Harlan Coben - Hold Tight

“I’m not asking you to betray confidences-”

“Well, yeah, Mike, you are.” She smiled sweetly. “That’s exactly what you’re asking me to do.”

“I’m just trying to find my son. That’s all.”

She spread her arms. “Does this look like a lost and found?”

“He’s missing.”

“This place is a sanctuary, Mike, you know what I’m saying? Kids come here to escape their parents.”

“I’m worried he might be in danger. He went out without telling anyone. He came here last night-”

“Whoa.” She held up a hand to signal for him to stop.

“What?”

“He came here last night. That’s what you said, Mike, right?”

“Right.”

Her eyes narrowed. “How do you know that, Mike?”

The constant use of his name was grating.

“Pardon me?”

“How do you know your son came here?”

“That’s really not important.”

She smiled and stepped back. “Sure it is.”

He needed a subject change. His eyes took in the room. “What is this place anyway?”

“We’re a bit of a hybrid.” Rosemary gave him one more look to let him know that she knew what he was trying to do with the question. “Think teen center but with a modern twist.”

“In what way?

“Do you remember those midnight basketball programs?”

“In the nineties, right. Trying to keep the kids off the streets.”

“Exactly. I won’t go into if they worked or not, but the thing is, the programs were geared toward poor, inner-city kids-and to some, there was clearly a racist overtone. I mean, basketball in the middle of the city?”

“And you guys are different?”

“First off, we don’t cater strictly to the poor. This may sound somewhat right wing, but I’m not sure we’re the best source to help the African American or inner-city teens. They need to do that within their own community. And in the long run, I’m not sure you can stop the temptations with something like this. They need to see that their way out isn’t with a gun or drugs, and I doubt a game of basketball will do that.”

A group of boys-cum-men shuffled by her office, all duded out in goth black accessorized with a variety of items in the chain-n-stud family. The pants had huge cuffs and you couldn’t see their shoes.

“Hey, Rosemary.”

“Hey, guys.”

They kept walking. Rosemary turned back to Mike. “Where do you live?”

“ New Jersey.”

“The suburbs, right?”

“Right.”

“Teens from your town. How do they get in trouble?”

“I don’t know. Drugs, drinking.”

“Right. They want to party. They think they’re bored-maybe they are, who knows?-and they want to go out and get high and go to clubs and flirt and all that stuff. They don’t want to play basketball. So that’s what we do here.”

“You get them high?”

“Not like you think. Come on, I’ll show you.”

She started down the bright yellow corridor. He stayed by her side. She walked with her shoulders back and head high. The key was in her hand. She unlocked a door and started down the stairs. Mike followed.

It was a nightclub or disco or whatever you call them nowadays. It had the cushioned benches and round tables that lit up and the low stools. There was a DJ booth and a wooden floor, no mirrored ball but a bunch of colored lights that swirled in patterns. The words CLUB JAGUAR were spray-painted graffiti style against a back wall.

“This is what teens want,” Rosemary McDevitt said. “A place to blow off steam. To party and hang with friends. We don’t serve alcohol, but we serve virgin drinks that look like alcohol. We have good-looking bartenders and waitresses. We do what the best clubs do. But the key is, we keep them safe. Do you understand? Kids like your son drive in and try to get fake IDs. They want to buy drugs or find a way to get alcohol even though they are underage. We are trying to prevent that by channeling it in a healthier way.”

"With this place?”

“In part. We also offer counseling, if they need that. We offer book clubs and therapy groups and we have a room with Xbox and Playsta- tion 3 and all the rest of what you often associate with a teen center. But this place is the key. This place is what makes us, pardon the teenage vernacular, cool.”

“Rumor has it that you serve.”

“Rumor is wrong. Most of the rumors are started by the other clubs because they’re losing business to us.”

Mike said nothing.

“Look, let’s say your son came into the city to party. He could go down Third Avenue over there and buy cocaine from one alley. The guy in the stoop fifty yards away from here sells heroin. You name it, the kids buy it. Or they sneak into a club where they’ll get wasted or worse. We protect them here. They can get their release in safety.”

“Do you take in street kids too?”

“We wouldn’t turn them away, but there are other organizations better equipped for that. We aren’t trying to change lives in that way because frankly I don’t think that works. A kid gone bad or from a wrecked home needs more than what we offer. Our goal is to help keep the basically good kids from slipping up. It is almost the opposite problem-parents are too involved nowadays. They are on their kids twenty-four/seven. The teens today have no room to rebel.”

The argument was one he had made to Tia many times over the years. We are too all over them. Mike used to walk the streets by himself. On Saturdays he would play in Branch Brook Park all day and not come back until late. Now his own kids couldn’t cross the street without him or Tia watching carefully, afraid of… of what exactly?

“So you give them that room?”

“Right.”

He nodded. “Who runs this place?

“I do. I started it three years ago after my brother died of a drug overdose. Greg was a good kid. He was sixteen. He didn’t play sports so he wasn’t popular or anything. Our parents and society in general were too controlling. It was only maybe the second time he had done drugs.”

“I’m sorry.”

She shrugged, started for the stairs. He followed her up in silence.

“Ms. McDevitt?”

“Rosemary,” she said.

“Rosemary. I don’t want my son to become another statistic. He came here last night. Now I don’t know where he is.”

“I can’t help you.”

“Have you seen him before?”

Her back was still to him. “I have a bigger mission here, Mike.”

“So my son is expendable?”

“That’s not what I said. But we don’t talk to parents. Not ever. This is a place for teens. If it gets out-”

“I won’t tell anyone.”

“It is part of our mission statement.”

“And what if Adam is in danger?”

“Then I would help if I could. But that’s not the case here.”

Mike was about to argue, but he spotted a bunch of the goths down the corridor.

“Those some of your clients?” he asked, entering her office.

“Clients and facilitators.”

“Facilitators?”

“They sort of do everything. They help keep the place clean. They party at night. And they watch the club.”

“Like bouncers?”

She tilted her head back and forth. “That’s probably too strong a term. They help the newbies fit in. They help maintain control. They keep an eye on the place, make sure no one lights up or does drugs in the bathroom, that kind of thing.”

Mike made a face. “The inmates controlling the prison.”

“They’re good kids.”

Mike looked at them. Then back at Rosemary. He studied her for a second. She was fairly spectacular to look at. She had a model’s face, the kind with cheekbones that could double as letter openers. He glanced back at the goths. There were four, maybe five of them, all a haze of black and silver. They were trying to look tough and failing miserably.