Sting

by Jude Watson

“Of course not! I’m just …”

  Jules slid down and landed on her feet. “You think I can’t handle Blue.”

  “Nobody can handle Blue,” Izzy said. “She’s scary.”

  “It’s not worth it,” March said. “We can’t get to Lemon without tangling with her. What if she’s after the sapphire, too?”

  “All the more reason to do it.” Jules’s eyes weren’t remote now. They shone with anger and certainty. “We can’t walk away from this. She killed our father and tried to steal our fortune. We have a chance to get back at her, steal that sapphire right from under her nose. And I think I know how.”

  “Jules, wait,” March said. “I don’t think —”

  “Just listen!” Jules strode toward them across the space, full of purpose now. “I’ve been thinking. Blue has been spending money like crazy this past year. She created the website with streaming video. The store with Blue merch. She cut an album and paid for it herself. She promoted her own European tour — London, Milan, Barcelona, Istanbul, Dubrovnik — in big arenas, not illegal pitches … and nobody came! It totally makes sense. What if she blew all the money? What if she needed more? She’s a thief. Stealing is always her first way out. Believe me, she’s after the sapphire, too.”

  “Okay,” March said. “But why is that a good thing? She’s got the in. Lemon trusts her. We don’t know what she’s planning.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Hamish is right — we do it at the concert. If we steal it, and it looks like she did it, Lemon will press charges. Sure, Blue won’t pay for Alfie, or for the bonds, or for trying to steal the moonstones, but she’ll pay for something.”

  “Okay,” March said cautiously. “I get what you’re saying. But. How?”

  “Lemon said it herself.” Jules smiled. “I look just like her.”

  * * *

  There were plenty of pitfalls in Jules’s idea. March shook his head again and again as Jules explained all the reasons she could do it.

  “But how will you know the routine?” March asked. “You can’t just improvise up in the air!”

  Jules set her jaw. “I can figure it out.”

  March shook his head. “Too dangerous.”

  They argued until well after midnight and drifted to sleep in their separate beanbags, sleeping hard and deep.

  March woke in the gray light and didn’t know where he was at first. He had been dreaming, again, of a woman walking, her white gown streaming river water. His fingers felt cold, and he checked his secret pocket for the sapphires. They felt wet.

  He sat up, shaken. He’d rolled off the beanbag during the night. The concrete beneath him was damp. Streaky light came through the grated windows.

  Hamish had said the place was damp. That’s what it was. Not a walking ghost.

  The concrete floor was hard and cold. He thought about his soft bed in the town house, how they’d ordered everything online and filled the house with pillows and comforters and sofas and big armchairs and everything that was as cushy and soft as possible, as if they could cushion themselves against their pasts. He remembered last Christmas, when they’d dragged in a fifteen-foot tree and crammed it with ornaments, so many the tree tipped over. How they’d bought one another hoverboards and computers and sneakers and boots and stupid toys and gargantuan chocolate bars. It had been the most fun they’d ever had.

  But if you thought about it, it was just a bunch of kids, really, trying to fill a space that couldn’t be filled. Fighting ghosts. Thinking that giving toys they never had were weapons against parents who didn’t care or that fancy chocolate made up for eating cereal for dinner every night or that a tree with sterling silver ornaments was better than a mom who was constantly in a revolving door marked GO TO JAIL, DO NOT PASS GO.

  Or a father who left you in bleak apartments with a wad of cash and a promise to come back. Or left your mother in a tight spot just because he was spooked.

  He couldn’t blame Darius for wanting to stay with Mikki. He still had a mom who cared.

  March had called him stupid. Deliberately. Knowing how much it would hurt.

  He was the one who owed an apology.

  When you fight so hard to hold on to a home that you lose the people you made it for, you’re a chump.

  Which made him a chump.

  He would text Darius today.

  No more sleep was possible. He got up. Maybe he’d slip out now, buy breakfast for everyone. Eggs and bacon on rolls. Hot tea for Jules with three sugars. OJ for Izzy. Coffee with lots of milk for him. He tiptoed out of the makeshift office.

  He stopped.

  Wet footprints on the concrete floor. As if someone had been there last night, face pressed against the streaked window, staring down at the bodies on the floor.

  Izzy had come up behind him without him hearing her.

  She looked down at the footprints. “It’s Zillah. She was here. I dreamed about her, didn’t you?”

  “It’s just damp.”

  “You know it’s not. Zillah is here. And Darius hasn’t texted me back. Not for hours.”

  “He will.”

  “I’m scared.” Izzy leaned against him, the way she used to do with Darius. “My heart is riven. Split down the middle. Just like Zillah said.”

  “I miss him, too. I just think … if we could get the last one, it will help Darius and Jules. If she could get back at Blue, make her pay …”

  “Blue can’t pay for everything she did to Jules,” Izzy said.

  “Yeah. I get that. But, Iz, Jules has to feel like Blue has. You know?”

  Izzy nodded, her curls soft against March’s arm. “Okay.”

  An otherworldly scream echoed across the space. Izzy grabbed his arm. “Zillah!”

  Light blinded them. A shadowy shape filled the doorway.

  Izzy screamed.

  The scream was echoed by the shape in the doorway. “AAAAAAHHHH!”

  “EEEEEEEEE!” screamed Izzy.

  Jules was there in a flash. “What is it?”

  A man walked farther into the space. He pressed his hands against his heart. “WHAT THE … You scared the guacamole outta me!”

  The door slammed behind him. The squealing scream became rusty hinges, and the ghost was just a youngish man in a sweatshirt.

  He put his hands on his hips. “Whoa. I didn’t remember anybody was here.” He squinted at them. “You must be the kids Hamish said are staying here.”

  “Good guess,” March said.

  “Let me ask you something. If somebody puts ketchup on eggs, is that so bad?”

  “Um,” March said. “What?”

  He shoved his hands in his pockets. “I mean, is that grounds for divorce or something? I didn’t know the eggs were special and had herbs and stuff. Who puts rosemary in eggs? Is that a thing? My life has gotten so crazy-in-a-bad-way since Heather started watching the Food Network. One minute I’m eating scrambled eggs, and the next thing I know, I’m in the driveway and she’s calling me a barbarian and throwing the car keys at me.” He thrust his head toward them and pointed to his forehead. “You see that? They hurt when they hit your head. I have a dent!” He sighed. “I love that woman like a crazy person, but she’s got to stop throwing me out. Anyway, I should introduce myself, right? I’m Joey Indiana. Hamish’s nephew, if you haven’t figured it out.”

  “March, Izzy, and that’s Jules,” March said.

  Joey looked down at the floor. The wet prints were almost gone, but you could still see the damp outline. “Yeah, it gets damp here. I should, I don’t know, do something. Buy a fan? A humidifier? Is that what I mean? Things get moldy, and I can’t sell ’em. Anyway, happy to loan you the place. Hamish is such a whack, right? But he’s my uncle, and I love him. I know about the big score. I had ahold of one couple a weeks ago, got left with a warehouse full of strollers. Worthless. Might as well give ’em away. Look, if you got room for another guy on this job …”

  “We’ll let you know.”

  “Sure, whatever.” Joey looked disa
ppointed. “So, hope you had a comfy night,” he said, peeking past them into the office. “Hamish stayed once when Keiko kicked him out. Said it gave him rheumatism. ’Course, she won’t kick him out again, seeing that she left him.”

  “His wife left him?” Jules asked. “When?”

  “While he was in Florida. She up and moved! Packed all her clothes!”

  March raised his eyebrows at Izzy and Jules. Hamish hadn’t told them a thing.

  “She found out about the gambling. Hamish started betting again. Double-mortgaged the house to pay off Jimmy the Knife. Plus the condo! Keiko loves that place.”

  “Jimmy the Knife?” Jules asked.

  “Yeah, and they don’t call him that for the way he can slice a tomato, you know what I’m saying? Loan shark. Which means you need money, he loans it. If you don’t pay up, the next thing you know you’re a seagull snack in a Staten Island landfill. So Keiko left him, took off to Mexico to live with her sister. I hear she’s living on some beach in Mazatlán. Sweet. I mean, for her, not for Hamish. Anyway … if you guys are okay, I guess I should take off. I just came for these.”

  Joey went to one of the wooden palettes on the floor and hefted a box. “Just grabbing some stuff to sell. Kitchen stuff. Spatulas.”

  “Spatulas,” Jules repeated.

  “Yeah. Got a buddy who can sell ’em on the street for a few bucks. They’re top quality. Wooden handles! Want one?”

  “Oh, thanks, but, no. Don’t really have a kitchen at the moment,” Jules said.

  Joey managed to shrug while holding a box. “Small-time stuff, I get that. But I have plans. Heather doesn’t get it. Wants me to get a job. Can you believe that? I’d be the first guy in my family to get a real job. I can’t let the folks down that way.”

  “Yeah, I hear ya,” March said. “Well, great meeting you —”

  “Here’s the thing.” Joey rested the box back on the floor. “The thing is I’ve got a few minor criminal infractions, right? In other words, a record. So who’s going to hire me? My buddy Rico got a gig at the InvestaCorps Center. You know, where they have basketball games and concerts? Heather asks why I don’t do that.”

  March was instantly alert. “So Rico works there?”

  “He’s an usher, yeah. Like I was saying, why should I go on the interview, even when I know they’ll say thankyouverymuch, here’s the door? Why try?”

  “Maybe if you tried, you wouldn’t get car keys thrown at your head,” Jules said.

  Joey looked puzzled.

  “I mean, maybe Heather wasn’t just mad about the eggs,” Jules elaborated.

  Joey slowly nodded. “Wow. Lightbulb! I’ll have to think about that.”

  “So, Joey. Rico would know about security at the arena?” March asked.

  “Yeah. But I can tell you it’s tight. If you got any ideas — and believe me, I had a doozy — Rico won’t help. Straight as a stick. Wait. That’s not what I mean; sticks can be bendy.” Joey looked lost in thought.

  “So … there’s nobody you know there who could sneak us backstage?” March asked, leading him back to the point.

  “Nah. I had this great idea: Rico would smuggle me in, and I’d grab the CCTV footage of the sound checks for the concerts, then start my own YouTube channel. Genius, right? Million-dollar revenue idea. Rico says no, because it would be wrong. I mean, that was his reason! Like I said, straight as a … um … what’s the word?”

  “Ruler?” Izzy asked.

  “Nah, that’s not it.”

  Joey shouldered the box. “Anyway, gotta fly. Spatulas don’t wait. Hey, how about straight as a spatula! You know, if you forget the flappy part where you flip things.”

  “Perfect,” March said.

  Joey wrestled the box out the door, which slammed behind him.

  “Hamish needs this more than he let on,” Jules said. “It seems like everything is pushing us toward boosting that gem.”

  “CCTV,” March said. “Izzy?”

  “Yeah,” Izzy said. “I’m on it.”

  The doorman looked at them dubiously, but on a word from the house phone, he pointed them toward the elevator. They zoomed upward to the seventieth floor.

  They needed things. Resources. Money.

  It was time to meet Ransome.

  Hamish fidgeted nervously. “Okay, just don’t say anything. I mean, anything much. This guy is a billionaire, but he’s also just a little bit crazy.”

  The elevator opened into a marble vestibule with a huge bronze sculpture. A pair of double doors was straight ahead, but they were firmly shut. A voice blasted out of a hidden speaker.

  “I’m in the pool. Go through the doors and up the staircase to your left.”

  Hamish pushed open the doors, and they walked into an apartment that arranged itself around them like a vast reception hall. Marble floors led to floor-to-ceiling windows that took in the bristling skyscrapers of Manhattan. Furniture was clustered in groups — couches, chairs, tables, shelves, enormous rugs in jewel tones. The wood was gilded, the velvet was tasseled, and the shelves groaned with crystal vases and figurines.

  “This guy is almost broke?” March whispered. “This place looks like Versailles puked on itself and the Taj Mahal cleaned up.”

  “When the rich lose it all, they get to keep their marbles,” Jules said.

  One grand, twisting staircase led upward, but Hamish headed for a slightly smaller one. They climbed up to a door and pushed it open. They were in a steamy indoor pool area.

  A man was swimming laps in a methodical way, his body a white distorted blur in the water. He didn’t pause at the pool’s edge but touched it and kept on swimming, dressed in a white cap and goggles. They stood, uncomfortably hot, on the slick wet tiles.

  “Should we jump in?” Jules muttered.

  It was another few minutes before the man touched the wall for the last time and stroked toward the ladder. He hoisted himself out and wrapped himself in a terry-cloth robe in a Union Jack pattern.

  “This way,” he said, looking like a strange alien creature with bright blue goggles and his close-fitting cap. They followed as his rubber sandals slapped on the tile.

  “His toes are disgusting,” Izzy whispered.

  He led them to a dressing room. A long counter edged one wall, with a hair dryer and various tubes and lotions lined up next to an enormous sink. Mirrors surrounded them on three sides.

  He sat at the counter and removed his cap, and damp long blondish hair fell almost to his shoulders. They watched as he carefully parted it, then swept it over his head and anchored it with bobby pins. He sprayed it with hair spray, then shot it with the dryer for a minute or so. Not until this was carefully done did he turn and look at them.

  “Did you bring your kids, Hamish?” Ransome asked. “Never hear of babysitters?”

  Jules bristled, but March touched his eyebrow. Throughout his childhood with Alfie, it had been a signal. If March saw his dad on the street, but Alfie didn’t want his kid to recognize him, he touched his left eyebrow. For March and Jules, it just meant Chill and let this play out. Be ready.

  “I told you I had a special team,” Hamish said. “This is Mar —”

  “I don’t need to know their names,” he interrupted. “Your crack team is kids?”

  “We’re the kids who have two of your sapphires,” Jules said.

  His gaze changed from contemptuous to something else … something greedy and fearful. He swallowed. “Let me see them.”

  March reached into his pocket. He held out his palm. The stones picked up the light, and two stars suddenly flashed so brightly that they all involuntarily flinched. Were they always this blue, this sharp? Now they looked like the electric blue of a lightning storm, with an icicle star like a razor. Every time he touched them — and he tried not to touch them — they felt colder.

  “Put them away!” Ransome barked.

  March slowly slid them back into his pocket. He kept his eyes on Ransome. The man was beyond rattled. He was fright
ened.

  “It’s Zillah, isn’t it,” Izzy said. “You’re afraid of her.”

  “Be quiet, little girl,” he said. “You’re too small to count.”

  “Why do you want them if you’re so afraid of them?” Jules asked.

  “Because I can control them! I’m the only one who knows how to reverse the curse.” Ransome turned back to the mirror. He patted his hair. His hand was shaking. He picked up the dryer and blasted his hair for a few seconds.

  Then he put down the dryer, stood, and belted his robe tighter.

  “I’m leaving for London on Saturday night. I want all three stones by then. Don’t give me details,” he said, holding up a hand. “I know who has the last stone. Tried to buy it from her, but she won’t sell. She thinks it’s a lucky piece. Fool. If you can’t get it from the pop star right here, you hardly stand a chance in her mansion in LA. And I can’t wait while you dither. I have a pending business deal, and I need those stones.”

  “That won’t be a problem,” March said.

  Ransome studied March, Jules, and Izzy for a long moment. He looked at Jules longer than the others, seeming to study her face. Then he shrugged.

  “London has a rich tradition of criminal urchins. I might as well take a chance on you. Snatch that necklace and run, right?”

  “There’s a little more involved than that,” March said. “Lemon Cartelle is surrounded by security. We have to plan this. And we’ll need a few things.”

  Ransome barked a laugh. “Listen to this kid!” he said to Hamish.

  “I do listen to him,” Hamish said quietly.

  Ransome hesitated. “I’m not your bank, kid.”

  March patted his pocket. “Then we walk.”

  Ransome blew out a breath and shoved his hands in the pockets of his robe.

  “What do you need?”

  March dug in his pocket. “I’ve got a list. It’s short.”

  March pressed the buzzer marked U. GOAWAY mounted on the brick building on West 107 Street. The three of them quickly leaned back and looked straight up. A few moments later the buzzer to release the door sounded, and March sprang forward to open it. FX had looked out the window and decided to let them in. Good start.