“You probably don’t want to ask too many questions.”
“But why didn’t you just use your own money?” Screwdriver Sally asks.
“She probably didn’t have any,” Ted says, and there’s an edge to his voice that doesn’t sound too friendly.
“Then what’s all that green she just stuffed back in her purse?” Bun-Top says.
“Wait. Are you skimming off our winnings?” Screwdriver Sally demands, and I swear if she’d had a screwdriver in her hand right then, she’d have used it to do a stick-’em-up to Mrs. Wedgewood.
The Wedge looks at them and you can tell she’s flabbergasted. “I nearly tripled your money,” she tells them. “I can’t take a percentage?”
“How much did you take?” Ted asks.
“What’s it matter?” she growls at him. “I could have just returned what you gave me and you would never have known I had any winnings at all!”
“How much?” Ted demands.
“Twenty-five percent! And now I’m thinking I should have taken fifty!”
“Twenty-five percent!” the Prune Posse cries. “That’s highway robbery!”
Then an old guy in the back with a five-day stubble shakes his cane and says, “No dealer gets twenty-five percent! Five, maybe ten … And you took twenty-five?”
Mr. G steps forward. “Everybody, calm down! Can we look at the positive here? Yesterday you thought you’d lost all your money; today you’ve got almost three times that amount! I’d be happy to give up twenty-five percent for that kind of return on my investment!”
“But she could have lost it all!” Bun-Top says. “And if she had, would she have given us twenty-five percent of her own money?”
Mrs. Wedgewood squints her beady little eyes at her. “What?”
“Go!” Mr. Garnucci tells them, shooing the greedy grumps off. “Quit looking at how much she took and focus on how much she gave you.”
Everyone else starts to move, but Bun-Top stands firm. “But she risked our money to make a ton of money for herself! She sure shouldn’t get a quarter of it!”
“Go!” Mr. Garnucci barks at her. “Enough of this!”
So she leaves, too, but it’s easy to see from the glares they all throw over their shoulders that they’re feeling ripped off.
“Wow,” I say, shaking my head. “That’s really unbelievable.”
Mrs. Wedgewood nods. “As my daddy would say, no good deed goes unpunished.” Then she opens her purse again and pulls out two crisp one-hundred-dollar bills.
Now, for a second my heart skips a beat, because I think she’s going to give them to me, but instead she turns to Mr. G and says, “Here, Vinnie. Sorry you didn’t invest. I’m sure they’ve been driving you nuts.”
His face lights up. “Why, thank you!”
She drills him with her eyes. “I trust you can keep the investments made here quiet?”
“Of course,” he says with a smile as he plucks the money from Mrs. Wedgewood’s fingers.
Suddenly her giving him the two hundred makes sense. She doesn’t have anything on him, which is why she’s bribing him to keep all this quiet.
He doesn’t seem to really get that, though, because he asks her, “Would you like me to wheel you up?” like she’s his new best friend instead of his resident blackmailer.
“No, Samantha can do that.” She gives me one of her beady looks. “You’re here to visit your grandmother, I assume?”
I force a closed smile and nod.
“Then let’s go.”
Even when she’s on wheels and not slippery with soap, moving Mrs. Wedgewood is a workout. I wound up having to give her my skateboard to hold because I needed to really lean into the wheelchair to get any movement. And when I did get her going, I couldn’t stop and almost crashed her into the elevator door.
Talk about momentum!
Anyway, waiting at the elevator seemed to take forever. Probably because the Miffed Mob was using it.
Or jamming it because they knew the Big W had to use it to get home.
And while we’re waiting, I can’t help noticing that Mrs. Wedgewood’s whole face is misty.
Make that sweaty.
And then I see that there are drips of sweat trickling down her temples.
“Thanks for taking me up, sugar,” she says. “I knew you wouldn’t mind.”
Which I wouldn’t if she had asked me instead of commanding me.
And also if she didn’t smell so bad.
And since she’s calling me sugar, I’m pretty sure she’s gathering spice—thinking of ways she can put me to work for her that’ll take me all night. So I try to interrupt her blackmailing mind with small talk. “It’s too bad the rest of them couldn’t just be happy that you won so big.”
“Someone was sure smiling down on me,” she says, wobbling her head. “At the track and at the casino. I was on an incredible roll.” She turns her sweaty face my way. “I hadn’t planned on staying so long at the casino, but the buffet?” Her eyes close and she lets out a happy sigh. “It was un-be-lievable. Unlimited tiramisu, crème brûlée, prime rib, lobster Florentine …” She smiles at me again. “It was out of this world.”
The door finally opens, and as I bear down to push her in, I say, “Sounds like a foreign language to me.”
“You must at least have had prime rib at some point?”
I want to wipe her face and yank her wig straight, but I just push the 5 button. “Nope.”
She doesn’t say anything on our ride up, but as the door slides open, she says, “You’re probably too young to appreciate it anyway,” and she’s panting—like riding an elevator up five floors is real exercise for her.
“Well, here you go,” I tell her as I roll her up to her apartment.
I take my skateboard off her lap and wait as she fumbles through her purse. “I can’t find my key,” she finally tells me.
“You want me to look?” I ask, ’cause really I just want to get her over the threshold and leave.
“I should be able to find my own key,” she grumbles as she starts pulling things out of her bag and putting them on her lap.
First comes her notebook.
Then the envelope of “rake” money.
Then another envelope bursting with cash.
She must have heard my eyes pop, because when she realizes what she’s just done, she says, “I won it with my rake. Not that I need to explain that to you.”
“Hey, I’m just trying to get you home. It’s none of my business and I don’t care. Besides, it’s not like any of them even thanked you.”
Her head screws around and she drills her beady eyes into me. And at first I think she’s mad at me, but then she says, “Not one thank-you, you’re right.”
“Well, Mr. Garnucci thanked you.…”
“He doesn’t count.” She goes back to digging through her purse, and out comes a brush.
A brush?
Next come perfume, baby powder, a wallet, and a little portable fan.
And that’s when it hits me that she has no luggage.
No extra clothes.
And I’m totally grossing out over the thought that she’s been wearing that same muumuu and undies for maybe a week when she says, “Here it is,” and hands her key to me like I’m her doorman.
Well, doorgirl.
So while she packs up her bag, I unlock her apartment and prop open the door, then I come back around and push her inside.
The doorgirl does not get a tip.
Or, ironically, even a thank-you.
The doorgirl gets told to fetch a glass of water. The doorgirl gets told to help her to the couch and remove her stinky shoes. The doorgirl gets barked at to turn on the fan.
And finally the doorgirl gets told to run down to Maynard’s for some Tums. “I’m all out, sugar,” she says, handing me a twenty. “Please don’t take too long. And save the receipt.”
So, yeah, the doorgirl’s more than slightly ticked off, but what can I do?
&nb
sp; I take the twenty and tell her that I’ll be back as quick as I can.
“Don’t get sidetracked!” she snaps as I head for the door. “I really need those Tums.”
So I hurry over to Grams’ apartment, where I dump my stuff and whisper, “The Blackmailer’s back—”
“She is?” Grams says, popping up off the couch.
“—and I’ve got to run down to Maynard’s for some Tums for her.”
“Wait! What happened? Where has she been?”
“She wasn’t kidding about having a hot tip. Everyone tripled their money.”
Grams gasps, “No!” and you can tell she’s kicking herself. But she shifts gears fast and says, “So when are the police showing up?”
I laugh, ’cause I hadn’t even considered that she might have done something really illegal. I mean, how could someone like the Wedge make a mad dash or escape?
Besides, the thought of a walrus in a wig doing some kind of heist was just ridiculous.
Anyway, I head for the door, saying, “I’ve got tons to tell you, but I’m starving and I have to get this done first. Garnucci knows I’m here, so I’ve got to leave anyway. I’ll be right back!”
“Promise me you won’t get sidetracked!”
I stop and turn around.
“Why does everybody tell me that?”
She laughs. “Why do you think?”
“Thanks a lot,” I grumble, and then head out the way I’d come in, promising myself I’d prove them all wrong.
TWENTY-FOUR
You’re probably thinking I got sidetracked.
Well, guess what?
I didn’t.
What I did was almost get killed.
Now, if Maynard’s freeloading son, T.J., had been working the counter instead of the Elvis impersonator, I might have had to go clear down to the supermarket, because T.J. likes me about as much as a chained dog likes a cat. Something about seeing me sets him off, and he will bark and snarl and snap at me until he finally drives me away.
So there was definitely the potential for a sidetrack, but Elvis was happy to see me. “Hey, little mama!” he calls from behind the counter. “How are things in Carny Town?”
Now, with Hudson’s help, I had finally figured out that the Elvis clerk talks only in Elvis songs.
Well, almost.
He’ll throw an extra word in now and then to tie together the lyrics or song titles, but pretty much everything he says is something Elvis sang. And it used to drive me kinda nuts, because I’ve never heard any Elvis songs—well, except maybe “Jailhouse Rock” or “Hound Dog”—so it was like he was talking in riddles.
No, not even riddles.
More like mixed-up phrases.
Nonsense that actually made sense.
In a weird Elvis-impersonator sort of way.
Even so, I’m always super-happy to see Elvis, because seeing him means I don’t have to see T.J. Of course, Elvis doesn’t know that. He just thinks I’m a happy camper coming in for bubble gum.
“Things are hoppin’ in Carny Town,” I tell him, and then right away I flash to the similarities between him and Justice Jack. Not what they do—just how they dress in costumes and prefer to be people they’re not. “Have you heard about Justice Jack?”
“Didja ever? He’s catchin’ on fast!” Elvis says with a crooked Elvis smile. “Beginner’s luck.”
“Think so?”
He nods. “Watch him try to move from a jack to a king.”
I laugh. “But you’re the King, right?”
He laughs, too. “Doin’ the best I can.”
I grab the Tums and put them on the counter. “Seems like the two of you could be friends.”
He shakes his head. “I got wheels on my heels, baby.”
I stare at him. “Okay. What does that mean?”
He rings up the Tums. “I’m just a lonesome cowboy in a long black limousine.”
I almost tell him, No, you’re not. You’re an Elvis impersonator working in a corner market! But instead I ask, “Can you translate, please?”
“My long-legged girl told me to get on the long, lonely highway.”
“So … you had a girlfriend who broke up with you?”
He nods. “My honky-tonk angel turned out to be the meanest girl in town. I told her, ‘Reconsider, baby, put the blame on me! Let’s patch it up!’ I said, ‘Baby, I’ve been steadfast, loyal, and true! You’re the only star in my blue heaven!’ But she’s a machine with a wooden heart, and now there’s been too much monkey business.” He shakes his head. “I’m afraid it’ll be the twelfth of never before my blue moon turns to gold again, so it’s viva Las Vegas for me.”
I hand over the twenty. “You’re moving to Las Vegas?”
“Cross my heart and hope to die. I’m movin’ on.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow night. It’s now or never.” He makes my change and snaps off the receipt, and as he hands them over, he sort of cocks his head and says, “You look like you’re gonna sit right down and cry.”
“I really liked you being here,” I tell him.
He gives me a little shrug. “I slipped, I stumbled, I fell, and I’m leavin’. But that’s all right, mama. Don’t think twice.”
“Well, I’ll miss you,” I tell him, then grab the Tums and head out.
“Hey, hey, hey!” he calls after me, and actually follows me to the door. “Before we go our separate ways, let it be me that gives you some sound advice.”
“What’s that?”
“As we travel along the Jericho road, anyplace is paradise.”
He’s looking like Serious Elvis now, so I nod as I keep walking and say, “Thanks.”
But Elvis isn’t done. “Keep a pocketful of rainbows.”
“Will do.”
And since I’m now at the corner and about to cut across a red light, he calls, “Always stop, look, and listen!”
I laugh. “Thanks!” And as I’m heading across the street anyway, he shouts, “By the way, my real name’s Pete Decker! I’ll get you passes to my show if you’re ever in Vegas!” And since I’m so shocked to hear his real voice and his real name, I do something you should never do when crossing against a red light.
I stop, turn, and stare.
All of a sudden horns are blaring and zooming by and I’m running and jumping like crazy trying not to get killed.
“You almost had the steamroller blues!” he shouts when I’m safely across. Then he waves. “Bye, Sammy! I’ll remember you!”
I wave. “Who could forget you?” Then I hurry up the sidewalk and sneak back over to the Senior Highrise.
Now, when I’d left the Highrise, I’d gone out the front door and waved real big and shouted good-night to Mr. Garnucci so he’d know that I was leaving the building. Which meant that I now had to sneak up the fire escape to get back inside. No biggie, but halfway up it hit me that I’d made a mistake.
A kinda big mistake.
When I’d come in with Justice Jack and the Wedge-o-matic, I’d had my backpack and my skateboard, but when I’d gone out, I didn’t have either.
I tried to convince myself that Mr. Garnucci wouldn’t notice something like that. Especially considering all the excitement about Justice Jack delivering the Wedge and then the big payouts and everything.
But still. It bothered me. I could just see him waking up in the middle of the night going, Wait a minute …!
So I’m a little preoccupied sneaking back into the Highrise, and I really just want to deliver the Tums and get home quick, but while the Wedgie Woman’s checking her change, she says, “Don’t rush off, sugar. Sit a spell.”
So, great. Now I have to visit with her? Like doing her laundry and shopping and hoisting her off the bathroom floor isn’t enough? Now I have to chitchat?
About what?
She can see me thinking. “Come on, sugar. It won’t kill you to visit a minute.”
I take a deep breath. “Mrs. Wedgewood, I have homework and chores to do, and
I’m starving.” And then, just because I’ve never actually admitted that I live next door, I add, “And I still have to help my grandmother with a few things before I go home.”
“Home,” she says with a cagey smile. “We both know what a long walk that is.”
“Look, Mrs. Wedgewood, I don’t mean to be rude, but I do have other responsibilities.”
“Sit,” she says.
I don’t know how to explain it other than to say that there’s something about two beady eyes, five chins, and a crooked wig that adds up to scary.
So I sit.
“Now, then,” she says. “Tell me about your mother.”
“My mother?” I try to pull it back a notch. “What do you want to know?”
“Well,” she scoffs. “I know she’s beautiful and self-absorbed and in denial about her responsibilities, so we don’t have to cover that. I’m curious what her plans are for after The Lords of Willow Heights is off the air. Is she coming back to Santa Martina?”
This did not feel like a theoretical discussion to me.
This felt like she knew something I didn’t.
And while the wheels in my head are whirring around trying to figure out which direction to go, Mrs. Wedgewood adds, “She’s very good in her role, by the way. I like her better than the original Jewel.”
“You watch it?”
She smiles. “Since it first aired thirty years ago.”
My eyes bug out. “You’re serious?”
“Of course. Which is why it’s so sad to see it going off the air.” She studies me a minute, then sighs. “She hasn’t told you.”
I just look down.
“And neither has your grandmother?”
The truth is, I’m mad. Why am I learning this from her? Why am I always the last person to know? But I don’t want the Blubbery Blackmailer to see she’s getting to me, so I try to cover. “Are you sure? Maybe it’s just a rumor?”
“Oh, it’s official, all right. And your mother and grandmother both know. They’ve had several heated phone calls about it. And you.”
I stand up. “Look, Mrs. Wedgewood, it’s a little creepy to think about you eavesdropping on us—on them.”
“Can I help it if my ears are unnaturally receptive? I don’t set out to listen, but the walls are paper-thin, and, sugar, your situation is intriguing. Like a real-life soap happening right next door.”