Waits looked at his cell phone. 3:45. His in-box showed seven unread messages, all from RESTRICTED.
Which meant Ianuzzi. Maybe the old dude had realized Waits had moved, with no forwarding address. That wouldn’t please him. Someday, Waits knew, they were going to stop cutting him slack. By that time, Waits planned to be out. At first this had seemed cool, a form of social service—helping pizza-faced overachievers cope, saving them from the urge to jump into the river with a backpack full of rocks. But now he knew that was shit, and he was no Robin Hood.
“Go home, scumbag,” a kick-ass beautiful girl muttered as she passed. Waits recognized her, the head of the school’s Christian Club.
“Is that what Jesus would say?” he asked.
She made a face and flounced away.
“Hey, Waits, that your dad?”
Waits turned to see Cam Hong, gesturing to Fenster, the homeless guy.
“No, but he was calling out your mother’s name in his sleep,” Waits replied.
“You got something for me?”
“Testicles? The other half of your brain? Sorry, dude, those are your private journey.”
“I’m serious, dickhead. Weed?”
Waits knew the drill with this guy. He paid half, maybe two-thirds, sold it to his football pals, and then conveniently forgot the rest. “You owe me about three hundred, Cam. You’re cut off.”
“How can I pay if I don’t have the money?”
“Should have saved some aside. You do math, right? Supply and demand? Set the right price, keep the economy going. My people need to be fed, dude. And they won’t be happy with your news.”
Shit. He was repeating the same crap they always told him. He was becoming one of them.
“Yada yada,” Cam said. “Give me one more shot. I’ll come through.”
“Do I hear an echo from, um, two weeks ago?” Waits said.
“This is different. A party in Westchester. Tomorrow night. It’s like, Wall Street North. Like Dalton, only stupider. You know the type.”
“Tell me,” Waits said.
“Ghetto-wannabe, trash-talking white kids with trust funds.” Cam’s eyes darted to a red-haired kid wearing an NYPD cap, who was fiddling with his BlackBerry as he passed by. Cam gave Waits a conspiratorial wink. “Just like that guy.”
The kid looked up. “Huh?”
“He says you’re a ghetto-wannabe trash-talking trust-fund white kid,” Waits said.
“I got into Olmsted on my test score,” the kid said, raising an eyebrow at Cam, “and not on the ugly Asian jock quota.”
“Wipe my ass, Durgin,” Cam said.
“Fun for you,” Byron Durgin replied, “but what’s in it for me?”
“Prick.”
“Wrong side of the body.”
“Perve.”
“That’s what I like about you, Hong. The crackling wit.”
“Fuck you.”
“Stand in line.”
“Whoa, dudes!” Waits held up both hands. “You’ve got the whole park for your marital spat. I am trying to run a business.”
“Exactly,” Cam said. “And you can’t run a business without extending credit. It’s Economics 101.”
Byron burst out laughing. “Economics? Who taught you that word, Hong?” He held out his BlackBerry. “Look at this. Look at the market. Look at this line. This is my position on commodities. That red mark tells you there has been a margin call, which means I have to pay back money I don’t have. Which, if you have managed to pass trigonometry and understand the first thing about stocks, tells you that I am standing here before you fucked up the butt because of the economy—and you’re trying to talk economics?”
“Jesus Christ, will you two shut up?” Waits glared at Cam. “Look, dude, you owe me. I owe someone else. They extend me credit, and I extend it to you. But sooner or later, someone decides it’s time to collect—and I give you three guesses who gets nailed. I have been more than nice to you. Either you’re stealing from me—”
“No. Uh-uh. I don’t steal,” Cam interjected.
“Then you are just a shitty salesman, Cam. I would trust him to do a better job than you,” Waits said, gesturing toward Byron.
Byron preened. “Investments I apparently suck at. But I could sell snow to an Inuit.”
“Fine, I’ll take him with me!” Cam piped up, grabbing Byron by the shoulder.
“What?” Byron said.
“You need quick money, right?”
“Yeah …” Byron said.
“And you drive?” Cam asked him.
“Well, I have driven,” Byron said, “but just around a parking lot….”
“We’ll find somebody else to drive,” Cam insisted. “We won’t tell him what we’re doing.”
Byron looked confusedly at Waits, then Cam.
“Scared?” Cam said.
“Fuck no,” Byron replied.
Cam put his arm around Byron and grinned. “You’ll see, Waits. This will be like plucking money from a tree. You can sell these guys aspirin. They wouldn’t know the difference.”
Waits looked out over the river. Just beyond him, an old man held a little boy in his arms, gesturing toward the Statue of Liberty. Waits followed his arm, past the statue, where a sailboat was tacking away into the channel toward the Atlantic Ocean.
The proposition, he thought, did have some interesting potential.
“I think I can get Jimmy Capitalupo to drive,” Byron said.
“Don’t tell him anything,” Cam said. “Tell him it’s an amazing party. Tell him the babes are so horny, even he’ll get laid.”
“I told you I was a good salesman, not a fucking miracle worker.” Byron turned to go. “Robotics. I’m out of here.”
Waits watched him go, then pulled a twenty out of his pocket. “Take this. You know the Rite Aid at Wayne and Adams?”
Cam eyed him warily.
“Do you need a fucking GPS for that?” Waits said.
“What the hell am I supposed to do there?” Cam asked.
“I’d recommend the generic brand,” Waits replied. “You get a bigger bang for the buck.”
“Brand of what?”
“Aspirin,” Waits said.
Cam’s face fell. “Aspirin?”
“Your idea, Hong. For once, you had a good one.”
“What am I supposed to tell Byron?”
Waits shrugged. “Up to you. But if he thinks this is all a sham, he may not have the requisite motivation.”
Cam gave him a dirty look, then shoved the twenty in his pocket.
Waits watched, nursing a smile, as Cam crossed the highway.
21
JIMMY BEFORE
October 16, 8:12 P.M.
“… So, naturally, on the topic of the death of his father, Agamnemnon, Orestes was destined to, paraphrasing Aeschylus, go postal …” Jimmy quickly glanced at the wall clock. Two minutes and fifteen seconds. Too slow, if he wanted to bring “The Five-Minute Oresteia” in at five minutes—and he needed this by next weekend’s tournament at Regis. “… which left his mom, Clytemnestra, in a bit of a pickle—”
“What did you say?” blurted out Mr. Aviles, his Speech Team coach.
Jimmy groaned. He hated to break momentum. “Pickle?”
“The part about ‘Naturally, on the …’”
“Um … on the topic of the death of his father, Agamnemnon, Orestes was destined to—”
“I thought so. It’s Agamemnon.”
“That’s what I said!” Jimmy protested.
“You said Agamnemnon,” Mr. Aviles said impatiently. “You put an extra mnuh in it.”
“What?”
“An extra N! It’s AgaMEMnon. Not AgaMNEMnon.”
From the back of the room, Reina Sanchez piped up, “He’s influenced by the sound of Clytemnestra.”
“Exactly,” Mr. Aviles agreed. “It’s ClyteMNEStra, but AgaMEMnon.” He rubbed his forehead. “Let’s take five, kids.”
As Jimmy slumped back to his
seat, he saw a group of football guys perched at the door, stifling guffaws. “Mnot bad,” said Ilya Vlachos.
“Although mnaybe a bit mnerdy,” added Jared King.
“Will you guys leave them the fuck alone!” blasted another voice.
“Oops, it’s Camn!” shrieked Ilya.
The group dispersed, laughing, as Cam Hong appeared. “Sorry,” he said into the room. “They’re animals.”
The Speechies in the room were ignoring them, but Jimmy felt hot under the collar. He hated the way those guys got away with that shit. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Reina’s face lighting up. How could girls—smart girls—actually think guys like that were so hot?
Jimmy ran out to the hallway, his mind rolling over possible rejoinders, witty aperçus that would cut these assholes down to size.
“Douche bags!” was the only thing that came out.
“Oh, mny!” one of them squeaked, before being hit on the head by Cam.
Jimmy slumped against the wall. Just to his right, his friend Byron Durgin was pulling something from his locker. A couple of other Speechies crowded into the doorway with him, including Reina Sanchez.
“Suffering from IQ deficit disorder,” Byron muttered, nodding after the football guys.
“Why can’t I think of something like that?” Jimmy muttered. “The best I can do is something like ‘Douche-bags.’ I always think of the perfect insult about two minutes too late.”
Behind him, Reina nodded. “L’esprit d’escalier,” she said, grinning down the hallway toward Byron. “He taught me that.”
“It’s French,” Byron explained. “It means the spirit of the stairs. It’s like, that thing you always want to be able to say casually over your shoulder—like, bam, think of it right on the spot—as you sweep up the stairs, verbally cutting your attacker to the quick.”
“How do you know that?”
“I’m a fucking genius. Didn’t you hear? The one thing I can’t do is drive. Which is a fucking shame, because I just got invited to a mad crazy party with panting nubile virgins in Westchester. Tomorrow night.”
Reina rolled her eyes. “What will you do with panting nubile virgins, Durgin?”
“Same thing I do with you,” Byron said with a grin. “Dream big.”
Mr. Aviles was at the door now, ushering Reina and the team back inside. “Come on, party’s over.”
Jimmy lingered behind. “I can drive,” he said to Byron. “Who do you know in Westchester?”
“No one. Cam invited me.”
“Since when are you friends with Cam?”
“I’m a fucking genius, and I’m cool.” Byron smiled. “He’s a good guy. You saw. He just stood up for you. You know, you could reward the guy by agreeing to drive.”
“To the party? No one invited me.”
“I just did. Otherwise Cam and I will have to walk. Or take a train.”
“I don’t know….” Jimmy said, turning toward the door.
“You’ll get laid.”
Jimmy stopped. “You think?”
Byron slammed his locker shut, flinging a forty-pound backpack over his shoulder. “Recite the Five-Minute Whooziwhat, and you will have them grabbing at your fig leaf, dude.”
22
CAM AFTER
October 17, 11:42 P.M.
It hurt.
God, did it hurt.
He couldn’t breathe.
These fuckers from Ignatius Hall always did this kind of shit. Piling on the Big Guy. Like they really needed to. Like they weren’t going to wipe up Olmsted anyway.
It wasn’t fair. All he wanted to do was play. He loved this game. He loved his teammates, the strategy, the way you could outwit someone twice your weight just by using your brain, the faces on his teammates when it all was going right. Football was fun, not a war, and when were these goons going to learn that?
He twisted. He pushed. Get off!
Get off!
“Cam?”
Hearing the voice, he blinked.
As the massive flank of the Ignatius fullback dissipated, Cam had the odd feeling that he had died, and he was now looking up into the face of an angel.
He didn’t realize angels had wrinkles, big noses, and lipstick.
“Time out …,” he said.
“Doctor!” shouted the lipsticked mouth. “Dr. Wexler, come quickly!”
The world was reassembling—a bed, a standing IV bag, a curtain suspended from a metal rod, track lighting. He heard the shhhhink of sliding curtain rings. A white-coated doctor leaned over him, covering his face with a mask. “Take shallow breaths, young man. This is oxygen.”
Cam slapped away the mask. “What—what—happened?” His throat felt as if it were coated with glass.
“Good … good,” Dr. Wexler said. “You’re doing very well. You were in a car accident, Cam. Do you remember any of it?”
“Ohhhh …” Cam tried to sit up, but his chest hurt.
The images were flooding back. The drive … the ball game … country music … a shadow …
“You hit a deer,” the doctor continued. “A big doe. Happens a lot these days. It appears the deer came through the windshield at quite a velocity. The good news is, I don’t see any broken ribs. You’ve had a fair amount of bruising, but nothing that will even keep you here overnight. You are one very lucky guy.”
Jimmy, slamming on the brakes …
“It came out of nowhere….” Cam said.
“Had the deer stayed on top of you, you might have been suffocated,” Dr. Wexler replied. “But one of your passengers managed to pull it off.”
“Capitalupo?” Cam said.
“He saved your life,” the doctor said. “I’m thinking perhaps the steering wheel provided some protection, too.”
“I doubt that,” Cam said with a grimace. “I wasn’t anywhere near it.”
The doctor looked momentarily confused. “Well, we’re only concerned about your health here, Cameron. Unfortunately, after you recover, the police will want to see you. Driving without a license is very serious business.”
“But—I wasn’t driving!” Cam protested.
Dr. Wexler checked his clipboard. “Says here the police found you in the driver’s seat, Cam.”
“How could that be? Jimmy was driving. He would tell you. Where is he?”
“Actually,” Dr. Wexler said, stepping aside, “you can say hi to him right now.”
Cam turned. Behind the doctor, looking pale and nervous, was Jimmy Capitalupo.
23
11:48 P.M.
“Jimmy?” Cam couldn’t believe how happy he was to see a familiar face. “Dang, Jimmy, I can’t believe this shit.”
“Me neither,” Jimmy mumbled. “You okay?”
“Do I look okay, asshole?” Cam managed a weak smile. He felt his voice cracking and turned away. “You seem all right. I’m glad. How’s Byron?”
“Fine. Both of us are fine.” Jimmy was sweating. His clothes were ridiculous, even for him—a plaid button-down shirt and khaki pants that seemed to belong to a fourth grader. He glanced fitfully over his shoulder at the door. Just outside, the nurse and Dr. Wexler were conferring with a cop. “Cam, I’m … um, really happy you survived. For a long time I thought …”
“You know what they told me?” Cam said. “They said I was in the driver’s seat. Incompetent bastards.”
“Um, they said that?”
Cam eyed the cop. “They’re not going to think I was driving, right?”
“I don’t know….”
“I mean, maybe the deer, like, pushed me across the seat?” Cam frowned. “Only that wouldn’t make sense. You tell me. You were in the driver’s seat.”
“I—” Jimmy cast his eyes downward and let out a deep sigh. “Um, well, it wasn’t the deer. It was me.”
Cam didn’t know whether to take this as a joke. Jimmy had a weird sense of humor. “Right.”
Jimmy began pacing. “Oh, God, I’ll be saying this in confession the rest of my
life if I don’t say it now. I did it. I dragged you over, to make it look like you were driving.”
“You what?”
“So I wouldn’t be caught driving without a license.”
“I thought you had a license!”
“I lied.” Jimmy finally stopped and faced Cam. His hands were shaking.
“That is one sick fucking thing to do, Jimmy!”
“Cam, it was dark, and there was this huge deer—I was panicked. I wasn’t thinking straight. I thought you were dead!”
Cam sprang up on his elbow, fighting back the head pounding and chest ache. “You did it because you thought I was dead, you sick motherfucker? So you wouldn’t get in trouble for driving?” Jimmy’s eyes were tearing up, and Cam turned away in disgust. “I don’t believe this. And that scumbucket Byron didn’t stop you? Where the fuck is he, anyway?”
“We went to the p-p-party,” Jimmy said, wiping his nose. “Afterward. We walked there. We were too scared to face the cops, so we hid in the woods—”
“You left me all alone in the car? Left me for dead behind the steering wheel?”
Jimmy nodded. “I’m sorry, Cam. We were scared. I was an idiot. Anyway, Byron told me I’d be thrown in jail if they caught me.”
“What else did Byron tell you?” Cam pressed.
“Nothing. We were running. It was raining. We got to the party and this guy gave us dry clothes. We got separated. Then the cops came. They’d found my cell phone. I must have left it in the car. They took me away. At the station house I told them what had happened—”
“Except the one tiny detail about you being the driver!”
“I will straighten that out, okay? Give me a chance. I told them that Byron and I ran away. I thought they were going to put me in jail—you know, leaving the scene of the accident. Then they told me you were here in the hospital—”
“Byron didn’t want to come with you?”
“I don’t know where he is. Maybe still at the party. The cops took only me. We could call him.”
Cam rubbed his forehead. This was supposed to have been easy. He should have been heading home now, pockets full of cash—not in some dipshit hospital with a deer imprint on his chest, a wrecked car, traitorous friends, and missing envelope.