Ruby had never seen Hitch angry like this. She shouldn’t have told him about Clancy. That was a mistake.
By now Hitch was in the car, turning the key in the ignition.
“What about tonight? My folks are expecting you to serve drinks at their party. It’s important to them, they’re gonna be real mad — you can’t just go!” Ruby was getting desperate, trying to find anything that might stop him from leaving.
“It’s covered,” he said angrily.
“What about the redhead?” shouted Ruby.
But her voice was drowned out by the sound of the car engine.
As he drove, Hitch thought about Ruby. He was about as angry as he had ever been.
What on earth had gotten into the kid?
She might be brilliant but she was way out of control, living out some secret agent spy fantasy.
As much as he wanted to strangle her, he really should get someone to keep her safely under lock and key while he was away — he could strangle her when he got back.
He pushed a button on the dash and was put straight through to HQ.
“LB, look, maybe it’s nothing but Ruby’s got it into her head that she’s some kind of action agent. I think she could get herself into some real trouble if someone doesn’t keep an eye on her.”
“You want to tell me what’s happened?”
“Well, today she was breaking into some woman’s hotel room with her school pal Clancy.”
LB gave a heavy sigh. “I never should have used the kid, shoulda learned my lesson by now.”
“You’re gonna have to watch her, she could get into some serious trouble,” said Hitch.
“OK, I’ll put Froghorn on it.”
“Froghorn?” blurted Hitch. “I’m not sure that’s such a good idea, the kid and Froghorn didn’t exactly hit it off — can’t you assign someone else?”
“We only have Froghorn, all our other agents are tied up on bigger things.”
“I’m not sure he can handle it.”
“Don’t worry about Froghorn, I’ll tell him to play nice.”
True to his word, Hitch did have it covered — at seven o’clock a young woman in an elegant cocktail dress arrived at the Redfort home.
“Hitch sent me — the name’s Christie. I’m going to be making and serving your cocktails this evening. I believe you have approximately sixty guests tonight?”
Brant Redford smiled. “Very nice to meet you, Christie. I’m Brant, but where’s . . .”
“Hitch? Oh, he had a personal emergency, I’m his cover. Where should I set up the bar?”
Consuela scowled and pointed Christie in the direction of the living room.
By the time Sabina made her way upstairs, Christie looked well into her stride.
The phone in the hall rang. Ruby picked up and said angrily, “Redfort household, shaken and quite possibly stirred.”
“So what did he say? Does he know this redhead and why she might be after some man with a mustache or what?” It was Clancy, but he wasn’t bothering with hellos.
“I never got a chance to find out — he was in kind of a hurry,” said Ruby.
“What? You gotta tell Spectrum, Rube, this could be important — it could be to do with the Jade Buddha.”
“You think I don’t know that?” said Ruby. “But what can I do if they won’t hear me out?”
“Make ’em,” said Clancy firmly. “Go there and make them listen — people could be in danger. Remember what happened to Lopez.”
He’s right, thought Ruby. Clancy could be stubborn and sometimes a royal pain but he was seldom wrong.
Unnoticed, she slipped away from the party and upstairs to her room. She pulled on a pair of jeans underneath her dress, popped on a pair of sneakers, and climbed out of the window and down the side of the house. Once in the yard she whistled to Bug. She biked through town, up Mountain Road to the Lucky Eight gas station, the dog easily keeping up with her. The manhole cover was still there but when she tried to lift the lid, no matter how hard she heaved it just wouldn’t budge.
Now what?
She rode down to Twinford Bridge, climbed over the rail and on to the iron supports, inched her way along until she got exactly halfway but the rusty door was no longer there and it was impossible to see that it ever had been. Then she rode into town as far as Maverick Street, got off her bike, and walked to the shabby brown door next to the Laundromat. The buzzer was still there but the keypad was gone, and no matter how much she buzzed and knocked, there was no answer and it didn’t seem like there ever would be.
She was out of ideas. Guess we might as well rejoin the party, Bug.
As they walked through the front gate of the Redfort residence, a voice said, “And just what have you been up to, little girl?”
Ruby spun around and came face-to-face with Froghorn.
“Why is it your business, bozo?”
“Babysitting duty again — Spectrum wants me to keep you out of trouble.” He looked smug.
“What? That’s all I need, some duh brain checking up on me.”
“I can assure you I don’t want to be here — and I am not sure what crime I committed to end up on this detail.”
“Maybe it was the suit,” suggested Ruby.
Froghorn clenched his teeth. “I’ll be watching the back gate, little girl — you won’t find it so easy next time. Oh, and don’t go breaking into any more hotel rooms with your little friend, inch-high private eye!” He smiled his sour smile, evidently pleased with that one.
When everyone had gone and the house was quiet, Ruby tiptoed into the kitchen and sat staring at the toaster. She even put in some bread, but when it popped up there was no secret message — it was just toast.
Upstairs, she checked her personal answering machine in the vain hope that there might be a call from Hitch, but the only message was from Red explaining that she had had a “small accident” with Ruby’s violin but that it was “definitely fixable, although it was going to take a lot of glue.”
Ruby sat down on the beanbag. Sure, it was furnished, but without any of her personal stuff, it didn’t feel right. Nothing about anything felt right. Life without Mrs. Digby certainly didn’t feel right, and she had a horrible feeling that things were only going to get a whole lot less right. But for now Ruby Redfort would do as Hitch had told her and “sit tight”— what choice did she have?
The next day passed without sight nor sound of the Redfort butler.
When Ruby asked her parents if they had heard from him, they simply said, “He sent us a telegram to say he had personal business but would be back for the museum party and after that he would be moving on.”
“That’s it?” said Ruby.
“I hear you, Rube, we miss him too,” said her father. “He is so organized.”
“I’ll say,” said her mother. “Never forgets anything.”
“Banana milk,” said Ruby.
“What?” said her father.
“Banana milk, he forgot to order the banana milk.”
“Well, let’s hope the next guy is twice as good, huh honey?” said Brant.
“I’ll be happy if he is half as handsome,” said her mother, laughing stupidly.
But Ruby wasn’t even listening; she was longing for someone else to come home.
Mrs. Digby would never forget banana milk.
Mrs. Digby, where are you?
Rats, she thought.
Mrs. Digby didn’t like rats. She especially didn’t like being alone with rats. The thieves, whoever they were, had left her in the warehouse with only the TV for company, but at least they hadn’t bothered to tie her up. “Where’s she gonna go?” the thuggish man had said.
OK, so she might not be able to escape, but Mrs. Digby wasn’t about to put up with any rats.
They might be one of God’s many creatures but I’ll be darned if I’m going to share my dinner with them. She was fond of saying this whenever she saw a rat, whether it be up close and personal or on some TV show
.
She listened harder and picked up an oriental lamp. You come through here, Mr. Rat, and you are going to be mincemeat I’m telling you.
The scraping sound stopped.
Mrs. Digby stood stock still.
Was it listening?
Get a grip on yourself, old lady.
THE DAY BEFORE THE MUSEUM PARTY, Ruby’s mother walked into the living room, threw her keys on the table, and said, “My goodness, am I ever tired! It’s been a long day at the gallery, and I had to come back from lunch early because my assistant was out sick.”
Ruby didn’t feel too sorry for her since she was aware that her mother usually took two hour lunch breaks.
“Oh, I bought you these divine shoes!” Sabina opened a shoe box and produced a pair of sparkly red clogs. “You can wear them to the museum party. Aren’t they cute.”
Ruby looked at them. She wasn’t so sure. “I guess,” she said.
“Well, try them on.”
Ruby knew she would get no peace until she did, so she slipped them onto her feet — they were surprisingly comfortable and sort of cool in an uncool way.
“The soles are real wood,” said her mother. “Adorable! Do you love them?”
“Love ’em,” said Ruby, who was hoping to get back to the TV show she was watching.
But her mother wasn’t finished. “I’m late home because just as I was leaving work, this woman came into the gallery, oh my, was she pretty — tall, elegant, nicely dressed — and she was chatting to me about the new paintings we are showing; she really liked them too.”
“Oh, yeah?” said Ruby.
“Did she ever! I think she really might buy one — two even.” sighed Sabina happily.
“Oh, that’s nice,” said Ruby. Why did her mother always have to strike up a conversation when she was in the middle of one of her favorite shows? It was the new season of Crazy Cops — she had been looking forward to it for a long time.
Drat!
“We got on terribly well. She was charming. She was admiring my suit and she said, ‘You should get a powder blue one because it would look great with your coloring,’ and I said, ‘It’s funny you should say that because I have a beautiful powder blue Oscar Birdet suit,’ and she said, ‘Oh do you? I love that designer.’”
“That’s nice,” yawned Ruby.
“She asked me if I ever wear it to work because she’d love to see it, and I said, ‘Oh yes, ordinarily I would but I had a little accident with it the last time I was wearing it and it’s still at the dry cleaners.”
“Boy! Sounds like you two really had a fascinating chat.” Ruby was staring at the screen, trying to work out what it was that Detective Despo had discovered — he was looking pensive, and when Detective Despo looked pensive it always meant he was on to something.
Darn it!
“Yes, we did,” continued her mother. “And she asked me where my dry cleaner was because she was looking for a good one — good dry-cleaning can be such a problem. I said I would look it up — and she said, ‘As soon as you find out, could you be sure and let me know?’”
Detective Despo was getting in his car and was radioing for backup but Ruby had no idea why. “Mom, could you just move a little to the right? You are blocking my view.” She hoped her mother would get the hint. Her mother moved but continued to talk.
“I told her, ‘You should really get a little powder-blue Oscar Birdet suit yourself, redheads always look beautiful in blue.’”
Ruby’s ears pricked up; many, tall, pretty, elegantly dressed women in the world had red hair, but her mother seemed to be bumping into a lot of them lately.
“By the way,” her mother continued. “It’s nice to see you wearing your contact lenses for a change. I don’t understand this fashion for glasses. This woman I’m telling you about, she was wearing the hugest tinted glasses you’ve ever seen. Such a shame, one could hardly see her face.”
Bingo! It had to be. It could only be! The woman from the hotel, from the square, the woman in the car, and of course the woman at the airport — there were coincidences and there was bad luck and her mom was certainly running into a lot of one or the other. Her mother carried on talking, but Ruby heard none of what she said — she was too busy thinking about the little man with the huge mustache. What did he have to do with all this?
And then, suddenly, she knew.
“So, Mom, you remember when you bumped into the guy at the airport, the guy with the mustache?”
“How could I forget? That suit will never be the same,” Sabina said, sighing.
“Well, he didn’t give you something, did he?”
“Whatever do you mean, Ruby? Why would he give me something?”
“Well, I don’t know, but could he have slipped something into your pocket, without you knowing?”
“Why would he slip something into my pocket, why not just give it to me like a normal human person?”
Ruby took a deep breath. “Well, you see, it happens all the time in Crazy Cops, someone who’s being tailed by the cops or even tailed by the bad guys, purposely bumps into a complete stranger and slips something into their pocket — a secret code, or potion, or valuable thing. Maybe the thing is stolen!”
“I can assure you I would know it — that suit is very fitted, the pockets aren’t made for putting things in, it would ruin the shape,” said her mother firmly.
“But what about,” ventured Ruby, “if it was something really tiny, like a note, or something small but valuable, like for example a ring or a key?”
“If it were a ring or a key then the metal detectors would go off — I had to go through metal detectors to board the plane. Besides if there was anything in the pockets the dry cleaner would have phoned to let me know — they always do. By the way they found a watch in your jacket.”
“Oh, did they?” said Ruby. “I was missing that . . . but they didn’t find anything in yours?”
Sabina looked at her daughter, bewildered, and said, “Just what are you getting at, Ruby?”
Ruby saw that look in her mother’s eyes and knew there was no point trying to persuade her that a small man with a mustache, for whatever reason, had almost certainly planted something on her. Something that other people — ruthless killers, in fact — badly wanted. That it was not a coincidence that her parents’ luggage was lost, and the very next day the house robbed. That Mrs. Digby was not sulking but was most probably stolen along with the furniture. And that her mom was very lucky not to have been kidnapped herself — someone had certainly tried. At best her mother simply wouldn’t believe her, and at worst she would panic.
Ruby took a deep breath and said, “Oh, nothing. Guess I’ve been watching too much TV is all.”
“I’ll say,” said Sabina, patting her daughter on the head. “Your father is always saying so.”
She left the room, and Ruby thought about what her mother had said. It was true, a ring or a key or something like it would have set off the metal detectors, but there had to be a reason everyone was after that jacket — Oscar Birdet wasn’t that good a designer.
She took out her notebook and made a list of what she knew, and just as important, what she didn’t know.
WHAT SHE KNEW
1. That a mustachioed man had most probably slipped something into her mother’s pocket, back in the Geneva airport.
...............
2. That an elegant woman with big glasses and red hair was prepared to commit numerous crimes to get it. Steal, kidnap, or maybe even kill; she had a gun after all.
...............
3. That whatever the something was, it was still in the jacket.
...............
4. That her mother’s life might well be in danger.
...............
5. That this was no time for sitting tight.
WHAT SHE DIDN’T KNOW
1. Who the man with the mustache was, good or bad.
...............
2. What he had slipped into
her mother’s pocket.
...............
3. Why the redhead wanted it.
...............
4. Why anyone wanted it.
...............
5. Which dry cleaner had the jacket.
...............
6. What any of this had to do with anything.
“But wait a minute,” said Ruby out loud — maybe she did know something else after all. Ruby thought back — it was Hitch who had taken the jacket to the dry cleaners. It was likely he would have kept a ticket, and it was more than likely that he would have stuck it on the refrigerator door — she’d seen him do that several times with other things. Ruby got up and went into the kitchen. She scanned the refrigerator — it was covered in receipts and lists, postcards and coupons, all stuck in place with magnets.
There it was:
She crossed off number 5 from her list of unknowns — she had the advantage.
SHE WAS PRETTY SURE SHE KNEW where Crisp ’n Clean was located — she had seen their sign, which had neon lettering and a neon laundry-detergent box that spilled neon bubbles. It was somewhere on the east side of town. She rarely went to that particular district but she had passed it once or twice and the brightly colored sign had lodged in her mind. The C of Clean was broken so it read Crisp ’n lean.
Ruby felt there was no time to lose, not if she was right about the woman who had visited her mother’s gallery earlier that day — and she was sure that she was. She grabbed her schoolbag and called out, “Hey Mom, just popping over to see Clancy. I promised him some help with his French assignment.”
This wasn’t an actual lie; she was going to pop in on Clance. She had promised, and Ruby Redfort always made a point of keeping her promises.
“OK, honey! Your father and I will be at the very last and final museum meeting before the big launch — we can’t wait, it is so exciting. I am wondering, mmm, what do you think? Should I wear the yellow dress or the silver? I look fabulous in yellow but then again silver is a statement, don’t you agree? Oh my, of course! I should wear jade, it would be perfect! Only thing is I don’t have a jade dress . . .”