Read Online How To Steal a Car by Pete Hautman - Free Book Online

whereas my mother cut her veal into rectangles. I looked at my own plate and wondered how I cut the meat. I could not remember. I picked up my knife and fork and pushed the tines of the fork into the thin slice of teenage cow and sawed at it with the knife, detaching a strip of meat. I guess I’m a strip cutter. I scraped off the lemon sauce and the capers and put it into my mouth and chewed. I wondered if I had a twin. I wondered if she was color-blind. Maybe I was secretly adopted and I had a twin who was out there stealing cars—that is, if criminal behavior, unlike meat cutting, was genetic.
    When I called her after dinner, Jen swore she never said a word to anybody about me stealing cars. I couldn’t see her face, but usually I could tell if Jen was lying, which she does sometimes. From the sound of her voice, I didn’t think she was lying this time.
    “By the way,” I said, “the police were waiting at the Hallsteds’ when I got home last night.”
    I could hear her suck her breath in.
    “They left a note on the door,” I said.
    “What did you do?”
    “I gave the note to my dad.”
    “What did he do?”
    “He just read it and didn’t say anything. I think he doesn’t want to worry me. You know, about there being dangerous criminals in the neighborhood. So you’re sure you didn’t say anything to anybody?”
    “No!”
    Which left Will.
    I rehearsed calling up Will and accusing him of telling Deke Moffet that I was a car thief. It didn’t play. For one thing, Will had despised Deke Moffet ever since Deke pantsed him in seventh grade right in the school foyer with like a million people watching. And even if he hadn’t hated Deke, I just couldn’t see Will blabbing to anybody.
    I dialed his cell number.
    “Hey,” he answered.
    “Hey,” I said. “What’s up?”
    “Not much.”
    “My dad’s figured out a new way to get his pet rapist back on the street.”
    “Cool.”
    This was why I didn’t call Will on the phone very often.
    I said, “So…have you talked to Deke Moffet lately?”
    “Why would I do that?”
    “I don’t know. Have you?”
    “No. Why?”
    “I just thought you might have mentioned something to somebody about Alton’s Hummer.”
    “Nope.”
    “You haven’t said anything to anybody?”
    “Nope.”
    I believed him. Unlike Jen, Will Ford did not lie.
    I said, “I think Deke knows we did it.” I put the we in there mostly because I didn’t want to be alone, although for all I knew the car theft that Deke had found out about could have been the Nissan or the Cadillac. Or he might even have seen me that night driving around in my dad’s Lexus.
    Will said, “That’s not good.”
    The next day I saw Marshall at Charlie Bean’s again. He looked all pale and red-eyed and jerky, like he was on his hundredth cup of espresso. He was playing a game on his cell phone, moving these little blocks around. His fingernails were gnawed to the bleeding point. It made me all squeamy inside to look at him.
    I asked him why he and Deke thought I was a car thief.
    “Deke said you deep-sixed Wright’s Hummer,” he said, not looking up from his game.
    “Well, it’s not true.”
    Marshall shrugged, intent on his game.
    “Why would he say that?”
    “Ask him. Shit!” He slammed his palm down on the table. “Level seven!”
    Like I would know what he was talking about.
    “Where can I find him?” I asked.
    Marshall shrugged again, then said, “I bet you could catch him at the mall. Food court.” He grinned, showing me his scummy teeth. “Look around, you’ll spot him.”
    Marshall was right. Deke was sitting at one of the bench tables in the food court with a slice of sausage pizza and a Red Bull. I walked up just as he took an enormous bite.
    “Hey, if it isn’t the booster girl,” he said, not bothering to chew and swallow first. “I hear you been stalking me.”
    I raised my eyebrows.
    “Marsh called and warned me,” he said.
    I sat down across from him.
    “So