Home for the Holidays (13 page)

Frankie and Nicky's mother looked at each other.

“Us?
Fugheddaboud.it
” Frankie said. “We're just talking. Pour me another cup of coffee, will you?”

Tommy came down a few minutes later, rubbing his eyes and grinning. The grown-ups got busy with their plans for the day and left the two boys to their breakfast and their own schemes. Grandma Tutti hovered around them, pouring juice, washing plates and humming to herself.

Once they'd eaten, Nicky took Tommy into the den and said, “What are we going to do today?”

Tommy thought about that. “Shouldn't we stay here and wait to see what that reporter comes up with?”

“No,” Nicky said. “If we sit here waiting for the phone to ring, I'll go nuts.”

“You're already nuts,” Tommy said. “But he's not going to figure anything out in just a day, right?”

“Right,” Nicky said. “Especially on Sunday. Maybe you could help me with the dancing one more time, before tonight.”

“You don't need any help,” Tommy said. “You just need to dance. When the music is on, just go for it. You'll be fine.”

“I'm nervous,” Nicky said.

“That's okay,” Tommy said. “Sometimes a little nervous is good. Keeps you on your toes. What are we doing in the meantime?”

“I don't know,” Nicky said. “We could try to get Clarence to take us somewhere, like to Walter's dad's bookstore.”

“Yeah,” Tommy said. “I guess we could ….”

“Okay, that's not the best idea,” Nicky said. “We could do laser tag again, or go to the movies.”

Grandma Tutti came into the room, drying her hands on a towel. “Why are you inside? You should go out on a nice sunny day like this.”

“Grandma, it's a nice freezing day.”

“So put on your warm clothes and go do something freezing. Aren't you supposed to go skating on a lake or something, out here in the woods?”

“Skate on a lake?” Tommy laughed. “Get out of here.”

“No, she's right,” Nicky said. “There's ice-skating at Lake Brenner.”

“Outside? On a real lake?”

“Sure,” Nicky said. “All the kids go there. It's a real scene.”

“Then let's make the scene,” Tommy said.

An hour later, the boys were lacing up their skates in front of the rental booth at the lake. They were bundled up to their noses, in two pairs of wool socks, two pairs of pants, ski jackets, mufflers and wool caps, leaving nothing exposed but their eyes.

“How are we supposed to skate like this?” Tommy said. “I can hardly move.”

“You'll get used to it,” Nicky said.

∗ ∗ ∗

Peter Van Allen had had a restless night—his first one in years. It reminded him of the old days. The
bad
old days, when he'd lived his life looking over his shoulder, wondering when his past would catch up with him.

It never had, until just then. He'd had a good run. He'd made a place for himself. And he'd done it all legally. That was the joke. He'd been a failure as a criminal, and a big success playing by the rules. And now it was all over.

He sat in his car outside his house the next morning, unshaven and red-eyed, with the heater running and the windows fogging up, trying to think.

O'Farrell wanted twenty-five thousand dollars for telling him the name of the guys who had figured out that he was Peter Arlen, and for keeping the story out of his newspaper.

The money didn't bother Van Allen—that was pocket change—but the blackmail did. If a guy knew you'd pay him to stay quiet, he was going to want to be paid again, to
keep
staying quiet. And again after that.

For now, he didn't have a choice. He couldn't afford to let anything get in the way of the Fairport deal. If he could keep O'Farrell quiet for another few days … Well,
then
he could get rid of him. Permanently.

That would mean several guys to get rid of—O'Farrell and the guys who knew he was Patrick Arlen.

That was a lot of guys to worry about. He couldn't think about all of them at once. First things first. He
picked up his cell phone and dialed. He listened to an answering machine voice that said, “You've reached Sean O'Farrell at the
Ridgeway Register.
Please leave your message after the beep. Ta-ta for now.”

“It's me,” Van Allen said after the beep. “I have something for you. Call me back.”

The ice stretched almost all the way down the long, thin lake, where, many summers before, Nicky had taken his first swimming lessons and later learned how to sail a small boat. Now it was white with cold and marked with shadows from the bare trees on its banks, and crowded with kids and families and groups of rowdy teenagers.

Nicky led Tommy to the ice and pointed to places in the distance that were closed off by bright yellow signs

that said, DANGER. DO NOT ENTER.

“What're those?” Tommy asked.

“Thin ice,” Nicky told him. “Whatever you do, don't go skating over there. People fall in and freeze to death.”

“Wearing all these clothes? I don't think so.”

“Just remember you're a beginner, and stay away from those parts,” Nicky said. “You'll be okay.”

“Whatever,” Tommy said, and skated unsteadily onto the ice.

Within minutes, he was scooting around like a pro.

“I thought you said you'd never done this before,” Nicky said.

“Only roller skates and in-line skates,” Tommy said.

“You're good!” Nicky said just as Tommy lost his balance and fell onto the ice.

“Stop talking to me!” Tommy said.

The boys skated for an hour. Tommy got more and more comfortable on the ice and skated faster and faster. “Check this out!” he said, and skidded to a stop that sent ice showering over Nicky's head.

“You're not supposed to do that,” Nicky said. “It leaves marks on the ice.”

“Stop worrying,” Tommy said. “You're always worrying about the rules and stuff. I'll race you to the end of the lake and back.”

Nicky looked. It was probably an eighth of a mile to the end. Almost no one was skating down there. Even though the rules said you weren't supposed to speed skate, they could probably get away with it on the empty part of the ice.

“Okay,” Nicky said. “But take it easy until we get to that second group of trees. Then no one will yell at us for skating fast.”

The two boys kept pace until they were almost at the trees. Then Tommy said, “Go!” and took off.

Nicky was a good skater. It wasn't hard for him to keep up with Tommy. It wasn't hard for him to beat him, either. But he didn't want to make him feel bad, so he skated just about Tommy's speed until they neared the yellow warning signs at the end of the lake.

“Get offa me,” Tommy yelled.

“No way,” Nicky yelled back. “I'm going to beat you.”

“No way to
that,”
Tommy shouted.

Nicky called out, “Let's turn around. But watch your skates. This ice has been in the sun all day and it's slip—”

Tommy, trying to make the turn too fast, skidded on the ice. His skates went out from under him, and he fell hard on his backside. Then he slid on the ice, his legs and arms sprawling around him, until he was past the yellow warning signs. Nicky stopped.

“Tommy!” he called. “Don't move. Stay down.”

“I'm okay,” Tommy said, and got to his knees. “And I'm still going to beat you.”

As he got to his feet, the ice around him made a terrible cracking sound. Nicky shouted, “Get down!” and dropped to his knees. Tommy remained standing. The ice around him shattered, and he slipped straight down into the icy water.

Nicky looked toward the parking lot and the skate-rental shack. Too far! No one could see them from there. When he looked back, Tommy had bobbed to the surface. He was sputtering and coughing and grabbing at the slick ice with his hands.

Nicky began crawling toward Tommy, who by then had gotten his hands on the ice and had stopped thrashing around. When Nicky was ten feet away, he lay flat on the ice and started scooting forward on his belly.

“I'm coming!” he said. “Try not to move too much, all right?”

Tommy tried to speak but couldn't.

Nicky was only six feet away. He could see cracks in
the ice between him and Tommy. He looked back toward the skate-rental shack. No one was coming.

Nicky took his muffler off and made it into a ball. Holding one end, he threw the ball at Tommy. The muffler stretched out and lay flat on the ice—but not close enough for Tommy to grab. Nicky scooted forward and tried again. Still not close enough. Nicky scooted forward a bit more. The ice groaned but didn't crack.

“This time it'll work,” he said. “Ready?”

Tommy nodded. His face was getting blue.

Nicky balled up the muffler and threw it. Bull's-eye. Tommy took the muffler in one hand, and then in two. Nicky began to pull.

The ice began to groan and crack again when Tommy climbed onto it.

“Wait!” Nicky said, and scooted backward. “Now go.”

Tommy pulled himself a little more onto the ice, which groaned and cracked again.

“Wait!” Nicky said, and scooted backward another foot.

Tommy was shivering violently when Nicky got him all the way onto the ice. He tried to speak, but his lips were too cold.

Nicky said, “It's okay. You're going to be okay. We have to skate back to the parking lot, and we've got to skate fast to get warm. Okay?”

Tommy nodded.

“Let's go.”

The skate-rental men shouted at Nicky and Tommy for skating too close to the edge. Then they brought the boys into their shack and got Tommy out of his jacket and sweater and one pair of pants, then planted him in front of the heater while they called Nicky's mother to get the boys.

Tommy shivered all the way back to the house, where Nicky's mother put him in a warm bath and got Grandma Tutti to make him a mug of cocoa.

Sitting at his desk that morning, listening to his messages, O'Farrell rubbed his hands together and said, “You've done it, Sean, old boot. You've got the fish on the line.”

The money would be very welcome. O'Farrell made next to nothing as a reporter. But he wasn't really a reporter anymore. He had been, back in the old days. Then he'd become a criminal. He still wrote stories for the newspaper, but he made his money doing favors for people like Patrick Arlen and Peter Van Allen—rich people who got into trouble and needed help getting out. O'Farrell knew how to get police records and destroy them. He knew how to buy protection from politicians. He knew how to get politicians elected. He knew how to get people killed.

Leaving the
Ridgeway Register
offices at midday, bundled up against the cold winter weather, O'Farrell felt a twinge. When he got his money, he was going to tell Patrick Arlen about the boys. What would Arlen do then?

The bad feeling stuck with him. He didn't like it.
Halfway down the block, O'Farrell turned and stepped through the door of the Snug Harbor. Inside, it was dark and smoky, and behind the bar were things that could make a man stop feeling bad.

O'Farrell sat on a stool and said, “Let's have a little of that Irish whiskey, Jim, and be quick about it.”

Hours later, back at the house, Tommy's temperature was normal and he'd stopped shaking. Nicky's mother had wrapped him in a big bathrobe and given him cup after cup of hot cocoa. Sitting in the living room, swaddled like a newborn baby, he was having a hard time staying awake.

“You can't fall asleep,” Nicky said. “We'll miss the Snow Ball.”

“Stop worrying,” Tommy said sleepily. “I'm fine.”

Nicky's father and Uncle Frankie came in and listened as Nicky's mother told the story of Tommy's fall through the thin ice. Nicky's father was very upset.

“Nicholas knows better than to go anywhere near that end of the lake,” he said. “This is very irresponsible behavior. Tommy could have drowned, or frozen to death!”

“Aw, give the guys a break,” Frankie said. “It was an accident.”

“Frankie, Tommy could have
died.
Both boys could have.”

“Okay—but they didn't!” Frankie said.

“But they could have,” Nicky's father said.

“What are you, Xena the Worrier Princess?” Frankie said. “You're angry about something that could have
happened, instead of being happy about what didn't happen. Or instead of being proud of your son for being a hero. What he did on the ice was pretty brave.”

It seemed Nicky's dad hadn't thought of that. He looked at Nicky, whose eyes had begun to fill with tears.

“You must have been scared,” Nicky's father said.

“I was,” Nicky said, and wiped his eyes. “I thought Tommy was going to die. I thought we
both
were. My hands were shaking and I was almost crying. I felt like such a coward.”

Nicky hid his face in his hands.

“Whoa!” Frankie said. “Wait a minute! Why would you say that?”

Nicky looked up at him. “Because I was scared.”

“Scared? That doesn't make you a coward,” Frankie said. “That makes you a
herol
Do you think being brave means not being afraid?”

Nicky wiped his nose on his sleeve. “Well, yeah.”

“That's not it at all!” his uncle said. “Anybody can do something scary when he's not scared. But it takes a hero to do something scary when he knows he's in danger.
That's
bravery. A coward would have left his friend on the ice and run away. Only the brave guy stays behind and tries to help—especially when he knows he's about to fall in, too.”

“So … you get scared, sometimes?”

“I get scared
all
the time,” Frankie said. “It comes with the job. Doing the right thing even when you're scared— that's what it's all about.”

“All right, then,” Nicky's father said. “Nicky gets the bravery medal for saving his friend. And the honesty medal for telling his parents the truth about what happened. And the stupid medal for going onto the thin ice in the first place. Fair enough?”

Tommy said, “I think I'm the one who gets the
stupid
medal. The others are for Nicky.”

“You can share them all,” Nicky's father said. “Now I'm going to make myself a drink. Frank, how do you take your whiskey?”

“In a glass,” Frankie said. “But I'm gonna say no for right now. I gotta get back to Brooklyn and pick up Donna, remember? So your son will have a date for this Snow Ball thing.”