by Lisa Doan
Mr. Pennypacker paused, then said, “But since you have twenty dollars burning a hole in your pocket, the Value Meals are on you.”
* * *
Hours later, Charlie was in his cabin listening to his mom negotiate with Olive about what she would wear that evening. Olive was set on her green “If History Repeats Itself, I’m Getting a Dinosaur” T-shirt and her rainbow-colored My Little Pony skirt. Mrs. Pennypacker was set on anything that matched.
Charlie stared at the note he had found on the beach.
Take MANTHI with you.
The boss.
He had been thinking about it all afternoon. He couldn’t help it. He knew that was exactly what Gunter was doing, too. Gunter would have written out a copy and been in his own cabin staring at it.
The note could just mean what it said—one of the men was named Manthi and their boss wrote them the note. In a mystery, it would be a red herring—something that only looked like a clue. But if it wasn’t a red herring, then it had some meaning that Charlie couldn’t figure out because he was missing key information. Or else it could be a code.
He was getting more and more convinced that it had to mean something. If it didn’t, why had the guy carried it around in his pocket? Why take it with him all the way to the Bahamas? His mom left him notes like that all the time, usually along the lines of: “Clean your room, it smells like a battalion of unwashed soldiers live there. Love, Mom.” He didn’t carry those notes around with him, he just stuffed them in the bottom of the trash can and pretended he’d never seen them.
If it was some kind of code, the first thing to do was spot something that looked like repetition, or something that looked out of place. There was no repetition. There was nothing out of place.
He paused. Except that MANTHI was capitalized. Why would the guy’s name be capitalized?
Usually, a whole word would be capitalized to signal that it was the main point of the message.
So, MANTHI was the point. Maybe MANTHI was an anagram.
Charlie tore the blank back page off A Bloody History of Caribbean Pirates and grabbed a pen from his bag. He ran up to the deck so that he could work without listening to Olive’s ten-thousand reasons why her clothes matched, even though her mother swore they didn’t.
He sat on a deck chair, careful that it was one of the sturdier ones, and started to play around with the letters.
Manthi. Tan him. Than mi. Am thin. Mat hin. Tim han. Tin ham. Him ant. Him tan. Ham tin.
Or … oh no … Hit man.
Chapter Seven
Hit man? Charlie dropped the paper. It fluttered to the deck. The breeze picked it up, and he grabbed it before it blew over the side.
Hit man. Manthi was an anagram for hit man. Could that really be right? Was he letting his imagination run wild?
The note was signed “The boss.” At first, Charlie hadn’t thought that was weird. His dad’s boss always said things like “Just keep the boss in the loop,” like he was talking about another person.
But if hit man was right, then boss might mean … the capo, the don, the crime boss.
“Trying to figure out what it means?”
Charlie jumped. Gunter had come out of nowhere, like he usually did. The guy was a panther.
Gunter snatched the paper from his hands. He read it and snorted. “Hit man. Like Captain Wisner would have gotten himself involved with the Mafia. Totally ridiculous, Pennypacker.”
“Uh-huh,” Charlie said. “The note is signed ‘the boss,’ as in ‘crime boss.’”
“Wisner and the mob? I don’t think so.”
Gunter paused, and then his eyes widened. “Wait a minute. The captain called one of them a wise guy. When we were at the dock in Miami, he shouted, ‘Not today, wise guy.’ Wise guys are in the Mafia.”
“And,” Charlie said, “one of them said, ‘Nobody avoids us forever.’ It’s the kind of thing the mob is known for.”
“The captain and the mob,” Gunter said softly. “How did that old galoot get himself involved with those characters?”
“I don’t know,” Charlie said. “But it isn’t just the captain involved. They’ve seen me see them in the jungle. I’m a witness. The mob hates witnesses,” Charlie said.
“Bad luck, Pennypacker. They’ll try to rub you out,” Gunter said. “Getting rid of witnesses is one of the main things they do.”
“Well, maybe they’ll try to rub you out, too,” Charlie said. “That guy probably didn’t get a good look at me, so they’ll just be looking for a boy, and we’re the same height. They might even rub you out instead of me in a tragic case of mistaken identity.”
Gunter looked as if he would answer, but then looked away. They were both silent, contemplating being rubbed out by the mob.
Charlie thought about telling his parents. He had no doubt that his dad would demand being taken back to Miami immediately. The problem was, his dad would want to get back to Miami in a hurry so he could file a lawsuit. A lawsuit would enrage the mob. They’d end up in deeper than they already were.
No, that wouldn’t work. Somehow, Charlie would have to figure out how to get out of this alone.
At the thought of going head-to-head with the Mafia by himself, Charlie felt a thousand light fingers run up his spine. He had zero experience with the criminal underbelly. He glanced at Gunter. Gunter was the only other person who knew what was going on. And he was pretty wily and would do anything to win. If anybody could help him, it was probably Gunter.
But still, working with Gunter Hwang?
It went against all his instincts, but he didn’t see that he had any other choice.
“I feel like,” Charlie began, “we better work together to get ourselves out of this and stay alive.” He held up a hand, in case Gunter was leaping to the conclusion that he wanted to be friends again. “Obviously, just for this emergency.”
“Obviously,” Gunter said. “Once we get the mob off our backs, it’s business as usual.”
“We should enter into a formal agreement,” Charlie said. “Otherwise we’ll constantly have to worry about double crosses.”
“I wouldn’t worry about double crosses,” Gunter said. “You can hardly manage a cross, much less a double.”
“Whatever,” Charlie said. “I’ll write it. My mom makes ironclad agreements—I’ve heard about a million of them over dinner.” He turned his paper to the blank side and wrote:
The parties to this agreement, hereafter known as Pennypacker and Hwang, agree to cooperate to save their lives. This cooperation shall consist of: sharing information, making plans, and conducting operations. This agreement prohibits: double crosses, saving only yourself, and stupid competitions that have nothing to do with the mob. The term of the agreement is from this day, August 18, to the day it is acknowledged by both parties that their lives are no longer in danger. They will then return to their natural state of disagreement about everything on the planet.
Charlie signed it and passed it to Gunter. Gunter read it over and tried to haggle over the legality of the language, but Mrs. Pennypacker was a lawyer and Gunter’s parents owned a car dealership, so he didn’t get very far. The only edit Charlie made was to add “forthwith” after “everything on the planet.”
“Now,” Charlie said, “we have to come up with a plan.”
* * *
By the time the boat had approached the harbor at Nassau, he and Gunter had settled on the most likely thing to do first. They would get on the Wi-Fi at McDonald’s and see if they could find out anything about the captain. Maybe they could discover a clue about what he did to get in deep with the mob. While they were at it, they would also Google “one weird trick to outwit the Mafia” and “staying alive when the Mafia wants you dead” and “little known secrets for evading the mob.” Charlie made sure his phone was charged, as Gunter’s had been smashed when Cankelton had thrown his bag over the rails.
It was dusk, and the lights of Nassau began to switch on, forming long slivers of silver-blu
e reflection on the water. Charlie had expected it to be a small town, but it looked as busy as New York. They had stopped at a fueling station to fill up the tanks and now they were headed to the Seaview Marina, where they would dock for the night.
The Aladdin’s Dream passed under the shadow of two cruise ships, and Charlie felt as though he were looking up at skyscrapers. He felt a pang of disappointment. They should be on one of those ships right now. Charlie should be exhausted from the AquaDuck and buffet-dining on shrimp and orange sodas. Instead, he’d get a taxi to McDonald’s with Gunter Hwang and use the Wi-Fi to try to save themselves from the mob. Even getting a taxi might be wishful thinking. For all he knew, his dad might have gotten hold of a bus schedule.
At least scrambling for information on the Wi-Fi would distract Gunter from noticing the rules for ordering at McDonald’s. The Pennypackers did not supersize, but they were free to refill sodas, and pocketing extra salt and pepper packets was encouraged. Sometimes, his dad even brought a couple of ziplock bags to fill with take-home ketchup, straws, and napkins.
Charlie could see the sign for the marina straight ahead. There was a long dock and a row of slips, some with boats in them and some empty.
Gunter grabbed Charlie’s arm and pulled him down to a crouch below the rail. “There they are again.”
“Where?” Charlie asked.
“Right there,” Gunter said, pointing.
Charlie squinted. Gunter was right. The men had been standing behind some kind of shed. Now they had stepped out and were marching down the dock to meet the incoming boat. They must have guessed the captain would overnight in Nassau. The Aladdin’s Dream was a sitting duck.
The boat, which had been idling forward, suddenly jerked back. Charlie crashed to the deck.
“The captain has spotted them,” Gunter whispered.
Charlie glared up at him from the floor, “You think so?”
The boat throttled into reverse and began backing out of the harbor.
“Wisner,” one of the men shouted from the end of the dock, “We WILL catch up to you! We always do. Nobody escapes our net!”
Captain Wisner turned the boat around. Charlie scrambled up and ran with Gunter to the stern.
The men jumped onto a small inflatable dinghy. One of them yanked the starter and the other threw off the rope attached to the dock. The dinghy roared to life and took off, heading toward the Aladdin’s Dream.
“What are they going to do?” Gunter asked. “Try to board us like pirates?”
“If they catch up to us,” Charlie said, looking around for a weapon, “we’ll have to fight them off. We can’t let them board or it’s over.”
“We’ll hit them with deck chairs,” Gunter answered.
The Aladdin’s Dream pulled farther ahead of the dinghy.
One of the men in the dinghy shouted, but not at the Aladdin’s Dream. He was wildly pointing at an incoming cruise ship.
The dinghy disappeared behind a Princess Cruise liner.
The boys silently watched the mammoth ship pass by.
“Do you suppose they got run over?” Gunter said hopefully.
Charlie crossed his fingers as the Princess Cruise ship slowly continued on its way to port.
The ship passed the spot where the men had been. Charlie squinted. The dinghy popped up and bounced on the waves of the ship’s wake.
The arms of two suit jackets emerged over the side of the rubber boat and the men appeared. They clutched at each other as they rode up and over the waves.
Charlie sighed. “They got wet, but they didn’t get run over.”
“They’re probably enraged,” Gunter said.
“At least we’ve gotten away from them. For now,” Charlie said.
“For now.”
Charlie’s dad staggered up the stairs. “What was that,” he asked. “Why did we jerk around like that? Why are we heading away from Nassau?”
“Uh,” Charlie mumbled, “I’m not sure.”
As the boat plunged into darkness and the lights of Nassau grew distant, Charlie heard the loudspeaker crackle.
“Sorry about that!” the captain said in his usual overly cheerful voice. “Sadly folks, we’ve just been informed that Nassau is experiencing an outbreak of cholera. We will want to stay well clear of that fiasco! Nothing ruins a vacation faster than fighting over the bathroom, running out of toilet paper, and writhing in agony. Could those bigger cruise ships do an about-face so fast? No, they could not. But here on Wisney Cruises, when I hear cholera, I throw this boat in reverse and get my guests the heck out of there. I hear waterborne disease and I say, I won’t stand for it!”
There was a long silence, as if the captain was allowing the idea of fighting over the bathroom and running out of toilet paper to sink in. Then he said, “Folks, all this schedule change means is that we shall arrive at Eleuthera, which is cholera-free, sooner than expected. We’ll go full speed ahead and drift outside the island’s reef until daylight. The moment, the very instant I can see where I’m going and not crash us into razor-sharp coral, we are cruising straight for the closest dock. Now, Chef Mickey will be heading down to the galley to whip up one of his astounding dinners. Remember when you’re eating that astounding dinner that you’ll be able to keep it down because you don’t have cholera. Bon appétit!”
“Cholera?” his dad said. “That is a serious disease. And with Olive only six, what might have happened if I had laid out the extra money for a real Disney cruise? We’d be heading straight for disaster. Well! I’d better get downstairs and discuss this with your mother. Congratulations to me will be in order.”
Mr. Pennypacker practically skipped to the stairs.
“No getting on the Wi-Fi at McDonalds, so that plan is out,” Gunter said.
“If we can’t find out about the captain on the internet, we’ll have to interrogate him. We have to know exactly what he did to get the mob on his tail in the first place,” Charlie said.
“The captain loves to answer questions, just not the ones you asked,” Gunter said, snorting. “You’ll be off the bridge before you know it, none the wiser. He’s told me how deep the ocean is at least ten times over the years, including yesterday.”
“Wait,” Charlie said, “you went to talk to him?”
“So what if I did?” Gunter asked. “I’ve known him longer than you have and I guess I don’t have to report my every move to you. There are a lot of things I do that you don’t know anything about.”
“We signed an agreement,” Charlie said.
“It was before the agreement,” Gunter said.
“I went to talk to him before the agreement, too,” Charlie admitted.
“What is a knot?” Gunter mimicked. “Are sharks dangerous? How far are we from Miami?”
“Exactly!” Charlie said.
“He’s a crafty old codger,” Gunter said. “We might be able to crack him, but I’d need a good cop.”
“What?”
“I’d need a good cop for my bad cop. That’s how the coppers get people to admit their crimes. One guy is all mean and then the other guy pretends he wants to help but he can’t unless he knows the truth.”
“Why shouldn’t I be the bad cop and you be the good cop?”
“Now you’re just stretching all the limits of reality,” Gunter said. “You can’t be a convincing bad cop. I’m the only one that can look like I’ve gone rogue.”
Charlie didn’t see why Gunter seemed proud of that fact, but he couldn’t really argue against it.
“When should we talk to him?” Charlie asked.
“How about now?”
Chapter Eight
Captain Wisner was leaning back in his chair, just like Charlie had last left him, except without the cup of coffee. As far as Charlie could tell, driving a boat was mainly just sitting around, putting it on autopilot and then occasionally throwing it into reverse when you noticed the Mafia waiting for you.
Gunter had silently crept in behind the captain. He
leaned close to his ear and whispered, “We have a few questions for you, Captain Wisner.”
The captain jumped, and Charlie stepped onto the bridge. “That’s right,” he said. “Just a few friendly questions.”
“My questions might not be that friendly,” Gunter said.
“That guy,” Charlie said, hooking a thumb at Gunter, “has gone totally rogue. But I’m different. All I want to do is help you to help yourself. Which I can do if I know the truth.”
“I may be inclined to get at the truth in a more sinister way,” Gunter said darkly.
“Look at you,” the captain cried. “Two friends! Well of course it’s the most natural thing in the world for two boys of the same age to strike up a friendship.”
“We’re not friends,” Gunter said.
“Not friends,” Charlie confirmed.
The captain looked puzzled, but quickly recovered himself. “Not friends it is, then! And yes, I can see you want answers. Hold on to your hats, here they come: Looking for a very deep swimming pool? The Bahamas are home to a blue hole six hundred and sixty-three feet deep. Fancy a stop at Cat Island? If you went for the cats, prepare for disappointment. The island was named for pirate Arthur Catt. Still wondering about cholera? It’s a bacterial disease. Millions of cases every year. Good sanitation is the key to prevention. Those sharks that were so interested in sandwiches? Blacktip reef sharks. They’re known as somewhat retiring, personality-wise. But then, throw some sandwiches in the water and look what happens.
“Captain,” Gunter said, interrupting his torrent of answers to questions nobody asked.
Captain Wisner leaned forward and pressed a button. A loud bell echoed throughout the ship. “Dinner gong!” the captain cried. “Off you go. Don’t keep Chef Mickey waiting.” Captain Wisner hustled them to the door and shoved them out. “Chefs are notoriously temperamental, you know. They say cooking is an art form. True? Not true? A question for the ages!”
Captain Wisner slammed the door shut, turned the lock, and pulled down the shade.
