The Notorious Mrs. Wright

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

Cleveland, Ohio

December, 1979

I DIDN’T FEEL RIGHT doing it, but Ray said I had to if me and J.T. wanted to eat anytime soon. Ray was broke—again. All he had in his pocket was a couple of tens and some change. And he still owed last month’s rent on the rat hole we called an apartment.

“Please, Emma?” he asked, saying a couple hundred would be enough for groceries and to have the phone turned back on. “One pocket sting. Somethin’ to hold us over till I score big.”

Slouched next to me on the back seat of the beat-up Chevy, my kid brother let out a low snort and mumbled, “When pigs grow wings,” pretty much what I was thinking but was too chicken to say out loud. Like me, J.T.’s tired of all the bull. Ray’s been promising to pull a major scam as long as the two of us can remember, boasting he’ll get rich and find us a decent place to live, even quit thieving for good.

I gave up on “rich” years ago. These days I’d settle for just owning clothes that haven’t been worn by somebody else.

“C’mon, Princess,” Ray coaxed. “Ain’t nobody better than you at makin’ a drop.”

He smiled his thousand-watt smile, then reached back to pat me on the knee, a fatherly pat I guess you’d call it, but Ray Webster’s never been much of a father to me so I try not to think of him that way. Maybe once he could win me over with his syrupy talk. No more. I’m fifteen going on fifty, too old to fool.

Besides, I hate it when he calls me Princess. He only does that when he wants something.

Disgusted, I turned to the window where my breath fogged a circle on the cold glass and kept me from seeing out. I didn’t care. Nothing outside to see anyway except sad old buildings and dirty snow piled up on the curb.

We’d parked on Frankfort at the edge of the warehouse district, a place I wouldn’t be caught dead in after dark and don’t like visiting even in daylight. The area’s not any crappier than our neighborhood, but the old-lady disguise I had on made me an easy target for muggers.

That’s called irony, I think, but my grades in school suck, so I’m not sure.

The outfit is an old-timey dress, a coat with a fake fur collar and a hat with a big brim that sorta tilts back and has a short veil that dips across one side of my forehead. Pretty cool. The clothes came straight off the rack at the Salvation Army, but they’re classy, elegant even. I don’t look like I’ve stepped out of a mansion on Millionaire’s Row, but you wouldn’t think I was a bag lady, either.

I’d slipped the dress on over my sweatshirt and rolled-up jeans, then stuffed the middle with more clothes to round me out and give me a saggy top. Gloves cover my hands and forearms. Dark stockings hide my legs.

Since I needed wrinkles, I’d made a life mask out of foam latex to put over my face and neck. That part’s always a drag, two hours of baking, painting and gluing, but when I’m done—wow! There’s a gray wig over my dark hair. Artificial teeth force my mouth into a slight pucker. With the glasses and a walking cane, I look like somebody’s sweet, plump granny.

I call my lady Mrs. Abercrombie. She’s my favorite character, but I have others as good: a Puerto Rican woman in her forties, a twenty-something dancer, a fat maid with an attitude. The psychic and fortune-teller I do would fool anybody.

Pretending is fun. Anything’s better than being me. The bad part is ripping people off. And knowing I’m helping Ray, of course. I’d rather poke pencils in my eye than do that.

“Emma, Emma, Emma,” he said with an exaggerated sigh. He shook his head. “What’s got into you lately, girl? Ain’t like you to be so contrary.”

“I just don’t want to do it, Ray. Please, can’t we go home? I’m freezing to death.” Twenty-seven degrees, and the heap of rust that had brought us downtown didn’t have a heater. “Why can’t you lift some wallets instead?”

“Now, Em, you know this works better. Put a hand in a man’s pocket and even if you get away with it, he’s goin’ to the cops. Scam him, though, and he’ll keep his mouth shut. He’ll figure it’s his own fault for bein’ stupid.”

“Get Vinnie to play my part.”

“We need Vinnie to take the call. J.T. here can’t do it. He’s too little.”

J.T.’s twelve and already near big as Ray, but I knew what Ray meant. We needed a man’s voice to pull this off because of the supposed call to Cowell and Hubbard jewelry store a few blocks east on Euclid Avenue. A kid talking on the other end of the phone wouldn’t work.

Ray had asked his friend and sometime-partner Vinnie DeShazo to be that voice. We’d spent most of the day at Vinnie’s apartment, where I’d put on my granny clothes and made my mask.

His wife, Estelle, is the one who taught me about latex appliances and junk like that. She has a job in a funeral home making smashed-up dead people look right again. Creepy job, but the makeup works great for disguises. She lets me have all the free samples she gets from the salesmen, too, so usually I don’t have to fork out any money.

We’d dropped Vinnie off at a public phone before parking so he could wait for my call. He’d play the boss of the swindle.

A cap, a boss and a catch. Three people. That’s what Ray likes to use. As the cap, Ray’d find the victim and set him up for the sting. Vinnie as the boss—or in this case the voice—would make everything seem legit. Then, I’d make the catch. But in short cons like this, the cap can also play the catch. I told Ray that’s what he should do, and to leave me out of it.

“Now, Emma, I’ve taught you better than that. Who’s a mark more likely to trust, a strange man or a kindly grandma?”

“A grandma.”

“That’s right. Besides, I don’t have your touch. I might get caught again. You wouldn’t want that, now would you?”

Maybe I would, but I didn’t say it. The only times I could remember being happy were the months Ray’d been in jail.

“We could pawn something,” I suggested, desperate.

“Can’t. Ain’t got nothin’ left to pawn or fence. I’ve hit rock bottom, Princess. That’s the truth. And you know today’s the fifteenth.”

Yeah, I knew. Keel Motor Company paid its sales-people on the fifteenth and the thirtieth. Mama would expect Ray to come home with money from his check and some kind of Christmas bonus. Only…Ray hadn’t worked for Keel in almost two years.

I closed my eyes and tried to send myself somewhere warm and safe, where I didn’t have to decide between hurting my mama and breaking the law. I was almost there. A log fire burning in a cozy house…my toes stretched out toward the hearth…

A rumbly noise yanked me back to the cold car. J.T.’s stomach growled loud enough to wake the dead. We both giggled, not that it was funny but laughing helps sometimes when you’re stuck in hell.

He was hungry. Cripes, I was hungry! At least during the week we got a free lunch at school, but this was Saturday afternoon and all we had at home was a dented can of peas and a box of raisins. Knowing Ray, he’d throw them together and call it dinner.