Not as much damage in my room, but it’s still trashed. Curtains trailing along the floor. Desk knocked over, the bulb from the lamp shattered and ground into the carpet.
I pick my way back toward the kitchen as I study what was left behind. I’m certain someone was looking for something, but I have no idea what. It’s not like we stashed a Monet under the floorboards.
My dad does have a gambling problem. He’s the best grifter you’ve never heard of, like I said, but we’re still living in the ghetto. I’m sure you’re wondering why, since I keep telling you he could con Donald Trump out of his toupee. Well, that’s the reason. No sooner does he get a “windfall” than it gets spent on the ponies.
But he never borrows to bet. He bets everything we have but nothing we don’t. His bookie’s his best friend. Ralph even comes to my birthday parties. So I seriously doubt it’s a payment problem.
It has to be a con that’s gone south somehow. Which means my dad’s in trouble. He has something his mark wants. And not just any mark—a mark willing to break in and do this. That means a mark on the shadier side.
I reach the kitchen and tip a chair upright. What could my dad be into that would have resulted in this? What could he have that somebody would be looking for? The answer is lots of things: forged documents, information about something incriminating, who knows? The two bigger questions, though, are did the person find what he was searching for, and why didn’t my dad tell me what he was doing?
My dad is not the sort to shelter his offspring. We’re a team. I sometimes help him brainstorm when he’s planning a con. He doesn’t often use me as a roper, mostly because I’d stick out like a sore thumb in the circles he tends to work. But he always tells me his angle.
I lean against the wall, surveying the destruction in the kitchen. Something tells me that whoever tossed the place did not find what he was looking for. That might very well be wishful thinking, but I decide to act on the hunch anyway. Can’t hurt to do a bit of searching of my own.
But before I turn over even a plate, two thoughts occur to me. One, I should call the police before I tamper with any potential evidence. Two, if the home-wrecker didn’t find what he was looking for, he might come back.
I reach for my phone and tap a nine and a one before I come to my senses. I can’t call the police. Police plus abandoned minor equals foster care. Hello! I let out a shaky breath at how close I came to screwing myself nine ways to Sunday. I delete both numbers and quickly pocket the phone, as if my fingers might somehow betray me.
I’m sure you think I’m being melodramatic. But I’m not an idiot. Everyone knows that foster care is a prison sentence. Umpteen thousand crime procedurals cannot be wrong. Besides, my dad and I are our own system. I’m the only one who knows him well enough to figure out where he’s hidden whatever the intruder was searching for. If the police get involved, they’ll be the ones ruining the crime scene, not me.
I picture my dad, every detail from his thick brown hair to his scuffed oxfords. If I were my dad and I had to hide something …
What hasn’t been touched? I turn in a slow circle till I find it—the perfectly upright, not-even-a-millimeter-out-of-place trash can.
Only cops dig in the garbage, Julep, and even then, only on TV.
Before considering the consequences, I yank the bag out of the can and empty it onto what’s left of the linoleum. Last night’s chicken bones come tumbling out, along with several plastic wrappers and a lump of grease-covered foil. Gross, yes. Illuminating, no. I root around in it anyway, holding my breath and hoping. But there’s nothing in the bag that can remotely be construed as valuable. No pictures, no papers, no money, nothing.
I plop on the floor next to the mess, swearing to myself. I mean, who am I kidding? How am I supposed to find my dad in a pile of half-eaten chicken? The trash can mocks me with its dingy plastic lid. Still upright, it is the only thing in the apartment that’s exactly where it should be.
I kick out and knock it over. Might as well finish the job, right? But as it falls to the floor, I hear something bang around inside it. I pull the mouth around to where I can see. Inside the can is a padded envelope.
Ignoring the muck, I reach in and grab the envelope. As I rip it open, I have this strange sense of doom, like liberating its contents is some kind of point of no return. I ignore the feeling. He is my dad, after all.
But when I pull out said contents, I’m even more unnerved.
In one hand, I hold a note:
BEWARE THE FIELD OF MIRACLES.
In the other, I hold a gun.
THE GEEK JOB
“Julep!” Sam shouts as he flies through the door.
I realize what I must look like, sitting next to garbage with my back against the battered cabinets, holding a gun. Before his eyes find me, I set the gun on the floor behind me. I’m not trying to hide it, but a person can only take so many shocks at once.
When he sees me on the floor, he rushes over.
“Are you okay?”
“I said as much on the phone, Sam.”
“You don’t look okay.”
“You really know how to compliment a girl.”
He tries to pull me to my feet, but I don’t let him. First, because there’s really nowhere else to go. Second, well, I’m not sure my legs will hold me just yet. He sits down next to me instead.
“You know what I mean,” he says.
I pull my knees in closer. I could still call the police, I suppose, but I know I won’t.
“Is this like last time?”
I shake my head. But it’s a fair question. This isn’t the first time my dad’s disappeared.
When I was thirteen, I came home from school one day, finished my homework, made myself my standard mac-and-cheese dinner of champions, and watched five hours of television before I realized my dad wasn’t coming home that night. Nor did he come home the following night, or the night after that. No note, no call, nothing.
I was petrified. But when I told Sam, he assured me that if my dad didn’t come back, he and his parents would take me in. Just having that safety net calmed my panic. My dad eventually came back, two weeks of peanut butter sandwiches later. He’s never really explained where he was, but I got the impression it had to do with a job that went bad.
At the time, I was angry with him for scaring me. But looking back, I’m certain he was trying to protect me from someone who might have tried to hurt me or use me against him. Had I been him, I’d have done the same thing. Still, everything changed after that. Or rather, I changed. I no longer wanted my father’s life.
But this disappearance is different. This time someone’s destroyed our apartment.
“He’s still not answering his cell?”
“I haven’t tried again since calling you,” I admit. “But I called seventeen times. If he hasn’t answered by now, he’s not going to.”
“His circumstances might change,” Sam says, choosing his words carefully. I appreciate the tact, but let’s call it as we see it, shall we?
“Look at this place, Sam.” I gesture at the mess. “This is not the work of his usual kind of mark. This is something else.”
Sam scans the room, shoving shards of a plate out of the way with his foot.