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  I cut behind the convenience store, stuck out my right leg, and kicked one of the plastic milk cartons by the Dumpster a good four or five feet. When I got to the driveway at the far end of the lot, I dismounted the Cruiser. I was getting close to home, but that also meant I was close to the Circle again. There was so much traffic on it during the morning and evening rush hours that it backed cars all the way up to the Garden State Parkway, and people tried to outrun the bottlenecks by drag racing from light to light on the highway so goddamn fast that just thinking about crossing on your bike could get you killed. So I waited for an opening, sprinted the Cruiser across all four lanes, and hopped on again without breaking stride. For some reason it struck me that the Circle and the mall worked in tandem: the traffic jams of the one detoured people toward the other, which simply lay in wait to pick their pockets. I’d never realized it before, but it was a perfect setup, and it was goddamn obvious.

  I was around the corner from my house, but the word had stuck with me—obvious. If I added a “the” to it, that’s what I’d been overlooking. Nobody in the crew ever did anything without Darren’s say-so—he was the leader, it was his crew—and that meant if a pair of them had done it, then at the very least he’d known in advance or had even ordered it. And to me, that was the same damn thing as doing it himself, maybe worse. But that’s what being a crime kingpin was all about: you got your minions to do the dirty work for you. I started to think I’d been on the right track from the start. I should’ve pushed Darren harder yesterday when I’d questioned him, and after I got home, had a quick bite to eat, and changed my torn shirt, I’d see if I couldn’t track him down and push him some on his motives in the hour and a half or so that remained until dark.

  I leaned forward and cranked it, eager to get back to work. But as I rode up to our place, I saw a light blue Chevy Nova parked by the curb and knew that my day was done. It was Pauline’s car, the babysitter—an interstate pileup of a woman with a wispy Fu Manchu beard and a hairy mole on the side of her neck so grotesque that you couldn’t look away from it. Neecey and mom were out for the night, while I’d be locked in. Goddamn it. All I had to look forward to was a plate of grub, a shower, writing in my journal, and maybe some reading later on in my room. Everything else would have to wait for the morning.

  ELEVEN

  The sound of mom’s voice woke me up. She was sitting on the edge of the bed in the white blouse and black skirt of her waitress uniform, with her hair pulled back, her lips pressed into a smile, stroking the side of my face, humming the same song she’d been waking me up with for years. She seemed tired around the eyes and could’ve used a day or two in the sun but was otherwise holding up well in the looks department. Yeah, mom had always been easy on the eyes, and it was weird to think that one day her head would shrink, her skin would wrinkle, her eyebrows would fall out, her mouth would pucker, and she’d turn into grandma, the way Neecey was turning into mom, like a series of before, after, and way-the-hell-after photos. You couldn’t really see it yet, because mom looked more like twenty-eight than thirty-eight, but it was bound to happen. Just like if I hung around long enough, I’d turn into I didn’t know what, because the only thing left to compare me to was a cardboard box of old junk and photos that we’d tossed on the curb years ago.

  I yawned and said good morning, but she didn’t answer because she’d decided that today was one of those days when it was better to sing the song’s chorus than hum it. I would’ve preferred that she hadn’t, because it made me think her life had to be pretty goddamn dreary if I was supposed to be the sunshine in it.

  “Good morning, yourself,” she finished, planting a wet one on my forehead. “You boys awake?”

  As if anyone could sleep with her carrying on like that.

  “How are you feeling this morning? Any nightmares?”

  “Not that I can remember,” I said. “What time is it?”

  “That’s good.” She smiled, brushing my cheek. “It’s a little after seven.”

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, sitting up in bed, rubbing the crud out of my eyes. Something had to be wrong if she was getting me up this early on my vacation.

  “Nothing’s wrong. Lana has an appointment at the orthodontist this morning, so I’m covering her shift.”

  If anybody needed some quality time with an orthodontist, Lana did. Shit, I’d seen barracudas with better grillwork. Come to think of it, she could’ve used some time with a dermatologist and a dietician, too, but I didn’t like the idea of mom having to wake up at the crack of dawn so Lana the teenage duckling could work at becoming a swan, and I told her so.

  “It’s no big deal, Genie. She’s a sweet girl and she’s covered for me lots of times when I’ve had to leave early for the bar, so I owe her a few. Besides, we could always use the extra money. Speaking of, did you take the envelope I left to the home yesterday?”

  “Yeah, I took it,” I said, thinking that we might just as well have flushed it down the goddamn toilet with Bryan there calling the shots. “But I told you, you should let me do grandma’s checks from now on so we don’t have to go through this shit every two weeks.”

  “That’s not such a bad idea, but it’s a little early for that gutter mouth, don’t you think?”

  “That way we can be sure they’re not double-dipping into grandma’s pocket,” I added for good measure.

  “C’mon, Genie, they’re a little tight-fisted, sure, but they’re not crooks.”

  “No? Then how can Bryan afford that cherry IROC of his, did you ever ponder that?”

  “Ponder?” She laughed. “Bryan’s no embezzler, he’s a jittery little mouse. Besides, I hear they practically give those cars away on lease now.”

  “You can’t go believing everything you hear,” I said.

  “And you can’t go believing everything you read.” She smiled, tousling my hair. “Those crime novels are making you cynical.”

  If knowing how to smell a rat was being cynical, then I was goddamn glad to be it. But I didn’t push the point.

  “Maybe you’re right, though,” she went on. “It’d be a lot less hectic on our budget if I didn’t get surprise requests for fifty dollars every two-odd weeks.” She shifted her weary brown eyes over to Thrash and tugged softly on his leg. I could tell it tickled him by the way he was smiling. Mom moved her hand back to her lap and said, “And, you know, you’re almost a teenager now, so maybe you’re ready for more responsibility.”

  My heart stopped. I’d been hoping for the you’re-a-teenager-now speech for so long that it didn’t seem real. Mom had been dancing around it all summer, dropping hints, cutting me more slack, like letting me take the Cruiser to the Shore on my own and not making me call her every two hours at work to check in, and I’d been toeing a strict line since the end of school to help her around to my way of thinking. It seemed like she’d finally arrived. But there had to be a catch. For a second I expected her to reach up to her face and tear the skin away, leaving in its place the dead, mechanical stare of one of those Fembots from The Six Million Dollar Man. But she didn’t. She said, “Only if you continue to behave yourself.”

  There it was, the catch, the price tag stitched in the collar. But freedom always came at a price. “Piece of cake,” I assured her. “I’m a model citizen.”

  “Well, there’s no denying you’ve been great all summer and I’m really proud of you. So I’ll think about letting you be in charge of grandma’s bills. You’re better at math than I am anyway. I’ll let you know. For now, though, I’m going to give you a reward—”

  “What?” Suddenly, I was wide awake.

  “A trial run, I guess you might call it.”

  “What?” She was killing me with all the preamble.

  “Well, Neecey’s staying at Cynthia’s tonight, but…” She paused, letting the suspense burrow into my stomach. “I’m not gonna call Pauline to come and watch you. I’m gonna let you watch yourself. How does that sound?”

  I could’ve hugged her
. A night home alone, the house to myself—it was like a dream come true. No Neecey and handing her towels, no having to listen to her squealing on the phone with her friends or them running in and out, slamming the back door, blasting MTV or Led Zeppelin while I was trying to read, no Gary renting a video and her not letting me watch, bossing me around, making me get this or that, sending me up to my room; and no lonely Pauline camping out on the sofa so there was no room to sit, with about nine bags of potato chips and sour-cream-and-onion dip, cramming them in her mouth, guzzling Tab by the bucketful to wash it all down, stinking the house up with junk food but not sharing, watching The Cosby Show or Cheers or some other sitcom, slapping her jiggly thigh, her booming laugh scarifying the walls, calling to me, Genie, you missed it, Norm just told Cliff whatever, but ruining all the jokes in a way that made you wish the world would end. No, not tonight. Tonight I’d be on my own, left to my own devices—-free. It was enough to make you want to weep for joy.

  “Sounds all right,” I said.

  Mom smiled; sometimes she could tell when I was shitting her. “I know this is a major step for us, but don’t get your hopes up. It’s just a test run, one night only. There are still two months until you turn thirteen and you should plan on having a sitter at least till then, and maybe longer if you can’t handle being on your own. It’s all up to you.”

  “No worries, mom, I’m all over it.”

  “I hope so, honey.” She kissed me on the cheek and stood up. “I need to be able to trust you. I need you to show me you’ve put that other stuff behind you for good.”

  That was a low blow, but I should’ve seen it coming, because moms were all the same. The tiniest suspicion that their kids might get hurt and they never stopped wetting themselves over it.

  “Mom, don’t worry,” I assured her.

  “I’ll never stop worrying about you, remember that,” she said, pouring on the guilt. She moved toward the doorway but stopped and said, “Oh, there’s one other thing.”

  “I know,” I cut in, “I’ll straighten up in here as soon as I get back.” I had to throw her a bone for the good turn.

  “No, not that,” she said, “although this room could always stand a little less disaster. Something else.”

  “What?” It was like Guess My Secret with her this morning.

  She narrowed her eyes, pulled her shoulders back, and lowered her chin, making her face all serious. “I know about the sign at the retirement home.”

  I hadn’t been expecting that, and didn’t especially care for her tone.

  “Sucks, doesn’t it?” I shrugged.

  “I suppose it does.” She stood there quietly, arms folded across her chest, staring at me, for like three days.

  “What?” I asked.

  “You were asking questions about it yesterday.”

  What the fuck?! That was it; it was out of my hands. Neecey had to get whacked.

  “Are you listening to me?” she asked.

  “You’re gonna be late for work,” I reminded her.

  “Let me worry about that—”

  “All right, but I’m just saying—”

  “Drop it.”

  “Hey, if you want to be late—”

  “Don’t try to change the subject, Eugene.” Shit, now I’d done it. “I said drop it. I know what you’re up to, and I’m telling you right now that you’re only asking for trouble. Haven’t we had more than enough trouble around here? Can’t we make it through one summer without you getting into some kind of mess?”

  Those were rhetorical questions, so I didn’t need to answer them.

  “You forget, she’s my mother. I know what she’s like. Look at me when I’m speaking to you. She had me thinking I was Nancy Drew until I was sixteen years old.”

  “For real?” That was news to me.

  “Yes. And you know what happened? I broke into my high school one night and went through all the lockers to find out who stole Kelly McGovern’s English paper.”

  “No way.” My mom, breaking and entering. This was getting good.

  “Yes way. But I was caught and I got myself into a world of trouble.”

  “Were you suspended?”

  “For a week.”

  The plot thickened. “You never told me that before.”

  “Because it’s nothing to be proud of and I’m only telling you now because this sign business has your grandmother written all over it.”

  I wasn’t gonna touch that. “But you found out who stole Kelly what’s-her-head’s paper, right?”

  “No, Genie, and that’s the thing. Nobody stole it. Kelly McGovern lied about her paper being stolen because she’d never written it in the first place, and she was suspended, too.”

  Wow, what a crappy story. But what else could you expect from Nancy Drew?

  “Do you see my point?”

  “Not really,” I said, because I didn’t. “Are you saying that somebody’s lying about the sign being painted? Because it sure as hell looked painted to me.”

  “Don’t get cute with me, young man,” she huffed. “That’s not the point. The point is, this isn’t the first time your grandmother has pulled something like this, because she used to do it with me. It never really worked with Neecey because she’s always had lots of friends, even before she became a knockout.”

  Yeah, sure, Benedict Arnold with boobs.

  “You’re more like I was,” she continued. “I was very susceptible to your grandmother’s schemes because I was an only child—”

  “And I’m susceptible, too, because I’m a lonely one, right?”

  “Oh, Genie.” The tightness in her mouth dropped and her eyes widened. It looked like she was gonna step forward and smother me with sympathy like she was supposed to, but she wasn’t finished lecturing, so she couldn’t. “It won’t be that way forever, honey, I promise.”

  Whatever. I wasn’t holding my breath.

  “Where was I?”

  “The fruitcake falling close to the tree.”

  “You know your grandmother, everything’s always secrecy and intrigue with her, and it’s all very tempting when you’ve got no one else to play with. Believe me, I know. But you’re not like I was, Genie, you’re much more impressionable and far more destructive.” She let that one suck the air out of the room for a second, and then continued. “Can’t you see how dangerous this could be for you? I mean, have you stopped to think what’s gonna happen if you find out who did it?”

  I knew the answer to that one, but it was top secret.

  “Do you think I’m fool enough to believe you’ll control yourself, knowing how much you adore your grandmother?”

  Through the waxy green leaves outside my bedroom window, I saw that the sky was gray again. Looked like rain was on the way.

  Mom took a deep breath and shook her head, but her voice was softer when she spoke. “Look, Genie. You’re starting a new school in September, junior high. You’ll have a clean slate, a chance to start fresh, make new friends, and move on to something better for yourself. Do you really want to throw that away by getting a reputation as a snitch before the first day?”

  “I don’t give a sh—” I stopped myself just in time—the eyebrow of doom was rising on her forehead like a cobra set to strike. “It doesn’t matter what they think, they won’t like me anyway.”

  “Spare me, okay? You seem dead set on giving other kids all the ammunition they need to single you out, and you’ve got to stop doing that.”

  She was talking nonsense and it was time to call her on it. “So what? I’m not supposed to do the right thing because a bunch of pimply geeks won’t like me for it? Jesus Christ, mom. Am I supposed to be a coward so I can be one of them?”

  “No, Genie, that’s not it. You should always do the right thing, when it’s yours to do. As soon as you know the difference, then you can call yourself a man. Believe me, you’ve got a hell of a long way to go yet, buster.”

  I had to admit it, I liked it when mom talked tough.

>   “And that’s where I come in. This sign business isn’t for you. Do you know why? Because nothing good can come of it. If you don’t find out who did it, you’ll be disappointed, and we both know how you handle disappointment.”

  Like a grenade without the pin.

  “But I’m not so concerned about that, because I know how smart you are, and if you’re determined to get to the bottom of it, you probably will.”

  She finally said something I agreed with.

  “But what then? If you go to the police, you’ll only make problems for yourself with the other kids at school, problems that you don’t need and haven’t even thought about because you’ve already written them off. And that would be bad enough. But I’m not most concerned about that, because I know you, Genie. And that’s what worries me.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “Excuse me. I’m talking, which means you are …”

  “Listening.”

  “Thank you. Because I know you, both of you”—she looked at Thrash, and he flashed this innocent, who-me look—“there’s only one option. You two are just out for payback. So you’re gonna track down whoever did it and pick a fight. Now, you already know that you’re not supposed to fight anymore, but the thing that scares me to death is that this time you might meet up with someone, maybe even a group of kids, just like you, angry and out of control, only bigger, older, stronger, and who won’t think twice about putting you in the hospital when you charge at them, which you will, because when you get upset you just fly off the handle without ever stopping to think. Does any of this sound familiar?”