded more alert when he answered, “I’m certainly open to the idea.”

  * * *

  Hamish kept his eyes focused on the road. “I grew up in the city. I’m not the best driver.”

  “Ham, my man, you are making a million dollars for three hours’ work,” Darius said. “Relax.”

  March studied the map on his phone. “We’ll have to leave the car on the lake road and go the rest of the way on foot. Hamish is going to meet Grimstone at her house. He’ll drive with her to the meeting with Oscar and Blue. They’ll be surprised to see him, but they’ll be so focused on the deal they won’t care. Grimstone said the meeting spot is on the lake trail. Once we have our hands on the moonstones, we can reverse the curse and make our way back to the Grimstone mansion for the payoff.”

  “Avoiding the cliff,” Jules pointed out.

  “That’s key,” March said. “Everybody clear? Ham?”

  “Let me just get it straight. You called Carlotta and told her you had the moonstones. She didn’t believe you, but you suggested that Blue and Oscar were about to cheat her. Then after she screamed a while, you suggested that maybe the original fence of the moonstones, who knew them so very well, could authenticate them. That would be me.”

  “You do have seven unmagic moonstones on you, right?” Darius asked.

  “In my right pocket,” Ham replied.

  “Let’s put them in the pouch now,” March said. “Jules?”

  Jules held out the white silk pouch, and March poured the seven moonstones in.

  “Alfie would call this a Plastic Replica,” March said. “Darius and Izzy, you clear on the switch?”

  “Clear,” Darius said.

  “If it works, it works,” March said. “By two a.m. we’ll be millionaires.”

  “If nothing goes wrong,” Jules said.

  Nobody had the nerve to add the ending.

  And something always goes wrong….

  The moon was a silver pathway on the lake.

  “ ‘The night of rare moon rising,’ ” Jules murmured, quoting the curse reversal.

  “This is the turnoff, I believe,” Hamish said. He steered the car off to the shoulder.

  March checked the time. “Blue and Oscar should be at the rendezvous point by now. Remember, they can’t know we’re there or they’ll smell a rat. If something bad goes down, everyone scatter. We’ll meet in Fortune Falls in the field by the middle school.”

  Hamish cleared his throat. “Except for me. Despite the fact that I was an old, old friend of your father, March, I don’t do well with incarceration or conflict. So if the worst happens, you can all scatter and regroup. I, however, will stop at Dunkin’ Donuts for a coffee and be on the road back to New York.”

  Hamish took off for the mansion, where he’d meet Carlotta. The gang started down the lake trail. Frogs and crickets gave a steady concert of chirps and deep-throated calls. The woods felt desolate, remote.

  March held up a hand, and they stopped. He pointed ahead. He had heard the murmur of voices.

  They left the trail and dropped to their knees. They crawled forward through the underbrush.

  “If you think this was easy, think again,” Oscar said. Oscar and Blue were only a few feet away. They were alone, standing by the side of the road in a little clearing. The Audi was parked on the side.

  “I know, you’re a hero.” Blue’s tone was dry. “Look, it’s not my fault you went to prison.”

  “You told me you’d wait.”

  “I got bored.”

  “Not funny.”

  “Not joking.”

  “Who bought you those sapphires in your ears?”

  “You didn’t buy me, Oscar. I think this might be a time to point out that you almost got skunked by a bunch of kids. I’m the reason we’re standing here with the moonstones. I’m the reason you stole the moonstone necklace in the first place. I’m the one who figured out how much it meant to that crazy, old bat.”

  “That was ten years ago. I’m the one who figured out Jules had a stone.”

  “Yeah, but you couldn’t find it. Took apart that sewing machine Alf gave her.” Blue gave a short laugh. “And it was on the hat all the time.”

  “Ten million goes pretty far if you can spend it together. Where do you want to go? Tahiti? Bali? I know an island off the coast of Thailand that will blow you away.”

  “You still have the mentality of a thief, Oscar.”

  “That’s what I am, babe. You are, too.”

  “I’m a visionary. You’re a grunt. You make the score, you spend the loot, you plan the next job. You get caught, you do time, you get out, you steal again. Nice life, dude. Not for me.”

  “So, what are you going to do with your take, visionary? Don’t you owe your niece a piece?”

  Jules stiffened.

  “Doesn’t she owe me? Alfie finds me in London, dumps the kid, sends me money from time to time, but basically, I had to deal.”

  Jules flinched. March moved closer to her. Shoulder to shoulder.

  “Then after Alfie falls off a roof, they ask me to take both kids but first get a job! The secret nobody tells you is that kids stop you from getting what you want. Maggie wanted kids. I didn’t, so why should I have to raise hers? This money is going to launch me. No more Stick and Rag. No more performing in tunnels and warehouses. I’m building my brand and the moon’s the limit.”

  “Vegas, baby?”

  “Why not? And by the way, I’m going alone. You should be thanking me for getting you this far.”

  “Sure. You went to Amsterdam, set up Alfie real nice for us…. After he kicked it, you
contacted Grimstone, took over the deal … figured out the Jules angle….”

  “Who knew Alfie’s other brat would rustle up his own gang?”

  “The kid lost his father.”

  “So?”

  “Wonder how that happened, by the way. Alfie was always so good on a roof.”

  “I think I hear a car.”

  “No, you don’t. What happened in Amsterdam, Blue?”

  “I’ve got an idea, Oscar. Let’s not talk.”

  March heard Blue whistle under her breath. One long note, one short. Then she sang a few bars.

  “Blue moooon …”

  March stopped breathing. The person on the roof. The person in the trench coat, whistling.

  Blue killed Alfie.

  The smell of the lake was in his nostrils and it smelled like Amsterdam suddenly, the dank of the canal. His pulses pounded. He thought of his father, broken on the cobblestones. The light in his eyes going out. He wanted to run at her, run her down. He couldn’t see, his anger pulsing all of the light out of his vision. He couldn’t see the moon or the stars or the trees.

  Had she wanted to kill him, too? That night? A little push into a canal?

  Jules knew. She put her hand on his arm and squeezed hard. He knew what the squeeze meant, every word in the pressure of her fingers. You won’t win that way. Wait. We’ll get her.

  What did Alfie always say?

  Save emotion for life. No feelings on a job.

  Revenge gets you jail. Or dead.

  He let out a breath, long and slow.

  Now they really did hear the sound of a car on the road. It came from behind them, and they flattened themselves on the ground. The black Hummer bumped down the road, weaving slightly.

  They crept out of the brush and, keeping to the side of the road, made their way even closer.

  Carlotta Grimstone turned off the engine and slid out of the car. She was holding a large manila envelope.

  “Where are they?”

  “Nice to see you again, too,” Blue said.

  They could see Blue now as she strode into the glow of the headlights like it was a spotlight. She had removed her stage costume and was dressed in a jacket and jeans.