Fake ID

by Lamar Giles

  Two EMTs—the same two I’d seen drinking Cokes by the football field on Friday night—wheeled a covered gurney toward the exit. Reya stopped bucking, stared at the still lump under the sheet, then collapsed, boneless. The three who’d been fighting her had to react quickly to keep her from crashing to the floor, and they almost screwed that up.

  Hardwick and the sheriff knelt beside her, calling for assistance from the EMTs. The men complied, chocking the wheels on Eli’s gurney and leaving him in the middle of a near-deserted hall. They had to help the living. Eli was now a delayed errand.

  Outside, it was a day that didn’t deserve to be so sunny. Mom pushed me through the doors into its brightness, and I didn’t know which of us was shaking more.

  CHAPTER 15

  AT HOME, MOM LEFT ME IN the foyer, instructing me not to move. She returned with a garbage bag. “Everything goes in.”

  “Only my shoes and jeans are stained, Mom.”

  She held the bag open like I hadn’t said a word.

  Barefoot, in my boxers, I went to my room, pulled on some b-ball shorts and an old 76ers T-shirt. Mom brought me water and an orange prescription bottle I’d never seen before. When she moved, the contents rattled like mints. She popped the top, shook out two white ovals, and passed them to me.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Something you won’t be getting used to. Take them.”

  After I took the pills, the rest of the day stuttered by in a few eyeblinks. One blink and it was lunchtime—I ate only half the sandwich Mom gave me. Two blinks and the sky turned darker. On the third blink, I opened my eyes to pure night and new weight pressing my mattress farther into my bed frame. Dad sat by my feet, patting my thigh in a weird, too-fast rhythm, keeping time with a dance track only he could hear.

  “Son, are you awake?”

  I groaned. “I’m up.”

  “Sorry about what happened to your friend.”

  “Why?” Mom’s pills still had me groggy.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  I swung my feet to the floor so we sat side by side. I was almost taller than him. He had big muscles in his arms though, and stubble, and hard eyes. He had to have been the most intimidating bookkeeper on Kreso Maric’s payroll back in the day. A scary guy to meet if you were alone in a dark alley. Someone who didn’t feel sorry about much. I couldn’t remember the last time he’d come into my room for anything. Apologized for anything.

  “I meant ‘thanks,’ Dad.”

  “I would’ve come earlier, but I couldn’t break away from work. I wanted to, but I couldn’t.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I saw a dead body, nothing new there.”

  Our height difference became more pronounced as he stiffened. “I’m gonna let you get some rest, Tony.”

  “It’s Nick,” I said, rolling onto my back. I didn’t feel sleepy, just foggy and forgetful. I couldn’t remember what we’d just talked about. I blinked and he was gone.

  Of all the time jumps that day, the one featuring my Dad’s remorse seemed most like a drug-induced dream. Pure fantasy.

  Until I saw Eli’s ghost.

  Just after nine o’clock, metal scraped concrete outside, a low vehicle turning into our steep driveway too fast, catching the incline with its fender. I rose, cracked the blinds, and looked down on Eli’s green Beetle parked behind Dad’s SUV, exhaust rising like breath. The driver’s door swung open. I saw his dark hair and tanned skin as he exited the vehicle. He turned, look up at me. Smiled.

  I blinked, cleared away tears. With them went the image of the dead boy, though the car remained. The door opened, for real this time. Not a ghost but the surviving Cruz sibling.

  Reya.

  The medicine Mom gave me was filtering out of my system quicker by the minute, but I still felt clumsy dropping my b-ball shorts and pulling on jeans from the closet floor. I wedged my feet into the first pair of sneakers I saw, then made it to the bathroom to brush my teeth as the doorbell rang. When I left the bathroom I heard Mom speaking to Reya in low tones, and I found Dad standing at the second-floor landing eavesdropping and gripping the banister.

  He saw me, returned to his room, and closed the door.

  I met Eli’s sister downstairs. Her eyes were dark and puffy, like she recently got punched. In a way, she did. I stood there unsure of what to do or say, but she took away my first uncertainty by embracing me. I hugged her back.

  “I’m going to get your friend some water,” Mom said, and disappeared into the kitchen.

  Reya backed away. “Is there somewhere we can talk?”

  I led her into the dining room, still didn’t ask the question on my mind since I saw her from my window. It seemed rude somehow.

  She took a chair, set her bag on the floor, and scanned the room. Her neck craned from the tablecloth to the walls to the curtains. “You have a nice house.”

  “Uh, thanks.” WitSec had good taste.

  Mom came in with two glasses of water, then left again. Reya stared at her drink like she didn’t know what it was.

  Somebody needed to say something. I walked to the window and made a weak attempt. “That your car?”

  “Mostly. I’m supposed to share it with—” She broke off, took a long gulp of water, and wiped dribble from her chin with her sleeve. “It’s mine now.”

  “I’m sorry about what happened.”

  Her eyes hardened like stones plugged into her swollen face. “What did happen, Nick?”

  I felt defensive all of a sudden. “How should I know?”

  “You found him. What did you see?”

  Red. That wasn’t what she wanted to hear, though. I didn’t know what she wanted to hear.

  She said, “They’re telling Mami that he slit his wrists. That sound right to you?”

  It didn’t sound right at all. Kids did it every day, though. See, I still wasn’t getting her meaning. Maybe it was the drugs, or maybe I was just. That. Slow. “Was there a note?”

  She laughed, a breathless cackle I never wanted to hear again. “No. He had two books with him. This pendejo cop said those were his note. Some kind of symbolism crap.”

  I remembered seeing books this morning. “What were they?”

  “Brave New World and Robinson Crusoe.”

  They seemed familiar somehow, but I never read them, couldn’t say if they were symbolic or not. Making that sort of statement seemed like the kind of I’m-smarter-than-you move Eli might pull. I didn’t tell her that. No point.

  She said, “When you saw him last—before today, I mean—was he acting strange?”

  “Strange is a relative thing. In the time I knew him, he seemed . . . consistent. I was with him on Friday afternoon. He wanted me to cover the football game.”

  “Was anyone messing with him?” she asked. “Did he seem scared?”

  I shook my head and made the stupid choice to play amateur counselor, spouting off stuff I’d heard on TV a thousand times. “Look, Reya, when things like this happen, you can’t always rationalize it. I don’t know why Eli did what he did. Maybe we’ll never know.”

  She snapped, “My brother didn’t do anything.”

  Eli did plenty. I had a pair of shoes covered in what Eli did. “What are we talking about?” I asked the question I was scared to ask before. “Why are you here?”

  I regretted it almost immediately.

  “I’m here because my brother was murdered.”

  CHAPTER 16

  MURDERED.

  “Wow.” I blanked, too shocked to form a sentence. Eli would’ve dinged me for that. “Wow.”

  She pulled a thick envelope from her bag and slid it across the table. It was addressed to Eli and had an embossed blue crown where the return address would be. I recognized the symbol from Eli’s laptop, the one I’d mistaken for Lord of the Rings. I lifted the envelope, read the words beneath the emblem. “Columbia University?”

  “Open it.”

  The seal had already been broken and the content
s were stuffed in badly. I removed a new arrival catalog with a diverse cast of campus models smiling on the cover, several blank forms, and a short letter that I assumed she wanted me to read.

  “‘Dear Mr. Cruz, we are pleased to inform you that your application for our Scholastic Press Association Summer Journalism Workshop has been accepted . . .’” I looked up, wanting the Cliff’s Notes. “What is this?”

  “A journalism program he’s been trying to get into for the last two years,” she said, like that explained everything. To her, maybe it did. “You two were working on the paper together, right? He didn’t tell you about this?”

  “No.”

  She blinked rapidly, looked away. I could tell what she was thinking: if Eli didn’t tell me the great news about getting into his coveted program, he obviously didn’t share whatever case-breaking clue she’d fooled herself into believing I had.

  “Don’t you see?” she said, begging. “That’s Columbia.” She snatched back her precious letter. “Columbia University has the best journalism school in the country. He’d been dreaming about going there since he was like eight. He just got that letter a week and a half ago. Why would someone who was so close to having his dream come true slit his wrists in a dirty closet?”

  The answer to that one was between Eli and God. “I don’t know what you want me to say. I wish I could tell you something, I do. But this caught me by surprise just like everyone else.”

  Reya shrank. She gathered up the rest of Eli’s acceptance letter. “I’m sorry to bother you.”

  I chased her to the front door. “You shouldn’t drive like this.”

  “I’m not drunk. My brother’s just dead.”

  “That’s worse than drunk.”

  When we stepped onto the porch the cold bit into my neck and arms. I fought a shiver while she fished keys from her bag and pressed buttons on her auto-start remote. The Beetle purred to life in the driveway. A little over a week ago Eli had done the same thing at the coffeehouse before he took me home. The memory hit me with such force I almost stumbled.

  “Nick, are you all right?”

  “Cold out here.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Is that all?”

  I said, “That’s all.”

  “Please let me know if you think of anything strange from last week.” She reached into Eli’s envelope, tore a corner off one of the forms, and produced a pen. She scribbled her number on the slip and shoved it in my hand before rushing off my porch.

  She climbed into the car she no longer had to share and became a pair of taillights in the distance. For the first time since I met her, I was glad to see her go. I needed time to think this through.

  I played it out in my room. . . .

  Say Eli killed himself, for whatever reason, then that meant Reya was in one of those grief phases. The denial one. That’s supposed to be normal and she’d get over it eventually.

  Unless she was right.

  You found him. What did you see?

  I saw the ugly purple slashes running up his arms and the blade lying next to him. Body. Blade. Blood.

  And books?

  I sat up.

  Brave New World and Robinson Crusoe weren’t some symbolic riddle left behind. They were the books he’d used to keep his desk from wobbling. That’s why they seemed familiar. I’d seen those titles every day in the J-Room. But what did that mean?

  It meant the desk was moved.

  No, not just moved. Pushed. Hard enough to knock it clean off its braces.

  There’s something wrong with Stepton, Nick. No one’s talking about it.

  He told me that when we met for coffee. And when I asked him if the drug dealers survived their gunshots . . .

  The way things are going, if they’d died, it probably would’ve been ruled a suicide. . . .

  Oh, hell.

  This isn’t about Whispertown. No way.

  Yes it is, I thought immediately, it has to be.

  I went back and forth like that for hours, until exhaustion crept in. If what happened in the J-Room was more than a sad decision and a final flick of a razor—if it tied to that damned story Eli was working on—then . . .

  . . . Dad was involved. Somehow.

  The flip-flopper in me piped up, That’s crazy, no way Dad’s involved in the murder of a—

  My denial voice knew better. Dad could very well have played a role in the murder of a kid.

  He’d done it before.

  REWIND

  Four years ago . . .

  Summer. Our real home. Off the Philadelphia Main Line.

  People still called me Tony.

  Dad spent a lot of time working on his “business.” At school, when kids asked what he did, I said he was a consultant, like I’d been told to do. Even at ten, I knew I was playing a part, and so were the other kids. They asked because their doctor/lawyer/pro-athlete parents whispered about how the Bordeaux family really made money; they wanted in on the grown-up stuff. I answered—always with a cheesy grin and overly casual tone that didn’t quiet the rumors—because it was cool to be that guy. The gangster’s son.

  Summers were different, though. A lot of the kids in the neighborhood went on vacation, to the Jersey Shore, or even Europe. Of those who stayed, only a few had anything to do with me. Their parents couldn’t control whose money their kids’ school accepted, but they could control the company their kids kept, leaving me with desperation friends. Kids whose parents were too busy to care.

  In some Disney Channel movie, it would’ve made us closer. But the Main Line wasn’t the Mouse House. Instead of Disney, we had discord. A hot weather ritual of ganging up on whoever’s identity quirk irritated someone first. The NFL player’s son stuttered. The venture capitalist’s daughter had underarm hair that curled from her short sleeves like tentacles. The gangster’s son . . . wasn’t.

  “My dad does work for the mob,” I blurted one afternoon, incensed by name-calling, violating my oath of secrecy.

  “You’re a l-l-liar! Your d-dad’s a big old p-p-pus—” said you-know-who.

  “I’m not.” A fat lip was in somebody’s future. “My dad and my godfather tell stories all the time.”

  “The G-g-godfather?”

  “No, just mine.”

  The VC’s daughter jumped in. “How do you know they’re not lying? You ever see them do mob stuff?”

  I huffed, “Your pit hair is hungry.”

  That argument got uglier than usual. Of course I’d never seen Dad or Bricks do any mob stuff. Didn’t mean they made it up. I might’ve let it go. Except when I got home, Rachelle, my go-to babysitter, was waiting. Mom had a charity dinner to attend. Dad had to work.

  I knew because he was on the phone with Kreso Maric. The boss.

  Dad would have to go run some kind of errand late tonight. Some Cool Mob Stuff.

  I planned to be there.

  CHAPTER 17

  WHEN MY ALARM SOUNDED AT 6:00 a.m., Mom cut it off and informed me school was closed because of what happened. I was asleep before she stopped talking. Not good sleep, only what my body demanded.

  It was almost noon when I dragged my butt from bed to shower and I still felt drained. A note on the fridge said Dad was at work and Mom had gone grocery shopping. It also said to be home by four. Conference call today (moved from yesterday because I hadn’t been up for it).

  Seriously, Bertram? Rescheduling just so I can answer your stupid one-to-ten questions? Ass.

  Searching the net, I found the only Cruz residence listed in Stepton. I pasted the address into Google Maps. Reya lived on the west side, in the center of the crappy neighborhood I rode through a few weeks ago.

  I grabbed my jacket. Time for a return trip.

  Reya’s block rushed at me fast, and the surrounding houses looked just as sketchy as last time. A couple of guys lounging against a telephone pole eyed me hard when I turned onto Granger Avenue, Reya’s street. I nodded to show respect. They looked liked they’d eat me if I fell and broke a leg.


  I kept pedaling, spotted Reya’s place about fifty yards ahead well before I could read the numbers on the mailbox. Her lime Beetle was like a flare in this gloomy neighborhood. Three cars blocked her in while another half dozen lined either side of the street. A couple of Latino guys and a very pretty—very pregnant—Latina crowded the porch. The guys wore dark slacks, dress shirts, and loosened ties. The girl sat in a flowing teal maternity skirt that stopped midcalf. I felt like an underdressed jerk in my jeans, sneakers, and bomber jacket, but I was here now. “Is this the Cruz residence?”

  A long moment passed with no one acknowledging my presence. I willed myself not to look at my shoes. Only the girl seemed to notice me, offering a half smile. I pressed on. “I was a friend of Eli’s.”

  Someone screamed.

  Both men turned toward the house, where rapid-fire Spanish followed the shriek. The pregnant girl stared at the ground. Inside, the voice was high and shrill. A woman. I plucked a few familiar curse words from the air.

  A deeper male voice sounded, attempting to cut across the woman, but she wasn’t having it. The storm door swung open on squealing hinges, and a short, bulky man with brown skin emerged, shoving aside the two guys on the porch and sidestepping the pregnant girl, who was suddenly on her feet.

  From my initial impression I thought the young guys might retaliate—violently—at such rude behavior. Didn’t happen.

  The old guy came at me like I was a ghost he couldn’t see. I stepped aside to avoid being run over. He went for one of the cars at the curb, a freshly waxed Jaguar, and fishtailed onto the main drag, smoking skid marks the only evidence he’d been there at all.

  This seemed like a bad time, and I would’ve left if one of the guys hadn’t spoken in such an exhausted, defeated tone. “If you want to go in, go in.”

  Pregnant Girl stared after the car as it screeched around the corner, then flopped back down on the stoop like her legs had given out.

  I moved past them all and entered the open front door. Stepping inside the house was like stepping through a portal. Outside was the definition of hood, decrepit and barren camouflage. Inside was like something on HGTV, one of those makeover shows. Marble foyer, fresh paint, thick carpet leading deeper into the house. All well kept.