Thirty-Four

BENNY

So there we were, sitting in this swagged-out mansion in the middle of the night, facing this WASP-y old man, like it was the most natural thing in the world. He was wearing argyle socks, and there were Ivy League diplomas on the wall. Smerconish? What kind of name was that?

My eyes fell on a picture on his desk, him standing in front of a big building with the sign smerconish realty. That’s when I remembered where I’d seen that name before—those signs were all over the city. They owned everything except the freaking Liberty Bell, and maybe even that, too.

Smerconish, who was leaning against his desk, started pacing in front of us, jiggling his hands in his pockets, acting like he was thinking, but not saying a word. Every now and then he looked up, waiting for someone to speak. The silence was excruciating.

“We wanted to save the school,” Jason blurted, finally. “We thought we could make some coins, cash them in, and keep the doors open.”

Smerconish still didn’t say anything, just looked at Jason inquisitively.

“And we had the perfect plan—except I couldn’t find a way to fence them, and we all got into a fight, so we called it off, but then we found there was a computer error . . .”

Couldn’t Jason see this was the oldest trick in the book? All you had to do was watch any cop show, any episode of Law & Order, and they were on every damn night, to recognize that this was how they got you to talk. And it worked. He told the guy everything he wanted to hear, from the very beginning, how we’d planned the heist, to our backup scenarios, to how we broke up and then had to get back together for GroundEagleFly.

“And then . . .” Smerconish prompted.

“I walked in on them in the middle of it,” Rankin said. “That was right before I called you. So now what?”

There was more to the story, of course—how the machines went berserk and how we ended up with a couple thousand more error coins than we meant to, how we had to roll out the motherlode in the amp cases, but Rankin seemed to want to cut to the chase. It was late, and we were all tired. The room was quiet for a few minutes, deadly quiet.

Finally, Smerconish tapped his shiny shoe on the floor and coughed into his pink fist. “Well, you did the right thing in bringing them to me.” He clapped his hands together. “We all agree that this situation is a difficult one. Frankly, I’m concerned about what’s left of the school’s reputation. I certainly don’t want to see HF students getting tangled up with the law. May I see the coins, if you don’t mind?”

Rankin opened his palm. Inside it were at least eight quarters. So Rankin had pocketed some when we weren’t looking? It was only a fistful, but what the hell? Smerconish took one and held it up to the light. “Very nice. Very nice job here.” He paused, then studied them even closer. He raised his eyebrows and looked up. “Well, I think I can help.”

“How?” I asked. Ever since I spoke up at the Mint, it was like I couldn’t stop. I was a talking machine. Mostly, I didn’t want anyone else speaking for me.

“I'll take care of it,” Smerconish said.

“I thought we said we were going to find a way to return them with immunity for the kids,” Rankin said. “That’s what you said on the phone.”

“Yes, well, I have a better idea now.”

“Which is?” I asked.

“A way everyone wins,” Smerconish said, smiling at the coins. Our coins! “This will definitely net quite a bit with collectors.”

So Smerconish was gonna fence them, selling only a few like we were supposed to in the beginning, so they wouldn’t flood the market or raise suspicions.

“You’re stealing our idea,” I said. Which sucked. But I knew it as well as anyone else—we couldn’t take credit for our plan even if we could’ve fenced the coins ourselves, which, clearly, we couldn’t.

“Jason said you guys had trouble figuring out the end game. Well, I know just what to do,” Smerconish said. “These aren’t worth fifty million, but it should be enough to keep us operational for the year, and maybe next. Buy us some time to raise more funds. We can save the school, and our campus expansion project, too.” He waved his hand toward a set of blueprints on his desk.

“This was serious, what you did, don’t get me wrong. But it showed ingenuity. You all have a bright future ahead of you,” he added. “And now, with my plan, you’ll still have it. What do you say?”

I glanced around at the others. Jason looked like he was trying to hold in a smile, and Alice was wide-eyed. Dakota frowned in the way you do when you’re listening very closely. We were getting off the hook. This guy was going to take care of everything for us. No consequences. It was almost too good to be true. And I had to agree: this was the best option. Way better than going to jail. I couldn’t actually be mad that our asses were being saved.

I slowly sank back into my chair and let out all the air I’d been holding in my chest.

Only Rankin had a funny look on his face, like he was surprised, or angry, or both.

“That’s it?” he asked.

“That’s it.” Smerconish nodded happily. “So tell me, these are all the coins you took, right?”

Jason started to speak, but Rankin talked over him. “You’ve got all of them.”

A flat-out lie. That was weird. What was he trying to cover up? Why didn’t he tell Smerconish about the rest?

But given the fact that this was gonna clean up our whole mess, I didn’t see why I should question it, and no one else did, either. I think we were all just psyched to get out of there and go home. Rankin probably too.

“Now,” Smerconish was saying. “I’ll take care of everything. It’s late. You should all go home, get a good night’s sleep. You’ve been through the wringer. Tom, I’ll be in touch.” He got up, opened the door, and led us all back out into his enormous hallway.

I shook his hand, along with everyone else, still in shock.

Rankin said he’d drive us all home, so we piled back into the van, Dakota sitting between me and Jason this time. There was a nervous buzz between us, all of us afraid to pop the bubble. Had we really just gotten away with everything? Were we dreaming?

Rankin was the first one to break the silence. “Shit. Shit.” He hit the steering wheel, sounding disgusted as he peeled out of the driveway. “I can’t believe that guy.”

“What?” I asked. “Wasn’t that your plan, to have him help us out?”

“I thought he could help me deal with this within the school system so you wouldn’t have to go to jail. But I didn’t think he was going to fence the coins himself. I didn’t think he was going to legitimize this plan of yours.”

“He did what was good for him,” I said. “People act in their own self-interest.”

“Whatever. His plan is good for everyone,” Jason argued. “He’ll save the school. And this way, we won’t get caught.”

“That’s not the point,” Rankin said. “The point is there should be consequences for you guys. He’s an adult. He should know that.”

“The point is that we did what we originally set out to do,” Dakota said. “HF will stay open, and in the end we all benefit, right? Even you, Mr. Rankin.”

He couldn’t argue there. “I guess.”

“But you kept the rest of the coins from him,” I pointed out. “How come?”

“They need to be destroyed,” Rankin said.

“And you didn’t trust he would do that?”

“After what I saw in there? Who knows what he could have done if he knew how many you had?”

“Don’t worry. We’ll take care of it,” Alice said. “We’re the real masterminds here anyway.”

Oh snap! Harry Potter in the house!

“I just wish he didn’t get to be the one to save the day,” I said.

“We know what we did,” Dakota said. “Isn’t that enough?”

I felt it then, the fact that the heist meant something to all of us, much more than whatever it was we were trying to do in the first place. And we’d stuck it out, working together to make it happen, our messed-up little team.

I was suddenly so tired, so freaking exhausted. I closed my eyes and tried to hold on to this weirdest of moments on a very weird night. So much had happened, and so fast. I thought I felt skin touching mine, smooth and cool.

When I opened my eyes again, I saw the trees rushing past us, a dark blur against the navy blue sky. We were riding through sleepy suburban streets, and inside the van, where no one could see, Dakota’s hand covered mine like a secret.