The Juvie Three (16 page)

Watching Pauline snooze beside her grocery cart in that parkette, he knows he was very wrong.

He turns to the razor-cut boy. “Forget it, man. I thought you were interested in scoring some green.”

DeAndre's perma-frown turns ugly. “Maybe where you come from there's do-overs, but this isn't something you take back. Either she's going in the fountain or you are.”

Involuntarily, Terence retreats a step.

DeAndre is triumphant. “You're
nothing
! You're all about picking locks and snatch and grab. But you can't handle the heat that comes with it. It's a package deal, yo. That's something you're going to learn tonight.” He nods at his henchmen, and they advance menacingly.

The
blurp
of a police siren shatters the quiet. A single squad car crawls along the lower roadway and pulls up to the homeless people and their fire.

DeAndre and his crew melt away, but not before the razor-cut boy issues a final warning: “You've got the weekend. Bring me the ring on Monday to prove it's done.” The snake eyes narrow to slits. “The fountain closes for winter; the river's open all year.”

They scatter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

The cake reads
GOOD LUCK, VICTORIA
, and Dr. Avery is struggling to cut it with a plastic knife. Metal cutlery is banned for any mental health provider that receives state funding. There's none in apartment 4B either.

It's a party for Victoria Ko, who is officially graduating from the group that day.

“I'm very proud of what you've accomplished,” Dr. Avery tells her. “But I have to admit, I'll miss you.”

“I'll miss you guys too,” Victoria says emotionally. “Especially you, Dr. Avery. You've helped me so much. I brought you a little thank-you present.”

The psychotherapist looks stricken. “Oh, thanks. Uh—you shouldn't have.” She removes the wrapping paper like a sapper approaching unexploded ordnance. The gift is a Gucci scarf of fine silk that would have set a purchaser back several hundred dollars.

“Nice,” grumbles Drew Roddenbury. “The record companies are going to have me here till I'm seventy, and
she's
cured? Give me a break.”

“Drew,” the doctor scolds gently. “You know the first rule of group. Nobody is judged here, and we're
never
hurtful to one another.”

“Oh yeah, right,” Casey mutters sarcastically.

Dr. Avery turns to her. “Has someone in this group been unkind to you?”

“
Hello!
He didn't even call!” The punk rock girl makes a face at Arjay.

Arjay looks stunned. “I don't have your number.”

“Ever heard of four-one-one?” she shoots back.

The doctor steps in. “Now, I understand that at your age, people are going to develop feelings for each other. But we must never act on them.”

“Yeah, well, you should have told that to Don Juan on steroids.”

Dr. Avery's eyes shoot sparks. “Do you mean to tell me that you two have been involved romantically while coming to group?”

The “No!” from Arjay is so plaintive and high-pitched that it seems like the cry of a small child.

“You can say that again!” Casey snorts. “No room for that in his retarded preadolescent rock star fantasy.”

Gecko's coughing fit draws everyone's attention, as it was meant to do.

But the therapist has already picked up on the two fateful words. “Rock star?”

“Joey Ramone visits the Big and Tall shop is more like it!”

Dr. Avery's eyebrows disappear into her perfect hairline. “You—you're in a band?” she asks Arjay. “And Mr. Healy doesn't object?”

“He hasn't said a word against it,” Arjay replies carefully.

Her finely drawn features contract into an expression of perplexity. At last she says, “Please ask Mr. Healy to give me a call at his earliest convenience. I'm not sure I've got a handle on what your schedule is like.”

The walk home is very tense after group therapy ends at six o'clock.

“Schedule,” Gecko repeats nervously. “I think that means how does a halfway-house kid with school, community service, and group manage to find time to be in a band.”

“You should have let me handle Casey,” growls Terence in disgust.

“What were you going to do—shoot her?” Arjay challenges.

“I wouldn't have kissed her, that's for sure! One round of tonsil hockey, and she's psycho 'cause you dissed her. Was it worth it, Casanova? This girlfriend thing is the third rail! I told Romeo the same when he started dating the First National Bank of Whatsername.”

Gecko looks grim. “Well, you don't have to worry about that anymore. It's history. Daddy doesn't approve of me.”

Arjay glares at Terence. “I had to kiss her. I couldn't leave her in the hands of a goon like you.”

Terence grabs the bigger boy and wheels him around. “You know nothing about me, man! You killed somebody, and
I'm
a goon? I'm in a lot of trouble, and you know why? Because I'm
not
a goon!”

Arjay is instantly alert. “What trouble?”

Terence clams up. “Don't worry about it. My problem.”

“Your problem
is
our problem,” puts in Gecko. “What happens to one of us happens to everybody.”

“I'm supposed to tune up this old bag lady and toss her in a fountain, where she'll probably drown or die of hypothermia,” Terence confesses.

Gecko is horrified. “Why?”

“It's DeAndre, man. I've been trying to get with his crew. Don't look at me like that! I'm not doing it! And if I say no, I'm the next victim.”

Arjay's face flames red. “And I'm stupid because I kissed a girl? God, Terence, what's so important about finding some criminals to hang out with? You've been obsessed with that dirtbag since the first day of school!”

Terence tries to explain. “Don't you get it? I'm not like you guys! Yeah, you're convicts too. But mostly by accident—bad luck. When all this is over, you're going to be model citizens. For a guy like me, getting with a good crew is the only place to be! It's like an insurance policy that nothing bad's going to happen.”

“That's bull, and you know it!” Arjay exclaims. “You had your own crew in Chicago, and look what it did for you. You got yourself locked up, same as us.”

Terence looks away. For a moment he studies the facade of the brownstone they're passing. Finally, he mumbles, “Maybe it wasn't exactly like what I said.”

“Oh, right,” Gecko sneers. “Healy pulled you out of Mensa, not juvie.”

“That's not what I mean.”

Arjay is clueing in. “There was no crew, was there?”

“There was a crew. Evergreen Southside. My old man is a mean streak hooked up to a fifty-kilowatt speaker. You hear his big mouth a block and a half away: ‘You're a loser!' ‘He's a moron!' ‘She's a cow!' Except when those Southsiders are around. Then it's like he's at church. Not a peep. God, I wanted to be one of those guys!” He lapses into a melancholy silence.

“What happened?” Gecko prompts.

Terence's voice is barely audible. “They wouldn't let me in. I got good at everything they were good at—better than them. I was a one-man crime wave. Chicago PD doubled foot patrols in the neighborhood, but I was in the zone. I could break into maximum-security lockup and jack the warden's false teeth. Not good enough for the Southsiders. ‘Take a hike, kid.'”

“A gangster without a gang,” Arjay muses.

“Don't rub it in, man.”

“So what happened?” Gecko probes.

“I had to show them what I had to offer. I put together a score they couldn't resist—planned the whole job for them.”

“And you got caught,” Gecko concludes.

“Worse. They pulled it themselves—cut me out, then turned me in to the cops. That was my ticket to juvie.”

“And you did the same thing with DeAndre,” Arjay says wearily. “Man, don't you learn from experience?”

“I guess not,” Terence mutters. “I guess it's too much to ask for to get down with some dogs like everybody else.”

“Will you speak English for once?” Arjay explodes. “What about Gecko and me?
We're
your dogs! You talk about a crew—we're the tightest crew that ever existed! We're together because we're all screwed! We couldn't let DeAndre mess with you even if we wanted to. If the cops pick you up with a fractured skull, they'll figure out who you are, and we
all
go down. We've got your back because we have no choice!”

They're standing in front of their building now. Arjay lets them in the front door and then rushes to help Mrs. Liebowitz, who is sweeping the stairs.

She awards them a semi-smile and looks pointedly behind them at the empty space where Douglas Healy should be.

“He's in meetings all day,” Arjay supplies quickly.

“He certainly trusts you,” she comments.

“That's because we're trustworthy, Mrs. L.”

She nods. “You're a good boy, Arjay. And those two are probably also okay—except maybe him.” She indicates Terence.

“He's a good boy too,” Arjay assures her.

“I was very hard on you three when you first moved in, and I'm sorry.” She peers intently at them. “Am I wrong to be sorry?”

“No, ma'am. You're not wrong.”

Once inside apartment 4B, they begin to breathe again.

“She's not going to hold off forever,” Gecko comments. “She wants to know where Healy is.”

“We just have to keep our heads,” Arjay insists. “There's nothing we can't handle if we stick together and don't do anything stupid.” He hits the button on the telephone answering machine.

“Mr. Healy, it's Debra Vaughn from Social Services. I'm sorry I haven't been able to get around to you sooner, but my caseload hasn't allowed it. I will be there on Wednesday at nine a.m. for my evaluation. I've let the school know that the boys will be missing their morning classes. Your reports have been exemplary. Let's hope they represent the true state of affairs.”

When the beep sounds to end the recording, all three of them jump.

Wednesday. Six days.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Gecko has been to the hospital many times, but this is a first for Arjay and Terence, who never made it past the emergency room door on the night of Healy's accident.

As they ride up in the elevator, Terence is relentless about the surname on Gecko's volunteer badge. “Smith—real creative. How long did that brainstorm take you?”

“Like you could do better,” snaps Gecko.

“I know hamsters who could do better.”

“Knock it off,” orders Arjay.

It sounds like light banter, but there's nothing light about the mission that has brought them here. Ms. Vaughn's message has placed a time bomb inside a structure that has already begun to collapse.

Mrs. Liebowitz likes them now, but her suspicions over Healy's absence are growing stronger. Dr. Avery is expecting a call from the group leader that she's obviously not going to get. This Page Cannot Be Displayed is anxious to sign with their new manager, and the members are demanding a social security number that Arjay refuses to provide. The deputy chief of police of the city of New York has Gecko's file on his desk—all the information he needs to sink them if he bothers to check a few facts. Add to that DeAndre, who will be coming after Terence sooner or later, with who knows what results.

Their Wednesday date with Ms. Vaughn may be the worst of their problems, but it's only hastening the inevitable.

With total disaster less than a week away, they have no choice but to try for a miracle. That's what they're doing in the hospital today.

The plan is to walk in on John Doe and come completely clean about who they are and who he is. Maybe the combination of the trio together, plus the truth, will trigger the return of the group leader's memory. And then maybe—an even bigger maybe—he'll forgive them and cover for them.

“And if he doesn't,” Terence concludes, “I hope you've been practicing yoga, because it's time to bend over and kiss our butts good-bye.”

“What's the worst that can happen?” Arjay challenges. “He calls the cops and we get arrested. That's in the mail for Wednesday anyway.”

They step out onto the seventh floor and Gecko waves his tag in front of the security door. Down the hall they march, single file, Gecko in the lead. After spending every spare moment in this place, he hasn't been here since his breakup with Roxanne four days ago. Every lunch tray, every IV pole, every molecule of antiseptic-smelling air reminds him of that last ugly fight. And it hurts.

The procession comes to a halt in front of room 704. With a collective intake of breath, the trio walks inside. They stare. They goggle. They are strangled and silent.

The man in the bed, fast asleep, is an elderly Asian.

Only Terence can access his speech center. “Unless he's changed a lot…” His voice trails off.

“Did he
die
?” Arjay manages.

“He was totally fine except for his memory!” Gecko insists, his voice rising with panic.

“Oh, hi, Gecko.” Karen, the nursing assistant, comes in with some fresh towels. “I suppose you're looking for your John Doe. He transferred out yesterday.”

“He's cured?” Gecko whispers.

She shakes her head sadly. “Physically, he's healthy, so we can't keep him in an acute care facility. It's too bad, really. He has no money or insurance, so in the city system, he goes somewhere they have mental health experts.”

“Where's that?” Gecko asks in alarm.

She hesitates. “The only bed they had open was in the Bronx County Psychiatric Hospital.”

Terence is horrified. “He's in the
nuthouse
?”