Crunch (11 page)

I RECYCLED THE LINE I’D USED ON VINCE WHEN I
spoke to Lil the next morning.

“Hey,” I said. I met her in the upstairs hall outside the bathroom. “I’ve been thinking about what Runks said. About that bike theft?”

“At the impound lot?” she said. “I’ve been thinking about that too.”

“W-well, we’ve got a similar situation,” I said. “A lot of bikes in one place.” I sounded like the
embodiment of responsibility
.

“Yeah…I noticed you moved everything in last night,” she said.

Keeping tabs on me…

“I thought it was smart,” she added.

“I’m double-checking the entrances,” I said. I
was careful not to be a jerk about the next part. “I forgot all about the hay door last night.”

Lil’s eyes popped wide open. “Oh, and with the scaffold up—my heck!” she said, and she bit her lip.

“Lil, I think we have to drag it back a few feet every night. Just in case. And I’ll help you, and I’ll move it back in the mornings,” I said.

She seemed to stop and think about it. “I can do it,” she said. “I moved it by myself in the first place. I’ll do it. Dew, this isn’t about something in particular, is it?”

“Oh, no,” I lied. “Crime prevention. That’s all.”

“Hey, by the way, I’m almost ready to spray again. I’m going to need to hand off Angus and Eva. Probably tomorrow.”

“That’s cool,” I said. I swung around the banister and headed down the stairs. Robert was tapping on the kitchen door and I let him in.

“Back so soon?” I said. “What did you do? Camp out in the pasture with Sprocket?”

“Do I stink that bad?” He sniffed his clothes
then said, “As a matter of fact, I spent the night at the bakery.” He held up a wax bag. “Well, that’s actually a lie. But I did go early just for these. Fresh bagels.”

I let out an appreciative groan. I don’t know about other families, but bread was something of a treat for us during the crunch. We could cook. But we didn’t have a baker in the house. Lil had gone for grains and crackers at Shoreland’s because they kept better.

“Do you think these bagels will get me into trouble with the big sis?” Robert whispered.

I said, “It’s worth the risk.”

Robert and I began toasting bagels. The smell was good enough to wake the dead—or at least to get several of my siblings down the stairs. Lil came with Angus and Eva right behind her, calling, “What’s that smell?”

I ran out and rang the bell for Vince just in case he was daydreaming out at the goat shed. “
Nobody
should miss these,” I said, and I sliced open another cinnamon-raisin for the toaster.

When she realized Robert was responsible for
the great smell in the house, Lil looked a little like a horse about to refuse a jump. She did not take a bagel.

“By the way, did you tell him?” she asked me. She grabbed a brush and pulled Eva’s hair together behind her head.

“Tell who what?”

“Tell Robert. About working in the Bike Barn?”

“Oh. Oh, yeah!” And there I was tucking food into my cheek again so I could get the words out quickly. (Mom would kill me, I thought.) “Robert, I meant to tell you yesterday. But everything was so crazy, I forgot.”

“Dewey! You forgot? That was two days ago!” Lil took over. “Robert,” she said, “the Bike Barn is going to pay you.
Retroactively
.”

“Oh, no.” Robert looked at me then at Lil then back at me again. “I’m a novice! I approached you, Dewey. Oh, you can’t—”

“No. Not up for discussion,” Lil said.

“Will you discuss eating this bagel? It has your name on it,” Robert replied. He handed Lil her
breakfast and she took it.

“I just can’t believe you’re here on a Sunday,” Lil told him.

“That’s funny coming from the family that takes no time off,” Robert said, and that was the moment that Vince came in the door with his milk buckets.

“Our work is our play,” said Vince, with a raging lack of enthusiasm. He walked by me, no hands free, and stole a bite of the bagel I was holding. He chewed and swallowed. “You’ve got people,” he said to me, meaning there were customers at the Bike Barn door. “I’ll meet you two suckers out there as soon as I get this cooked and cooled,” he said.

Robert was a good mechanic. He was learning fast. He followed Dad’s cheat sheets. He could even duplicate harder jobs after seeing them done once through. He also had strong hands when it came to a tire wrench. It was right that we were paying him. We had a third mechanic in the shop again, and Vince and I were both happy about it.

Midmorning, Officer Macey surprised us at
the open door. He carried a wheel hooked on his index finger.

Robert greeted him.

“Ha!” Macey laughed. “They’ve put you to work, huh?”

Robert nodded. “Here to learn,” he said. “Maybe I’ll master the Eight Rules for Fixing Anything and change my career path. I think the Marrisses are on to something with this bike biz.”

Macey turned to me. “I came to ask a favor,” he said. “Any chance I could snag the next twenty minutes or so with your truing stand?” He showed me the wheel. “I hit a rock and put a bulge in the rim. I pinched it back but I think the wheel went out in the process,” he said. He glanced at the stand. I had a bike up. “Oh. But you’re in the middle of something, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, but that’s okay. I’ll pull it down and just change the order I do things today. No big deal.”

So the shop was crowded. It felt great. Even Vince seemed happier. I turned to the spindles. Bikes were still coming in at a steady rate and we
had a broad sampling of jobs to get to. But I was hung up on one.

Gilmartin
.

I just wanted that bike gone. Vince was busy. But I could install a derailleur. I decided to knock off Gilmartin, so to speak. I reached for the small cardboard box at the back of the bench. It didn’t feel right. I flipped the lid off and stopped cold.

Four. Empty. Corners.

“No! No! No!” I said. “Can’t be! Can’t be! How in the—” I swore several times in a row. I pushed at the box, lifted up the spindles to look under the papers.

“What? What happened?” Macey looked up from the truing stand. Robert froze, holding several bearing rings in his hands. Vince came inside.

“I-I had a part set aside for—” I caught myself. I stopped to think.

Okay, this is a cop. A cop who doesn’t care for your thieving neighbor. If you say it’s been stolen, everything’s going to change here…and what about Dad and the whole neighborly stance thing?

The thought of the lie was turning my face red.
I could feel it. I did it anyway.

“Uh…I set something aside and now…I can’t find it,” I said. At least that was true.

“What is it?” Robert asked. “I’ll help you look.” He dropped the rings into the grease bath and wiped his hands on a rag.

“It’s a derailleur. A
nice
one. I promised the customer an upgrade.”

“Tough customer,” Vince said. “Scary customer…” His nostrils flared.

“I remember you saying so,” Robert said.

“I hate to even ask, but
how
nice a derailleur?” Macey said.

“Very. Forged aluminum upper body on a carbon-fiber outer plate.”

“Oh. Ouch.” Macey winced.

“It has to be here. We’ll just have to find it,” Robert said.

So we searched. What a charade. I was miserable. But I felt stuck. And it was killing me to think that in this case, the Spive possibly had no idea of the value of his most recent grab. This was not the same as being robbed just a little.

I was embarrassed to do it, but I called Bocci Bike to see if they had another one. They didn’t. I was afraid now. Afraid I’d never get rid of Gilmartin. I’d have to face his wrath again….

“Look, I might be able to help you,” Macey said. “I’m biking up to Centertown today. My old stomping grounds.” He grinned. “There’s a bike shop up there.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard of Centertown Cycle.”

“That’s the place. A guy I went to high school with started it up. So I’ll stop in and ask what he has for high-end derailleurs.”

“But Centertown is a haul.”

“Twenty-five miles or so.” Macey shrugged. “I bike everywhere. For me, that trip’s nothing. Besides, you just did me a favor with this baby.” Macey lifted his newly trued wheel off the stand. “Write down the name, model number, whatever you’ve got. A second choice if you’ve got one. You might as well make a list of anything else you need too. I can’t promise anything. But it’s worth a try.”

Too nice!

I offered him the money up front. I thought
Dad would do the same. But Macey said, “I’ll let my guy know you’re good for it. I’ll stop by tomorrow before my shift. Hopefully I’ll have something for you.”

“Thanks, Officer Macey. Thanks more than you know,” I said.

IT TOOK ME FOREVER TO FALL ASLEEP THAT
night. Bedtime is a bad hour to let anything ugly creep into your thoughts. I was thinking about Mr. Gilmartin. What if Officer Macey couldn’t get me that part? For sure, Gilmartin would chew me up and spit me out in little pieces all over my own yard. He’d bad-mouth the Bike Barn, and the Marrisses would be mud….

Then it hit me. Wasn’t this solvable? With or without help from Officer Macey and Centertown Cycle? Wasn’t that derailleur for Gilmartin’s bike just sitting in a box or a drawer at the house next door?

I ran a quick daydream there in the night. I pictured going right up to the Spive’s back door and knocking.

“Look, you can fling that arm and peck that finger at me, but I know that you have something that belongs to me. If you just hand it over now, I’ll forgive it along with the dozens of eggs and pints of berries you’ve taken from my family. I’ll forgive your crabbing and demanding and your stinkin’ slamming door….”

The door
. That was it! That was the sound I had waited to hear the night the dogs had run off. Right after
bend and scurry
, the Spive’s screen door
always
banged shut.

A new creepy feeling washed over me. What if the Spive was not the thief? The thought made my guts flip. But who? And why wouldn’t they go ahead and wipe us out instead of just pinching this and that? I began to wonder about all the people coming and going, the Bike Barn customers, even our milk-and-egg customers. Had I missed a serial shoplifter? Had I gone to the house for lunch and stayed too long without locking up? Thoughts swam. It seemed like it had to be someone who was around a lot.

Then I had the sickest thought of all.

What about Robert? He’s around. He knows the shop. He knows our dogs—

“No, no, no,” I whispered into the dark, and waved my hands in the air to erase the thought. It was stupid anyway.

A little bit at a time.

It
had
to be Mr. Spivey. That was his MO, and surely he was clever enough to stop a screen door from slamming in the night.

IN THE MORNING, THE YARD WAS BUSY. THE
smell of fried eggs wafted across the lawn from Mr. Spivey’s open kitchen window. Shameless.

“How about a slab of fried inner tube with them eggs?” I mumbled.

It was barely eight o’clock and there were three customers standing at the Bike Barn door. I watched at the open window as Angus and Eva stopped to say hello to them on their way from the coop. Had to laugh. Each twin carried a basket of eggs. Each twin was wearing nothing but underpants. All three customers chatted with them and admired the eggs while the Athletes strutted nearby, as if to say, “Look what
we
made!” At least we offered
entertainment while people waited.

Then who should come Rollerblading onto the scene but Gilmartin.

Oh, joy.

I reached and pulled the key from the corner cupboard, and I walked out the door.

The four customers stood in an orderly way. One behind the other. “Good morning,” I said, sort of covering them all. I nodded at my personal favorite at the end of the line and said,
“Mr. Gilmartin.”

He took that as a signal to speak. “I didn’t get a call. I was checking to see if—”

“These folks are ahead of you,” I said. “But just so you know, your bike isn’t done yet.”

“I figured you’d call if it was, but I was taking the highway today and, well, here you are at the exit. Just thought I’d stop and see.”

I almost said that I hoped it’d be done later that day. But the truth was, I had no idea if I could even get the part. And what would I do if I couldn’t? Gilmartin would surely have a piece of me—

“Excuse me, are you going to unlock the
shop?” I looked into the face of a woman I recognized from the desk at the town library. She shoved her bike forward just slightly and stuck her chin out toward the Bike Barn door. Her bicycle chain dragged in the dust.

“Y-yes,” I said. But before I did anything, I leaned around the first three customers and said, “Mr. Gilmartin,
we’ll call you
.”

He left and I checked the three new jobs in. I told them about the backlog. No one was happy, but they all seemed to get it.

I guess Officer Macey must have rolled up around eight thirty. He rode his copsicle right inside the open door, then stuck on his brakes. He stood balancing on his pedals for a few seconds before he jumped down to the floor with a thud. “Good news!” he said. Then he made a
yikes
sort of face and added, “And bad news, too.”

“Let’s have it,” I said. I was sure he had everything but the derailleur.

“Here’s the good news.” He held a plain box with a rubber band around it up and gave it a
gentle shake. “The derailleur.
Exact
model.”

Vince, behind me at the paddock door, said, “Hallelujah!”

“Yes!” I said. “I can’t believe it.”

“Yeah, well, I can’t believe the
price
.” He gave me the bad news—half again what I’d paid for the one that’d disappeared.

“Ugh,” I said.

“You don’t have to keep it,” Macey insisted. “Your choice. Centertown Cycle said they’re just as happy to have it in their inventory.”

“No. I have to do it.”

“You already gave Gilmartin a price,” Vince said.

“Yep. I’ll eat this. I’m so glad to have it.”

We figured out my tab. Horrible, but at least we had money. I jogged back to the house for it. Robert had arrived by the time I returned. I felt a little wave of shame when I saw him. I felt bad for the split second I’d suspected him, but I let it go.

“That’s a lot of lettuce,” he said. He watched me hand Macey the stack of bills.

“Officer Macey got that part I needed,” I said.
“Made my day, and it’s still early!”

“Oh, that’s great,” Robert said. “Expensive little gizmo, huh?”

“Very,” I said.

“It’s hard to believe that it isn’t here
somewhere
,” Robert puzzled. He’d never quite given up the hunt, I could tell.

“It could turn up,” I said, not believing my words for a second. “But I’m not thinking about it anymore,” I said. “I’m going to install the new one and I’m going to call the guy
today.
He’ll have no more reason to harass me or insult us.”

“You know, Dewey, there are different kinds of crimes,” said Macey.

“Y-yeah?” I felt glued in place. Where was he going with this? Had he found me out?

“If someone disturbs your peace, or challenges you unfairly in the shop, there is no reason you can’t call it in. It’ll take us a while to get here, these days. But we’ll help you handle it,” he said.

“Th-thanks,” I said. “Really. I appreciate that.”

Macey looked at Robert. “You hanging around
here again all day?” he asked.

Robert grinned. “Another day with the geniuses! I love my new job. I’m sponging up the mechanical know-how.”

Macey stretched his arms up. Let out a throaty groan. “Well, just another day of ordinary mayhem for me.”

“Yeah, how’s it going?” I asked. “Officer Runkle told us a bike thief hit the impound lot.”

Macey smacked the workbench with the heel of his hand. “Makes us look like such chumps!” His face turned red under his white-blond hair. “So help me, I’m going to be the one who breaks that case.”

“I took it as a warning,” I said. “I’m pulling all the bikes here inside.” That’d be a hard thing to explain to a customer, I thought. “So many repairs. Speaking of which…”

“Yeah, we’d better get to it, hey, Boss Man?” Robert said.

“Better,” I agreed.

Macey squared up the stack of bills for Centertown Cycle in his hands. I thought about
the long trip he’d taken up there.

“Thanks,” I told him. “Thanks for everything.”

Later, it felt good to watch Mr. Gilmartin ride off “into the sunset, never to be seen again,” I whispered to Robert. I swept my hands after my favorite customer, who was well out of the driveway now. “Good riddance!” I added.

Robert laughed and then said, “You’re really good at this. You’re good with the business of the bikes. That can be even harder than repairing them.”

“Well, thanks,” I said. It was a good moment for the temporary manager of the Marriss Bike Barn.