by James Leck
“I forgot my bag,” the younger one said. He turned, started back, tripped on the top step and practically fell into the house.
“Good grief,” the older Hampton said, getting into the car. The younger one came back out and dashed by me. This time, he missed the bottom step, tripped across the front walk and did a face plant on the lawn. The older Hampton couldn’t help but laugh. He was still laughing when they backed out of the driveway.
I turned back to the house, having a little chuckle of my own. A kid who looked just like the first two Hamptons, but with blond hair, was standing in the door, staring out at me. I smiled and nodded, not wanting to blow my cover. He slammed the door shut. That must have been Walter. I started back to the street and pulled out the walkie-talkie I had in my jacket.
“Any luck, Max?” I asked. Max Thorn was on the other end at Polly Chew’s house. I was running low on favors, so Max was the only person I could round up on short notice for early morning surveillance work. I could picture him hanging from a tree branch with a set of binoculars taped to his head. Max might be goofy, but he gets the job done, and he knows how to keep his mouth shut if I tell him it’s confidential.
“They get The Telegraph, Chief,” he said. “Over.”
“The Daily Telegraph?” I asked.
“Roger that, Chief,” he said. “What’s our next move? Over.”
“Go home,” I said. “The stakeout’s a bust.”
“Shouldn’t we stick around in case there’s some kind of cover-up?” he asked. “Over.”
“Cover-up?” I said. “Max, you’re nuttier then a carload of squirrels. Go home, and that’s an order.”
“Roger Wilco, Chief. I’ll have my report on your desk by 0-nine hundred hours. Thorn out.”
Thorn Out, Lime Out, the whole rotten case was out. This job was turning into a real brain twister, and I was getting nowhere fast.
Wednesday, June 4, 8:17 a.m.
Iona High, The Science Hallway
Things were getting desperate for yours truly. I hate to admit it, but on my way back to school, I started to wonder if Carver was worth it. Thirty-five grand could buy a lot of hamsters, even after all the other expenses of getting a high-class education. I found Tyrone standing alone in the science hallway, staring at pictures of the illustrious winners of Iona High’s Science Fair, past and present.
“Is your handsome mug going to be hanging up there soon?” I asked, trying to sound positive.
“Did you find out who it is? Is it Polly?” he said, ignoring me.
I shook my head. “We struck out. They both get The Daily Telegraph.”
“Oh,” he said, turning back to the pictures. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s not worth it.”
“I was thinking the same thing,” I said, feeling relieved. “After all, you can get another hamster.”
Tyrone whirled around, grabbed me by my collar and lifted me off the ground. “My mother gave me that hamster three years ago. She died two weeks later. Do you have any idea how hard it is to keep a hamster alive for three years? Do you?”
To be honest, at that moment, I didn’t really care how hard it was to keep a hamster alive for three years. I was more concerned with keeping myself out of a coffin for three more seconds.
“It was a stupid suggestion,” I said.
“It was,” Tyrone said, and then he lowered me back to the ground. “It was a very stupid suggestion. I was talking about the scholarship, not Carver. So what are we going to do now?”
I didn’t know what I was going to do now. Chew and Hampton were just two possible suspects. It could have been anyone who was interested in winning the Luxemcorp Prize. Or it could have been anyone who didn’t want Tyrone to win the prize. I was getting nowhere fast.
“I guess I can see why they’d be mad at me,” he mumbled, more to the wall of pictures than to me.
I followed his gaze. All the people in the pictures were smiling back at us without a care in the world. There was Amelia Freeman dressed in a white lab coat and holding a beaker full of blue stuff. Next to her was Glenn Paterson standing beside a bubbling barrel of red goo. Then there was David Philips holding a blowtorch and laughing, and next to him was Ralph Hampton squirting some kind of liquid out of a syringe. Wait a minute. There was Ralph Hampton squirting some kind of liquid out of a syringe. Ralph Hampton; the same Ralph Hampton I watched fall on his face that morning. There was no doubt about that sharp honker of his. You could slice tomatoes on that thing. Under his picture was a small gold engraving that read: First Prize — Grade 12 Science Fair — Awarded to Ralph Hampton. So Ralphy had graduated from Iona High two years ago. Fireworks went off in my head. Connections were being made. Things were starting to make sense.
“I have to go,” I said, yanking the picture off the wall.
Wednesday, June 4, 8:26 a.m.
Iona High, The Guidance Office
Ms. Mickle knew everyone who had passed through Iona High’s front doors since it had opened twelve years ago. She was wearing a long, puffy yellow skirt, a red sweater and two giant orange hoop earrings. Her curly gray hair was going in eight directions at once.
“Ms. Mickle,” I said, holding up the picture, “do you know this guy?”
“Well if it isn’t Jack Lime. Come in, come in,” she said, tapping a chair next to her. “You haven’t been in recently. You know that Dr. Potter recommended you see me every week.”
“Been busy,” I said. “And I’m in a bit of a rush. I just wanted to know if you knew Ralph Hampton.”
“I heard you had some problems yesterday with an assignment you lost in the garbage?” she said, looking concerned.
“I found what I was looking for,” I said. “Please, Ms. Mickle, do you know Ralph Hampton?”
“Ralph Hampton?” she said, as if it was the first time I’d mentioned him. “Now, that name sounds familiar.”
The first bell rang, and I gave up trying to be quick about this. I walked into her office, sat down and handed her the picture. “Ralph Hampton,” I repeated, tapping on the photo.
She leaned back and closed her eyes for a long time. For a second, I thought she’d fallen asleep, and then she blurted, “Oh, sure, Ralph Hampton. He was smart as a whip, but the clumsiest kid I ever met. Do you know he set himself on fire in his economics class? He didn’t even have any matches.”
“In economics class,” I asked, to make sure I was hearing her right.
“Yes, it was the strangest thing I’d ever seen. But, oh my, he was a smarty-pants. He was our top student until Cindy Hooper came here.”
“Cindy Hooper?”
“Cindy came here her senior year. Her parents moved from Boston. I think her father was a professor … or a scientist … or maybe an engineer. No, I think he was a lawyer. Oh, I guess it doesn’t matter now, does it? Anyway, Cindy was only fifteen, but she was the brightest young lady we’ve ever had at our school. She was a genius. A real genius! Poor Ralph probably would have won the Luxemcorp Prize if she hadn’t arrived on our doorstep. Poor Ralph.”
“Thanks, Ms. Mickle,” I said, getting up.
“Don’t forget a lolli on your way out, Jack,” she said, pointing to a bowl full of lollipops next to her door.
As I was going out, Gregory “Atomic Wedgie” Pepperton was on his way in.
“Jack,” he said, grabbing me by the shoulders. “Malone only got five days. He’ll be back in five days, and he says he’s coming after me. You have to help. You have to!”
Gregory was looking pretty rotten. He was as white as a sheet and sweating like a hog.
“Get in touch,” I said, struggling out of his grip. “Call me.” I tossed three or four of my cards over my shoulder.
I felt awful about Gregory. I really did. But I needed to focus on helping Tyrone, and the pieces of the puzzle were coming together.
Here’s wh
at I knew so far:
1. Ralph Hampton had taken economics. (Apparently, he’d almost set himself on fire.)
2. Tyrone had been given an economics project to finish.
3. Ralph had graduated two years ago, which meant he could have had Murdock for his English teacher, and he probably would have done the essay on The Old Man and the Sea.
4. Tyrone was given that exact same essay to finish two years after the novel had been cleared out of the book room.
5. Ralph had lost the most prestigious scholarship to a girl who arrived on the scene at the last minute.
6. Tyrone had arrived at Iona High at the last minute, and now he was about to steal the Luxemcorp Prize out from under Walter Hampton’s sharp nose.
Tyrone was moving in on sacred territory, and the blond model of the Hampton family wasn’t going to let anything stand in his way of winning the Luxemcorp Prize. He’d gotten his slimy little fingers on some of his brother’s old work, and now he was making Tyrone do useless projects to keep him so busy that he’d lose the scholarship. Well, I was tired of squatting in bushes, holding early morning stakeouts and rooting around in dumpsters. It was time to take the bull by the horns, to stand and deliver, to draw a line in the sand. I was going to pay Walter Hampton a little visit, and I was going to get Carver back. Things might get rough; they might even get a little messy, but I was okay with rough and messy as long as I could shut the lid on this dirty case.
Wednesday, June 4, 3:43 p.m.
34 Kuiper Belt Crescent, The Hampton Place
I avoided Tyrone like the plague for the rest of the day. I was tired of talk. The next time I saw him, I wanted to have Carver in hand. I was out of school before the bell finished ringing and made a dash for the Hampton place. I was sitting on his steps when Walter stepped onto his front walk.
“Hello, Walter,” I said, getting up. “I think we both know why I’m here.”
“Who are you?” he asked, stopping in his tracks.
“You want to play it that way?” I said. “That’s fine. Let’s play it coy. My name’s Jack Lime. You probably know my client, Tyrone Jonson.”
“Sure, I know Tyrone,” he said, playing the innocent rube.
“Still playing it dumb? Well, I’m tired of that game, Walter. I’m really tired of it. So why don’t we cut to the chase.” I marched over to him. We were face to face. “You’ve got something that Tyrone wants back, and I’m here to collect it.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Something small and furry,” I said. “You like to get it to pose for dirty pictures. Ringing any bells?”
“Get out of my way,” he said, and tried to push past me. I grabbed him and spun him around to face me again.
“No dice,” I said. “You’re not going anywhere until you fess up to the kidnapping and the blackmail scam you’ve been playing at. It’s a filthy graft, Hampton, and as sure as ten dimes make a dollar you’re the one pulling the strings.”
That’s when Walter did some fancy judo moves that sent me back, then up, and then down to the ground. Before I knew what had hit me, he had his knee pressed into my back, and I was sucking face with the grass.
“Now you listen to me, clown,” he said. “Yeah, I’ve got the rodent. He’s upstairs, in my room, probably asleep in an old toilet paper tube. It doesn’t matter if you know, or if Tyrone knows. Actually, this will make things much easier. You can be my messenger boy. Go tell Tyrone if he wants to see Carver alive, he’d better get me some research on the wind turbine project we’ve got for physics class. Tell him I want it by Friday, and it’d better be good.”
“Why would he do that?” I gasped, trying to get myself out of Walter’s wrestling hold.
“Because if he doesn’t, I’m going to feed Carver to my pet python, Cindy. How’s that sound?”
“How does he know you’ll give him Carver back?”
“He’ll get Carver back the day I leave for university next fall. And he’d better make sure that I’m going with a thirty-five-thousand-dollar check in my pocket. You got that?”
I could feel him ease up on my back, so I shifted my weight quickly to my right. He slipped off, and I was about to pounce on him like a cat on a mouse. Unfortunately, that’s when my condition kicked in.
I dreamed I was getting squeezed by a python. Two hamsters were up in a tree staring down at me. They were holding a sword in their tiny little hands. One of them wanted to drop it on me. The other one said they should wait. The python squeezed a little tighter. “Drop it!” the first hamster yelled in a high-pitched voice. “Wait!” the other one screamed. They struggled, and the sword slipped out of their hands. It fell toward me. Then I woke up.
Wednesday, June 4, 4:47 p.m.
41 Main Street, Sam the Butcher’s
There is no Sam at Sam the Butcher’s. There never was a Sam. The place is owned and operated by Luxemcorp Inc., the same company that owns all the stores in Iona (except The Diner). Luxemcorp just slaps hokey names on each store so people think they’re quaint, family-owned businesses. It was supposed to make everyone feel warm and fuzzy. Tyrone was sitting in the corner of the place reading a chemistry textbook. When I walked in, he jumped up.
“Jack! Am I glad to see you. I worked out the problem.”
“I’ve got some news, too,” I said.
“Whoever’s getting me to do this,” he started, ignoring me, “thinks that I don’t know about the whole garbage collection thing. They think that I think they’re actually handing the stuff in. But I know they don’t even look at it. So, all I have to do is put some paper in a black garbage bag and make the drop every Monday, and they’ll never know the difference. That way, I can focus on my work and still win the Luxemcorp Prize.”
“Great,” I said, “but —”
“No, no, wait, it gets better. Whoever has Carver can’t kill him, or I’ll stop doing the extra work. They want Carver to stay alive. As long as he’s alive, I’ll have to do the assignments for them. It’s called leverage. So Carver will be safe until we figure out a way to save him. I worked it all out in physics class. It hit me like a meteor dropping on my head. It’s all so obvious that I can’t believe I didn’t think about it sooner.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I wish you had figured that out sooner.”
“What do you mean?”
“I paid a visit to Ms. Mickle, the guidance counselor, today. She told me some things about Ralph Hampton that made me think that Walter was our man. So I decided to pay him a visit after school.”
“And?”
“He’s got Carver.”
I watched Tyrone’s beefy fists clench shut.
“And he doesn’t care if you know it. Like you said, he’s got leverage.”
“What’s he going to do?”
“Nothing,” I said. I decided to serve Tyrone the sitch straight up. “He’s going to keep Carver alive, and he’s going to keep you working overtime. Only now you’ll be doing real work instead of stuff that winds up in the trash.”
“So,” he said, his eyes narrowing, “you’ve made things worse.”
“I’ve made things a whole lot worse, Tyrone,” I said. “And I’ve got a message.” I pulled one of my business cards out of my pocket. Walter must have grabbed it when I was asleep and written a message on the back so I wouldn’t forget. “Walter wants you to do some research on some wind turbine project you have for physics. And he wants it by Friday.” I held out the card. Tyrone snatched it out of my hand.
“Well,” Tyrone said, his massive shoulders slumping as he sat back down, “at least I’ve got most of that done already.”
“You’re a keener,” I said, “through and through.”
“Not really,” he said. The anger had gone right out of him. “I did something just like this for my Science Fair project last year. I just have to find the c
opy of the video.”
“You’ve got a video of your Science Fair project?”
“Of course,” he said. “I record all of my projects, remember?”
An idea hit me like a runaway locomotive. “Tyrone,” I said, “I know I’ve botched things pretty bad, but I think I know a way to make everything right again.”
“I don’t know, Jack,” he said, shaking his massive head. “I think it’s time to go our separate ways.”
“Just hear me out. I need you to go home and write a paper on wind turbines that’s so good Walter Hampton will think three times before he decides not to use it. Just make sure you use the exact same words you used in the original video; use the same terms, the same phrases. Make sure anyone who reads that paper will know that it’s based on your first project. You see where I’m going with this?”
He brightened a little. “It might work,” he said. “It’s worth a try.”
“Then we’ll have some leverage, for once,” I said.
Monday, June 9, 3:43 p.m.
34 Kuiper Belt Crescent, The Hampton Place
It was the last Monday of classes before exams started. All the wind turbine projects had been handed in. Grade 12 physics students all over Iona High were celebrating. I was sitting on the front steps at the Hampton residence waiting for Walter to get back home.
“Hello, Walter,” I said, as he stepped onto his front walk. “Good to see you again.”
“What do you want, Lime? Another beating?”
“How did the wind turbine project go?”
“Fine,” he said, stepping up to me. “Just fine.”
“All handed in and wrapped with a bow?”
“That’s right,” he said. “Now, could you get out of my way? I have a hamster to feed. And a python, too.”
“You don’t have to worry about Carver anymore,” I said.
“What are you blabbering about now?”
