Breakdown (Crash into Me) Page 15

  Auto theft on the rise in Boston

  Police throughout Cambridge are reminding the community to be more mindful of locking their car doors. A reminder that comes after an increase in auto theft throughout 2011.

  Since the beginning of the year there has been a 58% increase from 2010—a startling statistic that has many car owners taking extra precautions.

  “Most thieves are opportunists,” said Sgt. Albert Hill with the Middlesex County Police Department. “They look for cars that have been left on to warm up, vehicles in plain sight.”

  However, vehicle theft has come a long way from the days of teenagers stealing cars simply for the thrill of a joyride. One of the most common reasons for vehicle theft is the ability to generate profit from organized theft activities. And with the value of scrap metal on the rise, most of the vehicles are parted out before the owners even realize they are gone.

  Another increasingly popular reason why vehicles are stolen is related to street racing, an increasingly popular activity that only gets attention when there is a catastrophic crash. Many of the street racers fund their hobby with false police reports or auto insurance fraud. “Eventually, they often have to steal vehicles or component parts to continue racing. Thieves need parts to repair and replace damaged parts in racing. Now they race motorcycles and perform stunts for money,” said Hill.

  Police caution citizens to avoid approaching any suspicious activity and calling local authorities…

  The article unsettled me, but I still read on, startled to see so many Irish surnames and the crimes associated with it. I read articles about victims of carjacking, about the gangs in the five points of New York, about racketeering, and the increase flood of drugs in Boston. And with each article I kept seeing tags like organized crime, gang, and a group called the Black Saints. As much as I didn’t want it to, the cyber wormhole swallowed me easily, forcing a conclusion on me before I knew what was what. Yet why would William threaten to call the cops the night we met if he was a thief? Was he bluffing? I had never seen him make a bet at the races, so how did he afford his car? His tattoos? If his night job was what I thought I was, then it would explain damn near everything.

  5 Arrested in New England Crime Bust

  SOMERVILLE, RI

  The Rhode Island Department of Law Enforcement has announced the arrest of five people allegedly involved in the organized crime ring that has swept the northeast United States.

  With the help of local authorities throughout Rhode Island, the following individuals from North Providence have been charged in auto related thefts throughout New England and South Boston.

  Darragh Haywood

  Sean King

  Caleb Bartley

  Finnegan Abbot

  Declan Connor

  Authorities say search warrants issued out on Friday led to an abandoned garage where approximately $1.5 million in stolen vehicle parts were recovered. Despite rumors, investigators involved in the search have denied any direct links to the Black Saints.

  Authorities are still searching for two more suspects in the investigation.

  Though William’s name hadn’t been mentioned, I didn’t feel any relief, and the fact that there were two more suspects out there rotated around in my head as I read another article and another, the facts becoming hazed with my imagination. Still, every time I looked up anything relating to New England and crime, more and more I saw articles related to organized crime and the Irish.

  Maybe I was just getting ahead of myself.

  But I knew I wouldn’t be able to relax until I knew for sure.

  Chapter Thirteen

  For all the bluster I had, most of it dissolved when William opened the door and stood there bare-chested, with his sweatpants hanging low on his waist. I rubbed the insides of my wrists and tried to look away. When that failed, I flat out stared, wondering if I liked him better with clothes or without. Overall, it was a tough decision. On the positive side, I enjoyed the view very much. On the other hand, when he was wearing clothes at least I could form a tangible thought.

  “Hey,” Looking me over up and down, his eyes left mine briefly to look around and beyond me. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah.” What if I interrupted him when he was with one of his girlfriends? I blushed hard and looked away. “D-did I catch you at a bad time?”

  “No. Just watching TV. Are you sure you’re all right? You’re looking pretty pale.” His hand reached up and touched the end of my chin.

  I flinched and pulled away. “Yeah, can I come in?”

  “I don’t even know what you’re still doing out there.” Finally, his trademark smile shined though. “If we were home this time of year you would have frozen to death by now.”

  I walked in, pulling down my hood and smiling awkwardly. Thankfully, he had given me something of an opening. “Home. Right. You’re from the Boston area, right?”

  “Yeah.” William closed the door behind me, leaving us alone with the tension that floated between us. “Why?”

  I shrugged and began walking around the room, anything to divert my nervous energy. Maybe, however, in sensing what I was trying to do, William followed me, each step mimicking mine. “And your family is still there?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Were you a mechanic there too? Did you race there?” I looked over my shoulder to see him smile; he was so close to me I easily could have leaned in to kiss him if I wanted to. I shook the notion away and tried to remain reserved.

  “I’ve been working with cars my whole life, Jumper.”

  “Just fixing and racing them?”

  That set him back. Taking a full step away from me, I watched his face fall just a little, the smile that I loved so much dimming before it came back.

  “What’s with the questions, Jumper?” Though he laughed, it was more nervous than anything else, and I knew it wasn’t my imagination that heard it. “The trials were in Salem, not Boston. Just because I have magic fingers—”

  My rolling eyes cut him off. Once again, I saw him swallow hard and his lip twitch. I pretended not to notice by focusing in on one of the boxes of hot wheels I had seen during my first visit. “Just trying to get to know you better.”

  Soft and subtle, he leaned in close enough to whisper, “Oh yeah? And what is it you want to know?”

  I wanted to blurt all of it out right then and there, should have asked him everything that stewed in my brain on the way to his place and then some. Yet, for some reason, a sweep of cowardice came over me, and I didn’t know what else to do but cover it up with a joke.

  “Why you have so many toy cars?” I laughed awkwardly and picked up one of the hot-wheels from the top of the box. With my thumb, I made the wheels spin. “This is borderline creepy.”

  Reaching for the car in my hand, another flaming heart surrounded by shamrocks on his arm touched me, and I shivered involuntary. “Don’t be jealous of my hot wheel collection, Jumper. It doesn’t suit you. With enough time and patience you could have one too.”

  I picked up one that was easily older than us both and popped the little hood open.

  “That is one of my favorites.” William chuckled and demonstrated how the trunk opened similarly. “It was the last one my pop gave me.”

  “The last one?”

  “He died when I was still pretty little.”

  Unsure of how to continue, I moved from the box of toy cars to a scratched up night stand. Though I hadn’t noticed it before, my attention was turned towards the simple wooden picture frame, but more importantly, the faces I saw inside there. A red-headed woman and blond man sat on a truck bed with their hands intertwined. Standing behind them in direction from tallest to shortest, three freckled-faced and doe-eyed girls with a variety of strawberry-blond hair stood behind them, and the smallest of them all was a short but grinning blond boy with his two front teeth missing. From somewhere deep within me my soul gushed, and I picked up the frame to better study the grainy photograph.

  “Is this
your family?”

  “Yeah” William smiled proudly and pointed out each face from the other. “That’s Bridget, Cora, and Ashlyn.”

  I let my pinky finger float over the little boy with missing teeth. “I take it that’s you?”

  His smile evolved to full on smirk and my soul gushed more. Why, however, I didn’t really know.

  “You were adorable.”

  William pulled away as though I had burned him. “What do you mean were, Jumper?”

  I shook my head, placing the picture back on the table where I found it. Did he always flirt when he was nervous, or was it just with me? “Okay,” I admitted. “Maybe you do have your moments.”

  “Trying to get a compliment out of you is like pulling teeth you know that?”

  I handed him back the car. “I take it that’s a problem you’re not used to?”

  “With individuals from your gender?” Using both of his hands, he ran his hands through his hair. I didn’t think it was possible to be possible to be jealous of a set of hands, but there it was. “I can honestly say that hasn’t been an issue for me.”

  Summoning all my courage, I looked away from the cars and into his late summer eyes. I had rarely seen a temper in William, knew he only smoked when really agitated, and never even raised his voice. Nonetheless, I hadn’t known him that long either. Forget about laughing me out of his life, what if he did something more extreme?

  Then again, what else did I have to lose?

  “What else can you honestly say?”

  Shaking his head, William stepped to the other side of the room and rested his fists against the wall. While he seemed to be focusing on his beer bottle tree, I could tell otherwise. With his jaw tensed and eyes fixed on something very far away, if I hadn’t known any better, I would have said he was behind the wheel. It took a long moment before he finally spoke up.

  “You shouldn’t get involved in things that don’t involve you, Jumper.”

  “Why not?” I murmured. “You did.”

  Finally, he looked back at me, and my stomach flipped like it was on a trampoline. “I’ve told you before, you’re too smart to be doing stupid things.”

  “And here I haven’t even asked you about your other job.”

  He frowned and tapped his knuckles on the wall. “I don’t want to talk about that, Jumper. That was the reason I had to leave home, part of the reason my pop got himself killed—”

  I stepped up, tried for boldness. If I didn’t get the truth out of him now, I probably never would. “You can show me all the hot wheels and family photos you want, but I still won’t stop wondering what your other job is.”

  “Jumper—”

  “You don’t just race and fix cars, do you?”

  Settling himself to defeat, William sighed heavily and shook his head.

  “Are you a member of the Black Saints gang?”

  Torn between amused and angry, his expression was one I couldn’t read. “Who told you that?”

  I shrugged. If I looked as indifferent as possible would he be honest with me? “The internet.”

  William stayed silent for so long that I considered insulting him just to see if I could get a response out of him, to test if our friendship had been damaged beyond repair.

  I smiled sheepishly. “Is that a yes?”

  Knocking his knuckles on the wall again, he scoffed like I had said something hilarious, a secret joke that I didn’t understand.

  “I—” William stopped knocking on the wall before frowning. “You wanna go for a ride with me, Jumper?”

  We drove in silence, an extra special tension drifting around us. Eventually, William coughed into his shoulder, suspending the quiet that we had started out with. This, however, was the only verbal communication that transpired. Every so often, however, I’d watch from the corner of my eye as his eyes darted to my blistered hand. I wanted to say something clever to counteract the seriousness of it, something funny or even the least bit witty, but everything my mind came up with was too dark, even for me. Overall, I wasn’t sure of where we were going.

  But I was sure I would have driven with him anywhere.

  Unfortunately, we didn’t drive long, stopping in the parking lot of what looked like a very nice restaurant. My stomach gurgled at the idea of appetizers and entrées, yet I wasn’t sure I could tolerate sitting around groups of people like my mom and play pretend.

  I cracked my knuckles and considered possible excuses. “What are we doing here?”

  “You’ll see soon enough.”

  I opened my mouth to respond, but he took off his seatbelt and reached over me, opening the glove box with what looked like a bump of his fist. Smiling, I almost made a Fonzi joke, but then the fingers of his damaged hand grazed my elbow and I forgot what I wanted to say.

  “How good are you at keeping secrets, Jumper?”

  If I hadn’t already known him, or even had more care for my welfare, I might have been disturbed about the deformed piece of wire he pulled out of the glove box, the slight smell of rust it gave off and how sharp its edges looked. As it was, however, I wasn’t nearly as startled by what I now recognized as the hook and remaining side of a coat hanger as I was by his rough fingers lingering on my elbow.

  “W-what kind of secrets?”

  He closed the glove-box and pulled away.

  “The kind that gets you sent to jail.”

  For an entire instant, I might have flatlined. Hadn’t I been keeping secrets, my secret, for a year and a half now?

  Oblivious to my disposition, however, William said nothing. Instead, he was intensely checking staring into all of his mirrors, searching for something I didn’t understand. Though I knew he hadn’t meant to, William had conjured memories from the night I had failed to forget. Briefly, I wondered if I ever would.

  He opened the door and turned back to me. “You coming or what?”

  Without another word, William left the car, his feet quiet on the wet pavement while he walked casually along a line of sleek looking cars.

  I did my best to shake off my feelings and imitated William’s looks in the mirrors before stepping out into the rain. It was only drizzling, yet the combination of dampness and wind made me close my eyes. When I opened them again, there wasn’t even the shadow of William to follow. Refusing to give in to panic, I resisted the urge to call out for him searching between the rows of luxury vehicles and instinctively keeping away from the valet and bus boys that sat outside the service door and smoked cigarettes.

  Leaning by a black BMW, he was harder to find than I thought, but once I did, I sighed in relief. Being with William on a bad day seemed better than being alone with myself on a good day. As my eyes focused in the rain, however, I realized he was hiding more than I was, his back toward me and his hands focused on something in front of him.

  “What are you doing?” Squinting in the dark, I made sure no one else was around before I continued my lecture. “Is this your car?”

  He turned to me, and through the rain I saw him smile.

  “Is it at least one of your friend’s cars?”

  Street racing was one thing. At worse, if I got caught, I figured I’d get a fine and maybe have to serve some community service. For a first offense I’d probably just get send home with a slap on the wrist. But an accessory to auto theft? How much complaining would I hear from Mom if I needed a lawyer? Would I even be able to live with it if I did? At the same time, though, I imaged the handcuffs being slapped on my wrists while my rights were read, police cars chasing after us while we ran red lights. I envisioned it with such intensity I could feel the metal on my wrists, hear the sirens echo in my ears…

  “Okay,” I sighed with feigned anger, but already I could feel the excitement beginning to build. “How are we doing this?”

  “Get on the other side and keep lookout,” William whispered. “If a valet comes around just act like it’s our car.”

  Already, my heart was pounding, the blood in my body inconsistent and u
nsure where it was supposed to go or what it was supposed to do. Eagerly, I listened, not caring about the puddles I stepped in or the lukewarm water that flooded my shoes. In truth, I barely felt it, a tingling sensation starting to creep through my fingers and neck. It was so intense, it briefly occurred to me that I might be having a stroke—especially with the weird buzz I started to feel in my ears every few seconds. But since it wasn’t at all painful I quickly ruled it out and focused instead on the sound of the driver door opening and William’s light laugh while the engine started up. Maybe it was the buzzing in my ears, or the combination of rain and wind, but I could have sworn that his laugh was slightly different than I had ever heard it before. I made a note of this just as the rest of the locks came undone and he rolled down the passenger window.

  “Are you still with me, Jumper? Because if you’re not, that’s okay—”

  I should have known he would try to talk me out of it, like waving a lollypop in front of a kid before swiping it away. By this point, however, I was literally bouncing in the puddle I stood in—a terrible lookout if there ever was one—and there was nothing that was going to take me from this new source of adrenaline. Still shaking, I got in the car and tried to keep myself steady. Failing miserably by the sound of his laugh, I put on my seatbelt while he pulled his beanie lower and arranged the sun visor to the side.

  “Just in case a valet looks in this direction.” He shrugged.

  I let go of the seatbelt, looking all around like a frightened jackrabbit. “I—you—shouldn’t we be wearing gloves or something?”

  “Nobody’s gonna find this car, Jumper.” He straightened his posture and looked both ways before pulling out of the restaurant parking lot. “Or at least enough of it to find fingerprints. Are you worried?”