The Man with the Red Bag (4 page)

“H
urry!” Geneva urged. “If we're going to see anything in the emporium, we have to bounce!”

“You go.” I went back to thumbing through the dictionary. I didn't even watch her huff away.

The beginning of the dictionary was English-Greek. What would I say to him? I'd say, “Have a nice day.” That was ordinary. No. I needed something he would have to answer. How about…? I flipped through the pages, which were like tissue paper. The kind where you have to lick your fingers if the school librarian isn't watching. The print was
small. I'd look for the word “what.”

WHAT
…t?

Oh, no! I rapidly looked down the page. All the Greek words were spelled with funny characters that didn't even look like letters. Here was “you”: es?.

How on earth was I supposed to pronounce that? I saw a low wall outside a pharmacy and I sat on it and finger-licked all the way through the English-Greek.

Surely somewhere there would be a pronunciation guide. Phonetic. What use was it if there wasn't a single word that I could decipher or even begin to say? How could “do” be spelled???? What kind of a stupid dictionary didn't even tell you how to say the words? I felt like throwing it down and giving it a good, hard kick.

Well, my plan wasn't going to work. A good idea gone bad. My mom has a saying, something about best-laid plans often go awry, which means they get messed up when you're not looking, and she was sure right.

Someone was calling my name. My grandma. The tour group had gathered on the porch and our big bus
was stopping in front of the hotel. Charles Stavros waited behind the others.

I didn't even have time to take the useless book back and get my $12.95. That stunk.

Geneva came careening out of the Cowboy Emporium doors wearing a bright blue cap that said
CODY RODEO QUEEN
on the front. “I'm going to be ready when we get to Cody,” she said, beaming happily. Her yellow hair stuck out at the back like chicken feathers.

We waited for a traffic break to cross the street. “How's the book?” she asked. “What are you going to do next?”

“I'm awry,” I told her.

“What?”

“I'm so blown away about the book—” I began.

Wait a second! In a mystery novel there are always obstacles for the hero to overcome. Which he always does by thinking hard and fiercely and coming up with a plan. In fact, obstacles are good in a book; they show the hero's spunk and brains. I thought hard and fiercely, then swung around to face Geneva.

“I've got a plan.”

“Again?”

“Yeah.”

“Hope you enjoyed your short visit in Jackson,” Declan was saying.

“C'mom, c'mon, tell me the plan,” Geneva urged.

“Shh! I'm not ready yet to divulge,” I told her.

“We're on our way now to Grand Teton National Park,” Declan announced. “Can you find it on your map?”

He held his up to display. “The Tetons rise almost a mile above Jackson. We'll see all kinds of wildlife here. Keep your eyes open. You might see black bears or mountain lions. The black bear cubs are usually born in the middle of winter, but by now we could see them foraging for themselves.”

“So, are you ready to divulge now?” Geneva asked. Geneva can have a sarcastic way of saying things that is very off-putting.

“Not yet,” I said coldly, and she began looking out the window and humming in a very irritating manner.

I noticed that Midge had moved across to sit next to Grandma and that Geneva's dad was reading
a paperback titled
The Boer War
, by Winston Churchill.

“Does your dad read a lot?” I asked Geneva.

She shrugged. “How would I know?”

I hesitated. “Don't you ever talk to him?”

She turned her navy blue stare on me. “I say please and thank you.”

Back to my plan. Would Stavros answer a question in Greek? Would he blow his cover? I tried to concentrate, which was hard because of the humming and because every few minutes Declan would get superexcited and shout, “Moose! Moose to the left!” and everyone would crowd around the windows on the left to see the huge animals grazing just a few feet from the road. The moose would raise their big heads to stare at us as we passed. It wasn't hard to see we were more interested in them than they were in us. Or Declan would call, “Elk! Elk to the right!” and there they'd be, so elegant, stepping through the long grass. Cameras clicked and flashed.

Twice we stopped for better photo opportunities. Once we crossed a field covered with thistles and weeds and humongous pancakes of moose dung to get
a close-up of a moose calf standing, big-eyed, next to its mother.

I was afraid all these interruptions would make me lose my focus.

Both times we got off the bus, Charles Stavros took his red bag.

Both times, I checked that he got back on and that he had the bag with him. Then, for the first time, I saw Stavros interested in something other than his bag.

He was sitting with his head bent over the map, studying it intently. He had taken out a pencil and was making marks on the map. A shiver chased up my backbone and my ears tingled. Was he looking for the town, or the place, or the building he wanted to bomb? The monument? Could there possibly be a secret nuclear test site out here? I pulled out the map, unfolded it, and ran my finger along the route we would take. I think it had been specially printed for Star Tours; it showed all the places we'd stop and the scenic routes we'd travel to get there. Yellowstone; Old Faithful; Cody, where we'd be going to the rodeo; Mount Rushmore.

When I looked again at Stavros he'd folded the map and poked it into the mesh pocket in front of him.

Somewhere on the bus a phone rang.

I craned my neck to look ahead. Millie was talking into her cell, nodding her head. I saw her slide the phone into her red carry-on. Even from where we sat, she seemed pleased. She looked around, then stood and came to talk to us.

“That's that!” she said. Her face was pink, not red and angry the way it had been when she talked to Charles Stavros in Jackson. “The
Times
picture is waiting for us at the Old Faithful Inn.” Her voice purred with satisfaction. “I'm almost sure I'm right about…” She twitched her head toward Charles Stavros's seat. “I wish now I'd told Paulie to send the clipping to the Jackson Lake Lodge instead. I can't wait for the confrontation.”

“She's not ‘only kidding,' either,” Geneva whispered as Millie swayed her way back to her seat. “She can't wait. But you don't think she would actually confront him, do you? I mean, if he is what we think
he is, that could be really dangerous.”

“I think she'll show us first. We'll vote for going to the cops.”

“Or not,” Geneva said. “If he turns out to be okay.”

“Meantime…,” I said, and I began to carefully tear a page from my mystery notebook. I hate tearing pages out of notebooks. It defaces them. “Deface” is a very good word and means “to spoil the appearance of.” As in, “Boys! You must not deface the walls in the boys' bathroom.”

I opened the English-Greek dictionary and spread it across my knees.

Geneva peered at the open dictionary pages. “Are you starting now on the famous plan?” she asked. “Ack! I see what you mean about the words. How does anyone talk this stuff?”

“I guess it's easy if you're Greek,” I said.

“Well, what are you going to do?”

It wasn't easy to write this stuff, either. If you weren't Greek.

Carefully I copied the word for “Dear” onto the
torn-out notebook page, then added, “Mr. Stavros.”

“Are you going to tell me what you're doing?” Geneva asked.

I was remembering advice from my how-to-write-a-mystery book.

One of the rules: “In a mystery, the protagonist is seeking the truth, trying to find it, directly or indirectly. This is his job.”

This was my job.

I began searching, searching for words, copying them carefully. There were all kinds of squiggles, which I knew must be important.

“You're writing him a
letter
? That's your plan? That's nuts!” Geneva took off her rodeo cap and scratched her head. “This itches me,” she complained.

The letter was short: “Dear Mr. Stavros. What is in the bag?”

Geneva leaned across me. “Okay, what does it say?”

I translated.

She thumped her fists on her knees. “Bingo,” she
whispered. “That is
so
bingo! And so not nuts.”

I searched again for a new word and added “Sincerely” and my name.

“If he can read it, then he's Greek, no question,” I said. “And he'll either be mad at me, or—”

Geneva interrupted. “Or answer. If he's innocent. Maybe he'll say: ‘I didn't want to tell anybody, but you remember how I confessed that I hated to leave my puppy. She's here. In the bag.' And she'll be—”

“I don't think so,” I said.

But right then I knew something. I didn't want him to be able to read it. I didn't want him to be Greek. I didn't want him to be innocent. I didn't want to lose my big mystery adventure. But just think how scary it would be if he wasn't Greek. If he was something else! Having a mystery also meant having a terrorist aboard. And a bomb. Criminy! What
did
I want?

I folded the paper, wrote “Charles Stavros” across it, and slipped it in the bookstore bag with my dictionary. “I'm glad I didn't take the dictionary back,” I told Geneva. “It was really useful after all.”

“When are you going to give him the letter?”

“At dinner,” I said, and I felt my legs begin to tremble. What had Geneva said about the dangers of confronting Stavros? Maybe I shouldn't give it to him at all. Maybe this was
too
direct.

We were pulling up in front of the big Jackson Lake Lodge.

“Okay, everyone. Don't worry about your luggage,” Declan called. “It will be brought to your rooms. And I have your keys right here.” He jangled them above his head.

I craned forward. Stavros's room was 145.

As usual, Geneva and I were the last off. It was slow moving as people picked up their keys from Declan and checked the labels and asked all kinds of questions, like how formally they should dress tonight and if their rooms had a view of the lake. I slid the map into the bag with the dictionary and the letter. I'd work on it some more in my room.

As we inched forward, I was standing next to the seat where Charles Stavros had sat. What if he'd left the red bag behind and I could look in it myself?

Not a chance! I stood biting my lips. The only
thing he'd left was the map in the mesh pocket. My heart pounded.

Was anyone watching?

No.

Quick as a flick I leaned forward and slid his map out of the pocket by the two top corners.

At the very least, if the cops needed his fingerprints, now I had them!

G
randma and I had adjoining rooms on the ground floor. My window looked out on Jackson Lake and the Grand Tetons behind it. The mountains were so awesome that I got this little catch in my throat that seems to happen when I see something beautiful. I get the same feeling when there's a great California sunset, the sun dipping red into Santa Monica Bay. Things like that.

But I had no time to stand here admiring.

I unfolded Stavros's map.

Nothing.

I took it over to the bedside table, switched on the lamp, and held the map directly beneath it.

Nothing.

But wait! I moved the map back and forth. There were some grooves that might have come from a pencil point, and when I looked closer I saw three small black crumbs. I closed my eyes and imagined Stavros writing, erasing, brushing the rubber crumbs away with the side of his hand. I'd done that myself a gazillion times. What had he written and then erased? If only I had a magnifying glass! But even then I might not be able—Suddenly my heart jumped with excitement. There was a detective trick I'd read about. If it would just work in real life the way it did in that book!

I spread the map flat under the light, fished a pencil from the bottom of my bag, and began to rub the lead point lightly over the grooves. As if by magic a wide circle came up that took in just about all the places we were going to visit on the rest of our trip. Inside its boundaries were Yellowstone, Cody, Mount Rushmore, Rapid City. Now my heart was galloping like a runaway horse. Was he going to explode the bomb somewhere inside that circle? I was almost sure
that's what it meant. Why would he bother to erase it so completely if it was innocent?

I crouched over the bedside table till my legs cramped, then I hobbled to the bathroom and slapped cold water on my face.
What should I do?

My phone rang. It was Grandma telling me she was just about to call Mom and Dad and I should come talk to them, too. So normal. So ordinary.
Should I tell her?

Before I went to her room, I erased my pencil marks and I put the map in my mystery notebook. I'd have to be first on to the bus in the morning and put it back before Stavros missed it. I wouldn't even try to hold on to it for his fingerprints. That would be way too dangerous.

I took out the letter I'd written in Greek and reread it, knowing what it said even though I couldn't understand a single word. This letter could lead to a denouement, which is mystery-writer talk and means the solution of the plot. I hoped!

In Grandma's room we sat on the bed while she called on her cell phone.

First she talked. “We are having the most glorious
time,” she told Mom. “I feel at peace here. I'm happy.”

It was my turn to talk.

I told Mom I was happy, too. I told about how incredible the Tetons were. I did not mention Charles Stavros. I'd decided I would not mention my suspicions to Grandma. She should be at peace and happy. That's why we'd come on this trip. I wouldn't tell her. Not yet, anyway.

After we hung up, she and I dressed for dinner. Grandma looked nice in some sort of loose pants and a white shirt, with her necklace that has the big blue stone hanging from it, the stone that's the color of peacock feathers. I wore my one good sweater with my jeans and Grandma looked me over and told me how handsome I was. She kissed my cheek.

“Did you stay here with Grandpa?” I asked her.

She nodded and I looked to see if she was sad, but she was smiling. I guess good memories stay good. I wanted
this
trip to stay good for her, too.

I'd put the Greek letter in the bookstore bag, which felt hot in my hand. It felt so hot, I wouldn't have been surprised if it had gone up in flames.
Grandma glanced at it once but didn't ask questions.

We went up the wide staircase and she took my arm the way ladies do in old movies. At the top of the stairs was a big wide lobby with chairs and couches, but the best thing was the wall of windows that faced us, putting the mountains in a frame. I got that choky feeling again. I think Grandma gets it, too, because we both stood there, not speaking, just looking. Unfortunately, I couldn't keep my mind from slithering back to the map. To that circle. Of course, I couldn't be certain-sure that somewhere inside the circle was Stavros's bomb target. Not certain-sure.

In the dining room we were led to a table for two by the window. The elegant waiter pulled out Grandma's chair for her and mine for me. He flourished my napkin onto my knees. I bet we had the table with the best view in the whole room.

I slipped the bookstore bag under my chair and went over my plan again, what I would do and say. If Stavros could read the question I'd written in Greek, I'd smile a bogus smile. “It's just that we've all been curious,” I'd say. If he couldn't, well then…My
thoughts went no further.
What's in the bag?

I glanced around, but I didn't see him and immediately I panicked. The thing is, now when he was out of my sight I wondered what he was doing and my thoughts got scary. But then he came in, wearing his windbreaker and jeans and a white shirt with a tie. He walked over to an empty table for four, carrying the red bag, of course.

It was Grandma who said, “Should we move and sit with Mr. Stavros?” She refolded the napkin the waiter had spread so tenderly across her lap.

It would be a good chance to give him the letter, but I hadn't planned on having Grandma there when I did.

“We'd lose our nice view,” I said.

“That's not so important,” Grandma said. “I think maybe he feels awkward. You know, it's a bad time to look the way he looks, even if he's Greek and not a Saudi or an Iraqi. I don't see any of us making an effort to be friendly.” She glanced at me. “I suppose you're too young to remember a song called ‘Suspicious Minds'? Elvis Presley sang it.”

“Never heard of it.” I paused. “The thing is,” I
said, “Stavros doesn't make much effort, either.” I leaned over and took the bookstore bag from under my chair. “But I've written him a letter. In Greek.”

“Kevin!” Grandma beamed at me. “So that's what you've been carrying! That is so
nice
of you, Kev. What did you say? How did you do it in
Greek
?” We were already walking toward his table, so I didn't have to answer, thank goodness. I felt so guilty I could hardly stand it.

Stavros stood, still holding his red carry-on, as we came over.

“May we join you?” Grandma asked.

“Certainly.” He waved his bandaged hand toward the empty seats, then came behind Grandma and pulled out her chair for her.

I felt jittery.

Millie, who was two tables away, was staring at me as if Grandma and I were terrorists ourselves just because we were sitting with him.

Geneva and her dad, sharing a table with the Doves, were already eating their salads. I lifted the bookstore bag so that Geneva could see it. She slumped in her chair, as if the whole thing was too
much for her, and then went on eating. Forget her! She'd be sorry she wasn't interested when I told her about the mysterious circle on Stavros's map.

While I studied the menu I watched Charles Stavros over its edge. When should I give him the letter? Now? Or after?

I decided on now and slid the letter from the bag.

My ears had started to tingle, telling me I was heading into danger.

“For me?” Stavros asked, taking the letter.

I nodded.

“Kevin wrote it in Greek for you,” Grandma said, in the softest voice.

“In Greek?” He had to take his hand from the bag on his lap to open the page. I think he must have stared at it for a full minute.

I couldn't breathe. My hand shook as I lifted my glass of ice water and took a sip.

Stavros was looking at me intently across the table. “I'm afraid you'll have to translate for me. I don't speak or read Greek.”

“You don't?” The words came out of me in a whoosh, and thoughts tumbled frantically in my head.
He wasn't Greek.
I knew it!
He wasn't who he was supposed to be. I was sitting next to a terrorist!

“You must have spent a lot of time writing this to me,” Stavros said seriously. “May I keep it?”

“Sure,” I muttered.

He folded the paper in four.

“It's too bad that you can't read it,” Grandma said. She looked from his face to mine. “I guess Kevin thought he was giving you a treat.”

“Yes. I'm sorry. Did you use a dictionary, Kevin?”

“Yes. I…I bought one.”

Was there something in the way he was looking at me, something suspicious, as if he knew I had another motive and was trying to decide what it was? Tingle, tingle, tingle. I secretly massaged my left ear.

“Do you want to just tell me what it says?” he asked, then paused. “That wouldn't be much fun, though, would it? Why don't you lend me the dictionary and I'll try to work it out. It will be a sort of puzzle.”

Grandma smiled. “That's a great idea. If you wouldn't mind, Mr. Stavros.”

“Not a bit. It will be entertaining for me.”

I took another sip of water. “Cool,” I muttered. So the showdown had been postponed. What would he do when he read the question? But now—oh my gosh—he was unzipping the carry-on, right there, on his lap, across the table from me. He was going to put my letter in there next to…to whatever. I wanted to stand up and get a good look, but there was no way to do that. I sat tall, half leaning across the table. He had only pulled the zipper across about six inches, enough to slide the letter inside. I got a quick glimpse of something in there, something big and bulky and black, with a long, stringy black cord. And then the zipper closed again. I dropped back into my chair and managed to knock my fork to the floor. It landed with a soft, carpeted thud.

What had I seen? I had no idea. Were bombs that big anymore? Weren't they small and electronic now? Maybe it had to be a big bomb for a big explosion.

Our waiter came then with our menus and a clean fork for me. And I hadn't even asked for one. I tried to calm down as I studied the menu.

“You're not really having a hamburger, are you,
Kevin?” Grandma asked. “There's lobster and salmon and—”

“I like hamburgers.” I sat back in my chair and brought the picture of what I'd seen in the bag back into focus. What was big and black and shiny? It had been shiny, hadn't it?

The waiter had taken our orders, and now Grandma was talking to Charles Stavros. “So you don't speak Greek, Mr. Stavros?”

“No. My parents brought me here from Athens when I was only two.”

“That's why you don't have an accent,” Grandma said.

“Right. My mother was American, from Illinois. She'd met my father on a trip with some school friends. My father…” He paused, lifted his hand for a second from the bag, and rubbed his bandage. “My father loved this country. My sister and I were true Americans from the start.” He smiled, and his teeth flashed under his mustache. “The only Greek we ever spoke was ‘baklava' or ‘hummus.'”

“Both delicious,” Grandma said.

Was all this true? Our meal arrived, and I carefully picked the raw onion out of my hamburger. I was wondering what to do next. If only I could get that red bag of his! But how?

“You'll let me borrow your Greek dictionary tomorrow, Kevin?” Stavros asked.

My insides quivered. “Sure.”

“Maybe I'll learn how to speak my own native language before this trip is over,” he said.

Saudi? I thought. Iraqi?

He stood again as we said good night.

“Sleep well,” Grandma said.

On the way back to our rooms, she and I stopped in the gift shop and I bought a glass globe with a snow scene inside for my mom. I knew she'd love it.

 

Later, sitting on my bed, I studied the map again. My head was buzzing with so many questions I thought I'd never get to sleep. I got into bed at last, spread my blankey square over my pillow, and buried my face in it. It smelled of the apples I eat in bed every night at home, and of the shampoo my mom makes me use because it's organic and won't hurt the
hair follicles or something. It smelled of home, and for a minute I lay there feeling lonely and scared even though Grandma was right in the next room.

I stared at the ceiling and the big-bladed ceiling fan that was slowly turning and turning. Suddenly a thought came that was so awful I sat straight up.
What was Charles Stavros doing right this minute?
Geneva and I could watch him pretty well all day, but what about the nights? And wouldn't a terrorist prefer to be active at night? The Tetons weren't enclosed in his map circle, but still. We had to watch him, just in case. I couldn't sit outside his door from now till morning, though. That was ridiculous. And even if I did that tonight, I couldn't do it every night. There were seven nights left, including tonight. I'd die of sleep deprivation. Maybe Geneva could help? She wouldn't. She'd ask if I was seriously crazy and stare at me with those navy blue eyes. No use depending on her. I knew that. So what could I do?

I switched on the lamp again and studied my how-to-write-a-mystery book. I get a lot of help from this book. One of the paragraphs said, “If you come to an
impasse”—which I knew means something that you don't know how to handle—“ask yourself, ‘If this were real, what would my hero do next?' He must use his ingenuity.”

I laid the open book on my chest and closed my eyes. Okay. This
was
real and I was the hero, living out this mystery that, when I came to write it, would be superbelievable. “Write what you know,” the book said. I definitely knew this.

Room 145 was three rooms down the corridor from mine.

I got up, wedged my door open just an inch with a wadded-up washcloth from my bathroom so I could easily get back in, and tiptoed out into the hall. It was empty and almost silent, all the doors closed. At the very end, where the elevators were, an ice machine hummed faintly. I counted along with my eyes.