Luke

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Dad was right. The stolen cars were brought in mixed with the legitimate ones, by a nondescript guy who tossed Big Jim the keys, got into a waiting car with a buddy behind the wheel, and drove away again. The guy, whoever he was, was at Riggs Auto for sixty seconds tops.

I’d figured out the pattern by now. The car I was standing in front of was your basic Honda SUV, two or three years old, silver gray. A ton of them on the street. Not distinctive. A car used to drive kids around, maybe, or a car for some guy to drive out of the city and to his cottage in the summer.

“Where the fuck do they get them?” I asked Big Jim, who was standing next to me. Both of us were in garage coveralls. I had my arms crossed over my chest, and Big Jim was sitting on an empty metal crate, smoking a cigarette. No one really bothered with smoking rules at Riggs.

“All kinds of places,” Big Jim said. “Mall parking lots. Long-term lots at the airport are good places, because no one knows the thing has been gone for days, sometimes weeks. Parking garages were your brother Jace’s specialty. He could nab just the right vehicle from a parking garage—knew all the cameras’ blind spots. Fucking ninja, that kid.” He shook his head and took a drag on his cigarette.

I didn’t think Jace would be happy to hear how admired he was for his car-stealing skills. I glanced toward the front where the windows were. I’d seen a cop car drive by twice today, going nice and slow, on a lookout. Nora Parker’s cops wanted us to know they were watching.

“This is dangerous,” I said to Big Jim. “We’ve got heat, thanks to Dad.”

“Mike did screw things up royally,” Big Jim said, dropping his smoke to the ground and stepping on it. “But I put my kid through college on this money. This business isn’t going anywhere, son.”

I walked around the SUV. Looked in the windows. It was in good shape, barely a scratch on it. “There are bags in the back seat,” I said.

“Just a bonus,” Big Jim replied. “Woman leaves her shopping bags in the car, the car gets stolen, Merry Christmas to us. The people we pass the car on to don’t want it. It’s ours.”

“So we take their stuff, too?”

Big Jim laughed softly. “You’re not used to this shit, are you, kid?”

I didn’t look at him.

“Jace had a problem with that too,” the big man said. “He’d toss the stuff out before he’d jack the car. It became kind of his trademark, so to speak. But to answer your question, yeah, we steal their stuff. We’ve found everything from wallets to jewelry. It’s easy money, man. Jackpot.”

I circled the SUV, my eyes still on it.

“I’m sure Mike told you we answer to some pretty big people,” Jim said. “People you don’t want to fuck with.”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Those people want to keep this operation going, even without Mike. In fact, I’d say they insist on it.”

I raised my eyes to him for the first time, looked at him from beneath the brim of my baseball cap. “You think I’m planning to shut this down?”

Big Jim scratched his gray beard. “I think you’re thinking about it,” he said. “I also think it’s a stupid idea to think about it.”

“I didn’t say I was thinking about it.”

He shrugged, tried a grin. “You’re an open book, kid.”

“You don’t know anything about me,” I told him. “Not one fucking thing.”

He sobered, but his eyes went beady with annoyance. “I know you used to be a punk-ass kid with no brains and a bad attitude.”

“Yeah, well, a long time ago you were in diapers, Big Jim. Doesn’t make a difference to the man you are now.”

Big Jim stood up, brushed his oily hands over his coveralls like he was dusting off dirt. “You saying you’re a big enough man to handle the business now?”

“I’m saying that if we play it stupid and the cops shut us down, we’ll all be inside with dear old Dad. And no one will be making any money anymore. Bye bye, college tuition.”

It was Big Jim’s turn to cross his arms over his chest. It was a big chest. He was a big guy. “What are you gonna do about it?” he said.

That was the question. Because it was the nineteenth, and when I’d gone into the safe out back this morning I’d found a plastic grocery bag inside. It was full of money. We didn’t have security cameras anywhere at Riggs—the idea of Dad putting in something like that was laughable—so I checked the alarm code record. Someone had keyed in the alarm code at two thirty-seven a.m., then armed it again at two forty-three. The money drop was a six-minute job.

I assumed Big Jim, and a few others, got similar deliveries. Unfuckingbelievable.

I was a Riggs. Mike Riggs’ son. I was never going to go to college or be a rich man. I was never going to own one of the big houses on the other side of the Westlake tracks and send my kids to the best schools. I was never going to travel the world or make scientific discoveries. I was going to stay right here in Westlake, in my father’s house. I was going to drive my Charger, and if I was lucky I would avoid knocking up Mindy Green, who lived down the street and already had two kids by two different guys. I’d find some washed-out woman to marry me someday and we’d live from paycheck to paycheck in semi-contentment. If we were lucky.

We’re not done, Emily Parker said in my head, and we never will be.

I’d thought of nothing but Emily for days. Nothing but this shit that went around and around in my head. Because that last night we’d been together had changed things for me. It had made me realize that the woman I wanted, the woman I’d always wanted, was Emily Parker. I wanted her body and I wanted her mind and I wanted her laugh and I wanted every bitchy, prickly thing that came out of her mouth. I wanted the way she rode me and the way she milked my cock and the way she didn’t think I was scum. I wanted the way she looked at me like I was human instead of one of those Riggs boys who’d never amount to anything.

I shouldn’t want any of those things. Because I was one of those Riggs boys. I lived in the real world. The world where I wasn’t going to get what I wanted.

I had spent eight years running away from this problem, and it had only chased me all the way home.

You’ve got a problem here, Riggs. Man up.

This problem—the stolen car problem—was tied up with the Emily problem. Not just the fact that her mother was the one who could put me away. It was because both problems left me with the same question: Man up, Riggs. What are you going to do?

“Fix it,” I said aloud to Big Jim. “I’m going to fix it.”

“The cops won’t take a payoff,” he said. “We tried that. That bitch Nora Parker has the force by the balls. Every one of those guys is locked down tight.”

“You think she’s a bitch?” I asked.

“Actually I think she’s a cunt, but bitch will do,” he replied.

I exhaled a breath. These were the guys I worked with. These guys worked for me. Riggs Auto was mine, and these were the guys I would always work with. This was the kind of guy I would someday be.

Did I have to be? Dad had taught me nothing, and I’d had no role models, no nice teachers or coaches who taught me how to be a man. My brothers were no help, because they had the same problem. Now Jace was a con, Ryan had knocked a girl up and torpedoed his baseball career, and Dex was barely conscious. This is what happens when the boys on the wrong side of the tracks are raised like a litter of feral puppies.

The only person who had been good to me was Emily. We’d been secret and we’d been dirty, and I’d never been someone she could be seen in public with, but that didn’t change the fact that she’d been nice. She’d trusted me—enough to let me take her virginity, which for Emily had been a big fucking deal. She hadn’t pitied or despised me, and she’d wanted to be around me. I’d always known it was temporary, that she would leave, so when it happened I thought I was fine with it.

But I’d spent eight years on the road, not wanting anything: not a home, not a permanent job, not a relationship with a woman. I’d done that because it was easier and safer not to want something in the first place, than to want it and never have it. I did it because, I realized now, the only thing I’d wanted had never been mine. So why want anything at all?

We’re not done, and we never will be.

What had started out as some dirty fun had turned into something I didn’t expect: a chance. A shot. Maybe. If I was willing to take it.

“I’m going to fix it,” I said again.

Big Jim sounded worried. He probably saw his college tuition spiraling the drain. “I don’t think you can, man.”

He was wrong, though. The cops were one problem; the criminals were another. I could fix both of them.

And my brothers were going to help me.

“No,” Ryan said on the phone. “I’m not doing it. No way.”

“You’ll do it,” I told him. “Jace is already in.”

“Bullshit, Luke. You’re lying.”

Shit. I was. I hadn’t even asked Jace yet. I was counting on Ryan, because he was better at persuading the other two than I was. “Okay fine, I’m lying. But Jace will totally be in.”

“Yeah, right,” Ryan said. “And Dex?”

“Dex will be in once you talk to him.”

Ryan sighed. “Dude, put that down.”

“What?”

“I was talking to Dylan. No, I mean all the way down, not just in your lap. Still not down, man.”

I waited.

“Okay,” Ryan said, presumably to me again. “What were we talking about? Oh right, your batshit idea.”

“You’re saying shit in front of a kid again.”

“Thanks, dad of the year. I’m still not in.”

“Then you’re in the same trouble the rest of us are. Because we’ve got a week, maybe two max before this blows up and we all go to jail.”

“I didn’t do anything,” Ryan said. “I’m all the way here in Detroit.”

“You take that money from Dad?”

Ryan was quiet.

“The minute we went to the bank and found that money without calling the cops, we were part of this,” I said. “All of us.”

“Fuck, I haven’t touched the money,” Ryan said. “It’s sitting in a drawer. I can hardly look at it. I thought I’d be able to spend it, but damn.” He was caving. He knew the same thing I did: any risk, no matter how small, was too much risk. Especially for a guy who was the only thing a seven-year-old kid had in the world.

“Then we do this,” I said, “or you can find someone else to raise Dylan while you go away.”

“Fuck you, Luke.”

Now he was saying fuck in front of his kid, but this time I refrained from pointing it out. He was right, I was probably the worst guy for fatherly advice. Except for Dex, maybe. Dex was worse.

“Tomorrow night,” I said. “Are you in or are you out?”

Ryan groaned. “Fine, I’m in. Let me call the nanny and see if she can watch Dylan.”

“There’s a nanny?” I asked.

“Of course there’s a nanny. I’ve got training and practice and therapy, I can’t pick him up from school every day. Apparently real parents pick their kids up from school. Who knew?”

“Not me,” I said. If any of us had mentioned being picked up from school, Dad would have laughed in our faces.

“Me neither,” Ryan said.

“Is the nanny hot?” I asked.

I was just trying to goad him—it was second nature—but Ryan paused carefully. “The nanny is a very nice woman,” he said.

I laughed. Suddenly my foul-mouthed brother was speaking as carefully as a kindergarten teacher with his kid in the room. “So she is hot.”

“She has excellent references and does a good job,” was the speech I got in reply. “She takes good care of Dylan, who is sitting next to me right now.”

“And you’re definitely not sleeping with her,” I said. “The nanny.”

“That is an activity that we haven’t discussed.”

“Yet.”

“It’s unlikely to happen,” Ryan said. “It probably isn’t a good idea.”

“So let me get this straight,” I said. I was enjoying this. “You’re stuck with a hot nanny working for you every day, and you can’t lay a hand on her.”

His voice was still careful. “That’s pretty accurate, yes.”

“Well, call the hot nanny and ask if she’s free tomorrow night. And after that, call Dex. I’ll take care of Jace.”

“Go to hell, Luke,” Ryan said, and he hung up. But he’d do it. I already knew he would.

I called Jace next. He heard me out, and then to my surprise he agreed. I’m in, he said. But he’d have to take the bus from Detroit. I needed to get my brother a damn car.

I hung up with Jace, and with all of that over, I finally called the one voice I actually wanted to hear, the voice I’d been thinking of all day. I flipped through my numbers and called Emily.