The Further Adventures of Jack Lime (16 page)

Thursday, October 31, 9:59 p.m.
A street with no name, Grandma's House

Most of the year nobody comes down our empty dead-end street, but on Halloween they can't stop. It's like a rite of passage for every elementary kid in town to wander down the lane in the dark and knock on our front door. There are rumors that my grandmother's a witch, and all those scared little saps are usually about ready to leap out of their costumes by the time they ring our doorbell. I spent the evening sitting on the front porch, giving out handfuls of candy to frightened kids and waiting for Max to show up.

I was expecting him to burst out of the darkness with his face painted green and wearing army fatigues. Instead he strolled up the front walk dressed like a circus clown, carrying a pillowcase half filled with candy.

“Hello, Sarge,” he said, stepping onto the porch.

“What's with the getup, Max?”

“It's Halloween, Lime. I needed to blend in. You didn't expect me to march around dressed in my army fatigues, did you?”

“Of course not,” I said. “So, Captain Clown, what did you find out?”

“I tracked Cain to his house, where he had dinner with his family. They had spaghetti and meatballs with garlic bread. He had seconds. After dinner he put on a black hooded cloak and a white featureless mask. Then he grabbed a backpack and left the premises by himself. This was at 7:02 p.m. I followed him to Main Street, and he entered Pop's Soda Bar and Comic Book Shop at precisely 7:27 p.m. According to the sign on the door, Pop's was hosting a Luxemcorp Incorporated Halloween Party. Unfortunately it was only open to employees of Luxemcorp and their children.”

“How do you know?” I asked.

“A security guard stopped me at the door and asked for my invitation. Thankfully my dad hasn't sold out to the bums at Luxemcorp, not yet anyway, so I had to turn around and watch the action from across the street. Luckily I brought these,” he said, pulling a pair of miniature binoculars out of his pillowcase.

“Dressed like a clown?”

“Like I said, Lime, I didn't want to attract attention.”

“Right.”

“At the party Cain met with another individual who was also wearing a black cloak and the same featureless mask. Cain removed a small camcorder from his backpack and handed it to this individual, who took it and left immediately.”

“Did you follow him? Did you get a look at his face? Was he short?”

“He was on the short side, Sarge, but I didn't get a look at his face. And, no, I didn't follow him,” he said. “My orders were to follow Cain.”

“I don't think you're going to get that promotion you were looking for, Thorn,” I said.

“My orders were to follow Cain,” he said, standing at attention.

“Fine, fine, go on.”

“Cain then met with two other individuals.”

“Who?”

“Mike Anderson, aka Mike the Bookie, and Ronny Kutcher. They sat at a booth together for about twenty minutes, had a few laughs and then Cain left and went back home for the rest of the evening.”

“Okay. All right,” I said, nodding.

“What's our next move, Sarge?”

“Stand down,” I said. “I'll take it from here.”

“You can't yank me off a mission that easily, Lime. I'll stand back, but I'll be watching,” he said, pointing at his eyes. “I'll be watching,” he repeated, and then he ran to the end of the porch and dove over the railing. I heard him crash on the other side. By the sound of his screams, I was guessing he landed in one of Grandma's thorn-infested rosebushes.

“Are you okay, Max?” I called.

“Fine,” he croaked, limping around the corner of the house. “I'll be watching,” he repeated, and then he slowly disappeared into the darkness.

Friday, November 1, 8:14 a.m.
2 Pluto Court, Iona High

I was formulating a complicated sting that I was hoping would help me take down Cain and his crew when I walked into school the next day and ran into a giant galoot from the football team named Jerry Pyle. Jerry was three times my size and knocked me on the floor.

“You should watch where you're going, Lime,” he said, standing over me.

“I got caught thinking about something, Jerry,” I said, standing up and dusting myself off. I'd done a job for Jerry's little brother last spring. It was an open-and-shut case, but Jerry had been pleased as punch that I'd helped him out. So I was a little surprised to see him looking down at me like he was about to squish a bug.

“Well, maybe you shouldn't do so much thinking,” Jerry said.

“Huh?” I said.

“And you can forget about collecting that favor Tommy owes you, big guy. You stay away from him if you know what's good for you. You got it?”

“Sure,” I mumbled, as Jerry stalked off.

I turned, took about a dozen steps and got shoved into the lockers.

“You think you're real clever, don't you, Lime?” This time a cat named Billy Stevens was sticking his nose in my face. “You think we're all a bunch of chumps, don't you? Well, why don't you take your crime show back to LA where it belongs.”

“What are you talking about, Billy?” I said, pushing him away from me.

But it wasn't just Billy giving me the squeeze — there were five or six other mooyuks crowding in behind him, and they all looked mad as heck.

He pushed me back against the lockers, and my head snapped against the metal hard enough to make my eyes go buggy. “What, are you going to pretend to fall asleep now?”

“Back off,” I said, and gave him a hard shove this time, but his friends caught him and they all started pressing in on me again.

It was looking pretty grim when Lance Munroe burst through the crowd with his fists up. “You're going to have to go through me first!” he said. Lance might be a pretty boy, but being the school's star quarterback commands respect, so Billy and his friends started to back off.

“You're lucky your boyfriend's here,” Billy said. “But he can't watch your back 24/7. We'll be seeing you soon, Lime.”

Lance grabbed my shoulder and dragged me into an empty hallway.

“What's going on?” I asked. “Has everyone gone loony?”

“It's the video, Jack,” he said.

“What video?”

“Somebody posted a video of you online and made it look like you stole Tyler Butt's comic book.”

“That's Sebastian Cain or one of his cronies,” I said. “And people actually believe that hoo-ha?”

“Well, it is online,” he said, “and it gets worse, too, Jack. They kind of made it seem like you've been behind all the crimes at Iona High. Like you've been committing them so you can solve them, and then you end up looking like a big hero.”

“What a bunch of baloney,” I grumbled.

“I know it's baloney. I know what you did for me, Jack, and I'm pretty sure you weren't behind any of those other crimes, but a lot of people think it's true. I think you should go home and lie low for a couple of days, maybe a whole week. At least until things get straightened out.”

“What, so people can drag my good name through the mud? I don't think so, bub.”

“I'm only trying to help you, Jack.”

“Listen to me, Lance, I'm real close to cleaning up this mess, and when I do, people will know the truth. Plus, things can't get any worse.”

“I don't know, Jack, I think things could get worse, probably a lot worse.”

And then, right on cue, Mr. Snit's voice came over the PA. “Would Jack Lime please report to the office. That's Jack Lime, to the office. Immediately.”

“Say hello to Betty for me,” I said, and turned around.

“Go home, Jack,” Lance called as I walked away. “Go home until all this blows over!”

I'd be darned if I was going to run away now. This was just Cain playing his dirty version of hardball. Well, I could handle dirty. I could handle dirty just fine.

Friday, November 1, 8:24 a.m.
Iona High, Snit's Office

“Close the door, Jack,” Snit said when I walked into his office, “and sit down. I want to talk to you about something I saw yesterday.”

“The video's a hoax,” I said, sitting down. “I didn't do it.”

“What are you talking about, Jack? I know you were involved. I saw it with my own two eyes.”

“Yeah, well,” I said, “sometimes your eyes can play tricks on you.”

“Look at this,” he said, swiveling one of two monitors he had on his desk toward me, “and tell me if my eyes are playing tricks on me.”

I was expecting to see an amateur-looking conspiracy video made by Cain and his merry band of fiendish friends. Instead I was looking at Tyler Butt and me facing off on the school's front lawn. We were frozen in time for a second, and then Snit must've pressed Play because I heard myself say, “If you just give me a second to explain.” That's when Tyler sprang at me like a hungry tiger at a sheep farm. I watched myself try to step out of the way, but not quickly enough, and I couldn't help gingerly touching my nose when Tyler hit me in the video. Then I was blocking Butt's punches, and doing a pretty good job of it, when Snit pressed Pause.

“Are my eyes playing tricks on me, Jack?” he asked.

“How did you record that?” I asked. “There are no security cameras here.”

“As you know, this school is owned and operated by Luxemcorp Incorporated, and they've been eager to install security cameras since this fine facility was built. However, as the principal, I felt that the cameras would invade the students' privacy, and I've fought tooth and nail to keep them out of Iona High. Unfortunately, since Tyler Butt's comic book was stolen, the folks at Luxemcorp have decided to install eight top-of-the-line security cameras at our school. They're very eager to stop any future crimes.”

“Really,” I said.

“Yes, and they'll be rolling twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. I called you down to make sure that you're okay and to let you know that we are aware of the incident that occurred with Tyler Butt and are taking the necessary steps to make sure it doesn't happen again.”

“What do you mean, ‘the necessary steps'?”

“Well, unfortunately it means that Mr. Butt has been permanently expelled from Iona High. So you can rest assured that he won't be bothering you on school grounds again.”

“Wow, that makes me feel so much safer,” I said. “What about Bucky King?”

“I can't comment on that, Jack, but I wanted to show you this video so you know, once and for all, that you can take a break from trying to police this school. Obviously we can handle that just fine without you. You can go back to focusing on your schoolwork. And, Jack, for the record, these cameras are supposed to be a secret. None of the students, including you, are supposed to know that they've been installed. Do you understand what I'm saying?”

“I understand,” I said. “I'll keep it on the q.t.”

“Before you go, are you sure you're all right?”

“I'm fine, Mr. Snit,” I said, standing up. “By the way, have they installed cameras at the middle school, too?”

“And the elementary,” he said.

“And they all have audio?”

“Only the finest for Luxemcorp. You can sleep easy, Jack — we'll be one step ahead of the bad guys now.”

“I think you might be right, Mr. Snit,” I said. “I think you might be right.”