Con Academy

“What’s the big deal?” I ask the kid who brought me to the scene.

“We’re all trading with virtual funds,” the kid says. “Brandt’s the only one whose parents let him use actual cash. He just cleared three million dollars short-selling this biotech start-up.”

“Three million actual dollars?”

“Yeah.”

At one point during class, while I’m sitting in front of a massive six-screen Bloomberg Terminal and trying to learn which of the yellow hot keys represent which market sectors, I look up and see Brandt himself staring at me. For a second I know how a field mouse must feel when the shadow of a hawk passes over him. After a moment Brandt makes his way over, all swagger and sneer.

“Yo. Missionary kid.”

I don’t take my eyes off the screens in front of me. He taps me on the shoulder.

“I think you’re in the wrong class,” he says, leaning in close. “Why don’t you go get me a coffee or something?”

Now I look at him. For the moment, he seems to have lost interest in all the money changing hands, temporarily distracted by the opportunity for a little midday cruelty.

“You heard me,” he says. “Lots of cream, lots of sugar.”

As I stand up, something snags me around the ankle and I go sprawling forward. I catch myself in time and see Brandt giving me the slightest smirk as he turns back around to the overhead monitors.

“Better watch your step,” the kid whom I’d been talking to earlier says. “He’s the king of the jungle in here.”

“Right,” I say. “Thanks.” I make my way out into the hallway, heading for the exit. It’s cold outside but I don’t mind. I’ve got English Lit in twenty minutes, and I could use the cooldown time.

Now more than ever, I know that we’ve picked the right mark.

Andrea doesn’t look happy to see me.

After English Lit—where she wouldn’t meet my eye, and I managed to avoid Brandt—I find her waiting outside the arts center, Co

“So.” Standing there for a second, Andrea looks me up and down. “I see you learned how to tie a tie.”

“Yeah.” I reach up and straighten it, feeling unexpectedly self-conscious. “Does the uniform fit okay?”

She doesn’t bother answering, just gestures for me to head inside the arts center. The space is bright and airy and crackling with a kind of no-limits excitement that comes from being young and rich with your whole life ahead of you. From above, vast and unobstructed shafts of sunlight cascade down into the three-story lobby, where students are hanging out, chatting and texting like the casually beautiful citizens of the world that they are. Artistic black-and-white student photos line the walls. I smell fresh coffee and glance up to see the familiar green and white sign. “Wait, you’ve got a Starbucks in here?”

“Try not to look so shocked,” she mumbles. “You’ve been here twenty-four hours.”

I follow her through the lobby toward the coffee shop. According to Co

Andrea points me to an empty table in a corner of the café, and we sit down. Somewhere off to my left, a man in a dark suit passes by, and I have a panicky moment when I think it’s Dad in the crowd. It would be just like him to follow me here. But I realize it’s just an instructor.

Andrea leans in. Her eyes are locked on mine. “What’s wrong, Will?”

“Nothing. I’m fine.”

“For your sake, I really hope you’re a better liar than that.”

I shake it off, but something about her eyes, the way she’s looking at me, makes it difficult to focus. “I thought I recognized somebody, that’s all.”

“Like you’re being followed? Cops?”

“No, nothing like that.”

She doesn’t look convinced, and I don’t blame her. The truth is, I don’t even want to think about what it means that Dad has already found me here, or what he could do to mess up my play with Brandt Rush—not that I have one yet.

Dad is a problem. Even if he weren’t a gambling addict and constantly in debt to a half-dozen of New Jersey’s less patient bookies for the worst run of luck in the history of horseracing, I got the vibe from him that his drinking is getting out of control again. He’s an ever-expanding black hole of misfortune with a chronic habit of sucking in whatever’s nearby, and at the moment that includes me.

“Listen,” Andrea says, seeming to read my mind. “I’ve already got three good reasons why co

“I told you, I’m fine.”

“You’re sure?”

“Positive.”

“Oh, Will.” She rolls her eyes. “You are a terrible liar.”

I give her my best i

She still doesn’t seem to believe me but presses on just the same. “I don’t know if you noticed the plaque when we first came in?” she says. “Let’s start there.”

the rush center for dance and performing arts is what the plaque in the lobby turns out to say. And if you take the time to read the small print, you can actually see, for those too dense to grasp what the name means, made possible by the generous donation of victoria and herbert rush.

“It’s actually a twenty-six-million-dollar endowment,” Andrea tells me as we stand there, “to be paid out over the next ten years. Brandt’s father and grandfather both went to Co

“They’re swimming in cash,” I say. “I kind of figured that one out for myself, thanks.”

“It means,” the voice behind me says, “that they own this school.”

When I glance around, I see two men standing behind us. The broad-shouldered one is tall and bald, with a head like a hollow-point bullet, and the other is bearded and bespectacled, wrapped up in about twenty pounds of imitation Savile Row tweed. It takes me about five seconds to recognize them as the two that shook me out of bed last night and sent me ru

“Friends of yours?”

“Boys,” Andrea says, “you’ve met Will.”

“Yeah.” I take a half step back. “At one in the morning.”

“No hard feelings,” Mr. Tweed says, with a little smile. Behind his specs, his green eyes sparkle like sea glass, and I realize that one of his pupils is cocked in a slightly different direction. “Andrea asked for our help.”

“Chuck and Do

I take a closer look at Do

Do