26. Jake
26
JAKE
T he first key to the success of any good con is choosing your mark wisely. I hadn’t been enrolled for very long when I spotted Beatrice. She was kind, she was open, and she was almost unbearably naive.
She was also alone and desperate for a friend.
As the new kid in school, it was pathetically easy to convince her that I too had no friends, and that I too really wanted one. Dad said we were in a hurry, so I didn’t waste a lot of time. I started with the small signs right away.
A minor but persistent cough.
Fatigue, which as a side benefit got me out of pointless running in gym class. A little bit of wheezing.
But the clincher was that Bea wanted me to join choir with her. Of course, the second I tried to sing, my symptoms worsened. It only took me a week to get her entirely vested. And that’s when I confessed that I was sick—no, I was dying.
“You need to see another doctor,” Bea says, her eyes utterly sincere. “Get a second opinion. Your dad should take you right away.”
“No.” I shake my head and step back, lifting my chin. Strong men are always a little defiant. “I won’t waste his money like that.”
“But Jake, you have to?—”
“No.” I shake my head this time. “Just drop it, Bea.”
“You know what’s wrong.” She stares at me, her sorrow very real. I’ve done my job perfectly.
I shrug and try to walk off, knowing she’ll stop me.
“Jake. Just tell me.”
“Look, I always had asthma, but with my dad’s job. . . His crew smoked. They all did. And with my asthma.” I sigh. “The only thing that can save me is a lung transplant, and it’s too expensive.”
“How much?”
It was enough for the day of the big reveal. I had planted the seed. I cut the conversation off and ran home on cue. But when I get home that night, I feel almost sick about it.
“What’s wrong?” my dad asks.
“Nothing.”
“Something,” he insists. He can always read my moods. “You can’t lie to your one person.”
One of the first things Dad taught me was that all con men had one person, one person they really loved. One person they cared about. That one person was their true north. It was the one person they could never betray, never con.
He’s my person.
And I’m his.
It’s always been Dad and me against the world, and one day, I’ll be as good as he is at tricking stupid people out of money they don’t need. For now, I’m learning. “It’s just that the girl at school?—”
“Bea, right?”
I nod.
“What about her?’
I don’t want to say it. “I mean, I’m not sure she really has money.”
“You said her parents own that fancy hotel.”
I shrug. “But they’re not really her parents, and anyway, I’m not sure if she can get them to help.”
“Not really her parents?” he asks. “What does that mean?”
“They’re like, her foster parents, or something.”
Dad smiles. “Foster parents? They’re suckers for sure, then.”
But my unease didn’t go away. Every day I spend, Bea cares more. She becomes more and more vested, and by the third week, she’s already told her parents, over my objections. Her stepmom or foster mom or whatever actually comes to talk to me at lunch.
“You must be Jake.” When she smiles, I can’t help staring. It’s dopey, but she’s just so pretty. I haven’t really met anyone quite that pretty before. Ever.
I nod.
“Well, I’m Seren Colburn—er. Fansee.”
“Fancy?” I ask. “That’s a weird name.” Then I cough a little for good measure.
“Oh, you sweet thing. I’m so sorry about that cough. Bea tells me it won’t go away.”
I shrug. “It’s fine.”
She doesn’t argue, but she starts sending little snacks for me with Bea’s lunch. I made an impression. Everything’s right on track when Dad’s con and mine cross .
If we had realized, we might have avoided the worst. Unfortunately, we didn’t figure out the connection until it was too late. What threw us off was the stupid tiny town crap. We had no way of knowing that Bea’s stupid dad knew the real estate guy Dad was working.
Or that the real estate guy had a few good friends he trusted implicitly who helped him. The whole thing was a mess, and Dad got caught with his hand in the cookie jar, or that’s what he said.
I’m there on the day Dad’s taken away. He’s in cuffs when they shove him into a car. I would have been freaking out, but he’s just chatting with some uniformed officer.
They call a social worker to deal with me, and Bea’s crying. I’m not sure whether she’s more angry with me or mad at herself. That’s pretty common, I think, when saps realize they’ve been conned. This is a little different because our plan failed. But the idea’s the same.
The worst thing I could imagine was being stuck here to deal with the people I’d almost duped, but that’s exactly how it goes down. Only, when I knew they’d be coming to yell at me, they don’t.
Bea throws her arms around me, tears running down her face. “Does that mean you’re not really sick?” She’s beaming. “Because that’s amazing news.”
Any sane person would have yelled at me. Any normal person would have given me a pounding. But Bea, the idiot, she’s happy .
“My dad’s going to jail, dummy.” I shove her. “Leave me alone.”
“But you’re not sick, right?” The way she looks up at me from the dirt, it brings that feeling back, the uncomfortable, twisty one I had the first time I was bragging about how well I’d set things up. She looks like she’s more worried about my well-being than about how I tricked her.
I roll my eyes and walk away.
Before anyone can come running after me, Bea’s foster mom crouches down on the ground and holds out her hands to stop me. “Hold on just a moment, Jake.”
“What?” My dad’s right behind her, glaring at the officer who’s asking him things.
And there’s nothing I can do about it.
My one person’s about to go away for a long time.
It’s all my fault. Dad wouldn’t ever have screwed up like this—I messed it up.
“Your father may be unable to care for you for quite some time.” She’s amazing at stating the obvious.
“Yeah.”
“Bea thinks the world of you.”
Because she’s a moron.
“She begged us to invite you to join our family.”
I don’t laugh, no matter how much I want to. “To join your family?” Dad taught me, whenever I’m having trouble with something a mark says that’s so painfully stupid that I’m going to react badly, that I should just repeat it back to them.
It works.
“Exactly. It’s just Dave, me, Emerson, and Bea. I think you’ll like our house, even though it’s small. It’s comfortable, and no one smokes.” She winks at me.
Does she get that it was a lie? I don’t have asthma, and I don’t need new lungs because of Dad’s crew smoking. I’m totally lost about why she would even ask me to come live with them, and it’s even stranger that Bea and her crazy mom aren’t mad at me .
“Please say yes.” Bea has brushed herself off and is standing behind her mom now, peering over her shoulder. “Please.” She smiles, and it hurts. It makes my heart hurt really badly.
“It’s real nice of you to offer,” I say, “but?—”
“Son.” Dad’s voice is curt when he lifts his hands and waves me over. It’s painful to watch, because they’re cuffed, but the officer next to him nods.
“Five minutes or less.” His voice is gruff, but he moves a few dozen feet away.
“I’m not sure when you’ll see me again,” Dad says. “But you know the basics—the important stuff.”
I nod, trying my best not to cry.
“We knew this was always a risk, and now it’s happened, but don’t worry. You got luckier than I thought possible.”
Dad’s not mad at me. He’s not yelling that I ruined our lives with my stupid mistake. “Okay.”
“That family over there.” Dad whistles. “They’re a special kind of stupid.”
I frown. I know Dad’s right, but for some reason, it still bothers me.
“Now you listen up. I don’t have much time.” Dad drops his voice. “There’s a bird called a brown-head cowbird, you hear?”
I nod.
“That bird is smart. It figured out that laying eggs and sitting on them and then feeding the babies is a lot of work. It wants there to be more cowbirds, but it doesn’t want to do the work, right? Because it’s a smart bird.”
I nod.
“That smart cowbird, it finds another bird that’s close to its size, one that’s got a nice nest and is laying eggs. Then it goes and it shoves the dumb bird’s eggs out when the mother bird’s off finding food.”
“Okay.”
“And then it lays its eggs there. Then that dumb bird mom comes back and raises the cowbird babies for the smart bird.” He grins. “That’s a long con, son, but it pays off.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I’m True North. You know that.” He ruffles the hair on my head.
“But Dad?—”
He shushes me. “Listen up, now. I’m almost out of time.”
I sigh.
“You’re about to play the longest con of all, my boy. I’d be worried, but I know you’re ready.”
“What?”
“Those dupes have a nice nest. They’re already raising two chicks that ain’t theirs. So we’re going to drop you into their nest, let you win them over, and when I get out, we’ll bleed them dry. Together.” Dad grins. “I trust you. You know enough to do this. When I get out, it’ll be the perfect way for us to start over. Alright?”
I nod, and it starts to really sink in that Dad’s going away. “But it’s their fault you’re going to jail.” I shake my head. “I don’t want to live with them, with the people who got you locked up.”
Dad presses his face against my cheek. “That’s why you have to do it. We’ll get our revenge, son. When I get out, you’ll know everything you need to know about them, and we’ll get them back, you and me. Just play the long con now, and sit in that nest, and Dad will come for you as soon as he can.”
“But—”
“Never forget the number one rule.”
“Dad.”
“You cannot ever fall for the marks. You can’t pity them. You can’t care for them. You can never ever love them. You hear me, boy?” Dad ruffles my hair again. “Now, you go do what I taught you, you little cowbird.”
To my great embarrassment, I’m crying when they close up the car and drive my dad away. But I do as he asked, and the next time Seren Colburn Fansee asks if I want to stay with them for a while, I say yes.
When Dad gets sentenced to twenty years and they ask if I want to stay with them more permanently, I grit my teeth, and I say yes again. Because Dad is True North for me, and that’s what he wanted. It’s hard to pretend that I like them; it’s hard to disguise how angry I am that they sent Dad away.
But I do it.
And little by little, it gets easier.
But I never forget that I’m not a Fansee.
In my heart of hearts, I’m a cowbird. I’ll always be a cowbird. Which is why I’ll never really belong. At least, not until Dad’s free.