Inside Passage. Burt Weissbourd

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      “So you believe you were set up?”

      Corey looked right at him. “Believe? I know I was set up. Someone wanted me to go to prison.” That’s all she could tell him. Nothing she could prove, either.

      “Why? Who would do that?”

      Nick Season is who. “I dunno.”

      “You pled guilty.”

      “So? So what? That’s a deal. What does that have to do with anything?”

      “Many of my evaluees believe they’re innocent. Some are, some aren’t.” Abe paused. “I can’t always tell.”

      “I was innocent,” she said softly. “There’s nothing to ‘tell’.”

      He made that “V” with his eyebrows. “Did you have a bad lawyer?”

      “He was all right. But I never had a chance.”

      “Did he tell you to plead guilty?”

      Stein was like a pit bull. She caught herself starting to lose it. “Let it go,” was all she said, slow and clear.

      “I can’t, Corey. What I do is try to understand why you do what you do. I may even be able to help.”

      Help? Nick sent her a card every year on Billy’s birthday. “I don’t need your help. I’m out. And there are some things you just aren’t ever going to understand. You want my trust? Well, mister, that’s a two-way street. So when I say let it go, you’ve got to trust me on that.”

      He made a note on his yellow legal pad.

      Corey sat in her black pickup across the street from Jackson High School. She was checking out the kids as they came pouring onto the street, milling around, texting, grouping up at the bus stop or in the parking lot. They were young, uncertain, and scraggly, these high schoolers with their colorful Nikes and wild hair. Some of the girls had nose or eyebrow rings, and a lot of the guys were sagging their pants or their baggy warm-ups. A gangly boy caught her eye from afar. He was tall and somehow familiar. It was his walk, and the headphones. Was that Billy? Yes! He was tapping his fingertips against his thigh. My God, he had to be three inches taller. His hair was long, and kind of wild. He was walking alone, confident-looking, carrying a worn book bag over his shoulder. Billy was handsome, like his dad, and he looked like he could take care of himself. She teared up, relieved and proud.

      Just like that, Billy was inside a bus and on his way somewhere. She followed the bus, unsure what else to do. On Pike Street, west of Twelfth Avenue, she saw him step down. He continued west, walking down the hill toward the water. His step was a little livelier, and he had done something to his hair—tied it back in a ponytail. He wore a hooded blue sweatshirt now, though he left the hood down. He seemed at ease here, eyeing the kids who roamed this edgy street.

      This was her first time in the Pike-Pine corridor in two years. Corey took in the funky cafés, the gay bars, the music clubs, the ethnic restaurants, a hip sex shop, even a witchcraft bookstore. She had forgotten the spiked collars, vivid tattoos, and the occasional facial piercing. This was an offbeat, colorful world that drew more than its share of young people who wanted, for whatever reason, that second look.

      It surprised her that Billy was here. At fifteen, she had started working after school at the wharf, canning fish. Summers, she would fish with her mom. She was in the twelfth grade when her mother died, leaving her just enough money to get through high school. The summer after she graduated, Corey shipped out on a seiner to fish in Alaska. She was eighteen, and she had fished or repaired boats or tended bar or worked odd jobs at the docks ever since. She hoped that her son would be the first Logan to go to college. Billy stopped in an alcove to light a cigarette. She grimaced, then reminded herself that she had smoked as a teenager too.

      Corey considered driving up beside him, honking, but that didn’t feel right. She tried to pull over, but in this neighborhood there was never a parking place. Billy turned right toward Pine. When she made the turn, he was gone. She realized that he must have stepped into the coffee place down the block. A hand-painted wooden sign out front said Blue City Café.

      She parked in front of a fire hydrant. From her spot she could see inside the café’s large mullioned window.

      Billy was sitting at a table near the front with three other kids: two girls and a boy. One of the girls had her hand on Billy’s neck, and she kissed him, meaning it. Cigarettes. A girlfriend. Okay. But something was off. These kids looked different from Billy. Why? She watched a crew of four girls and three guys move two tables together and settle in.

      And then she had it. They dressed like street kids—ripped jeans, even the old band t-shirts. But their clothes weren’t raggedy or old. No, they paid for this look. These kids were washed and coiffed and, in their own way, poised. Fresh out of the box, ready for whatever. None of these young people were in foster care. In fact, she would bet these kids didn’t even go to public school. They were thoroughbreds, on some kind of fast track.

      Two guys stopped by Billy’s table to talk with him. These guys were big shots. They had that unmistakable look—indifferent, above it all. She could see other kids watching them, looking for clues. They high-fived Billy before moving on. Everything about this picture was wrong.

      She used her cell phone to call the café. A woman behind the coffee bar picked up the phone. “I’m looking for Billy Logan,” Corey explained. “He’s the tall kid in the blue sweatshirt with little white letters on the front.”

      “Ma’am, there are maybe four guys in here wearing that sweatshirt.”

      She looked again. “Okay, right. Table by the window. With the blonde girl wearing silver sequins under the torn leather jacket.”

      The woman behind the counter looked around, found the sequins. “That’s Morgan. Is Billy her friend on the left?”

      My right, your left. “That’s him.”

      The lady came around the counter with a portable phone. She handed it to Billy. He shook his head—there must be some mistake—but she had turned back to work.

      When he had the phone to his ear, Corey said, “Billy, I’m outside. I wasn’t sure what to do. I need to see you right away.”

      She could see him through the window, standing now, turning away from his friends. “What are you doing here?”

      “Come out and turn left, you’ll see the truck.”

      “It’s not my time to see you.”

      “Billy, either you come out, or I come in.”

      “Thanks. Thanks a lot.”

      She watched him say something to his friends, then return the phone. He came out the door and walked to the truck. He was pouting when he opened the door and stuck his head in. “Why are you here?”

      “Why?” she repeated. “Are you kidding?”

      “You messed things up for me, big time. I’m doing okay now. Don’t mess me up again.”

      “I’ll try not to,” she said gently, aware how wound up he was. She put a hand on the СКАЧАТЬ