The Fixes (9 page)

86.

Eric's dad clasps Eric's hand when he returns to their table. Pulls Eric to his feet, wraps his arm around Eric's shoulder. Presents him to the crowd.

(The standing ovation is still rolling. It shows no sign of stopping.)

“This is why we do it,” Eric's dad is saying into Eric's ear. “This is why we work so hard. One day, they'll be cheering for you.”

Eric smiles out at the audience. Lets his dad hug him. Pretends like he's happy to be here.

This is why you work so hard.

One day, this will be you.

This is where you're going.

The idea should thrill Eric.

(It doesn't.)

87.

“Dad.”

Eric's dad looks up from the kitchen counter later that night. He's making himself a sandwich while Eric rummages in the fridge.

“Eric.”
Eric's dad is all smiles. “What can I do for you?”

Eric hesitates. Wonders if he really wants to do this. Knows he'll always wonder if he doesn't.

Okay
.

“The last election,” Eric says. “Did you ever, like, get any donations from any oil companies?”

The smile disappears. “What? Of course not. Eric, I'm an environmentalist. How would it look if I took money from those people?”

“I know,” Eric says. “I just heard something somewhere.”

“Did one of your friends tell you that?” Eric's dad shakes his head. “Because my campaign finances are public record. Anyone can look them up. You of all people should know that.”

Eric closes the fridge. He's shaking a little bit. “Yeah. I just heard maybe they were
secret
donations or something.”

Now Eric's dad is frowning, his brow furrowed into deep creases. “Eric, that's illegal. Who's telling you this?”

“Nobody,” Eric says. “Never mind. It's nothing.”

“Well, I hope you'll tell them they're full of shit, if you'll
pardon the expression,” Eric's dad says. “And then maybe you'll think about who you're choosing as your friends.”

Stonewalled.

A straight denial. Nothing proved.

(But then, a hypocrite
would
deny everything.)

“What about Maggie Swenson?” Eric asks his dad. “Did anything ever happen with her?”

Eric's dad turns around fully. Forgets about the sandwich and looks at Eric, his expression bemused. “Son,” he chuckles, “
who
has been feeding you this stuff?”

“I just read it somewhere,” Eric tells him. “I read that maybe you cheated on Mom with someone on your campaign. Someone named Maggie Swenson.”

Eric's dad opens his mouth. Closes it. Exhales.

“Listen, whatever you're reading or hearing from
whomever
are lies, Eric,” he says. “People are going to try to bring you down in your life, especially if they don't like what you stand for. They'll use whatever means they have at their disposal, no matter how slimy.”

He sighs. “I'm sorry you had to learn about this so early.”

“Yeah,” Eric says.

“Now get to bed. You want to be at the office early tomorrow—make a good impression.”

Eric turns.

Should he? Yeah, he should.

“What about Roger Dodger?”

His dad's brow furrows. His mouth gets real thin, and mean-looking. “What did you just say?”

Eric has never quite seen
this
expression before. It's . . . scary.

He blinks. Gives a “Hey, no big” chuckle.

“Roger, you know. Like ten-four? Over and out?” He
gives a little salute. “Good night and good luck?”

His father eyes him warily, then turns his back.

The interrogation is over.

88.

JG:
GUILTY!! What did I tell you?

EC:
I mean, I don't know if it's true or not, but you should have seen his expression . . .

JG:
Of course he's guilty. He's probably guilty of more, too. You just never know with these guys.

Eric doesn't know what he's feeling right now. He's feeling like his dad
did
look guilty, just for an instant, when he heard Roger Dodger's name.

And that causes a little piece of Eric's secretly gay heart

to crumble into dust.

JG:
Still want to be a Connelly Man?

Eric stares at his phone. He's thinking he still has no credible evidence that his dad's anything other than who he's always claimed to be. He's thinking he's grasping, if he believes some fanatic's blog.

But that look.

Is that the same expression Roger Dodger saw just before Eric's dad and his buddies kicked the shit out of him?

Fuck it.

Maybe not
, Eric tells Jordan.
When's your next Fix?

KIK -- CAPILANO HIGH PRIVATE MESSAGE GROUP – 07/10/16 – 02:56 PM

USERNAME: SuIcIdEpAcK

MESSAGE: Spikes are for Louboutins, not homeless people.

89.

“It's a competition,” Paige tells them. “We all go in at the same time. Whoever comes out with the most stuff—without getting arrested—is the winner.”

“What do we win?” Jordan asks.

Paige shrugs. “Pride, I guess.” Then she grins. “And a lot of free stuff.”

They're sitting in the food court at Pacific Center, the high-end mall downtown, listening as Paige lays out her Fix.

Haley raises her hand. “I'm confused. When you say ‘the most stuff,' do you mean by volume or value?”

“Value,” Paige says. “Sticker price. So save your tags.”

She looks around.

“Any other questions?”

Eric kind of coughs. The others look at him. “I mean, it sounds fun and all. But what's the, you know,
point
?”

“Oh god.” Haley rolls her eyes. “Is he going to wuss out again?”

Jordan holds up his hand. “No, it's a good question. Paige, what exactly are we fixing by being here?”

“I'm glad you asked, E.” Paige finishes her soda. “Maybe you guys heard, but last week the store owners decided they were sick of seeing homeless people camped outside their doors. But instead of
doing something
about the problem, they had little spikes put down on every flat surface near the doors, so nobody could lie there.”

She shakes her head. “It's total bullshit. They sell three-thousand-dollar coats and that's how they treat people.”

“Sounds like a good enough reason for a Fix,” Jordan says. He claps his hands and stands. “Yup. Let's teach these dickheads a lesson.”

90.

The Fix:

Swarm The Room—

(the luxury department store at the north end of the mall)

                              
—
en masse
. Steal as much as possible without getting caught.

                              
(No points for dye packs or damaged merchandise.)

                              
In and out. Lightning fast. Blitzkrieg. Rendezvous at the cruise ship pier, three blocks away. Lose security in the crowds.

Don't. Get. Caught.

91.

The Room is three floors of fun.

Women's wear on the top floor. Sunglasses, jewelry, and cosmetics in the middle. Menswear on the bottom. An open atrium in the center, two spindly escalators. It's a Sunday, so the store is jam-packed, mostly with rich kids spending their parents' money. The Suicide Pack will fit right in.

(Except they're not
spending
shit.)

Eric and Haley and Jordan and Paige stand at the third-floor entrance from the mall. They're all wearing baseball hats to hide their faces from the security cameras. Paige's long blond hair is tied up, out of sight. They're wearing shoes for a track meet. They're ready to run.

(They're wearing GoPros, too, to record the insanity.)

(Hey, gotta satisfy the fans.)

Eric can hear his heart beating,
feel
it pounding in his chest, like he's standing at the top of a high cliff, and he's about

to jump
         

o
           

f
       

f
    

(Splat.)

92.

There's a security guard by The Room's entrance. He's a big guy, old, half asleep. He looks slow. He looks complacent.

He looks like he has no idea what's about to transpire.

Paige raises her hand. Tenses up like Usain Bolt in the gold-medal race.

“Mark,” she says.

“Set.”

“Go!”

93.

And they're off.

Paige and Jordan take off running. Haley's right behind them. Eric hesitates a split second, watches Jordan body some preppy city douchebag to the ground. Watches the security guard perk up and take notice. Then Eric's running too.

Jordan peels left, to the Chanel mini store. Paige is at a rack of bras, snatching and grabbing. People are gasping. People are pointing. Staff are converging from every direction.

Eric and Haley dodge past them. Let Paige and Jordan play decoy. They take the first escalator down to the second level. Jewelry. Cosmetics. Haley darts across to the watches. The sunglasses. Eric lets her have them. He's going to the bottom.

Another escalator. Shouts from above. Eric's whole body is electric with adrenaline and terror. Opposite, on the up escalator, it's chaos. An army of The Room staff running topside. The bottom floor is strangely serene when Eric touches down. All the crazy shit's happening above.

Eric looks around. Clock is ticking. There's a wall of Gucci motorcycle jackets over there, a couple thousand dollars a pop. Eric hurries over. Tries to act inconspicuous. Pulls the first jacket he finds and turns to GTFO.

(ERROR)

The jacket won't go. It's tethered to the wall. Security measure. Eric drops it to the floor as a snooty-looking salesman comes over.

(“Can I help you?”)

Eric ignores him. Starts for the denim. Rag & Bone. J Brand. Nudie. Acne. True Religion. Eric grabs whatever's closest, no accounting for style. Size. Taste. Just speed. The salesman's still behind him. The salesman's yelling now—

(
“Excuse me!”
)

Eric doesn't slow down. Eric doesn't look back. People are staring, now. People are putting this together. Eric looks around for the exit. It's ahead, to his right. Two hundred feet, maybe. Maybe a little less.

Eric runs, arms full of designer denim. His feet struggle for traction on the polished floor, but he's closing the distance anyway. A hundred and fifty feet. One hundred. The security guard's by the escalators, out of position. He must have been heading upstairs to check out the commotion.

Eric's in the clear.

Eric's freaking
made it
.

Eric's just about ready to believe he'll get out of this alive.

Then the salesman blindsides him.

(
Oof!
)

An insane body check.

And Eric and his armload of jeans go sprawling

d

o

w

n

to the polished floor.

94.

The salesman falls too. The jeans go flying everywhere. The salesman claws and scrabbles at Eric's ankles, trying to hold him back.

(“No. You.
Don't
.”)

He's red-faced and angry. This is a personal affront. Nobody comes into
his
store and pulls a stunt like this; no way, buddy boy. Not on his watch.

Eric kicks himself loose. Scrambles away. The jeans are scattered all over. There's no time to retrieve them.

Eric stands up. Starts running. Looks back and the salesman's tripping over his feet trying to continue the chase. As Eric watches, the salesman falls again, lands hard on the marble.

Eric locks eyes with the salesman. The salesman pants for breath. Eric pants for breath too. Eric looks around, grabs the closest thing he can find—

(a Burberry trench).

The salesman looks at Eric like—

(
Don't you do it. Don't you dare
.)

Eric stuffs the trench under his arm.

Then he runs.

95.

Chaos. Terror. Hysteria.

Eric bursts out onto the sidewalk with the coat under his arm. There's no sign of the others anywhere. No matter.

It's time to go.

Granville Street is a zoo. Tourists off the cruise ships and Sunday shoppers, street kids and panhandlers and suburban staycationers. Eric turns north and bobs and weaves through the crowd, watching for police and slow walkers and more mall security.

He's gasping.

His lungs burn.

This is serious freaking exercise.

Three blocks to the cruise ship pier.

Don't look back.

96.

Eric makes it to the pier.

Two cruise ships are in today, both of them massive. The pier is crawling with old people walking slow and snapping pictures. The rallying point is the souvenir stand by the west entrance. Paige is already there, half hidden behind an extended Asian family buying goofy hats. Paige is holding a souvenir bag of her own.

Eric hurries over. Paige gives a weak smile when she sees him. She's panting for breath too. She's perspiring.

“The others?” she asks Eric.

Eric shrugs, looks around. “I saw Haley in jewelry. Then I bolted. Jordan was upstairs with you.”

“Guess we're waiting.” Paige nudges Eric's arm up. Examines the jacket. “Burberry. Nice. You went classic, I see.”

“I was trying for jeans, but some salesman freaking tackled me,” Eric tells her. “What'd you get?”

Paige opens her souvenir bag. A tangle of lace and a postcard at the bottom. “Just some underwear,” Paige says. “La Perla and Frederick's. Probably isn't even my size.” She gestures to the souvenir stand. “I just bought the postcard so they'd give me the bag.”

“Did you have any trouble getting out?”

“Nah. After Jordan body-checked that dude in the entrance the whole store was focused on him. I just got as far
away as possible. Nobody even saw me.”

“They were hard on Jordan, huh?” Eric frowns. “I hope he got out.”

“He got out,” Paige says. “They both did. We just have to wait.”