Free Hit and Run by Norah McClintock Page B

live, and what school I go to—the cop who arrested me called it a positive identification.”
    â€œYeah, and?”
    â€œAnd they know it was me. They know I wasn’t alone. But they don’t know who was with me.”
    â€œNo one saw me?”
    I noticed that he said
me
, not
me and Sal
. Guess it was every man for himself now.
    â€œIf they did, they must not have recognized you.”
    From the look on his face, you’d have thought Vin had just scored big-time with that girl who looked like a model.
    â€œAnd you didn’t tell them anything?” he asked.
    â€œJeez, thanks a lot!”
    â€œOkay,” he said. “Okay, just asking, that’s all. So now what?”
    I filled him in. I felt like I’d told the story a hundred times already.
    â€œAnd you’re not going to give us up?”
    â€œAll the stuff you’ve done, Vin, have I ever given you up?”
    Vin slapped me on the back. “You’re okay, Mike.”
    I kept my mouth shut. Maybe the cop was right. Maybe I was an idiot to be taking all the blame for something that I hadn’t done alone. But what was the point of Vin and Sal getting busted with me? It wasn’t going to teach them anything they didn’t already know. And it wasn’t going to change the fact that I had been caught more or less red-handed.

    Everyone knew what had happened, which meant that I got the full eyeball treatment all day. Everybody had to look at the no-brains who’d put his personal freedom onthe line for a carton of cupcakes. A couple of guys kidded me about it. None of my teachers said anything, but the ones who had already pegged me as a loser seemed to be congratulating themselves for their character-judging skills, while the few who had been willing to believe I wasn’t all bad just shook their heads and looked at me with disappointment in their eyes.
    Riel didn’t say or do anything. He glanced at me when he passed me in the hall that morning, but that was it. I breathed a sigh of relief when he was out of sight. I guess because now I knew he used to be a cop, I thought he was going to chew me out. Turns out he didn’t care one way or the other.
    That afternoon I headed for work. I was even looking forward to it. It would be a nice change from school, where the major topic of conversation was how stupid I had been.
    Melissa, one of the cashiers, smiled at me when I came through the door. Eileen, who was old enough to be my grandmother, said, “Hey, Mike. Hope you’re feeling better.” I told her I was, then coughed to prove that I really had been sick. I headed to the back of the store to pick up my apron—we all had to wear green aprons with the store logo and our name badge on them. On the way down the cereal and baking goods aisle, Mr. Johnson, the assistant manager, stopped me.
    â€œMr. Scorza wants to see you,” he said.
    My stomach did a backflip. I knew Mr. Scorza liked me. I also knew that he had been operating this storefor longer than I had been alive. He knew all the other storeowners on this part of Danforth. I remembered what Constable Carlson had said—I had been positively identified by a local shopkeeper. With my luck, it would turn out to be a friend of Mr. Scorza’s.
    I went to the front of the store and knocked on the door to Mr. Scorza’s office.
    â€œCome in,” he said, his muffled voice deep and ominous, like the rumble of an avalanche.
    I opened the door and made my way up the little flight of stairs about as enthusiastically as most people would navigate through a minefield. Over the piles of boxes at the top of the stairs I saw Mr. Scorza’s face. He looked at me and nodded, but he didn’t smile.
    â€œYou wanted to see me, Mr. Scorza?”
    â€œCome in and sit down, Michael,” he said.
    Sit down? Mr. Scorza’s office was so crowded that the only chair in it was the one behind his desk, and the only person who