Thieving Weasels - Billy Taylor Page 0,5

in the rearview mirror.

“We have a visitor,” I said, gripping the steering wheel tighter.

Uncle Wonderful glanced out the back window. “So we have.”

“What do you want to do?” I asked.

“What do you mean?”

“What’s our play? Is this car stolen?”

“I can’t seem to remember.”

“Stop messing around,” I said. “I’m using my good name here.”

Uncle Wonderful yawned. “You’re a big boy. You figure it out.”

This was why Uncle Wonderful had wanted me to drive, I realized. It was a test. I eased the car onto the shoulder and held out my hand.

“Okay,” I said. “Give me your insurance card and registration, and if you try anything funny I’m telling the trooper you abducted me. I’ll say I was getting money from a cash machine, and you put a gun to my head. There are at least ten people at Wheaton who will vouch for me, and two of them are retired judges. Who’s going to vouch for you, Uncle Wonderful? Your parole officer?”

The grin dropped from his face, and he handed over the registration and insurance card without a word. The paperwork said the car belonged to a Mr. Phillip Boylan of 421 Leprechaun Lane, Sayville, New York. The print job looked real, but the address was a joke. Leprechaun Lane? Why didn’t he just put down Impossible to Believe Lane?

I eyed the sideview mirror as the trooper climbed out of his cruiser. Normal mothers tell their kids they have only one chance to make a first impression; weasel moms tell theirs they only have one chance to size up a mark. The trooper put on his hat, and the first thing that struck me was his air of regimented formality. This said ex-military. More than that, his back was so straight you could have used it to draw a vector in geometry class. This said ex-Marine, and I knew my play. When the trooper got within a few feet of the car, I turned to Uncle Wonderful and yelled, “I don’t care what you say! When we get home I’m heading straight to the recruiting office and signing up!”

It took Uncle Wonderful less than a second to catch on. “The hell you are,” he yelled back.

“It’s what Dad would have wanted!”

“But your dad’s not here anymore, is he?”

I waited until the trooper was next to my window and said, “That’s right. He gave his life for this country so bums like you can criticize the people who put their very lives on the line for it.”

“License, registration, and proof of insurance, please,” the trooper growled.

I whipped my head around and shouted, “What?” The trooper’s eyes doubled in size, and before he could say another word I clapped a hand to my forehead. “Oh my God! I’m sorry, Officer. My uncle and I are arguing about me joining the Marines, and I kind of lost my head. Was I speeding or something?”

“License, registration, and proof of insurance, please.”

I handed over the paperwork, and the trooper marched back to his cruiser to run it through the computer. I figured the odds were fifty-fifty I’d be eating dinner in a jail cell.

“Why are you doing this to me?” I asked.

“You broke your mother’s heart. It’s only fair.”

“Fair? And it’s fair that you people won’t leave me alone?”

“You people?” he replied in disgust. “We’re your family, Skip. We’re all you’ve got.”

I thought about Claire and the life I’d created at Wheaton and said, “No, you’re not. You’re not even close.”

I glanced in the rearview mirror and tried to visualize what the trooper had seen when I handed over my license. Did he see the youngest member of a family of thieves, or just some skinny kid with a chipped front tooth and hair in need of a trim? I was hoping for the latter.

“Who’s Phillip Boylan?” the trooper asked, returning to the window.

“That would be me,” Uncle Wonderful replied.

“Do you know you have a taillight out, Mr. Boylan?”

“I’m sorry, Officer. I lent the car to my nephew here so he could drive girls around at the fancy school he goes to in Schuylerville.”

“Wheaton Academy?”

“That’s the one.”

The trooper looked at my license. “Seventeen years old. That makes you, what? A senior?”

“That’s right,” I said.

“And you’d rather join the Marines than graduate?”

“Yes, sir.”

He looked me up and down and said, “Joining the Corps is no picnic, son. It’s a major commitment.”

“I know. My father told me all about it.”

“Where did he serve?”

“A bunch of places: Haiti, Honduras, Djibouti. But he died in the Korangal Valley.”

“Afghanistan?”

I nodded. “Five