How to Lead a Life of Crime

chapter TWENTY-ONE



THE BLIND SPOT





I’ve been brought to an empty classroom. There’s no place to sit, so I pace the perimeter.

“Hello!” I almost cringe when I hear Mandel’s cheerful voice. “It sounds like you’ve had quite a day!”

He’s not alone. A man comes through the door behind him. I’ve never seen the guy’s face before, but the look in his eyes is pure predator. He’s my father’s age, and he isn’t particularly tall or muscular. But I see his thick fingers and calloused knuckles, and I know that the man must be one of the academy’s killers.

Mandel’s hands are in his pockets. It’s his way of showing me that I pose no threat. “Why don’t you tell me what went wrong this afternoon.”

I don’t have a plan. What’s the point? But I’m not going to mention the dead kid. There’s no telling what he could do with information like that. “I lost my nerve. I panicked, and I got arrested.”

Mandel knows I’m bluffing. “It was a simple task, Flick. You must have stolen hundreds of phones before you arrived at the academy. What on earth made you panic this time?”

“I thought it was another one of your tests. I was scared of failing.”

“You assumed it was a test? My, my, we are a bit paranoid, aren’t we? For your information, Mr. Martin has been organizing similar trips for the past fifteen years. All of our instructors send students into the field from time to time.”

“Was today a simulation?”

Mandel smiles. “No, and I’m afraid you’ve made Mr. Martin’s life quite difficult. You were performing a favor for some very important alumni. Thanks to your performance, they’ve lost access to an important source of information, and they’re not very pleased with your instructor. And of course there’s the matter of the Facebook page.”

“Did Mr. Martin make lots of new friends?” I ask.

“I see you still have your sense of humor. Let me ask you . . . how did someone in a state of panic manage to craft such an entertaining profile?”

It’s a very good question. I don’t have an answer.

“Feeling tongue-tied? Then let’s move on. How long did it take you to construct Mr. Martin’s profile?”

“About twenty minutes.”

Mandel cocks his head. “You couldn’t think of anything better to do with twenty minutes of Internet time?”

“Who needs porn when I’ve got Gwendolyn?”

Mandel’s pet thug finds this amusing. Does he know my sweet little princess?

“More jokes,” Mandel observes. “And yet you have much more reason to panic now than you did this afternoon. But we both know you were just as composed then as you are right now. So let’s set that rather pitiful excuse to the side for a moment. I’m still curious about your time online. You haven’t had Internet access in months. Wasn’t there anyone you wanted to write? Any person you felt like phoning?”

“No.”

“Not even Joi?”

“Who?”

Mandel laughs. “Well played. Now let’s discuss your arrest. How many times have you been arrested in the past?”

“None.”

“And when you were arrested this afternoon, why didn’t you call the academy? Why did you choose to phone your father?”

“Why don’t you just tell me what you’re getting at?” I say. “You sound like you have everything figured out. So go ahead and do what you want to me.”

“You seem to think that I’m angry,” Mandel notes. “Do I look angry?”

“I have no idea,” I say. The guy never stops smiling.

“Mr. Martin would say that the day has been a disaster, but I’m actually rather pleased by what I’ve heard.”

What?

“I was worried that we might have sent you out a bit early. A gifted young man like you could have found a way to cause quite a bit of trouble for the academy. I knew there was a chance that I might need to do some damage repair this evening. But you acted like a true predator. First you attacked Mr. Martin. And then you went after your father. You were intending to kill him, weren’t you?”

He doesn’t know that I tried to surrender. And for some reason, my father hasn’t told him the truth. Play along.

“I got tired of waiting for my reward.”

“But your father outsmarted you. And sent you back to me. He’s laughing at us both right now.”

“If he’d faced me like a man, I would have won.”

The thug and Mandel share a chuckle.

“Only little boys believe in ‘fighting like a man,’” Mandel says. “It doesn’t matter how you fight, Flick. There’s no such thing as honor. The only thing that matters is winning.”

“Then I’ll win the next round.”

Mandel nods. “Perhaps. I am extremely happy with the progress you’ve made. I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re ready to graduate by the end of next semester. But in the meantime, there are still a few things you need to learn. Your next lesson will be taught by my colleague, Mr. Wilson. I’m afraid it’s going to be a little bit painful.”

Mandel has clearly been smoking some of Julian’s crack if he thinks his enforcement friend will be able to hurt me. I’m thirty years younger than Mr. Wilson. The old codger doesn’t stand a chance. Then the man steps forward and pulls up a pant leg. He has a set of nunchaku strapped to his shin. Why do I keep expecting Mandel to play fair?

“Mr. Martin has insisted that you be reprimanded. But please don’t consider this a punishment. Think of it as a lesson in humility. You’ve been fighting amateurs for too long. Your father is a professional. He trained alongside Mr. Wilson during their days at the academy. You’re about to get a taste of what to expect should your father choose to fight ‘like a man.’ Mr. Wilson?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Don’t kill him,” Mandel says before he leaves the room.

• • •

I remember the one time I managed to hurt my father. It was the same fight that led to my exile in Georgia. I threw a punch, and it hit his jaw. For a second, I believed that the tables had finally turned. And in that second, I had a glimpse of another life. One in which my mother never suffered, my brother never scrambled to keep the peace, and I never had to tiptoe through the halls of my home. It was the most glorious vision I’d ever had. I wanted it so bad, and Jude must have known. Because he died trying to make it real.

• • •

They’ve planted grass on the surface of the moon. The lush green lawn keeps going and going until it meets a perfectly black horizon. I hear sprinklers in the distance—the rotating kind that Jude and I used to jump through when we were kids. I’d like the little dead boy to have a chance to enjoy them. But Peter Pan and I are the only ones here.

“Where are we?” I ask.

Peter Pan flies a slow, graceful loop around me before coming down to land. “This is the place between sleep and awake. The place where you can still remember dreaming. I’ve been waiting for you. Come with me. I’ll show you around.”

We start walking, side by side. The horizon never gets any closer. “Why am I here?” I ask.

“You’ve left your body back at the academy. It needs time to heal.”

“I’m alive?”

“Yes.”

“And I’m still me?”

“More you than you’ve been in a very long time.”

“Why didn’t Mandel figure it out? I tried to surrender. If Dad had let me, Mandel would have lost the wager.”

“Mandel will never understand what you did.”

“What did I do?”

“The right thing. You returned the man’s phone. Then you tried to stop Mandel’s experiment—even though you thought Dad would kill you.”

I made my choice, and I didn’t even realize it. “I chose to give up. That’s what Dad would say.”

“What takes more guts? To fight for your own life at any cost—or prove that you’re willing to lose it?”

I see his point, but I don’t know why he thinks I’ve just made some huge leap forward. “Isn’t that what I’ve been doing for the past goddamned year? I’ve given up everything for you!”

“No,” Jude says. “I died trying to help you. Why would I want you to risk your life for my sake? I told you to stay with Joi, but you wanted revenge. And you would have traded your soul just to get it.”

I’m still confused. “And today?”

“Today you let go. I was worried you’d changed, but when it mattered most, you were still the brother I knew. Maybe there is a predator gene like Mandel says. Or maybe Dad’s right and it comes down to a choice. But both of them are totally wrong about one thing. They think you’ve only got two options. Off or on. Fight or die. But there’s a third option: screw them. Be who you want to be—and don’t be afraid of the consequences. That’s what you did at the airport. That’s how you found your strength.”

“It was the little boy. The one who died. He made me think about you. Is that why you put his pictures on that phone?”

When Peter Pan grins, I realize how stupid the question must have sounded. “You know I don’t have that kind of power,” he reminds me. “Even if I did, all that matters is that you knew what the pictures meant.”

“I saw that kid, and all I could think about was how much I miss you and how much I lost when I let you go. I couldn’t do that to someone else. I couldn’t take away what little was left of his one good thing.”

“You figured out that he wasn’t just an assignment or a means to an end. He was real.”

“Yeah.”

“It’s all real, you know,” Jude tells me. “All the bodies left behind in their war games. All the people they poison and rob. They’re human beings.”

“I know. That’s why I called Dad and told him to come get me. He’s bad, but Mandel is a million times worse.”

“You don’t need Dad’s help. You’ve found Mandel’s blind spot. He doesn’t know there’s a third option. Remember what you told Dad? He asked what you would do if you were given the choice to kill or die. You said you’d do ‘something else.’ Well, you’re going to face another choice soon enough, I’ll bet. And whatever you do—make it spectacular.”

I laugh. “Any ideas?”

“Nope, but you’ll figure it out.”

“I’m glad to have you back, Jude.”

“I never went anywhere,” he says. “There’s nowhere to go.”

• • •

I’m in the infirmary and a machine by my head is beeping insistently. A nurse peeks into the room and sees I’m awake. A few minutes later a doctor arrives. He shines a penlight into each of my eyes.

“Can you feel your limbs?” he asks.

“Yes.” Everything hurts. My throat is painfully dry. And I’m pretty sure there’s a catheter stuck where no plastic tubing should ever be forced to go.

“Do you know where you are?”

“The seventh circle of hell?”

“I heard you had a sense of humor,” he replies dryly as he slides a blood pressure cuff up my arm.

“How long was I out?”

“Thirteen days.”

Damn! Mr. Wilson really knows how to swing a set of nunchaku.

“Any serious damage?”

The doctor glances at my face. “You’re not as cute anymore.”

“Is that supposed to be funny?” I really don’t know.

“You’ll be fine,” the doctor says on his way out of the room. “By the way, you have a visitor waiting outside.”

It’s not Mandel. It’s Gwendolyn. And I’m glad to see that she isn’t pretending to be concerned. She just glides in, wearing a black dress with a strange, white image that stretches from the collar to the hem. It looks like an x-ray of a bird in flight. She takes a seat in the chair at my bedside and stares at me.

“Hello, sweetheart,” I croak.

“He’s right. You’re not as cute anymore,” she informs me.

“Well, if you get sick of looking at me, you can always cut off my head.”

“Maybe someday I will,” Gwendolyn replies. “It’s definitely something to look forward to. But for now Mr. Mandel says we’re still a couple. He made me come down to offer my congratulations.”

“For what? Getting my ass handed to me?”

“For being named one of the academy’s Duxes.”

“You’re kidding.”

She picks up a section of my IV tube and rolls it between her thumb and index finger. She’s probably itching to give it a yank. “I wish. I thought you were out of the game when you fell to fifteenth place in the Art of Persuasion. But I guess your other grades were pretty amazing. We’re tied.”

“Tied? We’re both Dux?” It sounds great—until I realize that Mandel has made Gwendolyn my chaperone.

“Yes, which means you better get your ass out of bed. The new semester starts in four days. We have work to do.”