The Further Adventures of Jack Lime (13 page)

Tyler would blow his stack if I left before five, so I stalled for time. “I don't suppose you've got root beer floats on the menu?”

“Vanilla or chocolate ice cream?” he asked.

“Vanilla.”

“Tall or short?”

“Tall.”

“Anything on the side?”

“Lemon meringue pie?”

“Coming right up,” he said with a twinkle in his eye.

I took a seat in a booth close to the cash register and noticed that the walls in the dining area were covered with cartoon sketches of local citizens. Most of them I didn't know, but I spotted Principal Snit and a few of the other teachers at Iona High. I even saw one of our town's new football hero, Lance Munroe, whose giant bobble head smiled out at me from the top of a tiny body that was about to throw a football downfield, no doubt for another touchdown. I figured I'd be able to hear about any illicit transactions from there while I waited for my order and kept my eyes peeled for any suspicious activity.

Wednesday, October 30, 4:36 p.m.
54 Main Street, Pop's Soda Bar and Comic Book Shop

The old-timer with the mustache wasn't named Pop — I know because I asked (just to make sure). His name was Harry and he knew how to put together a mean root beer float. The lemon meringue pie wasn't bad either. Long story short, the food at Pop's was good enough to make me lose focus for a little while. In fact, I didn't realize I'd gotten so sloppy until Tyler slipped into the seat across from me.

“What do you got for me, punchy?”

“Huh?” I mumbled, looking up, my mouth stuffed with lemon meringue pie.

“What. Do. You. Got?” he said, his eyes bulging.

“Nothing, nada,
niet
,” I said.

“One answer will do.”

“How about you?” I asked. “Any luck in the city?”

“They're all a bunch of know-it-all wusses,” he said. “They pretended like they couldn't care less.”

“You think they know something?”

“How should I know?” he said, glancing down at my food. “What are you doing here, anyway? Just stuffing your face? You should be out there asking questions! I thought you were supposed to be finding my Captain Marvel #146!”

“You asked me to meet you here at five o'clock. I didn't want to leave before we checked in with each other.”

“You're real good at following orders, aren't you, punchy? Well, here's one for you: go find my comic book!”

“You know what,” I said, sliding out of the booth and throwing my napkin on the table, “forget it! Go yell at somebody else for a while.”

“You're quitting?” he said, getting out of the booth, too.

“Quitting, resigning, vacating the premises, call it whatever you like, Tyler,” I said. “I'm outta here.”

I started for the door, but Tyler grabbed my arm, spun me around and punched me square in the kisser. I stumbled back a few feet and got seriously miffed when I realized the coppery taste of blood was quickly replacing the wonderful taste of root beer, ice cream and lemon meringue pie that had been lingering in my mouth.

“Nobody quits on me!” he roared, and charged. This time I was ready to dodge and parry, but good ol' Harry stepped between us.

“Not in here, young buck,” he said, wrapping Tyler into a bear hug and lifting him up like he was made out of feathers. 

Tyler kicked and screamed, but Harry managed to haul him outside and dump him on Main Street like a sack of potatoes.

“Thanks,” I said, when Harry came back in.

“Clean yourself up in the restroom and I'll get you some ice,” he said. His eyes weren't twinkling anymore.

Everyone in the joint was staring at me when I came out of the little boys' room pressing a wad of paper towel to my bottom lip, which was split and swelling. Harry was standing by the front door talking to a Luxemcorp security guard.

FYI — Besides owning all the stores in town, Luxemcorp also patrols the streets using a squad of rent-o-cops who try their best to look like actual police officers. They might pass for the real thing, too, except for a red triangle-shaped patch they wear on their hearts that has Luxemcorp Inc. stitched into the middle in bold black letters.

“Here you go, kid,” Harry said, handing me a white dishcloth filled with ice. “That should help with the swelling.”

“Thanks,” I said, taking it. The ice felt good against my lip.

“I'm Officer Reynolds,” the rent-o-cop said. “I'll give you a drive home.”

“I can walk,” I said.

“I don't think so,” Reynolds said, looking stern. “I want to have a word with your parents.”

“It'll have to be my grandmother,” I said.

Reynolds frowned. “You're,” he started, and then flipped through a notepad he pulled out of his pocket, “Jack Lime?”

“That's right,” I said, surprised he had my name jotted down in there.

“Well, I'd like to have a word with your grandmother,” he said, putting the notepad away. “Just to explain what happened.”

“Is that really necessary?” I said.

“I insist.”

Reynolds walked me out to his cruiser, and I reached for the passenger-side door, but Reynolds opened one in the back.

“You ride in the back, kid, capiche?” he said.

“Capiche,” I said, and made a mental note to take that word out of my vocabulary ASAP.

Wednesday, October 30, 5:03 p.m.
A street with no name, Grandma's House

Reynolds took me home and told my grandma that I'd spent the afternoon loitering at Pop's. He explained what happened, suggested that I find some new friends and then left in his Luxemcorp cruiser.

Grandma interrogated me about why I was hanging around at Pop's all afternoon, and I had to admit that I'd been working on a case.

“You promised you were going to stop being the town detective, Jack,” she said.

“It was a momentary lapse in judgment,” I admitted. “You'll be happy to know I dropped it.”

She pursed her lips until they disappeared, and then grabbed the dishcloth Harry had given me. “I'll get you some fresh ice,” she said. “Go put on a clean shirt for supper — yours has blood on it.”

I did like she said and was coming back downstairs when she called from the kitchen to remind me to turn off the light in my bedroom. I have a bad habit of leaving it on. “I can't reach it from here, Jack,” she added, and that's when I realized I'd missed a huge clue in Tyler's case.

“What did you miss?” KC asked, looking up from her notepad.

“Let me finish telling the story and you'll find out, Stone.”

“Fine,” she said, “but pick up the pace, Jack, I'm running out of time.”

Thursday, October 31, 8:28 a.m.
Iona High, The Cafeteria

I got to school early the next morning and headed straight for the gym. The tables from Comic-Con had been put away, but I knew that Tyler's had been set up about halfway between the doors and the stage. The light switches are beside the doors, and I conducted a little experiment to see if it was possible to run from there to where Tyler's table had been and then back to the doors in under ten seconds. My best time was twelve seconds, and that didn't include turning the lights out, grabbing the right comic and weaving my way through a crowd of people in the dark.

“So somebody else had to be working the lights,” KC said.

“Correctamundo, Stone! It couldn't have been a one-man job.”

“But who was the accomplice?”

That's what I needed to find out, and I was hoping the photo Darla had taken just as the lights came back on would give me a clue. I headed for the cafeteria and found her sitting at a table in the corner, wearing a Batgirl costume and eating a fried egg sandwich that was dripping grease.

“What's with the costume?” I asked.

“It's Halloween, Jack.”

“It must've slipped my mind,” I said.

“What's with your lip?”

“It's nothing,” I said, and tried to forget the fact that I'd officially taken myself off Tyler's case. “I don't suppose you developed that photo you took yesterday?”

“Sure,” she said, wiping her mouth with a napkin, “but it's a little out of focus.”

She pulled the photo out of her backpack and handed it over. It was big and glossy, but it wasn't in color.

“It's in black and white,” I said, without taking much of a look.

“I told you, Jack, I'm an old-school kind of girl.”

“Right,” I mumbled, and turned my attention to the photo.

She'd been standing close to the middle of the gym when she took the photo, and it was blurry, but only a little. Through the crowd I could clearly see the culprit's left leg on the way out the door. The rest of him, or her — I'm an equal opportunity investigator — had already escaped. Whoever swiped Tyler's comic had been wearing black cargo pants with a utility pocket just above the knee and black army-style boots. I was so focused on that leg I almost didn't spot the light switches at the edge of the photo. They were by the door, and beside the light switches was an arm — a left arm poking out of a short-sleeved golf shirt. Because the picture was in black and white, I couldn't ID the color, but I'd guess it was a light shade of something, possibly yellow. Last but not least I could tell that the arm belonged to someone about my height, since the shoulder was an inch or two above the switches.

“Do you know who belongs to that arm?” I asked.

She shook her head.

“Who had the display table next to the doors?”

“Maybe you could ask somebody on Student Council,” Darla said, shrugging. “They organized it.”

“Mariam Singh's the president, right?”

Darla nodded, and I headed for the door.

“Jack,” she called.

“Yeah?” I said, turning around.

“I need that photo back.”

“What? Really? I wanted to take a closer look at it.”

“We're printing the newspaper today, Jack, so I'll need the photo for the layouts. Besides, it's going to be on the front page. Everyone will have a copy by tomorrow.”