Read The Further Adventures of Jack Lime Online

Authors: James Leck

Tags: #Children's Fiction

The Further Adventures of Jack Lime (2 page)

Thursday, October 3, 8:06 p.m.
A street with no name, Grandma's House

For the next two days, I watched Lance hang out with his buddies, make eyes at Betty and practice football. I was starting to think this was all in Betty's head. She was beautiful, sure, but that didn't mean she couldn't be a little loony, too. I was just getting used to working on a case going nowhere when Betty called Thursday night.

“He left again,” she said.

“What happened?”

“We were working on math homework together and he got a text. He couldn't even read it in front of me, Jack. He got up and read it in the kitchen, and then he grabbed his things and left.”

“Where did he say he was going?”

“He wouldn't tell me. He just said he'd see me tomorrow and left,” she said, sniffling. “Do you think it's another girl?”

“That's crazy talk, Betty,” I said, trying hard to sound like I was telling the truth. “How long has he been gone?”

“About two minutes.”

“Did you see which way he went?”

“No.”

“That's too bad,” I said. “He could be anywhere by now. The next time he disappears like that, I need you to see which way he's going. Then I might have a chance to latch on to his trail. You got that?”

“'Kay,” she said. Now she was crying.

“But if you really want to know what he's been up to, I'll need to take a look at some of those text messages. Is his phone locked down with a password?”

“Uh-huh,” she said through sniffles.

“Do you know what it is?”

“It's 0-3-1-4,” she said. “That's my birthday, March 14th.” And that's when the waterworks really started.

“Listen to me, Betty,” I said. “I promise to find out what he's been up to. Do you hear me?”

“Thanks, Jack,” she said.

“I'll let you know tomorrow.”

“'Kay,” she said, and hung up.

I didn't think I'd find much on Lance's phone, but it was still worth looking into. Besides, if he was fool enough to be running out on a girl like Betty, he was fool enough to slip up sooner or later, and when he did, I'd be waiting.

Friday, October 4, 3:15 p.m.
Iona High, Mr. Kurtz's Class

Cell phones aren't that easy to steal, and Lance was extra careful with his. He didn't leave it lying on any tables, and he had a habit of checking his pockets every thirty seconds to make sure it was still there. I was getting worried that I might miss my chance, so I decided to try an old pickpocketing technique known as the bump and run. After lunch, I tailed Lance to his locker and casually strolled toward him with my nose stuck in my history book. Just as he closed the locker door, I ran into him. The plan was to bounce off him, drop the textbook and grab his cell when he was bending over to pick the book up. Unfortunately Lance is built like a brick wall, and my bounce was more like a flying leap into the lockers that ended with me lying spread-eagled on the ground.

“Watch it,” he said, looking down at me. I don't think he even noticed my textbook lying against the wall on the other side of the hallway as he walked away.

I decided to try to concoct a different plan to nab his phone during last class, but Mr. Kurtz, my English teacher, sprang a test on us out of the blue. When I complained, he pointed at the homework board and claimed that he'd been warning the class about the test for two weeks. I pointed out that he could've written that on the board at any time, since he had easy access to the classroom. Plus, he had motive, which was obviously to make us suffer. Everyone in class was behind me, and I would've won the argument, except Kurtz conveniently avoided the issue by moving me and my desk into the hall.

“You have one hour to finish, Mr. Lime,” he said, slapping the test on my desk. “So you better stop wagging your tongue and start moving your pen.”

I was just writing a witty answer to the last question when the end-of-day announcements came over the PA. Besides the usual gobbledygook about art contests and student fees, there was a reminder to come out and support the boys' football team. Apparently they had an important game against Eastern High that afternoon. I dotted the last
t
and crossed the last
i
, handed in my test and headed for the football field. I might finally get a chance to look at those texts, after all.

Friday, October 4, 4:27 p.m.
Iona High, The Football Field

It was a sunny fall afternoon, the perfect kind of day to watch a football game. The place was swarming with kids jostling for good seats and gossiping about the average, ordinary things that go on in their average, ordinary lives. I spotted Betty in the front row, looking anxious. KC was off to the side with a pen and a notepad, and I was sitting in the top row of the bleachers taking it all in. Lance led the Iona High Warriors onto the field, but when the whistle blew, he didn't look like much of a star to me. Sure, he could fire a ball down the field like it'd been shot out of a cannon, and he could run faster than a cheetah with his tail on fire, but he fumbled the ball once and threw two interceptions, all in the first quarter. By the time the second quarter started, Iona was down by fourteen and the crowd was getting restless. That's when I decided to make my move.

I casually strolled out of the stands, wandered over to the school and slipped into the side door of the gymnasium. The boys' change room was connected to the bathroom, giving me a perfectly plausible alibi for snooping around. Luckily the place was empty, and finding Lance's jacket was a cinch, since his name was stitched on the sleeve.

Sure enough, I found his cell in his pocket, and I was about to start typing in his password when Mr. Leoni, the school custodian, burst in.

“What are you doing in here, kid? There's a porta-potty outside for the fans.”

“I have really bad toilets,” I said, jamming the phone in my pocket, “so I need to use the cramp, and fast.” Before he could say anything, I bolted into one of the bathroom stalls.

“Just make sure you flush when you're done,” he hollered, and stomped out.

I pulled out the phone and typed in 0-3-1-4. Lance might've been paranoid about his phone, but he wasn't paranoid enough to delete his call history from yesterday. He'd gotten 188 text messages, but only one had been sent right around the time that he'd run off on Betty. That one came in at 8:03, and it was sent from someone called Red. According to the contact info, Red's number was 555-3333. I opened the message. This is all it said:

R side P. Now.

In the movies, detectives always seem to figure out secret messages lickety-split, but that can be hard to do when you're standing in a bathroom stall and you know that Mr. Leoni is lurking around waiting for you to finish with your business. Plus, I didn't have long to consider the possibilities because a couple of eggs came in and started yakking about the game. I peeked through the gap next to the stall door and spotted a tall drink of water with brown hair and bad acne. He was standing beside a short, plump kid sporting a crew cut.

“Eastern's going to win for sure,” Tall and Pimply said.

“If Lance is off, we don't have a chance,” Crew Cut added.

“So what can I put you guys down for?” a familiar voice asked. I leaned a little to my left and saw Mike the Bookie holding a pencil and notepad.

For those of you who haven't been following my career as closely as you should, Mike the Bookie is a shifty grifter who was the numbers man for a criminal mastermind named Tobias Poe. Tobias worked a scam on yours truly that ended with me losing my laptop, my cell and a significant chunk of change. Tobias graduated last year and moved on to bigger and nastier places, but Mike was still prowling around Iona High with his little black book, taking money from every dumb mug that came his way.

“Put me down for fifty that Eastern wins,” Tall and Pimply said.

“Me too,” Crew Cut added.

Mike scratched down the bets in his notebook, then headed for the door. That's when Leoni stormed back in, flexing the muscles in his handlebar mustache.

“How many times do I got to tell you kids there's a toilet outside for the fans!”

They all nodded and tried to scurry out, but Leoni stepped in front of the door.

“Don't forget your friend,” he said pointing in my direction.

That was my cue to leave. I flushed the toilet, strolled out and acted casual. Mike's jaw hit the floor and the two rubes stared at me like they'd seen a ghost.

“I found this,” I said, handing Lance's phone over to Leoni. “You should tell the owner to be more careful. There are a lot of thieves roaming around this school who have very sticky fingers, right, Mike?”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” he said.

“Sure he does,” I said, looking from one dumb mug to the other. “Sure he does.”

“You don't know squat about football,” Tall and Pimply said, smirking.

“Yeah,” his friend chirped in, “stick to finding bicycles, Lime.”

I was going to remind them that a rube and his money are soon parted when Leoni put an end to our little give and take.

“Get outta here!” he yelled, curling his hands into fists. “The lot of ya!”

He didn't have to ask twice. Mike and the two knuckleheads bolted outside and went one way and I went the other. I got back to my seat just in time to watch Lance fumble the ball one more time. Lucky for Lance the ref blew the whistle for halftime before Eastern could put any more points on the board. The teams jogged off the field, and the average, ordinary kids in the stands went back to talking about their average, ordinary lives. Me, I got to thinking about calling Lance's mystery friend, Red. But, like I said before, thanks to Tobias Poe I don't have a cell anymore, so that call would have to wait until later. For now I'd have to be content with the Iona High marching band's halftime show.

Friday, October 4, 5:14 p.m.
Iona High, The Football Field

Lance started the second half by throwing another interception. Coach Shultz pulled him aside and yelled up one side of him and down the other. The two rubes from the bathroom weren't too upset with Lance's terrible performance, though. They were sitting a few rows down from me and low-fiving every time Eastern High got a little closer to the Warriors' end zone. They got downright giddy when Eastern kicked a field goal at the end of the third quarter and went up by twenty points. When the fourth quarter started, people began to trickle out of the stands. Oddly, that's when Bucky King decided to show up.

FYI — Bucky King is a rather large and nasty galoot who runs a gang of hoodlums and tough guys known as the Riverside Boys. He's the current kingpin of the criminal underworld at Iona High and has his gigantic, hairy fingers in everything from extortion to the sale of stolen goods.

Bucky's usually not the type of guy to stand around watching a football game, so when he took up position behind the fence on the far side of the field I got interested. I got even more interested when Mike the Bookie slithered up beside him. Mike whispered a few things in Bucky's ear and then exited stage right. Bucky lit up a cigarette, puffed on it for a minute and then flicked it on the ground and left. Besides being responsible for a serious fire hazard, Bucky, I had a hunch, was up to no good. Something fishy was going on here, but I didn't have much time to think about it because that's when the crowd went wild. Lance Munroe had just thrown a seventy-five-yard pass downfield for a touchdown.

Other books

Under My Skin by Shawntelle Madison
Delinquent Daddy by Linda Kage
No One Loves a Policeman by Guillermo Orsi, Nick Caistor
Safe (The Shielded Series Book 1) by Christine DePetrillo
Lyon by Elizabeth Amber
Alphas Divided 2 by Jamie Klaire, J. M. Klaire
Bluestone Song by MJ Fredrick
The Proposal by Mary Balogh
Zombie Field Day by Nadia Higgins