I look at Dr. Stanley. There’s something about his face that I can’t quite identify, something I’ve seen before, a kind of transcendent peacefulness amid all of this giddy chaos.
I feel a strange tightness take ahold of me as my heart starts to pound. I’m in the wrong place at the wrong time, and it’s not getting any easier. A weird silence settles over the moment as Dr. Stanley gestures back into the bus. Two boys, neither of them older than five, come leaping and bounding down the steps, followed by a little girl in a long yellow coat. One of the boys stops in his tracks, eyes wide, and goggles at the fallen orange leaves scattered on the ground. The other exhales, staring in fascination as his breath streams out of him. The girl in the yellow coat squeals and jumps up into the woman’s arms. I see Andrea talking to Dr. Stanley and pointing back at me.
“Will!” Andrea shouts, waving me over. “Get up here! Come say hello!”
My heart is pounding so hard that I can hardly breathe. Dr. Stanley and his wife are both looking at me expectantly while their children play around them in the fallen leaves. On the far side of the crowd, I see Gatsby standing there with her arms crossed, watching me through a sea of faces.
Waiting to see what I’ll do.
I turn and run.
Thirty-Three
“WHAT DO YOU WANT?” GEORGE ASKS.
He’s just pulled up outside the main security building on the outskirts of campus, exactly where I asked him to meet me when I called him twenty minutes earlier. Now it’s almost noon, and the Stanleys have finished their tour of Connaughton’s campus and are at the dining hall, where Andrea and Dr. Melville are no doubt treating them to lunch while the TV news crews capture all of the action for the evening broadcast. Meanwhile, George stands in front of his truck, waiting for my answer.
“How would you like to get back at Brandt Rush?” I ask him.
He doesn’t say anything at first, just runs his fingers along his long, freshly shaved chin, weighing his answer like a logic problem. “You’ve got thirty seconds to explain.”
“Do you remember a student named Moira McDonald?”
He nods. “Of course I remember Moira. She was a nice girl.” He frowns at me. “Why do you care?”
“If you remember her, then you know what Brandt did to her and why she had to leave. I’m giving you the opportunity to settle the score.”
“What makes you think I’d help you?”
I reach into my coat pocket and pull out a worn library book, flipping it open to the place I have marked. “In Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals,” I tell him, “Immanuel Kant says that when a man tears himself away from his duty to perform any act of altruism, then that constitutes his first true act of genuine moral worth.”
“That’s a pretty superficial reading of the text,” George says.
“Yeah, well, I’m a pretty superficial guy.” I look at him. “Are you in or out?”
George doesn’t budge. He drops his head, and some of the air seems to leak out of him, deflating his shoulders and chest beneath his uniform. “I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Carl.”
“What about him?”
George glances back at the truck. “He’s the only reason that I took this job.”
“I know.”
“Did you know that I used to teach on the graduate level?” He rubs his neck and peers back at me as if trying to see whether I understand what he’s saying. “You think it’s not humiliating, taking orders from Rush? Reporting back to him like some lackey? Knowing that I’m doing this because it amuses him to see me driving around in a security truck? You think I don’t hate him for it, every single day?” His eyes narrow. “But this is for my son. I’d love to help you burn Brandt, but . . .” He shakes his head. “I can’t take the risk.”
“Yeah, you can,” Carl says, stepping out from around the corner of the building.
George just looks at him, then back at me. There’s a funny look on his face, a combination of surprise and anger. “What . . . ?”
“I asked him to join us here,” I say. “Hope you don’t mind.”
George stares at his son. The boy looks back at him. For what feels like a long, painful time, neither of them moves, and the moment aches like an overworked muscle.
“Carl,” George says. But that’s all he’s got.
“Dad, I don’t care about getting kicked out,” Carl says. “I hate this stupid school anyway, and Brandt Rush is a total tool.” For the first time I see him smile. “Come on. Will and I need to borrow your truck.”
By the time we get to Crowley House and George leads us up to Brandt’s suite, I’ve figured out most of the rest of the plan. Not all of it, but the big parts, enough to know what needs to happen next.
George uses his master key to open the suite, and I send Carl in alone. A moment later he comes back and nods at us.
“He’s not there. Must still be in the hall shower,” Carl says. “We’ve got time.”
Carl and I slip inside, crossing the main room to where the coffeemaker is still brewing up freshly ground French roast.
“You sure this stuff is real?” I ask, glancing down at the vial that Carl brought with him.
“I think so,” Carl says. “Dad said he confiscated it from some kids last month.” He hands it over to me, and I can tell something’s bothering him. “Hey, Will?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m sorry about hitting you in the face with my lacrosse stick. And punching you. And throwing you against the wall.”
“I’m sorry too.” I bump fists with him. “We all make mistakes.”
Lifting the carafe, I pour half the vial into the coffee. Carl and I duck out of the room, all three of us heading back down the hall to wait in the stairwell. Within five minutes, the bathroom door opens and Brandt comes up the hall with a towel wrapped around his waist and goes into his room. Music starts blaring inside—some kind of hip-hop anthem—and Brandt is singing along through the closed door.
Suddenly the voice stops. The music keeps playing, but Brandt’s not singing along with it anymore.
I don’t actually hear the thump, but I’m pretty sure I feel it. It sounds like a giant falling to earth.
I look at George and Carl. They look back at me.
“Game on,” I say.
We carry Brandt down the stairs and out to the truck in his towel and lay him in the back. He’s not quite unconscious—he keeps mumbling and drooling on himself—but he can’t seem to move his arms and legs or open his eyes, which makes everything a whole lot easier. George covers him up with a blanket.
“Where to now?”
I hesitate. Up until this point, my thoughts have been running a mile a minute, but they have finally collapsed at the side of the road to catch their breath.
Then Carl smiles. “I know the perfect place.”
Thirty-Four
BY THE TIME I MANAGE TO UPLOAD THE photo onto the school’s website, I’m pretty sure the drugs have worn off. It wasn’t a particularly heavy dose to begin with, and although I’m not around to see the details, I’m picturing Brandt waking up on the floor of his suite sometime around three p.m. with a throbbing headache in his skull and the sound of someone—maybe several concerned someones—pounding on the door.
When his parents got my anonymous email linking them to the Connaughton homepage, they must have panicked and phoned Dr. Melville, because it was the head of school who called George and demanded to meet him in Brandt’s room immediately. I can speculate about this part with some confidence because it’s George who describes the scene to me later that afternoon, while he and I are gathered in his truck with Carl out by the statue of Lancelot Connaughton.
“Did he see the picture?” I ask.
“I don’t see how he could’ve missed it.” George grins, looking down at my MacBook, where the official Connaughton Academy homepage now features a full-screen, high-resolution image of Brandt, stark-naked, duct-taped to the statue of Lance
TO BRANDT,
SO GLAD YOU COULD FIND THAT
“SPECIAL SOMEONE” TO MAKE ALL
YOUR DREAMS COME TRUE!
MOIRA
“Moira McDonald.” Looking at the screen, George chuckles and glances at me. “You know, signing her name to that was a stroke of genius.”
“Thanks,” I say. “It just seemed like the right thing to do.”
“They’ll kick you out for it,” Carl says.
“No doubt.” I nod. “It was worth it. Especially the part where we got to yank the tape off him before he woke up.”
“He’s probably still counting what’s left of his chest hair,” Carl says.
George shakes his head and laughs. “Wherever Moira is,” he says, “I hope somebody sends her a link to this page before the administration takes it down.” He casts a sidelong glance my way. “Hey. You mind if I ask you something?”
“What?”
“You’re the new kid on campus. You haven’t been here a month. You didn’t even know Moira.” He frowns and nods at the screen. “So why are you doing this?”
“I need something from Brandt,” I say, “and this is the only way I could get it.”
“What?”
Before I can say anything, my cell rings. On the other end, Brandt is apoplectic, so furious that I can practically feel the spit flying through the earpiece.
“I got the cash,” he shouts. “Two million. Tell your boss we’re coming back. I’m going to take that piece of crap down tonight.” I hang up the phone without responding.
George cocks an eyebrow. “What was that?”
“My long-lost buddy,” I say, holding out my hand for George and Carl to shake. “It was a pleasure working with you, gentlemen.”
Something tells me I won’t be seeing them again.
Thirty-Five
AN HOUR LATER, I’M WAITING NEXT TO THE STATUE OF Lancelot Connaughton when Brandt comes striding up with an expensive-looking leather briefcase. His jaw is clamped and his eyes are slits. Any sign of playfulness is gone from his face now. Even in the twilight, I can see that he’s squeezing the handle hard enough to make his knuckles go white.
“Where’s your driver?” he snarls.
I glance at my phone to check the time. Six o’clock. “He’ll be here.” Clearing my throat, I look down at Brandt’s briefcase and say in a lower voice: “He’s, ah . . . he’s not sure Mr. McDonald can cover a bet that big,” I say. “Two million is a lot of coin. There might be a house maximum.”
“Too bad,” Brandt says. “Your boss shouldn’t be running an online casino, then, should he?” He pokes me hard in the chest as if the message requires additional punctuation. “Don’t wuss out on me now, Humbert.”
Seconds later, Uncle Roy pulls up in the Caddy. This time Brandt doesn’t wait for me to open the door. He practically leaps into the back seat with the briefcase on his lap and we head across campus. Uncle Roy drives in silence. Out the window I see tiny dots of white swirling down through the street lamps. It’s starting to snow. Brandt pops a couple of ibuprofen. His phone chimes and he ignores it. We keep driving, the lights on the highway flashing by us in the oncoming night.
“Been meaning to tell you,” Uncle Roy says from the front seat, glancing in the rearview mirror. “I like that picture of you and your pal online.”
Brandt stiffens but doesn’t say anything, and I think I can actually hear his back molars grinding together. By now his grip on the briefcase is enough to permanently dent the leather.
“I gotta say, though,” Roy continues, “that statue must’ve been pretty cold, huh?”
“You want to shut your mouth, old man?” Brandt says. “Or maybe I’ll come up there and shut it for you.”
Roy eyes him. “You try.”
“Guys,” I say, “take it easy, okay?”
Roy returns his attention to the road. Brandt holds on to his briefcase. When we arrive at the office space in Lowell, he jumps out and heads up the stairs. I follow closely. On the landing, I put my hand on his shoulder.
“Hold on,” I say. “When we get into McDonald’s office, let me talk to him first. I think he’ll let you make the bet, but I just want to be sure.”
Brandt ignores me, shrugging off my hand, and barges through the door. Inside, it’s business as usual—Rhonda on the phone at the reception desk, smoking a Camel and working on her nails, programmers at their computers in the main office. Brandt walks past all of them and slams his briefcase onto the nearest empty desk.
“Somebody get me a laptop.” He looks around, whipping his gaze back in my direction. “Where’s your boss?”
Across the room, the private office door opens and Dad comes out. First he stares at Brandt, and then he looks at me, pointing one accusatory finger in my face.
“I thought I told you not to bring that piece of crap around here again.”
I take a step back. “He wants to make a bet, Mr. McDonald. I tried to talk to him, but he’s got cash in hand—”
“How much?” Dad asks.
Brandt dials in the combination on the briefcase and pops the latches, opening it up to reveal rows of cash, neatly stacked and bundled. “Two million.”
Dad stares at it for a second, then shakes his head. “It’s too much. I can’t cover a bet that big.”
“That’s what I tried to tell him,” I say, “but—”
“There’s nothing on your site about a house maximum,” Brandt says. “Which means you have to take this bet.” He steps forward. “And by the way, you can tell your daughter I said that she can go to hell.”
Dad glares at him. Something twitches in his jaw. Then he looks at me.
“Get him a laptop,” he says.
It’s Lupo Reilly who brings the laptop over and sets it up next to Brandt’s briefcase full of cash. Brandt sits down in front of it and Lupo hovers nearby, next to Dad. All the crew members are watching out of the corner of their eye, but Brandt’s too distracted to notice. Next to the briefcase, his iPhone sits there, turned on, screen up. Brandt logs on to the poker site, and Lupo takes possession of the briefcase, then clicks in his credit—two million in cash. Dad and I are standing five feet behind Brandt, just far enough back to get a full view of everything as it happens.
The hand gets dealt. Brandt looks at it and places his bet.
“Wait,” Dad says. “You’re betting the full two million on one hand?”
“Maybe I’m feeling lucky.” Brandt glances at the iPhone and then at the laptop, where he trades in two cards.
I look at Dad. He looks at me. I’m aware that I’ve been holding my breath for a very long time. I can tell Dad’s just as nervous.
Brandt looks at the phone again, then back at the computer screen. I try to swallow but my throat’s too dry. A single pinhead of sweat prickles against the right side of my rib cage. Brandt’s finger hovers over the return button, suspended there in space.
Two million dollars.
One tap and the money’s ours.
That’s when I hear the door fly open behind us.
“Don’t do it, Brandt.”
It’s a girl’s voice, one I would’ve recognized anywhere. We all look around at once, and I see Andrea burst into the office in a flurry of papers.
“Andrea?” Brandt gapes at her. “What the—”
“This whole thing is a scam.” She points at Dad. “That’s not Mr. McDonald—it’s Will’s father. There is no online poker site. They’re about to take you for two million dollars.”
Brandt’s mouth falls open, and for a brief, shining moment, all the wealth and entitlement drain away, leaving a pale, shocked kid caught with his pants around his ankles. For that instant, however short-lived, it’s almost more gratifying than the money.
Then he goes for the briefcase.
“Forget it,” Dad says, blocking the way, but Brandt manages to grab the handle of the case anyway. Dad rounds on Andrea, lunging for her with both hands. She steps neatly back out of his reach and fires a glance in my direction.
“The police are on their way,” she says.
I stare at her. “I can’t believe you did this. I stood up for you in front of Melville.”
“Noted and appreciated,” she says. “It’s time to do what you do best, Billy. Run away. New Jersey awaits.”
I take a step back, but my legs don’t work. They seem to have disappeared underneath me. I can see Andrea and Brandt heading for the door, and that’s when Dad makes his move, throwing himself at Brandt and trying to yank the briefcase from his hand.
“You’re not leaving with—”
Brandt whirls and slams the briefcase into my dad’s head, knocking him backwards. The case flies across the room. On the other side of the office, Rhonda is on her feet, lips drawn down in a rictus of panic. “Frank, no!” She reaches into her purse, and the world goes into slow motion as I see the automatic coming out, swinging toward Brandt and Andrea.
Rhonda fires.
Brandt ducks.
Andrea doesn’t.
Thirty-Six
FOR A SECOND NO ONE CAN SPEAK—OR IF SOMEONE DOES, I can’t hear a sound. The gunshot seems to have cracked reality itself in half. My dad is the first one to find his voice.
“What . . . ?” He’s staring down at Andrea on the floor, blood splattered across her white blouse, and then he looks up at Rhonda. I can see the whites all the way around his eyes. “What did you do?”
“I didn’t . . .” Rhonda manages, and the words seem to trail off into silence. The air around us smells like gunpowder. With a blankness of expression, Rhonda looks down at the gun in her hand and forces the next few syllables out. “Frank, I thought . . . you said . . .”
“You stupid cow. What the hell were you thinking?” Dad’s face has now gone white with alarm, and he stares at me. Sirens are rising in the distance, getting closer, and I can see him trying to remember every exit. “This isn’t happening.”
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