Vengeance: Mystery Writers of America Presents

THE SUNSHINE SUMMER Camp was housed on the top two floors of a private elementary school on Central Park West and Seventy-Fourth Street. We had everything an urban camp for little rich kids needed: a rooftop swimming pool, an indoor playground, and classrooms chock-full of educational toys and games. A far cry from the Boys’ Club camps where I’d spent the summers of my early years, and a relatively easy way to make some cash before I headed back to Binghamton in the fall.

Or at least it had been, until Dylan showed up.

My next run-in with him happened during afternoon nap time. All the kids gathered their blankets from their cubbies and spread them out through the classroom while I stood watch. Rebecca had gone to lunch.

The kids were supposed to lie down without talking or moving, which of course isn’t easy when you’re five. Unlike Rebecca, I tried to be understanding when they began to stir. First Amber raised her Band-Aided elbow and said, “I’m thirsty.” Then Michael, who would wear only green socks, complained that Royce had kicked him. No surprise there. Royce never stopped moving, even when he was flat on a blanket half asleep.

After settling everyone down, I put on a CD, Peter and the Wolf. As the gentle music filled the room, the children seemed to relax. I did too. I pulled out my cell phone to check my e-mail — a no-no with Rebecca around, but she wasn’t there — and I saw a movement from the corner of my eye. Dylan was upright, gathering a stack of blocks from the shelf beside him.

The other children watched, wide-eyed. Royce leaped up, eager to get in on the action. “Can I play too?”

“Nobody’s playing,” I said, storming over to Dylan’s blanket.

But he didn’t seem to hear me. He continued to pile up the blocks, one after the other, making a tower as high as the table beside him. Then he added a long block and balanced it across the top, the tower threatening to topple.

I snatched away this last block and glared. “Put these back.”

“I don’t want to.” There was no anger, just a simple declaration.

“If you don’t, you’re going to have a time-out.”

This was a punishment the kids dreaded as much as losing pool time. But Dylan was unfazed. He reached out to the shelf and found another block the same length as the one I had just taken away. He added it to the top of his column of blocks to form what looked like an upside-down L.

“See, it’s a galley.”

I had no idea what he was talking about and I didn’t much care. Besides, I felt the eyes of all the other kids on me. If I didn’t establish authority over Dylan, and fast, they’d think I was a pushover.

“You need to listen to me,” I said firmly. “No playing during nap time.”

He looked up with eyes as dark as charcoal. “But my galley isn’t done.”

“Trust me, it is,” I said.

Music swelled from the boom box, the soaring violins that represented the wolf’s arrival. Dylan smiled then, as though he knew something I didn’t, and it made me so angry I started to pull my hand back. I wasn’t really going to hit him, of course, it was just my anger getting the best of me. And then I heard the door open.

When Rebecca walked in, my hands were back at my sides, and Dylan looked at her. “Eddie and I made a galley.”

“That’s very nice,” she said, but the look on her face was stern. “But Eddie knows there’s no playing during nap time.”

“Of course I know that, but —”

Rebecca gave me a sharp look that said she didn’t care what I had to say and shook her head. Disappointed. Dylan had made a fool out of me once more, and I didn’t much like it. But then, it was my own fault. I promised myself that I wouldn’t let him take advantage of me again.

DYLAN WAS ON his best behavior for the rest of that week, at least until the encounter with the ice vendor. It was a Friday, and the promise of the weekend was bright — I’d finally have some time with my old high school friends and away from camp. I stood on the hot Manhattan sidewalk, the sun crisping my skin. There were kids all around, being herded by their mothers and nannies.

A middle-aged street vendor was selling Italian ices in paper cups. I waited in line behind some of the campers and then ordered a pineapple ice. I’d just taken my first lick when I heard a familiar voice. Britta. She was calling after Dylan, who’d stormed toward the ices cart. She was a dozen feet behind him, struggling to push the stroller over a large sidewalk crack.

“Tell the man what you like,” she said, wheeling up to the cart.

“Chocolate,” Dylan said.

“No chocolate,” the vendor said in what was barely English. “You want grape?”

Dylan closed his hands into fists. “No, I want chocolate.”

The vendor looked at Britta with concern. He didn’t want to be the cause of a full-fledged tantrum in the middle of Seventy-Fourth Street. “No chocolate.”

I glanced at Britta, who looked like she was about to have a meltdown of her own, and then at Dylan. “I’ve got pineapple. It’s pretty tasty. You want to try some?”

“I don’t know,” he said.

“Go ahead. I think you’ll like it.”

I held out my soggy paper cup. Dylan took it and lapped up a mouthful of pineapple ice.

“It’s good,” he said, surprised. “I want one of these.” Instantly, the vendor began to scoop pineapple ice into a cup. Britta gave me a look of pure gratitude.

“Thank you.”

“Of course. Anything to help.”

“How has he been doing?” she asked quietly, adjusting the bonnet around the doughy face of Dylan’s baby sister. Dylan was a few steps away.

I shrugged, playing coy. “Pretty good, mostly. What’s he like at home?”

She shook her head sharply, which I took to mean Don’t ask. I wanted to know more, but just then Dylan inserted himself between us, still sucking on my pineapple ice. He looked sharply at Britta.

“He won’t let me make my galley.”

I smiled. “Yup, I’m Mr. Mean, all right.” I tousled Dylan’s hair and leaned in closer to Britta. She smelled of baby powder and suntan lotion and looked as beautiful as any girl I’d ever seen. “What’s this galley he keeps talking about?”

She turned away, and I couldn’t tell if she didn’t know or if she felt this wasn’t the moment to tell me. I wanted to press her further, but I didn’t have the chance. Something cold and sticky began to dribble onto my leg, and I saw that Dylan had turned over the paper cup and was pouring pineapple ice on me.

“Goddamn it, what the . . .” Glancing at Britta, I let the anger sputter out, smiling instead. “Lost your grip, huh, little guy?”

Dylan said nothing, just let the paper cup fall to the ground. He reached out to the vendor to take his own cup of ice and began to lick it with relish.

“I’m so sorry,” Britta said. “Let me buy you another one.”

“No need,” I said, and I was about to say Why don’t you make it up to me by going out with me sometime, but then the baby started to squawk. I noticed that Dylan was beside her, one hand around his ice, the other inside her stroller. He must’ve pinched her or hit her and made her cry.

You little bastard, I thought, but I kept that smile right on my lips, still sticky from pineapple ice.

“Let’s go,” Britta said, spinning the stroller away from me. As I watched them head down the sidewalk, Dylan looked back, only once, a faint smile on his lips.

EARLY THE NEXT week, a heat wave settled over the city. Temperatures soared into the high nineties, and the humidity was off the charts. The kids moved sluggishly through our barely cool classroom, and even Royce hardly stirred during nap time. No one showed any signs of energy all day until it was time to go up to the pool.