by Lauren Child
Ruby opened her mouth to argue but Hitch simply held up his hand. “This is non-negotiable.”
Ruby said nothing.
“Get yourself in the vehicle pronto. We need to get going.”
“But I haven’t had breakfast!” protested Ruby. “Most important meal of the day and all that.”
“We’ll pick something up on the way, OK? Now scram. I’ll be with you in a split second.”
Ruby got into the car and was relieved to see her jacket crumpled on the floor behind the passenger seat. She felt around in the pocket until her fingers closed around the cold metal of the watch — got you, you weasel.
She looked at it. Of all the things she’d ever owned this was certainly the best — only thing was, she didn’t own it, and sooner or later someone was bound to discover it was missing, along with the whistle and the key ring. It wouldn’t take a master sleuth to figure out who the culprit was. What was happening to her? This was the kind of thing that happened to Red Monroe — not to Ruby Redfort.
She slipped the watch back into her jacket. The key ring was already clipped securely to her jeans and was tucked safely hidden in her back pocket. The whistle was around her neck, concealed under her T-shirt. She just had to find a way to put them back before anyone noticed they were gone.
On the way to Spectrum, while Ruby and Hitch were stopped at a light, who should cross the street but Clancy Crew, Del Lasco, and Elliot Finch, stuffing donuts into their mouths. Ruby slid down in her seat.
“Don’t worry, kid. They can’t see you, only me.”
“How’s that?” asked Ruby.
“Special glass,” said Hitch, knocking on the windshield. “If this switch is flicked down,” he said, pointing to a little silver lever, “then on the passenger side it just shows a blank space, as if you aren’t there.” To prove his point he wound down his window, stuck his head out, and called, “Hey, kids, don’t suppose I could persuade you to let me have one of those donuts?”
“No way, man,” said Del through a mouthful of donut. “I only have two left.”
Clancy said nothing, but he certainly wasn’t going to let that butler guy have anything of his, not for free anyway. He didn’t like him, and he didn’t trust him either.
Elliot looked thoughtfully at the remaining donut in its paper bag. “How much you offering?” he asked.
“How about I guess what flavor donut you got. I’m right, I get it for free; I’m wrong, I give you ten bucks for it.”
Elliot couldn’t believe his luck. This guy was never going to guess what flavor donut he had; this meant a big profit. “Sure,” said Elliot, “I don’t mind taking ten bucks off ya.”
“So?” whispered Hitch out of the corner of his mouth.
“Well, the one he was just eating was banana, which means the one in the bag is chocolate raspberry with strawberry frosting and rainbow sprinkles,” hissed Ruby.
“OK,” said Hitch, holding his finger to his temple as if he were channeling the information. “I’m guessing . . . chocolate raspberry, strawberry frosting, rainbow sprinkles — am I right?”
Elliot, speechless, handed over the donut.
“Pleasure doing business with you,” said Hitch as he pulled away from the lights.
“Who is that guy?” whispered Del.
“Some bozo who works for the Redforts,” muttered Clancy.
“They got a magician working for them?” said Elliot.
“Pretty cool,” said Ruby as they sped along toward Twinford Bridge.
“I aim to please,” said Hitch, handing Ruby the donut.
When they arrived at Spectrum, Ruby was told to sit in the waiting area. She was kind of fidgety. She wasn’t particularly looking forward to meeting Agent Blacker. So far everyone she had encountered at HQ had not exactly been Mickey Mouse friendly.
But when Agent Blacker turned up he actually smiled.
“If you don’t mind my saying, you look kinda youthful,” he said.
“I drink a lot of banana milk — keeps you young looking,” said Ruby.
“Is that so? How many pints do you drink exactly?”
He was a disheveled-looking man and his badge was upside down and his hair didn’t look like it had been combed since Christmas. He had a nice voice though. It had warmth — she could tell from just a few words.
“So,” he said. “You gonna solve this Lopez code for us?” He ruffled her hair and added, “You know what? I think you just might.”
Messing with Ruby Redfort’s hair would not ordinarily have been a good idea, but for some reason, today, Ruby didn’t mind. Perhaps she was just relieved that someone was finally on her side.
“Thanks, but I’m not sure anyone else around here would agree with you. I feel about as popular as a person infected with the Black Death.”
“Nah, they wouldn’t talk to you at all if you had the Black Death,” said Blacker.
Ruby was surprised when she was ushered through a door and found herself outside in an alley, facing a Dumpster and an old van that looked like a Dumpster. “There’s our ride,” said Blacker, walking toward the van.
“You’re kidding, right?” said Ruby.
But he wasn’t.
“Where we goin’ — the junkyard?”
“Yeah, I hear what you’re saying, Ruby. She is a bit of an old lady, but she runs OK. Inconspicuous too.”
“Only if we are going to a real dump of a neighborhood,” said Ruby.
Blacker laughed awkwardly. “Yeah.”
Twenty minutes later Ruby understood why. They had pulled up in front of an old office building on Maverick Street on the east side of town in the area known as Trashford. It was a dump.
“Here we are — the file office,” said Agent Blacker. “Lopez worked from here because it made for a good cover, and it was safe.”
Ruby looked up at the derelict building that was sandwiched between an ancient-looking Laundromat and a boarded-up convenience store. “If you don’t mind my saying so, it doesn’t look very safe.”
Blacker pointed at the door. “Try drilling through this baby in a hurry — it will take you upward of eighteen hours.”
If that was true then it was disguised well.
He unlocked the door. It was brown — at least the top layer was — large flakes of ancient paint were peeling off to reveal many past color choices, all the colors of the rainbow. Ruby stepped inside. The small room was lined floor to ceiling with files, brown ones.
“If anyone did ever happen to tail Lopez, we wanted them to find some dusty old office. Lopez told everyone she was a bookkeeper. No one outside Spectrum knew what she really did.”
“So, what, she never got to go out on any missions or adventures?” asked Ruby.
Blacker shook his head. “She never did anything for Spectrum that involved any danger. LB doesn’t like losing her code breakers, not after . . . well, she just doesn’t. She likes to keep her great minds safe and sound.”
Ruby looked around at the dismal office. She couldn’t help feeling it was capable of depressing a person to death.
“So every day she sat looking at these drab old walls? What did she do for kicks?” asked Ruby.
“Rock climbing,” replied Blacker.
“She probably enjoyed the scenery,” said Ruby, glancing at the window, almost black with dirt.
“So, I guess LB filled you in on the case,” said Blacker, pointing at the far wall. “All these files on this shelf here cover every little thing we found out about the planned bank heist.”
Ruby counted them. There were more than a few.
“We want you to read through every single file, and try to spot what we missed the first time around. We know we musta missed something because old Lopez worked it out while she was on her vacation. Her mind musta been ticking over and suddenly — vavoom! — she figured something out. But that leaves us with a problem; we don’t know what it was.”
“So what tipped you off about the robbery in the first place?” asked Ruby.
“We had a call from the Gotz Bank in Switzerland. That’s where the gold’s coming in from. They reported that they were sure someone had infiltrated their security and possibly got their hands on information relating to the gold bullion which is due to be transferred from Gotz Bank to the Twinford City Bank on April twenty-second.”
Ruby took some bubble gum out of her pocket. “Mind if I chew?”
Blacker shook his head. “Why should I mind?”
Ruby shrugged. “You’d be surprised.” She popped the pink cube into her mouth. “So, anyway, what made them suspicious?”
“The person in charge was very, you know, fastidious. She liked everything all lined up ‘just so,’ and was the only person to have access to the documents and papers, and although nothing was missing, she was certain that her papers had been disturbed.”
Ruby nodded.
“Not long after this we intercepted a call from a new customer who claimed she wanted to make a deposit of highly valuable jewelry in the Twinford City Bank. She also wanted to visit the vault it would be kept in.”
“That’s not unusual. I know my mom would do the same.”
“But your mom probably wouldn’t ask quite as many questions as this woman did.”
“Questions like what?” said Ruby.
“Like, was it true that the basement was designed by Jeremiah Stiles? Was there really a trick to working one’s way through the maze of passages?”
“Maybe just interested in architecture,” suggested Ruby.
“Maybe,” said Blacker. “According to the bank employee who showed her around, she certainly seemed interested. She actually seemed to be memorizing the corridors. And there was something a little off about her, apparently. She had a strange accent — strange meaning it sounded a little fake. Kinda staged, like she was trying to sound like she was from around here when she wasn’t. She was wearing a hat with a veil — looked like something from out of an old movie — very stylish and all but a little over the top for a visit to the bank.”
“So she was an eccentric — there are lots of strange people in Twinford,” said Ruby.
“I can’t disagree with you there, but when the bank checked out her ID later it was discovered that she had been dead for twenty years.”
“Ah, now that is a little strange,” agreed Ruby. “Even for someone from Twinford. So what about the security cameras — didn’t they get a good look at her?”
“Something went wrong there,” said Blacker. “Maybe it was her veil, but in every picture her face came out a blur, as if the camera couldn’t see through it — couldn’t even make out one feature.”
“So then what?” said Ruby.
Blacker shook his head. “Nothing. No more inquiries about safes and security, no more eccentric ladies turning up at the city bank.”
“But you didn’t think whoever it was had given up?”
“Well, that’s where we got lucky, I guess. We stumbled on something.”
Agent Blacker walked over to the files, picked up a folder labeled FOOL’S GOLD — FILE ONE, and placed it on the desk where Lopez must have sat for all those years. It was a dated-looking piece of furniture, perhaps designed in the 1950s, and it had little colored drawer pulls, a built-in pencil holder, and a cool-looking pale-blue lamp. He switched the lamp on and motioned for Ruby to sit down.
“Take a look for yourself — you’ll get the idea. Might as well make yourself comfortable, you’re gonna be sitting here for a while. Don’t rush it. Remember, there has to be something that Lopez missed, and she was careful, so you need to be extra careful.” He handed her a crumpled brown paper bag, inside was a donut.
“You must be a mind reader,” she said.
“Who doesn’t like a jelly donut?” shrugged Blacker.
The file was full of newspaper clippings, lots and lots of newspaper clippings.
They were all from the personals. They seemed innocent enough:
LADY OF ADVANCING YEARS seeks companion with an interest in cats, crochet, and ancient history.
FITNESS INSTRUCTOR wanted for fitness phobic Finn.
LEARN TO COOK GREEK STYLE! When you’re done — no need for tiresome dish washing, just throw them over your shoulder!
Silently, Ruby read page after page. There were hundreds of these absurd clippings, every one from the Twinford Mirror. There was nothing remotely suspicious or sinister about any of them.
What was it that Lopez saw?
After about an hour of reading Ruby shouted out to Blacker. “So what made you look out for personals in the Twinford Mirror?”
“Well, that’s an interesting story,” said Blacker, walking out of his room and sitting down on a box next to Ruby. “The police picked up a known felon by the name of Fingers Macgraw. He was driving an expensive car that didn’t belong to him and he couldn’t really explain how he had come by it. Anyway, when the car was searched it had a whole batch of these personal ads stuffed in the glove compartment.”
“So? Fingers read the personals — there’s no law against it.”
“Right, but there was no way they belonged to Fingers; there wasn’t a single fingerprint of his on them. It was obvious he didn’t even know they were there. In any case what would he be doing with newspaper cuttings? Fingers can barely read — he is strictly a feel it and steal it kinda fellow — nothing complicated about him.”
“And this looked complicated?” said Ruby.
“It looked like it was something,” said Blacker. “A whole lot of carefully collected newspaper ads and tips from the Twinford Mirror — I mean why? What do they mean?”
“They look pretty random,” said Ruby.
“Yeah,” he said. “That’s just it — they are so random, it made us wonder if they were random, if you get my drift. And why didn’t the person they belonged to ever contact the police to report the car missing? It was a good car — almost new.”
“But the police must have run a check on the license plates, found the owner?” said Ruby.
“Sure they did. We know who the car was registered to but it turned out to be the same dead woman who supposedly visited the bank.”
“Well, I agree that is pretty suspicious,” said Ruby.
Blacker nodded. “So we ran the ads past Lopez to see what she thought.”
“And how long before you knew you were on to something?” asked Ruby.
Blacker pointed at another whole row of files. “Lopez started reading the Twinford Mirror very closely — wasn’t until she had filled all of these before we began to see exactly what was going on with the personal ads.”
“Boy, you people must really have patience” said Ruby, pulling the next file from the shelf. “What was it she worked out?”
Agent Blacker smiled. “Sorry, but LB wants to see if you can find that out for yourself.”
For the next couple of hours Ruby barely moved from her chair. She just sat there, reading clipping after clipping.
Most of the clippings were personal ads. Some were titled TOP TIPS; people would write in from all over to suggest ways of, for instance, getting a cat down from a tree, or how to get shoe polish off a pair of corduroy pants. The pieces were at worst boring and at best faintly amusing but there was nothing suspicious about them — nothing, that is, until Ruby spotted the pattern. They were using a number of different variations on the same code, taking the first letter of the ad and then letters at fixed intervals, discarding the rest. The first code Ruby deciphered used every fifth letter or number to convey the secret message. After some tinkering, Ruby also discovered something else: three dots in a personal ad seemed to indicate a question mark in the coded message. After that you started with the first letter again.
As Ruby deciphered each short piece, it became clear to her what was going on: five or more people were communicating with one another about something, and it wasn’t about how to get shoe polish off a pair of corduroy pants.
At around lunchtime Blacker ordered pizza.
�
��So, is it beginning to make sense, Ruby?” he asked.
“I can see where it’s headed.” She showed him what she had deciphered.
SCOTCH AMERICAN up for amiable dominos.
Anticipating players of minimal ages 20 to 22.
Shipment April 22
OVENS, PAINT, ELECTRIC TRAIN SETS, various models, newer 100 to 200 mph outboards.
Uncle Ralph’s jumble bonanza starts Easter.
Operation 12 hours later
WANT THAT STAIN OUT? Here is one super trick: heat pear with soda, cool, rub in gentle rotations . . . Slows or eliminates most tough or dried-on nasty gloop. Powder the pear, it cuts time. Store it under sink . . .
What is the target? Something precious?
WITCH HAS A CAT AND TOAD, lizards, charm, all to order at special price. Reply early, cuz this ace offer undersells the others.
Hats, wand, frogs also. Excellent deals . . .
What is more precious than gold?
VALUE A REST? U need latest calming comfrey + pea treatment. Sleep w/out any drugs, say bye bye to lost repose with simple tea. To hear more, you must try to phone Legera Botanicals.
Vault impenetrable without plans.
POOLS, LAWNS, AND SAND PITS: good, mature yard man looks for jobs. I‘ve dozens refs and past works if you like. Classy home maintenance, DIY too. Own a van. Special rates.
Plans memorized — will hand over.
MADAM UNICE SEEKS Twinford’s absolutely fab social denizens for deeply cool music, prayer, impact. Every Tuesday evening. Vanquish vices! Amen.
Must obtain security device.
DANCE EVENT. Very mixed acts. See the only pros waltz in 5 years, enjoy tango live. Hot dancing magic starts early December. You have to see what Ted Sarkey can do in only two hrs with those toes of his. Amazing skill in our town.
Device not yet located but we know who has it.
“Not bad,” said Blacker. “I think you’re gonna prove me right.”
