by Sara Beitia
“We need a map,” Olivia says after another pause. “I need to check a map, just to make sure.”
Trying to hold in his frustration, Albert thinks. “We can get one at the gas station back that way,” he says, gesturing back over his shoulder. “I’m pretty sure they have a bunch of road maps for sale.”
She sighs. “One problem. We have less than two bucks left.”
He claps his hands together, a startling noise that reverberates in the clear, cold air. “Then we’ll just have to steal one.” He sounds way more confident than he feels; he’s never shoplifted anything in his life.
“Perfect.” Olivia adopts the plan so quickly that Albert wonders if this is something she’s done before. “You distract the clerk by trying to buy cigarettes, and I’ll grab it while they’re dealing with you.”
“We don’t have enough money for a pack of cigarettes. If we did—”
Olivia rolls her eyes. “That’s the point, dummy. They won’t sell them to you anyway, not without ID. Which you don’t have. I just need you to distract the clerk for a few seconds while I grab what we need. Can you handle that, Morales?”
“Whatever,” he says, still not overconfident. “Let’s just get it over with.”
“Right,” she says. “I just have a bad feeling, that jumpy, looking-around-corners feeling. I won’t feel good until we find my sister and I know she’s safe.”
Albert agrees but says nothing. He has the same uncomfortable feeling and doesn’t like it. Seeing their pictures on TV hasn’t helped.
“Funny,” Olivia says as they backtrack to the convenience store, “this isn’t the first time we’ve worked together on a theft.”
This brings to Albert’s mind how he’d found Lily’s journal and taken it home hidden in the waistband of his pants. This memory, of course, leads him to the memory of how he’d lost Lily’s journal—and that part makes him feel sick.
He shivers, but not from the cold. “I hope things turn out better this time.” He doesn’t just mean stealing the map.
Olivia’s plan does work out, though, and they have their map, if by shady means. Albert has started to feel better when Olivia gives a little cry at his elbow and startles him with a shove that almost knocks him off his tired feet.
“What the—?” he begins, irritated.
“Just hide over there,” Olivia hisses as a police cruiser coasts toward them, the siren off but the lights flashing.
Albert stumbles to right himself against the mailbox she’s just pushed him into. “Over where?” he asks.
“Wherever! Just get lost before they get closer and see us together.”
Annoyed by the way she says it but still seeing that she’s right, Albert drifts from her side in what he hopes is a nonchalant manner. There aren’t many places to hide where they are, but as he glances up and down the sidewalk, he sees the narrow crack of an alley between two old, brick buildings just a few paces away. A rank whiff of damp garbage greets him as he slips into the darkness, just before the police car slows nearby. He’s tired of always hiding.
Albert wonders if these cops are just cruising around, or if they’re looking for a couple of missing teenagers. Or two recent shoplifters. Take your pick.
Olivia keeps walking, passing Albert’s hiding place without a glance in his direction. She ignores the police car until they give the siren one long whoop and glide to the curb beside her. She stands there looking bored, her hands buried in her pockets, head cocked, watching the cops get out of the car. If you didn’t know better, Albert is thinking as he watches her, you’d guess she wasn’t worried about a thing.
From his vantage point in that narrow alley, Albert can see Olivia—a small girl flanked by two big, uniformed officers—but he can’t hear what any of them are saying. All he can hear is some mechanical pulsation from deeper down the alley and the nearby splash of water into water from snow melting on the roof three stories above. He watches as Olivia pulls something from her pocket and hands it to one of the cops, who examines it, then takes it back to the car. After what seems like forever, the cop returns to Olivia and the other cop and gives the thing she handed to him back to her. The three of them appear to be having a conversation and Albert sees Olivia nod her head a couple of times, as well as shrug once. As Olivia is talking with the first cop, the other one looks around, up and down the street and over toward Albert’s general location. He doesn’t dare move or even breathe as the cop’s gaze lingers. Narrowing his eyes, he hopes they don’t reflect the dim glow of the streetlight at the corner, like an animal’s eyes catch the glow of a headlight.
There’s a loud thump and a crash behind him, then an echo from a dumpster, and the second cop’s shoulders tense. He takes a step toward the alley, one hand reaching for the heavy-duty flashlight on his belt. Unsure whether to wait it out or to run, Albert is saved having to decide when a streak of fur flies past him and out onto the sidewalk—one hissing, yowling cat chasing another into the street, nearly colliding with the shins of the cop heading for the alley. Feeling faint, Albert watches as the first cop touches the second on the elbow and leads him back to their cruiser. The cop who hasn’t just been nearly run down by a cat fight is clearly amused by his partner’s jumpiness, and the sound of deep laughter reaches Albert. Olivia is smiling, too, and she gives a kind of half-nod as the cops pull away.
After the car has gone, she drops her lazy pose and hurries over to where Albert is hiding in the alley.
“That was lucky,” she says. Her smile is gone and her face is pinched and tired. With a shaking hand she pats down her pockets, saying, “I really wish I had a smoke right now. I can hardly walk, I’m so tired.”
“What happened?” Albert asks.
“They just wanted to make sure I wasn’t out past curfew.”
“But you were. Why didn’t they take you in?”
She pulls a small rectangle from her back pocket and flashes it at him. “Saved by the fake ID!” Her smile returns—the mischievous one that echoes her older sister’s—at the warring admiration and surprise written on Albert’s face, and she adds, “I have a few secrets, too.”
“Good thing.”
“You’re telling me,” she says, turning the little rectangle over in her fingers a few times before putting it in her pocket again. “I thought I was toast when he took off back to his car with my ID, but he didn’t say anything when he gave it back. I don’t think he even bothered to run it.”
This time Albert’s legs really do feel too weak to hold him, and he slides down the brick wall to the alley floor. “Jesus.”
Olivia nudges him with her foot. “Plus, one of them gave me ten bucks. Let’s get out of here.”
Albert gets slowly to his feet. “You are amazing.”
“Yeah?” She’s still smiling from her victory over the cops.
“Yeah. You’re so good at taking care of yourself.”
Her face loses that gleeful kidlike expression, falling into its more familiar scowl. “It’s a good thing I am,” she says. “No one else is going to do it.”
Albert doesn’t know what to say.
“I mean, you’re so devoted to her. When we were really little, it was my dad. After the accident, it was my mom—for a while, anyway. Now you’re the one she has looking out for her.” Olivia walks fast now, and Albert wants to pull her back, slow her down.
“What’s wrong with devotion? What else can you do when you love someone?” he asks, the words coming out sharp.
“It just never matters what she does … Lily always has someone running to her rescue. I think you’re really stupid, actually … and you’ll end up with a broken heart no matter what you do for her. It’s never enough.”
“But you’re right here with me!” He grabs her arm to stop her.
She shakes his hand from her arm. “I’m stupid, too!”
“Are you … jealous of her or something?”
“You are so … stupid.” Something like hatred shoots out of her eyes at hi
m.
“Yeah, you already said that.” Now it’s Albert who’s walking away, and Olivia is left trying to catch up.
“Fuck you, Morales,” she spits at his back.
After that, she keeps several paces away from him as they walk, and she won’t speak to him at all. He finds that he’s fine with that.
There in the surreal, theatrical glow of Federated Oil’s floodlights, MacLennan slowly got out of his truck while Kogen waited a couple yards away.
When Albert was eavesdropping on MacLennan’s conversation in the driveway, he’d assumed the person on the other end of the line was one of MacLennan’s asshole friends. But it was Kogen who was behind MacLennan stealing Lily’s journal—it had nothing to do with MacLennan wanting to help the girl who had once been his friend. Once again, Albert had missed the point, and once again, he’d let Lily down—badly, this time. His body shook as he risked it to watch MacLennan approach the spot where Kogen, looking relaxed, stood waiting.
Albert couldn’t figure out how these two even knew each other. What was a grown man doing sneaking around at night with a teenager? Knowing as he now did how screwed up Kogen was, Albert was afraid he wasn’t going to want to find out.
When he thought about the people that came in and out of his daily life—his parents, the other kids at school, his teachers, even the cops—it seemed impossible that someone he knew could really be such a … the word “villain” came to mind. Albert knew this was an incredibly naïve attitude. Of course, he knew that people did bad things—horrible, unspeakable things sometimes—but it was still hard for him to really believe that such viciousness could ever touch his life, or the life of someone he loved. That he would ever face real danger from another person.
Now he was facing danger from two people, and not only did he not understand how or why they’d come together, he didn’t have a clue what he was supposed to do about it. He watched, hoping an idea would come to him.
From where he was hiding behind the dumpster, Albert’s view of MacLennan was mostly of his back; Kogen was almost directly across from him, his calm, unreadable face very clear in the electric light. If Albert shifted even just a few inches, he knew his movement would catch Kogen’s eye.
It’s too much, he thought in a panic. I’m sorry, Lily.
“Be smart,” were the first words Lily’s stepfather said to MacLennan.
It was as if the those flat, reasonable words were really directed at Albert, and that flame of anger blazed up and made him stronger. Whatever he had to do, he would do it.
“Just give me the book, then we can both get out of this godforsaken cold and go home.” Taking another step forward, Kogen smiled slightly at MacLennan, an expression meant to be friendly and reassuring, but failing. His normally handsome face was cut with deep shadows.
Albert’s anger gave him courage. He waited to see what MacLennan would do before making his own move, but now that they were about to make the exchange—Lily’s journal for what?—MacLennan seemed to hesitate.
“Go on, then,” Kogen said, closing the gap and holding out his hand. “I’ve had enough teenage angst for today.” His words were harsher than they’d been before.
He’s losing patience, thought Albert. It was as if he could read Kogen’s mind—Kogen knew it was about time to make a move for the journal, and he was about to do it. At that moment Albert would have given one of his limbs for a cell phone, and he had to push black and hateful thoughts about his control-freak parents out of his head.
Despite Kogen’s obvious impatience, MacLennan was still holding on to Lily’s journal, the little book prized by all three people in the gas station parking lot that night. “Why did that fag she was dating steal this thing in the first place?” he asked, still holding the book.
“Because he’s a very disturbed young man—one who quite possible knows where my daughter is and may be responsible for her disappearance.”
Stepdaughter, Albert shouted at Kogen in his brain. His head was burning.
MacLennan turned his head and Albert could see that his expression was uncertain. “Then why make me steal it back for you? He was acting suspicious … he probably knows by now that I took it. If he’s crazy, why didn’t you just call the police?”
Kogen’s hand rested on his hip. “I needed some proof first, which is what’s in my daughter’s journal.”
Which was true, but not in the way Kogen was implying.
“They’re not going to just arrest the little creep on my say-so, are they? Use your head, Patrick. It doesn’t matter what my reasons are, anyway. I’m fairly certain you’re not in a position to question me.”
“That’s another thing that’s bugging me,” MacLennan said, his voice carrying as it rose. “What guarantee do I have that you won’t call the cops on me after I give you this?” He held up Lily’s journal as if he were going to hurl it at something.
That smile was back and Albert thought Kogen seemed relaxed again, as if he’d gotten back control of the situation. He said, “You have my word on it.”
Before he could catch himself, Albert snorted. Fortunately, MacLennan snorted at the same time. But why the hell, Albert wondered, would Kogen call the cops on MacLennan? It didn’t seem possible that the police would arrest MacLennan, a seventeen-year-old boy, for the theft of a diary that had been stolen in the first place by Albert, while not arresting the adult man who asked him to do it. And how could Kogen even prove anybody stole anything when he had Lily’s diary back in his possession? The conversation wasn’t making any sense.
“My word is going to have to do,” Kogen said, ignoring MacLennan’s disbelief. “I’m not the one who broke into my friend’s father’s dental office after hours to steal a controlled substance and probably money, if I could find it—”
“We weren’t after any money,” MacLennan protested.
“—and probably money,” Kogen went on as if MacLennan hadn’t spoken. “I’m painting a picture here. As I was saying, I’m not the one who was then foolish enough to let my idiot friend overdose on said controlled substance, stupid enough to let the rest of our friends leave her there to die, then stupid enough to come back and get caught by the dentist he was trying to rip off. Now am I?”
“No, sir,” MacLennan mumbled.
“Right,” said Kogen. “I did you a favor by not turning you in—”
“A favor? That didn’t have anything to do with me,” MacLennan objected angrily. “You just didn’t want to get Lily in trouble because it would embarrass you and your family and might be bad for business. I mean, who would go to a dentist who’d put his own daughter in jail?”
He was right, Albert thought. There was no way Kogen was doing anyone any favors but himself. It was just luck—really shitty luck for Lily—that he could use that “favor” against MacLennan all this time later.
“—and all I want is a favor in return,” Kogen continued, his words rolling over the top of MacLennan’s. “One good turn deserves another. I’m not looking for anything else, except that you keep your mouth shut. If you say anything to anyone, I will be forced to mention your part in the crime that was committed against me. Maybe it would go away, or maybe you’d go to jail for assaulting my daughter. Maybe you’d just lose your scholarship, I don’t know.” He managed to sound both aggrieved and regretful at the same time. “Nod if you understand what I’m saying.”
Looking humiliated, MacLennan nodded as Albert watched from behind the dumpster.
“Now that everything is just oh-so-clear, give me Lily’s journal and let’s both go home.”
“I didn’t have a problem helping you because Lily’s cool, and if this helps her, I want to do it,” MacLennan said. “But I have to be sure that you’re not going to come back and hold that night over my head again the next time you need something shady done.”
To Albert, MacLennan sounded like he was trying hard to convince himself that helping Kogen was helping Lily. If MacLennan found himself questioning Kogen’s motives
, Kogen’s actions, Kogen’s creepy attitude, then he would have to stand up to the guy. He would have to make a choice between sticking up for Lily and pissing Kogen off, or keeping himself out of serious trouble by choosing to believe Kogen and letting his doubts go. But he was waffling; Albert could tell that MacLennan was waffling. Now was the time to show himself, before Kogen had the diary in hand. If he did it just right, it could be two against one.
As Albert was about to shout out, he heard MacLennan give a startled cry—
What is he—?
—and then Albert saw that Kogen was holding a gun on MacLennan. His pulse racing, amazed at the very bad moment at which he’d almost thrown himself into this little drama, Albert hung back, unable to look away. He was as grateful for the cover of the dumpster as he’d ever been for anything.
“You gotta be kidding me,” MacLennan said, his voice breathless and cracking.
“I really am done with you,” Kogen said. “Give me my daughter’s diary. Now.”
Terrified, Albert watched MacLennan reach out as far as he could to hand the little book over; he saw MacLennan flinch when Kogen took it roughly from his outstretched hand. There was a moment of complete stillness as Kogen and MacLennan regarded one another across just a few feet of space. In that moment, Albert was convinced that Kogen was going to shoot MacLennan anyway, no matter how absurd the idea was.
Time stretched out as nothing happened, but anything might. And then Kogen began backing away, his eye and his aim still focused on MacLennan. As for MacLennan, he just held his hands up and shrugged. He muttered something that Albert didn’t entirely catch, but which sounded like it’s cool. After putting some distance between himself and the kid he was blackmailing, Kogen made an abrupt turn and moved quickly across the parking lot toward his car. It roared to life, and then Albert and MacLennan were left alone.
A voice in the back of Albert’s head was screaming for him to catch Kogen while he still could, to attack him at a dead run, whatever might happened after that. And he was angry with himself when he found that he wasn’t man enough to do it. His legs wouldn’t do what he told them, so he stayed where he was. And even if he might rationalize it by saying that he would be hurt or worse if he tried to interfere with Kogen at this moment, that he couldn’t help Lily if he ignored his judgment, he knew that the rationalization didn’t matter. What was really happening was that he’d seen how serious Kogen was, and he was too afraid.
