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The thing about getting what you want, Jack is starting to realize, is that there’s always another thing you want hiding right behind it.
The dream about Santa Fe was safe. It was always there, a vision Jack could conjure on nights when he couldn’t sleep because it was winter in New York and he could hear people talking in the apartments near the fire escape and none of them were talking to him. He knew, deep down, that he was probably never going to get it, but it almost didn’t matter. The golden dream was always there for him. Reliable. Unchanging.
This thing with Davey, now—Jack barely even had time to want it, let it warm him a night or two at most, and suddenly he had it. Right there, in his hands.
Don’t get him wrong. He doesn’t have any regrets. Davey is better than a million Santa Fes. It’s just that Jack used to think that getting what you wanted meant that you’d be happy, and now it turns out it’s not that simple. Turns out getting what you want means wanting more of it; it means wanting it even when it’s not easy to have, like when Davey’s parents want him home instead of out getting into trouble with that Kelly boy; it means wanting it to turn into something it can’t ever be, when you’re two boys without a high school diploma between you and a job that pays in pennies. It means wanting it even when it would be better not to.
Jack learned a long time ago what kinds of things it was and wasn’t safe to want. This thing with Davey is breaking all his rules, and it’s making him grumpy.
“Hold your horses, I’ll come with you in a minute, I just want to finish reading,” Davey says.
Jack flops down on the milk crate next to him, a hundred papes across his lap. “Thought you already read it.”
“Only the first few pages. I want to see what’s on the last few pages.”
“Never anything good that far back anyway.”
“Not true. Last week you found that obituary for the heiress.”
“Yeah, and I still had thirty papes to return at the end of the day.”
Davey eyes him over the top of the newspaper. “What crawled into your sleeping bag this morning?”
“Nothing.” More to the point, there was no one there but himself for it to crawl on. Jack taps his foot and stands up. “I just don’t like sitting around while the other guys get all the easy buyers. Come on, you’re on the last page, you’re not gonna find anything there.”
“Hey, look at this,” Davey says, folding the page so that the bottom of the last column is showing. “Children wanted for one-time detective work.”
“Doesn’t make much of a headline.”
“No, for us. You were just saying you wished we had more money, right?”
Jack did say that. But the kind of money he wants for them isn’t the kind you get by running around looking for missing cats. “We already got a job we’re late for doing,” he says. “What’re you looking at other ones for?”
“‘Well compensated,’ it says. And we wouldn’t have to be there until the afternoon.” Davey looks up at Jack, eyes all lit up with excitement. “What d’you think?”
Jack thinks it sounds like a dumb use of potential working hours. But Davey has that look in his eyes, and Jack is in a bad mood but it’s not that bad. “Well, OK, I guess we can go,” he says. “We sell our papes first, though.”
“’Course.” Davey gives Jack a smile and a hand-squeeze before jumping up. And Jack is still in a bad mood, maybe, and he still has a pile of papes that aren’t going to sell themselves, but he squeezes back before following Davey down Sixth Avenue.
#
They sell all their papes by lunchtime, even without a good headline. “Only thing we need to make us the real kings of New York is to get Les in on this,” Jack says, counting their change while Davey buys them footlongs from the guy on the street corner.
Davey frowns. “He’s better off where he is.”
“I know, I was just kiddin’,” Jack says. They sent Les back to school as soon as they were making enough between the two of them. Jack thought maybe Davey would go back too, but Davey said no, and Jack didn’t push too hard for fear Davey would change his mind.
“They even going to want us at this thing?” Jack asks. “Or are they looking for little kids like your brother?”
“Guess we’ll find out,” Davey says. He gestures across the street at the number in the ad.
It’s a shabby little house, wedged between two garment district storefronts. Jack’s stomach sinks. “That can’t be any wider than my fire escape,” he says. “What’re they doing promising money, they live in a place like this?”
“That’s what it says in the ad.” Davey climbs the rickety steps and knocks on the door.
They wait a couple of minutes with no answer. “Well, OK,” Jack says. “We tried, guess we better—”
“Let’s give them a minute,” Davey says. He knocks again.
Jack rolls his eyes. It’s a beautiful afternoon, and afternoon is the best time for them: they sell their papes fast enough, sometimes they can get three, four hours before Davey has to be home for dinner. Davey’s a good kid, the kind who doesn’t like to make his parents worry, so it’s the only real time they can get most days. Jack doesn’t want to spend it wondering if he’s going to fall through splintered wood and break his ankle. “Look, whatever this place is, it ain’t a detective office,” he says. “Maybe they made a mistake in the address. All I know is, there’s no point in—”
“Oh, hey,” Davey says, trying the knob and opening the door.
“Why do I even bother,” Jack grumbles, following him in.
It’s not much to look at. Even narrower than it looked from the outside, and the walls and ceiling are half-rotten and on the verge of collapse. More to the point, it’s empty. “No one here who could have placed an ad,” Jack says.
“What’s that?” Davey crosses the room toward the far wall, where there’s a piece of paper pinned. It’s the only thing in the room that isn’t grimy. “Looks like nonsense.”
Jack takes the paper from him. Davey’s right: it’s letters, but they don’t make sense, a bunch of Xs and Vs and Ss. “Someone’s idea of a joke,” Jack says.
“Maybe,” Davey says. “I’m going to take it, though.”
“Knock yourself out,” Jack says, and heads out and takes all four rickety steps in one leap.
#
There’s a rooftop in midtown just a few blocks from Central Park that gets the best sun in the late afternoon. It’s one of Jack’s favorite spots to go with Davey, and usually Davey’s on board with the kind of thing Jack likes to do there. Today, though, all Davey seems to want to do is look at the piece of paper he found like it holds some kind of message Jack can’t see.
“I think it’s some kind of letter substitution,” Davey says, leaning over it with a pencil.
“Uh-huh,” Jack says, kicking his heels against the side of the building.
“Look, I think this might be an L, right here. What do you think?”
“Sure,” Jack says.
“You’re not even looking,” Davey says.
Jack looks. “Sure. That’s an L.”
Davey sits up. “What’s wrong with you today? All you do is gripe and argue.”
Jack shrugs. “I just—” He doesn’t know how to explain the knot of bad feeling inside of him, or why it’s worse when he sees Davey crouched over a piece of paper. He pushes a hand through his hair. “Davey, you know I’m no good at this kind of stuff.”
“What are you talking about? Of course you are.” Davey moves the paper closer to him. “Here, I think this first word might be ‘hello.’ See?”
Jack looks at the first word. SVOOL, it says, and Davey’s written HELLO above it. “How d’you figure that?”
“Well, there’s a comma after it, and I couldn’t think of any other five-letter greetings,” Davey says. “And look, the next word is XSROWIVM. If S is H and V is E and O is L, then that could be CHILDREN.”
Jack squints at it. “So it’s like…a secret code.”
“Exactly!” Davey says. “Each letter stands for a different one.”
“Why is some nut leaving a paper in a secret code inside in abandoned building?” Jack asks.
“I don’t know, but maybe if we decode it we can find out.”
Jack watches as Davey starts filling in the letters they’ve already guessed throughout the rest of the paper, interested despite himself. “Hey,” he says after a minute. “If O is L and L is O, does that mean they’re all pairs like that?”
Davey looks at the paper for a moment, and then his face breaks out in a blinding smile. “Jack, you’re a genius,” he says, and his pencil starts moving faster. Jack turns his smug grin up to the sky.
Davey finishes scribbling out letters in the next few minutes. “It’s a mirror code,” he declares. “A is Z, B is Y, and so on through the whole alphabet.”
“So what does it say?” Jack asks. “Whose crazy idea was this, anyway?”
“It doesn’t say. It’s just signed, ‘someone who hopes you find what you’re looking for.’”
Jack snorts. Yeah, like this guy could know anything about that.
“I think it means there’s a reward,” Davey says. “You know, a prize for solving the puzzle. Which we’re supposed to find using this.”
“What, these numbers?” Jack points at the page.
“Yeah. I think it’s…I’m not sure, but I think it’s a book.”
“How are these numbers a book?”
“Have you ever heard of Dewey Decimal?”
“Never met ’im.”
“It’s a new system they have for organizing books,” Davey says. “My dad taught me how to use it.”
Jack groans. “Don’t tell me. That means we have to go to a…”
“A library. Yep.” Davey bends down to peck his lips, then jumps up and heads for the exit.
“You know,” Jack calls after him, “for such a goody two-shoes, you sure know how to be cruel to a guy.”
“Come on,” Davey calls back, “we want to get there before it closes.”
#
“You sure it’s supposed to be this one?” Jack asks as they stand at the bottom of the steps of the New York Public Library.
“It said to go to the biggest place we can find,” Davey says. “This is definitely the biggest one around.”
“Yeah, but maybe we didn’t read it right.”
“Then we should check this one first anyway.” Davey starts up the steps. “Come on, you big fraidy-cat.”
“I’m not scared,” Jack protests as he follows Davey up. He just doesn’t like libraries, is all. Anytime he tries to walk into one, he gets the librarians watching him like a hawk and asking him what he wants in this way that means they want him to find it quickly so he can get out of there before he tracks anything on the floors. And if he asks after the books he really wants, the kind with pirates or train robberies or cowboys on the front, they get this look on their faces like he’s really crazy.
This building is even worse, with its huge lobby with the marble floors and fancy columns. Davey walks past like he doesn’t even see it all and heads straight on to circulation.
“Excuse me, I’m looking for a book,” he says, before Jack can tell him not to try. He’s met battle-axes like this one; she isn’t going to care what the two of them are looking for.
What he’s forgetting is that this is Davey Jacobs who’s asking, with his good-boy curls and baby blues. The librarian immediately smiles as if this is the question she’s been waiting for her whole life. “Of course,” she says. “What can I help you find?”
She leads them to the second floor, past the reading room toward English Literature. “823.8 D should be in these aisles here,” she says, pointing at a section of stacks.
It’s cool and dark in the among the shelves. “Do you see him?” Jack asks as soon as she’s gone.
Davey peers around the corner. “I don’t see anyone.”
“What does a parish boy look like, anyway?”
“You asking me, Mr. John Kelly?”
“Hey, just ’cause I’m Irish—”
Davey shrugs. “Nah, I don’t know. Anyone here, we figure they might be him, right?”
They settle in to wait. 823.8 D is mostly Dickens, and they settle between Nicholas Nickleby and Oliver Twist. “Maybe we missed him,” Jack says.
“The ad said this afternoon,” Davey says. “We can’t be too late.”
“OK, so we wait.” Jack puts his hand over Davey’s. “Maybe find a way to pass the time.”
“What?” Davey looks down at their hands. Then, “Jack, it’s library,” a grin lighting his face.
“So what’s it for, if not for human knowledge?” Jack leans in to kiss behind Davey’s ear. Davey giggles, and squirms a little to press closer to Jack, and knocks half a dozen books through to the other side of the shelf.
They freeze, listening. When they don’t hear anything, they relax and start picking up the books. “We’re going to get ourselves kicked out of the New York Public Library,” Davey says.
“Yeah? You think that might make us miss our guy?”
“Well—yeah,” Davey says.
“No, it won’t,” Jack says, picking up a book, “because I have him right here.”
“Oliver Twist; or, the Parish Boy’s Progress,” Davey reads. “Of course! I should have remembered it was called this.”
“So what, we check this out?” Jack says.
“I don’t know how that’s going to help.” Davey pulls out the coded letter again. “Maybe there are more clues here.”
Jack leans back against the shelf while Davey pores over the letter. This place is kind of messy, for someplace so fancy. There are a couple of pieces of paper under the bookshelf in front of him. “Oh, hey,” he says, picking one up. “Look.” It’s a card, like a bookmark, with more of the handwriting from the coded letter.
Davey takes it. “What? How did you find this?”
“It was just on the floor there.”
“This is amazing.”
“Aw, you’re just trying to make me feel better for not getting to make it with you in a public library.”
“Jack!” Davey’s cheeks are pink, but he’s biting down on a grin. “I think it fell out of one of the books. Look, there’s one in this copy.”
“So what is it? Do we get a prize?”
“t’s more of the same code,” Davey says. “It says, ‘Go…talk to…Shiner’? That can’t be right. Why are you smiling?”
“Because,” Jack says, unfolding his arms, “I know who Shiner is, and we don’t have to go to any library for this one.”
#
It’s not close to dark yet, but the pool hall is already dim inside, hazy with lamplight through cigarette smoke. “I thought you said we were looking for a boot black,” Davey says. “Shouldn’t we be on a street corner somewhere?”
“Not this time of day,” Jack says. “Boot blacking is like selling papes—not worth doing much after noon. This is where they pitch their tents in the evenings.”
“OK,” Davey says, waving his hand in front of his face, “but does it have to be so hard to breathe?”
“That, my friend, is the smell of royalty.” Jack slaps Davey on the back. “Follow my lead.”
There’s a line of booths in the back of the hall, and one of them is crowded with half a dozen boys. Most of them are playing cards, but one of them, sharp-nosed and mellow-eyed, is lounging against the back corner of the booth. There’s a faint smile on his face that grows when Jack comes up to the table. “Ho, Shiner,” Jack says.
“Ho, Jack.” Shiner waves a hand at him, not bothering to reach across the table. “What brings you to this den of thieves?”
“Just hoping for a game, if you’ll do me the honor,” Jack says.
“Might do, might do,” Shiner says. “Give me a minute to finish up with the boys, yeah?”
Davey grabs Jack’s sleeve as he steps back from the table. “What are you doing?” he hisses. “We aren’t here for a game.”
“This is just how you do it,” Jack says. “You want something from the king, you have to play him at something.”
“Some king,” Davey says, looking back at the boys in the booth. “What does he rule, the poker game?”
“Hey now,” Jack says. “Shiner runs a good crew. Boot blacking ain’t like being a newsie—there’s no publisher above you telling you what you can and can’t sell for. It used to be chaos on the streets before Shiner took over. He’s the one gets them to all charge fair, stick to their territories, not push out the littler kids.”
“And they all listen to him, just like that?”
“Well, if they don’t, he takes care of them,” Jack says. “Where do you think he gets his name?”
Davey makes a face.
“What, you think he should just leave his guys out to dry?”
“It’s not that,” Davey says, though his face says it is that.
“Anyway, can it, here he comes,” Jack says.
Shiner‘s coming over with the balls and cues. “Let’s see what you’re made of, Kelly,” he says, putting a nickel on the edge of the table.
Jack’s played Shiner a couple of times, and it’s always a good time. Jack doesn’t have much of a chance of winning—not when Shiner practically lives in a pool hall—but he can hold his own. He lasts a half-dozen turns, anyway, and concedes his five cents when Shiner finally knocks the last stripe into the pocket. “You’ve been practicing,” Shiner says.
It’s not true, but it means Jack’s passed muster. “Not enough,” Jack says. “Gonna have to get down here more often.”
“You’re welcome any time,” Shiner says mildly.
Jack leans on his pool cue. “Say, Shiner, we wanted to talk to you. Seemed like you might have something to give us.”
It’s a vague opening, and he doesn’t expect Shiner to get it. But Shiner nods right away. “So you’re one of those. Yeah, I got something for you.” He digs in his pocket and pulls out a stack of cards. He hands them one: stiff, the same kind of paper as the card that was in Oliver Twist. “That what you’re looking for?”
“Yeah, thanks,” Jack says. He gives wide eyes to Davey, who’s tugging on his sleeve again. Davey jerks his head in the direction of Shiner and the cards. “What, you want a second one?” Jack asks him.
Davey heaves a sigh. “Shiner,” he says. “You don’t happen to know where these come from, do you?”
Shiner shrugs. “Damned if I know. Some old rich nut gave me a whole stack of them, with five dollars if I’d give them out to any kid who came asking. Told me they wouldn’t make any sense to me unless I read a paper this week.” He laughs. “He was right about that part, at least.”
Jack tilts the card to look at it in the hazy light. It isn’t nonsense letters this time: just nonsense marks. Like an alphabet in a different language. “Well, thanks anyway,” he says.
“Whatever good it does you,” Shiner agrees, shaking his hand goodbye.
“So that’s four steps that we’ve found, so far,” Davey says to Jack as they head out of the pool hall. “This rich guy, whoever he is, he puts an ad in the paper, then leaves a trail for kids to follow. Bookmarks in all the copies of Oliver Twist at the public library, then these cards for Shiner to hand out. I bet he replaced the letter in the Garment District, too, after we left. And if we can figure out this clue—”
“I think maybe we shouldn’t.”
“What?” Davey gawks at him as they step out onto the sidewalk. “Why?”
Jack moves his shoulders restlessly. “What do we know about this guy, really?”
Davey frowns at him. “You think it’s some kind of trap?”
“Not that, probably.” Jack kicks a heel against the front of the building, trying to pin down what’s making him so uneasy. “It’s just, this guy has us running all over town, following his notes. Who knows why he does it. For fun, maybe. Well, why should we be his fun?”
“It’s not—Jack, it’s not about that.” Davey puts his hand on Jack’s arm. “Or maybe it is, but we don’t know that. It’s a mystery. It could mean anything.”
“Yeah, anything that he wants it to.” Jack can hear that he sounds annoyed, but he can’t help it: this gives him a bad feeling. “Come on, let’s forget about it. It’s almost time for dinner anyway.”
“Yeah, listen to your boyfriend,” another voice says, and Jack snaps his head up. Two boys are by the steps of the pool hall, leering at them.
“What do you know about it?” Jack asks, straightening up.
“Enough to know you’re not going to win,” the boy says. He’s a big guy, at least their age, with the kind of mean smile Jack normally associates with the Delancey brothers. He’s holding what looks like a whole handful of the bookmarks they saw in Oliver Twist.
“Hey,” Davey says, “you weren’t supposed to take all of those.”
“What’re you gonna do about it, nancy-boy, have your boyfriend beat us up?” The other one, with a little piggy face, laughs. “You should listen to him. You two kids stand about as much chance as a fart in a windstorm.”
“We got here faster than you did, didn’t we?” Jack calls, but they’re already disappearing into the pool hall, giving him mocking little salutes. “What a pair of schmucks,” he says to Davey. “What even makes them think there’s something to win?”
“I think there is.” Davey pulls out the original letter. “This does talk about finding something.”
“Yeah, or that’s what the rich guy wants us to believe,” Jack says, sticking his hands in his pockets. “Who knows what he really has us doing this for.”
“Well,” Davey says, “we can always go home instead of finding out.”
Davey’s baiting him a little, but Jack doesn’t care. “Hell, no,” he says, glaring in the direction of the other two. “Let’s beat the pants off those guys.”
#
It’s almost time for Davey to be home, so they go to Bryant Park to work on the new puzzle. “Don’t know how we’re gonna, this one ain’t even letters,” Jack says.
“I think it is, though,” Davey says. “Look.” He takes the card Shiner got them and lines it up with the bottom of the original letter, where there’s a series of other nonsense marks Jack hadn’t paid attention to before. Davey moves the card around a little, trying it in different spots, until suddenly there are complete letters looking up at Jack.
“Would you look at that,” Jack says. “See, this is why those other guys aren’t going to win. They don’t have you.”
“Shut up,” Davey says, elbowing him, and Jack would maybe reach for him, but there’s an old lady glaring at them from the opposite bench. “What do you think it means, though?”
Jack looks at the line of text. Yes, German corn with me—it possesses an eatery Friday June 20 9:00 P.M. “Far as I can tell,” he says, “nothing. You sure this rich guy doesn’t just want to torture us?”
“It must be some other kind of code,” Davey says. “What’s ‘corn’ in German?”
Jack snorts. “What do I look like, a wisenheimer? The only German I know is ‘ja’ and ‘nein.’”
“‘Ja,’” Davey repeats. “Wait a minute. That’s yes in German. Maybe it starts with ‘ja.’”
“Maybe it’s my name,” Jack jokes.
“Maybe it’s my name,” Davey says. Then he snaps his fingers. “Jack. That’s it. It’s my name.”
“You think this rich guy sent you a puzzle where the answer is your own name?”
“No, not my name—but Jacob. Ja-cob. That’s ‘Yes, German corn.’” Davey’s grinning.
“So, what, we look for some guy named Jacob who’s friends with this rich guy?”
“No, we look for—oh. Jack.” Davey looks up, laughing. “We don’t look for a person at all. See?”
Jack looks down at the clue he’s holding out. “What? Looks the same to me.”
“Not Jacob. Jacobi. That’s Jacob with ‘me.’ And it possesses an eatery—”
“Jacobi’s Deli,” Jack says. “Well. You might be onto something there. You think old man Jacobi is in on this?”
“I don’t know, but I know we’d better be at his deli tomorrow night at nine if the want to find out.”
“I can go,” Jack says. “I’ll see what’s up, bring you the clue.”
“What? Are you crazy? I’m not missing this,” Davey says. “You don’t still think it’s dangerous, do you?”
“No—well, probably not,” Jack says. “I was just thinking, nighttime. Your folks.”
“Aw, they won’t care.”
“You always say they’ll worry if—”
“Yeah, but I’ll show my dad these. He’ll love it. They won’t mind, for a special occasion.”
Jack drags his lower lip through his teeth. “Right.”
Davey gives him a sidelong glance. “You OK?”
“Yeah. ’Course.” Jack squints at the clock tower in the distance. “Hey, you should be getting home for dinner.”
“Oh, yeah. You coming?”
“Nah, not tonight.”
“You sure? My ma—”
“Nah, you go home and show the puzzles to your pop. I’ll be OK.”
Davey looks at him, a crease between those eyebrows Jack didn’t get to touch hardly at all today. “You sure you’re OK?” he asks. When Jack nods, Davey casts a glance at the woman across from them, then darts in to press a kiss to Jack’s cheek. “See you tomorrow,” he says, and Jack sits and watches as he hurries out of the park for home.
#
He slouches south once Davey’s gone, heading for his own dinner alone.
It’s his own fault. He doesn’t know why he can’t just take things when Davey offers them. He gets all tangled up in his head, thinking about all the other things, the ones they probably can’t have, and then he can’t enjoy even the things they do. Talk about stupid. Jack’s got to be the dumbest guy who ever lived.
Just as well that he’s going to Jacobi’s, though. He wants to check it out before tomorrow night. Not that there’s anything to see that Jack hasn’t seen a hundred other times—but he’s always been good at having feelings about people. He wants to take a look at Jacobi knowing what he does about this thing tomorrow night and see what feeling he gets about him.
Jacobi isn’t there when Jack comes through the door, but Crutchy is, sitting on a booth and waving as soon as he sees Jack. “Hiya, Jack,” he says. “Wanna eat with me?”
Crutchy has a glass of water in front of him. If Jack wanted to bet, he would put money on Crutchy not having any other food coming. “Yeah, sure. Hey, bring us two cheeseburgers,” he says, handing the waitress some of the handful of coin that didn’t end up in Davey’s pocket for the Jacobs.
“Gee, Jack, you don’t have to do that,” Crutchy says.
Jack waves him off. “Had a good day today.”
“Yeah, you went around with Davey, right?” Crutchy says. “I bet that was good. He’s real sharp.”
His eyes are big like they always are. Sometimes Jack wonders how much the other guys know about how things are between him and Davey. Crutchy, at least, has to guess. Sometimes Jack thinks—things could be different. There’s so much he can do for Crutchy. It wouldn’t be Jack standing between Crutchy and opportunity; all the opportunities Crutchy would have would come from Jack’s hands. But Crutchy isn’t the one who makes him want to stay, and stay, and stay.
“Yeah, it was kind of a weird day, actually,” Jack says, and he tells Crutchy about the puzzles, and the visit to Shiner, and the kids they saw outside the pool hall.
“That sounds like Punch and Dreck,” Crutchy says. “They didn’t beat you up, did they?”
“Nah. Should they have?”
Crutchy nods solemnly. “They beat a lot of kids up. They work in construction over on Seventh, and if you cross them there, sometimes you don’t end up beat up. You end up at the bottom of a foundation ditch instead.”
“Jesus,” Jack says. “I didn’t know they were that bad.”
“Well, that’s what the kids say, anyway,” Crutchy says. “You gotta beat those guys.”
“Yeah, yeah, we’re trying,” Jack says. “Well, Davey’s trying, anyway.”
“He sure is lucky to have you helping him,” Crutchy says, giving him those big eyes again. It probably should make Jack feel better about himself, but it doesn’t.
“Crutchy, hey.” Mr. Jacobi lands a hand on his shoulder. “Good to see you getting some food into you.”
“My friend Jack got it for me,” Crutchy says.
Jack forces a smile. “Hey, Mr. Jacobi. You’re having some kind of meeting here tomorrow night, right?”
Mr. Jacobi’s face goes blankly neutral. “Hm? Oh, I don’t know.”
“You don’t know what’s happening in your own deli?”
“Well, someone rented the space out, yeah,” Jacobi says. “But I don’t know who.”
“Some old guy, rich, right?” Jack says. “Any idea what he wants?”
“Someone rents my deli, I don’t ask,” Jacobi says. “Hope you enjoy your meals, boys.”
Jack watches his retreating back with narrowed eyes.
#
“I’m telling you, he knew something,” Jack says the next day.
“And I’m telling you, again, that’s not necessarily a bad thing,” Davey says. “Mr. Jacobi is good people, right? He’s nice to Crutchy, and he was nice to us during the strike. He’s one of the few places that doesn’t kick newsies out when we can’t afford to buy anything.”
“Doesn’t mean this is a good thing we’re walking into,” Jack says.
“Hey, you want to walk away, just say the word,” Davey says. “I won’t even tell anybody that you’re chicken.”
“Lay off, I am not,” Jack says, shoving him. Davey laughs, and Jack shoves him a little more, in a way that might turn into something else if they weren’t in a crowded street.
“Anyway,” Davey says, “my folks know where I am. So if anything goes wrong, they’ll know where to look for us.”
Jack doesn’t have anything to say to that, so he shoves his hands in his pockets and keeps going.
The door is locked when they get to Jacobi’s, with a sign on it that says Closed—private party. “Guess we’re a party now,” Davey says.
Jack leans against the storefront. “I still don’t like it.”
“Yeah, and I still don’t know why not,” Davey says.
Jack shrugs. There’s all sorts of reasons, but not a lot he can put words behind. “I just don’t think grownups should be in charge of what happens to kids, is all.”
“Why not?” Davey asks. “Don’t they usually know more than we do?”
“You kidding? They don’t know anything,” Jack says. “Not about being kids.”
“But they were kids once,” Davey says. “Some of them not that long ago.”
“Right, so you’d figure they’d remember, but you’d be dead wrong,” Jack says. “They don’t know crap about it. Just, tellin’ us to go back to school, like we can do that so easy, or tryna reunite us with our parents like that’s a good thing always. Even when they’re just givin’ us bread, they act like it’s changing our lives or something, and it ain’t. It’s just keeping us from being hungry for a day.”
“Isn’t that better than nothing, though?”
“Yeah, but for all the ones who give us bread, there are ten like—well, like Pulitzer,” Jack says. “Thinkin’ they can walk all over us just because we’re kids. And who stood up and stopped him when he did that? Not the other grownups, that’s for sure. They’re too busy givin’ us bread. It’s kids who have to stand for kids.”
Davey leans against the storefront next to him, shoulders touching. “Do you think I’m letting the kids down by playing this rich guy’s game?”
“Nah,” Jack says. “Just, let’s not let him tell us what to do.”
“If it ain’t little Nancy and her boyfriend.” One of the bullies saunters up. Punch, Jack decides. Dreck is right behind him with his piggy little face.
“So I guess you learned to read,” Jack says to them. “Congratulations. Or did you have someone read the clue out loud to you?”
Punch’s face darkens. “Sounds like you’re asking for someone to make it harder for you to read anything ever again.”
“Watch it,” Davey says, looking the door. There’s a clattering sound as the chain is undone and the door swings open.
Punch and Dreck push inside first. The inside of the deli is emptier than usual, most of the chairs up on the tables. Jacobi is there—not meeting Jack’s eyes—but no one else. “Can’t be him,” Jack whispers to Davey. “Shiner said rich.”
“Maybe he was in disguise,” Davey says doubtfully.
A few other kids file in. A couple bike messengers. Some garment carriers, a few years younger, who give Jack and Davey polite nods. A handful he doesn’t know, all sorts of sizes, including this one kid who’s so small he can’t get his own chair down and has to wait for Jacobi to do it.
Jack feels bad for that one. He looks like he hasn’t had a square meal in a few weeks. Makes Jack feel bad for what he said about bread.
Davey nudges him suddenly, and Jack looks up to see someone who wasn’t there before, standing in front of the bar.
Shiner’s description was right on. This guy is old and round and wrinkled with a few wisps of white hair left on his head, and he’s wearing a suit and waistcoat that look nicer than most of what Jack sees on the street every day. He even has one of those little gold monocles and a gold-topped cane. He doesn’t stay anything, just stands there, and over the next few moments the room falls gradually quiet.
“I thank you all for coming,” he says finally, when it’s completely silent. He has a crackly old voice full of rounded vowels of the kind Jack imitates when he’s making fun of rich people. “I am glad to see my puzzles were not too difficult.”
“Not for us,” Punch calls out.
“Just so,” the man says, toasting him with his cane. “You see, I did not want just anyone sitting in this room tonight. I wanted the cream of the crop of the children of New York, those who could both notice my puzzles and solve them. That demonstrates curiosity, resourcefulness, and initiative. And, of course, intelligence.”
Jack shifts uncomfortably in his chair. He wonders if anyone will be able to tell that he wasn’t the one to solve the puzzles.
“These are all qualities that I value highly, for they have made me what I am today. Let me introduce myself: I am Montague M. Wickinbotham. You may not be familiar with that name. I have kept my business activities deliberately quiet for the last few decades. But I assure you that I am one of the ten or twenty richest men in the city.”
“Is this guy for real?” Jack whispers to Davey.
“Sh.” Davey nudges him.
“I am rich,” the man says, “in all but family. And that is where you come in.”
Jack feels the attention of the room sharpen.
“You see, I have but a few years left to live, and when I die, I have no one to pass my fortune on to. In short,” the man says, “I seek an heir. This heir must be of the highest caliber, worthy to inherit my millions. And he must be a child: one of the most brilliant children in the city. One of you, in other words. I will choose one of you, and raise you above the masses.”
The kids in the room shift eagerly. One of you, Jack thinks, stomach sinking.
Wickinbotham spreads his arms to encompass the room. “You may be asking yourselves if this can possibly be true, but I assure you, my desire is quite genuine. I wish for one of you to become the companion to my old age. I will travel the world with you, send you to the best schools in Geneva and Zurich, and groom you to take over my business. All you must do is become the first to complete my final challenge.”
There are low murmurs running through the room. And now Jack starts to become aware of another element of the room: danger. Almost all these kids came here in groups.
“Our host will distribute the final puzzle. Mr. Jacobi, if you would be so kind?”
Jacobi stands up with a pile of printed sheets. The kids eye him like sharks at feeding time.
Mr. Wickinbotham gives an elegant bow. “Godspeed to you all. I look forward to the results.”
He disappears out the back, but Jack barely notices. His full attention is on the crowd. It’s going to erupt into chaos any moment now, and he’s already balancing his weight to jump in or out—whichever is going to result in the least bloodshed. If he gets some of the younger ones out with him—
“I think I know how to do this,” Davey says at his shoulder.
“Glad someone does,” Jack says grimly. “Did you see where that really little kid went?”
“Look, the words go into a grid.”
Jack does a double-take. “What are you talking about?”
“The puzzle. I think the first clue—”
“We’re not going to solve the puzzle,” Jack says.
“Of course we are,” Davey says. “Look, here’s your copy.”
“Were you listening to the same speech I was?” Jack says.
“Someone wants to give us millions of dollars. Yes, I was paying very close attention.”
Jack goggles at him. “Are you telling me you actually want—”
“I’ll take that, thank you,” Punch says, grabbing the puzzle right out of Jack’s hands.
Jack rounds on him. He’d probably have attacked him, maybe returned a few of his namesakes, but Jacobi barrels into them and drives them apart. “Out, out,” he says loudly. And then, in a lower voice to Jack. “Come back tomorrow for another copy of the puzzle if you need to. Tell the other kids.”
So someone realized the kind of chaos Mr. Wouldn’t-Bother was spreading with this puzzle business. Jack snatches a look over Jacobi’s shoulder: the garment district kids are already fighting with the bicycle messengers, sheets of paper tearing and scattering in the air. Jack missed his moment to defuse the situation, too distracted by Davey.
Davey, who’s facing off against Punch himself now. “Come on,” Jack says, and grabs Davey out from under the punch Punch is about to throw.
“Hey, hold it!” Punch shouts after them as they race for the door. “You two, come back here with that—”
Jack lets the door slam in his face. “Shove it up your rear,” he shouts, and they sprint up the block.
They make it a few blocks and then collapse, panting, against the side of a building. Jack casts a cautious eye around the corner, but there’s no one coming; Punch and Dreck must’ve found other victims to pursue. He sags against the brick and closes his eyes.
“I kept my copy,” Davey says.
Jack pops his eyes open. Davey is standing in front of him, brandishing the paper. “So what?” Jack says.
Davey makes a face like he doesn’t know what Jack is on about. “So, we don’t have to go back to Jacobi’s tomorrow to get a new one. We can start solving it now.”
“You really want to solve that thing,” Jack says.
“Of course. Jack, it’s even better than we thought it was going to be. It’s millions of dollars—”
“And a private education in Zurich.”
“Well, yeah, but we can work around that.”
“Oh, really?” Jack crosses his arms over his chest. “Just how do you think we’ll work around that?”
“It’s not important. Not compared to millions of dollars.”
“Right, and it doesn’t matter that we’d have to become some rich guy’s kid to do it.”
Davey tips his head back, exasperated. “Look, I’m not saying I wouldn’t love a private education in Zurich, but I’m not going to let him—”
“Hang on.” Jack pushes off the wall. “Who says it would be you?”
“Jack,” Davey says.
“No, really.” Jack’s pulse is loud in his temples. “Why wouldn’t it be me who gets the private education in Zurich and wherever?”
“I’m the one who solved the puzzles,” Davey says.
“Like hell you did,” Jack says. “I helped.”
“Sure, yeah, you helped,” Davey says.
“I noticed the mirror thing. And the bookmark. And Shiner, you wouldn’t have found him without me—”
“He’s pretty well known,” Davey says. “I think I could’ve asked around.”
“Well, you didn’t have to, did you? Because I did it for you.”
“Jack,” Davey says, in a gentle voice that’s somehow worse than anything else. “It’s not about that. We’re talking about schools. They won’t take someone who—well. You have to have a certain level of education first.”
“That’s not what the guy said,” Jack says. “He said, whoever solved the puzzle—”
“That’s not what I’m talking about,” Davey says. “I’m just saying, if we’re talking about which of us would go to those schools—”
“Fuck you,” Jack says, twisting away from the hand Davey tries to put on his shoulder. “You’re not in school right now either. You’re out on the streets making money just like I am, and you would have been a failure at that too if I hadn’t helped you out. Remember that, when you’re trying to tell yourself you’re better than me, because you’re not.”
He doesn’t wait around to see what Davey will say to that. He storms off into the night.
#
Jack manages to stay mad all the way to his fire escape, and then he starts feeling like the biggest jerk in the world.
What’d he have to go and say that stuff for? He didn’t mean it, not really. Davey’s a smart guy; he would’ve found a way to support his family without Jack’s help.
“Because you’re a jerk, that’s why,” he mutters, flopping down on the slats. He said that because he’s a jerk. And because—
Because Davey was telling the truth, and Jack didn’t want to hear it.
The truth, plain and simple, is that Davey is better than Jack. Jack’s always known it. He’s been counting his lucky stars for weeks that a guy like Davey would see anything worth having in a guy like him. Davey’s the one with an education and a family who loves him, maybe not all the money in the world, but all the other stuff that matters, and Jack’s known since day one that he’s punching above his weight class here. All the stuff Davey gets from Jack, he could get so much easier somewhere else, and Jack’s just been waiting for him to realize it.
Well, now he’s gone and made it nice and clear for him.
What a louse Jack is, arguing back there, when he should have been telling Davey that this is the best thing in the world for him. Money, and a fancy important guy who’ll give Davey all the stuff he deserves. Hell, Davey deserves even more than that—he deserves anything the world can give him. Jack was just hoping—well. He was hoping he’d get a little longer, is all.
Jack conjures the picture in his mind. Davey in a three-piece suit, like a junior version of one of the bankers who are always hurrying down Wall Street. He’d turn those bright eyes and eager face on grown-ups who would smile down at him and be glad to listen, just like the lady in the library. He’d come home from boarding school in Switzerland and go to offices where he’d learn how to manage a million-dollar business with other important people like himself. He’d try to make time for Jack, too, because he’d want to be nice about it, but it wouldn’t be the same. Jack would sit there uncomfortably in his shabby clothes, and they’d try to talk, but they wouldn’t have anything in common anymore. Eventually Davey would stop trying. And that’s the way it should be. He’d be in the life he deserved now, and Jack wouldn’t have any place in it.
Hell. Maybe Davey would buy him a train ticket to Santa Fe.
It’s another hour or so before Davey shows up on the fire escape. He stops on the ladder, not quite climbing up. “OK if I come up?” he asks.
Jack waves a hand. He’s not really surprised to see him; he did come to the one place Davey knows to find him. But he’s still not sure he believed he would come.
“I came to apologize,” Davey says.
That gets Jack to raise his head. “What d’you have to apologize for?”
“Are you kidding? Jack, I was a complete heel back there,” Davey says. “I shouldn’t’ve said any of that. Not about education, not about—”
“Naw, look, I was being a jerk.” Jack sits up. “You were right. You should solve that puzzle and get all that stuff.”
“No, I wasn’t right,” Davey says. “I was acting like I deserved it when I don’t.”
“You do so—”
“No more than you do,” Davey says.
“Come on,” Jack says. “I didn’t even want to look at the puzzles. I would never have gotten there without you.”
“That’s the thing,” Davey says. “I wouldn’t have gotten there without you, either. You saw things I didn’t, and you knew Shiner. Even if I found him, I wouldn’t have been able to talk to him the way you did. Let’s face it, you’d be so much better at running a business empire than I would. You should have the millions, and I should be down the hall in some tiny office, balancing the books.”
“You should not, either.”
“No, it’s true.” Davey’s giving him that look, the one Jack can’t resist, and it’s too much right now. “You lead people, Jack. I can do it a little, when you show me how, but you’ve got a gift for it.”
“Nah, I don’t.” Jack ducks his head. “I just see what people wanna say, and then I say it louder sometimes, is all.”
“And you make things happen. You made it possible for Les to go back to school. You do that kind of thing—you make life better for everyone around you.”
“If you think that means I should become some rich kid and go to Switzerland—”
“No, I know,” Davey says. “It’s a bad idea. For either of us. But here’s the other thing: I think we should do it anyway.”
Jack squints at him. “How’s that?”
“It’s what you were talking about before,” Davey says. “All the kids who need help, real help. Not just bread handouts, or what adults think we need. The kids need someone with power who knows what they really need. And if we do this, we’ll be the ones with power. We won’t need to wait for Teddy Roosevelt to show up to make sure things are OK. We’ll be Teddy Roosevelt ourselves.”
“Or one of us will be.”
“No,” Davey says. “Both of us will. Because we make a deal right now, that whatever one of us gets, the other one has it, too.”
He holds out a hand. Jack looks at him for a second. “For real?”
“You think I’m joking?”
“I think you might want to think twice before you get stuck with someone like me,” Jack says.
“Too late,” Davey says. “I’ve thought about it, and I’ve made up my mind. I’m yours, Jack Kelly. What d’you say—will you have me?”
Jack looks at his outstretched hand. Then he takes it, and pulls him in, and pulls him in further than that. “Deal,” he says against Davey’s lips. “But no school in Switzerland.”
Davey pulls back with a laugh. “Come on, we’re Jack and Davey. We convinced Pulitzer and Hearst to change the entire system of newspaper prices. You don’t think we can convince one rich guy that he doesn’t want to send us to school in Switzerland?”
“Fair,” Jack says. “That is fair. Now let’s see this million-dollar puzzle.”
#
The sun is coming up by the time they have a plausible answer to the puzzle. “I still think it could be forty seventeen,” Jack says.
“No, look, the street name is all the way over to the right,” Davey says. “I think we have read the hidden words from left to right. Otherwise it would be Street Wooster.”
Jack looks down at the grid, with their guesses scribbled in and crossed out in places. Whose crazy idea was it to have words use each other’s letters like that? “OK, but only because I don’t want to do this any longer.”
They make their way down to Wooster Street in the light of a mid-June sunrise. 1740 is a few blocks south of Houston, between Spring and Broome, and it’s nothing like the first address they went to: it’s one of a row of elegant townhouses, impeccably kept up, with gleaming stone steps and tidy flowers growing in the window boxes. Jack gives Davey a look.
“Let’s try the door,” Davey says.
The door swings open at a touch. It’s Davey’s turn to give Jack a look. “Yeah, yeah,” Jack says.
The inside is just as fancy as the outside. Jack gets a glimpse of a plush sitting room and a dining room with a polished wood table as they cross the marbled foyer. “Just remember, we might be too late,” Davey says. “Even if this is the right place.”
“Gotta be,” Jack says. “No other way we walk into a place like this without being arrested.”
The staircase to the third floor is simple wood. “The door on the right,” Davey says, looking at the puzzle instructions. There are only two doors; Jack opens the right one to find a sparse little bedroom, just like in the line drawing at the top of the puzzle.
Except that this room already has someone in it.
It’s the little kid from Jacobi’s Deli, the one who was barely tall enough to tie his own shoelaces. He’s standing on a wooden chair, stretching to try to reach the top shelf of a cabinet, where there’s a piece of paper with a ribbon around it. A piece of paper that’s worth millions of dollars and all of their dreams coming true. He’s straining for it, can’t quite get his fingers to connect.
Jack looks at Davey. Davey gives him a heavy nod and tips his head toward the kid. Go ahead.
Jack takes a step into the room. “Hey there,” he says, and the kid startles and almost falls off the chair. Jack catches him with a hand to the back, and reaches up for the final piece of paper. “Looked like you were having trouble with this,” he says, holding it out to the kid.
The kid looks up at him with eyes like saucers. “B-but you got it.”
“Nah,,” Jack says. “You were here first. Besides, not like I solved it alone.” He winks at Davey, who gives him an unimpressed look.
The little kid takes the rolled-up paper, cautiously, like he thinks Jack is about to snatch it away again. “Thanks, mister.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Jack says. “Now get out of here. Oh, and, uh, make sure to stay away from construction sites, OK?”
The little kid nods and makes a dash for the door. Jack follows more slowly and puts his arm around Davey’s waist. Davey tips his head against Jack’s, and together, they watch the kid run down the stairs.
“You think Punch and Dreck will give him trouble?” Davey asks.
“Nah,” Jack says. “He’ll be in school in Switzerland.”
“Sounds pretty awful,” Davey says.
“For sure,” Jack says. “Terrible time. Besides, you can get all the education you need just from reading the New York papers.”
He takes Davey’s hand, and together they make their way slowly out of the townhouse. It’s properly morning now, the sun bright in the sky. Once on the street, they can’t hold hands anymore, but they walk close together, their arms bumping.
They should be in Herald Square soon, picking up the day’s papes. But business is always slow to start on a Saturday. They can afford to take their time.
They’re almost at 10th Street when they hear a commotion in the street, horses neighing and people shouting. They turn to see a carriage careening up University Place with a boy hanging out the window: the little boy from the townhouse. “There they are!” he shouts, pointing at them.
The carriage jolts to a stop next to the curb, facing into traffic. The driver ignores the angry shouts and gets down to open the door. Out steps Mr. Montague M. Wickinbotham himself, in a white linen morning suit. “These two?” he says to the little kid, who nods vigorously.
“Is there a problem?” Jack asks, stepping forward.
“On the contrary,” Wickinbotham says. “May I ask, which of you boys is responsible for solving my puzzles?”
Jack and Davey look at each other. “Jack did most of—” Davey starts to say.
“We both did,” Jack says, quelling him with a look. He’s going to have to do some reinforcing of that what’s mine is yours agreement, he can tell.
“Hm. Two of you,” Wickinbotham says. “It wasn’t my initial thought, but I think it could work out nicely.”
“You…want to adopt both of us?” Davey asks. Jack casts a doubtful look at the little kid, who’s still clutching the piece of paper.”
“Oh, no, I don’t want to adopt anybody,” Wickinbotham says. “That was just a story to get you children interested.”
Jack’s eyebrows go up.
“That’s a pretty mean trick to play on people,” Davey says.
“Yeah, what about this kid here?” Jack says. “He won fair and square.”
“Young Frank has been well paid for his labors,” Wickinbotham says. “You see, I have no interest in an heir because I am already planning to give my money away to charity. But not just any charity: I want to create a charity that will help the children of New York. You may not be aware, but recently there was a very persuasive paper put out advocating for a children’s march—”
“Jack led that march,” Davey says quickly.
“Along with Davey,” Jack says.
“Did you? Well then, you may be even closer to the ideal than I thought,” Wickinbotham says. “That paper of yours opened my eyes to the need for an organization that will advocate for the children who provide so much of the labor in the city. Some further inquiries persuaded me of the profound ignorance of most adults on this subject. It soon became clear to me that if I was to start this charity, I could not lead it myself, nor could I hand it to any of the powerful people of my acquaintance. I needed an entirely different sort of leadership: I needed a child.”
“So you put the advertisement in the newspaper,” Davey says, nodding like that makes sense.
Jack gives them both a baffled look. “Why couldn’t you just ask for what you were looking for? Why all the weird tricks?”
“The person I chose needed to be both clever and familiar with the conditions of the children on the streets,” Wickinbotham says. “My puzzles were designed to assess those attributes. I hired young Frank here to weed out another type of person: those who are good at convincing others of their high moral character when they know they are being observed by those in power. I wanted the children who entered that townhouse to be convinced that a smaller child was all that stood between themselves and a lifetime of riches. You were not the first to solve the puzzle.”
“I got five dollars,” Frank says proudly.
“So, you want us to work for you?” Davey says to Wickinbotham.
“On the contrary,” Wickinbotham says, “I want you to work for yourselves. I intend to provide you with the funds to start an advocacy organization. The agenda would be your own, though I would serve on the board in an advisory capacity. I have connections and experience that will no doubt be useful to you.”
Davey looks at Jack. “We could get all the kids to start unions.”
“Yeah, if this guy is for real.” Jack looks at Wickinbotham. “No offense, but you’re some kinda crackpot.”
“I assure you,” Wickinbotham says, “my intentions are entirely genuine.”
“So you don’t care if we start a kids’ union and use your money for a strike fund,” Jack says.
“Well, not just that,” Davey says. “We have to think about the future. We can get the kids in school—”
“Not if they’re workin’—”
“Night school, then. We can set up special sessions.”
“And give them free stuff? ’Cause no one’s gonna wanna go otherwise—”
“Sure. Food if they show up. And housing. And maybe money for their families—”
“I take it this means you accept?” Wickinbotham cuts in.
Davey looks at him seriously. “We don’t have high school diplomas.”
“That is no impediment,” Wickinbotham says. “If you require further education, you will be able to obtain it.”
“And you don’t mind if we inconvenience some of those business buddies of yours?” Jack says. “’Cause we’re gonna, if we start this.”
“Nothing would make me happier,” Wickinbotham says.
Jack looks at Davey and shrugs. This guy is round the bend, but Jack isn’t going to say no. “I’m in if you’re in.”
“Marvelous!” Wickinbotham shakes their hands vigorously enough that Jack thinks his teeth are damaged. “Come by the office Monday morning, and I’ll give you an advance on your salary.”
“Salary?” Davey repeats.
“Well, of course,” Wickinbotham says. “You don’t think you wouldn’t be paid for this work, do you?”
“Right,” Jack says. It just never occurred to him that he might become a person who draws a salary.
Wickinbotham gets back in his carriage and resumes threatening traffic, Frank running after him like he might catch another five-dollar task that way. Jack and Davey look at each other and burst out laughing.
It’s not that anything’s funny, exactly. It’s just so ridiculous. “We’re gonna need suits,” Jack says. “We might even need briefcases. Can you picture it?”
“We’re gonna need more than that,” Davey says. He grabs Jack’s hand and starts pulling him uptown. “Come on.”
“Where are we going?” Jack asks.
Davey looks back at him with a smile that’s sweet and just a little bit shy. “To rent an apartment.”
Jack stops for a moment, dumbfounded. Now there’s a picture to knock him over the head seven days out of the week: him and Davey together in an apartment they share. Two beds, but only one that matters, and a big kitchen table where they can have dinner together before they go to sleep under the same roof. Every night of their lives, maybe. “Lead the way,” he says, and lets Davey pull him onward, into the new day.