Nothing to Lose Read Online Free PDF Page A

difference?”
    â€œSmuggling and trafficking are similar, except trafficking involves exploitation—coercion. Say the people who want to be smuggled in don’t have enough money to pay the snakeheads. The snakeheads’ll offer to lend them the money and tell them that they can pay it back after they reach their destination. Once the immigrants get where they’re going, the snakeheads force them to work long hours in illegal sweatshops to pay off their debt. Sometimes they force them to get involved in activities like the drug trade. The immigrants can’t do anything about it—they’re in the country illegally. They complain, they’re deported. Sometimes the traffickers threaten to kill them if they don’t cooperate. Or they threaten their families back home.”
    â€œWhy would anyone agree to that?” I said.
    â€œLike I said, we have it pretty good here, Robbie. And the snakeheads don’t always tell the immigrants what they’re in for.”
    â€œBut the people who pay the smugglers must know that they have a chance of getting caught and sent back.”
    My father shrugged. “Sometimes they believe rumors circulated by the snakeheads, like the ones about amnesties.”
    â€œAmnesties?”
    â€œA few years back, a rumor went around that there was going to be a general amnesty for all illegal immigrants, to mark the new millennium. Wasn’t true. But it encouraged a lot of people to book passage with snakeheads. There are always a lot of rumors about kids, that children have a better chance of being allowed to stay if they’re caught by Immigration. As to the conditions. . .” He shrugged again. “I used to know a guy”—knowing my father, he meant a cop—“who did liaison work with the immigration department. He told me that one Chinese man who got caught said that the snakeheads told him that he would arrive here on a luxury ship. A movie theater on board, good food. It was an out-andout lie. But by the time the guy found out, it was too late to do anything about it.”
    â€œThe man who was shot—do they think he was a snakehead?”
    â€œThat I don’t know.” My father snapped off the radio. “I’m making eggs,” he said. “Sure I can’t interest you?”
    â€œI’m going to wait and see what Nick wants to do,” I said. I glanced at my watch again. “He said he would pick me up early. He has plans for us.”
    â€œSuit yourself,” my father said. “I’m making them scrambled. . .”
    My mouth started to water. My father made excellent scrambled eggs. His secret ingredients were a touch of cream cheese and some fresh chives.
    â€œI’ll wait,” I said.
    My father shrugged and opened the fridge.
    â€œDad?”
    I think it was the hesitation in my voice that made his ex-cop radar blip. When his head emerged from the fridge, he was on full alert.
    â€œI was robbed this morning,” I said.
    â€œWhat do you mean, robbed? Where? Did someone break into the house?”
    â€œI was downtown with Billy and Morgan. Someone stole my backpack.”
    He shut the fridge door without taking out any eggs. “Were you hurt?”
    I shook my head. “I wasn’t wearing my backpack at the time.” I explained what had happened. “There wasn’t a lot of money in my wallet,” I said. “But I had my bus pass in it, my student ID. Some pictures.” Snapshots of Nick and Orion, the dog he walked regularly, and one of Nick with his arm around me.
    â€œCell phone?” he said.
    â€œNo.” That had been in my jacket pocket. I had lost my last phone a while back and my father had replaced it for me.
    â€œYou didn’t have your credit cards in your wallet, did you, Robbie?”
    I shook my head.
    â€œDad, I don’t have any credit cards.”
    â€œDid you report the loss to the police?”
    â€œI