Shelter (Book One): A Mickey Bolitar Novel

EMA, SPOON, AND I met up in the parking lot the next morning before school. We sat on the curb. Ema had her laptop. Spoon wore sunglasses today. He had a briefcase, a real, live briefcase like you might see a businessman in a movie use. I can’t remember ever seeing one in person before. Spoon played with the combination lock and flicked it open. I looked inside. There was nothing but a flash drive. Spoon arched his eyebrow above the sunglasses as he pulled it out and locked up the case.

“What you are about to see,” Spoon said with maximum drama, whipping off his sunglasses, “must forever remain with us.”

He handed Ema the flash drive. Ema sighed. “What is this?”

“The surveillance video,” Spoon said. “You see, the school has a pretty extensive security system—eighteen security cameras covering most entrances and corridors. I realized that no one would have broken that lock during the day. Someone would have noticed. I also realized that someone must have broken it recently because a broken lock, dangling like that, would have been reported within a few days. So I used my key to get into the security office. They store everything digitally. I found Camera Fourteen—that’s the one that covers Ashley’s locker—and started reviewing the night before we saw her broken lock.”

“How long did that take you?” I asked.

Spoon grinned. “Almost no time at all. You see, the cameras are motion sensitive, so most nights they just stay off.”

Ema plugged the flash drive into her computer port. We all huddled around the screen when two hands reached in and snagged the laptop away.

“Hey!” Ema said.

“Well, well, well,” a now-familiar, grating voice said. “What do we have here?”

I turned around and saw Troy holding the laptop. Buck was next to him. Behind them were assorted jock-toughs. I think there were five of them, maybe six. It was hard to tell. The varsity jackets tended to blend into one big mass.

Spoon said, “What do you guys want?”

“Well, Arthur,” Buck said, “we just think you’re kinda cool and wanted to hang with you?”

Spoon beamed. “Really?”

“Give me back my laptop,” Ema said.

They ignored her. I debated how to play this.

“Yeah, sure, we wanna hang with you,” Troy said to Spoon. “You got all the right moves. Or movements anyway.”

Spoon pushed up his glasses. “Huh?”

“A movement,” Troy said. “Like in a bowel movement. Because you smell like one.”

Troy raised his hand for a high five. Buck slapped it. The assorted jock-toughs snorted laughter. Spoon looked as though someone had slapped him.

I rose. “Good one. Now give us back the laptop.”

Troy smirked and moved a step closer to me. “Make me.”

“He will!” Spoon shouted, small tears in his eyes. “Next time he goes to the bathroom!”

I looked back at Spoon and frowned as if to say, Come on, we’re better than that.

Troy pointed at him. “You want me to kick your ass, Arthur?”

“My name is Spoon!”

“What?”

“That’s my nickname,” Spoon said. “Spoon.” He pointed at Ema. “Like her nickname is Ema.” Then he pointed at Buck. “And like his nickname is Wee Wee Pants.”

“What the—?” Buck’s face went red again. “I’m going to so kick your ass.”

I stayed between them and Spoon. “Why don’t you deal with me?” I said.

Buck’s head spun toward me. “You wanna die too?”

“No,” I said. “Right now I want the laptop back.”

“You want it,” Troy said, leaning close enough for me to smell his morning scrambled eggs, holding the laptop in his right hand and wiggling it, “take it from me.”

So I did.

When I was in the Amazon studying martial arts, we worked a lot on taking away hand weapons. Naturally I received many lectures on never doing it—in how running away was always far smarter than trying to disarm—but if cornered or forced, I was taught what to do. The key element is surprise. If someone knows you’re going for the weapon, sorry, despite what you see in kung fu movies, it is nearly impossible to get the weapon without getting hurt.

Here, of course, there was no weapon danger. So I went for it. When Troy wasn’t prepared, I simply snatched the laptop from his rather weak grip. There was also something else working in my favor here: my genetics. I don’t take credit for this. It was an accident of birth. My father was a good natural athlete, though he never liked the competitive aspects of sports. My uncle was a pro-caliber basketball player. My mother was a pro-caliber tennis player. So I get it from both sides of the gene pool. I was born with good handeye coordination and quickness. Much as you might work on that and parents might try to push it, you can’t really teach that stuff.

For a moment, Troy and Buck didn’t move. I quickly handed the laptop back to Ema, never taking my eyes off my adversary—another lesson drummed into me. I turned and prepared for whatever they might do. I knew it had to be something. Troy was the cool senior. I, a lowly sophomore, had shown him up.

Man, it was going to be a long basketball season.

He was about to reach out for me when Ema said, “Troy?”

“What?”

“I know the real reason you’re always bothering us.” Ema batted her dark eyelashes at him. “Do you maybe, I don’t know, have a little crush on me?”

“What? You crazy?”

“Stealing my laptop like that—such a flirt move.” Ema batted her eyes at him some more and feigned coquettish. “Rachel Caldwell isn’t into you, but who knows? Maybe I’ll be. True, I’ll have to lose my sense of vision, not to mention smell, to find you attractive, but . . .”

Troy grabbed me by the lapels. I went with it, making my body a little slack as though scared. “You better stay out of my way, Bolitar. You hear me?”

“Hey,” I said, putting my hands up in mock surrender. “I’m not the one who came over here to hit on your friend.”

That was enough for Troy. Keeping one hand gripping my shirt, he cocked his fist way back, almost like a windup. It was a classic move and when he bullied guys like Spoon, it probably worked. But it was dumb. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. You snap for the weak zones—nose, throat, groin, eyes. You don’t take your time and pull your fist back.

There were several moves I could make here, but I decided to go with the one that would leave the least damage. I quickly trapped the hand on my chest with my forearm, grabbing on to the fingers. I jerked to the right, knocking him slightly off balance. The final part of the move—actually this all took less than a second—was to sweep the leg.

Troy went down on the pavement.

I didn’t know what would happen next, if he’d be dumb enough to try to stand or dive for my legs, but I was ready.

“What’s going on here?”

It was Ms. Owens. I let go of Troy. He jumped up with as much dignity as he could muster, trying to give off an I-was-just-about-to-beat-your-butt attitude. I didn’t challenge it.

“I said, what’s going on here?”

There were loads of nothings muttered. Troy and Buck and the assorted jock-toughs seemed to fade away. Ms. Owens glared at me for a moment and then she left too.

Ema stood next to me. “Getting in a fight with a popular senior. Pissing off a schoolteacher and the local chief of police. Hanging with two major-league losers.” She slapped my back. “Welcome to high school.”

We still had time before the bell rang.

The three of us were back huddled around Ema’s laptop. She clicked the video icon. The B corridor at school appeared on the screen. I expected the feed to be grainy or black-and-white, but it looked high-def. Ema hit the Play button, and a man came into view. He wasn’t a teacher. He wasn’t a student. He wasn’t staff.

He looked like a pure hoodlum.

He wore a sleeveless T-shirt, low-slung jeans, and bad facial stubble. Thick gold chains hung from his neck. In his right hand, he carried a crowbar.

There was also a tattoo on this face.

I looked over at Spoon. “Tattoo on the face. Isn’t that what Mrs. Kent said the man who broke into their house had?”

Spoon nodded. “It has to be the same guy.”

What could this hoodlum have to do with Ashley?

The video didn’t come with sound, but the silence was kind of deafening. Tattoo Face stopped walking in front of the locker. Using the crowbar, he smashed Ashley’s lock. He opened the locker and stepped back. Tattoo Face looked inside and then, even without sound, you could tell he was angry and probably cursing.

The locker was empty.

A moment or two later, Tattoo Face stormed away. “That’s it,” Spoon said.

Ema stopped the tape.

“So now what?” I asked. “Do we show this to the cops?”

Spoon pushed the glasses up his nose. “You’re kidding, right?”

“This guy probably broke into the Kent household. We have video of his face.”

“Video I stole from the security room at school,” Spoon said. “How would we explain that? I don’t trust cops.” Spoon turned to Ema and puffed out his chest. “See, I have a police record. Is it true that chicks like dangerous men?”

“Men maybe,” Ema said. “But he’s right, Mickey. You can’t go to the cops. Spoon here will get in trouble, for one, but also, hey, remember who’s police chief in this town.”

Troy’s father, Chief Taylor. Oh boy, did I remember. Not only did I have a problem with the Taylor clan, but clearly Uncle Myron didn’t get along with them either.

“Okay, so we don’t go to the cops,” I said. “So what do we do next?”

Ema clicked on the screen again. The video feed came up. She clicked an arrow and the feed started going backward in slow motion. She stopped it and then zoomed in so that we had a pretty clear look at the side of Tattoo Face’s cheek—the one with the tattoo.

“I have a thought,” Ema said, “but it’s probably a long shot.”

Spoon and I signaled that we were anxious to hear it.

“I know a guy. A tattoo artist named Agent. He did my stuff.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Anyway, the tattoo community is a pretty tight one. Everyone knows everyone. These guys are artists, and this looks like pretty special work. So what I’m thinking is, we show this photograph to Agent. Maybe he can tell us who the artist is.”

I looked at Spoon. He nodded that he liked the idea. “Okay,” I said. “Let’s do it.”

“One problem,” Ema said. “There really is no public transportation to get there, and it’s too far to walk. We need to get someone to drive us.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said.

Ema frowned. “What does that mean?”

“I can drive us.”

“You’re not sixteen yet.”

“Don’t worry about that either,” I said. And then the bell rang.

Mrs. Friedman had a surprise for us in history class.

“We are going to do a project on the French Revolution,” she said. “Everyone will need a partner, so please choose one.”

I didn’t know anyone in the class, so I figured I would wait until the end and take whoever was left. Everyone else in the class moved in a flurry, joining up with friends, afraid to be left out. Everyone, that is, except Rachel Caldwell. She stared at me and smiled. Even though I was sitting, I felt my knees go a little weak. People tapped Rachel on the shoulder, called her name, tried to get her attention. She ignored them and continued to meet my gaze.

“Well?” she asked me.

“Well what?” I said.

I just keep stunning her with the great one-liners.

“Do you want to be history partners?” she asked.

“Sure,” I said.

Mrs. Friedman clapped to get everyone’s attention. “Okay, people, if you have your partner, move your chair next to theirs so I can tell you the assignment.”

I rose and grabbed my chair. I stopped for a moment, feeling shy, but Rachel slid over and signaled for me to move next to her. I did. She smelled like, well, a beautiful girl. I started to feel warm. Rachel Caldwell gave Mrs. Friedman her undivided attention. She took lots of notes. Her notebook was pristine. I tried to pay attention—Mrs. Friedman was indeed giving us an assignment—but the words swam by in a murky haze.

When the bell rang, Rachel turned to me. “When do you want to meet up?”

“Soon,” I said.

“How about after school today?”

I remembered that we were going to visit Agent, the tattoo artist. “I can’t after school. Maybe tonight?”

“Sounds like a plan. Why don’t you call me?”

“Okay, sure.”

Rachel waited. I didn’t know what for. Then she said, “You don’t know my number.”

“Oh. Right.”

“You’re probably going to need it,” she said. “I mean, it’s going to be hard to call me without the phone number.”

I nodded sagely. “You make a good point,” I said.

She laughed. “Give me your phone.”

I did as she asked, handing over my cell phone. She started typing. “Here’s my number.”

“Thank you.”

“Talk to you later.” She handed me back the phone and started to leave.

“Bye.”

Five minutes later, I was at the lunch table with Ema. Ema studied my face and said, “What’s with the stupid grin?”

“What stupid grin?”

She frowned. “I called Agent. He can meet us after school.”

“Good.” Then I said, “You’re not even fifteen yet, are you?”

“So?”

“So how did you get tattoos? I thought you had to be eighteen.”

“You can be younger if you get your parents’ permission.”

“So that’s what you did?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Ema said with a little edge in her voice. “How are you going to drive us there without a license?”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said, mimicking her tone.

Ema took a bite of her submarine sandwich. She finished chewing and tried to sound nonchalant. “How was your trip to Los Angeles?”

“Fine. But after you left the other day, I saw our friend from Bat Lady’s house.”

I told her about it. Ema was so good at zeroing in on me when I spoke, making it easier to talk, making the rest of the world sort of fade away. She didn’t just show you that she cared—you felt it.

When I finished, Ema said, “We have to go back to Bat Lady’s house.”

“I don’t know.”

“And they told you not to tell anyone, right?”

“Right.”

“Yet you told me.”

“Yeah, I guess I did. But wait, they said don’t tell anyone about us. You already knew about them.”

She smiled. “I like the way you find loopholes.”

Spoon came over and slammed his tray down next to us. “Every day in the United States, two hundred new jail cells are constructed. I don’t want one of them to have my name on it.”

“I told you,” I said. “We won’t go to the cops.”

He sat down and started eating. Two minutes later, I heard Spoon mutter, “Oh. My. God.” His eyes widened as if he were witnessing the dead being brought to life. I spun toward where he was gazing and saw Rachel Caldwell heading toward us. She was carrying a plate of cookies.

“Hi, guys,” Rachel said with a smile that didn’t just dazzle. It picked you up and shook you hard and then just dropped you back in your seat.

Ema frowned and crossed her arms. Spoon said, “Will you marry me?”

Rachel laughed. “You’re so adorable.”

A swoon. A Spoon swoon, if you will.

“I don’t want to bother you guys,” Rachel said, “but we were just having a cheerleader bake sale. Lame, right?”

“Very,” Ema said, arms still crossed. I shot her a look.

“Anyway, my cookies are pretty awful, so no one bought them, so I figured before I threw them out . . .”

“Thank you,” I said.

She quickly put them down on the table and shyly walked away.

“The future ex–Mrs. Spoon,” Spoon said. Then, thinking about it, “Or would she be Fork? I must work on that.”

“You do that,” I said. I picked up a chocolate chip cookie and took a bite. “Not bad,” I said.

Ema rolled her eyes into the back of her head. “Of course you like her cookies. They could be made from baby powder and wood shavings and you’d still like them.”

“No, seriously, try one.”

“Pass,” Ema said.

“You know,” I said, chewing the rather dry cookie and wondering what to wash it down with, “disliking someone—anyone, really—based on his or her looks is shallow.”

Ema rolled her eyes even farther back in her head. “Yeah,” she said, “I feel so bad about that. Rachel must be crushed.”

“I think she’s nice,” Spoon said.

“I’m shocked,” Ema said. Then looking back at me, “Do you know she used to date your buddy Troy?”

I made a face. “Eew.” Then: “Used to, right?”

More eye rolling. “Talk about shallow. The hot cheerleader going for the basketball captain? Only one thing you can conclude from that.”

“She’s right,” Spoon said, looking at me solemnly. He put his hand on my shoulder. “You got to figure a way to become basketball captain.”