The Millionaires (41 page)

Unsure of what’s waiting out front, he rushes toward the back of the house. Ignoring the pain in my ankle, I follow as fast
as I can, hobbling down the hallway. Behind me, Gillian has a hand on my shoulder. “Just keep going,” she whispers. We cut
through the bedroom, where the sliding glass door that leads to the backyard is wide open.

“
Go right!
” Gillian yells.

Spotting his own way out, Charlie goes left.

Bursting outside, we’re on a cement patio. Straight ahead, the wall’s too high. On the left, the path runs through the neighbors’
backyards—each patio connecting with the one next to it. Charlie’s already at the end—leapfrogging off someone’s rusted, sun-bleached
lounge chair to help him over the concrete wall.

“
Hurry!
” Charlie calls out, one leg already straddled on the other side the wall.

“The car’s this way,” Gillian says, yanking me back to the right.

I look both ways, but the answer’s simple. “Charlie, wait!” I shout as I race toward my brother.

“Are you crazy—this way’s safer!” Gillian insists, refusing to give in.

I don’t even pause.

“I’m serious,” she adds. “You leave now, you’re on your own.” It’s a great threat, but even Gillian doesn’t want to run by
herself. Shaking her head as she pounds the cement, she falls in right behind me.

“C’mon, they’ll be up in a second!” Charlie yells, sliding his other leg over. Shifting his weight to his arms, he pushes
off from the wall and disappears.

“Just wait a—” It’s too late. He’s already gone.

Hopping on the lounge chair, I crane my neck over the wall to make sure he’s okay. But just as I spot Charlie on the other
side, a single shot explodes down the block. Two inches to my left, the top of the wall shatters in a violent burst, spraying
concrete shards in every direction. It’s like a kick of sand in the face. Squinting, I try to see through the storm. Over
the wall and down the street, Gallo limps as quick as he can around the corner, his gun aimed right at me.

“
Get down!
” Charlie screams.

A second shot rings out.

I duck below the ledge completely off-balance and tumble from the lounge chair to the ground. Flat on my ass, I stare straight
at the wall that separates me from my brother.

“Oliver!?” Charlie calls.

“
Run!
” I shout back. “Get out of there!”

“Not until you’re—”

“Go, Charlie!
Now!
”

No time to debate. I hear the rumbling of his shoes against the grass as he takes off. Gallo can’t be far behind him.

Scrambling to my feet, I pull the gun from the back of my pants and study the wall as if I could see through it. Gillian lightly
touches my back. “Is he—?”

A third shot rings out, cutting her off. Then a fourth. My heart contracts and I stare at the wall. Holding my breath, I shut
my eyes, trying to hear footsteps. There’s a muffled tapping in the distance. Please, God, let it be Charlie.

I scratch to look up over the wall, but Gillian tugs me in the opposite direction. “We should get out of here,” she insists,
pulling me back. When I don’t move, she adds, “Please, Oliver…”

“I’m not leaving him.”

“Listen to me—you go back up there, you might as well paint a target on your forehead. Charlie’ll be fine—he’s got ten times
the speed of Gallo.”

“I’m not leaving him,” I repeat.

“No one said anything about leaving—but if we don’t get out of here—”

A fifth shot thunders up the block. Jolted by the sound, we both crouch down.

“How far is your car?” I ask.

“Follow me.” She grabs my hand and we run back across the open patios. Halfway there, we race past the sliding glass door
to Gillian’s bedroom—which is exactly when DeSanctis’s hand flies out and latches on to Gillian’s curly black hair.

“Ready for Round Two?” DeSanctis asks, looking way too wobbly.

The right side of his face is covered in blood—and before he can even step outside, Gillian wheels around and pounds her knee
into his testicles. He drops to the ground, I pound him with the butt of the gun, and we continue running to the far end of
the backyard. As we reach the wall, it looks like a mirror image of the one Charlie went over—that is, until I glance to my
left and see the black metal gate that’s cut into the wall. Taped to the bars is an index card stuffed into a sealed plastic
Baggie:
Do Not Lock—For Fire,
it says in handwritten chicken scrawl.

Grabbing the bars, Gillian yanks open the gate. It slams with a clang behind us and dumps us in the parking lot of a low-rise
apartment complex. We make a sharp left the instant we hit the street.

“Over here,” she says, hopping inside her blue Beetle, which is parked under a tree.

With a flick of her wrist, she starts the car. I’m looking over my shoulder for DeSanctis. “Go, go,
go
…”

“Which way?” she asks.

“Straight ahead. We’ll find him.”

Tires shriek, wheels kick in, and we buck back in our seats. We keep our heads low, just in case we spot Gallo. But as we
reach the end of the block—the corner where Charlie was headed—there’s no one in sight. Not Gallo… not Charlie… not anyone.
In the distance, there’s a faint howl of sirens. Gunshots bring police.

“Oliver, we really should…”

“Keep looking,” I insist, scouring every alley next to every pink house we pass. “He’s here somewhere.” But as the car crawls
up the block, there’s nothing but empty driveways, ratty overgrown lawns, and a few swaying palm trees. Behind us, the sirens
scream even louder.

If I were the one running, I’d make a right at the next stop sign. “Make a left,” I tell Gillian. I still know my brother.
Yet when we curve around the corner, the only person there is an old man with shoe-leather brown skin and a 1950s sky blue
cabana shirt. He’s sitting on his stoop, peeling a grapefruit with a pocketknife.

“Have you see anyone run by?” I call out as I lower my window and hide the gun.

He looks at me like I’m speaking…

“Spanish,” Gillian clarifies.

“Oh, uh… have you veras un muchacho?”

Still no response. He goes back to peeling his grapefruit. The siren’s almost on us.

Gillian stares in the rearview, knowing it’s close. She needs a decision. “Oliver…”

“Hold on,” I tell her. “Por favor—es muy importante. Es mi her-mano!”

He won’t even look up.

“Oliver, please…”

Behind us, tires screech around the corner.

“Go—get us out of here,” I finally give in.

She pumps the gas, and the wheels once again search for traction. A quick right and an ignored speed limit turns the neighborhood
into a pink-and-green blur. I stare out the window, waiting for Charlie to jump out from the bushes and shout that he’s safe.
But he never does. I don’t stop looking.

Next to me, Gillian reaches out and cups her hand softly on the back of my neck. “I’m sure he’s okay,” she promises.

“Yeah,” I reply as South Beach—and my brother—fade behind us. “I hope you’re right.”

I
f she’d been ten minutes earlier, Joey would’ve seen the whole thing: the ruby red lights of the police car, the uniformed
cops as they ran out, even Gallo and DeSanctis as they gave their hastily prepared explanation: Yes, that was us; yes, they
got away; no, we can handle it fine by ourselves, thanks all the same. But even with everyone gone—even with Gallo’s rental
car nowhere in sight—it was still impossible to miss the bright yellow-and-black police tape that covered Duckworth’s front
door.

Jumping out of the car, Joey headed straight for the door and knocked as hard as she could. “It’s me—anyone there?” she shouted,
making sure she was alone.

A glance over her shoulder and a flick on the lock’s pins did the rest. As the door swung open, she ducked and slid under
the police tape limbo stick. Inside, the kitchen was untouched, but the living room was wrecked. Lamp shattered, coffee table
overturned, books thrown from their shelves. The struggle was short—all confined to one space. At the bottom of the bookcase
was a stack of old
Wired
magazines. Joey went right for them, grabbing the one on top and scanning the subscription label.
Martin Duckworth?
she read to herself, clearly confused. On a nearby shelf, she noticed the cracked picture frame with the photo of Gillian
and her dad. Finally, something physical. Joey pulled out the photo and stuffed it in her purse.

Down low, glass blender shards sparkled against the pale carpet, which had a blotted dark stain by the door. Joey bent down
to look closer, but the blood was already dry. Up the hallway, the blood continued—tiny drops trailing out like planets from
a dark sun. The further she went, the smaller they got, eventually leading her toward the bedroom. And the sliding glass door.

Through the glass, a four-year-old Cuban boy in red underwear and a blue Superman T-shirt stared back, his hands stuffed down
his pants. Joey smiled and slid the door open slowly, careful not to scare him. “Have you seen my brother?” she asked playfully.

“Bang-bang!” he shouted, pointing a finger-gun at the far wall on her left. Turning to follow, Joey noticed the jagged divot
at the top of the concrete. At the base, the lounge chair was propped into place. Up and over, Joey thought.

Grabbing her cell phone from her purse, she went right for speed-dial.

“How was your flight? You get free peanuts?” Noreen answered.

“Ever hear of a guy named Martin Duckworth?” Joey asked, staring down at the rolled-up
Wired.

“Isn’t that the guy whose name is on the bank account?”

“That’s the one. According to Lapidus and the records at Greene, he’s living in New York—but I’ll bet if we put him through
the meat grinder, we’ll get something more.”

“Give me five minutes. Anything else?”

“I also need you to find their relatives for me,” Joey explained as she walked closer to the wall. “Charlie and Oliver—anyone
and everyone they might know in Florida.”

“C’mon, boss—you think I didn’t do that the moment you stepped on a plane for Miami?”

“Can you send me the list?”

“There’s only one name on it,” Noreen said. “But I thought you said they were too smart to hide with relatives.”

“Not anymore—from the look of things here, they had a little surprise visit from Gallo and DeSanctis.”

“You think they got nabbed?”

Still picturing the stain on the carpet, Joey stood up on the lounge chair and ran her fingertips against the missing chunk
of the concrete wall. No blood anywhere. “I can’t speak for both of them, but something tells me at least one got away—and
if he’s on the run…”

“… he’ll be desperate,” Noreen agreed. “Give me ten minutes—you’ll have everything.”

W
hen I was twelve years old, I lost Charlie in the mall at Kings Plaza. Mom was in one of the old discount stores, deciding
what to put on layaway; Charlie was sneaking through Spencer Gifts, trying his best to sniff the “Adults Only” erotic candles;
and I… I was supposed to have him right by my side. But when I turned around to show him their selection of nudie playing
cards, I realized he was gone. I knew it instantly—he wasn’t hiding or wandering off in a corner of the store. He was missing.

For twenty-five minutes, I frantically ran from store to store, shouting his name. Until the moment we found him—licking the
glass at JoAnn’s Nut House—there was a stabbing pain that burrowed into my chest. It’s nothing compared to what I’m feeling
right now.

“Can I help you?” the security guard at the front desk asks. He’s an older man with a
Kalo Security
uniform and white orthopedic shoes. Welcome to the Wilshire Condominium in North Miami Beach, Florida. The one place to go
in an emergency.

“I’m here to see my grandma,” I say, using my nice-boy voice.

“Write your name,” he says, pointing to the sign-in book. Scribbling something illegible, I scan every signature above mine.
None of them is Charlie’s. Still, we went over this a dozen times. If we ever got lost, go to what’s safe. Under
Resident,
I add the words “Grandma Miller.”