The Boy Detective Fails (8 page)
“Who is this?”
“Hello, good day; my name is Billy Argo with Mammoth Life-Like Mustache International. I was wondering—”
“Did you say Argo? Billy Argo?”
“Yes sir, with Mammoth Life-Like Mustache International. I was wondering if I could take up a few moments of your time?”
“I’d say you already took up most of the time I had, Billy Argo.”
“Pardon me?”
“You took up almost all of the time I was given and now there’s not much left. Don’t you remember my voice, Billy Argo?”
“No. I’m sorry, I wish I did.”
“Sure, sure, you and your brat sister and your little fat friend got me locked up about ten years ago. The Case of the Pawn-Shop Kidnapper? Sure, sure, the boy detective solves a string of strange, mysterious kidnappings. Sure, sure. That was me.”
“Killer Kowalzavich? When did you get out?”
“Just a few weeks ago. Just in time to sit in this lousy room by myself and die.”
“I’m … I’m sorry it ended up like this for you. I … I never wanted to see anybody—even you—get hurt. Only I know they would have gone easier on you if you had told them what happened to Miss Daisy Hollis. You know, they … they never found her.”
“I told them I had nothing to do with that girl. What kind of kidnapper do you think I was? Sure, I tried to pawn the other girl’s fancy belongings, but that Hollis girl, they couldn’t ever pin that one on me. I’ll take that, and, well, a whole string of things with me to the grave. Boy detective, huh? You wouldn’t know the half of it.”
“I’m done speaking with you.”
“Sure, sure, but before you go, be swell and tell me, how’s that sweet little sister of yours?”
The boy detective slams down the phone. He immediately begins crying. Larry crosses the aisle and helps Billy to his feet, gently rubbing the back of his neck.
“First-day jitters is all, kid. Nothing a good night’s sleep won’t fix. Get a good meal and turn in early. Tomorrow, you’ll be back among the living, good as new.”
“OK,” Billy says, and realizes he is still holding the phone.
The boy detective, at the bus stop, prevents himself from calling his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Argo. He imagines they are, at that particular moment, too busy to talk to him. He thinks his father is probably pounding a great wood table, calling out some objection in naval court, and the judge is shouting back, “Objection overruled!” His mother is either working on a new substitute for plastic or painting a masterpiece reminiscent of some Flemish work of art. He stands in the telephone booth and stares down and sees a strange brown shape near his feet. His heart stops beating: It is someone’s hair. There is a clump of human hair just lying there in the corner of the phone booth. The boy detective, at this moment, thinks:
The world has gone mad. The world is broken and falling apart and completely mad.
He finds his small bottle of pills and pops three Ativan into his mouth, his fingers trembling.
The boy detective hangs up the phone and then is running awkwardly down the street, toward the bus stop, small tears streaming down his cheeks.
The boy detective always returns to the case of the Haunted Candy Factory:
Caroline, sitting in her hiding spot beneath the white wood porch, wrote the clue in her gold-colored notebook again and again. It was now a bet—who could discover the meaning to the phantom’s riddle first—and Billy, listening to her fuss beneath the wood slats, only laughed at her struggle, then feeling bad, he was quiet. After a good few hours, he climbed beneath the porch and took the pencil and paper from her hand, revealing:
EVERY DEAD GHOST IN A FACTORY IS BENT
which easily became the anagram:
EATING CANDY IS SO VERY BAD FOR TEETH
Caroline smiled, shaking her brother’s hand. “But golly, who wrote it?” she asked.
“Who do you think?” Billy replied.
“A dentist?”
“Perhaps,” Billy said. “A very mean dentist.”
Caroline added: “A very mean dentist who really hates cavities.”
The boy detective and the Mumford children are searching for clues beside their front porch. It has just stopped raining and Effie, in her purple and white jacket and her yellow soccer uniform, kneels beside her brother, Gus. Each of them is quiet, looking for some sign, some intimation, each of them caught in a strange world of curious wonderings.
“Billy?” the girl asks.
“Yes?”
“Do you think people are mostly good or mostly evil?”
“Why do you ask?”
“I’d like to know your thoughts on the matter.”
“I don’t know. I would have to think about it.”
“I don’t know the answer either,” Effie Mumford says.
“It is a good question.”
“Yes, I think so,” the girl says.
They are both silent for a moment. Gus Mumford nods too, giving it serious thought.
“Do you think we will find my bunny’s head?” Effie asks.
“I do. I am quite sure of it.”
“Why?”
“The only thing all men have in common with one another is their inherent capacity to make mistakes. We will always fall short. We will always fail at our grand schemes; we can trust that there will always be a clue or a fingerprint or some sign. That is what we must now find. We must think like the criminal here: Surely it was night time when he did his terrible deed.”
“Yes.”
“Surely he was in a hurry, nervous that he might be caught.”
“Yes.”
“Then surely he must have overlooked something as he made his escape.”
The boy detective pauses, inspecting a spot of dirt that is crossed with several horizontal marks, a trail of prints running under the porch. Billy follows them on his hands and knees excitedly.
“What do we have here?” he whispers.
Gus Mumford hands Billy a note which reads:
It looks like a footprint.
“Have either of you been under the porch recently?”
The Mumford children shake their heads. Billy, on his hands and knees, crawls beneath the front porch, the Mumford children following.
“It is the footprint from a large man’s shoe. It’s muddy but it’s clearly a man’s, no? We now know our friend was under here, as I assumed, and that he is a he—yes,
he
had to hide his actions, so he chose this place. Notice how there’s very little blood about. Only a speck or two there. We should continue our search.”
“No,” the girl whispers. “I don’t want to look anymore.”
“But I believe we are getting somewhere. There is more work to be done,” Billy replies.
Effie Mumford nods, covering her eyes. She has silently begun crying.
“I know it’s because a lot of people don’t like me. That’s why they did this,” she says.
“What?”
Effie Mumford’s eyes are wet with tears.
“It’s because of how I am in school, but I can’t help it.”
“I know.”
“I wish I was better at sports and not smart. I really do.”
Billy smiles and turns. A large black automobile pulls up in front of the Mumford house. An angry-looking man begins to honk the horn loudly.
“It’s my coach. I have to go to soccer practice now.”
“It’s all right. We will continue this later.”
“OK,” she says, continuing to cry.
“What’s wrong now?”
“I wish my coach didn’t hate me so much.”
“Why do you think he hates you?”
“I make my team lose all our games.”
“I see.”
“He’s very mean. He says very mean things to me.”
The boy detective and the Mumford children hide under the porch listening to Effie’s coach honking.
Beep-beep-beep.
Beep-beep-beep.
Beep-beep
, but the third honk doesn’t come. The fact that the sound is so loud and harsh and the third honk doesn’t come causes a nerve to twitch beneath Billy’s eye. The coach begins again:
Beep-beep-beep.
Beep-beep-beep.
Beep-beep
, again missing the third beep. Billy’s hands begin to clutch helplessly at the air. Once more, the coach hits his horn:
Beep-beep-beep.
Beep-beep-beep.
Beep-beep
, and before Billy knows it, he is crawling out from under the porch.
“You two, wait here,” he tells the children.
“Billy?”
Immediately, Billy decides he does not like the looks of the coach. The man’s face is large and angry with an enormous, stubbly chin. The coach holds the horn down:
Bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb bbbbbbbbeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeepppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp
.
An intense white heat is exploding from behind Billy’s eyes. It overtakes him. He looks around and sees Effie Mumford’s field hockey stick lying on the front lawn: He grabs it and charges the automobile without a word, smashing in the front headlight. It breaks without much of a sound at all, just a single soft
crack
. The coach lays off the horn and is suddenly out of the car, shoving Billy. He has Billy in an awkward full nelson. Effie Mumford is hurrying out from under the porch but not before the coach punches Billy in the stomach, pushing him to the ground.
“No, no, no!” Effie Mumford shouts. “He doesn’t understand.”
“That guy started hitting my car!” the coach yells back. “He’s crazy.”
Effie Mumford helps Billy to his feet, holding his hand while he tries to breathe.
“Billy, why did you that?” she asks.
“I don’t know,” he says. “I don’t like that man’s face.”
“Oh,” Effie Mumford says.
The three of them are standing in the sun then, Billy doubled over, breathing heavily.
It is truly his secret weakness: The boy detective is not very daring, though he wishes he was. While he is lying in his small bed, holding his sore ribs, he hears, from down the hall in the Shady Glens television room, a theme song from his favorite television show playing loudly. The show is
Modern Police Cadet
, a black-and-white British series from the ’50s. The theme song’s lyrics are:
Modern
Police
Cadet
Familiar with all the latest laws
Modern
Police
Cadet
Beware criminals
Everywhere
Modern Police Cadet
is, without a doubt, the boy detective’s favorite television program of all time. It is a series that follows the investigative exploits of one Leopold Jones, an awkward, stuttering, nervous Scotland Yard cadet by day, who, because of his amazingly modern crime-solving skills, is allowed to work on unsolved cases by night. Billy must decide if he will go down to the television room and watch it or not. He thinks about it for a good, long minute. He imagines the thinly mustached Leopold Jones, Modern Police Cadet, working some strange case—the Mystery of the Stolen Diamond Hand, perhaps, following the clues, missing his cadet exams (as he was often apt to do), coyly admonishing the beautiful cat burglar when catching her in the end. Billy then decides he
will
go down the hall, but only to check to see if it is an episode he has watched already.
As he reaches for the doorknob, he stops, realizing there is a good chance if he goes down the hall, one of the other residents will want to talk to him about something, or will want to touch him, or worse, may try to assault him. He stands in front of the door, wondering if it will be worth it. He will stand there for more than an hour, trying to decide.
It is embarrassing to admit, but Chapter Fourteen has been stolen. We truly apologize for this.
The boy detective and the Mumford children are now playing freeze tag. It is twilight and the children only have one hour before they must be inside. Billy is frozen in a running position as Gus Mumford chases Effie Mumford around him. Just then, two teenaged boys in black dusters and black eye makeup pass. The boys are looking at each other and winking. One of the boys is rounder with a black ponytail, the other is taller with short, spiky blond hair. They push a suspicious-looking little girl’s bike in between them, small and awkward and pink.
Billy stares at the bike for a moment and the strange machinations of his mind begin turning. He thinks:
!
He glares at the two boys as they pass, both of them elbowing each other and laughing. The short round one with the ponytail whispers a single unheard word to his friend and they both snort.
“You there,” Billy calls out. “I’d like to ask you about that bicycle.”
Billy begins walking toward the boys, pushing his glasses up against his face.
“What?”
“I’d like to ask where you got that bicycle.”
“From your butt,” the chubby one says with a laugh.
“Yeah, from your butt,” the tall boy says, nodding.
“There’s no need for that. It just seems out of the ordinary. I’d appreciate it if you answered me.”
“We don’t give a shit what you appreciate.”
The boy detective nods. He is now quite sure these boys have stolen the bicycle but does not know what to do next exactly.
“I would only like to ask you a few questions.”
“Fuck off. We’re not telling you shit.”
The boy detective nods, taking a step closer.
“I am trying to be polite but you are making it hard for me.”
“What are you gonna do about it, spaz?”
“Please. I only want to ask you a few questions about that bicycle.”
“Tough shit. We are in league with the Devil,” the chubby one shouts, “we do what we want!”
“With our dark powers, we do whatever we like,” the other taller one howls.
“We kill and destroy.”
“We annihilate without mercy.”
“We are pure evil.”
The boy detective takes another step forward, staring hard at the round boy’s face. The boy detective thinks:
These young hoods are only cowards and don’t mean any real harm
. He thinks,
As long as I do not show my terrible, terrible fear, all will be well
. He clenches his hands at his side. He glares confidently into their small, beady eyes. But it is in that moment that a single bright red drop of blood falls from Billy’s left nostril and lands on the back of his hand. He sees it, frowns, and then immediately faints, leaving his feet.