Notorious, p.16
Notorious, page 16
I point to the stained-glass window. “You see the clear center of that flower? There’s a moment every afternoon where the sun shines through there and the beam gets focused on that place on the carpet. It’s pretty cool. I used to watch for it when I was little. The exact timing must have been slightly different from day to day, depending on the position of the sun. But I always remember it happening pretty soon after I got home from school. Anyway, over the years, that dot on the rug got faded out.”
“I’m not talking about the dot,” Keenan tells me. “How come all the other carpets are positioned at random, but this one has its own special place sunken into the floor?”
I stare. How come I never noticed that before? I lift up the corner. Sure enough, a master carpenter has built a rectangular framed recess so that the top of the rug is exactly level with the floor around it. No wonder the faded spot is so precise. The carpet never moves, so the beam of sunlight always strikes it at exactly the same point.
I squat down beside Keenan. “There has to be something under it.”
Together, we lift the carpet out of the recess and gaze down at the wood underneath it.
It looks like a trapdoor. But it isn’t.
We try to pry it open. It won’t budge. We knock to see if it’s hollow. No dice. It turns out to be exactly what it appears to be: a section of hardwood half an inch lower than the rest of the floor.
“Sorry, Keenan,” I mumble. “I really thought we’d found something.”
Defeated, he picks up the rug to replace it. But he pauses and holds it up for closer examination. “I know this,” he murmurs, half under his breath. “This is familiar.”
“Just a carpet,” I tell him, still smarting with disappointment.
“No—” He gets up and crosses the living room, holding the carpet in front of him. Carefully he places the rectangular piece corner to corner against the antique map on the wall. It’s a perfect fit.
I don’t get it. “So they’re the same size. So what?”
Keenan tosses the carpet aside. “We both looked for an X marks the spot and came up empty,” he explains breathlessly. “But what if our X isn’t drawn by a pencil or a pen.”
When I realize what he’s saying, my heart jumps into my throat. “I don’t know if we can take the map out of the frame. It’s over a hundred years old. If it crumbles, my folks will kill me.”
He looks super tense. “It’s your call, ZeeBee. But if we don’t try it, we’ll never know.”
That does it for me. We have to know. “For Barney,” I say.
Keeping an ear out for my parents’ footsteps on the basement stairs, we unhook the frame from the wall and set it facedown on the floor. It’s a delicate operation—and not just because the antique map is probably fragile. The last thing we need is for a huge chunk of cracked glass to break loose and shatter on the floor.
Keenan removes the backing to reveal the parchment, ancient and yellowed. I touch it with my forefinger. It doesn’t disintegrate. That’s a good sign. As gently as I can, I pick at the top right corner, separating the map from the glass. The paper feels brittle, but it holds together, and comes away in one piece.
I look at Keenan. He avoids my eyes, his gaze focused on the task at hand. There’s a line of sweat across his forehead and I bet I’ve got a matching one. Slowly—agonizingly slowly—I draw the parchment out of the frame and hold it up. My arms are almost at full extension, and I have to will my hands not to tremble. Keenan takes over one side, and together we’re able to turn the map around so we’re facing the printed side.
In lockstep, we carry the parchment over to the recess in the living room floor and lower it gently inside. The fit is perfect. There’s no question that the space was custom made exactly for this map—either that, or it’s the greatest coincidence in the history of home building.
We’re both panting with exertion, like we’ve just moved a hundred-pound slab of granite, not a feather-light square of paper.
“Now what?” he asks.
“We wait.” I consult the clock on the wall. A little after four. “I’d still be on the ferry right now. I don’t think we’ve missed it.”
So we sit there, cross-legged, on the hardwood floor, barely daring to breathe. I’ve got one eye on the stained-glass window, the other on the basement stairs. How I would explain this to my parents I have no idea. It’s called map-staring, Mum and Dad. It’s the latest craze. All the kids are doing it these days. Luckily, there’s still plenty of mess in the basement to keep the folks occupied down there. And we don’t have to explain ourselves to Barney Two, who’s hunkered down beside us, watching the map as if he understands what’s going on. (Believe me, he understands less than nothing.)
Fifteen minutes go by. Then half an hour. “Could I be remembering wrong?” I fret.
“Shhh!” Keenan warns. Like I’m jinxing us.
Barney Two spots it a split second before we do and barks one short yap.
The late-afternoon sun arcs into exactly the right position and its rays find the stained-glass window of our house. The clear center of the flower concentrates the light into a narrow beam like a laser. Outlined by swirling dust particles, it crosses the living room and bears down on the map framed on the floor.
Keenan is triumphant. “There it is, ZeeBee!”
Just as it faded a dot into that carpet square, the focused beam projects a tiny point onto the old parchment.
Trembling with anticipation, I lean closer to it. The light is focused on a spot south of Centrelight in the St. Clair River. “Wait—why would Tommy-Gun Ferguson hide his gold in the middle of the river?”
“Huh?” Quickly, Keenan picks up the map and reverses it in the rectangular space. Now the beam falls squarely on the north end of the island, right along the Canada-U.S. border, just beyond the lighthouse.
His voice is hushed with wonder. “X marks the spot!”
“I can’t believe it,” I whisper. Even though this is what we’ve been looking for, now that it’s in front of us, it doesn’t seem real.
Keenan produces his phone and snaps pictures of the map with its secret dot. I do the same as a backup in case his don’t come out.
I’m so lost in wonder that I almost don’t notice the footsteps on the basement stairs.
“My folks!” I hiss.
Remember the gentleness we used to get the map from its frame to the spot on the floor? Well, we trade all that for speed when we reverse the process. We’re still hanging it up when Mum and Dad appear at the top of the landing, laden with stuffed garbage bags.
“We were trying to get the broken glass out,” I explain. “But we were afraid to damage the map.”
It sounds like the lamest thing in the world, but they buy it. Either that, or there’s so much on their minds that they don’t notice.
Keenan and I go up to the cupola to discuss our next move. The exhilaration of our momentous discovery is starting to falter, to be replaced by the practical question: What now? Even though we started out this morning with the goal of learning the secret location of Tommy-Gun’s gold, neither of us actually expected to pull it off. So whatever plan we might have started out with, we’re way past that now.
Sitting on the hard floor, since there’s no more beanbag chair, we scroll through the photographs on our phones. It’s all there: the map; the dot. We didn’t imagine any of it.
“Okay, we found it,” I say. “But how do we know the burglar didn’t find it too?”
“Impossible,” he decides. “The burglar was there at night, when there was no sun. Besides, why trash a whole house if you’ve already got what you’re looking for?”
“So—” My words are quiet but they seem to echo as I wrap my brain around their meaning. “—millions of dollars’ worth of gold are stashed somewhere out past the lighthouse and we’re the only people who know where?”
“Unless somebody else got there first,” he agrees. “It’s been a long time since Tommy-Gun put it there.” He takes a deep breath. “There’s only one way to find out.”
As soon as he says it, I know what has to be done. I knew it the moment that beam of light kissed the parchment of the map.
I’ll never be able to bring my Barney back. But if his killer was after this gold, there is one way to make that person suffer.
By beating him to it.
26
Keenan
I’ve picked up a few choice skills in the course of my travels around the world. I can decode the colored spaghetti of a big city subway map in no time, navigate any airport like a pro, and can ask directions to a train station or a bathroom in seven different languages. I learned jai alai in Peru, Celtic dance in Ireland, and tae kwon do in Korea—although I still haven’t gotten back to my old high-kicking level. I learned how to crack open a coconut using nothing but my bare hands, and maybe a rock if there’s one handy.
The one skill I never mastered—something I never dreamed I’d need—is the ability to ride a bike while balancing a shovel on my lap. Dad’s only shovel is the old-fashioned kind, with a heavy wooden handle and a scoop that’s solid steel. Every time I pedal, the thing threatens to overbalance and put me in the ditch. The worst part is it’s after midnight, and there’s very little moon. So I won’t even see the ditch until it eats me.
Somehow, I manage to make it to ZeeBee’s house without killing myself or losing the shovel. I wait, shivering inside my jacket. The night isn’t that cold, but riding a bike automatically deducts thirty degrees from the temperature. What feels like a light breeze is suddenly an arctic gale blowing in from the North Pole.
Stopped in the cover of the bushes just beyond the Tices’ driveway, I check the time on my phone: 12:18. ZeeBee’s late. From the moment we put this plan together, I agonized over every tiny detail that could go wrong. Except one: It never crossed my mind that ZeeBee might not show up. But now, faced with the reality, it makes perfect sense. Their house was just burglarized, their possessions trashed. It stands to reason that they’re not relaxed and ready to get a good night’s sleep. For all I know, Officer Tice is going to pull an all-nighter in the living room, watching for intruders. How will ZeeBee sneak out then?
I’m so lost in worst-case scenarios that when a hand closes on my wrist, I have to smother a terrified scream.
“I thought they’d never go to sleep,” ZeeBee tells me in a low voice.
I adjust my shovel and try to pretend I wasn’t about to swing it at her. “Way to sneak up on a guy!” I complain.
“Nice shovel,” she approves. “Old-school, like mine. I think it might have been Tommy-Gun’s. That would be cool—digging up his gold with the very same shovel he buried it with.”
“If we find anything at all,” I remind her grimly.
As we mount our bikes, I hear a rustling in the leaves behind us. “What was that?” I wheeze, terrified.
Barney Two bursts out of the bushes and runs up to ZeeBee.
“Oh no, you don’t,” she tells him. “This mission is going to be hard enough without having to worry about you.”
Either the spaniel doesn’t get the message or he refuses to accept it. He positions himself by her front tire, raring to go.
ZeeBee dismounts and grabs him by the collar. “No way, buster. You’re going back in the house.”
“I don’t know, ZeeBee,” I say. “Maybe it’s a good idea to have a watchdog with us.”
“Yeah, well, if you find one, let me know.” She starts to lead him up the path.
“Cut it out,” I snap. “I’m sick of you putting this little guy down. He can’t help the fact that he isn’t Barney One. All he wants is to be with you. And if we don’t let him, he might kick up a fuss and wake your folks.”
That does it for ZeeBee. “Fine, he’ll be our ‘watchdog.’” She makes air quotes with her fingers.
She gets back on her bike and rides off to the north, Barney Two running at her side. Now not only is she annoyed with the dog; she’s annoyed with me. Not exactly the smooth start I was hoping for.
I can’t speak for ZeeBee’s technique opening coconuts, but she’s a lot better than I am at riding a bike while carrying a shovel. I have to pedal like crazy to keep up. It’s more than pride that prevents me from falling behind. It’s so dark that if I lose her, I might never find her again. I keep my eyes locked on the faint red glimmer of the reflector on the back of her bike seat.
Centerlight was pretty deserted during my last late-night lighthouse ride, after Ronnie’s get-together. This is later still, and the island is absolutely dead. We don’t see a single pedestrian or car, even when we cut through the north side of downtown. Shanghai is open twenty-four hours, and even the smaller schools Mom and Klaus have taught at are in pretty big cities. The darkness only exaggerates my sense of being alone in the universe. It’s an eerie feeling, creepy almost. I keep reminding myself that it’s better this way. We’re going after a fortune in gold. That much money attracts the attention of ruthless people—the kind of people who don’t think twice about breaking into a house or poisoning a dog.
Of course, there’s no guarantee we’re actually going to find anything. That beam of light projecting its point onto the map—it seemed so definite, so obvious eight hours ago. But when you’re riding through the middle of nowhere in the pitch black, a cold wind blasting you out of your seat while a ten-ton shovel batters your knees, it feels like the height of crazy. Gangster treasure? What are we thinking? And as easy as it would be to blame ZeeBee, tonight is at least 60 percent my idea.
We’ve been pedaling for about twenty minutes when the pavement gives way to dirt road. This must be the path that leads out to the lighthouse. It’s a good thing ZeeBee found it, because I lost my bearings as soon as we left downtown. The rough surface slows ZeeBee down and I’m finally able to pull even with her and Barney Two.
“You okay?” I call.
“Of course I am.”
She sounds determined, but there’s nervousness in her voice as well. Good. I’m not the only one.
Soon the flash of the lighthouse plays across the treetops and the old building looms ahead of us. A few minutes later, we’re in the clearing, resting our bikes against the stone base. Barney Two is panting, but he looks up questioningly, game for any adventure.
“What are you so gung ho about, birdbrain?” ZeeBee mutters at him.
He wags his tail happily.
I take out my phone and call up the map photo. The sunbeam hit the parchment almost exactly an inch and three-quarters from the lighthouse. There’s no scale printed on the map. But based on the dimensions of the island, we calculated that our destination should be about 325 feet from here in a path somewhere between east-southeast and due east.
I switch my phone to compass mode and we set off in that direction, shovels over our shoulders. Barney Two bounces enthusiastically at our feet.
“How do we know how far to go?” ZeeBee asks.
“We’ll count,” I reply. “A short step where my heel comes down about two inches ahead of my toe is almost exactly a foot.”
She frowns. “Not very exact.”
I shrug. “Neither is your stained-glass window. But if we can get ourselves between ten and fifteen feet of the right place, we should be good. We’ve got all night to dig.”
By step number thirty, we’re into the woods. Almost immediately, maintaining our direction becomes a problem, because trees and underbrush are everywhere, mostly in our way. The compass keeps us on track, and between the two of us, we maintain the count.
“Fifty-two . . . fifty-three . . .”
Barney Two yaps along with us, as if he’s counting.
Another problem: The farther we get from the lighthouse, the more we’re affected by its powerful beacon. Each flash turns night into day, momentarily blinding us. Our progress slows to a crawl.
“Sixty-five . . . sixty-six . . .”
A worried whimper comes from Barney Two, one that turns into a little growl.
“What are you complaining about?” ZeeBee grumbles at him. “Nobody gave you a shovel to carry.”
Then it happens. The next explosion of light outlines two figures directly in our path.
ZeeBee clamps on to my arm in a death grip and I take a step back.
Another flash, and the figures are even closer, two silhouettes, arms raised menacingly, clawlike fingers reaching for us. Barney Two buries his face in ZeeBee’s shoes.
Terror rips through me. These must be the burglars who trashed the Tice home! They’ve been watching the place ever since, and have followed us here in the hope that we’ll lead them to the gold!
“Who are you?” ZeeBee shouts defiantly as the figures disappear into blackness once again. “What do you want?”
The reply is a burst of evil cackling laughter. I’m about to grab ZeeBee and run for our lives, but something stops me. The laughter—it sounds kind of familiar.
The beacon lights up again, and there they are, standing directly in front of us—Ronnie and Joey, falling all over each other with hilarity.
“Classic!” Ronnie whoops. “Absolutely classic! You should have seen the looks on your faces!”
“I hope you brought a change of underwear!” Joey adds, barely able to speak.
ZeeBee starts to swing at him with her shovel, but I stop her just in time.
“You idiots!” I rage at the newcomers. “What are you doing out here in the middle of the night?”
“What are we doing here?” Joey retorts. “What are you doing here?”
“None of your business!” ZeeBee hisses.
“In case you’ve forgotten, sweetie,” Ronnie drawls at me, “we come out here all the time. We like to cut loose every now and then, unlike a certain boring person who used to be cool.”
Joey reaches into a paper bag and comes up with a thick tangle of red firecrackers all strung together. “I was going to set these off in church, but Father Pat said find someplace else. That’s why we’re here. What’s your excuse—and why the shovels?”
Now that my heart is back to its normal rhythm, I can think a little more clearly. Unlucky as it is to run into Ronnie and Joey, things could be a lot worse. Nobody followed us; we’re not in any danger; and we’re still on the trail of Tommy-Gun’s gold. I even remember what step we’re at: sixty-six—or maybe sixty-five; I might have jumped back a little when they startled me. It does us no good to fight with these two doofuses. We have to make peace, let them have their fun, and get back to our search.
