Pushed Read online

  Frank went back to that picture. “Look in Evan’s sunglasses,” I told him.

  “Good call,” said Frank. “You can see a reflection of the person who took the picture in the right lens.” He traced the reflection with one finger. “It’s hard to see much detail.”

  “But we know it’s a her, not a him,” I answered. “A her with red hair.”

  “It’s a start,” Frank said. “More than we had before, anyway. Let’s see if we can find out where this picture was taken.”

  We headed over to an old guy waiting for the train. “Excuse me, does this park look familiar to you?” Frank asked.

  “No,” the old guy answered, even though he’d barely glanced at the photo.

  “Let me see it,” said a woman with a leopard-print scarf and gloves.

  “Thanks,” Frank told her as we walked over. He held out the picture.

  “Washington Square Park,” she said. “You can see part of the arch. Any real New Yorker should have been able to tell you that.” She shot an irritated look at the old man, then turned back to me and Frank. “So you must be new in town.”

  “You’re a real detective,” I joked.

  Frank rolled his eyes. “We’re on vacation. Can you tell us how to get to Washington Square Park from here?”

  She rattled off directions and pretty much a billion details about the park that we didn’t need to know, then added, “And don’t eat from the little food carts on the street. You know what the locals call them? Roachmobiles.”

  “Gross,” I said.

  “Thanks again,” Frank told her. Then we were outta there. Back through the turnstiles, up the stairs, and out into the somewhat fresh air. We started to walk downtown, passing this big metal cube thing that I think was supposed to be art.

  When we turned the corner, I spotted the huge cement arch. The woman who was an expert on all things New York had told us it was built to celebrate the centennial of George Washington’s inauguration.

  Washington Square Park isn’t much of a park, if you ask me. There aren’t many trees. There’s not even all that much grass. There are a lot of pigeons, though. I guess birds are parklike.

  “Can I just say ‘bingo’?” Frank asked.

  “I would really prefer that you didn’t,” I told him.

  Did I mention Frank is corny? Seriously, when was the last time you heard anyone say “bingo”—when they aren’t actually playing bingo? Actually, when was the last time you saw anyone play bingo?

  “Okay, well, can I just say that I think the girl in the picture is right over there?” I followed his gaze and saw a red-haired girl who definitely seemed like she could match the reflection we saw in Evan’s glasses in that one photo. She was sitting by a fountain playing a guitar. A couple of other teenagers hung around, listening.

  “Feel like listening to some music?” I asked Frank.

  “Definitely,” he answered.

  We wandered over to the girl. She smiled at us and kept on playing. All right, she smiled at Frank. He blushed. I was ignored. Same old, same old.

  Everyone around gave her a little applause when she finished up the song. “Thank you, thank you,” she said. Then she smiled at me. You heard right, me. Which is how it should be. I am the cuter brother. I’m blond and everything.

  “I see my fame is spreading,” the girl said, winking at me—or possibly Frank. “I’ve got some new fans today.”

  “You were great,” I told her. “What’s your name? You know, so I can buy your CD.” I guess I can be a little corny myself at times.

  The girl laughed. “Olivia Gorman. And my new CD will be out . . . in my dreams.”

  “No way, Liv. It’s gonna happen for you—soon,” a guy with a faux hawk told her.

  “Yeah. You’re going to be the next teen sensation,” added a girl with a grin. She popped a bubble-gum bubble.

  “It’s going to have to happen extremely soon, then,” Olivia answered. “I’m turning the big two-oh in a couple of months.”

  “Oh. I didn’t know you were that old,” Bubble-Gum Girl teased. “Do your thing on the new boys!” she added.

  “What thing?” asked Frank.

  “Olivia’s practically psychic. She guesses people’s names. Where they’re from. What they’re into. It’s amazing,” Bubble-Gum Girl explained.

  “I’m about as psychic as a rock.” Olivia put her guitar back in its case. “What I am is observant.” She narrowed her eyes at Frank. “Hmm. You definitely come from the suburbs—and not the burbs like Queens. Out-of-state burbs. Your brother, too, of course.”

  “How’d you know we’re brothers?” I burst out.

  “You have the same hair line,” Olivia answered. “See, I’m observant. Now, names . . .”

  She was interrupted by another girl bounding up to her. The girl reminded me of a chocolate lab: glossy brown hair and big brown eyes. “Look what I got!” she exclaimed. She lifted her shirt, flashing her belly—and the wallet shoved in the waistband of her jeans.

  “Shay, we have company. Say hi to, um, Robert and Joe,” Olivia told the girl, shooting her a “nice going, idiot” look.

  “Oh. Hi. I didn’t notice you guys,” Shay told us. “Which of you is Robert and which is Joe?”

  “I’m Joe,” I said.

  “And I’m Frank,” he said, answering Shay, but looking at Olivia.

  Olivia shrugged. “I’m not always right. If I was, I’d be mega-rich. I’d have a loft in SoHo instead of sleeping in the park.”

  “Speaking of money.” Shay reached under her shirt, fumbled around for a minute, then handed Olivia thirty dollars.

  “Shay, what part of ‘we have company’ didn’t you understand?” Olivia asked, exasperated.

  “They don’t care that I picked a wallet,” she answered. “Do you, you guys?”

  I shrugged. “None of my business.”

  “Mine either,” Frank added.

  “My nonpsychic psychicness tells me that neither of you have entered a life of crime yourself, though. Am I right?” Olivia raised one eyebrow. She did it really well.

  “Uh, not exactly,” I said.

  “Well, you’ve only been living alfresco for less than a week. Am I right?” Olivia asked.

  “Huh?” I replied. The nonpsychic psychic girl had kind of lost me.

  “Alfresco—outdoors,” Frank told me. “You are good,” he said to Olivia. “We are currently without roof. But only the last few days.”

  “Well, when you get hungry enough, you might need to know how to boost a wallet. Here’s the rundown. You carry your jacket or a newspaper to hide your hand movements. A baby’s even better, but we don’t have one available.” She smiled. “Then you do something like drop some change or a bag near the mark. When he bends down to help you pick it up, you pick his pocket. You can also just bump into the mark. Make sure to apologize, though. Don’t just take off,” Olivia explained. “Who wants to try it first? You?” she asked me.

  “Do it, Joe,” Bubble-Gum Girl urged.

  I hesitated. I wasn’t going to find out how Evan died if I was sitting in jail. But . . . Evan had a connection to Olivia. It would be easier to find out what kind of connection if she trusted me and Frank.

  “I’ll help you choose the mark,” said Olivia. “That’s the tricky part.” She scanned the people in the park.

  “The guy in the tie!” Bubble-Gum cried. “We could all have lunch for a week on what he paid for it. He’s got to have fat wads of cash.”

  Olivia shook her head. “It’s a knockoff. And the shoes—they’re trying very hard to look like Ralph Lauren. But they cost about thirty bucks. Plus the heels are worn down, and he hasn’t coughed up the three dollars it would cost to fix them. I’d say he has at most a twenty-dollar bill.”

  “That guy isn’t faking,” Faux Hawk commented, jerking his chin toward a twentysomething blond guy.

  “Sunglasses alone cost four hundred smackers,” Olivia agreed. “Marc Jacobs. This year’s collection.”<
br />
  “So go,” Faux Hawk told me.

  “No,” Olivia said sharply. “He spends serious time at the gym. He does it just so he’ll have pretty abs and all that. But he thinks it makes him tough. He’ll put up a fight. He won’t put up a good fight—because all he’s used to punching is a bag. But he’ll make a crazy loud scene.”

  Olivia took another look at the park crowd. “Him.” She nodded toward an older guy in a fedora.

  “Him?” Faux Hawk shook his head. “Talk about worn-down shoes.”

  “He’s careful with his money. And he’s not vain,” Olivia explained. “And he’s old-fashioned. No credit cards for him. When he buys something, he pulls out a nice stack of cash. Never leaves home without it. I’m thinking four-fifty or five hundred.”

  I watched the man head across the park. Was Olivia right about him? Or any of the other people she’d analyzed?

  “He’s getting away,” Shay said. “I’ll do him.”

  “No, let Joe do it,” answered Olivia.

  “I’m there,” I told her.

  7.

  BUMP AND PICK

  I watched Joe—trying not to look like I was watching—as he fell in behind the man with the fedora. I couldn’t believe my brother was going to try to pick his pocket. I got why he was doing it. He was trying to make Olivia trust us. But I wasn’t sure it was a good idea.

  “And Joe is making his move,” the guy with the faux hawk said, his voice hushed, like the announcer for a golf tournament. “He’s going for the bump-and-pick method. Nice bump. Very natural.”

  A click jerked my attention away from Faux Hawk and over to Olivia. She’d just snapped a picture of Joe. “His first wallet has to be commemorated,” she told me.

  I looked over at Joe. He was standing close to the man, apologizing to him for bumping into him.

  “This is the key moment. If the mark is going to notice that his pocket feels light, he’s probably going to notice it now,” Faux Hawk continued.

  I wanted to run over there and . . . do something. I’m the older brother. It felt so wrong standing there watching Joe stealing.

  “But no, the mark is walking away. Oblivious. And Joe is coming back a winner. Wait. No. The mark has stopped walking. Has he realized what just happened?” asked Faux Hawk, still doing his golf announcer voice, like it was no big deal.

  I took a quick glance at the man. I didn’t want to make him suspicious by staring.

  He was tying his shoe. That was it.

  “False alarm,” Faux Hawk said. “It was only the matter of a simple untied shoelace. The mark is now exiting the park. Won’t he be surprised when he tries to pay for his taxi on the way home tonight?”

  “Let’s see it,” said Olivia when Joe returned to the group.

  Joe flashed his stomach just the way Shay had. Olivia reached out and snagged the wallet. She opened it, did a quick count. “Four hundred and sixty bucks. Am I good or what?” She took out a twenty, then grinned at Joe. “My fee, since I picked out a good fishie for you.”

  “Sounds fair to me,” Joe said, and Olivia tossed the wallet back to him. Then she pointed at me. “You’re up, Frank who looks like a Robert.”

  There was no way. “Not on an empty stomach,” I said quickly. “Joe, you’re going to buy me a hot dog with some of your cash, right?”

  “I’ll even buy you two, my brother,” answered Joe. “Let’s go find a roachmobile.”

  We started across the patchy grass before Olivia could protest. “Hey, guys,” she called. I glanced over my shoulder but didn’t stop walking. “If you get tired of being roofless, there’s a decent shelter, just for teenagers. The Haven, over on West Twenty-third.”

  That got a full stop out of me. “If it’s so great, why are you sleeping in the park?” I asked.

  Olivia shrugged. “I’m a free spirit. That place has too many rules. But two boys fresh out of the burbs probably wouldn’t mind.”

  “Maybe we’ll check it out,” Joe put in. “We need to find a police station,” he said when we were out of Olivia and company’s earshot.

  I nodded. “To turn in the wallet.”

  “I guess I’ll have to eat the twenty Olivia took,” Joe complained. He transferred a twenty from his wallet into the stolen one.

  “I was afraid you were going to get caught for a second,” I admitted.

  “You were afraid? I was expecting an alarm to go off the second I touched the guy,” Joe said. “But I got the skills. If I wasn’t such a good guy I could have a nice, cushy life of crime going.”

  “Really. So, evil genius, did you even realize that Olivia took your picture while you were robbing that man?” I asked.

  “No way!” Joe exclaimed.

  “Yeah. I wonder if that’s the way it happened with Evan,” I said.

  “Seems pretty likely.”

  “But what did she want with them?” I shook my head. “Usually you’d use pictures like that to blackmail someone. But blackmailing a guy living in a center for runaway teens doesn’t make any sense. Evan can’t have had much money.”

  “Maybe she used the pictures to force him to keep on stealing and giving her a cut. Maybe she told him she’d turn him in if he didn’t,” Joe offered.

  “That makes sense to me,” I said. “What if she was blackmailing Evan and he tried to turn it around on her? What if he threatened to expose the way she ropes other homeless kids into stealing for her?”

  “And what if she decided to kill him before he did?” asked Joe.

  SUSPECT PROFILE

  Name: Olivia Gorman

  Hometown: Bakersfield, California

  Physical description: Age 19, long red hair, 5’9”, approximately 140 lbs., tattoo of the queen of hearts on left shoulder blade.

  Occupation: Thief

  Background: Wants to be a musician.

  Suspicious behavior: Took pictures of Evan committing crimes.

  Suspected of: Blackmailing Evan. Possibly killing him.

  Possible motives: Blackmailing him for money. Murdering him to keep him from exposing her.

  Joe and I headed into the Haven’s common room. We figured that would be a good place to get a sense of how the other kids felt about the center.

  I did a quick survey. Lily, Amy, and a couple of other girls were watching Dr. Phil. Another girl was sitting on a beanbag, reading. Five kids seemed to be studying for the GED at one table. Mark and a few other people were playing poker at another table.

  “You guys want in?” Mark called, noticing us standing near the doorway.

  “You ready to lose a lot of paper clips?” Joe asked. That’s what they were using for poker chips—paper clips.

  “Bring it on,” answered Mark as Joe and I took the two empty seats at the table. He gave us thirty paper clips each to start us off, and then he did basic intros. “Frank. Joe. Sean. Rosemary,” he said, pointing as he called out the names. “Ante up.”

  Sean, Rosemary, and Mark tossed two paper clips into the center of the table. Joe and I did too.

  Rosemary dealt. I tried to keep an ear on the other conversations going on around me as I looked at my cards. I had one pair. And the pair? Twos. But I wasn’t here to win. I was here to get information.

  We started the first round of bidding. “I’m putting up five of the shiny ones,” Sean said when it was his turn.

  “Somebody’s feeling confident,” commented Rosemary.

  “You want to know my secret?” Sean asked.

  “I guess,” Rosemary told him. “Although, as you know, you’re always banished to the losers’ lounge before I am.”

  “I don’t care if I win or lose. I’m outta here. And pretty soon I’ll be playing with cash instead of paper clips,” Sean bragged.

  “What? You found one of Willy Wonka’s golden tickets and he’s going to give you the candy factory?” Mark asked sarcastically.

  “Pretty much,” answered Sean. “Tess just told me she’s taking me to a fund-raiser tomorrow to get money for me
to go to school. She’s taking over this place called Earl Grey’s for a private party. They do a whole extreme tea thing. Little sandwiches and like that. Plus a million kinds of tea. Tess has invited a bunch of high-society types. By the time they’re on their second cup, I’ll have enough cash to go to college and vet school.”

  Mark stood up and shoved all his paper clips into Sean’s pile. “That’s my contribution. It’s more than you’re gonna get from your tea party.” He stalked off.

  “What’s his problem?” Sean muttered. “He been dipping into the pills again or what?”

  Rosemary shook her head. “He’s been doing really good staying clean. Maybe he started thinking about Evan. It sucks so bad that Evan died before he could use the money Tess got him to go to art school. He was so talented. He did that mural on the side of the building.”

  I discarded everything but my pair and ended up adding a second pair to my hand. Nice. Joe raised—again. No surprise. He does that no matter what he’s holding.

  “So does this happen a lot? Tess raising money for kids to go to school?” I asked as Sean dealt.

  “She’s always trying to raise money for the kids here. I don’t think she even sleeps,” said Rosemary. “You heard about her son, right?”

  “Yeah,” Joe answered.

  “I think that’s why she works so hard. It’s like when she finds a bed for a kid or gets money for one of us to go to school, she’s doing it for him. It’s like we’re all replacements for her son—especially Sandy,” Rosemary told us.

  “Our own Dr. Phil,” commented Sean.

  “Did you see how she was dressed when she went to that black-tie dinner she set up for Evan?” one of the girls watching TV asked. “Her polyester dress and cheapo plastic purse.”

  “So what, Karen?” Rosemary said. “So what if Tess doesn’t care about clothes? She has more important things to think about.”

  “She could think about them while wearing something not embarrassing,” Karen shot back.

  “How does she decide which kid she’s going to do one of these fund-raising things for?” I asked.

  Tess sounded like a great lady, but she ran the Haven. How could she be in charge and not at least know about whatever trouble Evan had discovered?