Chapter 17
FOR lack of anything better to do, I spent half an hour fuming in the backseat (and trying to hatch a getaway plan) before I could restrain my anger enough to ask a few more questions of Cal the Creeper.
In the middle of a fascinating conversation about monster trucks, I interrupted my captors. “What’s my cut?” I demanded, trying to sound serious and self-assured. “I did the work; I get paid, right?”
I figured the Goofball Goons probably wouldn’t believe I’d suddenly become their friend, but maybe they would believe I was greedy. After all, greed is universal. Even teenage girls—or should I say especially teenage girls—want stuff. And I was no exception.
“Fifty?” Cal offered uncertainly.
Donny grimaced, like he thought they shouldn’t give me anything. Like he thought I was some kind of slave. Like he thought they owned me.
Ooh, I sensed weakness. Divide and conquer. “No way!” I half-whined, half-shouted. “I did most of the work. I took the risk. I want fifty percent.”
“Are you wacko?” Donny spat, spinning around to glare at me. “The only reason you’re here is ’cause you’re a juvie. If you get caught, you get a slap on the wrist. Community service or some bullshit. Me and Cal, we do time.”
“Ain’t my problem,” I said with a shrug. “I just want my share. You need me, remember?”
Cal sighed. “All right, a third. We’ll split it even.”
Donny looked totally pissed. I mean, if he could have shot steam out of his ears like they do in cartoons, I’m sure he would have. But for some strange reason, he didn’t argue with Cal. I was starting to get the impression Cal was the brains of the operation (which was a stretch by any definition of the word brain) and Donny was the muscle (which was also a stretch, since he was mostly composed of blubber).
I shoved my hand between the seats, like I was expecting an immediate payout on my share of the loot. “Let’s have it,” I said.
“After the next job, maybe,” Cal said. “We’ll see.”
“Hey! Hey! Pull over!” Donny squealed, poking a chubby finger out the window at a run-down gas station. “I’m just about starved.”
I never would have admitted it, but I was getting pretty hungry too. And I was also starting to obsess about two very important things: First, did my parents know I was gone yet? And second, was Mick looking for me?
“Eh, whadda ya think you’re doin’?” Cal barked, as we bounced to a stop in front of the gas pump. I guess he’d noticed me popping the back door open.
“Me?” I asked innocently. “Nothing. Just getting something to eat.”
“No, you’re not,” Donny said. “You ain’t got no money, and you’ve gotta stay out of sight. Tell me what you want, and I’ll get it.”
Well, at least he had pity on the hungry.
I clicked my door shut. “A Twinkie?” I pondered aloud. “Ooh! Ooh!” I squeaked, as he exited the vehicle. “And a Yoo-hoo.”
“A Twinkie and a Yoo-hoo?” he repeated, like I’d asked him to mainline some heroin into my jugular. “It’s your funeral,” he said, shaking his head as he walked away.
So while Donny and Cal shopped for snacks in the mini-mart, I rolled my window down and hung my head and arms outside. I must say, it was a good thing the Goofball Goons weren’t up for criminals of the year or anything, since they’d left me unrestrained in an unlocked vehicle. I mean, it wasn’t like I couldn’t have escaped if I’d tried. In their defense, though, there was really nowhere to go except inside the mini-mart, so I guess maybe they’d given their plan at least a shred of forethought after all.
“Here you go,” Cal said, tossing a Twinkie toward my lap. Instead of landing the jump, though, the thing just bounced off my knee and dropped to the floor. It figured.
“Thanks,” I reluctantly replied, rescuing my breakfast from the ground and flicking off all the obvious floor scum. How delicious.
“There’s no Yoo-hoo, so I gotcha this instead,” Donny said, shoving a bottle of chocolate milk at me over his shoulder.
I don’t really like milk of any kind, including chocolate, which I know sounds illogical coming from someone who loves Yoo-hoo. But at least Donny got points for picking Hershey’s. I mean, since I’m from the great state of Pennsylvania—the home of all things Hershey—I’ve developed quite an interest in their products (chocolate kisses, mostly) and, of course, their amusement park.
After scarfing down the Twinkie in four or five bites, I asked, “What’s next?” Honestly, I was hoping to move the Goofball Goons’ lame plan along, so I could see Mick one last time before he left me forever.
Cal was driving with one hand and shoving a breakfast burrito down his throat with the other. “Well, Donny’s gotta lift something first,” he explained, spitting chunks of food onto his shirt as he spoke. “Then you’re gonna do the same thing you did this morning: make us some easy money.”
“And after that?” I asked, trying to gauge how detailed their plan really was.
Before Cal could respond, Donny sputtered, “Ain’t that enough work for one day? We gotta be careful. If we do too much too quick, they’ll grab us for sure—even with our secret weapon,” he said, smirking at me.
Me? I was their secret weapon? As if.
“Have you guys ever been caught?” I asked, partly out of curiosity and partly out of self-interest. After all, maybe if the Goofball Goons had a successful track record, I wouldn’t end up getting nabbed either.
“Only as juvies,” Donny reported. “We were… What’s the word…?” he contemplated, with every brain cell in his possession. “Careless. Yeah, we were careless back then. Got caught once for lifting at a K-Mart. But that was before we discovered the internet. Now we’ve gone pro.”
I giggled slightly at the idea of the Goofball Goons going pro, like they’d been drafted into the NFL or something.
“Uh-huh,” I said with a big yawn. “Wake me up when we get there. I’m exhausted.”
I settled into a big stack of cardboard boxes for a catnap, my second favorite pastime after making out with my sexy boyfriend, of course. And since the Goofball Goons were blathering on and on with no end in sight, I was this close to demanding some quiet me-time, when I realized they thought I already was asleep.
Cal lowered his voice a little, but not nearly enough so I couldn’t hear. “I told you she’d never figure it out,” he said. “Which means nobody else would’ve either. So next time, don’t panic, okay?”
“I don’t know,” Donny muttered. “It’s not just getting caught. It’s that… That’s people’s stuff, you know. I don’t like takin’ people’s stuff.”
“What’s the difference? If some idiot leaves two brand new I-pods on the front seat of his van, I say he deserves to lose ’em,” Cal declared.
Suddenly something clicked in my mind: Mick’s cousins had tried to rob our neighbors at Tupelo-8 or Tupelo-10, depending on how the numbering system went at Wild Acres. And I had scared them off. It was them all along. It figured.
I was so tempted to inform Donny and Cal that their little secret was out of the bag, but the nosy gossip-hound in me couldn’t help eavesdropping for more dirt. So for a while longer, I played dead, hoping for something else I could use against my captors. Unfortunately, though, all I overheard was some gross guy-talk about this girl Morgan’s nice ass (gag me!) and details of how the Goofball Goons wanted to pimp their ride with some sweet woofers and tweeters—whatever the hell those are. And just when I thought I’d die of disgust, Cal swerved off the road into a parking lot.
“Geez, nice driving,” I complained in the best just-woke-up voice I could fake. “I’m trying to sleep here.”
“Nap time’s over,” Cal said. “We’re going to work.”
Honestly, it was pretty ironic that Cal was always talking about work, since as far as I could tell, he was allergic to it—unless, of course, you counted driving the getaway car. The truth was, Donny took all the risks. And no
w they’d forced me into indentured servitude. The only thing Cal was good at was pulling Donny’s puppet strings.
“This is what you’re after,” Cal said, handing Donny an internet printout. On one side of the page was an image, which I couldn’t see too clearly because of the way Donny was holding the paper, and on the other side of the page was bold black print that read: $599.
I gulped.
Donny studied the page for a few moments, then stuffed it in his back pocket. “Be ready. This might get tricky,” he warned Cal. “These are under glass, ya know.”
“I know,” Cal said. “But that’s the fun of it, right?” He shot Donny an evil, mischievous grin.
“If you say so,” Donny agreed reluctantly. “See ya in a few.” With the determination of a kamikaze, he abandoned the safety of the SUV and stalked deliberately into the face of danger.
And all I can say is, I was scared enough for all of us. I mean, my heart was chugging away like a freight train on an uphill track. Plus, I had to remind myself to breathe. But the strange thing was—as hesitant as I am to admit it—the whole stealing thing was kind of exciting. After all, we were outlaws.
Now before anyone assumes I agree with what the Goofball Goons were up to, let me assure you I do not. I’m totally anti-theft. One hundred percent. But I wasn’t on this little outing voluntarily; I was kidnapped. And I couldn’t help feeling the rush of exhilaration that comes from doing something naughty and hoping to get away with it.
“Keep that on,” Cal ordered, the second he heard my seatbelt unclick. “Trust me, this ain’t gonna take long. And if there’s any trouble, I might have to perform some evasive maneuvers.”
Evasive maneuvers? He must have gotten that phrase from TV. Still, I followed his directions and re-buckled, since the last thing I wanted to do was perish in a police chase without first professing my undying love to Mick one last time. Damn, I missed him.
“What time is it?” I asked.
“Nine fifty-five.”
Good. It was still early, which meant my parents probably hadn’t even discovered I was missing yet—unless, of course, Mick had come looking for me.
“So after this I just return that thing or whatever?” I asked optimistically. “Then we’re done?”
“Depends,” Cal said.
“On what?”
“On whether you can keep your mouth shut. We can’t have you blabbing the details of our operation to anyone,” he said. “Got it?”
“I swear, I won’t. I won’t say a thing,” I promised. “I…I don’t want to get in any trouble.”
“That’s the right attitude. You’re cooler than we thought, you know. For once, Mick was right about something.”
I so wanted to jump to Mick’s defense, to drill into Cal the Creeper’s pea brain that Mick was his superior and always would be. But I bit my tongue; I kept my big, fat mouth shut and my eyes on the bigger prize: freedom. Because if I could just get through the next hour or two with these idiots, this whole ugly mess would be over—or so I hoped anyway.
“There he is,” I spat. While Cal fiddled with the radio dials, Donny coolly strolled in our direction with a box tucked under his arm. “There’s Donny,” I repeated louder.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Cal said, in a tone that suggested I was an overreacting nag. Then he cranked up the engine and cruised alongside Donny at the edge of the parking lot.
“Change of plans,” Donny said, as he hopped into the passenger seat. And the weird thing was, he sounded kind of out of breath, which I never would have guessed by the casual way he’d exited the store.
Donny shoved the box at me sideways between the seats. It was another Blu-ray player. Maybe even the same one they’d made me fake-return before.
“What about the camera?” Cal asked, peeling out of the parking lot so fast he almost wiped out a stop sign in the process. Evasive maneuver, I guess. “That was worth like twice as much as we’re gonna get now,” he complained.
Donny sighed. “I’ll get it next time. The bitch behind the counter wouldn’t take her eyes off me,” he explained. “There was no opportunity.”
“How do you steal all this stuff anyway?” I asked, amazed he’d made off with anything at all. I mean, a free Blu-ray player was a pretty big score in my universe.
“Trade secret,” Cal muttered.
“Two words: human error,” Donny said with authority. “They can have all the security devices and cameras and whatever else they want, but we get away with stuff because people make mistakes. And that’s never gonna change. People’ll always make mistakes, and we’ll always be there to take advantage of ’em.”
Wow. Donny’s explanation made total sense. I mean, it was probably the most logical string of thoughts he’d put together in his whole life. Too bad his insight was limited to criminal endeavors. Because I was beginning to think that, even though he was clearly no Mick Donovan, there was a miniscule chance Donny could be saved from himself. Maybe. If he wanted to be.