Tiger Threat

by Sigmund Brouwer

  “Try me,” Amanda said. “Remember, I was there with the white van.”

  “Your car,” I answered. “I need you to park it behind your house. Leave the keys in the ignition.”

  “You want to borrow my car?”

  “There’s more,” I said. “If you say yes, Vlad and I are going to pull up in front of your house. We’re going to knock on your front door.”

  “You’re coming to visit?” she said.

  “No,” I said. “We’re going to take a shortcut through your house. To the back. Then we’ll take your car.”

  “All right,” she said hesitantly.

  “I can’t tell you for how long or where I’m going to take it.”

  “I didn’t ask,” she said. “You said to trust you. I am.”

  “You’re beautiful,” I said. I coughed. “I mean as a person. To help me.”

  “Ray...”

  “I need to ask something else,” I said.

  “Go ahead.”

  “I’m going to call two friends and send them over to your house right now. They’re going to park in the back and wait for Vlad and me. After I borrow your car, can you let them take a shortcut through your house and out to my Jeep in front of your house?”

  “Yes.”

  “Maybe let them stay for five or ten minutes.”

  “Yes.”

  “You do trust me.”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “One of the two guys is going to be tall. Like Vlad. The other guy is going to be shorter, like me. They’ll be wearing Tigers jackets because we’re going to trade jackets in the back. They’ll be wearing our Tigers caps.

  Could you...”

  How could I ask her this?

  “Could I what?”

  I could ask her because of the headlights behind my Jeep.

  “When they leave, could you stand at the front door and give the shorter guy a long hug? Like maybe you were giving me a hug?”

  “You’re not joking.”

  “This is important.” If she gave the short guy a hug, it would go a long way toward convincing Big Frank that the shorter guy was me.

  “I’ll do it,” she said. She waited a few seconds. “Can I give you some advice?”

  “Sure.”

  “My car has a full tank. Unless you have to get where you’ve got to go in a hurry, drive out of the city and down a gravel road before you come back to town.”

  I asked the obvious question.

  “Why?” I said into my cell phone.

  “Won’t be much traffic on a gravel road. If there are no headlights behind you, then you’ll know if the switch worked.”

  I coughed.

  “Um, Amanda?” I said.

  “Yes, Ray.”

  “Now I know why I go to you for help with my homework.”

  “I’d rather it wasn’t only because I’m smart.”

  I grinned into the darkness. “Glad to hear that. Because it’s a lot more than that. I think you’re beautiful too.”

  I heard strange noises from the passenger seat. I looked over. Vlad was grinning at me and smooching the back of his hand, making kissing noises.

  I hung up the phone.

  “Very funny, you Russian moron,” I said.

  “Very, very funny.”

  chapter twenty

  Dr. Dempster stared through the glass of his office door at me. At Vlad. At Mr. Jewel, who was carrying a handbag with some of his watch-repair tools.

  Dr. Dempster unlocked the door to let us in. He backed up a step and stared at me with his arms crossed.

  “You don’t look like you’re in pain,” he said to me.

  “I lied to you,” I said. I had called Dr. Dempster at his home from my cell phone. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s nearly midnight,” he said. Arms still crossed. “You woke me up when you called. You are aware of both of those things?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  “What’s the dental emergency then?” Dr. Dempster looked like he was about to explode. I didn’t blame him. I’d told him that one of my other teeth was cracked and that my jaw was swelling, and I had begged for an emergency visit. “Both of these guys seem fine.”

  “I can explain,” Mr. Jewel said.

  That startled me. I doubted that even I could really explain all that was happening. And I was the one who had made this plan.

  “Please do,” Dr. Dempster said, his lips tight. “I fixed Ray’s temporary cap right after the game. He assured me then that his mouth and teeth were fine. I certainly don’t appreciate leaving my house at this hour. And I can’t tell you how angry I am that Ray lied to me over the phone.”

  I was worried,” I said to Dr. Dempster. “I didn’t want you telling anyone at your house the real reason. I didn’t want to put anyone else in danger.”

  “And we are?” he said, obviously not believing it. “Mr. Jewel, who are we in danger from?”

  Mr. Jewel looked around. Which was silly. There were only the four of us here, standing in the lobby. I was pretty sure the Russian who had been following us was now at Abe Madison’s house, where my friends had taken the Jeep.

  “Well?” Dr. Dempster demanded.

  Mr. Jewel lowered his voice. “Russian mafia.”

  “What?”

  “Russian mafia,” Mr. Jewel repeated.

  “That’s what I thought you said.” Dr. Dempster was still frowning. “What is this, another lie?”

  I put up my hand. I felt stupid doing this. It wasn’t like we were in school.

  “Yes, Ray,” Dr. Dempster said.

  “If I make a guess about something, and if my guess is right, will you take us seriously?”

  “How can I possibly say yes if I have no idea what you’re talking about.” He snorted. “Maybe you took a few too many shots in the head in that fight tonight.”

  “I did,” I said. “Way too many. But that has nothing to do with this.”

  That brought a hint of a smile from Dr. Dempster. “Guess, then.”

  “When you worked on Vlad’s teeth, you took X-rays of his jaw,” I said.

  “Sure,” Dr. Dempster said. “And the sky is blue. Tell me something that’s not so obvious.”

  But Dr. Dempster had lost his frown. In that instant I knew I was right. It came down to the X-rays.

  “After you worked on his teeth,” I said, “you sent a file over to the Tigers’ office with a report on Vlad.”

  “Again, tell me something that’s not obvious.” He was testing me now. I knew it. His eyes had widened. Just slightly. Enough to tell me that I finally had his attention.

  It hadn’t been obvious to me. Not until I’d remembered my talk with Coach Thomas in his office that morning, when Coach Thomas had told me he knew about my dental situation because of the report from Dr. Dempster.

  “There was something strange about Vlad’s X-ray,” I said. “You made a note about it.”

  “So your guess is right,” Dr. Dempster said. “But Russian mafia? That can’t be.”

  “I think,” I said, “that someone in the Tigers’ organization has been paid to spy on Vlad. Because whatever you put on the dental record you sent to the Tigers’ office reached someone in Russia. Who got here a few days later to look for what was shown in the X-ray.”

  I turned to Vlad. “Tell him.”

  “This man,” Vlad said. “He came to me and told me that everyone on the team would die unless I gave him what he wanted.”

  “Hang on!” Dr. Dempster said. “Vlad speaks English.”

  “He speaks English,” I said.

  I could see Dr. Dempster thinking. I knew what he was thinking.

  “Me too,” I said. “When I learned he spoke English, I tried to remember if I had said anything in front of him. But there’s a good reason he doesn’t trust anyone.”

  “Russian mafia,” Mr. Jewel whispered. Like this was an adventure for him.

  “Dr. Dempster,” Vlad said, “you are a good man. You always said nice thin
gs about me.”

  “Still,” Dr. Dempster said, “that’s a sneaky thing to do.”

  “If you were worried about Russian mafia, you would keep secrets too?” Vlad asked.

  “Yes,” Dr. Dempster said. “I would do the same thing.”

  Vlad nodded. “This man came to me and asked me for something that I did not have. He did not believe me. He promised to show me how easy he could hurt people around me.”

  “The fire in the rink,” I said to Dr. Dempster. “You heard about it, right? But not the other part.”

  I told him what had not made the newspaper. The fact that Pookie had been found hanging from the ceiling.

  “Yes,” Vlad said. “This man from Russia made a good threat. But I did not believe I have what he wanted. He say to me, get codes from capsules. I say back to him, what codes and what capsules. He show me copy of X-ray that brought him here from Russia and ask me where missing tooth was. Then Ray gives me tooth from his pocket. So I call Big Frank to give him one capsule.”

  The night I’d given Vlad the tooth, Vlad had had that midnight meeting with the stranger outside the Moores’ house. Handing him the capsule that I’d found in his tooth.

  “Big Frank wanted other capsule,” Vlad said. “I tell him if I go to dentist to have other tooth pulled, too many questions for everyone. Don’t want people to get hurt because of questions. So I promise to let Big Frank pull it after next game.”

  I still found this hard to understand. That Vlad had been willing to let Big Frank pull the tooth with a pair of pliers because Vlad was afraid other people might get hurt if they knew about it.

  “Then Ray stopped Big Frank,” Vlad said. “I ran away with Ray so that Big Frank wouldn’t hurt Ray. Now we have to solve problem in different way.”

  Mr. Jewel was moving from side to side, barely holding his excitement. He looked like a little boy who needed to go to the bathroom. “The capsule,” Mr. Jewel said to me. “Tell Dr. Dempster about what was inside the capsule.”

  “Half of a code,” I said, watching Dr. Dempster. “And you saw the X-ray. So you know where the other half of the code is.”

  Dr. Dempster didn’t reply. He stepped to the wall. He hit the light switch and put us in darkness.

  “If you’re right,” he said. “There’s no sense advertising to the world all of us are here.”

  He paused and spoke from the shadows. “Especially if it involves the Russian mafia.”

  chapter twenty - one

  Fifteen minutes after Dr. Dempster first injected freezing into Vlad’s lower gum, Vlad nodded. He was ready for the dentist’s drill.

  Dr. Dempster nodded back and began to work. The sound of the drill seemed very loud this late at night.

  It took another fifteen minutes for Dr. Dempster to work the crown loose. He used tweezers to lift it from Vlad’s lower jaw. He set the crown on a tray.

  “Very good work,” Dr. Dempster told Mr. Jewel and me from beneath his surgical mask. “That should have told me to suspect something.”

  “What do you mean?” Mr. Jewel asked.

  “The rest of the dental work in Vlad’s mouth is horrible,” Dr. Dempster said. “But this crown and the other one were excellent. A lot of money was spent to make sure both crowns would last a long time.”

  Dr. Dempster used his tweezers to reach into Vlad’s mouth again. He pulled out a tiny capsule, identical to the other one that I had found. He did not drop it on the tray, however. He placed it in a small paper cup and handed the cup to Mr. Jewel.

  Mr. Jewel winked at us.

  “My turn,” he said. “With luck, I should be less than five minutes.”

  Vlad stayed in the dentist chair. He was lying back. His eyes were closed.

  “The code in the capsule must be worth a lot,” Dr. Dempster said to me. “Someone went to a lot of trouble to hide it. And if someone was sent from Russia as soon asthey learned about the capsules from the X-rays...”

  “Yes.” I didn’t add to my answer.

  “So you know, then, what Mr. Jewel will find in the capsule?”

  “I have a good guess,” I said. Mr. Jewel had brought his watch-repair tools with him tonight to open the second capsule as he had opened the first the day before. Although Vlad had explained a lot to me, I decided not to say any more.

  Dr. Dempster sighed. “Are you going to tell me about the code?”

  “I would rather not,” I said.

  “Do you have any idea how curious I am?” Dr. Dempster said. “I really, really wanted to ask Vlad about what was inside his crowns when I first saw his X-rays. I made sure he had the tooth to take home so that he would find the capsule. I wanted him to come back and ask me about it.”

  “But you didn’t ask him directly,” I said.

  “It wasn’t my business.” Dr. Dempster pulled his surgical mask down. “However,it seems you have made it my business. So I don’t mind asking now.”

  Vlad grunted and shook his head from side to side. Difficult to do anything else in the dentist chair.

  “I can translate,” I said.

  “Let me guess,” Dr. Dempster said. “Vlad doesn’t want me to know.”

  “He thinks you would be safer if you didn’t know.”

  Vlad grunted again.

  “And,” I said, “I think he is also trying to say that the guys on the team will be a lot safer if you don’t know.”

  Dr. Dempster began to pace back and forth. He stopped after a few steps. Maybe realizing what I had just said.

  “So you’re going to let someone in the Russian mafia take it from him?” Dr. Dempster said.

  “Yes,” I said. “This is where Vlad is going to need a little more help.”

  “From me.”

  “From you,” I said.

  “Even though you won’t tell me what’s in the capsule or why I’m doing this.”

  “The guy came over from Russia and threatened to kill the guys on the team one by one if he didn’t get what he wanted,” I said. “The fewer people who know about it, the better.”

  Dr. Dempster thought about it as he stared at me.

  He spoke. “Then what do you and Vlad need?”

  “For you to hide the capsule by putting it back inside the crown after Mr. Jewel is finished with it,” I said. I was doing all the talking because Vlad, of course, could not. “Then put the crown back on so that it doesn’t look like it had ever been removed.”

  “But if the Russian mafia wants the capsule, this guy will have to remove the crown again!”

  “Exactly,” I said. I thought of the monster-sized guy standing over Vlad with a pair of pliers. “That’s why we have one last favor to ask.”

  “I’m in this far,” Dr. Dempster said. “No point turning back now.”

  “Could you put a lot more freezing in Vlad’s jaw?” I asked. “That way he won’t feel it when the Russian goon uses pliers on him later tonight.”

  “You’re kidding me, right?”

  “No,” I said. “If you knew the rest of the story, you’d know I wish I could be kidding.”

  “Then involve the police,” Dr. Dempster said.

  Vlad sat up. He shook his head hard and tried talking loudly. I put a hand on his shoulder.

  “If you knew all of it,” I said, “you’d know that’s not an option. If they get the capsule, they’ll be happy. But they have to believe Vlad has no idea what was in it. And the only way to fool them is to let them find it where they expect it. Beneath the crown.”

  “More freezing,” Dr. Dempster said.

  “Yes,” I said. “A lot more freezing. I don’t think the guy who wants to yank the crown from Vlad’s mouth is much of a dentist.”

  A killer, I thought, but definitely not a dentist.

  chapter twenty - two

  Although it was well past midnight, all the lights were on at Abe’s house. He lived in a nice neighborhood. Lots of big old houses. Cars were parked on both sides of the street. Music seemed to leak from the walls of the h
ouse.

  As I drove down the street, I saw the white van parked five cars back from my Jeep TJ. The Russian obviously thought that Vlad and I were already in Abe’s house. So far, so good.

  I wasn’t too worried about being seen as we approached Abe’s house because I had traded vehicles with Mr. Jewel. We had left him Amanda’s car and were driving his old Dodge Caravan. Definitely not a cool vehicle. Definitely not a vehicle you wanted to be seen in by any of your friends. Which made it perfect. Who would think we were in it?

  On the passenger side, Vlad ducked down so that, as we passed the white van, it looked like there was only one person in our van. I kept driving and went around the corner. I drove down the alley behind Abe’s house.

  Vlad and I dashed through the backyard, up the steps and into the kitchen.

  Abe’s parents were standing at the kitchen counter, slicing cheese and sausages. Louise and William. They were middle-aged. She had bleached blond hair and a deep tan. He wore jeans and a black T-shirt. They worked hard at looking young and cool. In a way, this made them as geeky as Abe. Parents that age should have dressed the way Abe did, and Abe should have dressed the way they did.

  “Hey, Ray,” William said, giving me a salute that he probably thought was cool too. “Thanks for setting up this party tonight, even if it was on short notice. Abe is pretty happy to be the center of attention for a change.”

  I nodded. I think what he really meant was that they were happy to be the center of attention. Abe liked the quiet of his computer room. I’d had to beg him to allow people to come over.

  Vlad followed me into the living room.

  Some of the kids there waved at us. Most didn’t. The music was loud. Talking wasn’t talking. It was shouting.

  Two guys stood in the corner. One tall, like Vlad. One my size. I walked over.

  “Thanks, Jimmy!” I yelled. “Thanks, Sam!”

  Jimmy and Sam were the two guys who had gone to Amanda’s house, going through the alley and backyard to her back door so that the Russian mafia guy couldn’t see them. Vlad and I had given them our jackets and hats. Jimmy and Sam had gone out the front and driven my Jeep TJ here so that the Russian mafia guy would follow them. I’d made some other calls to friends on their cell phones to tell them to come here for a party. I’d figured that with enough music and lights in the house, Mr. Russian Mafia wouldn’t come inside and try anything.