Caravan of Thieves Read Online Free PDF Page A

me.
    I said, “If you don’t let us in, Janie, I’ll tell everything I know. Everything.”
    She narrowed her eyes even more and looked me over. It dawned on her who I was, and she wasn’t impressed. Janie was a bully first and always. “Rollie? Yeah, I’d expect you to be in trouble with the government.”
    “I’ll tell what really happened to Edgar Ramirez.”
    “Can’t we please come in, ma’am? It’s just some questions about Rollie’s father, Dan,” Shaw said.
    First Janie sneered at me, the red slash of her mouth widening as if being stretched by invisible bands. Now that Shaw had given her an excuse to relent, she could relax. She knew nothing about Dan. With nothing to hide on that subject, she could make up any lies she wanted without fear of revealing too much. I knew she would talk a lot, if only to keep me from bringing up that bad subject again.
    Edgar Ramirez was a six-year-old foster child who came into the house just a few weeks after I did. He was scared and confused, like we all were. He was also a bed wetter. Of course, he didn’t tellJanie what was going on, and she didn’t get close enough to the bed to touch it. The smell got bad. She changed the sheets and beat him a little. He kept peeing the bed and forgetting to mention it. The mattress had to go outside. Edgar slept on the floor; I cleaned up the puddles in the morning. But I knew Janie was worried because once in a while inspectors would show up and they would want to see where everyone was sleeping. No way was she going to buy a new mattress for Edgar to ruin. One night I heard movement and opened my eyes in time to see the beige nightmare bend over and lift Edgar into her arms. I don’t know if he was awake or not, but if he was, fear kept him quiet.
    I didn’t see her actually accept the money, but I saw her hand him off to two men and later that night I saw her counting and recounting a stack of bills in the kitchen. In the morning, she pretended to be alarmed that Edgar was missing, called the police and made a big stink, saying he had run away. It wasn’t hard to guess that she hid the money in her lingerie drawer: who would want to go in there? I stole a twenty-dollar bill while she was dealing with the police.
    Now Janie’s natural nastiness was going to be put to good use. We all stood in the middle of the living room. Shaw asked, “Is Mr. Wellington at home?”
    “He has to work for a living,” she said.
    She had not asked us to sit down and that was a good thing. It allowed me to pace while Shaw brought up the questions about Dan. Pongo and Perdy stayed near the front door. I looked at them for the okay to wander into the kitchen. Perdy nodded. I stepped into the hallway and then the kitchen for a brief look around. I was back in the living room in less than fifteen seconds.
    Janie was telling whatever she thought she knew about Dan, impressions from long ago. “I always got the impression he just came back from Mexico, but he didn’t really confide in me. You might look for him down there.”
    Shaw asked if Dan brought presents for me. Janie’s eyes narrowed again and I knew what that meant: her memory was vague, but she assumed she had stolen the gifts. I nodded toward Perdy again to indicate I wanted to check the bedrooms. He nodded okay. I slipped down the hallway and into Janie’s bedroom, which was at the rear of the house. Nothing had changed except that I had grown and the tawdriness now seemed smaller, more comical than when I lived here. I went into the lingerie drawer and took all her money. Then I removed the wooden pole that blocked the slider, unlocked the door, and off I went.
    I knew the route by heart. The walls between yards were easy to vault. I expected a dog, a shepherd mix, in the third yard, but he wasn’t there. It was like being a kid again, that exhilarating feeling of cutting out, breaking free, ditching. Sneaking out of school early was always more satisfying than just not going. I