The Con Code

by Shana Silver

  “Please,” I beg without intending to. It’s the first genuine thing that’s come out of my mouth since I met her.

  Lakshmi studies my face for a few seconds before letting out a big sigh. “Fine, but you owe me. And if you do get caught, I’m claiming I had no knowledge of this.”

  I give her a strained smile. “Wouldn’t expect anything else from you.”

  I turn to the door. My bag of supplies weighs heavy on my shoulder, my necklace an anchor grounding me. The itch of creation tingles all through my body. Something inside my stomach starts to churn. But it can’t be nerves. This whole ruse isn’t even real. Colin’s just my excuse to get out of this room, but he won’t actually be escorting me on this all-night adventure in forgery.

  Colin’s wearing a white T-shirt that hangs just an inch too short above his plaid pajama bottoms, revealing a sliver of the skin below his belly button. I hope this was Natalie’s doing, too. Revenge by way of packing clothes a size too small. I stare for a beat too long before forcing myself to look away.

  Dark hair swinging, Abby rounds the corner and stops short at the sight of us. “Lights-out in fifteen minutes. I’ll be doing room checks.”

  “Just had to chat with Colton for a sec. See? We’re standing in the hallway since he’s not allowed to be in my room.”

  Her mouth stays in a straight line. “See you at the room check, then.”

  I swallow hard. She’s definitely going to be checking for me, specifically.

  Abby disappears into one of the rooms a full minute before the text from Tig appears. Room 640.

  “Thanks for the alibi. See you tomorrow?” I veer toward the elevators to get to room 640, but Colin stays in step with me. I groan. “Your room is back that way.”

  “My roommates snore.” The steel elevator door distorts his good looks like a fun-house mirror, which suits him.

  “So do you.” My insides are a swirl of nerves, and I shift the backpack from shoulder to shoulder.

  The blinking lights above the buttons illuminate numbers in a sequence: 7, 6, 5 … a countdown to my next prison sentence. Trapped in a room I can’t leave with a boy I don’t want. When the elevator arrives, we step inside. “I need to concentrate. Which means I need to be alone.”

  Colin rakes a hand over his buzzed scalp. “Oh come on,” he says. “I thought you’d want some company. Trust me, it’s lonely as hell to be stuck in a place by yourself with no one to talk to.”

  The way he says it, I wonder if he’s the one that doesn’t want to be alone.

  Sure enough, room 640 opens with a simple twist of the knob, showcasing a beautifully made double room, a cookie-cutter replica of the rooms in the hotels we’ve stayed in so far, all the same dumb chain. Color me impressed at Tig’s hacking skills. A thin beam of moonlight traces Colin’s outline like a graphite-pencil drawing, but then he switches on the lamp, and I blink against the flood of yellow light.

  I spread a towel over the closest bed and dump my bag of supplies onto it. The pitter-patter of paintbrushes and packets of boneware moist clay is like a symphony to my ears. “What about Abby?”

  “Taken care of. Recorded audio of me that my roommates can play for her to verify I’m in the bathroom.”

  “Smart.” Then a thought hits me. “Ugh, everyone’s going to think we’re doing something in here that I’ve never even done in real life.” My cheeks combust. I probably shouldn’t have said that. Out loud. To a guy who might use that ammo against me one day.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll tell everyone the truth: that I wouldn’t touch you with a ten-foot pole.” His eyes flash with amusement.

  The tension drains from my shoulders. “Please also tell them that I’d rather be eaten alive by rabid alligators than touch you.”

  “Only rabid alligators?” He raises a brow. “Regular ones wouldn’t suffice?”

  “As a last resort, maybe,” I say, and he laughs.

  Somehow I’m smiling now, too.

  But on second thought, maybe letting everyone think something’s going on between us isn’t the worst idea. After all, we’ve already planted the seeds with Lakshmi by letting her think I have a crush on him and we’re using tonight to potentially get back together. “Actually.” I bite my lip and avoid his eyes. “Maybe we should let people make their own assumptions about…” I wave my finger back and forth between our chests to indicate us. “Even if that’s what they assume.”

  He meets my eyes. “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah, it’s the easiest alibi.” I still can’t look at him.

  “Works for me, then.”

  “I should…” I gesture at my backpack, and he waves his hand as though to say proceed. The snap of blue rubber gloves is like a second skin, transporting me back to the first time my mother taught me to create a perfect replica of a masterpiece. I had rushed home from school and flown down to our studio basement, which was somehow always flooded with light despite the lack of windows.

  “It’s not about showcasing your skills.” She squinted one eye as she filled in a canvas with a burst of color that replicated the brushstroke of the original Caravaggio next to her. “It’s about showing off theirs.” She stepped back and studied her work, then jabbed a sharp finger right above the brushstrokes. “There. Tell me what I did wrong.”

  My heart skipped with the chance to impress her. I turn my head from the Caravaggio to my mom’s version. Each one had a zigzag brushstroke done at an angle with a tilted brush. The color matched exactly. As I studied them, my chest constricted. “I don’t know.”

  Mom plucked a fine hair from her paintbrush and, with tweezers, applied it to the wet paint. She pulled it off again. When I glanced between the two paintings, I gasped, finally seeing it. In the original, there was what looked like a scratch but was really a paintbrush hair that had gotten stuck and then been removed.

  To create a precise forgery, you couldn’t just look at what was in front of you. You had to look at what was once there, too.

  Now, I lay out the photos of the Christopher Columbus book, rendered on four-by-six glossy paper from a portable printer Nat brought. A 180-degree view of the book animates as I sweep my eyes from left to right over the photos. Colin’s staring at his own phone when he glances up at me with a devious smile. “Have you researched this book at all?”

  “Only about a million times.” Our target—or should I say mark, considering the book was once human?—is believed to be bound in the skin of a Moorish chieftain.

  Colin clears his throat and starts speaking with the voice of a narrator. “‘The practice of binding books in human skin peaked in the nineteenth century as a way to identify medical books.’” He shakes his head to himself. “Because nothing says, ‘This book contains diagrams of human anatomy!’ more than binding it with human anatomy.”

  I shrug. “People were so damn literal back then.”

  Colin continues paraphrasing. “The (un)lucky skin donor was usually a medical cadaver who probably thought donating his body to science would result in medical breakthroughs, not readers judging him for all eternity don’t-judge-a-book-by-its-cover style.”

  I raise a brow in challenge. “Well, guess what they bound books about law out of?”

  His eyes widen. “Don’t tell me…”

  I look him straight in the eye. “Criminals!”

  Thank God I only have jail to look forward to if I get caught.

  “Oh God.” Colin’s face turns gray. “Another popular pastime was to write an autobiography and then insist that your manuscripts be bound in your remains when you die.”

  “Imagine the options,” I say. “Casket. Cremation. Or bookbinding. What’ll it be? Remember, fiction lives forever!”

  While I don’t have any human skin to work with, I do have a brand-new hardcover journal Natalie bought. The pages inside were blank, but under the guise that I’ve been writing in my nightly journal before bed, I’ve been painstakingly hand printing every letter and symbol on the pages splayed open at t
he Hesburgh Library. It was the only thing I could do in Lakshmi’s presence without raising her suspicions. I only have a few pages of lettering left to complete, so I tackle those first. Colin watches the steady progress of my swooping typography that ranges in size as it cascades down the page.

  Once the lettering dries, I dip my fingers into a cup of water to keep the clay moist as I press it onto the journal cover. Clay gives me the second best medium to create the look and texture of leather made from human skin. The first best medium of course would be cow’s leather, but Natalie couldn’t find one the exact shape on such short notice, and vegan leather is too difficult to play with.

  As my mother taught me, the trick to getting the perfect mold is to pay attention to the details, the way the texture has little bumps like chicken skin but long scratches toward the edge, probably due to age. I need to re-create this book in all four dimensions: appearance, texture, size, and the last dimension—history.

  I’m concentrating so deeply, I don’t even notice the shadow darkening the glass-covered desk until Colin’s sharp breath whirrs in my ear.

  My hand slips, creating a large divot. I curse. I’ll have to patch it, which is always a risk. Anytime you add something to the surface, the seams might show through. “What are you doing?”

  “I wanted to see how you worked.”

  “You’re blocking my light!” I say, and he backs up a few feet so I can focus.

  But for some reason, the only thing I can focus on is the question I just asked him. What are you doing? Not now, in this moment. But how’d he even get here? “Hey,” I say. “Can I ask you something I’ve been wondering for a while?”

  He nods.

  “Why’d you start doing cons in the first place?”

  He lifts one of my steel tools off the desk—the ones that look more fit to be on a dentist’s table than an art room—and holds the wire loop sgraffito up to the light, silver metal glinting. “Teenage rebellion?”

  I roll my eyes. “Teenage rebellion is cigarettes and breaking curfew. Not evading the FBI on your many crime sprees.”

  Colin stays silent for several seconds, his chest puffing in and out. “My mom died when I was three. Now that I’ve outgrown my nanny, it’s just me and my dad, but he’s never around. He’s always at the office or chasing a lead.” His shoulders shake. “At first I thought maybe the cons would get his attention, make him remember I exist.”

  “But they don’t,” I guess.

  With a sigh, he scoots the reclining chair over and lounges next to me, feet kicked up onto the desk right next to my wrist. The once-purple bruise on his ankle has faded to yellow green. “All it got me was an empty house. You know, when I was first arrested…” He swallows hard. “I thought … maybe. Maybe now he’ll spend more time here. Maybe now he’ll realize that what I really need is a good role model or something.” He shakes his head. “I’m such an idiot.”

  I reach for him, cupping his hand with my clay-covered palm. “You’re not an idiot. You’re one of the smartest people I know.”

  “I’m not so sure about that.” He gives me a lopsided grin. “After all, I agreed to go on a crazy mission to help someone who refuses to even call me a friend, even though getting caught would mean trading in the big, lonely house for a tiny, lonely jail cell.”

  I squeeze his hand, after realizing I’m still holding it. I know I should tell him what he wants to hear, what I want to say: that he is a friend. That, somehow, he’s become one of the only people I trust. But I find myself deflecting. Wimping out. I can steal expensive paintings with enough bravado that no one would ever suspect me, but I can’t tell a guy how I’m feeling. “Why’d you agree to help me?” I ask instead.

  He pulls his hand away and picks at the clay on his skin. “Because it’s not about getting caught anymore. It’s about continually proving to myself that I don’t need him. That I’m better than him. Better off without him.”

  There’s an electric pulse in the air, something that’s making us look at each other with a new intensity. I ruin it with a joke. “But you can’t even gloat. And you love to gloat.”

  He laughs. “That is true.”

  “Hey,” I say, my voice going softer. Now that we’re talking about some things we’ve never said before, I risk asking another question that’s been bothering me for months. “Whose fake IDs were you transporting? That day I got you arrested?” Was this all a lie, and he really did start a fake ID scheme, or is there someone he valued more than himself when he protected that person at the expense of his own freedom?

  He flinches at the reminder of how I got him arrested. “I’m not sure I should say.”

  “You have a lot of stuff hanging over my head. I’ll keep your secret.”

  He bows his head and takes a deep breath. “Tig.”

  I startle. She hadn’t mentioned any of this, but of course that would have required her to talk. “I don’t get it. Why would she need fake IDs?”

  Unless … she didn’t. Natalie had bragged about our plan to her in an attempt to impress her. And maybe Tig found a way to impress Natalie right back by using the opportunity to take Colin out for the count.

  He shrugs. “No idea, but she didn’t mean harm by it.” His eyes meet mine. “Only you did.”

  I bite my lip. “That’s not—”

  “There’s something else I haven’t told you.” Suddenly his face takes on a new intensity, and my stomach winds up in response. He breathes in sharply, like he’s about to say something huge and needs a swift boost of courage, but nothing comes out of his mouth. He clutches his phone so hard, I think he might snap it in two. Pain crosses his face, his brows knitting, and for a moment it seems like he’s fighting an internal battle I can’t see.

  “What?” I prompt.

  “It’s—” The tension knotting his face suddenly deflates, and he sighs, a heavy sound, like he’s disappointed in himself. “Something I read in my dad’s files once. Something about your mom.”

  His words puncture the air and drive straight into my gut like arrows. My hands shake, and I put down my tools, waiting for the bad news that will match his grave face.

  “Right after my dad busted your dad, he brought home a ton of old case files to sift through. I’m talking piles. When he took a phone call in the other room, I took the opportunity to snoop a bit.”

  I’m on edge, my body still, not even breathing.

  “There was one case file from the nineties. Back when your mom was a teenager.”

  I lean closer, strung like a marionette on his every word. My mom had me when she was twenty-three. She’d met my dad when she was twenty-one. She had a whole other life before us but rarely talked about it. I always assumed her life didn’t truly begin until she met Dad, but the grave tone of Colin’s voice makes me think that maybe this wasn’t a beginning but an ending of sorts.

  “She ran with a different crew then. A guy and two other girls. Jeremy. Nikki. Amanda. Has she told you about them?”

  I shake my head, my whole body coiled tight.

  He lets out a sigh, as though he was afraid of that. “They did a lot of big heists—art museums, banks, you name it. Plus whatever my dad’s files don’t know about. They were pretty slick … until your mom messed up and got caught.”

  A small shudder ricochets through me. She got caught? My head twists, back and forth—no no no. “But—”

  “She struck a deal.” He meets my eyes. “Immunity for her crimes in exchange for ratting out her crew. She sold out her friends to save herself.”

  “No.” I leap to my feet, the taste of dust like a desert in my mouth. “No way. She’d never sell out anyone.”

  “Never, ever turn your back on your crew.” Mom pressed her hands on my seven-year-old shoulders and forced me to look at her. “They’re your family. Stronger than blood.”

  “If I hadn’t said anything, then I would have been expelled, and I didn’t do it!” I tried to shrug out of her grasp, but she held on tight. A little too
tight. She didn’t say a word, just studied me with such intense concentration that it forced me to look away.

  Stacie Holmes, my best friend at the time, had snuck back into the classroom during recess while I stood watch at the door. It was school-book-fair day, and she dug through each kid’s backpack until she found the money their parents had sent. It was a huge jackpot: $120 total in profit, all fanned between her pink, sparkly nails.

  It didn’t take long for the students to notice the missing cash and the teacher to question each student individually. Some kids had spotted me heading back inside during recess because I hadn’t yet perfected my stealth, and the teacher told me, point-blank, that if no one came forward, then she would have no choice but to report me. Expel me. I’d be a second-grade dropout.

  I squirmed in my seat, thinking only of my parents. If I got caught, it might shine a beacon on their illicit activities. We were flying under the radar, but as soon as I got in trouble for stealing, the seal would be broken, and we’d forever seem like criminals in the community’s eyes.

  So I did what I had to do to protect the people I loved. I sold out Stacie to save my parents. I thought I was doing the right thing, but the look in my mother’s eyes made me flinch.

  “But you helped. You’re as much a part of it as she is.”

  She wasn’t mad that I stole something. Of course not. She was only mad that I’d betrayed my crew. It’s the only code of con we truly abide by.

  “No,” I say again, my voice louder this time. “There’s no way she turned in her team. It’s just not possible.”

  I stab my metal tool back into the book and avoid looking at Colin.

  “They each got twenty years for their crimes. Well, not Amanda. She got forty, thanks to her escape attempt.”

  My mom never uttered a word about her former crew or the way she threw them under the bus so easily. When she scolded me for doing the same when I was seven, was it out of guilt over what she had once done … or fear? Fear that one day, I’d rat her out, too?

  My throat hitches, and that small escape of breath may be the most incriminating evidence of all.