The Infamous Frankie Lorde 1, page 15
“What’s his family like?”
“Not sure,” I said. “I’ve never asked.”
“What’s his favorite color?” Uncle Scotty asked, sounding exasperated.
“Ooh, ooh! I know what color he doesn’t like,” I said, like this was something to be proud of. “Yellow. Apparently it totally washes him out.”
Uncle Scotty stopped what he was doing to stare at me.
“Seriously?” he asked.
I nodded.
He walked from the counter and over to me. “Are you sure this guy’s even your friend?” he asked. “It seems like you don’t really know anything about him.”
The comment came as a surprise. Not because Uncle Scotty was wrong, but because he was sort of right. I knew plenty of surface stuff about Ollie. He wanted to be an actor. He liked fashion. That sort of thing. But when it got down to the important stuff—the stuff that I was pretty sure friends were supposed to know about each other—I didn’t actually know that much.
And now that Uncle Scotty had brought it up, his questions were forcing me to really look at why I was willing to let Ollie into the thieving side of my life but not into the rest of it. Logically, I knew it was partly because I’d always been taught that if you really let a person into your life, you left yourself vulnerable and open to being a target.
And I wasn’t about to be a target.
This rule of never getting close to anyone has never applied to my dad, of course. I’ve never had to worry about him knowing the real me, and he’s never kept me from knowing the real him. But that’s a different situation completely.
Friends, on the other hand. That’s a more complicated subject.
Dad had told me enough horror stories about being double-crossed by friends in his early thieving days for me to be wary of trusting anyone outside the family circle. But the truth was, I’d just never really had the chance to make friends before. Between our questionable lifestyle, the constant reinventions of ourselves with every con, and the fact that we were always moving on to the next city or country, it was pretty tough to find anyone my age that I wanted to spend time getting to know, let alone anyone I was willing to let get to know me.
But now here was Ollie.
It was different with him for so many reasons. First, he’d known who I was before I’d even shown up at school. This alone was something I wasn’t used to. Everywhere I’d gone in the past, I’d been relatively anonymous. Nobody knew who I was, therefore I could be anybody I chose to be. But here in Greenwich, Ollie had known my biggest secret from the start—my real identity.
And now somehow he’d become my partner in crime.
Yet I was still so hesitant to get close to him. Heck, I didn’t even know his favorite color.
And until now, I’d been perfectly content with our friendship being one-sided. But I was beginning to see that I was about to trust my life to a relative stranger, and somehow that no longer sat well with me.
The truth was, I didn’t know my partner.
I didn’t know my friend.
And that fact made me feel…sad.
At that precise moment, there was a knock at the front door. It was that knock where you expect the person on the other side to finish with two sharp raps.
I hopped down from the counter and skipped quickly over to the front door to swing it open.
“Ollie!” I screamed, overcompensating for how guilty I was suddenly feeling. “Come on in!”
I waved him inside and gave him a big smile. Only, I rarely smiled for no reason and I was fairly sure the smile I was giving off right then was bordering on creepy.
Ollie gave me a look that said I was right. My face fell back into its usual disaffected look.
“We got pizza,” I said, less enthusiastically.
“Sweet!” Ollie said, and swept past me and into the kitchen. I watched as he walked right up to my uncle and held out his hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Detective Lorde.”
Uncle Scotty glanced over at me as if to say What’s going on? but shook Ollie’s hand anyway. I just shrugged and gestured back like the grandness of Ollie’s greeting was completely normal.
And it was. For Ollie. I thought back to the first time I’d met him, and almost laughed.
At least he hadn’t bowed to my uncle like he had to me.
Five minutes later, the three of us were seated at the kitchen table and shoving gooey slices of pizza into our mouths. In true Ollie fashion, he hadn’t stopped talking since he’d arrived, and every once in a while Uncle Scotty would look over at me like he was expecting me to bail him out.
I ignored him, because, well, he was the one who wanted to get to know my new friend. And he was getting what he’d asked for.
Well, kind of.
“So have you ever shot anyone?” Ollie asked Uncle Scotty, his eyes wide with curiosity. It was about the twentieth question Ollie had asked since we’d sat down to eat, and I could tell that my uncle was growing tired of the nonstop interrogation.
“Um, I can’t really talk about the investigations I’ve worked on,” Uncle Scotty said, trying to evade the question. I knew this wasn’t totally true. Yes, Uncle Scotty couldn’t talk about an ongoing investigation. But all the other stuff was fair game. He just didn’t want to talk about it.
I let out a little laugh at the whole situation and Uncle Scotty used it as an excuse to change the subject.
“How about you, Ollie?” he said, trying to take control. “You have a lot of questions about what it’s like to be a cop. Any interest in pursuing law enforcement once you graduate?”
Ollie and I looked at each other and burst out laughing.
“What’s so funny?” Uncle Scotty asked.
“You do not want to give Ollie a badge,” I said, still laughing.
Ollie was shaking his head at the thought. “It’s true. My middle name so isn’t Danger,” he said.
“What is your middle name?” I asked, remembering that I wanted to be more proactive in learning these little details about Ollie.
Ollie paused for a moment, like my question had taken him by surprise.
“Domingo,” he answered finally. Then he turned back to Uncle Scotty. “My interest is more in the sense of, I wouldn’t mind playing a cop on TV one day,” he explained. “Although, on second thought, those blue uniforms really bum me out.”
“Maybe you could star as some sort of offbeat detective or something,” I suggested. “Like that show about the psychic detective. Or you could play a detective to the stars.”
“Those don’t actually exist,” Uncle Scotty cut in.
“I like it,” Ollie said dreamily. Then he waved his hands through the air while looking off into space like he could picture it. “Ollie Santiago is The Star Detective. Coming Tuesday nights on NBC.”
“Okay, guys,” Uncle Scotty said, clearly sorry he’d brought it up in the first place.
“The Star Detective: Where fashion is a crime,” I added dramatically.
“Oh, geez,” Uncle Scotty said, placing his head in his hands like he was giving up. After a moment, he picked up his cell phone and studied it, even though I was pretty sure it hadn’t made a sound. “Oh, would you look at that. Looks like the station needs me for…something. You guys good to finish up here?”
He stood up, not waiting for us to answer, and took his plate over to the sink.
When he turned back to us, it was clear he was ready to bolt.
“Don’t worry, Uncle Scotty,” I said, raising my eyebrow a bit just to show him I knew what he was really up to. “We can clean up here. You go take care of that…important case you’ve been working on.”
“Thanks, kiddo,” Uncle Scotty said with obvious relief. “Nice to meet you, Ollie. You’re welcome over here anytime.”
“Thank you, sir,” Ollie said, scrambling to wipe his greasy hands on his napkin so he could shake my uncle’s hand again. “Maybe we can talk more about your job next time. I have so many other questions.”
Uncle Scotty gestured for Ollie to remain seated and just gave him a friendly little wave before heading over to the front door.
“Sounds good,” he said quickly before disappearing into the night and leaving the two of us alone.
After a minute, Ollie grabbed another slice of pizza and wrinkled up his nose. “You know, for a detective, your uncle doesn’t ask a lot of questions,” he mused out loud. “I mean, I just had to keep talking, and talking, and talking…”
I shook my head and began to laugh.
Entry Thirty-Two
In the history of my entire time as a thief, never have I ever worn feathers on a job.
I know. Surprising, right?
That was sarcasm. It shouldn’t be surprising at all. Who, in real life, ever finds the appropriate occasion to wear dead bird fur?
Well, the answer to that would be: Ollie.
Ollie Santiago would probably argue that any occasion calls for a feather or two.
“You’re crushing them!” he whined for about the tenth time since we’d stuffed ourselves into the cab.
“There’s no other way for me to sit in this outfit,” I argued, but shifted my weight over to my right hip in an attempt to give the back of my dress more real estate on the backseat. “Maybe you should’ve thought of that when you designed this…thing.”
“It’s not a thing,” Ollie said, shooting me a look over his shoulder. In an attempt not to ruin his own outfit, he was kneeling on the back seat, facing out the rear window. It had been the only way the two of us had been able to fit into the car at the same time. “It’s a work of art.”
“Well, your art is annoying,” I said.
“It wasn’t meant to sit down in,” he informed me, like this fact should’ve been obvious. “It was meant to wow, while still serving a purpose. Believe me, you’ll thank me later when you find that you have plenty of room up under there for…stuff.”
Ollie glanced back toward the driver to see if he was listening to our conversation. The guy had the radio tuned to some kind of international station and was bobbing his head along to what sounded like a Latin pop song. But I knew that just because someone looks preoccupied doesn’t mean they aren’t listening to every word you say.
Still, I wasn’t worried. Between our masks, the fake accents we were already practicing, and the fact that I’d be paying the driver in cash, none of it would matter if we stood out to him.
Because we were just about up to Miles’s circular driveway and the cabbie was about to see that we weren’t the only weirdos dressed up incognito.
“Holy Met Gala,” Ollie breathed as we slowed to allow a bunch of guests to cross in front of the cab on their way to the entrance of Miles Manor.
And he wasn’t wrong. What we saw around us was like walking into a fairy tale.
Or Comic-Con.
Either way, every single person there had brought their A game.
I’d been nervous when Ollie had revealed our costumes earlier that night. I’d thought they were too extravagant, too over-the-top. I’d argued that we would stand out so much that all eyes would be glued to us, making it impossible to do what we were there to do.
But now I had to admit that Ollie had been right. He’d been one hundred percent right, actually. Because every costume I was seeing was like a masterpiece meant to showcase each designer’s fantastical whims. Every possible shade of the rainbow danced around us, creating an effect like a disco ball and making my eyes swim. The fabrics were just as mesmerizing, ranging from taffeta and velvet to animal skin and jewels.
In this sea of unlimited imagination, no single pearl was going to stand out. Each was perfect in its own right.
“I take it all back,” I said as I watched a woman take calculated steps up Miles’s stairs, careful not to trip over her own outfit. She looked like a living, breathing Picasso painting. Her dress was sort of deconstructed, half of it missing but replaced with pieces of material in the shape of body parts. An eyeball here. Pink, pouty lips there. They all appeared to cling to her body as if they’d been glued on. As if the rest of her outfit wasn’t odd enough, she was wearing a tower of different-sized top hats, balancing precariously on her head. It was completely compelling and completely bizarre at the same time.
“I will never doubt you when it comes to party attire again,” I said to Ollie, fully meaning it.
“That’s all I ask,” he responded, a grin appearing on his face. “Now, let’s get this gala started, shall we?”
The cab had finally stopped and a man in a tuxedo was waving for us to get out of the car and join the throngs of other guests making their way into the party. When we didn’t immediately comply, he jogged over to us and held the door open with one hand while reaching in to offer me his other.
I took it gratefully. I wasn’t sure how I would get out otherwise. Ollie had put me in platform pumps that were at least six inches tall. It was going to take all my energy just to keep from falling over in them. But as Ollie explained, it would hide my true height, which would make it that much more difficult to identify me later.
As I slipped out of the car, I left every part of the old me behind. I was no longer Frankie Lorde, part-time international thief, part-time middle school student. I had transformed into Raven, the sleek, dark beauty who belonged at this fundraising gala. Raven oozed money and power. Her nationality was hard to place on account of the mixed accent I’d come up with over the course of the past week: a blend of Russian and Australian. I knew that no matter how much anyone tried to place it, they wouldn’t be able to.
And this added to the mystery that was Raven.
Nothing ruffled her feathers, and she could take off at any moment, disappearing into the night.
The outfit had been a perfect choice on Ollie’s part. And ingeniously assembled, I had to admit. Though nobody but me would ever know it, the crinoline under the skirt of the dress—the structure meant to make it pouf out in the back like a bird’s tail feathers—was constructed a lot like a birdcage. Dozens of springy steel rods encircled the lower half of my body, starting at my waist and spreading out three feet behind me.
Directly on top of that lay the actual material of the dress, topped by thousands of delicate, sleek black feathers. Ollie swore they weren’t real, but they sure looked like it. The top was form-fitting, with a sweetheart neckline, and the arms billowed out like wings that only appeared when I lifted my arms.
Covering the majority of my face was an even more beautiful mask, made of the same feathers and adorned with a few well-placed black jewels. There was no way to tell it was me underneath, but even so, I’d put in graphite-colored contacts, making it appear as if my eyes were the color of night.
In the end, I looked…wild and otherworldly.
It was absolutely incredible without being too flashy.
Ollie’s outfit, on the other hand? Well, that was a different story entirely.
Because he had come as none other than a peacock.
The blend of bright blues, greens, teals, and the occasional flash of gold weaved themselves around Ollie’s body expertly, one color fading into the next like an optical illusion.
His pants were made from the darkest part of the bird’s feathers, giving the appearance that all the color in the room was cascading from the top of him downward until it disappeared into the ground below. His jacket jutted out at the waist, similar to a peplum top, and it made him look even more like the peacock he was emulating. A row of feathers created a tiny halo just behind his shoulders, giving another shot of color to the overall look.
But that wasn’t the showstopper. The thing that would make Ollie’s outfit extraordinary would come later.
And I for one couldn’t wait to see it.
Especially since it was an important key to pulling this whole thing off.
As I stepped away from the car, the sea of people seemed to part, allowing me to make my way toward the entrance. After a few steps, I felt Ollie’s presence by my side. And then, as if we’d choreographed it, I held out my hand and he took it like we were a flock that only flew together.
Eyes turned toward us. There might’ve been some whispering, possibly even some pointing. I refused to smile, even though inside I was satisfied with the reaction.
But just as quickly as we’d come to be the center of attention, the other partygoers were already beginning to move on to the next elaborate outfit. And the next.
With a final glance behind us, we entered the party without much more fanfare or anyone remembering we’d come at all.
Entry Thirty-Three
Miles’s house looked pretty much the way it had the last time Ollie and I had been there. Cavernous, expensive, clean—the way you would expect a house of that stature to look. As soon as we handed over our invitation to the security team, we were ushered through the archway under the stairs and onward until we were again outside.
In Miles’s backyard, we walked underneath a canopy of stars and twinkle lights that had been hung by the hundreds around his expansive property. The back deck area had been set up like an elaborate dance hall, and a live orchestra played music softly from somewhere I couldn’t pinpoint. Waiters walked around supplying people with drinks and tiny bites of food that weren’t immediately recognizable.
“Caviar and crème fraîche tartlet?” A man in a black-and-white waiter’s uniform appeared in front of us, proffering a tray of round black-and-white things.
“Cheers,” Ollie said, taking one of the tartlets eagerly.
“I’m not sure you want—” I started to say to him as he put the thing up to his lips and almost swallowed it whole.
A few chews later and Ollie had frozen in place before putting his napkin to his mouth and trying to discreetly spit out the remnants.
