“You are strong,” I said. “You all are.”
“I used to think I was strong,” said Kym. “Now I don’t.”
It was only her third week, and she hadn’t said much. I let her be quiet, was soft in my instruction. The other girls, maybe sensing that she was fragile, were careful with her, too. They roughhoused with each other, but not with her yet.
“When I was your age, a little older,” I said. “Someone hurt me, too.”
I had never talked about it before with anyone except Paul, Mike, and the police. But there it was on the surface, maybe because of what happened the night before.
She looked at me, with big eyes, chewed on her nail. There was a kind of sullen anger there, something I recognized. “Your dad?”
“No,” I said. “Strangers.”
“Did they go to jail?” asked Daisy, her cheeks flushed.
“No,” I said. “They weren’t caught. I thought I was weak, too. I felt powerless, a victim.”
“Do you still feel that way?” asked Bella. “Because now you’re like all badass. You’re like pow!—and like bam!” She threw some punches to punctuate her words. “Even Mike works hard when he’s fighting you.”
I tried not to smile. A certain type of girl sees it as mockery.
“I think when you learn to fight, you learn things about yourself,” I said. “You come to know your strengths, your weaknesses. You learn to flow with who you are. There’s a strength in that. I’m small, but I’m fast. My arms aren’t as strong as my legs. I try not to let it ever be a match of strength alone.”
The girls were all watching me like I was imparting some deep wisdom. I felt a little guilty; who was I to teach them anything? I had broken a ton of Mike’s rules last night.
“What happened to you, Kym,” I said, “was not your fault. You are a kid. Your care was entrusted to someone who didn’t deserve it. You were a victim in that moment, but that doesn’t mean you’re a victim for life. You can find your strength, your power. You can create the life that lies ahead of you.”
She nodded, but I could tell she didn’t hear me yet. If she stayed with us, if I kept saying it, I knew we could make a difference. I’d seen it before—in myself.
After a while, the girls left, and I went to see Mike, who was in the back office, trying as usual to figure out how to keep running a school that most months cost money rather than made money. I could tell because he had his head down in his hand. As it was, none of the teachers got paid; we were all volunteers. We didn’t use the heat or the air-conditioning. The rent on the huge space was killing him, but he couldn’t find anything cheaper.
“Good class,” he said, not looking up at me. “I like what you had to say today. The girls respect you.”
I sat in the chair opposite his desk, regarded his office, the towering shelves of books stacked every which way, his countless trophies, awards, photographs at martial arts competitions. There were pictures of Paul, my dad—old ones from when they were all young and handsome, even one of my mom and dad together. Looking at the wall was like time traveling, ghosts captured by light. A milky sunshine washed in though cloudy windows. He swiveled to look at me, the chair suffering beneath his girth.
“What’s on your mind?”
“I want to know everything.”
“Everything.”
“About what happened to my parents,” I said. “I know you and Paul ran an investigation. That there are people you strongly suspect. But that you haven’t been able to prove anything. I want to know what you know.”
Those light hazel eyes in a landscape of dark skin, graying stubble on his jaw. He was the face of New York City, a celebration of mingling cultures, people from all over the world, all different colors, religions, countries meeting in mecca, falling in love, and having babies. It’s one of the things I love about New York. Class might still divide us, and maybe nowhere else are the contrasts as stark as in this crazy place. But culturally, we are New Yorkers first.
“Why?” he asked. The question had weight. Not: Why would you want to? But what is your motivation? “Why do you want to know? What will you do with this knowledge?”
I wouldn’t have been able to answer then. But the idea was already in my head, even if it was just a seed. Something that had burrowed itself into the dark recesses of who I am. It felt good to give those frat-boy bullies what they deserved. I liked hurting the bigger one and watching him cry out in pain. Even if the boy was a thief, it was the dominion of the physically strong over the physically weak that I couldn’t abide.
“I want to understand what happened,” I said. “And why.”
A slow blink, something clicking, registering. Mike saw me. I think he always saw my intention. On some level, I think he always knew what I wanted, even before I did.
“We might never be able to understand,” he said. “Even if we find them.”
“Please,” I said. “Tell me everything. I deserve the truth.”
And he did. He told me everything he knew.
? ? ?
TRAFFIC WAS HEAVY. I SNAKED along, praying that the car wasn’t going to die on me in the stop-and-start traffic. Seth’s words from last night were still ringing in my ears.
“I’m pretty sure that the fourth man was a cop,” he said.
“Why?” I asked. “Why do you think that?”
“First of all, he waited outside,” said Seth. “Maybe he was afraid your dad would recognize him. Or maybe he just didn’t have the stomach for how fucked up it was, didn’t want to get his hands dirty.”
I nodded, considering.
“They got away with it,” said Seth. “I mean, do you know what kind of hell rains down when someone kills a cop? There’s no mercy. Those guys move heaven and earth. Unless. Unless there’s corruption. A cover-up of some kind. Then people get questioned and released, leads mysteriously go cold, the case starts all thunder and lightning, then slows to a drizzle. Then goes cold.”
Seth was, of course, a crazed conspiracy theorist. Which didn’t mean he was wrong. The thought had occurred to me, though neither Mike nor Paul ever suggested it. That other cops might have been involved.
“It was definitely cops that ripped off Whitey Malone,” said Seth. “It was a surgical strike, swift and trained, zero evidence left behind.”
“So cops stole the money,” I said. “And other cops came looking for it?”
“Or people hired by cops,” he said. “Didion, the Beckham brothers, these were bad guys. They were hired guns, promised a cut. If we figured it out, who was probably there that night, why didn’t the police?”
“There was no evidence,” I said. “They were questioned and released.”
“Give me a break,” said Seth. “If they wanted Beckham and Didion, they’d have found a way to hold them. Shit, when the cops want someone for a crime, there’s no stopping them.”