The Prisoner of Snowflake Falls

by John Lekich

  Harley looked very happy in all the pictures. After a while, he noticed that I was looking at them. “That’s my wife Vivian,” he said. “Everybody in town loved her, and she loved every last dumb hick in this town.” He coughed dryly. “I still don’t know what the hell she saw in me.”

  “Maybe she liked the way you sang,” I said.

  “Don’t sass me, kid. If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s sass from a juvenile delinquent.” I was going to tell him that I didn’t mean to be disrespectful when he asked, “Can you read?”

  I figured it was best to keep my answers short. So all I said was, “Yes.”

  My major duty was to read to him from a thirty-volume series of leather-bound books entitled The Universal Library of Immortal Literature. Harley Howard explained that the books had been a gift from Vivian. “Before Vivian passed away, I made her a solemn promise that I would read every single volume,” he said. “Vivian felt that I was basically an overgrown kid with no taste for refinement or culture whatsoever.”

  Harley Howard blew a perfect smoke ring with his cigar. “She was right, of course,” he added. And then, as the smoke ring disappeared wistfully into the air, he said, “She was right about everything.”

  “I’m sorry she died,” I said before I could stop myself.

  “Who asked you?” snapped Harley Howard. And then he let out a deep sigh and said, “You know something? I’m not sure I want a thief hanging around my house.”

  I said, “I guess you think I’m going to rob you blind, huh?”

  Maybe you are thinking, Why would Henry say such a stupid thing? Well, for one thing, Harley Howard made me more nervous than anyone in Snowflake Falls—and that is saying a lot.

  Of course, I wanted to take the comment back as soon as I said it. But before I could apologize, Harley Howard actually laughed his walking-through-dry-leaves laugh again. “What’s that expression supposed to mean anyway?” he asked. “I mean, how can anybody but God have the power to rob a person blind?” He didn’t wait for me to answer. “Maybe God’s a thief too, eh, kid? That would explain a lot.”

  Just the way he said it, made me think of my mother. “I guess maybe it would,” I agreed.

  Maybe Harley could tell I was thinking about someone I missed because his voice got a little softer for a moment. “This town is full of people who want something from me,” he confessed. “They all think I sleep with a million dollars stuffed under my mattress.”

  “Do you?” I asked, unable to keep the sound of hope out of my voice.

  “You wish,” he said sourly. “Not that I couldn’t if I damn well felt like it.”

  “Really?” I said, getting a little excited at the thought of my number-one burglar fantasy coming true.

  I guess Harley Howard thought this was amusing. Because he just about smiled. “Did you notice that stretch limo parked in front of my house?” he asked. “It’s the sweetest ride in town. And I park it on the street so everyone can see it’s mine.” When I asked if he actually drove it, he said, “Don’t be ridiculous. Harley Howard doesn’t drive. Harley Howard gets driven.”

  I asked him how rich a guy would have to be to have his own chauffeur. “Let’s just say that I’ve lost more money through the hole in the pocket of my pants than you’ll ever see in your lifetime.” He snorted. Then he softened up again and asked, “You like money, huh, kid?”

  “Just the kind I find lying around,” I said.

  “What do you know?” he said, his voice filled with surprise. “A teenage thief with a sense of humor.” Then he got all serious on me. “Before you get any ideas, I have an excellent security system,” he warned. “Not even your devious little mind could figure it out.” He waved his cigar at me and said, “Aren’t you even a little curious about the setup?”

  “Not in the least,” I lied.

  “That’s a wagonload of bullcrap,” he said. “Right this second you’re thinking, I wonder if the old guy has sacks and sacks of money lying around the place? I wonder if his hobby is rolling around in piles of loose cash?”

  “Maybe I’m a little curious,” I confessed.

  This made Harley Howard laugh so hard he broke into a hacking cough. “Tell you what, kid,” he said. “I’ll make you a little wager. If you can break into this house without disturbing anything, I’ll owe you a favor.”

  “What kind of favor?” I asked.

  “Any kind you want. And let me tell you something else. In this town, a favor from Harley Howard is money in the bank.”

  “What’s the catch?” I asked.

  “If the alarm goes off, you become my personal slave,” he replied. “That includes cleaning out everything from the toilets to the ashtrays.”

  Personally, I was very offended at the thought of cleaning somebody’s house in any manner without having burglarized them first. “Don’t take this the wrong way,” I replied, “but I can see why nobody in this town likes you.”

  Harley Howard acted as if I had paid him a great compliment. “Make up your mind, kid,” he said, blowing another leisurely smoke ring. “Do you want money or do you want people to like you? Because, in my experience, the two things just don’t go together.”

  After that, Harley Howard requested that I read a poem called “The Charge of the Light Brigade.” As I started to read, I couldn’t help but think that Harley Howard was having a good time picturing me scrubbing his floors.

  That night, while listening to my roommate’s buzz-saw snores, I kept thinking about what the old man had said to me about making a choice between money and people. I was just about to decide that maybe money was the right choice when I thought I heard the sound of a tiny pebble against the windowpane. When I heard it again, I went to the window and opened it.

  Standing down below, were none other than Cookie Collito and Wally Whispers. At first, I thought I was dreaming. But then Wally whispered, “Don’t worry, Henry. You are not dreaming.” Naturally, I wanted to join them, but Wally said they would talk to me in the morning. While we made arrangements to meet, I asked if they knew their way around town. Cookie told me not to worry. “We’ll find you eventually,” he said. “Word on the street is that you are riding a very girly bike.”

  THIRTEEN

  In the early hours of the morning, I met Wally and Cookie on my paper route. There was an empty house on my route that was up for sale. First, we made sure nobody was watching us. Then Wally kindly offered to pick the backdoor lock. “Since this is your turf, you should rightly do the honors,” he said, shortly before we made ourselves at home in the empty kitchen. “But I do not want you tainted by any criminal activity while you are under government surveillance.”

  It turned out that Uncle Andy had been sharing my letters with his associates, so both Wally and Cookie were pretty much up to speed on my recent activities. I must say I was very glad to see them both. Naturally, I assumed they had come to take me home.

  But Wally pointed out that they were staying at the Friendly Neighbor Motel and would leave town without yours truly as soon as Snowflake Falls wore out its welcome. “I do not have a home to take you to,” apologized Wally. “Unless you count my most recent stay as a guest of the penal system.”

  Having been kicked out of his cranky cousin’s apartment, Cookie volunteered that he was also without a permanent address. Cookie said he thought it was a shame that a nice town like Snowflake Falls did not have a golf course big enough to be worthy of his talents. “I fear that I will have to look for temporary employment of an honest nature,” he said, looking very downcast.

  I asked them why they were hanging around town in the first place. “We are here at the request of your beloved uncle,” explained Wally. “Given his current lack of mobility, he wishes to confirm once and for all that you are in the proper domestic environment.”

  “Also to make doubly sure that you are not actually staying with some make-believe family who bakes invisible bread,” added Cookie, sounding very hurt that the Hendersons did
not actually exist.

  When I apologized very sincerely to Cookie for deceiving him about the Hendersons, he assured me that all was forgiven. He confessed that his return visit to Evelyn’s house had been an unexpected surprise, mostly because he encountered Evelyn. “Fortunately, I was able to improvise some story about inspecting the premises for cockroaches,” he explained. “Evelyn was deeply concerned. Until I offered my professional opinion that her house was probably not yet infested.”

  After explaining to Uncle Andy’s associates how grateful I was for their concern, I worked very hard to convey the ceaseless agony of my life in Snowflake Falls. “They are making me read as a condition of my parole,” I explained. “Plus, a dog named Popcorn keeps mistaking me for a TK deluxe bacon burger while I’m throwing newspapers into the bushes.”

  Cookie and Wally were sympathetic, but they both felt that my current imprisonment was the best thing for me. “You are getting a roof over your head and three meals a day,” said Wally. Having heard my complaints about Mrs. Wingate’s cooking, he added, “Three indigestible meals a day, but still…”

  “Also, your job as a newspaper thrower supplies you with all sorts of fresh air,” added Cookie. With this, Wally observed that I was going to be late for the rest of my paper route. He stressed that, for my own good, I should pretend they were total strangers, ones without lengthy criminal records. “We do not know each other,” said Wally. “Even though you can rest assured that this is actually not the case.”

  Knowing that I wasn’t going home with Wally and Cookie made me feel extra melancholy and homesick. Then something very strange happened. A couple of days after our meeting at the empty house, I saw Wally Whispers walking along the main drag of Snowflake Falls with Mr. McHugh. They were laughing and having a great time. Wally was saying, “No kidding? How many BLT’s do you figure you could get out of a tomato that big?” When I caught Wally’s eye, he pretended that he didn’t even know who I was.

  Things got even more interesting when I saw Cookie the following day. I was walking past Biggie’s, and there he was—wearing the bright orange smock of an official Biggie’s greeter. Naturally, I went inside to see what he was up to.

  Cookie had on a big name tag that said Hi! My name is Donny! I watched him talking to a bunch of people like they were old friends. Mrs. Halpern came up to him, and he said, “Gloria, how’s that new clock radio working out?” Then he said something I couldn’t hear, which made Mrs. Halpern exclaim, “Oh, Donny! You’re such a kidder!”

  I was so shocked that I forgot to pretend not to know who Cookie was. When I tried to talk to him, all he said was, “Howdy, stranger! Make sure you don’t get permanently injured by the avalanche of bargains here at Biggie’s!” Then—never one to resist a free offer—he abandoned his post to sample a few complimentary cocktail sausages from a nearby display.

  I guess I shouldn’t have taken it personally, but I did. For a couple of longtime associates who were supposed to be looking after me, they seemed very preoccupied with other interests. On top of my more established troubles, I found this latest development very unsettling. I guess that’s why I ended up stealing Harley Howard’s deluxe limousine just a couple of days later. I really needed to drive around a little, clear my head and organize my thoughts.

  It wasn’t like I had to hot-wire the car or anything. Harley Howard’s sweet ride was practically begging to be stolen. For one thing, the passenger side was unlocked. For another, I had discovered a set of keys inside a magnetized container that was hidden underneath one of the limo’s front wheels. It’s just like Uncle Andy always says: “Sometimes a burglar’s greatest tool is other people’s stupidity.”

  Don’t get me wrong. I would have felt embarrassed if, say, Mrs. Halpern had spied the guy who opened pickle jars for her in possession of a stolen vehicle. On the other hand, I thought I’d be reasonably safe driving around in the early morning before I started my paper route. The streets of Snowflake Falls were practically deserted, and the windows of the limo were tinted black so that nobody could see who was driving.

  I had already picked up my papers for delivery. I even had Gwenivere stashed in the trunk of Harley’s limo. I figured there was plenty of time to drive around and think before I had to worry about my deliveries.

  Of course, I wasn’t counting on how totally great it felt to be steering something that didn’t have a pink basket on the front of it. By the time I realized it was so late, I had forgotten all about the way George Dial liked to stand in his living-room window and watch me deliver papers. At first, I only noticed George out of the corner of my eye. The next thing I did was very stupid. But I just kept thinking how George enjoyed humiliating me so much and how I wanted to make him envious. So I stopped in front of his house and rolled down the window of Harley’s limo on the passenger side. When I knew he could see my face, I smiled and waved at him. Like I was just another friendly citizen of Snowflake Falls wishing him a great day. It was very gratifying to see George Dial’s mouth fall open in complete and total awe.

  My plan was to just keep going. But I was enjoying George’s reaction so much that I hung around a few seconds too long. Meanwhile, George shot like a human cannonball out his front door in bathrobe, pajamas and slippers. Before I knew it, he had a death grip on the handle of the front passenger door and was pleading with me to unlock the door. I figured that George would attract some unnecessary attention unless I let him in. So I did. And then I just kept driving.

  “Oh, man, I’m riding shotgun in old man Howard’s Rich-mobile!” said George.

  “You know this car?”

  “Everybody in town knows this car,” said George, who was practically vibrating with excitement. “You stole it, right? Don’t worry. Nobody will care. Everyone hates Harley Howard—with the possible exception of Harley.”

  “Won’t your gramma be worried about you, George?” I asked, trying to calm him down a little.

  “She won’t be up for another hour,” he replied. He turned on the radio and began to listen to six different stations for a total of three seconds each.

  “Don’t get too comfortable,” I cautioned, explaining that I still had to deliver my papers. “I’ve got to pull over and get Charlotte’s bike out of the trunk.”

  “You’re going to ride that toy-store excuse for transportation when we have genuine wheels?” shouted George.

  “The point is to help me think,” I said.

  “No,” said George. “The point is, you don’t want to be late for your meeting with Ms. Pendergast.”

  George immediately offered to help me deliver my papers on the condition that I keep driving. I figured I was already late and had nothing to lose. So I just let Speed Dial take over my delivery. At first it was a bit weird. We would drive for maybe a few seconds until we got to a subscriber’s house on the block. In fact, since the limo was so long to start with, sometimes we barely moved at all.

  This did not discourage George, who would run up the steps of each house like a scared greyhound and set a paper on the step. If there was a cluster of subscribers on the same block, he would grab an armful of papers and hurl a couple of them toward adjacent porches. He never missed a porch once.

  Not that Speed was exactly graceful or anything. Sometimes his bathrobe would loosen on the way back from a delivery and it would start billowing behind him like a flannel cape. You could see the little race cars all over his pajamas. Once in a while, he would trip over a damp garden hose, which made his slippers squish loudly along the grass.

  I don’t think anybody noticed us. Except maybe Popcorn, who was so confused to see me driving a limo that he didn’t even bark. But you know what? I was just happy that my ankle wasn’t on today’s breakfast menu. I guess that’s why we kept driving around. “There’s only one thing a cool chick likes better than a bad boy,” a thrilled George observed. “And that’s a bad boy in a hot car.”

  I could see George looking at me with newfound respect. He pointed out that�
�thanks to stealing Harley’s limo—we had finished my route in record time. “You know what I like about you?” he asked. “You have this natural ability for solving honest problems in a totally dishonest way,” he said. “Why not make that ability work for us?”

  “Us? What do you want, George?”

  “Now that you mention it, I have a little proposition for you,” he said. After pausing for dramatic effect, he said, “If you accept, I will promote you from Grease Pig. Plus, I will sweeten the deal by giving you the supereasy midnight to two-AM drive-thru shift from Friday to Sunday. Since one of our most senior employees is working the shift, your total responsibilities will fall under the category of sleeping in the cot in my office.”

  “What do I have to do?” I asked suspiciously.

  “Simple,” said George, whose eyes lit up with fiendish glee. “We are going to steal the Devil’s Dumpster.”

  I was so shocked that I had to pull over and park the limo. “The Devil’s Dumpster from the Monster Truck Extravaganza?” I exclaimed. “Why would you want to steal that?”

  “Because I want to drive the coolest vehicle on earth,” he replied. “I want to experience the joyride to end all joyrides!”

  “No way, George,” I said. “I only stole this limo to organize my thoughts.”

  I guess George could see that I was weakening. Because he moved in for the kill. “There’s something else,” he confessed, his face turning bright red. “I have a totally hopeless crush on Nat.”

  “But Nat hates you,” I observed, before I could stop myself.

  “That’s only because she hasn’t seen my cool side,” said George.

  “And how do you propose to show her your cool side?” I asked.

  “By cruising past her house in the Devil’s Dumpster,” answered George. “I promise we’ll only stick around long enough to honk at her and wave.”

  “What about Nat’s parents?” I asked. “What are they going to do when they see you drive up in a stolen vehicle?”