My money-making senses were tingling: He was looking for me.
“Hey, Rob,” I said. “Did Marcus know we were coming here tonight?”
“Yeah. I asked him yesterday if he could give me a ride. He said he’d give me a ride if I gave him my room.”
“Why don’t you go on without me?”
“What? Why?”
“It’s nothing. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
He followed my gaze to the cool character beneath the lamppost. “Sweet bike. I’ve seen that motorcycle parked in the high school lot. Who is that?”
“The guy I need to talk to. I think.”
“Oh. That. Messenger stuff. Hey, let me come with you.”
“What? Why?”
Rob shrugged. “I dunno. I’m curious. What do you say, and what do they say and all that.”
“Rob, this is official business.”
“He’s waiting for a seventh-grader in an empty parking lot. How official could it be?”
“My clients want their privacy. It’s part of why they come to me.”
“Please? Just this once?”
I couldn’t exactly tell him this kind of work required the ability to keep your mouth shut. “Not a chance, Rob. I’ll catch you in a few minutes.”
Rob grabbed my arm and dropped his voice. “Hey, how do you know he’s a customer? How do you know he’s not just waiting for everyone to clear so he can jump you?”
“All my money is at home in my sock drawer, so he’s going to be disappointed.”
“Well, maybe he’s some girl’s older brother, here to beat you to a bloody pulp for a message you delivered.”
“Come on, Rob, just let me go.”
“Fine.” He scowled at me and gripped his handlebars hard. “But if I hear you screaming like a little girl in a few minutes, I’m not going to come running back to save your butt. Just so you know.”
He pushed off with his bike and headed up the trail.
I turned and headed for another twenty-five bucks.
At least, I thought I was. Rob’s comment about the guy being some girl’s older brother had shaken me just a bit. I mean, would Marcus really have told someone that they could find me marching up the trail to Lincoln Hill Park? I took a few deep breaths.
The guy didn’t move as I approached, except to turn his head for a second to spit. He was tall with wide shoulders—probably a high school senior. I stopped at what I figured was a safe distance in front of him and lowered the kickstand on my bike. I glanced behind me, hoping to find a few stragglers still passing through the parking lot. But the last person in sight was just cresting the top of the hill.
I swallowed back the nervous lump in my throat. “You looking for me?” I asked the stranger.
He smiled a tight, wicked smile. “You got quite a gig going on here, Sly.”
“What do you mean?”
“I hear you’re the little genius that’s charging people to break up with their girlfriends.”
“I deliver messages. That’s all.”
He held up his hands. “I’m cool with that, man. I’m all about good communication. But I’m a little curious, Sly. What do you do with all those tears?”
“Tears?”
“Yeah. Don’t the ladies cry when you ‘communicate’ with them?”
I folded my arms, thinking about Goat Girl and the cry-fest she’d had. “Yeah. Sometimes. My messages aren’t exactly happy ones.”
He shook his head. “Man, you must have a heart of stone.”
That made me blink. A heart of stone? I was just the messenger.
The guy sighed. “Not me, man. Not me. I have an eye for the ladies and they have an eye for me.” He removed his sunglasses and gestured toward himself. “But really, can you blame them?”
This guy’s nuts, I thought. But at least he’s not going to mug me. “So is there anything I can do for you? It’s getting late.”
The wicked smile leaped back to his face. “Now that you mention it, I could use your help. In fact, I should tell you up front that I could become one of your best customers. You might say I kind of have relationship ADHD.”
I had no idea what he meant, but I knew I could use a “best customer.”
“At the moment I’m interested in, well, doing some house cleaning. Simplifying. Downsizing. Starting over, you could say.”
“What’s her name?” I asked, reaching for my pocket. By now I carried a pen and notecards with me just about everywhere I went.
“Janine.”
“OK. Where can I find her?”
Motorcycle Guy placed his sunglasses slowly back on his face.
“Well, now, she’s just the first one.”
I stopped trying to figure out how to spell Janine and looked up. “First one?”
Even behind his sunglasses he looked like a kid that just got caught with both hands in the cookie jar. “Told you … relationship ADHD. It’s so hard to stay focused sometimes.”
“So … are you telling me you have more than one girlfriend you need to break up with?”
“Elizabeth … she goes by Lizzy.”
I scribbled down the name. “Okay. And where can I find these two?”
“And Bethany. Oh … can’t forget Bethany. But I’m gonna try real hard.”
“Three girlfriends? At the same time?” Where did this guy think he was, the African pride lands?
“You got it, Sly. Now go free me up so I can rest awhile before setting my eyes on the next conquest.”
“I assume the girls don’t know about each other.”
The guy shifted his weight off the motorcycle and leaned toward me. I resisted the urge to step back. “No they don’t. And you’re not going to tell ’em. Right?”
“’Course not.”
“Swear to it, Sly.”
“I swear I won’t tell them.”
Motorcycle Guy stared at me from behind his glasses. “I don’t believe you,” he finally said. “Swear on the Beast.”
“On the what?”
He stepped aside and gestured toward his motorcycle. “Do it.”
Since laughing out loud didn’t seem advisable, I stepped forward and put my hand on the worn black leather seat of his Kawasaki. “I swear I won’t tell them about one another.”
His shoulders relaxed a little. Reaching inside his leather jacket, he pulled out a small black book. He thumbed through it, found a page near the middle, and held it out in front of me. “Addresses. All three of them.”
I scribbled them down. When I’d finished, I carefully folded the paper as I thought about how to approach what came next.
“Now, since I’m going to deliver three messages, I’ll need to charge you for all three. But I can give you a good discount.”
“Not so fast, Sly. I was told it’d cost me twenty-five bucks to get this done. And that’s what you’ll get.”
“You’re asking me to track down three different girls.” I spread my hands out. “That’s three times as much work.…”
As I spoke, the guy reached back into his jacket pocket. With a sudden flick, a knife was in his hand. The streetlamp above us clicked on, as if waiting for its cue. Light glinted off the exposed blade.
My heart leaped into my throat. I immediately promised to take Rob’s warnings more seriously. I didn’t even have to swear on the Beast for that one.
He studied the blade for a moment, as though considering its craftsmanship in the halo of yellow light. His face looked all the more threatening with the new shadows. Then he lowered the knife and started cleaning his fingernails with the tip.
“Twenty-five should do it, don’t you think, Sly?”
My teeth were clenched tight with fear or anger, or both. “I don’t suppose I can interest you in flowers or chocolates?”
He folded the blade and slipped it into his pocket in one smooth motion. Then he swung his leg over the motorcycle. “Nope. Just get the job done, Sly. Be sure to tell the ladies that Gunner sent you.” With a dow
nward kick, his motorcycle roared to life. He pulled a wad of bills out of his pocket and tossed them at my feet. “See you ’round, Heartbreaker.” And with a second roar, he sped off into the dusk.
Right there I decided it was okay to dislike some clients.
As I picked up the money, I noticed something lying on the pavement a few feet away. Small and rectangular, his black book blended into the asphalt, like a secret desperately wanting to stay hidden. Looking around at the empty street, I reached down and grabbed the book.
The pages were crisp but full. Names—all girls—numbers, addresses, dates, and notes covered the pages. A detailed history of short-term relationships and other secret tidbits that Gunner obviously thought should stay hidden. A gold mine of information that I silently slipped into my pocket with the money. I smiled to myself.
My mind was spinning with ideas. I didn’t know what I was going to do with Gunner’s three girlfriends, but I was sure of one thing. No one pulls a knife on the Heartbreak Messenger, shortchanges him, and rides off on a motorcycle. No one.
Chapter 16
Shortly after the echo of Gunner’s Kawasaki faded into the deepening night, I was tripping over seventh-graders at the top of Lincoln Hill. “Rob!” I called out over the chitchat of a dozen conversations.
“Yo, Quentin!” I heard him shout from across the field. I found him lying on his back next to Abby, which surprised me.
“Hey, Abby.”
“Hey,” she said, keeping her eyes fixed on the domed sky above us.
“Nice of you to stop by. I would have thought you’d bring Justin along.” I didn’t use any of my usual nicknames for Bulky Sweater Man, since I’d decided to try extra hard to get on Abby’s good side again.
Abby studied the ends of her hair, although she probably couldn’t see much in the dark. “He said he’d meet me here. I’m sure he’s on his way.”
I lay down on my back next to them, our heads close together, our legs stretching out like spokes in a bike wheel. A gentle breeze passed through the dark night air, which felt cool on my face.
“Seen anything yet?” I asked.
“Nothing but stars so far,” Abby said.
“What are we looking for again?” Rob asked.
“The Orionids,” I said.
“Is that a rock band or a stomach virus?” he shot back.
“Meteors, you dope. Just keep your eyes open and count the shooting stars,” I said.
Rob wasn’t in our physical science class, so technically he didn’t need to be there. But Abby and I, along with three of Mr. Baumbaker’s periods, were supposed to be counting meteors. Our teacher had recommended Lincoln Hill Park since it sat secluded on the west side of town. The backside of the hill sloped away from the lights of the town, into a wooded area that eventually met up with Bluejacket Road. The hilltop was ringed by sycamores, but opened up in the middle of the park to provide a wide view of the sky.
“Oh, I just saw a whole bunch,” Rob said.
“Poking yourself in the eye doesn’t count,” Abby said. “Only real shooting stars.”
The grass was soft and kind of tickled my ears. There was something mesmerizing about staring at the sky. After a while it seemed like you could feel the whole Earth spinning underneath you.
“How will I know when I see one?” Rob asked.
“It will be the only one of those bright dots up there that’s shooting across the sky,” I said.
“I wonder where he is?” Abby said.
“Who,” Rob asked, “the Orionid?”
“Justin. He should have been here by now.”
“Oh, I just saw one!” I said, my arm shooting upward. That statement may or may not have been true.
“Where?” Abby said. “How’s this going to work? I can’t watch the whole sky at the same time.”
We lay there in silence for a while, feeling overwhelmed as the stars seemed to multiply and grow brighter, and the slivered moon watched us from the horizon.
“Hey, Rob,” I finally said. “I think I see Cassiopeia. It’s that W right there. Do you remember who she was? Someone from mythology or something?” Our Cub Scout days had been brief, with lots of throwing rocks into large bodies of water, but not much astronomy.
Rob didn’t answer.
“Rob?”
Abby laughed. “He’s asleep.”
Rob confirmed that with a soft snore.
“Rob McFallen, the learned astronomer,” I said.
“Well, so far he’s not missing much.”
I scanned the sky, working hard to keep my own eyes open. My mind wandered as I thought about Gunner on his motorcycle, the little black book in my pocket, and my ex–best friend beside me. And then suddenly I saw one. A star streaked across the sky for just an instant, like a shimmering fish through black waters, and then disappeared. But its brilliant shadow glowed in my eyes for a moment longer.
“I saw it!” Abby shrieked. “I’ve never seen one before.”
“There’s another!”
“Three!”
“Four. Five!”
An excited murmur ran through the other groups of kids sprawled on the grass. We waited a moment. Not breathing. Hoping for more.
And they came.
We didn’t try to count. Maybe five or six at a time touched the blackness and disappeared. Then another wave, then another. Skipping, streaking, skating on the sky. We didn’t take a breath for a while, even after everything came to a rest and all the stars froze in place once again.
We must have shifted our bodies to get a better view of the meteors, because when I finally took a breath, I realized the side of Abby’s upside-down face was touching mine. She didn’t pull away and neither did I. There was something about what we had just seen in the sky, something extraordinary and unreal, something that could never be explained, only shared. And somehow, knowing that I had shared it with Abby right there next to me, made it all the more meaningful.
“Wow,” Abby whispered.
“You don’t see that every day.”
“Wow,” she whispered again.
We lay there for a while in silence, her cheek warm against mine. The feeling of what we had just seen was fading quickly, and I tried hard to hold on to it.
“I wonder where they go?” she finally said.
“Probably burn up in the atmosphere or something.”
“How sad. It’s not until the very end that they turn into something beautiful, and then they die. Kind of like a flower.”
“Yeah, but what a way to go.”
We watched for more meteors, but I half-hoped that no more would come. Anything else would have been anticlimactic.
“There’s so many stars out here,” said Abby. “I think I see Orion.”
“Where?”
“Right there. See those three stars? I think that’s his belt.”
“Cool.” I didn’t tell her that Orion wouldn’t be in the sky until early in the morning.
“Where was that one you were talking about before?”
“Cassiopeia. Right there. It’s shaped like a W. I think she was a queen. A queen that was full of herself, if I remember right.”
“What about that star there? I think that one’s a planet, right? It’s red, so it must be Mercury.”
“No. Probably Mars,” I said. “Red planet, named for the god of war.”
“I thought Mercury was the god of war.”
“No, it was Mars. I don’t remember who Mercury was … wait, he was the messenger for Jupiter.” As soon as I said it, I knew it was a mistake.
“Oh?” she said. “Did he go around breaking hearts, too?”
And suddenly the moment, the good-ol’-days moment, was over. “Let’s not go there,” I said.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to discuss anything that might remind you that you have a conscience.”
“Hey, are you ready for the English quiz tomorrow?” I asked.
“You’re just trying to change the subject.”
&
nbsp; “Yes, but we do have a quiz tomorrow.”
“Nuh-uh.”
“Yuh-huh.”
Abby jumped up. “I saw Alyssa over there earlier. I’m going to ask her.” She started forward but hit her foot on Rob’s leg. “Sorry, Rob,” she said as she headed off toward another group of kids.
“What’s up?” Rob said as he sat up with his eyes half-open.
“Nothing much. Just discussing some mythology. Hey, I noticed Justin Mastersnob didn’t make it tonight.”
“Yeah, that’s a shame.” Rob grinned, wide awake. “I hope he didn’t have bike trouble.”
“You want to tell me how you did it?”
Rob laid back down and put his hands behind his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. But I wouldn’t be surprised if Justin’s bike chain shows up in his mail box tomorrow.”
I snorted. “Classic.” I could almost forgive Rob for spilling the beans to Abby.
Almost.
Chapter 17
Two days later I also had sabotage on my mind. Not bike sabotage—at least not bicycle sabotage. Something different. Something that had taken a bit of quick but careful planning.
“And what is the purpose of your reservation?” The librarian looked down at me over the top of her reading glasses. The public library had been closed the day before, so this part of my plan was a little behind schedule.
I scratched my head for a moment. “A group discussion on the social habits of the male African lion.” It was close enough to the truth.
The librarian scribbled the information into her reservation book. “How very interesting. A biology class?”
“Um, more like sociology.”
“I see. Study Room One is all yours at four o’clock. Please be sure to read the rules and leave the place spick-and-span.”
“Um,” I hesitated, not sure how far to push my luck. “Can I get Study Room Two?”
She pursed her lips. “The rooms are exactly the same.”
“Well … I like to use even numbers whenever I can. Superstition.” I smiled, as though I stood up for even numbers all the time.
“Uh-huh.” She studied me for a moment and then scribbled a little more in her book. “All right, then. Study Room Two. Just remember—two is an even number, but it’s also a prime. And primes are not to be trusted.”
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