Authors: Eric Walters
“Come on, now’s our chance,” I whispered
I started to stand up just as the phone rang. I had to stifle the urge to cry out. It rang out a second time, and I heard somebody coming back toward us. I dropped back to the floor.
“I’m coming. I’m coming!” Mr. Armstrong called out as he returned. “Hello!” he barked.
There was silence as he listened for the response.
“I didn’t expect to hear from you tonight.”
I wondered if it was that Emanuel guy calling back again.
“No, we just got in. We had to pick up something at a store. At least I thought we were supposed to pick something up.”
Again he listened for a reply. I shifted slightly so I could see his feet.
“Look, can I call you back later? I have something I have to take care of.”
Again he listened and, of course, I couldn’t hear.
“I know it’s a lot of money. Hold on and let me take this in my office where I have my notes.”
I hoped his notes weren’t in his desk, or he’d instantly be suspicious. I watched his feet retreat out of the room once again until they disappeared down the hall.
“Now!” I whispered, getting to my feet and heading for the door.
Nick followed, still on all fours, crawling as fast as he could across the floor. I pulled open the door, and Nick crawled straight through and out into the night. I followed, closing the door behind me. Up ahead I saw Nick. He’d finally risen to his feet and plunged into the cover of the trees. I doubled my pace and hit the same gap only a few seconds later, skidding to a stop and almost crashing into Nick. He’d stopped a few metres into the cover and had dropped to his knees again.
“Are you all right?” I panted.
“Fine … good … now.”
“That was close,” I said, working to catch my breath, as well.
“It couldn’t have been any closer. Let’s get to Vladimir’s so we can look at the e-mails.”
I was still clutching them tightly in my hands. Either I had the proof we needed or simply a bunch of crunched-up pieces of paper.
•
Nick and I sat at the kitchen table. Nobody was back yet. I spread the e-mails out on the table in front of me, attempting to straighten them out. “Let’s try to get them in order and then —”
The door burst open, and Samantha and Danny came into the room.
“Did you find anything?” Samantha asked.
“We don’t know yet. We have to look through these,” I said, pointing at the e-mails spread out in front of us. “We’ll just put them in order, organize them and carefully sort through them —”
“Here it is!” Nick said, holding up one of the e-mails. “It’s all right here!”
“What’s right there?”
“The final price of the tiger — eighty-five thousand dollars — what they’re going to do with it and where they’re going to do it. All we need to prove everything is right here!”
I ripped the paper out of his hands and studied it. He was right. Everything we needed was all there.
“Now that we have the proof, all we need is to tell somebody who can do something about it.”
•
“I don’t even know why we have to watch Kushna tonight,” Nick said. “It’s all right in the e-mail, just like you overheard, and it’s not happening until tomorrow night.”
“We’re going to do it because that’s the plan,” I explained. “Remember how much you admired my good planning?”
“But it’s cold and I don’t want to go out.”
“Come on, Nick, don’t be such a whiner. You’re only going out for two hours, and you’re not going to be alone.”
He and Danny were going out from ten until midnight. Then Samantha and I would follow until two in the morning. Mr. McCurdy and Calvin would replace us for two more hours, and then Vladimir would be in charge until daybreak.
“You don’t see Calvin complaining, do you?” I asked.
Calvin looked at us, raised his eyebrows and then let loose a thunderous burp.
“I think he does that on purpose,” Nick said.
“I think he’s had too much Coke to drink,” I suggested.
“Blame Vladimir. He’s given him at least a half dozen. He doesn’t seem to be able to say no to him.”
“He is kind of cute,” Samantha said.
“That’s not what you thought the first time you saw him,” I said, chuckling as I pictured her jumping straight into the top bunk bed.
“He surprised me, that’s all,” she said defensively. She walked over and sat beside Calvin. He reached out, pulled her to him and planted a big kiss on her cheek.
Everybody burst into laughter, and Calvin let out a shriek of delight that caused Samantha to jump to her feet.
“I think he likes you,” Nick said.
“And I’d like you to get going,” I said.
For tonight we were all bunking down in Vladimir’s place. There were two bedrooms — his and one for Mr. McCurdy to use — and we’d taken the mattresses from our cabin and placed them on the floor of the living room. At first I wasn’t sure why we were doing all of this, but somehow it seemed safer to be in one place.
•
Although we’d laid down over an hour ago, I hadn’t been able to sleep. I’d hoped to grab an hour or so of shut-eye before having to go out and replace the boys, but it was useless. It wasn’t just the tension and excitement about what was going on, but the loud voices in the other room. I didn’t think that either Mr. McCurdy or Vladimir knew how to be quiet. With Vladimir it was because he was just so huge that he needed a huge voice to go along with him. With Mr. McCurdy it had more to do with his hearing. I’d noticed over the past year that as his hearing had gotten a bit worse, his voice had gotten louder.
“You still awake, Sarah?” Samantha asked.
“Yep. Did you sleep at all?” I asked her.
She shook her head. “Not a wink. Boy, those guys are loud.”
We slowly got up, stretched and headed for the kitchen, entering in the middle of their ongoing conversation.
“I thought you two would have been asleep,” Mr. McCurdy said.
“Believe me we tried,” I said.
“Well since you’re up I guess we can tell you what we’ve been talking about, sort of a potential plan.”
I felt so relieved. “You have a plan?”
“It’s pretty simple. I was thinking I could just drive off with the tiger.”
“You’re going to steal the tiger?” Samantha questioned. “How would you even do that?”
“We’re going to put it in my car and drive away.”
“You can’t put a tiger in a car!” she exclaimed.
“It’s specially built to transport large animals. His tiger, Buddha, goes in there all the time.”
“But if you get caught, you’ll get in big trouble,” she said.
“Ah, now,” Mr. McCurdy said, holding up a finger to make a point, “that’s the secret. Don’t get caught.”
“But what will you do with it?” she asked.
“It can live right on your farm with Buddha,” I said. “There’s plenty of space. They could be pals and keep each other company.”
“But stealing …” Samantha sighed.
“It really wouldn’t be like stealing,” I said. “Especially if the head zookeeper thought it was right.”
We all looked at Vladimir, who had been silent during the discussion.
“Well?” I asked, breaking the silence.
“No steal Kushna,” he said quietly.
“But if he doesn’t then —”
Vladimir raised his hands and stood up, cutting me off.
“No steal tiger … rescue tiger. We make this plan work.”
“I still don’t know why we can’t do it tonight,” I said.
“Tomorrow is better,” Mr. McCurdy said. “They’re not going to take the tiger till dark, so we’ll take him sometime between the closing of the park and nightfall.”
“That’s cutting things a bit tight, isn’t it?” I asked.
“A bit, but we really haven’t got much choice. With a tiger in my trunk I’m going to have to drive straight through, so I need some good sleep tonight. It isn’t like Calvin is going to keep me awake talking.”
“I have an idea,” I said.
“I know what your idea is, and I’m not letting you take my shift tonight,” Mr. McCurdy said knowingly.
“That’s not what I was going to suggest.”
“It isn’t?”
I smiled. “I think you should take Nick and me with you.”
“You two?”
“Sure. We’re supposed to fly out Saturday, anyway, so we’d just be leaving a little early.”
“Hmm … the company wouldn’t be a bad thing,” he agreed. “And I could use the help if anything goes wrong.”
“We could get all packed and ready to go. Do you think the Armstrongs would notice if we’re gone early and connect that to the tiger being gone?” I asked Vladimir.
“They do not notice anything most days,” Vladimir replied. “After the tiger goes missing, they will have other things to worry about.”
“What will they think happened to it?”
“They’ll think their partner in crime came early and stole it from them, is my bet,” Mr. McCurdy said.
“So it could be messy when he does show up,” Samantha said.
“More than messy, ’cause when he finds the tiger’s gone, he’ll figure they already sold it to somebody else for more money,” Mr. McCurdy said. “There’s no honour among thieves, so neither will be able to convince the other that they didn’t do it. It’ll be one rip-roaring fight for sure. Vladimir, it might be smart for you to take Danny and Samantha away for the evening and have ’em sleep up here in your guest bedroom.”
“I take good care. Nobody will bother the children with Vladimir here,” he said, pounding a fist against his chest.
“Won’t the Armstrongs just call the police and report it missing?” Samantha asked.
“Report that the tiger they were going to illegally sell and slaughter has gone missing?” Mr. McCurdy said. “It’s not going to happen. And the next day Vladimir will get you to the airport and you’ll be home.”
“But how will we find out what happened?” Samantha asked. “How will we know everything went all right?”
“We’ll give you our phone number,” I said. “You can call us the day you get back. Vladimir can call us, too, and tell us what happened here.”
“Vladimir can do more than call,” Mr. McCurdy said. “As soon as he gets a day or two off, he can come on up and visit.”
“I would like to visit McCurdy,” Vladimir said. “Like very much.”
“There you go,” Mr. McCurdy said. “It’s just about the perfect plan. You girls better get down and relieve the boys now or —” He stopped at the sound of feet running up the path.
The door burst open, and Nick and Danny came running in. “They’ve come for the tiger!” Nick yelled.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“Am I sure?” Nick questioned. “Of course I’m sure! It’s Mr. Armstrong and three other men. They have a truck, and behind the truck is a trailer, the sort you use for moving animals!”
“They can’t be here for any other reason,” Mr. McCurdy said.
“What are we going to do?” Nick demanded.
“I don’t know,” I muttered, shaking my head.
“Vladimir know,” he said, starting for the door. “Only boss and three other men. Vladimir go and beat up all four and throw in back of trailer.”
Mr. McCurdy grabbed him by the arm. “Can’t let you do that, Vlad. No telling about men like these. Desperate, lots of money at stake and I’m betting dollars to doughnuts if they’re trying to move a tiger at least one of them’s carrying some heat.”
“Heat?” I asked.
“A gun. At least a tranquillizer gun and maybe something else just in case the tiger gets loose. You’re a big guy, Vladimir, but nobody’s too big that they can’t get shot. We need a plan.”
“Have you got one?” Nick asked.
“Well, I have the start of a plan,” Mr. McCurdy said.
“The start?” I asked.
“Yep. Vladimir, grab that bottle of vodka from the cupboard over top of the fridge.”
Everybody stared as if Mr. McCurdy had lost his mind.
“Do what I told you to!” he yelled, and Vladimir scurried across the room to grab the bottle. If everything hadn’t been so serious, it would have been funny to watch this hulk of a man jumping at Mr. McCurdy’s words.
“Take a deep swig of vodka,” he ordered.
Vladimir twisted off the cap and took a big gulp.
“Now spit it in the sink,” Mr. McCurdy said.
Vladimir’s look showed complete shock. He spat it out. “Waste of good vodka,” he said, shaking his head.
“Not a waste. I need you to smell like you’ve been drinking. I want you to get down to Kushna’s pen and start talking to those men, maybe sing a little song when you wander up. Make ’em think you’ve been drinking and do whatever you can to slow ’em down. I need them delayed by at least thirty minutes.”
“And then?” I asked.
“By then we’ll have figured out what to do next.”
My mouth dropped open, and everybody else’s stunned look mirrored my thoughts.
Mr. McCurdy shrugged. “Unless any of you got an idea right now?”
Nobody answered.
“In that case you better get moving, Vladimir. Slow ’em down.”
He started for the door.
“And, big guy,” Mr. McCurdy called out. Vladimir stopped and turned around. “You just got to slow ’em down, not stop ’em. The last thing we need is a dead Russian hero. Understand?”
Vladimir’s face broke into a goofy smile. “Understand, boss.”
We watched him leave, the door slamming shut behind him.
“Well, Sarah, so what are we going to do?” Mr. McCurdy asked.
“I … I don’t know,” I stammered.
“We’re going to videotape them,” Samantha said. “I can sneak up really close and use my video camera to tape the whole thing.”
“That’s a great idea!” Mr. McCurdy said.
“Only half a great idea,” I disagreed. “That’ll give evidence to bring to the authorities, but it won’t stop them from driving away with Kushna and killing him.”
“I’m still not sure how we can do anything about that,” Mr. McCurdy said. “They’re going to buy that tiger tonight no matter what we do.”
“Unless … unless …” I stopped and smiled. I had it. “Unless somebody else buys it instead.”
“Somebody else?” Nick asked.
“Yes. I was thinking that somebody else could come tonight and offer more than eighty-five thousand dollars for the tiger.”
“What good would that do?” Nick asked.
“It would do a lot of good.” I turned to Mr. McCurdy. “If it’s Mr. McCurdy.”