The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)

Heists and Hustles

Previously: "Other People's Projects" 

You blink in stupefaction. "You want me to buy that book back?" you ask your dad.

"Isn't that what I just said?"

You shrug broadly. "I'll try. You'll pay fifty bucks for it?"

His glare hardens. "You'll pay fifty bucks. I'll reimburse you forty. The extra ten you pay out of your pocket for ransacking my office without permission."

You keep your face studiously neutral, but your spirit hardens. "I know where to find the guy, I'll try to get it back from him," you tell your dad. But you know that you won't.

* * * * *

So you don't even go looking for Sean Wilcox when you get to school. But on your way to lunch you spot Jack Li pushing through the hallway in front of you. "Hey Jack!" you call. "Jack!" He looks around, then hangs back as you shove your way up to join him. "That book I gave you yesterday, the one Sean was interested in," you say. "Would Sean be interested in selling it back?"

Jack Li. "Huh? No, actually it turned out he didn't want it."

"Really?" That surprises you, considering the kind of money he was waving at you to take it off your hands. "So you still got it?"

"No, I sold it to the drama department." He blinks at you again. "You want your share of the profit?"

"Profit?" That's a nicer surprise. "How much?"

"Well, I sold it to 'em for eighty, so I guess that's ... twenty to you?" He digs his wallet from his back pocket.

"Oh, cool! Yeah, if you're offering. What'd the drama department want it for?"

"A prop. Huh," he adds after sorting through his wallet. "I don't got twenty I can give you. What are you doing after school?"

"Meh, nothing."

"Well, meet up with me, we'll go do something with some other guys, and I'll get some cash for you. That sound good?" He smiles—a warm, friendly thing. You agree, and he asks where you're off to now. You shrug and tell him you're having lunch with friends. "Well, shoot me a text after school," he says, "so I don't forget, and so I can tell you where to meet us." He gives you his contact info, and you give him yours.

* * * * *

But it's Jack who texts you right after the final bell has rung, to tell you to meet up with him in the school theater. But Caleb grabs you in the hallway first, and reminds you that you agreed to help him rifle Mr. Walberg's desk for that thumb drive that he wants to get back. You text Jack that you'll be delayed and will get in touch when you're free.

Caleb's idea is to wait for the teacher to waddle down to the bathroom or the teacher's lounge or someplace. Then you'll act as lookout while he ducks in to ransack the desk. But though Walberg does leave at one point, Caleb chickens out at the last moment.

"Fucking Matthias," he fumes after he's ducked back out to rejoin you in the hallway. "He's gonna blow it for us."

You glance inside the classroom, where the uber-stoner Dane Matthias is perched in a desk with a glassy grin on his face. "You knew he had detention," you remind Caleb.

"Yeah, but I figured he'd be passed out. We're gonna need a third person, someone to distract Dane while I get into the desk and you act as lookout."

"Where're we gonna find a third person?" you ask.

Caleb chews his lip.

"Well, we're not gonna find one today, not in time," he says. "We'll try again tomorrow. I'll talk to Tilley. Shit." He grumbles as he shuffles away, and you're just as glad to have made afternoon plans with Jack, because Caleb looks like he would be miserable company.

* * * * *

"Fucking Tiger Woods of frisbee golf," the girl mutters, and she shoves Jack in the chest. It's a hard shove, but Jack is solidly built, and she forces him back only a step. "You oughta be ashamed, taking money off one of your best friends."

Jack chortles. "Don't play if you can't pay." He puts his palm out. The girl grabs his hand and tries to bite it, and he yanks it away. "Jesus!" he exclaims. "Even Parker doesn't pull that crap when I take the pot at poker, and he's the sorest loser I know!"

It's the game of frisbee-golf she just lost that has Leah Simmons so irate. When you texted Jack, he called you back to say he was trying to round up a group for a game and he had two girls committed—would you like to be the fourth? You agreed without even knowing who the girls were, and drove out to meet them at the range, which is located in an undeveloped corner directly across the river from the country club. It's scrubby land still thinly planted with the primeval woodland, so that on the more difficult baskets you have to sail your frisbee between the boles, and you spend more time searching out for frisbees lost in the brush than in actually playing. But it's a fun, relaxing time, even if one of the girls has gotten herself wound up over it.

"A friggin' hustler is what you are!" Leah accuses Jack. "I never seen you play this good before!" Jack has in fact shown almost preternatural ability to send his frisbee floating straight and flat through some very narrow corridors to land in or near the chain-link baskets. "It was a trap!" she snarls. "It was your idea to come play in the first place!"

"You're the one who wanted play for stakes, five bucks a basket," Jack reminds her with a grin.

"You tricked me into it!"

"Leah," sighs the fourth of your group, a short, pert girl named Wendy Terrill. "Stop pitching such a fit about it."

"You're not down forty dollars!" Leah hollers back.

"We'll do another round when we're done with this one," Jack says. "You can play against Will. Win your money back that way." He winks at you.

Leah whirls on you. "It's a scam!" she yells with eyes blazing. "You're in on it too!"

"Hey!" You raise your hands. "You seen the way been playing?" You are, in fact, dead last in score.

"Anyway," Jack tells Leah, "I'm only taking your money 'cos I owe Will. And I never played this good before, I don't know what's up with me."

"Friggin' hustler," Leah mutters again. "Come on, let's do the last basket and get it over with." She stomps off.

"Don't play mad," Jack tells her as he follows. "That's half the reason you're losing. You're so mad you can't throw straight."

You follow at a distance, and find that Wendy has fallen in beside you. "Leah's so competitive," she titters. "She can't stand coming in second at anything."

"She shouldn't make bets, then," you reply.

"She says that's what makes it fun to win."

Leah is balancing carefully on the balls of her feet when you catch up to her at the next basket, and it's a good toss with aim that's true. But it's also her undoing, for her frisbee sails just inches over the top of the basket and vanishes into the woodland beyond. She curses, then cackles when Jack's follows the same trajectory. So does yours, though it veers off to the right. Wendy's toss at least lands short.

"I'll get yours and mine," Leah tells Jack as she trots off to retrieve her frisbee. You follow, and are concentrating on searching the underbrush when you hear Leah give a low whistle. You look over to find her beckoning to you. She glances off toward the others, who are obscured by a screen of trees, as you edge over to her.

"Listen, whatsyername, Will?" she says in a low voice. "I wanna get back at Jack. You wanna help?"

"How?" you cautiously ask.

"He's got a doobie in his glove compartment. Go break into his minivan while you're pretending to look for your frisbee, and take it."

You gasp. "I'm not going to—!"

"Don't be such a mama's boy."

"I don't want to steal from him!"

"You're not stealing. Here, didn't he say he owes you money? How much?"

"Twenty."

She smirks. "So, the doobie's worth twenty. Take the doobie, then tell him he doesn't owe you, to forget the debt. Then he's not out anything."

"Except a doobie."

"I'll make it up to him, I'll buy him another one out of the money that I owe him. In fact, I'll buy the doobie off you for twenty, so you'll get your money, then I'll sell it back to him, he'll have his doobie, and no one'll be out anything."

Something doesn't add up. "But wait," you protest, "why—"

"Just go do it!" she hisses, and she grabs your ass cheek and squeezes hard. "I'll cover for you!" Before you know it, you're scampering off to where Jack parked.

* * * * *

"Yeah, this is nice," Leah says. She crinkles her eyes against the wafting smoke. She takes only a quick hit, then hands it to you. "Now all we need is some beer."

It's just you and her, down by the river, sharing the joint that lifted from Jack. He hasn't missed it yet, but he will. Leah is still laughing about it. "He's gonna freak 'cos he'll be so scared his parents'll find it. So, when you think about it, we're actually doing him a favor, 'cos this way they won't!"

No, you suppose they won't, not after you and her have smoked it.

You're not entirely sure how you wound up by the river with her, now, at sunset. Like the prank itself, it all seemed to happen in a rush. But she's a fun girl, and it occurs to you that she'd probably love to help you and Caleb stage your raid on Mr. Walberg's desk tomorrow.

Next: "The Pirate Princess" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 2)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)"