Fitz

by Mick Cochrane

  THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2012 by Mick Cochrane

  Jacket art copyright © 2012 by Alfred A. Knopf

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  “Ain’t That Lovin’ You Baby”

  Words and Music by Jimmy Reed

  Copyright © 1955 (Renewed) Conrad Music (BMI) and Seeds of Reed Music (BMI)

  Rights for Conrad Music and Seeds of Reed Music Administered by BMG Rights

  Management (US) LLC for the World, excluding Japan and Southeast Asia

  International Copyright Secured

  All Rights Reserved

  Used by Permission

  Reprinted by Permission of Hal Leonard Corporation

  Visit us on the Web! randomhouse.com/teens

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Cochrane, Mick.

  Fitz : a novel / by Mick Cochrane. — 1st ed.

  p. cm.

  “A Borzoi Book.”

  Summary: Fifteen-year-old Fitz kidnaps the father he has never known, taking him from his St. Paul apartment building at gunpoint, in an attempt to address his bewildering mix of resentment and yearning.

  eISBN: 978-0-375-89773-3

  [1. Fathers and sons—Fiction. 2. Kidnapping—Fiction. 3. Single-parent families—Fiction. 4. Saint Paul (Minn.)—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.C63972Fit 2012

  [Fic]—dc23

  2011042366

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

  v3.1

  For Ron and Marlys Ousky

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Not The Usual Angst

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  A Tale of Love and War

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Raining Teardrops

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  PROLOGUE

  When Fitz was a little boy, he liked to imagine that his father was quietly, secretly watching over him, loving him, for his own good and unselfish reasons, from a distance. He imagined his father parking his car on their street late at night and looking up at his son’s bedroom window. Thinking of the posters on the wall, the stuffed animals, the night-light. Longing to tuck him in, bring him a glass of water, tell him a story. Instead, making a wish, saying a simple prayer. This fantasy was so strong, so real in all its particulars, he imagined it so often, in such detail, Fitz sometimes found himself staring down from his bedroom window onto the street below, looking for his father’s car.

  NOT THE USUAL ANGST

  1

  On a cool morning in late May, Fitz is standing in the alley behind his father’s apartment in St. Paul. Truth be told, lurking is what he’s doing. Trying to act as if he belongs here, as if maybe he’s waiting for a ride. Keeping an eye on the door, checking the clock on his phone from time to time, doing his best not to look suspicious, doing his best not to look criminal.

  This is one of the fancier neighborhoods in the city—“the Historic Summit Hill District.” That’s what real-estate agents call it. It’s where F. Scott Fitzgerald, the famous writer his mother named him for, lived a hundred years ago. It’s full of yuppies—Geoffries and Jennas, his friend Caleb calls them, Pasta-Hounds. It’s less than five miles away from where Fitz lives with his mother on the city’s west side, but it took him forty minutes to get here on the bus. He had to cross one of the longest rivers in the world—the Mississippi—and transfer downtown.

  His father’s building is red stone, the walls thick as a castle’s. It reminds Fitz of Fort Snelling, the frontier fort overlooking the river he’s visited on school field trips. It’s got turrets and pillars and balconies. A sleeping porch in the back. It must have been built at the turn of the last century, a mansion for some railroad or grain baron. Now it’s divided into separate units: his father’s, he’s learned, is on the second floor.

  Fitz has been in the entry—studied the names on the mailboxes, checked out the catalogs and magazines in the bin—but never beyond the heavy security door. He’s never been in his father’s apartment. He imagines hardwood floors, a fireplace, some kind of gourmet kitchen, a wine rack, a killer home-theater system. His father likes nice things, Fitz knows that much about him. His father’s car—a shiny silver sedan, leather interior, five-speed stick—is parked in its assigned spot, twenty feet away from where Fitz is standing.

  There’s no litter in the alley, no broken glass. It’s newly paved. Here they probably don’t even call it an alley. That would be too common. There’s some upscale equivalent—“anterior access road,” that’s what they call it, Fitz thinks, something like that.

  A black SUV passes slowly. There’s a woman inside, nicely dressed, wearing sunglasses, fluffing her hair in the rearview mirror. Fitz smiles pleasantly at her, trying his best not to look like a kidnapper, and she smiles back. To her, he probably looks like a typical fifteen-year-old boy. He’s wearing sneakers, black jeans, a gray hoodie. He’s got a backpack slung over his shoulder.

  And that’s exactly what he is: a typical fifteen-year-old boy. A sophomore on the B honor roll. A kid with a messy room, an electric guitar, a notebook full of song lyrics, vague dreams about doing something great someday, a crush on a red-haired girl. The city is full of kids like him. America is full of kids like him. He’s nothing special.

  Except that he’s carrying a Smith & Wesson .38 revolver in the waistband of his jeans and a gutful of confusion, a lifetime’s resentment in his heart. A gnawing hunger for a father he’s never known.

  He kneels down now, retying his shoes for the third or fourth time. Fitz can imagine his father inside, straightening his silk tie, sipping a cup of fresh-ground, free-trade coffee, thinking about his day—a meeting with a client maybe, a deposition—no idea that someone is waiting for him, that his son has other plans.

  2

  For more than a month now, ever since he discovered his father’s home address, Fitz has been secretly observing him, tracking his movements. Not quite stalking, he tells himself, more like a cop on a stakeout. Fitz has discovered that he has a talent for invisibility. He’s good at bl
ending in. The week before, he was sitting in the lobby of the downtown building where his father’s law firm has its offices. He was slouched in a chair, headphones on, reading, when his father got off the elevator and walked right by him. Fitz could have stuck his foot out and tripped him. He got up then and stood in line behind his father as he paid for his bottle of water and copy of the New York Times in the lobby snack bar, tailed him as he walked the half block to the ramp where he parked his car.

  It started out as a kind of game. It was exciting. Every time he set out, there was some suspense. It was like going fishing. That same sense of anticipation. In this, Fitz, who can be easily bored and distracted, has patience. He’s willing to wait. After nearly an hour of hanging out here last Saturday afternoon—his mom thought he was at band practice—Fitz saw his father emerge in shorts and a ball cap, and followed him to the local co-op. Watched him fill a basket with organic produce.

  Fitz noticed things about his dad, and later, back home in his bedroom, he wrote them down in the notebook where he kept his songs. Long fingers. Likes Granny Smith apples, red grapes. Doesn’t check prices. Wallet full of twenties. It felt top-secret and incriminating, like some kind of CIA dossier.

  Gradually, after three or four of these outings, it became something more than a game for Fitz. Once, when he realized he’d missed his dad’s departure from work, he felt such an unexpected crushing sadness. He’d had no idea how much it meant to him, how much was at stake.

  He wrote a song about his dad, his building actually. He’d been thinking about the rough touch of those walls, their imposing, impenetrable mass. The U.S. Army built Fort Snelling because it was afraid of Indian raids. Fitz wondered what his father was afraid of.

  You’re living in a fortress,

  You’re living all alone.

  You’re living in a fortress

  Trapped behind your walls of stone.

  There’s bars on your windows,

  Double chain across your door.

  There’s bars on your windows,

  So scared you don’t go out no more.

  Robbers and muggers and thieves,

  The bad guys that you fear.

  Robbers and muggers and thieves,

  Watch out: they’re drawing near.

  When Fitz showed it to Caleb, he seemed impressed, as impressed as he ever got. “Not the usual angst,” he said. Caleb played it as a slow blues in A, and Fitz followed along with a little walk on the bass. Caleb read Fitz’s words off his crumpled notebook and sang them in his bluesman’s growl, part Howlin’ Wolf, part Cookie Monster. Caleb once confessed that he sometimes wished he were black, blind, born in the Delta. He is, in fact, white, sighted, and was born in South St. Paul. But Caleb has soul. His voice can sound ancient, ravaged and sinister, like something from a scratchy 78. He sang Fitz’s song with great feeling, eyes closed. Hearing his words sung with such passion, thinking about his father’s building, where he’d stood just the day before touching the rough stubble of the walls, Fitz felt something complicated and jagged working through his insides—not the usual angst, Caleb was right about that, it was something else entirely.

  Before long, the crazy cat-and-mouse game with his father became more important to Fitz than his so-called real life. He still went to school, of course, he studied geometry and biology, he ate dinner with his mother and helped load the dishwasher. They talked about their days. He listened to music in his room and texted his friends. He played his bass. He stared at a yearbook picture of the lovely Nora Flynn and tried to think of an excuse to call her. But somehow, that life, that public routine, came to seem like just filling time, going through the motions.

  It was a performance. That’s what it was. A one-man show staged for the benefit of his mother, his teachers, his friends. He knew the script and he could pull it off. But Fitz the son, Fitz the student, Fitz the friend—that wasn’t him. It was like him, it was a part of him. It’s just that there was more to him than anyone realized.

  He’d be working on a math problem, trying to figure out the area of some polygon, or he’d be talking to Caleb about some new song the two of them should try to work up, but all the while he’d be thinking about his father, planning his next spy mission. The real drama of his life had become secret, had gone underground.

  At some point, watching was not enough. He was no longer satisfied being a spectator. He wanted to get off the sidelines, to get in the game. If seeing his father was a drug—sometimes it felt like that, mood-altering—he needed a stronger dose. Like the man in the Edgar Allan Poe story obsessed with the old guy’s vulture eye, after a long period of secret watching, he felt compelled to action. That feeling in his gut when he saw his dad—he needed to do something about it.

  This was his logic. He wanted to spend some time with his father, what was the phrase? Quality time. He wanted to spend some quality time with his dad. It was time to get acquainted. But his dad wasn’t interested. After all these years, that much was obvious. It wasn’t like he was going to respond to an invitation. Fitz figured he needed a convincer.

  3

  Fitz touches the gun he’s got jammed in his jeans. It feels solid and reassuring. It has weight. It makes Fitz feel substantial. “This is a serious piece,” that’s what the kid who sold it to him said. They were standing on a playground after dark, underneath monkey bars Fitz used to climb. Fitz has known this kid for years—Dominic Rizzo. He calls himself the Dominator, but there really isn’t anything dominant about him. Nobody much likes him. In elementary school, he stole things from other people’s desks, worthless things—a dirty eraser, the stub of a pencil. He has a pinched, ratlike face and smells like an ashtray. He’s been to juvie more than once.

  But if you want to buy something—pills, weed, an ID, you name it—Dominic is your man. The playground is like his office. He sits on the tire swing, wobbling slowly back and forth, a cigarette cupped in his hand. When Fitz came by one night and told him he wanted to get a gun, he didn’t seem all that surprised. He didn’t ask questions. “I’m not going to shoot anybody,” Fitz said, and tried to laugh. “I just want to make a point.”

  Dominic didn’t seem to care. “Whatever,” he said. “You want a dummy?” he asked. “A piece of crap? Or a serious piece?” Fitz told him he wanted the real thing. “Okay,” Dominic told him. “Two hundred bucks. Be here Sunday night.”

  Fitz had a wad of money stashed in his desk. He’d been saving for a new bass—the thing he played was some rebuilt, no-name Frankenstein he’d found at a flea market. Sunday night Fitz told his mom he was going for a walk and brought his money to the playground. Dom took him into the park and retrieved a bag from behind some bushes. “Here she be,” he said. “Thirty-eight snub-nose, the Chief’s Special.”

  Dom showed him how to push the latch release forward and open the cylinder. He gave it a spin. He explained that the gun held five rounds and that he was giving him that many. “There’s no safety,” Dom said. Fitz knew what that meant, but somehow that phrase, those words—they made it seem as if Dom were telling him something bigger, more ominous.

  “You’re packing now,” he told Fitz. “You got some serious street cred.” Dom was making fun of him, Fitz was pretty sure, a law-abiding kid like him buying a gun, but he didn’t really care. He needed to get his father’s attention, and this would do the trick.

  Now, with his hand on the gun, he feels like a serious person. Someone to be reckoned with. There have been times in the past couple of weeks when watching his father made Fitz feel small and insubstantial, unimportant. The feeling of excitement and purpose slipped away at those times, and he felt just like a nothing, a nobody. Easy to ignore, easy to blow off. Fitz is preoccupied with this man, who clearly gives him no more thought than he does the cable or electric bill or any other monthly obligation. Fitz is a witness to a rich and fascinating life that doesn’t include him. He is on the outside looking in, his nose pressed against the glass.

  Fitz understands that puny boy
s love their violent video games so much because playing them makes them feel big, powerful, dangerous. That has never been his thing. But now he has to admit it—his piece, this steel he’s carrying, it makes him feel confident. Today his father is not going to blow him off. Today Fitz is going to make himself visible to his father.

  4

  The door to the building opens and a man steps out. Curtis Powell, Esquire. Partner in the firm of Plunkett and Daugherty. JD, cum laude, St. Paul College of Law, whose practice involves a balance of employment and complex commercial litigation, recipient of the Advocates for Human Rights Award. His father.

  Fitz has memorized the biography and studied the picture of him on his law firm’s website, a formal studio shot, like a school portrait—the same sort of vague blue background. To Fitz, the man in that picture looks pretty smart. He also looks pretty pleased with himself. He’s pretty much right where he wants to be in life. He doesn’t look at all like the kind of man who fathers a child and then has nothing to do with him for fifteen years other than scratching out a monthly check. But who does? Who looks like that guy?

  This morning, in person, he looks only slightly less composed. He comes down the steps squinting into the morning sunlight. Like Fitz, his father is long-limbed and tall—he’s a shade over six feet. Fitz is five-ten and still growing. He wears size eleven shoes, and his mom says he’s going to grow into his feet like a big-pawed puppy. His father has more meat on him. His upper body looks thick, like he may have done some work with weights, but still he looks light on his feet, quick, graceful even, a tennis player—Fitz has seen a racket in his backseat. He’s wearing a white shirt and dark suit, one of the bright ties he favors—this one is orange. His shoes are black, polished to an impossible sheen. He’s got a black leather briefcase in one hand and his suit jacket slung over his shoulder on a hanger.