was something to see, Allgood in action. With all their corners lined up in anal-retentive cheer, the books were piled around his bed three high and two deep. It was hard to believe they’d all fit into a duffel bag to begin with, even if it was one bigger than Allgood himself. He tried to give a couple to me, but I didn’t plan on organic chemistry being a big part of my future.
I was busy, too. I didn’t steal any money; I’d wait on the last day for that. They took that shit seriously here. There would be room searches. Hell, strip searches if the former didn’t turn anything up. I’d lift what I could on the day I left. By the time the staff noticed anything, I’d be gone. I’d hit Mrs. Candy Tidwell first. Candy, shit. You’d think with a name like that, she’d be sweet as homemade peach pie. Cheerful as a puff-chested robin welcoming the dawn. Far from it. She squatted on the other end of the spectrum and squatted hard. With the jowls of a bulldog and the cold, round amber eyes of a muck-eating catfish, she had probably cried a river when corporal punishment was taken out of schools. Cried and promptly got a job at a place that ignored an occasional slap or shake, and that place would be here. She had a fist as big as a ham and as heavy as a falling rock. Act up in one of her classes, and it was likely to come crashing down on the back of your head. I’d seen guys bust their noses in a spray of red on their desk from one of her blows.
Who the hell named their kid Candy? A girl like that had three choices when she grew up. Stripper, hooker, or sadistic teacher with a dark line of fuzz on her upper lip. Wasn’t it my luck that I was saddled with the third option? Squeezed into a gray polyester pantsuit like a summer sausage popping from its skin, she was the thick, choking smell of chalk, lilacs, and blood. She was frozen stares, cracking knuckles, and the voice launched by a thousand cigarettes. In other words, she was not a good time. I would take her money and piss in her empty purse.
After her, I’d drift by the offices, see if any were open and empty. It didn’t happen often, but once in a while, someone would take a bathroom break and forget to lock their door. Except for our beloved leader and administrator, Lewis Sugarman. He never forgot. With an eerie smile that had been frozen on his face for the two years I’d been at Cane Lake, he always kept a careful distance from the inmates. And that’s what we were, really. Prisoners, unwanted scum-at least that’s what you’d think from the look that would blossom in Sugarman’s eyes if he thought he might actually have to interact with one of us. Pure, unadulterated disgust. He would pass through the rec room as fast as his fancy shoes could take him. And if he saw a kid on the floor getting the living shit kicked out of him-well, he’d just keep walking. Tall and thin, he had shiny shoe-leather brown hair that owed a lot to a dye more expensive than the drugstore kind. They’d missed the eyebrows and lashes, though; pale gray, they were all but invisible. He looked like a surprised Chihuahua but with the poisonous scuttle of a fiddlehead spider.
Did he care about us? Hell, no. He’d walk through a lake of our blood in those shiny shoes and not blink. It was about the paycheck for him, nothing else. Indifference and malice, sometimes it was one and the same. Charlie had said that, him and his big words, but he was right. Too bad Sugarman was so paranoid about locking that door; I would’ve liked to take a slice of that check with me.
“I will call.”
Charlie’s stubborn voice interrupted my thoughts. Sticky-fingered thoughts but misdemeanors at best. Cane Lake was a mix of all kinds. Some kids were just victims-of parent-killing car wrecks, bad luck, or relatives who liked to touch too much-but some were a little rougher than that. I’d learned a lot here. Not much of it good, even less of it legal. I was getting an education, all right, just not the kind that got you into college.
“Don’t waste your money, Allgood.” It wasn’t the first time he’d said it. He’d been on this kick for the whole week. “Hair gel doesn’t come cheap.”
His hand automatically smoothed the bird nest on top of his head. “Funny,” he said sourly. “But I’m serious, Jack. I want to call. Just take them, all right? Don’t be such an obstinate ass.”
“I was thinking the same about you.” I leaned back against the wall, math book in my lap. The room wasn’t big enough for a desk. Wasn’t even big enough for two people to fart in at the same time without blowing the walls down. “Only with smaller words.”
“You never have a nice thing to say about anyone, not even yourself.” Charlie’s books were disappearing into the duffel bag, two at a time and cradled with the same care you’d show a baby. “You’re smart enough, Jack. Damn smart when you want to be.” He gave me a flash of white teeth. “Except in chemistry.”
“Yeah, yeah. Rub it in,” I growled.
The last book disappeared, and I was disappointed when I felt a pang at the sight. I was tougher than that. I stood apart, a lone wolf. If it took getting down on all fours and howling at the moon to prove it, then that’s what I would do. Just watch me. The rasp of the duffel bag’s zipper was unnaturally loud, but I did my best to ignore it. Charlie was harder to ignore. “Take the calls, Jack. Please?”
I gave in. Gave in and told him what he wanted to hear. It was a lie, yeah, but so what? I’d done worse. Much, much worse. “Okay. Jesus. I’ll take the calls. Damn, now give it a rest, already.”
“Good.” Charlie eased the bag to the floor. I would’ve tossed it. “You’ll meet my brother someday. You’ll like Hector.”
“Hell, Charlie, I don’t even like you,” I said impatiently, moving on to the next problem in the book. Another lie; this time, it was for both of us.
“Uh-huh.” The pale eyes were bright. “Want to wait downstairs with me for my cab?”
The math problem was harder than it should’ve been for some reason. I gave up on it and tossed the book aside to roll over onto my stomach on the bed. “A cab. Aren’t you rolling in the dough?”
He didn’t pay any attention to the swipe. “You don’t want to come?”
I shook my head, eyes on that goddamn pink wall. I didn’t particularly want to watch Charlie get into a beat- up yellow Ford and disappear down the street while I peered through the seven-foot-tall chain-link fence. Not my idea of a good time. “See ya, Allgood.”
I heard him heft the bag, heard the faint grunt of exhalation at the weight of it. It had my lips curling slightly. Such a little guy but such big ambitions. I hoped he held on to them. It’s always you against the world, and the world cheated like hell. But it might be that Charlie could fight it to a standstill. If anyone could…
“I’ll call,” he repeated, and I felt the faint knock of knuckles against my shoulder. “And if you don’t take them, I’ll call Mr. Sugarman instead and tell him you love the pink. Adore the pink. You want to volunteer to paint the outside of the building pink.”
“Go home, asshole.” I laughed. It came out a little thick, probably from those lingering paint fumes, but it was a laugh. My first since… since a long time.
He laughed, too. “Talk to you soon, Jack.” Then the door closed, and he was gone, leaving nothing but an overly clean bed and the feeling that the room had grown into an empty, echoing space. Hard to imagine in a room the size of a broom closet, but that’s what it felt like. I could’ve jumped up, shouted my name, and not been surprised to hear echoes for days. One smart-mouthed kid lost in a space the size of the Grand Canyon. I turned back over, pulled a corner of the blanket over me, and closed my eyes. There was nothing here I wanted to see right now.
I never saw Charlie alive again, but I did meet his brother, Hector. Charlie was wrong. I didn’t like him. I didn’t like him one damn bit.
3
I ended up in a carnival, a happy place for a happy kid.
Shit.
Although the place was a lot like me, really. There were the bright colors, the cheerful, tinny music pumped out by a mechanical calliope, all glossy surface to please the eye. Okay, none of that was like me. I was still everything I’d been two years ago at fourteen, red-haired country trash in T-shirt and jeans fished from a bin at Goodwill. Beat you like a redheaded stepchild, a good old-fashioned saying that Boyd had delighted in repeating to me over and over, snickering at his own “humor.” I had sullen dark eyes full of wary suspicion and chips on both shoulders with spares in my pockets. No, I didn’t have the external flash of the carnival, but I had the internal secretiveness and matter-of-fact larceny.
To live, you need money. There were things I wouldn’t do for cash, but not many. Practical to the very edge of ignoring my conscience altogether, I did what I had to do. I lifted a few wallets if the risk seemed low. The last thing I wanted was to be picked up and sent back to Cane Lake or someplace even worse. So while I lightened
