Burning Midnight Read online

  Whether Hunter had ripped him off or not, he was better off not having her around. He knew that, but it was still hard to get used to.

  Of course, he wouldn’t be around much longer. As soon as the school year was out, he and his mom were moving to Pittsburgh (assuming they could scrounge up and borrow enough to stay in Yonkers even that long). It was all set; Sully would be spending his senior year at a strange school, living in a basement.

  Sully wondered what he and Hunter would have found in those water tanks. That had been a brilliant idea. Maybe he should pursue it without Hunter. Dom might be interested in partnering with him….

  No. It was Hunter’s idea. Even if they weren’t friends anymore, he wasn’t going to steal her idea.

  Across the aisle, Neal was whistling and bobbing his head furiously, listening to some no doubt ancient rock music on an iPod. Sully envied Neal’s ability to stay full of energy. He seemed to be enjoying the hell out of his life.

  Noticing Sully looking at him, Neal pulled out one of his earbuds. “T. Rex, man. Most underrated band in the history of rock.”

  Sully gave him a thumbs-up, although he’d never heard of T. Rex.

  Probably noticing how unenthusiastic his thumbs-up was, Neal headed over. He had new sneakers on—bright orange Nikes. “You’ve got to let it go. I know you had big plans for that cash, but if you cling too hard to what could have been, it’s like poison.”

  Yes, big plans. Pay the rent. Spend his senior year with his friends. “You’re right. Like they say, it’s all good.”

  “Except it’s not all good. Some things suck.” Neal pulled out the other earbud. “What I’m trying to say is, if you can’t change it, don’t let it eat at you. Let it go.”

  Samantha had come over as well. She put a hand on Sully’s back. There was no doubt he was letting it eat at him. Going to see his old man, who’d made sure to drive home just how stupid Sully had been, had made it worse.

  “Yeah, I’ll try,” he said.

  “That’s it. It’s called nonattachment. Play the game, but don’t get too attached to the outcome.” Neal snapped his fingers, pointed at Sully. “I’m going to lend you a book. Have you ever read any Zen authors? Alan Watts? D. T. Suzuki?”

  “Nope.”

  Neal checked his watch. “Tell you what, I’m going to grab a snack in the motor home. I’ll bring you back a book.”

  Sully didn’t have much time for extra reading, but maybe he’d give it a try. Neal bobbed off toward the exit, arms swinging, looking like a twelve-year-old kid, not a guy in his sixties.

  “He really loves you,” Samantha said as they watched Neal’s receding figure. “He talks about you all the time.”

  “Really?” It pleased Sully to hear that. Neal and Samantha were like his flea market parents, but Neal was friendly to everyone, so it was hard to know if you were special to him.

  If Neal hadn’t been married, Sully would have introduced him to Mom. He was perfect for his mom, because he was the exact opposite of Sully’s dad. Their advice said it all. Trust no one versus Let it go. Sully was still fuming at his father’s smug confidence. There’s your answer, Sully: one of your friends cheated you, because you’re a sucker, you’re an easy target. You need to grow up and be a man, like me.

  Sully squeezed his eyes shut, took a deep breath. Let it go. If only it wasn’t so hard to stop thinking about something.

  He checked the time: 3:48. The flea market was just about empty except for the vendors. Screw it. He picked up the display case containing his “rare” spheres, which now amounted to a half-dozen rarity twos he hadn’t listed on eBay yet. If he kept cashing out his stock on eBay at a discount until there was nothing left, he was through making money as a dealer. He couldn’t stand behind an empty table at the flea market and expect people to offer to sell him spheres, and most of his stock came from walk-ups at the flea market. His inventory was pathetic; half his table was nothing but empty space.

  He set the display case on top of a crate of spheres and lifted both. “Hey, Samantha? Can you watch my stuff? I’m going to pack up early.”

  “Sure.” She stepped into the aisle, where she could more easily watch all three booths at once.

  Maybe he’d call Dom, see if he wanted to head over to Nathan’s.

  In the parking lot, Led Zeppelin’s “All of My Love” drifted from Neal’s camper. Sully remembered the book. Shifting the crates to get a better grip, he went to the camper door and knocked.

  Neal swung the door open. “Hey, you leaving?” he shouted over the music.

  “It’s pretty dead in there.”

  Neal held up a finger. “Hang on a minute, I’ll get you that book.” He disappeared into the camper, ducking his head slightly. Sully couldn’t imagine how two people could actually live in that camper, day in and day out. It was such a narrow space, and every nook and cranny was packed with books and boxes.

  They had gotten a new sound/entertainment system since the last time Sully had visited. A brand-new big-screen TV was mounted on the back wall, with speakers in all four corners of the room, and a sharp-looking stereo system, currently blaring Zeppelin, set on shelves.

  “Hey, that’s some nice equipment,” Sully said as Neal reappeared, his orange Nikes bright against the soiled beige carpet.

  “Thanks. We’ve been saving for a while, decided it was time.” Neal held out a beat-up paperback with a black cover.

  Sully didn’t take it immediately, because a terrible thought had occurred to him, and it was threatening to knock him to his knees. New TV, new stereo, new sneakers. A spending spree.

  As if they’d just come into some money.

  He reached up with numb fingers, took the book. “New TV, too.”

  Neal looked over his shoulder, as if he hadn’t noticed. “The old one was on its last legs. We had it fifteen years.”

  Neal and Samantha knew what Hunter looked like. They would have been close enough to hear Sully’s phone calls. The one to Dom, telling him to pick up Hunter; the one to Hunter, telling her to go to the bank and get the Hot Pink. It all fit.

  Dom or the girl, his dad had said. Only, Dad hadn’t known about Neal and Samantha. Sully studied Neal’s face, searching for signs of guilt or nervousness, but Neal looked as friendly and open as ever.

  It was all an act. The warm, friendly guru gaze, the laid-back hippie attitude. Sully would never have believed you could fake an entire personality, but suddenly he felt sure. It was fake. Samantha’s earth-mother routine as well. They were nothing but poor, desperate con artists.

  He couldn’t just come out and accuse Neal of ripping him off, because he didn’t know for sure that was what had happened.

  Only somehow, he did. He did know.

  “All of that must have set you back a couple thousand dollars. Maybe twenty percent?” He looked into Neal’s startled eyes. “Yeah. That seems about right.”

  Sully stuffed the book in the crate, then lifted it. “Thanks for the book.”

  “Hang on,” Neal called as he walked off. “You’re not suggesting—”

  Sully kept walking.

  “Sully. What are you saying?” Neal didn’t come after him. He just went on shouting from the door of his camper, as if there was an invisible force field keeping him inside. Anyone who was innocent would be out of that camper in a flash, would be blocking Sully. Only a guilty man would let him walk off.

  He really loves you, Samantha had said. Enough to steal from him, to spoil things with Hunter. Sully unlocked the back of his station wagon and shoved the boxes in.

  At least he knew Hunter wasn’t the one who’d ripped him off. He slammed the door shut. Yes, all she’d done was leap to the conclusion that Sully was a thief.

  As he headed back to his table, he passed an old woman digging through a green trash barrel at the end of one of the parking lot rows. A shopping cart of aluminum cans waited beside her.

  Ten years ago that could have been Hunter. Only, she’d been barely a teenager.<
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  Maybe Sully should cut her some slack for being overly suspicious, for not trusting him more.

  Sully was tempted to head back to Neal’s newly tricked-out camper and punch him in the face. This was all because of him. He’d stolen Sully’s rent money, banished him to Pittsburgh, driven a wedge between him and Hunter.

  Sully slowed. That, at least, he had some control over.

  On his way out, Sully dropped Neal’s Zen book into the first trash can he passed.

  CHAPTER 12

  The front door of Hunter’s building was unlocked. In fact, it didn’t have a lock. Sully stepped into the lobby, a dirty, nondescript hallway with mailboxes set into the wall to the right, a stairwell to the left. A single brown rubber boot lay on the bottom step.

  Sully climbed to the fifth floor, knocked on number 503. The thick steel door didn’t conduct sound well; he knocked harder, his knuckles stinging.

  He heard footsteps inside, growing louder.

  “Yeah?” A woman’s voice.

  “I’m looking for Hunter?”

  No answer. Only footsteps, growing fainter this time. Three or four voices drifted through the door, all apparently having different conversations.

  There was a sharp bang on the door. “Get lost.” It was Hunter. Her acid tone made Sully wince.

  He stepped forward until his face was six inches from the scuffed and dented door. It had been red once, but there wasn’t much paint left.

  “I should be the one who’s pissed off. I am pissed off, but I didn’t let it keep me from hauling my freezing ass all the way to your door.” There was a peephole in the door; Sully wondered if Hunter was watching him through it.

  “I went to see my jackass father, the cop. You know what he told me? He said either you cheated me, or Dom did. But you know what? I know you didn’t rip me off, because I know you. Why is it you don’t know me?” He waited for an answer. “How can you think I would cheat you?”

  “Nobody knows anyone,” Hunter called from behind the door. “You don’t know if you can trust me, and I don’t know if I can trust you.”

  Sully thought of Neal and his new flat-screen TV. Yesterday he’d have sworn on his life he could trust Neal. “Maybe you’re right. I learned that just this morning, in fact, when I figured out who stole the Hot Pink.” He waited for Hunter to ask who had done it, but she didn’t. “I guess I’m asking you to take a leap of faith, then. Trust me. Believe me.” He pressed his palm against the cool steel of the door and waited.

  Nothing. He was tempted to storm off, tell her to have a good life, if she could somehow manage that while being so paranoid.

  “What the hell would I be doing at your door if I ripped you off? If that’s what happened, I’ve got fourteen thousand dollars. I can hire a professional scuba diver and go search on my own.”

  Nothing.

  He was just making a fool of himself, begging forgiveness through a door for something he didn’t do. He turned to leave, in black despair. It was over. He’d never see Hunter again; they’d never find out if there were any rare spheres hidden in those water towers. Even scoring a few rarity twos and threes would be huge for him at this point.

  Sully turned back. He pressed his nose to the door, closed his eyes. “Take one leap of faith. If we find anything, you hold on to it. I’ll trust you, even if I can’t know for sure I should.”

  He was halfway to the stairs when the lock clicked. The door swung open.

  Hunter was wearing a ratty violet NYU sweatshirt and shorts, along with the inevitable gloves. Her old gloves—not the ones Sully had given her. She looked exhausted, like she hadn’t slept in a week.

  “I swear to God, I didn’t do it.”

  She nodded. “I guess I believe you.”

  Some of the tension in his gut, the blackness of the past week, eased. Not all of it, not by a long shot. But he’d made this one thing right.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow, at five.” Hunter closed the door.

  CHAPTER 13

  You didn’t notice them, but they were everywhere. Even from street level Sully could see two, three, or four perched on every roof. Some were tall and thin, others short and squat. All were round, with funny slanted roofs.

  They walked in silence. Things were still a little tense between them. It wasn’t as if Sully could just forget overnight that Hunter had accused him of stealing, and Hunter didn’t seem overly concerned about smoothing things over. She seemed content to walk in silence.

  Head down, Hunter turned right onto a narrow street between two big, old gray brick industrial buildings. She led Sully to a fire escape alongside three security doors that were raised so trucks could back up to them.

  Sully looked at the rickety black steel staircase clinging to the outside of the ten-story building. The bottom of the ladder was ten feet above them. “Why this one first, out of all the buildings in the city?”

  Hunter shrugged in her bulky black parka. “We start in Brooklyn because most of it is poorer than Manhattan, so it’s more likely no one’s cleaned the water towers in a long time. This building has four towers and it’s not too tall, so I figured it’s a good place to start.”

  Sully unslung his pack and dropped it on the sidewalk. “Fair enough.” He glanced left and right to make sure no one was around, then pulled out a rope ladder and extendable rod. He used the rod to hook the end of the rope ladder to the bottom of the fire escape, just like he and Hunter had practiced behind Hunter’s building. When they reached the fire escape, he reeled in the rope ladder and put it back in his pack.

  “Do you even want to know who ripped us off?” Sully asked as they reached the third-floor landing. His voice seemed loud in the silence.

  “Sure.”

  “Remember Neal?”

  Hunter nodded. “Sure. The sixties-looking dude who was like a father to you.”

  “Guy lives in a little broken-down motor home, and suddenly it’s got a big-screen TV and a state-of-the-art stereo system. He knew what you looked like.”

  Hunter passed Sully, headed up the next ladder. “Did you call him on it?”

  “Yeah. He denied it, but it was obvious he was lying. I don’t know, maybe there’s still a way to nail him.”

  “Nail him in the face. It’s gone.”

  Maybe he should have punched Neal in the face. He couldn’t imagine punching a sixty-year-old guy in the face, though.

  Hunter took the stairs three at a time, one leather-gloved hand brushing the top of the railing. The girl seemed to have only one gear—full throttle.

  “You’re like a ninja,” Sully called, half-sarcastic, half-admiring.

  “Shut up,” Hunter shot back.

  The fire escape ended at the top floor. From there, a vertical ladder led to the roof. As Sully stepped onto it, following Hunter, the ladder jerked and wobbled. The rungs were so cold, Sully could feel the metal through his gloves; the icy breeze was like hands trying to shove him loose, toward a rusting storm drain that ran down the side of the building. He had a flash of himself clinging to that storm drain, ten stories up, his legs flailing.

  As he reached the roof, he flattened onto his belly and crawled to safety.

  “I hadn’t really thought through the climbing part of this.” Sully rolled onto his back.

  Hunter was standing over him, looking rattled. She swept her braids over her shoulder. “Man, I’ve never had a problem with heights, but that ladder was terrible. It felt like it was going to pull straight out of the wall.” She reached out, and when Sully took her hand she pulled him to his feet.

  They looked up at the closest water tower, a dozen feet away. It was set on a six-foot-high steel frame. The tower’s body was vertically slatted, like an enormous wooden barrel, and wrapped by five horizontal steel cables. A ladder curled up to a hatch in the tower’s roof, maybe twenty feet above where they stood.

  Hunter unzipped her coat and let it drop to the roof, exposing the black dry suit she was wearing beneath. A little research ha
d made it clear that it was a dry suit they wanted—with a wet suit, water saturated the suit and acted as insulation, and that wasn’t a good idea if the water was close to freezing. Hunter kicked off her boots, unzipped her jeans, and pulled them off. Even freezing cold on a dark roof, Sully couldn’t help being a little stunned by just how incredible Hunter looked in a skintight suit, despite its covering every inch of her from the neck down.

  “Whoa,” he said.

  “Shut up, or I’ll kick you in the nuts.”

  They climbed the ladder. When Hunter reached the top, Sully had to squeeze in beside her so they could pull the hatch open together. It weighed a good eighty pounds.

  Sully climbed down to the roof, his neck and shoulders tense as Hunter climbed into the tank, waterproof flashlight in hand.

  Gloved hands in his pockets, and positioned so the wind was at his back, Sully daydreamed of Hunter’s hand rising through the open hatch, holding a Mustard, or a Chocolate.

  What about another Cherry Red? No one had found a Cherry Red since Holliday triggered the second wave. Everyone—including Sully—had assumed there’d be a set of Cherry Reds in the second wave, leading to a third wave, and so on. It was beginning to look as if there might be no more spheres once this second wave was found and burned, unless Midnight Blue was the new Cherry Red. But there was no reason to think two different colors did the same thing.

  The supply kept dwindling as people burned spheres, or stashed them in safe-deposit boxes as part of their investment portfolios. And every year the big corporate operations ate more of what remained. Soon there would be none for Sully to sell. And damn, did he need some to sell. At least he had a chance, now that he and Hunter were hunting again.

  Sully heard Hunter surface inside the water tower, gasping. She took a few deep breaths, then the sound of water lapping against her arms went silent as she submerged again.