Gus wasn’t as serious about it. He wasn’t reallyserious about anything. Atticus was scary and intense and so devoted to thebrothers. Gus just didn’t want the shit beat out of him by his dad should hechoose not to participate.
It was a worthy pursuit. His dad was mean as hell.
The syndicate didn’t enlist kids to help with big jobsoften. It was usually just me or the brothers. There was less at stake if theylost one of us. It sounded harsh, but I knew it to be true. And I was the mostexpendable of them all. I was a minor and the daughter of a bookie, a positioneasily replaceable and not all that important.Which was whyI made it a point to never get pinched.They might not care whathappened to me, but I did.
The brothers that ran the syndicate would alwaysprotect Frankie—the only surviving child of their beloved dead sister. The onlyreason she was allowed to go along for the ride was because nobody wanted totell her no. Although they were going to have to start soon. Frankie hated heruncles. She blamed them for the death of her parents. Her mom was killed bysoldiers from the Italian family competing for the same foothold thepakhan,her brothers, also known as thebosses, were. And her dad, who happened to be Italian, died at their hands inretaliation. Frankie only did this shit to punish her uncles.
The kid against the wall was probably Gus’s age.Although it was hard to tell. Despite his height, he was half-starved and tooskinny. His gangly arms and legs looked like I could snap them in half if I putenough pressure on them. But then his face looked old.Olderthan Gus and Atticus, maybe even older than my dad.His eyes were tiredand his mouth pulled into a tight frown that was both sad and scary at the sametime.
“Who’s that?” I lifted my chin in the direction of thekid.
Dad shook his head. “We need someone skinny for theback end.”
“He’sbratva?”
“Nah, he’s a stray. Jack found him digging through adumpster and offered him a meal for his help.”
I looked at my Uncle Jack who happened to be the sizeof a dumpster and wouldn’t know the first thing about living on the streets andstarving. Not that I did either. For all of Dad’s shortcomings, he had at leastalways made sure we had a place to stay and food to eat.
But this kid screamed street urchin. He had that cageylook about him that said way more about his current lifestyle than he wantedanyone to see. I would have bet anything that a hot meal had sounded likewinning the lottery. I could imagine Uncle Jack’s promises of low risk for abig reward.
Of course the kid would say yes.
The problem was, I knew my Uncle Jack and there was noway he was going to waste another second on this kid once the job was done.Unless it was to tie up loose ends, which meant the kid would disappear.
Forever.
My stomach turned uneasily. “The Smithsonian,” I lookedmy father in the eye. “If I help you, you take me to the Smithsonian.”
“Again?” I stared him down. He rolled his eyes. “Isthat it?”
“And I want to bring Frankie.”
His frown turned into a grimace. “Yeah, well we’ll seewhat Roman has to say about that.”
Her oldest uncle would say yes. After I gave Frankiethe opportunity to spend the day with me and my dad, she wouldn’t care where wewere going. And Roman wouldn’t be able to tell her no. He never could.
“So you’re in?”
It pained me to agree to today’s activities, but I did.I didn’t really have a choice anyway. “What’s the job?”
“The Screaming Eagle,” he explained. “The mark is thatelectronics store next to the 7-Eleven. They got a big truck of TVs coming in.”
My lips parted and I breathed a slow, steady exhale ofrelief. As far as jobs went, the Screaming Eagle was low risk, little more thannormal kid stuff. The most danger I would see was having my ass chewed by theelectronics store manager.
But I couldn’t let my dad know that. If he even got awhiff of my relief, he wouldn’t hesitate to force me into more if this crap.
Instead I asked, “It takes all of us to pull off TheScreaming Eagle?”
He made a sound in the back of his throat. “Lest Iinsult your ego, it will only be you, Gus and Frankie on the inside. Atticus ishere to drive the truck.”
“And the new kid?”
Dad glanced at him one more time. “Don’t worry aboutthe new kid.”
I looked at Frankie so I could check out the new kidone more time without being noticed. If Dad didn’t want me to worry about him,the kid must have a super bad part today. Or for after the robbery.
Leon was many things, but he always shot shit straightwith me.
