The Free Page 5

  I need to get home. I’ve got twenty-two days left of my current sentence, and I’m seriously considering dropping a dime on Pat Healy.

  ~

  At breakfast the next day, I’m bleary eyed. I haven’t slept. I haven’t f igured anything out either. I’m standing outside the kitchen like a zombie with my powdered eggs and toast, trying to f igure out where to sit. With Cardo gone, I know I won’t be welcome at the Disciples’ table anymore, not that I particularly liked their company.

  “Yo, what you standing there for?”

  It’s some wormy white kid coming up behind me. I step out of his way and Bam! My tray meets with something solid. Not a wall though. A wall would be great news. Instead it’s someone’s stomach. And not just anyone’s stomach either, but the one belonging to Cecil Boone, a three-hundred-pound black tower of hazard and gold teeth. Drug dealer, murderer, and member of the Bank Street gang, Boone is the kind of guy everybody knows. If there’s a list of the top f ive people you should not bump into with your damn breakfast tray, Cecil Boone is numbers one, two, and three.

  The collision is minor. I don’t actually drop my tray. Nothing breaks or splashes out. Not a speck of food even touches him. But, like a dick, he decides to be a dick about it. He glares at me in a way that is exactly like cocking a gun. And just like that I’m on the goddamn stage again. But I’ve learned a thing or two since my run-in with Flavio Pendon. The trick is to avoid being too much of a pussy about things. Guys like Cecil Boone can smell that kind of fear. And they like it.

  “Sorry, man.” I keep it quiet, respectful, but not too submissive. My plan is to move on, leave it behind like the minor incident it is.

  But Boone is dug in. He’s not going anywhere. And it’s going to take more than the words “sorry” and “man” to get him past this. The best way out is for someone to come smack me upside the head, call me out for being so clumsy, then reassure Boone that I’m “all right.” But who’s going to do that? Cardo’s gone. Nobody else even knows me.

  The whole place starts to hush and the faces staring back all say the same thing: Whoever the hell you are, don’t even think about bringing that shit over here.

  So what do I do? The only thing I can think of. I pick out the weakest group in the room and I take the shit to them.

  I put my back to Boone (a risky move on its own), then I walk real calm and slow, like this was my plan all along, straight over to the geek table. These guys look at me like I’m the Grim Reaper, which I guess in a way I am. I don’t say anything. I just slide in next to this white sliver of a kid who scoots as far away from me as possible until he bumps into the Mexican on his right. At the head of the table that Asian guy with the bushy hair stares at me, bug-eyed. The one black guy scowls. I dig into my eggs like they’re the most delicious meal I’ve ever eaten and pretend like nothing unusual is going on, like I’ve been sitting there all along and they just haven’t noticed me.

  Eventually the black guy says, “The hell you think you doin’?” He’s tall, broad-shouldered, with short hair and cold eyes that mean business.

  “What?” I say. “You guys are the computer class, right? I want to sign up.”

  The Asian guy with the bushy hair whispers to a redheaded kid with braces.

  “I’m Deon,” the black guy says. Then he does something that is either stupidly brave or bravely stupid: he reaches across the table and shakes my hand, in front of everyone, including Cecil Boone. “Computer class meets every day. Even weekends. You cool with that?”

  “Yeah,” I lie. “I’m cool with that.”

  They’re all looking past me now. Based on the way their eyes are moving from left to right, I f igure Boone must have had his f ill of bullshit for the morning and is on his way. I don’t turn around to look though, because that would make me look like a pussy, otherwise known as an invitation to permanent abuse. This time, I’ve played it right.

  “We got email, you know,” the thin white kid says.

  “Yeah but it’s not about that,” the Asian guy at the head of the table says. “If you’re coming in just for email and porn, you can forget it.”

  “Yeah,” Deon says. “We in there to work.”

  “And no Facebook,” the Asian guy adds.

  “That’s Stanley Huang, by the way.” Deon jerks his head toward the Asian guy. “He and Mr. Klein sort of run the class.”

  “Wait, so if I sign up, I get an email address?” I ask.

  “Don’t you have one already?” Huang asks.

  “No.”

  Deon snickers. “You a newbie. Don’t worry about it. I was too. Never touched a computer. Now I’m designing the newsletter.”

  “What newsletter?”

  The thin white kid laughs.

  “Shut up, Anthony,” Deon says. “We got a monthly newsletter. It’s called The Free. You never read it?”

  “I just got here,” I tell him.

  “Nobody reads the newsletter,” Anthony says. “Which is whack because it’s good. Deon’s gonna be a journalist. Ain’t that right, Deon?”

  “Yeah, that’s right. Soon’s I get out of here, get my diploma, I’m gonna be a freelance investigative reporter.”

  “So I can email anyone I want?” I ask. “Like . . . anyone?”

  Deon rolls his eyes. “Yeah, but you got to work f irst. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. It’s not just about goof ing off. No checking email . . .”

  “Till after you’ve done your work,” everyone at the table says at the same time.

  “That’s rule number one,” Stanley Huang adds.

  “What’s rule number two?”

  “No Facebook,” they all say.

  Chapter 10

  It’s a dim room with dirty shades pulled all the way down and f ifteen identical silver laptops bolted to some folding tables. The tables are f limsy and light. It would be nothing to collapse one and make off with six laptops. Not that I’m planning to do that, but a thief’s instincts die hard.

  There are a few girls in there, but it’s mostly guys. The teacher, a young scraggle-haired white guy in a black T-shirt, huddles with Stanley Huang while I wait for someone to teach me something. I have a laptop open in front of me, but Mr. Klein has told me not to touch it yet. Everyone else is busy typing lord knows what. But if they want to talk or laugh about something, that’s f ine. It’s the most laid-back class I’ve ever been to.

  All I want to do is get online and track down Mr. Flannery’s email address so we can f igure out what to do about Sal Christaldi. But there’s a password to get online and I’m supposed to do my “work” f irst. Whatever that is.

  Eventually, Stanley Huang comes over and sits next to me. According to Deon, he’s the teacher for “newbies” like me. Mr. Klein spends his time teaching programming to the more advanced students, like Anthony and that redheaded kid named Fitzpatrick, plus one of the girls. Huang is already an advanced programmer. He’s been designing his own video games since he was ten. Teaching “the basics” to newbies like me is part of his sentence.

  “So you’re like completely computer illiterate?” he asks me.

  “I’m not illiterate. I can read.”

  Huang sniffs, then types something into my laptop and we’re off.

  I want to quit a dozen times. I want to smash the laptop twice. Fonts, formatting, margins, toolbars. Word processing can blow me. All I want is to email Mr. Flannery. Through it all, Huang keeps groaning about how “incredibly basic” all of this stuff is, like I must be stupid for not already knowing it.

  “I hate this shit,” I f inally say.

  “Chill out,” Deon tells me. He’s been bashing away at the laptop next to us, making charts and diagrams for his newsletter. “You’ll get it. Just takes practice.”

  “You were much faster than this, Deon,” Huang tells him.

  Huang’s a prick.
No denying that. Out in the free, he would know his place. But in here he gets to be a little king, with his army of geek worshippers. Big deal. I never wanted to be a king. Too much responsibility.

  “What’s a template?” I ask the little genius.

  Huang rolls his eyes. He’s real good at this. He can roll them in both directions. Just one of his many awe-inspiring talents.

  Somehow, after battling with Huang and the laptop for nearly an hour, I learn how to “format a business letter,” a skill I am one hundred percent certain to put to use right away in my new career as a businessman the second I get out of juvie. Huang has more important things to do, so he hooks me up with an email account, then tells me to keep practicing with an online tutorial.

  The second he’s gone, I go online to look for Mr. Flannery’s email address. I’m not totally computer illiterate. I know a couple of things. I’ve used my sister’s email address a few times at the library. I know about Google. It’s not hard to f ind the website for Donverse Vocational. The auto department has its own page, with a nice photo of Mr. Flannery and the other teachers. He’s drinking from that giant red coffee mug he always carries and making that face he always makes, like he’s amused by something. I’ve always liked that about Mr. Flannery. No matter what’s happening in the auto shop, he’s never surprised. A kid could blow up a car by accident right beside him and Mr. Flannery would just chuckle to himself, like he’s seen it all before.

  But there’s no email address for Tom Flannery. None for any of the auto-shop guys, either. Most of the other teachers have email. The principal has email. There’s a special email for “inquiries.” But nothing for Tom Flannery.

  “Who’s Tom Flannery?”

  I look up and spot Barbie Santiago hovering over me.

  “You go to Donverse?” she asks. “I got a cousin there. Culinary arts. You in the auto program? Oh yeah, of course. You a big-time car thief. Who’s that guy?” She points to the photo of Mr. Flannery.

  “Are you in this class?” I ask her.

  “You’re late, Barbie,” Mr. Klein says.

  Quick as a switchblade, Barbie pulls out a small slip of paper from the waistband of her scrubs. That tattoo again on her stomach. It is a sun, which means she’s Sol Dominicano, a gang that controls most of the crank in the area and is perpetually at war with the Disciples of Vice. The news just keeps getting better with this girl.

  “Emergency meeting with my lawyer,” she says. “I got wheels turning.”

  “I see you know Isaac,” Mr. Klein says.

  “Oh yeah, we go way back.” She sidles around to the other side of the table and opens the laptop opposite me. “Hi Marley,” she says to one of the girls.

  Marley nods cautiously.

  The other girls regard Barbie with a spiky combination of fear and contempt, which Barbie absorbs without a hitch. She owns the room now that she’s in it, just like she owned the orange-rug room.

  “Let’s see, where was I?” She starts typing and eventually gets lost in whatever she’s doing. But every once in a while she looks up and rests those amber eyes on me, like she knows something, like she can see straight through my lying little heart. Just like Cardo warned me about her.

  Chapter 11

  Later that day, a guard brings me back to the visitors’ room and who is waiting for me at one of those tables? None other than Tom Flannery himself. He has his hands stuffed into the pockets of his Carhartt jacket. Head down, eyes dancing around the room, he looks like a caged wolf. His face seems paler than usual, like his freckles have been painted on.

  “I called that number,” I tell him, “but that guy told me—”

  “Yeah, yeah,” he interrupts. “I got the message. You doin’ okay in here? You holding up?”

  “Yeah, I’m all right, but we’ve got a problem, Mr. Flannery. Sal Christaldi woke up and—”

  “I know all about Sal Christaldi,” he interrupts again. “It changes nothing.”

  “But he knows it wasn’t me who hit him. He knows it was someone else. A giant, he says. A white giant. And now this ADA lady wants me to ID him.”

  “Have you said anything?” For someone who always seems amused, never surprised, he doesn’t look amused now.

  “No. But my lawyer says I’m up for perjury if I don’t give him up.”

  “Slater told you that? Did he tell you to give up Patrick?”

  “Um . . .”

  “Well did he or didn’t he?”

  “No. He just said . . . Wait, do you know my lawyer?”

  “I make it my business to know who’s looking after my crew, kid. Now, what did Slater tell you?”

  “He said I could be charged with perjury.”

  “That’s bullshit. They can’t prove anything.”

  “But they’ve got Sal Christaldi. What if he IDs him?”

  Mr. Flannery snorts. “Don’t worry about Sal Christaldi. He ain’t ID-ing anyone.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because if he could, they wouldn’t be asking you for anybody’s name.”

  I have a think about this. It’s a good point, actually. Maybe they were just trying to scare me.

  “Look, don’t worry about the ADA,” Mr. Flannery says. “That’s nothing but smoke and mirrors. And your lawyer’s just dropping the word perjury in there to cover his ass, tick off a box, so he doesn’t get in trouble with his own people.”

  “Are you sure? Because he def initely told me I could get another six months. Or more.”

  “He’s exaggerating. Believe me, Slater’s looking out for himself more than he’s looking out for you. And look, even if you did get more time—”

  “So you think I could?”

  “Isaac, listen to me. You think I like having you in here? You’re my best kid. It broke my friggin’ heart sending you here in Patrick’s place. That kid . . .” He does that thing where he looks around to make sure no one’s listening. “The kid’s an idiot. I know he’s family and all, but he’s an idiot. I only took him under my wing on account of my cousin, which is a long story I don’t want to get into. If the kid wasn’t already eighteen, believe you me, it would be him in here instead of you.”

  But with Healy, it would be hard time, in the big house, which is a hell of a lot worse than six months in juvie.

  I know. I know. I shouldn’t complain. I remember Healy telling me about the time he visited his father in prison. We were sitting in Healy’s pickup truck, around the corner from Sal Christaldi’s house, waiting to run down the clock so we could get started. Healy got real serious, told me his father was basically a good guy. A low-level street dealer, weed mostly, nothing big. He got busted in a dragnet. Healy went to see him in prison and he looked like hell, skinny, battered, totally paranoid. He told Healy “whatever you do, don’t end up here. Prison’s not for people like us.” Turns out the old man was right too. A few days later he was shivved in the throat, bled out in the toilets before anyone found him.

  I remember the way Healy looked when he told me the story, the whites of his eyes screaming out against the dark. I could practically smell the fear coming off of him. “I’m not ending up like that,” he said. “I’m never going to jail.” Maybe that’s why he lost his cool with Sal Christaldi that night. He was thinking about his father, about prison, about how one wrong move—one witness—could destroy you.

  “Listen to me, kid,” Flannery says. “We gotta think strategic. Think long term. ’Coz I thought you were in this for the long haul.”

  “Yeah, I am. It’s just—”

  “You got big plans, right? Private school for your sister? That costs money, doesn’t it?”

  The thought of Janelle sends my heart into my throat.

  “I remember that picture you showed me,” Flannery goes on. “Shit, if I had a sister that pretty, I’d want her in Catholic school too. Let the nuns
look after her. They’ll keep her safe. My sister was a dog.” He chuckles. “Still is.”

  I laugh out of respect, but there’s no feeling in it.

  “We got a good thing going here, Isaac. You and me. A real good thing. But sometimes you gotta take one for the team. I know. I’ve done it myself a few times.”

  “Really?”

  “Sure. Sure. And it’s a real bitch. I know that. You do your best work, keep your head down, keep your nose clean, you follow orders like you’re supposed to. And then some a-hole loses his shit and turns a simple boost into an aggravated assault.”

  “Murder,” I whisper. “My lawyer said attempted murder.”

  “Not for you though.”

  “No, for me it’s just perjury.”

  “The most candyass rap of all. Look, it’s Patrick who should be worried about this development, not you. All you have to do is keep your mouth shut. They can’t make you talk. Am I right? What are they gonna do, come in here and torture you until you speak?”

  “No. Yeah, you’re right.”

  “So I can count on you?”

  I take a deep breath and try to f ind my resolve, or at least the look of it. “Yeah. Of course you can count on me, Mr. Flannery. I ain’t dropping a dime on anybody. I just, you know, I just wanted to make sure you knew about Mr. Christaldi, that’s all. See if it changed the plan.”

  “Oh, right. I see. No, I’m glad you got in touch. Gives me a chance to check up on my favorite student.” He throws me a quick wink. “I’d come by more often only I’ve got appearances to think about. You know how it is.”

  “Yeah, of course.”

  “I’m an upstanding member of society.” He chuckles. “Look at me, Isaac. You’re worried about something. What is it, your sister? You want me to check up on her? Where’s she go to school?”