21
Dad hands me a waffle cone filled with vanilla soft serve topped with rainbow sprinkles. “Hope this is still your favorite.”
“It’ll do.” I snatch a spoon from the counter of a taco stand near one of the entrances at Chelsea Market. At least he paid for the ice cream. I turned down lunch in a sit-down restaurant for fear of Dad’s famous dine-and-ditch move. Old classics hold a special place in his heart, so he says. “I ran into Oscar today.”
“Really? Where?” Dad asks, playing dumb. He turns his back on the doors leading outside. “Let’s walk through and look at everything. I’m not keen on eating ice cream outside today.”
I glance at his cone—chocolate and vanilla swirl with chocolate sprinkles. “Mom’s favorite,” I say, and he nods but adds nothing else. “I saw Oscar at the DoubleTree at Times Square. I’m staying there with some friends. Apparently he is, too.”
“Huh.”
I jab my elbow into his side. “Come on, I know you sent him there.”
“I figured you knew, considering Oscar told me you knew.” He snatches napkins from The Fat Witch Bakery and hands me one. “I’m just surprised that you caught him. Oscar doesn’t get caught.”
“He was trying to get my attention and honestly seemed really freaked out. He’s convinced you’re working with a family of New Jersey mobsters.”
Dad stares straight ahead, continues to stroll through the center of a long strip of inside shops and eateries. His expression is blank, reminding me so much of Miles when he has lots to talk about but won’t. “You’ve been hanging around for a few days now; what do you think about Oscar’s claim?”
“What do I think?” I think you look too comfortable for someone whose wife is locked in prison for the next decade. I think I want to know how you make it look so easy to forget her. “It doesn’t make sense—mobsters and child talent agencies? Not exactly a swirl-together pair.”
My dad raises his waffle cone. “Nice metaphor. Are you keeping up with your literature quota?”
Literature quota. That’s my family’s code for read just enough of the important books to have some insight to spit back at the right moment. I think that’s why I like Mr. Lance so much. He lets us read the whole book.
“Thumbed through Plato’s Republic last night, a little Voltaire this morning. I’m debating between Dickens and Poe for this evening’s reading,” I say, unable to keep the bite from my tone. “But first I’m gonna spend some time analyzing why you won’t answer my question about working with mobsters.”
“Personally, I’d go with Poe,” Dad says. “But stick with the short stories. His poetry sucks.”
My stomach twists. He’s dodging the question. Maybe he really is working with the mafia? And maybe my dad isn’t the only one in over his head. Feeling a little sick, I toss my waffle cone into a garbage can.
Dad stops me, rests a hand on my shoulder, and for a moment he’s that guy in the car promising his eight-year-old daughter that yes, he tricks people for a living, but she is the exception to this rule. “Look, Ellie, it’s not what you think.”
“Boss man! There you are,” a deep voice says from behind me.
A grin spreads over Dad’s face, and when I turn to see who it is, I’m grinning, too, despite trying to fight it. The old man standing in front of me has the same mischievous face, wild gray hair, and slight limp to his walk as he approaches us. “Grandpa Barney!”
Okay, so I don’t hate everyone in my family.
Dad hugs the man who has always been like a father to him. “I thought you got lost in Jersey or one of the Carolinas.”
“This place is definitely not my speed,” Grandpa Barney says, then he turns to me and does this dramatic blinking move. “Wait a minute…this isn’t…it couldn’t be our Eleanor?”
“She just popped up in the city a few days ago,” Dad tells him. “Shocked the hell out of me, too.”
“I’m too old to have hell shocked out of me, unfortunately,” Barney says.
I roll my eyes. “You’re not old.” I glance behind him, looking for more family members. “Where’s Sally?”
Dad’s careful front wavers a bit. He glances at Barney, who shakes his head ever so slightly. Sally is Barney’s second or third wife, I’m not sure which. Doesn’t matter, because she’s the best of all of them. She took care of Harper and me when we were younger, whenever both our parents were off working a longer con.
“Sally’s not feeling her best right now. Long trip will do that. She’s resting back at the hotel,” Barney says. “Now, come here and let me get a good look at you.”
I want to ask more, but it’s obvious that I’m not supposed to. When I’m standing much closer to Grandpa Barney, it’s also obvious this past year has aged him. More lines crease his already wrinkled face, and his shoulders seem to be hunched farther forward. He rests his hands on my biceps and gives them a squeeze, and I’m relieved that his strong grip is still intact. “I had a feeling your pops would lure you back to us. Eleven months of planning this con, surely he’d thought up a part for his little girl.”
“Oh, he definitely has a part for me,” I say, forcing a smile. But I don’t elaborate, because eleven months rolls around in my head, taking up space. Eleven months. Right around the time the FBI hauled my mom away to prison. She was gone, and he just went right back to planning the next big job for my family? What kind of person does that?
I turn my back on Dad and face Barney. “I take it he has a part for you, too?”
“You know me, always the star of the show.” Barney taps a fist to his chest. “At least until the day this heart stops ticking.”
If I was feeling sick before, it’s nothing compared to right now. And faking calm just isn’t gonna happen. An escape plan is my only option. I glance at my phone. “I have to go.”
Barney looks disappointed, even opens his mouth to argue or stop me, but I give his shoulder a squeeze and say, “It was good to see you. Tell Sally I said hello,” before walking away and hunting down the nearest exit.
I can’t shake the image of Barney and his frail old body limping around in the presence of Bruno and these Zanetti mafia creeps. Why would Dad make him come all this way, especially if Sally is sick, to help with a con that potentially involves dangerous mobsters? He’s a selfish freakin’ asshole, that’s why.
I’m fuming and walking so fast that I barely notice the cold outside. But before I can get on the subway, a hand grips my shoulder, stopping me. I spin around and face my dad, who is still good-looking and fit but who seems a little winded from chasing after me.
“What was that about?” he demands. “You’ve got Barney all worried now.”
“I’ve got Barney worried?” I repeat. “I’m not the one in business with the mafia. What the hell are you thinking, putting an old man in danger for a con? Or do you even care? No wonder Oscar came to find me. You’re way too far in junkie mode to see the shit-hole you’ve dug for yourself and everyone else on your team.”
Dad glances around, his face tense, his hands balled up. “Sally’s in the hospital. Cancer. Bruno’s family is helping her get treatment here for free.”
The news hits like a punch to the gut, but I can’t dismiss the fact that my dad has again ignored my questions. “I see,” I tell him, nodding. “That’s why you’re deviating from the way our family always does things? No weapons, no violence, no confrontation—isn’t that what you’ve told me a million times?”
“What weapons? Have you seen any weapons?”
“News flash, Dad. Mobsters carry weapons. It’s what they do,” I snap. “So that’s what this con is all about? Helping Sally. She’s been sick for eleven months, I assume? You’re taking all these risks for her and Barney?”
“Not exactly,” he admits. “The Sally part was an added bonus.”
“Yeah, I figured.” The cold wind whips against my heated face. I tilt my head upward, at the clouded gray sky. Maybe I can’t do this. Maybe leaving really was the best thing I’ve ever done. But what about Mom… “What about Mom?” I say out loud. “Have you even thought about her? Your head is so far up your ass with this con it’s like she doesn’t even exist.”
“At least I stuck around!” Dad thunders, getting a few short glances from New Yorkers walking briskly past us. “You couldn’t deal with what happened, I get that, but you haven’t been here with our family. You didn’t see what it was like after—you took off like you were the only one broken up over what happened.”
He definitely knows how to hit where it hurts the most. Right in my guilty gut. I raise a hand to stop him. “I don’t owe you an explanation.”
“What about tomorrow?” Dad asks, some of the anger falling from his voice. “Are you out? If you are, tell me now, no more of that vanish in the middle of the night bullshit.”
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” I say, before turning my back on him again.
My feet hustle toward the subway, my mind still back there on that sidewalk hearing myself say, I don’t owe you an explanation. Tears prick the corners of my eyes. I don’t owe him anything, but I do owe someone an explanation.
I’m still overflowing with way too many feelings to even see straight. But twenty minutes after leaving my father on that sidewalk, I bang on Agent Sharp’s door.
The door opens slowly, and I don’t hesitate before putting my demand out there. “I want to talk to my mother.”