Riley Mack and the Other Known Troublemakers (12 page)

ON THEIR WAY TO THE
Pizza Palace after school, Riley and his crew, including the newest member, Jamal Wilson (they'd made it official during lunch), dropped by Mr. Guy's Pet Supplies on Main Street.

Riley wanted adult verification that what the Browns were doing at the dog ranch was wrong. His dad was still on that secret mission over in Afghanistan. Riley couldn't go to his mom because, well, he had promised her that he would stay away from Gavin and Chief Brown, and now he was contemplating a heist that dragged in yet another Brown, the tobacco-chewing granny who, of course, was also the chief's mother.

Yeah. It was a big ol' Brown mess.

Riley decided that Jenny Grabowski, animal lover, would have to be the go-to grown-up on this one. She looked like she was twenty-one, so she met the basic minimum requirements of adulthood but was young enough to remember what it was like to be a kid in a jam.

As they walked up Main Street, Riley checked out the Mr. Guy's Pet Supplies truck parked at the curb in front of the store. It was big and boxy, its side panels painted stark white. There was a roll-down door in the rear and what looked like a stowaway ramp just above the bumper.

“Jake?”

“Yeah?”

“What's the cargo capacity on that truck?”

“You mean that sixteen-foot 2001 Isuzu HD box van?”

“Yeah. That one.”

“Seventy-five hundred pounds. One thousand twenty-four cubic feet.”

“Nice,” said Riley, who was already hatching the gang's next caper: Operation Doggy Duty.

He turned to Mongo. “Does your mom still buy one hundred pounds of beef at a time and store it all down in that basement freezer?”

“Yeah,” said Mongo. “I eat a lot of beef. Hamburgers, steaks, roasts. Rump roasts, chuck roasts, rib roasts—”

“Mongo?” said Briana.

“Yes?”

“Some of us are veggies, okay?”

“Right. Sorry.”

“Come on,” said Riley. “Inside.”

The shop was empty except for Ms. Grabowski, who was stocking shelves with cans of cat food.

“Well, hey! Good to see you guys again,” she said when she saw who had come through the front door.

“Good to see you, too, Ms. Grabowski,” said Riley. “This is Jake and that's Jamal. They weren't with us when we helped you corral those runaways.”

“But, yo—we would've helped, too,” said Jamal. “Jake and I are what they call altruistic humanitarians. Do you know what those words mean, Ms. Grabowski?”

“Yes. You two have very big hearts.”

“How are Amigo and Pepe?” asked Briana.

“Fine. Still available for adoption. If you'd like to visit…”

“Maybe later?” said Riley, arching his eyebrows.

“Definitely,” said Briana, “because right now, Ms. G., we need you to look at a video clip and tell us whether, in your professional-pet-care-provider and adult-animal-advocate opinion, what we're looking at is a puppy mill.”

“A puppy mill?” Ms. Grabowski said the words like they were toxic on her tongue. “Puppy mills are
breeding grounds for misery!”

“Then this is probably a puppy mill,” said Riley. “Because, I gotta tell you: the dogs sure looked miserable.”

He pushed the play button on the Flip camera. The shaky movie he had made while running alongside the dog coops started rolling. The microphone had picked up the dogs' pitiful whimpers and wails.

Ms. Grabowski looked like she might hurl.

“Where exactly is this place?” she asked.

“About fifteen miles from where we're standing right now,” said Riley.

Ms. Grabowski closed her eyes. “Enough. Turn it off.”

Riley figured she had just seen the old bulldog in the cage closest to the shed, the one with the terrified eyes and a bad case of the shakes.

She took in a long, deep breath. “What do you kids know about puppy mills?”

“Plenty,” said Briana. “They're heinous, which is why a bunch of us got together last year in social studies class and signed a Humane Society pledge promising that we would never, ever buy a pet from a pet store or an internet site or even buy pet supplies from any store that also sells puppies!”

“Good for you,” said Ms. Grabowski. “Those cute puppies you see out at the mall? They don't always come from very cute or even clean breeding farms. That's
why I always say pet adoption is your best option!”

Mongo grinned. He liked a good rhyme.

“There are laws against puppy mills but they're seldom enforced,” said Ms. Grabowski. “Maybe if we circulate a petition and take it to the chief of police, he'll go out there and shut this place down.”

Riley raised a finger. “Um, Ms. Grabowski?”

“Yes?”

“Chief Brown? Bad idea. It's his mother's operation.”

“And,” added Briana, “we think he's a partner in the business.”

Ms. Grabowski looked astounded. “The police chief's involved with this? That's horrible!”

“Not to mention detestable,” said Jamal. “Horrendous, too.”

“Ms. Grabowski,” said Riley, “would you, as a responsible adult, agree that it would be justifiable for us to go back to this puppy mill facility, say late Wednesday night, and rescue all those dogs?”

“Definitely. But it could be dangerous. Especially since, as you say, the chief is involved. Doesn't he have a gun?”

“Yes, ma'am. Several.”

“Bullets, too,” added Mongo.

“He might claim you were stealing his mother's property,” said Ms. Grabowski. “You could be charged with a very serious felony. He could shoot you for
trespassing on private property.”

“True,” said Riley. “But right is right, even if everyone is against it; and wrong is wrong, even if everyone is for it.”

Ms. Grabowski smiled admiringly. “You're a very interesting young man, Riley Mack.”

He shrugged. “What can I say? I've got a soft spot for dogs. So, what if, let's say, somebody went out to this puppy mill situation and accidentally opened all the cages and, coincidentally, all the dogs decided to run away and, by further coincidence, these dogs all just happened to run to the same place because maybe they were hungry and this place had food. Would that be considered stealing?”

Ms. Grabowski gave Riley a quizzical look. “What exactly is it you're asking me, Riley?”

Riley bobbed his head toward the door. “Ms. G.—that cargo truck parked out by the curb. Can you drive that thing?”

CHUCK “CALL ME BROKE” WEITZEL
had left Atlantic City around one p.m. on Monday.

They kicked him out of the casino because he didn't have any money left and they didn't like him hanging around the all-you-can-eat buffet, digging for scraps of food in the trash barrels. So, they gave him a free bus ticket home and requested that he never come back to AC again.

He went to the bank as soon as he got off the bus because, frankly, he didn't know what else to do. He wasn't just broke, he was brokenhearted.

Head hanging low, he shuffled into the grand marble lobby, thinking about this embezzlement scheme he
had heard about in Utah. A bank manager out there drafted cashier's checks on his branch's account and then drove to another nearby branch of the same bank claiming he needed “cash for the vault.”

Of course, the bank manager kept all the money for himself. He did it for twenty years before he was caught.
Yes.
That was the new plan! He needed to write a cashier's check and take it over to the First National Bank branch in Cloverdale. But it was past five. The Cloverdale bank would close soon. He had to hurry. He picked up his pace as he passed the teller cages.

“Mr. Weitzel?”

It was Mrs. Mack, looking concerned.

“Maddie,” he said with a quick nod.

“What are you doing here?”

“Feeling better. Came in.”

He hurried through the Bank Employees Only door and marched to the counting room, where the binder with the cashier's checks was kept under lock and key in a filing cabinet.

“Mr. Weitzel?”

He whipped around. Now it was Joyce slowing him down. The gal from the customer service desk. “I'm glad you're here!” she said. “The chief of police has been calling all day and…”

Chief John Brown strode through the door behind her.

“Thought you were sick,” he said with a sinister smile.

“Feeling better. Came in.”

“Good for you. Say, I wonder if we might step into your office? I have another business proposition to run by you.”

“Well, this really isn't the best time for me. How about we powwow first thing tomorrow? Or Wednesday. Wednesday works.”

“How about now?”

The bank manager wondered if Chief Brown had friends in Atlantic City, too.

“Sure,” he said. “Now sounds good.”

He led the way up the hall to his office.

Chief Brown closed the door. “Let me cut to the chase here, Chuck. You need to loan me another two thousand dollars.”

“But…”

“Surely you can come up with that kind of money. Unless, of course, you lost it all out there in Vegas?”

“Heh-heh-heh. Good one, John.” He swiveled toward his computer and started clacking some keys.

He needed to buy some time to think.

“Let me just check the ol' personal piggy bank,” he said, adding another “heh-heh-heh.”

If the chief was still harping on Las Vegas, that meant he probably didn't know about the more recent
disaster down in Atlantic City. Still, Chuck Weitzel wouldn't have two thousand dollars to lend unless he could race over to Cloverdale before six—yes, their website said they were open till six. It was five fifteen. He needed to hurry.

“Did I mention,” said the chief, “that I need the money before six p.m.? Got a supplier standing by, ready to ship.”

Okay. Now he needed a miracle.

When he shut down the web browser, his computer screen filled with the grid of security camera feeds.

And Chuck Weitzel found his miracle.

He tapped the function key that made an exterior surveillance camera zoom in.

Yes! It was the old lady. The widow. Rada Rollison.

And she was walking down the sidewalk carrying what looked like a cigar box.

She must've found where her dead husband had stashed the rest of his secret retirement fund!

“Will you excuse me, John?”

“But…”

“Just need to run up front. Get you your money.”

Weitzel bolted out of the office and dashed to the teller room. He had to beat the widow to window three!

“Maddie?” he said, making it sound like “Baddie” so she'd think his head was all stuffed up again.

“Mr. Weitzel?”

“Could you do me a favor?” He sniffled and coughed and blew his nose.

“You sound terrible.”

“Relapse. Would you bind rudding over to the drugstore and getting be sub cold bedicine?”

“Well…”

“I'll watch your window while you're gone.”

“You really should lie down. I can get Brenda to cover—”

“Doe. I insist.”

She grabbed her jacket. “I'll be right back.” Mrs. Mack headed for the exit at the rear of the building because that door was closer to Morkal's Drugstore.

Chuck smiled.

Maddie never even saw Rada Rollison tottering across the lobby.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Rollison,” he said, pitching his voice slightly higher.

“Hello, Maddie. Good to see you again.”

Yep. Blind as a bat.

“Mmmm-hmmm.” He figured he should keep his comments short and sweet, let the old biddy think she was dealing with Mrs. Mack.

She hefted the cigar box up to the counter.

“I'd like to put this in my savings account.”

“Okeydokey.” He sounded like a soprano in an all-boys choir. He took the cigar box and glanced at the deposit slip.

Four thousand dollars!

He propped open the lid and riffled through the bills.

It was all there.

“My late husband hid it in the garage. That man was always hiding money. First I found the two thousand in a coffee can, now this. Tomorrow, my son is coming over to help me check under all the mattresses.”

Chuck glanced at his watch. He didn't have all day. He let Mrs. Rollison ramble on as he took a ballpoint pen and dragged it over and over the long leg of the number 4 in 4,000 to turn it into a very wide 1.

“All set,” he said, handing her the yellow copy, sliding one thousand dollars and the white copy into Mrs. Mack's cash drawer while smoothly slipping the cigar box down the front of his pants.

“Thank you, Maddie. Good seeing you again.”

“Um-hmm. Buh-bye, now.”

Mrs. Rollison scuffled across the lobby.

About five minutes later, the real Mrs. Mack came back to window three with a white paper bag.

“Here's your medicine, Mr. Weitzel. I hope it helps.”

“I'm sure it will. Thank you.”

“Feel better.”

Oh, he definitely would! He was back in business!

He'd give two of the three thousand dollars still in the cigar box to the blackmailing chief.

He'd keep one thousand for himself. It was more than enough for him to skip around the Monopoly board one more time!

RILEY, JAKE, MONGO, AND BRIANA
hustled up the sidewalk toward the Pizza Palace.

Riley had sent Jamal home to start putting together Operation Loot Sting, a scheme Riley had cooked up so the burglarized fifth graders could retrieve all the loot Gavin and his grandmother had stolen from them.

Yep, they were running two operations at once. It would be a very busy week. So Riley didn't even take time to rearrange the letters on the Pizza Palace's sidewalk reader board, even though “Free Drink With Slice” was almost too easy to pass up—“Filched Wiener Skirt” being the most obvious anagram. There just wasn't time to make it happen.

Before they entered the Pizza Palace, they needed a few details for their final script.

“Jake, what'd you dig up?”

Jake swiped his fingers across his smartphone. “Matching that beagle pup through my dad's facial-identification software, I pegged Grandma Brown's internet portal.”

Jake's dad was a bigger technogeek than he was. He worked for the federal government crunching top secret, cutting-edge code that did something to keep America safe. His mom? She was a professor of metamathematics, the study of mathematics itself using mathematical methods. Jake had very smart genes.

“It's a dog ranch called Pampered Pedigree Pooches.”

“Good work.” Riley turned to Briana. “You got your lines down?”

“Totally. But I'll probably do some improv, make it my own.”

“I'm sticking to the script,” said Mongo, dabbing at the sweat glistening on his brow. Reciting lines always made him nervous so, whenever possible, they tried to keep his lines simple.

“I see Nick inside,” said Riley. “Remember, everything we say can and will go directly back to the Browns.”

The four of them entered the Pizza Palace and
ambled up to the counter. They placed their orders and carried their slices back to their usual booth. It wasn't long before busboy Nick was hovering near their table again, taking his sweet time cleaning up the trash in the neighboring booth.

Riley touched the right side of his nose with his right index finger.

Mongo glanced at his palm, where he had written his lines with a marker.

“So, Mongo,” Riley started, “your mom got Noodle back?”

“Yes. She paid the reward. One thousand dollars.”

“To a bounty hunter named Alligator Hide McBride,” said Briana, “who is, like, totally awesome. She roams the country helping people find their lost pets. I think they're going to make a movie about her!”

“And now your mom bought Noodle an electric shock collar?” said Riley.

“Yes,” said Mongo, using a napkin to blot more sweat from his brow. “She did.”

“I hear electric shock collars are awesome,” said Jake. “They don't harm the dog, who wears a grounding wire on her front paw, but if a stranger tries to touch the dog and isn't wearing the properly encoded device on his key chain, he gets jolted with over a jillion gigawatts of milliamperes.”

“Yes,” said Mongo. He glanced at his palm, where
the ink was smearing with sweat. “It's a very effective detergent.”

“You mean deterrent?” said Riley.

“Yes. What Riley said.”

Now Nick moseyed over to their booth, his bus tray slung against his hip.

“You done with that?” He pointed to Jake's plate, which still had a full slice of Hawaiian pizza sitting on it.

“Um, no.”

Nick nodded. “Say, I couldn't help overhearing your conversation.”

Riley let a small smirk glide across his face.

“Did your mom really pay somebody one thousand dollars to get back her puppy?”

Mongo nodded like a bobblehead baseball doll.

“Alligator Hide McBride,” added Briana. “She's famous.”

“Wow,” said Nick. “A thousand bucks. That's whacked.”

Riley touched the left side of his nose with his left index finger. Time for act 2. Mongo exhaled a giant sigh of relief; Briana was the star of the next bit.

“You think that's whacked,” she said. “I have a super-wealthy cousin from Texas and she's coming to town this Wednesday and she says she's heard about this awesome kennel near here called Pampered Pedigree Pooches where they have the most fabtastic puppies
and she is willing to spend
ten
thousand dollars for this one beagle she saw on their website.”

“Really?” said Nick, dollar signs flashing in his eyes.

“Yunh-huh. Of course, her father won't let her buy a puppy over the internet.”

“Why not?”

“Because, in Texas, they like to ‘look a man in the eye' when they buy stuff. So, he'll give her ten thousand dollars but only if she can meet the breeder people at Pampered Pedigree Pooches in person.”

Riley could see the wheels in Nick's head spinning.

“Isn't that ka-ray-zee?” Briana rattled on. “Ten thousand dollars for a dog? Of course, her father makes billions pumping oil, so ten thousand dollars is probably what they use for toilet paper every day. Just take a stack of bills to the bathroom….”

“You know,” said Nick, “I actually know somebody who knows somebody who works at that dog ranch you're talking about.”

“No! Way!” said Briana.

“Yep. I could make a few calls. See if a face-to-face could be arranged.”

“Fab-tastic! Okay, it has to be an appointment after dark on Wednesday because Beulah's plane doesn't even land until late.”

“Beulah?” said Nick.

“That's my cousin. Oh—and this is important—tell
your friend's friend that Beulah has to meet with them inside some sort of house, not the actual kennel.”

Nick's expression brightened. “She doesn't want to see the kennels?”

“No way. She has nyctoagoraphobia. She's afraid of the outdoors at night.”

“And you swear her father will pay ten thousand dollars for one puppy?”

“Maybe more. In cash!”

“Hang on. I'll make a couple calls.”

Fifteen minutes later, Nick handed Briana a napkin with an address scribbled on it.

“It's all set up. Nine o'clock. Wednesday night.”

“Great! Will you be there, Nick?”

“Me? No. I don't work there or anything. I just have this friend who has a friend.”

Briana batted her eyes. “Fabtastic!”

 

Riley and his crew spent the rest of Monday and all day Tuesday putting together the final pieces of the plan.

Riley consulted with Ms. Grabowski about equipment needs and learned that her boyfriend, a crazy animal-rights activist named Andrew—who once chained himself to a supermarket lobster tank, demanding that the seafood department set the crustaceans free, and was already planning a protest of the next
Alvin and the Chipmunks movie because it exploited its young rodent stars—was a limo driver out at the airport.

“He'd really like to help you guys out,” she said.

Andrew was in.

So was Dr. Langston at the Humane Society. The vet agreed to treat any “sick strays” Ms. Grabowski just happened to find that week, no questions asked.

Meanwhile, Jake set to work figuring out the volumetrics in the back of the Mr. Guy's truck. Then he helped Ms. Grabowski load and outfit it.

Jamal was busy printing up permission slips and take-home announcements for a bogus fifth grade field trip on Saturday.

And Mongo?

He had about fifty pounds of beef to thaw.