The Great Circus Train Robbery (10 page)

“I know who has it, I’ll get it back,” Spence promised. “But what about my advertising car? When do you think it was stolen?” The red car that advertised
Sensational High Wire Artists
had been hooked between the silver water car and the white bulldozer. In his hurry, the thief hadn’t bothered to rehook it.

His father shrugged. “Who knows? You left it out. But that new bicycle…

“It was a dwarf took it, Dad. Can you can drive me back there and help me find him? Then I can ride my bike home—it has a light. Please, Dad? Now?”

“Well, I suppose so. But I won’t have you riding it back in the dark. We’ll throw it on top of the car.” Then: “What’s
that!”
He’d just spotted the monkey. It was on the ground and trotting over to a maple tree. The trunk still bore a bucket for sap that hadn’t been collected in March—Mr. Riley had been away at a concert.

Spence explained about the monkey. And the dwarf. “Well, why didn’t you say that fellow had it?” his father said. “We’d better get our act right over there.”

“I did just tell you, Dad!” His father never really listened. Already he was heading for the white Subaru.  The monkey looked like it might come too, but Spence waved it back.  It would probably hang around. Spence was its source of food now.

They were backing out of the driveway when someone screamed.   It was his mother—
she’d
discovered the monkey. “It’s all right, Mom,” he hollered.  “I’ll be back soon. Can you give it some peanuts?”

They went first to Hackberry’s school bus, just in case the clown had returned. “Get out!” the parrot screamed, and his father stopped short. “You didn’t tell me someone was in here.”

“It’s just the parrot, Dad.”  But Spence knew the time had come to confide in his father.  Of the two parents, his father was the most tolerant. He’d seemed amused by the monkey. And moments later he was actually
listening
to Spence’s story about Hackberry and his ‘paranoia.’

“Paranoia’s a chronic psychosis,” said Mr. Riley, who’d studied to be a doctor until he failed chemistry and turned to music. “The victim harbors delusions of persecution. My uncle Jimmy, for one. You’ve never met him. He lives in Hawaii—too scared to leave his own house, much less his island.”

“Huh,” said Spence, who didn’t think he wanted to meet Uncle Jimmy—one paranoid was enough. He hadn’t told his father that Hackberry was missing. Or that Boomer next door was Hackberry’s brother. He didn’t think Zoe would want his father to know. For one thing, Zoe wanted to be the first to find the missing cars and point an accusing finger at Boomer.

“Maybe that Hackberry’s our thief,” his father said, stepping over a rusty caboose to peer in at the parrot.

“Out of here, fool,” the parrot cried. “Out, I said!”

Mr. Riley shook a finger at the parrot. “You need a lesson in manners, señora.”

Spence tossed in a handful of bird seed.  Then he peeked in the sleeping area and, to his surprise, saw that the trunk had been closed up again.  Strange,  Spence thought.  Something was going on here—unless Hackberry himself had returned. But if so, where was he now?  It was half-past-nine already.

“Out!” the parrot screeched, and this time they obeyed.

The dwarf’s pad was a tent spray-painted a shade of fuchsia that looked like throw-up, even in the dim light of strung-up bulbs. It strained Spence’s eyes to look. A mountain bike was attached to a rack on the back of a nearby yellow Beetle. He peered inside and saw it was fitted with hand controls. “Who’s there?” The dwarf stuck out his head.

“Chuckie? Can I come in?”

“No.” The tent flap closed.

“I want to talk to you about Hackberry. Somebody got into his trunk.”

“Wasn’t me-ee,” Chuckie said in a high cracked voice. “I didn’t open that trunk. I only shut it back up when I found it open. I nearly fell in, it was so deep! I didn’t take anything.”

“Chuckie,” Spence said, “I’m coming in.” He waved his father back: “I’ll call, Dad, if I need you.”

“But Spence—”

“Don’t worry, Dad.  He’s shorter than me.”

The dwarf was squatting cross-legged in the middle of his bed. He was wearing a hot pink T-shirt and cut-off jeans that looked like somebody had sprayed them with a bb gun. His head was too big for his body, his face chalk-white under the thick fuchsia-dyed hair. The floor was covered with bits of costumes, candy wrappers, crossword puzzles and magazines. And in their midst: a bicycle, on its back, painted the same nauseous fuchsia. The wheels spun as Spence approached.

Spence knelt beside it. There was the dent in the handlebars where he’d hit a rock and reeled headlong into the underbrush.

And there was the serial number he’d memorized when he first received the bike. 2969,” he read aloud, squinting at the tiny numbers: “8170…”

“My bike,” the dwarf growled.

“My
bike!” said Spence.
“My
serial number. And I saw you ride off when I left it outside Hackberry’s trailer.”

“Oh,” said the dwarf, looking coy.  “I didn’t realize—”

“Yes, you did realize. You saw me go into Hackberry’s bus.”

“You were stealing his train,” the dwarf said, “It was you opened that trunk! I fell in when I tried to shut it.” He rubbed a purply bump on his forehead.

“It was you took it. You gave it to Mrs. Hackberry to sell.” Spence was furious at this lying, thieving little man.

“No-oooo! I’d never steal it. Hackberry loved his train. It belonged to his mama. His mama gave it him when he was a small boy. I’d never take it!” He dropped his head in his hands and sniveled, then blew his nose with a loud blast.

“But you took my bike. You can’t deny that. I’m going to call the cops right now on my cell phone.” Spence patted his pocket—at least he had a wallet in there.

“Take it then. Take it! Leave me without a bike to ride in my new act. Go ahead. Discriminate. Just because I’m different.”

“There’s a bike on the back of your car. You can ride that.”

“Not mine!” Chuckie squealed. “That one’s too big for me. It belongs to Hackberry. I’m keeping it for him while he...” He sucked up his lower lip with his buck teeth.

“While he what?” Spence asked, wondering how he was going to get the fuchsia paint off his bike. He didn’t want to go riding around on a hot pink bicycle. The kids would laugh at him. “When he rides over to see his brother Juniper? In the middle of the night maybe?”

Chuckie gasped. “How’d you know about Juniper? Hackberry’s scared of his brother,” he said without waiting for an answer. “The brother wants something Hackberry’s got.”

“Like what?”

“I can’t tell you. It’s a confidence. I’m the only one Hack talks to. He knows I won’t blab.” His thin lips quivered. “He’s my friend, my one real friend in the whole wide world.” He covered his face with his plump hands.

Spence knew then he wouldn’t call the cops about the bike. He’d repaint it black. He knew Chuckie wouldn’t tell where the clown was hiding. So maybe Zoe was right. Maybe they really would have to sneak into Boomer’s house in the middle of the night to hunt for a clue. What kind of clue he didn’t know. Or where. But something. So Juniper wouldn’t try to harm Hackberry. Knock him on the head or blow up his train in the middle of his act. That is, if he came back at all. He wouldn’t let down the other clowns who worked with him, would he?

He must’ve spoken aloud because Chuckie said, “He’s always been on time for his act. He never let anybody down in all these years. Never! But now...”

“Now?”

“I don’t know,” Chuckie said slowly, his bittersweet eyes leaking fat tears down his face, his hands clasped together in his lap. “I just don’t know.”

FRIDAY

20

A HOLE IN THE CELLAR FLOOR

“Coming to join us, Spence? Kelby was stretched out on a cot in the club hut, reading a comic book. A cigarette butt burned in a flowered saucer. Spence coughed. Kelby was trying to be cool, of course.

“Um, probably not.” Zoe had asked him to meet her in the hut, so Spence wasn’t too pleased to see her troublesome brother.

“Couldn’t walk the beam, I suppose? A little acrophobia?” Kelby’s baseball cap was so far down over his eyes that Spence wondered how he could see the print.

“I’ve got other things to do right now,” said Spence, lifting his chin. “And soccer practice starts next week.” For some reason he wasn’t nervous today around Kelby. Maybe it was because he’d confronted the dwarf and gotten his bicycle back.

“Huh,” Kelby said. “Well if you change your mind, we got a rafter beam at Butch’s place you can kick a ball at.” Kelby never gave up, it seemed. “You could help Zoe with old Boomer down the street. She’ll never make lieutenant the rate she’s going.” He lifted an eyebrow, like Spence might offer some new information.

“I don’t know anything about Boomer,” Spence said with his fingers crossed. “I only know that two of my circus cars are missing.”

“Yeah? Well, the cops went and questioned Butch—you know that?” Spence shook his head. “They did, yeah. Butch and his brother both—the Portapotty bomber?”

“They have evidence?”

“Naw. But they didn’t take any rail cars, Butch says, and I believe him. His brother’s being good now. That’s why Butch and me are gonna search Boomer’s house next time he goes out.” Yawning, Kelby punched a dent in his pillow and settled back to read his comics.

Uh-oh, Spence thought. He ran to meet Zoe as she came running down the hill. “Your brother and Butch are planning to search Boomer’s house when he goes out. That means—”

“That means we go in when he’s
there”
she said, breathing hard from the run. “Tonight. After he takes his sedative. I saw it in his refrigerator. It says take
nightly.”

“Jeezum. What if he forgets and doesn’t take it?”

“Drop some of the Liquid Sleep in his root beer. Mom takes over-the-counter stuff like that when she has a hard day coming up. No side effects, she says—except maybe a little sleepwalking? But most people don’t do that, Mom says.”

“Who’s going to put it in his root beer?”

“I will. You can keep watch outside in case I need help.”

“If he catches you? What then?”

“Then you dash in and save me.”

“Me? What can I do against Boomer? He’s three times my size.” Spence’s brow was bathed in sweat, and it wasn’t because of the sun. In fact, there was no sun. Just dark clouds moving over the mountain, threatening a storm.

Already he could hear the thunder inside his head. “Okay,” he said finally. “I don’t like it, but I’ll be there.”

“You coming?” Zoe whispered. It was 10:30 p.m. and Zoe was halfway down Boomer’s cellar steps while Spence was still at the top, grasping the splintery edge of the wooden door.

“What for?” he said. “You told me to wait outside and watch.”

“How can you watch? His shades are down. You can’t see in.”

“I can hear if you yell.”

“By then it could be too late. You have to be in the cellar. On the steps near the kitchen and be ready. So get down here, please.”  She let out a soft cry at the bottom when her foot landed in a hole.

“What?” He was standing behind her now.

“A hole in the dirt. I almost twisted my ankle. He might’ve been digging here. It’s been filled in, but not all the way.”

“Jeezum. You think it’s Hackberry under there?”

“Who knows? Now don’t talk. I’m going up.”

She heard the refrigerator door squeal open and then shut. A bottle clunked. Liquid spilled into a glass. He always drank from a glass—that was why her scheme might work. Had he already taken the Liquid Sleep? But maybe not. Hearing footsteps plod into the next room, she opened the door to the kitchen and slipped in.

She crept across the creaky kitchen floor and opened the refrigerator. A TV announcer was shouting, so he wouldn’t hear her footsteps. There it was, the Liquid Sleep.
“Two teaspoonfuls of this natural herb tonic and you’II sleep like a baby, “
the directions read. Just in case, she poured a little into the paper cup she’d brought, then flattened herself by the side of the door and peered out. He was slumped in his black leather chair, his gray grizzled head tilted to one side like he was already half asleep. The sports announcer was excited about a slide to third base. But Boomer’s face was slumping down toward his chin in a waterfall of eyes, nose and lips.

Thunder boomed outside; lightning crackled and lit up the room. Boomer’s eyes opened wide as if the lightning had kindled his thoughts. “That’s it,” he said aloud. “That’s where.”

He went to his desk in the study and scribbled something on a pad. Then he returned to his chair with a satisfied smile and dropped down into it. He turned up the volume on the TV. Somebody hit a home run and raced around the bases. Boomer cursed, it wasn’t his team. He threw the remote at the screen but people went on cheering. He turned off the power and picked up a magazine from a side table. He flipped through the pages for a moment, looked bored and headed back into the kitchen.

Zoe ducked behind the living room couch. It had been a close call. What would he have done if he found her? If he clapped a hand over her mouth and didn’t give her time to shout for help?

She didn’t want to think. She crouched there, chest heaving, the fear up in her throat. She couldn’t shout if she wanted to. The rain beat furiously against the windows, like it wanted
in.

Boomer came back into the room with a tall glass of milk
and
the sedative. Hurray! He was going to take it himself. He plunked the glass on the side table, started to sit, thought better of it, and trudged over to the bathroom. He didn’t close the door but his back was to her. She waited. The toilet flushed. Water was running in the bathroom sink. She tiptoed back behind the kitchen door, her heart pounding like the rain that was cascading down, slashing the window glass.

“Interloper!” Boomer shouted. Had he seen her? Was he shouting at her? She was shivering, right down to her toenails. Would she have time to escape? There was a drum roll of thunder and her feet froze to the floor. What if he followed her into the cellar and caught her and Spence there? Would he bury them in that hole?