The Fence Read Online Free

stoop. The Cahnerses were in Florida on vacation. The woman began asking for directions and suddenly pulled a pistol from her coat pocket. At the same time, a man wearing a ski mask stepped into view and pointed a gun at her. The burglars taped Ollie’s hands together, made her sit in the foyer, and stuffed paper into her mouth. They raced from room to room, yanking paintings off of walls. They fled with three, including The Rustics , by Winslow Homer, valued at up to $200,000. The next day’s newspaper coverage was extensive. “Masked Pair Loot Brookline Home of Publishing Executive,” ran the Boston Globe headline over a story that recounted how Ollie freed herself after the “bandits” left.
    In school the next day the armed burglary was a hot topic, and one of Mike’s classmates carried a copy of the newspaper, which included a photo of Ollie.
    “That’s my aunt,” Mike said.
    Your aunt’s a maid?
    Mike was embarrassed. He said no more and realized he should have kept his mouth shut.
     
    By the time Mike was in the seventh and eighth grades—spent at a middle school in the city—teachers were encouraging him to spread his wings. Mike began reading a lot, thanks to an English teacher. “She’d hand me a bag full of books—read these!” His grades were strong and he was a natural athlete. With his teachers’ guidance, he applied to several private schools. Milton Academy offered him a scholarship. Mike liked the school because it was fairly close to home, in the town of Milton south of the city.
    In September 1980, Mike began the ninth grade at the eliteprivate school. His father drove him, but the school year was barely under way when David Cox fell ill. He was diagnosed with stomach cancer. Mike recalled, “He had surgery and they took out part of his stomach, and he was pretty ill. He came home and had lost of a lot of weight, a lot of weight, and he had stopped working.” The family was in crisis.
    For Mike, Milton Academy was a crisis—academically and culturally. To get there Mike began traveling a network of buses and trains. He invariably arrived late. He usually got a ride home after playing sports, but it was well after seven o’clock before he could even think about his schoolwork. “But I am flat-out tired, and I’d go upstairs and go to sleep.” If he was lucky, he’d wake up early to do some work. “If I didn’t wake up I’d go to class and now I haven’t done the work. So I’d try to do it between periods.”
    His head spun, but given his nature he said nothing. He didn’t ask for help at school. He didn’t say anything to his parents. “I didn’t want to disappoint my father.” He knew his father had cancer, but wasn’t sure what that meant.
    “No one really explained it to me, but I could see he was getting sicker.”
    Because of the complicated commute, Mike often missed meeting with his adviser before classes—meetings that were part of the fabric of the academy’s day. One day his adviser caught up with him. He pulled Mike aside. Mike rubbed his eyes and sneezed. He’d begun suffering from allergies, although the condition hadn’t yet been diagnosed. Mike just knew his head was stuffy all the time and his eyes watered constantly. The adviser waited a second and then said he had a question to ask.
    You smoke a lot of pot, don’t you? Before school?
    Mike was dumbfounded.
    You can tell me, the adviser said earnestly. It’s okay.
    Mike sat there. To him, the world was divided into two groups—kids and grown-ups. With friends, he felt okay, and “I did what I did. Played sports and was friends.” With adults, “I just didn’t talk. Talking wasn’t my thing.” Facing his adviser, Mike basically didn’tsay a word. He did not speak up and protest, did not seize the opportunity to discuss his rough start. “I was just sitting there, thinking, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    The adviser took Mike’s silence as confirmation. You really should