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I shake my head. “We were born into the life. Just like every other curse worker kid in the world. You couldn’t have kept us out if you tried.”
“Philip’s dead at twenty-three. And I’m still around. That’s not right.” He shakes his head.
I have nothing to say to that, except that if I had to pick him or Philip, the choice would be easy. I’d take him any day. Since I know he doesn’t want to hear that, I take a sip of Grandad’s beer and join him in contemplating the muddy lawn and fading stars.
5
I WAKE UP SUNDAY MORNING with a pounding headache and a mouth that tastes of death. I get up out of the lawn chair in the chill sunlight. Grandad’s not there. When I head to the basement, I see that Daneca and Sam are gone too, but at least they’ve left a note:
SEE YOU BACK AT WALLINGFORD.
—S & D
I stumble back upstairs and realize that for some people the wake is still going on. The dining table is in bad shape, hunks of macaroni and cheese oozing onto the tablecloth, mingling hideously with blueberry pie filling. Bottles and cans litter all surfaces. I see Barron in the living room, his arm around an elderly lady I don’t know. She’s telling him about how back in her day, if you really wanted to make money, you went into opium. Clearly she doesn’t know that today all you need for meth is a hotel coffeepot, but I’m not going to be the one to tell her.
Grandad is asleep in his recliner, the steady rise and fall of his chest an indicator that he’s okay.
A few other people are sitting around, mostly young mobsters still in their rumpled suits, collars loose enough to show their neck scars. When I pass, I hear them talking about a big job involving a bank, thirty feet of rope, and a lot of WD-40. They are red-eyed and laughing.
I go into the guest bedroom and find my mother sitting in front of a television, watching the soap opera channel. “Oh, honey,” she says when she sees me. “I never met those friends of yours. They seemed really nice.”
“Yeah,” I say.
She studies me for a long moment. “You look terrible. When’s the last time you ate?”
I lean my head against the wall, arching my neck. “I have a hangover.”
“There’s aspirin in the bathroom, but it’ll tear up your stomach if there’s nothing in it. You should eat.”
“I know,” I say. She’s right.
I get into my car and drive to a diner I remember from the summers when Philip, Barron, and I lived with Grandad. The waitress doesn’t seem to be bothered by my wrinkled day-old suit or by the fact that I eat two breakfasts, one right after the other. I cut the eggs and watch the yolk run across my plate in a yellow tide. Then I pepper the mess and sop it up with rye toast. By the time I get through a pot of coffee, my head stops hurting.
I leave some bills on the table and head for school. The steering wheel of my car has been warmed by the sun, and as I cruise along the highway, I roll down my windows to drink in the last rain-soaked breath of summer.
* * *
What I don’t expect is to walk into the dorm and find Daneca and Sam with a two-liter bottle of Mountain Dew and all of the files the Feds gave me spread out across various surfaces of my room. I freeze with my hand on the door frame.
For a moment all I can feel is blind, unreasoning rage. Those papers are mine.
“Oh, hey,” Daneca says, looking up from the floor, where she’s sitting with her back braced against my bed. She’s looking pretty casual for someone who is courting a demerit just for being in here. She grins. “Nice look. I can’t believe you were telling the truth about the Feds.”
“That’s because after Barron’s eulogy, you have all new trust issues regarding my family,” I say, as casually as I can manage. I take off my jacket and throw it onto the bed. Then I roll up my shirtsleeves. That’s about as together as I can get myself without a shower and a change of clothes. “And now I have all new trust issues with you. What exactly do you think you’re doing?”
“Wait, you’re saying that thing Barron told us about the Himalayas and saving that goat wasn’t true?” Sam asks. He’s got on a black T-shirt and jeans. His hair’s still wet.
I am almost one hundred percent sure he’s messing with me.
I roll my eyes. “Anyway, just because I said I had files—during a period, I will remind you, when I was severely compromised by drink and grief—doesn’t mean I gave you permission to read them.”
“Evildoers don’t care about rules,” Daneca says, and then has to snicker for a while.
“Oh, come on,” Sam says. “You hid them under the mattress. That’s like begging for someone to find them.”
I have a bad feeling that Sam is quoting something I said back at me. I groan and slump into my desk chair, then realize I am sitting on a stack of papers. I pull them out from under me.
“So, what are we looking at?” I ask them, peering at what I’m holding. There are pictures clipped to the files, a bunch of tough-looking guys clearly getting their picture taken because they were busted for something. And then, candid shots of those same guys drinking coffee in cafés or reading the paper on the balcony of a hotel, a woman in a bathing suit beside them. Surveillance shots.
