Jacob Two-Two-'S First Spy Case

by Mordecai Richler

  A brooding Jacob Two-Two was still outside, raking autumn leaves, the first to fall, when he looked up and saw a parachute descending onto the next-door lawn. His heart leaped. It was Mr. Dinglebat, wearing a general’s uniform. As soon as he had landed safely, Jacob Two-Two helped him gather in his chute. “Boy, am I ever glad to see you, Mr. Dinglebat!”

  “And me, you, dear boy, because we have more work to do.”

  “I’m in such bad trouble,” said Jacob Two-Two, and he told his friend about all the things that had happened to him since they had been to Mr. I.M. Greedyguts’ office together.

  “Not to worry, amigo, because we shall shortly proceed with the second step of our operation. But we will require back-up support. Helpers who are trustworthy.”

  CHAPTER 20

  hat night poor Jacob Two-Two, his sleep troubled, dreamed that he was appearing in court before Mr. Justice Rough. His lawyer was Louis Loser, who was quite the scruffiest, skinniest, and most untidy man Jacob Two-Two had ever seen. He had tangled gray hair and weepy blue eyes. His shirt collar was frayed, and his tie soup-stained. His suit was rumpled. His shoes were scuffed, the laces broken.

  Louis Loser had defended Jacob Two-Two in front of Mr. Justice Rough once before, in an earlier dream, unsuccessfully, of course, enabling him to keep his alltime trial-losing streak intact.

  Mr. Justice Rough glared at Louis Loser. “How does your client plead, Loser, you nerd, you disgrace to your profession?”

  “Innocent,” said Loser in a tiny voice, “if you don’t mind?”

  “Why should I mind? We’re here to see justice done,” said Mr. Justice Rough, winking at the jury, “so why don’t you make things easy for yourself, you deadbeat, and change his plea to guilty. Think it over. Take your time. I’ll give you one second.”

  “Don’t blame me,” said Louis Loser, “it’s not my fault, Your Honor, but the boy insists that he is not guilty.”

  “Ha! What do you say to that, members of the jury?” asked Mr. Justice Rough.

  “He’s wasting our time.”

  “Insulting our intelligence.”

  “Sentence the little brat right now and let’s be done with it.”

  Mr. Justice Rough peered down at Jacob Two-Two. “I always knew that you were a hardened criminal and that you’d turn up here again. Jacob Two-Two, you are now a two-time loser, represented by an alltime loser.”

  “Tell it like it is, judge,” called out one member of the jury.

  “Right on,” exclaimed another.

  “What have you got to say for yourself, Two-Two?” asked Mr. Justice Rough.

  “I’m innocent,” said Jacob Two-Two. “I’m innocent.”

  “Don’t make me laugh,” said Mr. Justice Rough. “Why, in all my years on the bench I’ve never seen a boy or girl who wasn’t guilty of something or other.”

  “But –”

  “I’ll wager that before I live to see a little person appear before me who is innocent, I’ll find a whale who can play a Beethoven concerto on the piano, or a poodle who can stand on his hind legs and bat .400 in the American League.”

  “Please, Mr. Loser,” said Jacob Two-Two, “say something.”

  “I don’t feel well,” said Louis Loser.

  “Let me guess what your unspeakable crime is this time,” said Mr. Justice Rough. “You were sent down to get something out of the freezer and left the door open all through the night. Or you turned up at school with your shirt-tail hanging out. Or you’re so dumb you couldn’t even tell your geography teacher the name of the capital city of Fiji. Or you were caught reading in bed with a flashlight. I’ve seen all kinds here. Nothing sur prises me any more. Why, earlier today I had a little girl in here, no more than three years old, who wakened her mummy and daddy at three a.m. to ask for a glass of water.”

  “Shocking,” said a member of the jury.

  “Incredible,” said another.

  “Look at my hair, you brat,” said Mr. Justice Rough, “and tell me what color it is.”

  “Gray,” said Jacob Two-Two.

  “And no wonder! Today I had to deal with a boy, caught red-handed in an elevator in the Ritz Hotel, pressing every single button, right up to the twenty-eighth floor. I was confronted with a girl who had sneaked into her mother’s bathroom to try out her most expensive perfume and spilt all of it on the floor, stinking up the house. I had a boy who phoned a friend, then forgot to replace the receiver, accidently on purpose, if you ask me, while his poor father was pacing up and down for three hours, waiting for a very important business call.”

  “Your Honor,” began Louis Loser, “I –”

  “Hey, Loser,” yelled one of the jurors, “tie your shoelaces before you trip over them.”

  “Did you get that suit at a fire sale?” asked another.

  “Now, now,” said Mr. Justice Rough, “careful, guys, or this drip of a lawyer will accuse us of being prejudiced against the public enemy he is misrepresenting to the worst of his inability. Order in the court! Order, please! And now let me call upon the prosecutor, an excellent fellow, to state the case against Jacob Two-Two, which I’m sure will be unanswerable.”

  “Why, thank you, Uncle Justice Rough,” said Slugger Meeny, the prosecutor. “Let me begin by saying what an honor it is to appear before you …”

  Mr. Justice Rough stood up and bowed, acknowledging the jury’s applause.

  “… and for openers, just to set the mood,” said Slugger Meeny, “I’d like to introduce some witnesses to Jacob Two-Two’s very, very bad character.”

  Miss Sour Pickle, summoned to the witness stand, said, “I caught this brat sticking out his tongue at our beloved headmaster, Mr. I.M. Greedyguts.”

  “How’s that for impertinence, members of the jury?” demanded Mr. Justice Rough.

  Members of the jury gasped.

  Then the beloved headmaster himself waddled up to the stand, munching on the Biggest Mac anybody had ever seen. “Just the sight of Jacob Two-Two,” he said, “is enough to spoil a man’s appetite, and I can think of nothing worse to say about him.” And then he took a big bite out of his hamburger.

  Law, Order, and the Officer-in-Charge were heard from next.

  “He resisted,” said Law.

  “– arrest,” said Order.

  “– and threatened us,” said the Officer-in-Charge, “with violence.”

  “I think I’ve heard quite enough,” said Mr. Justice Rough. “What do you say, jury?”

  “GUILTY! GUILTY! GUILTY!”

  Then, just as Mr. Justice Rough was about to sentence him, Jacob Two-Two wakened, calling out, “I’m not guilty! I’m not!” and found that he was safe in his own bedroom. But where, oh where, he thought, before sliding into sleep again, was CHILD POWER when I needed them most?

  CHAPTER 21

  t Privilege House the next morning, Jacob Two-Two was caught daydreaming again during geography class. Sneaking up behind him, Miss Sour Pickle roared, “You are not paying attention!”

  “Yes, I am,” said Jacob Two-Two. “Yes, I am.”

  “Good. Then you will surely be able to answer the following three easy questions. What is the population of Albania, the principal export of Peru, and how many left-handed people are there in Canada?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Then you will write the following line for me two hundred times – I AM A DAYDREAMER, IGNORANT BEYOND COMPARE – and bring them to me first thing tomorrow morning.”

  At lunch, the boys, their stomachs growling, watched as a platter of lobsters was wheeled in for Mr. I.M. Greedyguts, followed by a roast goose, a pail of red cabbage, and a potato pie, with a chocolate cake for dessert. “And how do we express our thanks to Perfectly Loathsome Leo Louse for today’s feast?” asked Mr. I.M. Greedyguts, cupping a hand to his ear.

  “YUMMY, YUMMY, SAYS MY TUMMY!” groaned the boys as they considered their perfectly vile, absolutely yucky lunch: thin potato-peel soup and lukewarm broccoli burgers, followed by a slimy lettuce
salad and, for dessert, mouldy bread pudding.

  “Oooh,” moaned Chris Lucas.

  “I can’t take this much longer,” said Mickey Horowitz.

  “Neither can I,” said Robby Burton.

  “We won’t have to take it much longer,” said Jacob Two-Two, and he went on to explain that his friend, Mr. Dinglebat, the master spy, was on the case. “He has a plan. He has a plan.”

  “Good. What is it?” asked Mickey.

  “Well, um, I don’t know yet.”

  “Oh,” said Chris, obviously disappointed.

  In the world of spies, Jacob went on to tell them, everything was on a “need to know” basis, and the need-to-know time hadn’t come yet. “But we are going to need your help,” said Jacob.

  “You can count on us,” said Mickey.

  After school Jacob Two-Two was presented with a mop and pail and set to washing his classroom floor. Miss Lapointe stopped by to see him. “I want you to know, Jacob, that I and most of the other teachers believe you are innocent. We dislike Mr. I.M. Greedyguts as much as you and the other boys do, but there’s nothing we can do about it. His uncle is so powerful.”

  When Jacob Two-Two finally came home, picked up late by his mother, weary from all his chores, an amazing thing happened. His two older brothers and two older sisters didn’t tease him. In fact, suddenly, Marfa, Emma, Noah, and Daniel couldn’t do enough for him.

  “How would you like to have a lesson on my two-wheel mountain bike?” asked Marfa.

  “But I thought I wasn’t allowed to touch it,” said Jacob Two-Two twice.

  Emma offered to set the dining-room table for dinner even though it was Jacob Two-Two who was supposed to be on duty. “You just go and watch some TV, you poor thing.”

  Noah insisted on writing Jacob Two-Two’s lines for him. “Miss Sour Pickle will never know the difference,” he said.

  “Hey,” said Daniel, “why don’t we take in a movie together this Saturday afternoon?”

  Then Daniel, Noah, Emma, and Marfa appealed to their father at the dinner table. “Do something,” they said.

  “I have already written a letter of protest,” said Jacob Two-Two’s father, “to Senator Slimy ‘Free-Loader’ Greedyguts, who is chairman of the Privilege House board.”

  “A lot of good that will do,” said Jacob Two-Two’s mother. “The Senator just happens to be I.M. Greedyguts’ uncle.”

  “Look here, we can’t yank Jacob out of Privilege House in mid-term. He’d lose a year before I could get him into another school,” said Jacob Two-Two’s father. “If my letter doesn’t get us anywhere, I will meet with the fathers of Chris, Robby, and Mickey, whose boys are also unhappy, and take things up from there.”

  Mr. Dinglebat had told Jacob Two-Two that he would require several helpers if his planned operation, whatever it was, had a chance to succeed, so Jacob decided to take a risk. He asked Noah and Emma to meet him in his room after dinner. “I need your help,” Jacob Two-Two said. “I want you both to be watchers.”

  “What’s a watcher?” asked Emma.

  “It’s a spy,” explained Jacob Two-Two, “who follows and reports on the enemy, being very, very careful not to be seen.” And then he went on to explain that Mr. Dinglebat, the master spy, had come up with an idea for an operation that was risky, but that he hoped would catch both Mr. I.M. Greedyguts and Perfectly Loathsome Leo Louse in the same net.

  “What’s the idea?” asked Noah.

  “Tell us,” said Emma.

  “I can’t tell you yet,” said Jacob Two-Two impatiently. “Now are you willing to help us or not?”

  They hesitated.

  “But I can tell you this,” said Jacob Two-Two, and then he told how, disguised as the World’s Best Midget Photographer, he had accompanied Mr. Dinglebat to Mr. I.M. Greedyguts’ office.

  “Wow,” said Emma, impressed.

  “You did that?” said Noah.

  “Honestly, I did.”

  “In that case,” said Noah, “the intrepid Shapiro is at your service.”

  “And so is the fearless O’Toole,” said Emma.

  “Okay,” said Jacob Two-Two, delighted to have CHILD POWER on his side, “then you are to report to Mr. Dinglebat’s house at five-thirty sharp tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Count on me,” said Emma.

  “And me,” said Noah.

  “But it is my duty to warn you in advance,” said Jacob Two-Two, “that on this mission it’s ‘Moscow rules.’”

  “What’s that?” asked Noah.

  “If the operation fails, and we are caught,” said Jacob Two-Two, “Mr. Dinglebat will deny we were working for him. In fact, he will say he never laid eyes on any of us.”

  “Gosh,” said Emma.

  CHAPTER 22

  fter his mother drove him home from school the next afternoon, Jacob Two-Two hurried over to Mr. Dinglebat’s house and informed him that he had, as requested by Mr. Dinglebat, recruited several reliable watchers, namely the intrepid Shapiro and the fearless O’Toole, as well as Mickey, Chris, and Robby, all of whom would be ready to report for duty when called.

  “Bravo,” said Mr. Dinglebat. “Well done. And now, while we are waiting, let us look at the evidence we have gathered so far.”

  First of all, Mr. Dinglebat removed the tape recorder, the size of a small bar of soap, from the hollow heel in his shoe, and played back the interview wherein they had been offered a bribe by the dreaded Mr. I.M. Greedyguts. Then he led Jacob Two-Two into another room, where enormous enlargements of the photographs Jacob had taken of Mr. I.M. Greedyguts’ desk hung from a clothesline. “Take a gander at this, amigo,” said Mr. Dinglebat.

  It was an enlargement of a cheque for $1,500 made out to Perfectly Loathsome Leo Louse! “Don’t you think that’s a bit much for one week’s nourishment,” asked Mr. Dinglebat, “considering the kind of slop you kids have been eating?”

  “I don’t understand,” said Jacob Two-Two. “I don’t understand.”

  “Let me explain, then. It is my suspicion that once a week Perfectly Loathsome Leo meets with Greedyguts and returns five hundred dollars of that money in cash to your crooked headmaster.”

  “But why would he do that?”

  “It’s what’s called a bribe, mon vieux. It’s the price Perfectly Loathsome Leo Louse has to pay for having been awarded the Privilege House food contract in the first place. However, my suspicions are one thing. We require proof. Lots of proof. For starters, we have to catch those two villains in the act. We have to see the money change hands. And then, in good time, we will make them tremble and shake. Meanwhile, feast your eyes on this.”

  Another enlargement showed that the cheque for $1,500 was clipped to a piece of stationery on which Mr. I.M. Greedyguts had scrawled, MEET YOU AT THE USUAL PLACE, AT THE USUAL TIME, FOR THE USUAL REASONS.

  “But where is the usual place?” asked Jacob Two-Two twice.

  “I’m glad you asked me that question,” said Mr. Dinglebat. “Look at this.” The next enlargement revealed Mr. I.M. Greedyguts’ open diary with the notation: MCDONALD’S, CORNER OF ATWATER, 6.30 P.M., WEDNESDAY. MEET WITH PLLL. “Which stands for?”

  “Perfectly Loathsome Leo Louse,” said Jacob Two-Two.

  At that very moment the intrepid Shapiro and the fearless O’Toole arrived.

  “Hiya, Noah. Hiya, Emma,” said Jacob Two-Two.

  “Those are not our names today,” said Noah.

  “Sorry. Forgot,” said Jacob, even as they were joined by Chris, Mickey, and Robby, all of whom had already received permission to play at Jacob Two-Two’s house after school.

  “Gentlemen,” said Mr. Dinglebat, “before we proceed with our mission, and let me warn you in advance that it is a dangerous one, you must phone Jacob Two-Two’s mother to say I’m treating all of you to dinner at McDonald’s tonight.”

  Jacob Two-Two did as he was asked, adding that they wouldn’t be home late.

  “Now, Jacob,” said Mr. Dinglebat, “explain to your watchers wh
at the procedure is for spies if any of them falls into enemy hands.”

  “You were never here,” said Jacob Two-Two, “and Mr. Dinglebat doesn’t know you.”

  Then Mr. Dinglebat led the watchers into the room where he stored his many disguises, pulled out a long clothing rack, and quickly outfitted all of them with fedoras, dark glasses, trenchcoats, and cellular phones.

  “Your assignment, Shapiro and O’Toole, will be Mr. I.M. Greedyguts,” said Mr. Dinglebat. “You can pick him up as he leaves Privilege House and, whatever you do, don’t lose him.” Then he turned to Chris, Mickey, and Robby. “And your man will be Perfectly Loathsome Leo Louse, who can now be found at the Guaranteed Stale Bread Company, on Grub Street, settling his bill for last week’s shipment of rock-hard rolls. Stick to him like glue.”

  The watchers left to take up their posts and then Jacob Two-two and Mr. Dinglebat hurried over to McDonald’s and sat down to wait. In order not to call attention to themselves at their command table, they were, of course, disguised. Mr. Dinglebat wore a top hat, a swallow-tailed jacket, a purple velvet cape, and carried his gold-tipped sword cane, just in case. Jacob Two-Two, sporting a safari hat, shoulder-length black dreadlocks, and a Van Dyke beard, wore a heavily studded bomber jacket, black leather trousers, and cowboy boots.

  The intrepid Shapiro was the first one to phone in a report from the field: “Mr. I.M. Greedyguts has just waddled round the corner of Greene Avenue, chewing on a salami.”

  “Roger,” said Jacob Two-Two. “Roger.” And then he heard the wail of a police car, coming closer and closer.

  “Don’t worry,” said Mr. Dinglebat. “They are probably headed somewhere else.”

  But just then the police car pulled up outside, brakes squealing, and out piled Law, Order, and the Officer-in-Charge. Jacob Two-Two froze.

  “Act natural, amigo,” said Mr. Dinglebat, and he dug out the cigarette lighter that could squirt hot pepper, and set it down within easy reach.

  Jacob Two-Two gulped twice as Law, Order, and the Officer-in-Charge sauntered right past their table to the counter.