Thirty-Seven

“WILLIAM?” IT’S UNCLE ROY’S VOICE ON THE OTHER end of the cell phone, and he’s bellowing loudly enough that I have to hold the device a good six inches from my ear. “Are you even listening to a single word that I’m saying to you?”

“I can hear you just fine.” Looking down at the backpack lying open on my bed, I shove the last of my clothes inside, just jeans and T-shirts, and stuff the laptop in before zipping it up. “I’m just not sure why you’re freaking out like this.”

“You’re not sure? You’re not sure?”

“Well,” I say, “I guess . . .”

“The money’s gone, kid! Nobody saw where it went! One second we’re tearing down the office, clearing out, and the next second . . .” He pauses. “It’s just not there.”

“Yeah, well.” I glance out the window of my room, mentally saying goodbye to the view. “I guess you’re right. The money’s gone.”

“You guess?” Roy roars and coughs his incredulity. “William, I’m asking you this once, and it’s not a rhetorical question: Who are you, and what did you do with my favorite nephew?”

“Come on, Uncle Roy, face it. It was never about the money.”

“Are you nuts? Of course it was!” Roy is coughing louder now, like he just swallowed his cigarette. “And what about those other guys, the ones that came up here from Boston for the job—”

“And they got to work with the most legendary con man in America,” I say, “at the very top of his game. They should be paying you.”

“Well, yeah,” Uncle Roy grumbles reluctantly, “you’re right about that. But still . . .” He sighs. “She took off with it, didn’t she?”

“Who?” Although I know exactly whom he’s talking about. “Andrea?”

“Who else?” Roy growls. “Come on, we both saw the way she and Rhonda were sizing up that briefcase. I don’t care what they said about revenge being enough.”

“She already took the hundred and twenty-five thousand that she raised for those orphans,” I say. “You’d think that would be enough.”

“Nuts.” Roy grunts. “I don’t care who you are—nobody in their right mind walks away from two million bucks.”

“I guess you’ll be going after her, then?”

“You bet I will. As soon as . . .” There’s a long silence, and Roy finally lets out a breath. “Nah.”

“Seriously?”

“You know, William, guys like us, we’re always looking for the angle, some way to cheat fate,” he says. “But in life, as in the big con, sometimes there is no angle. Sometimes you just have to play it as it lays.” He pauses and I realize we’re reaching the end of our conversation. I stop and take one last look around my room to make sure I didn’t miss anything. I’ve left my Connaughton school uniform neatly folded at the foot of the bed. I don’t belong here, and at this point I don’t plan on lingering around any longer than I absolutely have to.

I hear the sound of a motor getting louder, and I look outside my window again. A hundred yards away, an airport shuttle bus is pulling up in front of the statue of Lancelot Connaughton.

“Roy,” I say, “I need to go. Call me when you get back to Vegas, okay?”

“I’m not going to Vegas, kid. Not right now, anyway.”

“Why not?”

“I got a tip on some hot action, a little stock swindle going down in Fort Lauderdale. Florida’s where most of us geezers end up anyway, this time of year. After that . . . who knows. Europe, maybe. The French Riviera.” He chuckles. “Lots of rich widows there.”

I smile, imagining him walking down the café-lined boulevards of Nice, hand in hand with a wealthy socialite from Minneapolis. “Thanks, Uncle Roy. I really appreciate everything you’ve done for me. This was . . . really great.”

“Don’t thank me yet, kid,” he says. “You hear anything more from the Rush kid?”

“Not really. Word around campus is that his parents pulled him out of school, flew him to Davos for a week on the slopes.” I can only shake my head at the absurdity of it. Only in this particular stratum of American wealth would someone get punished for losing two million dollars by being sent on a ski trip. “I think he’s probably just glad it wasn’t worse.”

“Well, do me a favor—see what you can find out about that two million, huh? For an old man’s peace of mind?”

“I will.”

“It was a good con, wasn’t it?”

“The best,” I say, and click off the phone, making my way to the door.

Walking down the pathway to the statue, I see Dr. Stanley and his wife walking toward the airport shuttle bus with their three young children, who are all dressed in Connaughton sweatshirts and bouncing happily forward.

“Dr. Stanley?”

He stops and looks at me, his forehead wrinkling in puzzlement as he shields his eyes to see who it is. “Yes?”

“Sir, I know that you don’t know me, but I just wanted to say”—I hold out my hand—“that I’m really glad you and your family flew all the way here to visit the school.”

He doesn’t speak for a moment. “It is very strange,” he finally says.

“What’s that?”

“My family and I traveled here to your country, and we arrive here with great fanfare, only to find out that all the money that was raised for the orphanage has been embezzled.”

“I’m sorry about that, sir.” Reaching down, I pick up the briefcase I’d brought and hold it out to him. “I hope this helps.”

“What is it?”

“A minor contribution, on behalf of the alumni. In the hopes that you won’t remember your visit here at Connaughton as being all bad.”

Dr. Stanley takes the briefcase and pops the latches, holding it upright so that the bundles of cash don’t go spilling out. “This—” His eyes widen slightly. “How much is this?”

“I believe it’s in the neighborhood of two million dollars.”

“I—I cannot possibly accept—”

“It’s our pleasure.” I hold his gaze. “It was good to meet you, sir. I’d like to come visit your island sometime, if I could. In many ways I feel like I already know it.”

He just blinks and nods, glancing back at his wife and children, who have already climbed onto the bus. For an instant his eyes hold mine with an unexpected intensity. “Thank you,” he says simply. He closes the briefcase and steps onboard the bus, joining his family. The door closes and the bus pulls away, leaving me standing there next to the statue of our founder.

It’s time for me to head out too. Shouldering my backpack, I turn around and start walking, making my way to the main gate. It’s going to be a long hike to town, but I’m optimistic about catching a ride once I get there.

My pocket buzzes with an incoming text, and I pull out my phone.

It’s a photo of a white-sand beach, the ocean blue and rolling in the distance, so clear and bright that the wave peaks look like glass. There’s no message, just the picture taken from a beach chair or a hammock, legs with freshly painted red toenails in the foreground. I think I know whose toes they are. And I figure that wherever Andrea’s stretched out at the moment, she’s a lot warmer than I am, standing here.

I smile. “Good for you,” I murmur, and slip the phone back into my pocket.

“Mr. Humbert,” a voice says behind me, and right away I know who it is.

Thirty-Eight

IT’S DR. MELVILLE. HE’S GOT HIS DOG, CHAUCER, WITH HIM, and he’s growling. Both of them are, actually. “Stay right where you are.”

“Dr. Melville . . .”

“You didn’t really think you were going to get away with this, did you?” Stepping toward me, he takes out his phone. “No matter. I’m certain that the authorities will be able to clear everything up.” He offers me a dry smile that makes tiny creases form in the corners of his mouth. “And I am equally certain that at the very least, you will be going to juvenile detention for a very long time.”

“Not if you don’t want everybody to know about how the school was sold a fake Gutenberg by your father,” I say, but at this point the argument sounds weak even to me, and Dr. Melville literally laughs in my face.