Blink & Caution (19 page)

“Liar.”

“A drug dealer,” she says.

“How?”

“I cut his coke with rat poison and then stole all his money.”

“Liar,” he says again.

“The second part is true,” she says.

“But you didn’t kill anyone.”

“I did,” she says. “But it wasn’t him.” And before he can ask any more questions, she squeezes his upper arm tight and says, “Your turn.”

He stares at her. He looks in pain, and she wonders what it is that hurts him so much. Then she realizes it’s her. She lessens the grip on his arm, rubs the spot with her palm. “Poor baby,” she says.

A flicker of gratitude loosens some of the tension in his face but only reveals to her how much else he is holding in. He is not, she thinks, a boy given to secrecy. She doesn’t prod him. Doesn’t need to. She merely hooks his eyes and reels him in.

“I kind of stumbled into this thing. Saw something. A big-time con job, as far as I can tell. And don’t say I’m making it up.”

“Who said anything?”

He grabs the newspapers from the pocket on the back of the seat and shows her the stories. She reads a bit. Glances at him, then reads some more. He waits patiently.

“You saw this guy get kidnapped?”

“Yeah, except it wasn’t for real. The CEO, this Niven guy, was in on it. It’s the truth.”

He talks. The words tumble out of him in a stream so thick and fast, she has to listen with her whole being. There is no way he is making this up — no way this boy could imagine such a thing. He may be gullible, but he seems to have a pretty good grasp of this complicated story. On and on the story unfolds, and her weariness, while it doesn’t go away, backs off a bit, like crows do from roadkill when a car comes barreling toward them. He is at the wheel of this car bombing down the highway, she thinks, his eyes on high beam. She likes his brown eyes when they will stay still long enough for her to see them. She watches between blinks to catch sight of him again.

Then he stops, and though she doesn’t say anything right away, he waits for her to speak . . . waits for . . . what? Approval?

“This Alyson,” she says. She waggles her hand.

“What about her?”

She rolls her eyes. “She’s obviously in on it.”

He gets the victorious look in his eye. “That’s why I’m not going by bus, see? I’m not going to play into her hands. The cops would be all over me. I figured that out, easy enough.”

She punches him in the arm. Not really hard, but enough to make him wince. “You weren’t listening,” she says.

“Was, too.”

She rolls her eyes. “Blink,” she says, “I didn’t mean Alyson was in with the cops. I meant she’s in on the kidnapping thing. She’s lured you up here to get you out of the way. Don’t you see that?”

“I thought about that,” he says, not very convincingly. “But it’s not going to go down like that. As long as I play it my way and not hers, it’ll be cool.”

She wants to hit him again — hit him hard. How can he be so naive? But she stops herself. “What’s she offering?”

“Alyson?”

“No, Her Royal Majesty Queen Latifah. Of
course
Alyson.”

“She didn’t say. But I want a lot.”

“Yeah, well it had better be.” Then Kitty throws herself back in her seat and folds her arms, shaking her head. “Whoa,” she says.

“I’m not stupid,” he says. He sounds like a ten-year-old, and she immediately feels like a bully.

“Maybe not,” she says. “But you’re lucky I came along.”

He frowns.

“Yeah, I know,” she says, before he can say anything. “And you’ll get the rest of your money back. I already said that. But you see what I’m getting at? You didn’t see me coming, did you? Well, did you?”

He reluctantly shakes his head.

“Well, this Alyson chick is playing for way bigger stakes.”

“
If
she’s in on it,” he says dubiously.

“You need me, Blink,” says Kitty, “even if you don’t know it.”

And now a shaky smile grows on his face, and to her surprise his face grows on her.

She remembers something; it comes out of nowhere. Spence staying up late waiting for her. It was when he was home at Christmas just after she turned fifteen. His last Christmas, but they didn’t know that. She’d gone to a dance at the school, and he was sitting in the kitchen reading. Said he couldn’t sleep, but she saw through it.

“So, how was it?” Spence had whispered so as not to wake their folks.

And she had told him — well, not everything. She imagines now that her eyes must have looked like Blink’s: eager, expectant, relieved.

“I want a million dollars,” he says. “To start with.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“And?”

“And a place in Beverly Hills.” She cocks her eyebrow. “Next door to your place,” he says.

She laughs, despite herself. “Well, let’s start off by trying to keep your sorry ass out of trouble.” She shakes her head. Takes one more look at him grinning at her, then stares out the window. For some reason, she feels better than she’s felt in a long time.

There is something totally not right about Blink’s story, but her mind is unfocused, reeling a bit under the weight of all that information. Her mind wanders. She looks at him out of the corner of her eye. He’s reading the paper again, squinting and blinking. She wants to push the hair out of his eyes. He needs all the help he can get. But she resists the urge. She leans her head on the seat back.

“You know where I was Wednesday morning?” she says. He looks up at her. “When you were tracking down breakfast at the Plaza Regent?”

“Where?” he says.

“I was lying in bed thinking of the best way to leave this guy who was snoring beside me.”

“Your boyfriend?”

“Yeah.”

“So, he snores really bad?”

“Yeah, and he cheats and lies and . . . and a lot of things.”

“The drug dealer, right?”

She nods. “Except I didn’t
know
I was thinking of leaving him. What I thought I was thinking was how I could impress him by getting hold of some money that was owed to us.”

Blink looks confused, and she doesn’t blame him. And she figures maybe if she can explain what happened to this boy here, it will make some kind of sense to her. So she tries.

“He’d gotten in real late.
Real
late. And I was lying there thinking about how Merlin — that’s his name — would praise me for being so, you know, resourceful. How maybe we’d get some good food and use some of the money to celebrate with — go out to a club or something.”

“But you said —”

“Yeah, I know. I said I was thinking of how to leave him. But I guess what I was doing was making up my mind to do
something
— anything! — instead of just sitting around waiting for . . . I don’t even know what.”

He’s nodding now. He gets this part, at least.

“So I go see the guy who owes us the money, and he asks me flat out am I thinking of splitting. And I swear, I hadn’t been thinking of it. Not like on a conscious level. But I guess I was.”

“This Merlin sounds like a real badass.”

“Absolutely. Except, the thing is, I never really figured I
could
get away from him.”

Blink is listening hard. “You were too afraid?”

“It wasn’t
just
that. It was . . .” She pauses. Sucks in her lips and bites down hard. Looks out the window. What is she doing? Why is she spilling to this boy she only ever intended to rob?

Then his hand is on her arm. “Tell me,” he says, real quiet. “I mean, if you want to.”

And she thinks maybe she wants to. Wants to tell this stranger that she had stayed with Merlin because he was what she deserved. He was her sentence and her punishment. But before she can say it, the conductor’s voice comes over the public address system.

“Kingston, ten minutes,” he says.

T
he sky over Kingston looks like someone stuck a giant syringe into it and sucked out all the color.

Kitty doesn’t step down onto the platform right away. She hangs back and lets other passengers disembark ahead of her. You stand there looking up at her, afraid you’re losing her again. Then you see the fear in her eyes. No, not fear: caution. That’s all. Intense caution. And so instead of pleading with her to hoof it, you saunter down the platform, cool as all get out, checking the crowd for the kind of person to be cautious of. You’re not sure what to look for. Then you realize that your job is simple: look for someone who is looking for someone. Nobody seems to be. And when you turn back, she has finally disembarked and is walking toward you. The platform is nearly empty.

“Everything’s cool,” you say.

She laughs and grabs hold of your arm. “Thank goodness,” she says in a movie voice. “Our secret formula is safe!” She’s making fun of you, but you like her holding on to you so tight, her breast pressed against your arm. Then she drops it. It was all just part of the charade.

You have to go down a set of stairs to an underground passageway that leads to the terminal on the other side of the tracks.

She stops halfway down the staircase, squats to peer along the tunnel, and you realize that no one with any brains would have waited for her on the platform, anyway. They’d be down here or in the main terminal. She’d thought of that. She’s warier than you are. Remember that, Blink. And faster.

The way seems clear, but you keep your eyes peeled. You will help her escape if you have to. You imagine throwing yourself in the path of some druggie, taking his feet out from under him while she runs away.

The thing is, people do look at her — maybe it’s the clothes: the yellow socks, purple tights, red and blue kilt, and crazy blue jacket. How can they not look? You can hardly stop looking at her yourself.

She gives the terminal a good once-over, twice-over — then relaxes. “I’m going to phone Alyson,” you say. But she shakes her head and makes you sit down.

“Tell me more,” she says.

“Like what?”

She puts her face in her hands to cover a huge yawn. She’s not bored, just exhausted.

“Okay,” she says. “Start with how exactly you’re going to make this million dollars you’re talking about.”

It sounds juvenile to hear her throw this back at you. “Well, that was just —”

“Bullshit, I realize that,” she says, cutting you off a little irritably. “I just want to hear how you expect to make anything out of this.”

This is good, you think: put your gut feeling into words. Forget the picture of the pretty blonde on the lawn for a minute and concentrate.

“The only way to find out for sure Niven is up to something is to check out this idea of Alyson’s.”

“And her idea again?”

“That he’s hiding out at some lodge.”

“And she can’t go up there herself because . . . ?”

“I’m not sure. Except it seems like she’s being watched pretty closely. And, like, with her dad kidnapped and all, she can’t just slip away.”

Kitty nods. “And how do you turn this information into money if it is true?”

“Well,” you say slowly. “If he’s up to something and we know about it, then we could, like, maybe make a bundle, right?”

“Blackmail?”

“Yeah.”

“Who? Alyson?”

“Well, no. She tells her dad we know or whatever.”

“Or whatever . . .”

“Or we take it to somebody,” you say. “The newspapers would pay for information like this, wouldn’t they?”

“Would they?”

“How should I know?” You shrug again. “But we could find out.”

“We?”

You blush — can’t help yourself. “I mean me. I could find out.”

“You’re cute when you blush,” she says, with this mocking smile.

“Shut up,” you say, punching her arm. “Anyway, the only way we — I mean, I — can find out if there’s money in it is to have the information to sell.”

She’s looking down at the floor. You’re not sure if she’s thinking or drifting off.

“Why would I want to get wrapped up in this?” she says really quietly.

“Because you owe me,” you say.

She snorts and looks away, but she doesn’t
go
away. She rests her elbows on her knees and stares across the station.

“Listen,” you say, leaning on your own knees, so that your face is near hers and you don’t have to talk very loudly. “This could be a trap. I know that. But as long as I’m calling the shots, I figure I can avoid getting caught.”

She looks sideways at you. She reaches up and pushes the hair out of your eyes but doesn’t say anything.

“We see anything suspicious — anything that looks bad — and we bail. We’re outta there. It’ll be even easier with two of us.”

“Go on,” she says.

“If Alyson is telling the truth and we check out this lodge or whatever it is, and we’re really careful about how we do it, then we see where we stand. What have we got to lose?”

She smiles again, a faraway smile. It’s as if you’ve finally said the only thing that makes any sense.

“We,” you say. “That’s the best thing, see? Alyson doesn’t know I’ve got someone watching my back.”

“Yes,” she says. She’s not looking at you. It’s as if she’s saying yes to a voice in her head. “I guess that’s why I’m here.”

“I can, like, cut you in on whatever we make,” you say, because you don’t want to lose her now. “You’re broke, right? If there’s no money in it, I’ll give you some of what I’ve got left. You’re going to need something, or you might get stuck in Kingston, like, forever.”