Chapter 24
The plan was in motion. All there was to do was follow through.
I slipped into the washroom when everyone was suitably distracted. No one noticed me, and it was all for the better now.
From there, I escaped through the window to the backyard. Past the lawn, I found Jay’s boat tied to a post on the little lake.
This was where Zihan and I agreed to meet. We’d take the boat across the lake together, but he wasn’t here. I waited a few
minutes and he still didn’t show up.
The show must go on.
I stepped onto the boat and turned off the lights. Then, I began rowing. Fireworks burst from behind Gatsby’s house and lit
up the sky, distracting me. They were in the opposite direction from Buchanan’s property, so they distracted everyone else
too.
I rowed, placid like the lake I was floating on, away from the people. The shores of Tom Buchanan’s mansion sloped up like some gothic, ancient island. The lawn looked designed to welcome me.
I anchored the canoe, ran aground, and walked up like a king, the waves sweeping dramatically around the bottom of the island.
It felt too perfect.
I unlocked the side door with Daisy’s key and stepped into the house. The open floor plan stretched out before me, vast and
empty, like a hotel with no guests. I traced the polished silver crest on the bronze vases perched on the entryway pillars.
Art deco wallpaper covered the walls, showcasing paintings of futuristic buildings that reached for the clouds. I couldn’t
help but think—if I could, I’d take this whole house with me.
There were so many drawing rooms designed to let the light pour in, so much space. Floral patterns on the lamps and couches
screamed Myrtle—her taste was everywhere. Above the fireplace, a deer’s head jutted out from the wall, its hooves pointed
at opposite angles.
I took the staircase down to the cellar in between the main floor and basement, realizing again I was not a pampered prince
like Jay, but for just these moments, I could pretend.
I could pretend it was all mine!
I passed by a mirror on the wall, on my way down the rest of the steps. Who would’ve thought a limp-wristed hoodlum would
look so pretty robbing a house full of stolen fortune?
The first safe I found was up against a wall in the crawl space of the basement, just where Daisy had placed it on the map. I climbed inside, with the insulation and dust, and pulled out my tin of grease to melt the door off.
I crawled away from the smoke and melting metal, watching the door break down little by little. Then I saw it—gold. Solid
bars, stacked neatly, each one gleaming like a small fortune. And, nestled beneath the bars, were beautiful necklaces of gold,
emerald-studded bracelets, rings of bright ruby, and deep cobalt—precious stones that sparkled with their own light.
I dug deeper, pulling out handfuls of cash, crisp bills in stacks and bands, enough to fill my bag and then some. There were
stacks of bonds wrapped in silk—old enough to be priceless. An overflow of pearls, diamonds, and jade, each one more exquisite
than the last! It felt like I had opened the vault of a hidden empire—buried treasure from somewhere beneath the equator,
far beyond what we needed, and enough to set us up for a lifetime.
Once my bag was full, I was eager to move on to the next safe. Heart racing, I went back upstairs, and on my way up, I heard
a sound. Buchanan? Charlie? Clarence?
I tiptoed around the corner and up the stairs. In the kitchen, I found Cannon Cleary, dressed in his police uniform, pulling
a wine bottle down from its rack. He glanced at me, smiled, and then returned to his business as if I were his brother coming
down for a midnight snack.
I placed the heavy bag on the bright, big counter. “Um . . . Cannon? If I may . . . what the hell are you doing here?”
Cannon shrugged, a little. “Pass me that corkscrew, would you?”
There was a wooden appliance holder just by my elbow that hosted a myriad of cooking contraptions. I pulled out the corkscrew—half metal, half mahogany, sprouting two wings in the shape of throwing stars and a curly stabber in the middle.
I tossed it to Cannon, and he screwed the bottle open while sighing. “I had a long day. You ever have a long day?”
“Most of my days are quite long.” I examined his uniform. “I take it Charlie hired you to do mansion security?”
“Lots of undesirables on the peninsula tonight.” Cannon chugged the wine, pulled the bottle down and belched, and then tapped
his fist into his chest. “Wow. I didn’t think you had it in you to break and enter, Clumsy Nick. And trying to blackmail Tom
Buchanan? Not the smartest move,”
“How did you find out?”
“They showed me the letter! Men like Buchanan always thinks money buys them loyalty. I used a lot of goodwill to make them
doubt it was you—they were so sure—just to save your sorry ass from another arrest!” He took another swing from the bottle. “It was you, wasn’t it?”
“That’s sort of touching that you’d protect me, Cannon, but you also tried to burn me alive, so it doesn’t quite land.”
Cannon paused to look at me and then resigned himself to my knowledge of his crime. “You really are a better journalist than
I thought.”
“Why’d you do it?”
“You survived, didn’t you? If I wanted to kill you, I’d have targeted the bed.” He looked guilty, for a moment, and then straightened his face. “They said they’d promote me. And if I get promoted, it gives me a chance to change it from the inside. There are battles, and then wars.”
“I’ll deal with you later,” I said, rolling my eyes. I wasn’t going to allow my attempted murderer to preach to me. “If you
don’t mind, I have a safe to break. And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll stay out of my way.”
This was not West Egg anymore. In Buchanan’s house, absent its owners, I could say anything I wanted.
Cannon put down the bottle and slow clapped, pretending to be impressed. “If you’re determined to do this, I wish you good
luck, Nicholas. We’ll see how Buchanan reacts when he hears you’ve broken into his house in an effort to rob him.”
He walked toward a phone, where it was sitting on its base on a table by the couch. I ran toward it, ripping its curly stem
out of the wall before he could get to it.
Cannon froze, mouth twitching a bit. Then he grabbed a camera from a utility stand I didn’t even notice was there and snapped
a photo of me. “All those theatrics,” he said. “And you still lost! The absurdity writes itself.”
“Are you not ashamed to be turning me in like this?”
“Oh, brother. Now the radical’s going to preach to me.” He stormed over to the counter and took another sip of wine, pulled
it down, and grunted like a lawn mower. “Don’t act like you don’t walk around like you’re better than us now that Gatsby’s
made you his lapdog. Your problem is you have no idea how arrogant you really are.”
“I’m not the one trying to sell out my own people for a quick buck.”
“Lovely story,” he said with a hand wave. “My choice to take the evidence back to the precinct is so that all of Harlem doesn’t
have to bear the consequences of your actions if you were to succeed. Do you really think you could do this and no one else would have to pay for your hubris?” Cannon skipped from the room with the camera.
I chased him and he sped up, looking quickly over his shoulder with alarm. I tackled him down the three steps and into the
den. We rolled through a brass table and an urn collapsed over us.
Cannon scratched my face as we rolled across the fur rugs. “I tried to help you, Nick!”
The soaring ceilings rolled into the upholstered furniture into oak banister as we grappled with each other. And then, Cannon
slammed my head into the table and stood up.
“Sorry,” he said, with a little chuckle. “That last one was kind of rough.”
As a spot of blood trickled over my eye, I blinked and found my bearings. Someone else in the mansion, who must have heard
the commotion, ran into the room. The moment Cannon spun around, Zihan jumped like a frog over the couch and landed wrapped
around Cannon’s body, a rag clapped over his face.
Cannon passed out in seconds, and I stood up, brushing dirt off my clothes.
“Sorry I am late—I was helping Jay,” Zihan said. “Gatsby’s party will be over soon! People have already started to leave.”
“There’s two more safes,” I said, while I relieved Cannon of the revolver strapped to his body.
Now that a Buchanan accomplice knew I was in here, there was a witness, and I needed to make this worth it. I had to get everything
I could, and I didn’t want to leave behind the safes in the vents before I went. It was there that I might find evidence of
Buchanan’s wrongdoing secreted away. The first safe may have secured our fortune, but this could be the thing to undo Buchanan.
“Wait,” Zihan said, stopping me as I turned to head up the stairs. “If you’re going for the other safes, you’ll need me to
cover you again. Cannon won’t stay down for long.”
He glanced at the unconscious Cannon sprawled on the floor, his breathing shallow beneath the rag Zihan had used. Zihan used
a length of rope to bind Cannon’s hands.
Together, we hurried upstairs to Buchanan’s library, our steps light on the plush carpet. I led Zihan to the vented wall panel.
Behind it, I knew, was the second safe—one that could hold his most damning secrets.
“Here,” I said, kneeling. “Help me unscrew this.”
Zihan knelt beside me, producing a pocketknife from his jacket. He pried at the screws while I kept an ear out for any signs
of Cannon regaining consciousness.
The vent came free, revealing a small but sturdy safe embedded in the wall, its surface gleaming. My heart pounded as I fumbled
with the grease. Zihan kept watch, his eyes darting between the hallway and the vent, as I rubbed a pipe cleaner through the
little tub.
“What’s in this one?” Zihan asked.
The safe door burned off and inside was a stack of thick envelopes.