“That’s time,” Casey says.
“Well, neither does crime,” Jack says. Then he looks over his shoulder at his demoted sidekick, who’s got his back turned to hide that he’s swigging from a bottle. “And if you booze, you lose,” he grumbles.
I step forward. “Look, we’re not available twenty-four-seven. We go to school. We do homework.” I eye Billy. “And we have parents who wouldn’t want us riding shotgun on a dirt bike!”
“Why are you here, then? Why track me down, if not to join forces?” He crosses his arms and puffs out his chest. “The lure of justice is strong, young one. Don’t deny it!”
“Look, I—”
“And don’t think you can infiltrate my secret hideaway without obligation!”
I blink at him. “You’re saying we owe you something because we figured out where you live?”
His chin juts up slightly. “You have, at a minimum, a moral obligation to keep the location secret.”
I shrug like, Sure, whatever, no problem.
“And should you—”
“JACK!” his mother yells from her mobile home. “GET RID OF THEM! NOW!”
Jack’s mouth screws around to one side, then he suddenly whooshes off toward Pair-a-Dice. “Schoolboy,” he calls over his shoulder to Billy, “we’ll talk.”
“No!” I call back at him. “You won’t!”
But it’s easy to see that no matter how hard I try, I won’t be stopping this runaway train.
SEVENTEEN
Justice Jack waved and his flag flapped and Billy shouted, “You’re awesome!” as the High Roller roared past us along Sandydale. The Lush was in the sidecar, blindfolded.
“I wouldn’t ride in that thing blindfolded,” Casey said. “Why doesn’t he just take it off?”
“I wouldn’t need one,” Billy cries. “I know exactly where he lives!”
“And you’re sworn to secrecy, remember? You crossed your heart and hoped to die-aye-aye?”
“Aye, aye!” Billy says, giving me another snappy salute.
I eye Casey. “You too.”
He eyes me back. “Aye, aye!”
“So how come you’re Umbrella Girl?” Billy asks, and he’s kind of pouting. Like it’s not fair that I’ve got a stupid name and he doesn’t.
“Umbrella Girl?” Casey asks. “Do tell!”
So I wind up explaining what happened at the mall, and since Billy had been in such a great mood the whole time we’d been traipsing through the eucalyptus forest, I forget for a minute why I’d taken him there in the first place and find myself motormouthing about Marissa—which I notice makes Billy’s bubbling go a little flat. So I try to cover up that by telling them about going to the library, which, of course, puts me in Heather territory. And even though I’ve been trying really hard not to bag on her around Casey, how can I talk about her and not?
So basically I squirt stupid sauce all over myself, and then squirt some more. And since we’re now at the pavement and I’m totally feeling like I need a shower, and since I don’t want to risk anyone on the main road spotting Casey and me together, I say, “Well, I’d better go!”
“Wait!” Casey calls, and catches up to me. “Is everything okay?”
“I’m an idiot. Why’d I have to bring up Marissa? Or Heather? Sorry.”
“I don’t care about Heather. And Billy’s fine.”
“No, he’s not!” I whisper. “He’s just distracted. Please hang out with him as long as you can. Marissa totally blindsided him.”
He nods. “So what about tomorrow?”
“Let’s pay-phone after school.”
Which is code for him calling my school’s pay phone from his school’s pay phone when the high school lets out.
He nods and gives me a quick hug and a kiss. “I miss you!”
“I miss you, too!” But Billy’s there now and I don’t want to get too mushy. “Oh!” I say to Billy. “Speaking of missing people, tell him about Lars!”
“Rock of Looooove!” Billy says, and since that seems to, you know, re-carbonate him, I tell them, “See you tomorrow!” and take off on my skateboard.
* * *
There was no one rappelling down the Highrise or trying to break into the Wedge’s apartment when I got home. It was … quiet. And Grams wasn’t rifling through anybody’s drawers. She was just sitting on the couch reading a book.
“Dinner smells awesome!” I tell her as I slip my skateboard under the couch and swing off my backpack.
“Roasted chicken and potatoes,” she says with a smile.
And then I notice that the table is set for three.
Now, the only other person to ever eat dinner in the apartment with us had been my mother. And I can’t think of a better way to tie my stomach in knots than to have a meal with the attention-wrangling Lady Lana. She’s like a bolt of pink lightning zapping through a meadow. Not that I’m saying life with Grams is peaceful. Meadows do have bees and cows and birds milling about. Probably snakes. Definitely mosquitoes. And once in a while a big ol’ bear ambles through.
But pink lightning?
You’re like, Whoa! What was that? because you can’t quite believe that pink lightning just streaked through your meadow, destroying the whole balance of things, and then vanished. And even after it’s long gone, you’re wiped out and nervous, worried that it might strike again.
So, anyway, when I see the third setting, I moan, “Oh no.”
Grams give me a playful little look. “Not in the mood to see Hudson?”
“Hudson?”
She looks at the wall clock. “He’ll be here in fifteen minutes.” And her book must’ve been pretty good, because all of a sudden she jumps up and says, “Fifteen minutes!” and hurries toward the bathroom. “Maybe you can toss the salad? Everything’s chopped and ready. It’s on the second shelf. In the refrigerator!”
I kind of chuckle, ’cause where else would it be?
In the closet?
She leaves the bathroom door open, so while she’s in there fixing her face and I’m in the kitchen fixing the salad, I ask her, “Any news on the Wedge?”
Her head pops out. “The police were here today taking a missing person report. Finally!” Then she disappears.
“Was it Officer Borsch?”
“No,” she calls. “It was a man and a woman.” Her head pops out again. “They didn’t seem too bright.”
“Did the woman have a long blond braid?”
“Yes!”
“Did the guy use big words to say small-word stuff?”
“Yes!”
“That was Squeaky and the Chick.”
I can hear her spraying her hair as she says, “Those two will never in a million years find Rose. And that Justice Jack fella seems to be a dead end, too.”
“They really called him?”
“Cynthia Orren did.”
“Is she the one who had his card? The one with the salt-and-pepper bun way up on her head.”
Grams steps out of the bathroom looking pretty much like she did when she stepped in, only with more colorful lips. “Isn’t that an awful hairstyle? Lord knows what she’s thinking.”
I toss the salad and kind of shake my head, because the longer I live in the Senior Highrise, the more it seems like junior high. “But she called Justice Jack and …?”
“And a group of them met with him in the lobby. Gave him a picture of Rose and told him their woes. He vowed to find her, but obviously he hasn’t.” She pulls the salad dressing out of the fridge and gives it a good shake. “Vince Garnucci told me he thought he was ridiculous, but Hudson seems to think he’s a decent fellow, and I’ve got to admire a man who’s willing to step up and defend the rights of the citizenry.”
“The citizenry? Is that actually a word?”
She hrmphs. “Of course it’s a word.”
The doorbell rings, and even though we’re expecting Hudson, we can’t be a hundred percent sure. So I duck into Grams’ bedroom just to be safe, and after Hudson?
??s inside and the front door’s shut tight, I come out and put the flowers he’s brought in a vase while Grams takes his coat and flutters about.
And, really, the two of them are so cute with the way they’re kind of awkward and ridiculously formal and sort of twinkling around each other like a couple of happy fireflies. And I was starting to feel like I shouldn’t even be there when Hudson comes into the kitchen and asks, “Did you hear the latest about Justice Jack?”
I’m tempted to say, What, that he gave the most awesome coat in the universe to a drunk guy in goggles? but I manage to clamp my mouth shut after “What.”
“He rescued preschool kids from a snake.”
“A snake?” I ask. “Wait—in December?”
His bushy eyebrows go up a little. “You raise a good point. Maybe it was flushed out of its hibernation den by the rains?” He gives a little shrug. “Regardless, apparently Justice Jack heard the screams and came to the rescue, much to the little ones’ delight.” He chuckles. “Can you imagine?”
I pull the chicken and potatoes out of the oven, picturing a bunch of little kids rushing around Justice Jack as he hefts a monster boa and cries, “You are safe, little citizens!”
“A day they won’t soon forget, I’m sure,” Grams says. And I’m taking off the hot mitts when I hear her ask him, “Do you have any idea what this might be about?” and when I turn to look, she’s handing him the folded page that she’d ripped out of the Wedgie’s notebook.
He studies it a minute. “Looks like a bookie’s notes to me.”
“A bookie’s notes?” Grams gasps. “Like gambling?”
He nods. “Tripteaser, Over-n-Out, Dusk Before Dawn … these sound like racehorse names.”
I pull a face. “Sexy Librarian is a racehorse name?”
He gives a little one-shoulder shrug and a grin.
Like, Yeah.
Grams’ eyes are totally bugged out as she looks at me and exclaims, “She’s betting on the ponies?”
“Who is?” Hudson asks.
“Wedgie Woman,” I tell him.
“Rose Wedgewood,” Grams says, and the look she gives me is definitely saying, Mind your manners!
“Is that your”—he hesitates—“your well-rounded neighbor?”
Grams nods. “She hasn’t been home in days.” She looks at me. “She must have gone to a racetrack!”
“But … I believe horse-racing season starts between Christmas and New Year’s,” Hudson says.
“Is there a preseason?” Grams asks.
Hudson shakes his head. “I don’t know that much about it, but I wouldn’t be surprised.”
Grams takes the paper back and murmurs, “So Rose plays the ponies.…”
It was pretty surprising.
Although, thinking about it, the Wedge was pretty cagey.
And a master blackmailer.
In a weird way, it did sort of make sense. And for the first time since she’d gone missing, it hit me that maybe she really wasn’t coming back.
I just stood there a minute, letting it sink in.
I don’t know why, but it was strangely upsetting.
EIGHTEEN
Billy was not sulking by himself on the school steps the next morning. When I got on campus, I saw him over by Mrs. Ambler’s classroom, but he just waved and called, “Sammy-keyesta!” and kept on trucking to class.
Now, maybe that was because the bell was about to ring, or maybe that was because Marissa and I usually meet up before school and he didn’t want to have to deal with her, but if it was the Marissa part, he had nothing to worry about.
I didn’t see her anywhere.
I also didn’t see her at break, but when I spotted Billy going into history, I ran up to him and said, “Hey! How are things?”
“Things are super-cool!”
I eye him. “I haven’t seen Marissa today, have you?”
“Who?” he asks like a funny-faced hoot owl.
But then we step inside the classroom and overhear Anastasia Vickers saying, “They eloped?” to Heather.
“That’s right!”
Anastasia shakes her head. “You can’t elope when you’re thirteen!”
Heather shrugs. “Well, they ran off together. Whatever.”
I hate gossip. It’s catty and destructive, and half the time it’s not even true. Or only partly true. I also hate it because people like Heather live for it. She loves to hear it, loves to spread it, loves to start it.
Especially if it’s smack about me.
So hearing her gossip about someone was nothing new. What was new was me wanting to ask her about it. Because right away I noticed that Lars Teppler was absent, and the only person I knew—or people, actually—who were desperate enough to run off together were Lars and Sasha.
But where would they go? How would they live? Neither of them could pull off pretending to be eighteen.
He still had peach fuzz!
So I couldn’t help wondering—were Lars and Sasha who Heather was gossiping about? And the more I wondered, the more I really wanted to know!
Not bad enough to ask Heather, of course. She’d just laugh and call me a nosy loser. But since Anastasia and I get along fine and since she sits between me and the pencil sharpener, I slipped her a note that said, Was Heather talking about Lars and Sasha? the first chance I got to go use the thing.
Sure enough, on my way back to my seat she gives me a little nod.
For the rest of class I just sat there thinking, Wow. And even though I tried to convince myself that it was probably all rumors and exaggerations and maybe even lies, Lars was absent and he had seemed desperate, and I couldn’t help believing that it was probably true.
I also couldn’t help feeling sorry for him.
Sorry for both of them.
I could just see him dashing over on his bike to rescue the fair maiden who was imprisoned in a barn on the outskirts of town. I could picture them frantically escaping in the moonlight, checking over their shoulders, not believing that they were actually getting away.
But there were big nets out there—not just her family, the police. And no matter how hard they pedaled, they’d get caught. Caught and hauled back home.
And then what?
Things would be worse than ever.
By lunch the whole school was talking about it, including Marissa. I guess she was happy to have something to talk about besides her and Billy—or her and Danny—because she was motoring at the mouth about how exciting and romantic it was.
Holly was the one to finally hand her a reality check. “You think it’s romantic? It’s December! It’s cold! Where are they going to stay? They’re going to run out of money! They can’t get jobs! What are they going to live on? It’s miserable being on the run with no place to go and nothing to eat!”
And instead of going, Wow. Yeah. I suppose you would know, Marissa says, “They’re in love, Holly. It’s not the same as what you went through. Love will get you through anything.”
“Not if you’re hungry and cold,” Holly says, shaking her head.
“Or pregnant,” Dot says.
We all look at her, horrified. For one thing, this is Dot, who’s always just sweet and cute and, well, innocent. But also just the thought of it maybe happening was scary. What a mess that would be.
“Well, what do you think?” Dot says, looking us over. “That they’re out there roasting marshmallows?”
Marissa starts packing up her stuff. “You guys are such downers.”
“Where are you going?” I ask her.
“Somewhere happy,” she says with a haughty little sniff, and takes off.
Now, I hadn’t seen Billy since history, but I didn’t think much of it because I figured he was just avoiding Marissa. But when he was absent in science and drama, I started to get a little worried. I could see him ditching drama, but science? That class is hard.
So during drama I went up and asked Marissa if she’d seen him, but she just said no and then went back to t
alking with her new, happy friends.
After school I tried calling Billy from the pay phone, and when it rolled over to voice mail, all I said was, “Hey, it’s Sammy. Just a little worried about you because you weren’t in science or drama. Call Casey’s house and tell him you’re okay, okay?”
But when I was pay-phoning Casey after school, he didn’t seem too worried. “Marissa was definitely not on his mind on our way home yesterday. All he talked about was Justice Jack.”
“But that’s just some fantasy world. Today he was back in junior high.”
“You know,” Casey says, “the place I’d look for him would be Buckley’s. Justice Jack had some meeting there at three o’clock, remember?”
“But … why would Billy ditch school for something that starts after school?”
“I have no idea, but if he didn’t go home sick, I bet that’s where he’ll be.” He snickers. “Any chance to see Justice Jack.”
“You want to meet me there? It should be safe, don’t you think? It’s seems like an old-guy hang—not someplace Heather or your mom would ever go.”
“Yeah, I sure don’t know anyone that goes there.”
“Me either.” I look around, ’cause all of a sudden I’m worried that Heather may be lurking nearby. “I’ll make sure I’m not followed.”
“Sounds good. See you there!”
So I head out on my skateboard, and to make sure nobody’s following me, I take a few detours, turning down streets I don’t need to take, zigzagging the long way over to Buckley’s.
By the time I turn onto West Main, I’m positive nobody’s following me, and I’m also sure Casey’s right—if Billy’s not sick, he’ll be there.
I ride until the coffee shop is right across the street, then I pop up my board and wait for a break in traffic so I can cut over.
Only there is no break in traffic.
So I’m finally deciding that maybe it would be a smart idea to head up to the light instead of jaywalking when a bright red sports car goes flying by.
There’s no missing Candi Acosta in her Hot Mobile. It’s not just that the car is bright red, or that her hair is red, it’s the way she drives, zooming around other cars, acting like she’s in the Indy 500 instead of downtown Santa Martina.