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my shoulders. “You sure picked a crazy place to end up, didn’t you, buddy?”
    I turn around slowly and look at the man standing there smiling at me, wearing an ill-fitting navy suit with a laminated visitor tag dangling crookedly from a lanyard around his neck. Despite the cheap apparel, he’s good-looking for a guy on the verge of forty—a touch of gray at the temples, bright pale-blue eyes, and the kind of two-day stubble you get from sleeping in your car. You might even use the word
charming
. I give back to him the best smile I can muster, which, under the circumstances, ought to win me an Academy Award.
    â€œHey, Dad.”

Seven
    â€œT OOK ME LONG ENOUGH TO FIND YOU UP HERE, ” HE SAYS , locking one arm around my shoulder and wrenching it tight enough to hurt. “Looks like you’ve already landed on your feet, huh?” He ruffles my hair in a way that probably looks fatherly, then gives me an extra little open-handed smack on the back of my skull. “I
missed
you, boy.”
    â€œI bet,” I say.
    â€œYou really left me holding the bag down in Trenton, you know that? Not that it’s anything your old man can’t handle, but when the authorities dropped by and I realized you’d taken off with the last of our seed money—”
    â€œYou weren’t exactly in any shape to travel,” I remind him.
    He scowls and shrugs it off with a happy-go-lucky grin. “Sure, kid, whatever you say—we all make mistakes. All I’m saying is, I just wish you would’ve told me before you took off. Would’ve at least given me a fighting chance. Anyway, bygones, right?” He shrugs again. “We’re back together again, the old team—that’s what matters. Looks like you’ve already got something pretty swanky set up for yourself too, huh? What’s the game?”
    â€œNothing.”
    â€œRight.” He laughs. “Your mother and I taught you better than that.” He leans back and, without even breaking stride, his head does that casual kind of swivel that I’ve seen him do since I was old enough to walk: his saucer-size eyes taking in everything—the manicured campus, the million-dollar buildings, the rich kids with their lives of privilege stretched out in front of them like an endless red carpet of private jets and fivestar luxury hotels. “So who’s the mark?”
    I shake my head. “It’s not like that.”
    â€œUh-huh.”
    â€œI mean it,” I say. “I’m done with all that. I’m going straight. That’s why I’m here. I’m sick of that old life. I’m never going back to Trenton.”
    Dad gives me a long, slit-eyed look, and for a change I can’t tell what he’s thinking. In the past I always could, back when it was the three of us, him and me and Mom, running the wedding-planner scam out of our apartment on Clinton Avenue. In the early days, Dad said they cleared five thousand a week while pulling a pigeon drop on the weekends.He used to talk about retirement until Mom got sick and things changed.
    â€œBilly-boy,” he says. “I think maybe you better give this some thought before you go and do something stupid.”
    â€œMy name is Will.” I start to pull loose from him. “Will Shea. And I’m going to be late for class.”
    His grip tightens around my neck. “I don’t think so.”
    â€œMr. Shea?”
    I pause and we both turn around to see a heavyset, bearded man coming toward us, walking a dog. I recognize him from the school website as Dr. Melville, the real Dr. Melville, the head of school. Suddenly his dog lunges at Dad, pulling at his leash and barking like crazy, as if he knows exactly what kind of guy he’s dealing with. Score one for the dog.
    â€œChaucer, heel,” Dr. Melville commands, then turns to us with a chuckle. “You’ll have to forgive him. I’m afraid thirty-two