Healy stares at the shackles on the boy’s arms and legs and the four guards who accompany him. Only Hannibal Lecter received more security. “Take those shackles off! I can’t talk to someone who’s chained like an animal!”
The oldest of the guards seems to be in charge. “No can do, Mr. Healy.”
“He’s a fifteen-year-old kid!”
“A fifteen-year-old kid convicted of manslaughter.”
Healy turns to Arjay. “Is that really how it went down? You killed that guy?”
Arjay shrugs. “I hit him, and he didn’t get up.” Although his voice is low and rumbling, he speaks with an openness that’s almost childlike.
“The report says he banged his head on a stone statue.”
“Garibaldi,” Arjay supplies blandly.
“So maybe it was an accident?” Healy prompts.
“Are you a lawyer?”
Remembering the meeting with Gecko, Healy asks, “Do you even know who I am?”
“You’re the one who thinks he can get me out,” the prisoner tells him.
“You don’t seem excited by the idea.”
It draws a snicker from the head guard. “This one—he isn’t exactly what you’d call a live wire.”
“In here, all anybody talks about is getting out,” Arjay explains. “It doesn’t happen very often.”
“Well, this time it will.” Healy lays out the same scenario that he presented to Gecko a few hours before.
Arjay has only one question. “Can I bring my guitar?”
Healy is blown away. Arjay Moran has just been offered a ticket out of hell, and the only thing he can think of is a guitar?
One of the younger guards speaks up. “You get used to the strumming after the first thousand hours.”
“I like music,” Healy announces. “Take the chains off.”
Brilliant sunshine turns the choppy waters of Narragansett Bay to diamonds. It’s a perfect New England scene—blue sky, whitecaps, even a family of seals basking on an outcropping of rock.
It means less than nothing to Terence Florian. He stands on the deck of the motor launch, never looking back at Lion’s Head Island, where he has lived for the past seven months—or five hundred years, depending on whether you go by calendar time or how long it feels.
“You’re an idiot,” the counselors told him time and time again. “Lion’s Head is one of the top alternative detention programs in the nation. There are thousands of applications for the spot we’re wasting on you. Do you realize what life is like in a federal juvenile detention center? Those places are torture chambers compared to the way you live here.”
Probably true—if you don’t count the boredom.
Natural beauty? Try a useless rock in the middle of the ocean, too small for the seagulls to use as a poop target. Try milking cows, planting seeds, feeding chickens, and shoveling out barns. Try no TV for seven months, no contact with the outside world. For a Chicago kid, born and bred, it’s like being exiled to the moon.
In his opinion, the only beauty in this ride is the fact that it’s taking him away from Lion’s Head. Where to? That’s not important. He’ll cross that bridge when he comes to it.
The terminus of the ferry service is a ratty ancient dock that’s destined to sink into the ocean at any moment. Unfortunately, that doesn’t happen today. It would be a great farewell to this dump.
Kellerman, the counselor, reaches out and hands him ashore.
“Grab your gear. We’ve got a long drive ahead.”
Terence doesn’t ask where they’re heading. He’s not giving Kellerman the satisfaction of knowing that he cares. He tosses his duffel in the back of the pickup truck. The biggest tragedy of his life so far isn’t juvie; it’s the fact that everything he owns in the world fits inside one little pack. Not that he’s got big dreams; dreams are for suckers. His old man taught him that lesson fairly early on. The jerk never understood that while shouting, smacking, and cursing the dreams out of Terence, he was also giving Terence a dream of a different sort—the dream of putting several hundred miles between himself and his father. So far so good on that score.
He climbs onto the flatbed after his stuff.
Kellerman laughs mirthlessly. “Sure—I’m really going to let you ride back there. You’ll be gone at the first bend in the road. You know the rules. Get in the front.”
Terence isn’t offended. He doesn’t expect to be trusted. He’s not trustworthy. “What do I care about the rules? What are you going to do—kick me out? I’m already kicked out.” He grins. “Hey, Kellerman, what did I do, anyway? How come I got the boot?”
“You’re kidding, right? You know the policy. Three strikes and you’re out.”
“That’s the whole point,” Terence persists. “I got probably fifty strikes. What was so bad that it made even you guys give up on me? Or was it quantity, not quality?”
The counselor starts the engine and pulls onto the gravel access road. “Your new placement came through.” He won’t meet Terence’s eyes.
Not a good sign, that. In spite of everything, Terence knows there are some pretty horrible whistle-stops on the juvie express. But he’s determined to play it cool. “Whatever,” he says with a yawn. For Terence, it’s more than a word; it’s a philosophy of life. If you’ve got it, you can survive equally at Alcatraz or Club Med.
Growing up with dear old Dad, if you make it past ten, you’re a survivor.
He leans back in his seat and gazes idly out the window. Same old nothing, only now it’s green instead of blue. And it goes on forever.
He breaks the long silence. “It was that state senator’s visit, wasn’t it? Like I was going to keep his stupid wallet. What was I going to spend it on, anyway?”
Kellerman shoots him a cockeyed glare. “So what was the point of taking it if it wasn’t for the money?”
Terence shrugs. “Maybe this is the point. I’m out, right?”
The counselor sighs. “I know it’s a waste of breath to tell you this, but a lot of us do what we do because we honestly want to help kids.”
“Come to think of it,” Terence muses, “it was probably just the lobster in the toilet bowl.” He’s reasonably sure Kellerman turns away so he can smile.
He dozes off, and when he awakens, they’re still nowhere, although the highway seems wider and busier. Then they round a bend, and there, on the horizon, is a vast city skyline.
For an instant, he wonders if they might have driven all the way to Chicago. But no. He recognizes the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building—
“Is that New York?”
Kellerman keeps his eyes on the road.
“You’re putting me in juvie in New York?”
“There’s an experimental new program here. Just three boys.”
Terence is astonished. “And they picked me? After the lobster thing?”
“Mr. Healy asked for you by name. Listen, Terence, I realize you never pay any attention to what I say, but hear me out: if your life isn’t that terrible yet, it’s only because you’re the luckiest fool on the face of the earth. You just hit the lottery twice, and you don’t even know it. There are only twelve placements on Lion’s Head, and you frittered one of those away. Now you’ve been handed one of only three spots in this new setup. For God’s sake, don’t blow it!”
Terence makes no promises. Visions of the Big Apple are spinning in his head. Blow it? Maybe; maybe not. The important thing: there are definitely no cows in New York City.
CHAPTER FOUR
The apartment is on East Ninety-seventh Street—a narrow fourth-floor walk-up with peeling paint—cream over green over orange. It has to be the last place anyone would expect to find an installation of the United States Department of Juvenile Corrections.
Inside, the layout is tight and spare. There is a living room, a galley kitchen, and two bedrooms. The smaller of these is for Healy, the group leader. Two bunk beds and a single stand in the larger room, which the three teenagers are to share.<
br />
Gecko and Arjay moved in yesterday. Gecko is showing Terence the two dresser drawers that are reserved for him. But the new arrival is more interested in the fire escape that passes just outside the bedroom window.
“Don’t even think about it,” Gecko tells him. He raps on the heavy metal security gate locked over the opening. “Healy has the only key.”
Terence looks at him pityingly. “You’re kidding, right? I could have that key, and probably his underwear too, and he’d never know they’re missing. I don’t know about you guys, but I’ve been on a desert island for seven months. If I’m in New York City, I’m going to see more of it than the inside of this dump. Who’s with me?”
Arjay sits on the single bed, picking at an acoustic guitar, which looks like a toy ukulele against his enormous frame. “Count me out,” he drawls without glancing up. “I was at Disney World before this. I’ve had enough fun for a while.”
Gecko regards Terence in surprise. “Didn’t Healy give you the warning? That he had to fight to get this program going, and the whole thing is kind of a trial run? Mess up, and you go straight back into the system.”
Terence dismisses this with a wave of his hand. “These do-gooders blow my mind. There’s always somebody trying to save your soul—like that’s going to happen.”
Gecko sticks his jaw out. “Look, man, I came from a pretty bad place before here. I’m not doing anything to risk getting sent back.”
The newcomer frowns at him. “Whoa, they put me in with the Boy Scouts by mistake! How’d you end up in the system? Get caught stealing merit badges?”
Gecko’s face flushes red. “Is that how this works? I recite my rap sheet, and you recite yours, and we see who’s the biggest gangster?”
Terence snorts. “Yeah, like that’s up for grabs! Back in Chicago, my crew owned every block southeast of Evergreen! We ate solid citizens like you for breakfast!”
Gecko is surprised, and more than a little scared, by the intensity of the emotions roiling inside him. Terence’s in-your-face arrogance is nothing new. Gecko has been taking this kind of crap from his brother since birth.
And how did I handle it? By not thinking while Reuben made me his getaway driver!
Not thinking with Reuben landed him in juvie. Not thinking with Terence will only get him shipped straight back there.
He peers into Terence’s tough-guy sneer. His fist comes up, clenched and ready.
Healy and Kellerman sit at the small dining table, filling out Terence’s transfer paperwork. There are forms from the federal government, the states of Rhode Island, New York, and Illinois, and the city of New York.
Healy sighs in frustration. “If anybody had paid this much attention to the kid before he got into trouble, he probably wouldn’t have gotten into trouble at all.”
“I hear you,” Kellerman agrees. “Nobody ever lifts a finger to help them until they’re in so deep that they can’t be helped.” He shoves a paper under Healy’s nose for the final signature. “Tell me something—why are you doing this?”
Healy gives Kellerman his copies and sets aside his own for filing. “Same as you, probably. I want to give these kids a fighting chance.”
The Lion’s Head counselor shakes his head. “No. Then you’d get a job like mine. I can only imagine the kind of wheeling and dealing it must have taken to get approval for a special project like this. Not to mention a New Directions grant to help pay for it all. Why? What possibilities do you see here that are so different from a hundred other group homes and alternative setups?”
“The system is so vast,” Healy explains, “that my contribution would disappear like spit in the ocean. But here I know I’m making a difference for three boys. It’s only three, but it’s definite.”
“And why these three?” Kellerman persists.
Healy looks embarrassed. “That’s a little more selfish. To tell you the truth, they remind me of me.”
“How does the Incredible Hulk’s kid brother remind you of you?”
The group leader appears haunted. “More than you could ever know. Arjay’s the rarest thing in the system—a genuine innocent man. He just ran into a DA up for reelection in a bad year for youth crime.”
“That happened to you?”
“Well, I didn’t kill anybody, if that’s what you mean. But I spent nearly three years in juvie for something that was an accident. An accident that never would have happened if I hadn’t got mixed up with a crooked relative—like Gecko did.”
The man from New England takes this in. “What about Terence?”
Healy’s face clouds. “The system took a city kid and plunked him down in the middle of nowhere, a million miles from everything he knew. That was me, a native New Yorker. I sat on a farm in Nebraska, wondering where the sidewalks were.”
Kellerman stands up. “When you put it that way, I can see why Terence wasn’t very happy feeding chickens on the island.”
Healy follows his visitor to the door. “How do you think he’s going to do with me?”
“I’m sure he’ll be just fine,” the counselor replies, a little too glibly.
Healy stops him on the way out. “No, I want your honest professional assessment of my arrangement here.”
Kellerman faces him. “I can’t speak for the others. But the first chance he gets, Terence Florian is going to put a kitchen knife right between your shoulder blades.”
On that note, he heads down the rickety stairs. The group leader watches him go, stunned by somewhat more honesty than he bargained for. And then the commotion reaches his ears.
He’s across the living room and through the bedroom door in three frantic strides. The sight that meets his eyes is memorable. Arjay stands between the other two, straight-arming them apart. One hamlike hand is wrapped around Gecko’s balled fist. The other is gripping the front of Terence’s shirt.
Gecko’s panting breath bubbles through his bloody nose. Terence is cursing through rapidly swelling lips. The nightstand has been upended, knocking a tall bowling trophy to the hardwood floor.
“What’s going on?” Healy bellows.
Silence from Gecko and Terence.
Arjay says, “They slipped.”
“That better be true, because fighting is one of the things that gets you kicked out of here!” Ruefully, the group leader picks up the fallen trophy. The metal figure of a bowler has snapped off the top, exposing the spike that held it in place.
Gecko reads the small brass plaque: CITY FINALS—1977; DOUGLAS HEALY—2ND PLACE. “Sorry,” he mumbles.
Terence turns to Healy. “It’s your trophy, man; what’s it doing in our room?”
The group leader tries to replace the bowler on its pedestal. “It’s the only thing I ever worked hard for when I was your age. I just thought—” The figure drops with a clatter. “Never mind. A little Krazy Glue and it’ll be good as new.”
Out the gated window, he can see Kellerman walking along Ninety-seventh Street to his truck. A shiver runs along Healy’s spine.
Does he know something I don’t?
CHAPTER FIVE
The Alma K. Walker High School is located on East Ninety-first Street, a ten-minute walk from the apartment. The stately old building’s original three stories were built in 1867. The “new addition,” the fourth and fifth floors, was constructed in 1912, shortly after the sinking of the Titanic.
Douglas Healy delivers his charges there the next morning. They are already preregistered, but the principal has requested what he calls an “orientation meeting.” This consists primarily of chewing them out in advance for all the evil things they are probably going to do in his school.
They sit on the hard wooden bench and take it for a while. Finally, the group leader speaks up for them. “Dr. Cavendish—all due respect—I don’t think this is fair. I’m not suggesting anyone should get special treatment, but none of these boys has so much as spit on the sidewalk.”
“I did,” pipes up Terence. The look he gets from Healy woul
d melt steel.
The principal regards the group leader impatiently. “What’s your point?”
“These are my kids. If you have any problems with them, you come to me. Pretend I’m their mother. Because, practically speaking, I am.”
Dr. Cavendish either refuses to accept it, or is too dumb to understand it, because he concludes the interview with a warning: “I’m keeping my eye on you three. Expect a zero-tolerance policy here at Walker.”
Healy leads them out of the office, and they stand in the hall, gathered around him.
“Thanks, Mom,” Arjay intones.
Healy tries and fails to keep the corners of his mouth from turning up. Then he spots something that wipes all thought of smiling from his mind.
Gecko is alarmed. “You okay, Mr. Healy? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
He has. And worse than that. Marching across the dark-stained terrazzo floor toward them is a woman built like a missile silo, her gunmetal-gray suit falling straight from the shoulders past a nonexistent waist.
“That’s Ms. Vaughn!” he hisses. “She’s the social worker in charge of our case!”
“We’re golden,” Terence says smoothly. “I’ll just turn on the charm and—”
“Do not mess with that woman!” orders Healy through clenched teeth. “She fought me every inch of the way when I was setting up this program. She has the power to shut us down and send you guys back to lockup. And she’s just looking for an excuse to do it!”
“Good morning, Mr. Healy. Boys. I was planning to stop by the apartment yesterday, but my caseload kept me hopping. The last thing I needed was another halfway house in my territory.” Her expression implies that she has never uttered a kind word and isn’t about to start now.
“Everything is great so far,” Healy tells her. “The guys are really excited about starting their classes. In fact, they were just about to head to first period.”
“And you have a plan in place for the end of the day?” Ms. Vaughn prompts.
“Absolutely,” the group leader assures her. “We’re meeting right outside the main entrance at three o’clock.”