“No,” I say, “I was just getting up.”

Roy is my mom’s uncle, making him my great-uncle and the single greatest old-school-confidence man that I know. For most of his life, he’s lived in Vegas, working security before he became a full-time grifter like his favorite niece. Back when the old MGM Grand burned down in 1980, he was part of the retrieval team that the casino sent into the vault to get the money out, while the place was still smoldering. He and a handful of other guards carried the cash to a secret location to await pickup from an armored car. He used to tell me stories of hauling pillowcases stuffed with bills past the scorched bodies of gamblers who were melted to slot machines because they hadn’t been able to walk away, even while the place went up in flames. At eighty-two, Uncle Roy is one of the toughest guys I’ve ever met, and he still hasn’t gotten over Mom’s death.

“Sorry I haven’t had a chance to call you back, William,” Roy says. “I’ve been a little busy.”

“I thought you were taking it easy these days,” I say.

“Yeah, I’ve never worked harder than after I retired,” Roy says, chuckling, and I can hear the faint metallic snick of his lighter as he fires up what I’m sure is his twentieth cigarette of the night. “Where are you, anyway?”

“New England,” I say. “North of Boston. A prep school called Connaughton.”

“Posh digs,” he says admiringly. “So what can I do for you? Judging from the message you left, I’m guessing you’re looking for funding?”

Good old Roy, never one to waste time. “Well, actually, I’m setting up a little con here,” I say, “and I was hoping I could hit you up for some seed money. And maybe a few guys in the Boston area that you could recommend?”

Roy bellows out smoky laughter. “Like mother, like son, huh?” The laughter becomes a wheezing cough, and I wait while it dies away and he gets his breath back. “Sure, I got friends in that neck of the woods. Some of them even owe me a favor. How many guys do you need?”

“Six.”

“No problem. What type are you looking for? Distinguished? Continental? Harvard Yard types?”

“Actually,” I say, “I’m hoping for some younger faces. Programmers. Silicon Valley by way of MIT.”

“Interesting,” he says, and I can hear him clicking buttons on a keyboard while an infinitely more complex array of switches and sprockets start turning in his mind. “Yeah, I can think of five guys right off the top of my head that I can get up there by tomorrow. What’s the angle?”

“I’m running the online poker swindle on a mark here, a rich jerk sitting on a trust fund the size of Mount Everest. But in order to make it work, I need a full boiler-room setup with computers and phone lines. And . . .” I pause and swallow hard. “I kind of need it by Friday.”

“Friday? This Friday?” There’s a long pause, and I realize Uncle Roy is laughing. “You don’t ask for much, do you?”

“Sorry,” I say. “You know I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t really need it.”

“Same old William, God love you.” He chortles. “Hey, remember back when you soaked that entertainment lawyer for sixteen grand in Reno? You weren’t even ten years old at the time.” His voice practically glows with fond recollection. “Geez, kiddo, your mom would be so proud.”

“Thanks,” I say.

“I’ll be on the first flight out tomorrow morning.”

“Wait.” At first I think I’ve misheard him. “What?”

“My grand-nephew losing his cherry in the big con—you think I’d miss this for the world?”

“Uhhh,” I mumble. It’s all I say, but when it comes to somebody as intuitive as Uncle Roy, it’s one “uhhh” too many. When Roy speaks again, all the laughter has disappeared from his voice, replaced by a suffocating vacuum of suspicion.

“Your old man’s involved in this, isn’t he?” he asks.

“Well . . .” I can’t lie to Uncle Roy. Even if I could, he’d know it in a second. “Kind of. But it wasn’t his idea. I had to bring him in on the deal.”

“William . . .” Uncle Roy groans. It comes out sounding like a growl, as if I’d just awakened a sleeping bear midway through hibernation. “Why’d you go and do that, kiddo? You know you can always come to me for help. Why’d you have to bring that dirtbag into it?” Uncle Roy has never liked Dad, even back before Mom died, and things have only gone downhill since then. “Is he on the sauce again?”

“Not that much.”

“Is he on the lam from somebody?”

“I don’t know.” At least this much is true. In Roy’s mind, Dad has always been the worst kind of grifter, careless and greedy, which makes him a walking occupational hazard. It helps explain why Dad spent the first part of my life in and out of prison, while Roy’s never seen the inside of a jail cell. “You think I should cut him loose?”

“Too late now, kid.” Roy sighs. “If you drop him now, he’ll queer the pitch. What’s the nearest airport to you?”

“Manchester,” I say.

“Then I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“You’re still in?”

“Somebody’s gotta keep your interests at heart,” my great-uncle says, and like that, he’s gone.

Fifteen

AFTER UNCLE ROY HANGS UP, I DECIDE TO LIE BACK DOWN for five more minutes of sleep. The next thing I know, it’s eleven o’clock (I guess the fancy-schmancy Connaughton blackout curtains really work). I’ve already missed World History and Economics, and the dimly functioning part of my brain manages to realize that I’m going to be late for English Lit, even if I could somehow magically teleport myself fully dressed to Mr. Bodkins’s classroom.

“Crap!” I jump out of bed, throwing on clothes and grabbing my backpack, then run across the already deserted quad and trying to come up with an excuse for my tardiness. My mind is a blank. It’s probably ironic that I have no trouble fleecing somebody like Brandt Rush for untold hundreds of thousands or more while I still can’t make up a decent story to explain why I’m late to English class, but right now I’m too stressed out to appreciate the distinction.

Ducking into the deadly silence of Mr. Bodkins’s class, I’m instantly aware of the eyes of the entire class leveling themselves on me. Mr. Bodkins is hunched, red-eyed, and disheveled behind his desk, and fortunately he looks too hung-over from the weekend to notice me sliding in behind my desk.

“Pass your papers to the front,” he’s saying, and I feel my stomach do a triple axel as I just now remember the assignment that Gatsby reminded me about yesterday, the five-page critical analysis that we were supposed to do on Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown.” Throwing a desperate glance straight back over my shoulder, I see my classmates already passing forward their papers. In the midst of it all, Gatsby gives me a quick once-over, and I’m guessing she already knows from my reaction what the problem is. As awkward as it may be, now is probably the time to go up and hit Mr. Bodkins with whatever sob story I can come up with and plead for mercy. I’m just hoping he won’t try to stick my tie into the shredder.

The girl behind me hands up a stack of papers and I start to stand, figuring I’ll carry them up to Mr. Bodkins along with a story about my dead grandmother. On my feet, I glimpse down at the paper on the top of the pile.

GRAVEN IMAGES:

STARING DOWN THE DEVIL IN HAWTHORNE’S

“YOUNG GOODMAN BROWN”

by Will Shea

I flip through five pages of perfectly cogent literary analysis, typewritten and double-spaced with my name on it, then glance back at Gatsby, stunned. She’s not even looking at me.

“Thank you, Mr. Shea.” Mr. Bodkins walks by and takes the stack of papers from my hand, and when I look around at Gatsby again, she’s writing something down in her notebook, still not looking at me.