Ruby Redfort 1 - Look Into My Eyes (15 page)

IT WAS NICE TO BE BACK ON A BIKE AGAIN,
and Lopez’s bike, although a good deal too big, was a pretty deluxe one. It was fast and light and Ruby seemed to be gliding along speedily with little effort, which was lucky since it was beginning to get dark and the bike had no lights. She was just making her way up the steep hill — a deserted stretch of road — which connected East Twinford to West Twinford, when she started to feel the unpleasant sensation of a deflating back tire.

Oh geez, that’s all I need!
She hopped off the bike and surveyed the flat. There was no way of fixing it; she was going to have to walk home, and it was a long way. To make matters just that much more miserable, it began to gently drizzle.

Fabulous, just fabulous.

A few cars passed her as she trudged up the hill — some of them slowed down but none of them stopped. She didn’t want them to either, not unless it was someone she knew, someone she could count on. By now it was pitch black. There were a few streetlights but this was the industrial part of town and the mostly abandoned warehouses were unlit. The drizzle had become rain, real drenching rain.

Ruby thought about her own bike with its sturdy, heavy-duty, all-terrain tires — speed was all very well but given the choice she would take reliability any day.

Darn it!

She was so busy cursing and complaining to herself that she didn’t at first sense the car behind her. She had vaguely heard it in the far distance as it approached the hill, its gears shifting down as it began to climb. But what she hadn’t noticed was the sound of the engine slowing to almost walking pace; not overtaking, just following. Puddles were beginning to form on the road, and her feet were soaking wet. The lace of her left sneaker had come undone, and she bent to tie it. It was sodden and her fingers were cold, unable to get a proper grip. She made an ugly knot and stuffed the ends into her shoe.

And that’s when she really became aware of the car.

Still crouching, she turned her head; the headlights were on full beam and she held her hand in front of her eyes to protect them from the glare. The car was moving very slowly toward her but she was unable to make out the driver’s face. Ruby’s mind began to weigh the options — friend or foe? What kindly stranger would be so stupid as to shine their lights in a person’s face and edge nearer to them in this creepy way?

Foe, it had to be.

Panic took hold and Ruby, stumbling to her feet, began to run. She felt the rough stones beneath her soles and heard the sloshing of her shoes in puddles, but mostly she was aware of the thumping of her heart and the single thought that was echoing in her brain:
how could you be so dumb?

She quickly turned to check on the car, stumbled, and went sprawling onto the road. The car stopped. Through the dazzle of the headlights she saw the door open and the black shape of a figure step out. A man. He paused, faceless behind the light, and then he moved, stepping steadily toward her.
Tap, tap
went his shoes on the shiny wet asphalt.
Thump, thump
went Ruby’s uncertain heart. She held her breath, her hands unable to make a fist . . . she felt around for some stone or stick, some inadequate weapon to fend off who knew what. The man leaned down toward her, she could smell his cologne.

“When are you going to start paying attention, kid?”

“Hitch?” croaked Ruby. “That you?”

“You better believe it, buster,” came the reply.

THE JOURNEY BACK WAS NOT A PLEASANT ONE.
Hitch wasn’t mad. He didn’t need to be — Ruby was far too mad at herself already. She was, however, relieved — relieved to be sitting in a nice warm car and not to be in the hands of some mad murderous crazy type. Not that there were
a lot
of those around, but you never could be quite sure and with Ruby’s luck lately, she felt the odds of meeting a mad murderous crazy type were high.

Hitch drove in near silence while Ruby mumbled on. Every now and then he would raise an eyebrow or nod in agreement but he never bothered to say, “I told you so.”

He didn’t have to.

When they got back to Cedarwood Drive, Ruby slumped down at the breakfast bar while Hitch unloaded Lopez’s bike from the trunk. When he came in he said, “Look, kid, maybe part of this is my fault, I accept that. I’ve been kinda ribbing you and talking down to you — so maybe you and I need to start over?”

Ruby was astonished — it was the very last thing she was expecting.

“Yeah well,” she said. “I guess I should have listened but I just like to be independent, you know what I mean?”

Hitch nodded. “OK, so how about you get yourself to and from Maverick Street but on
your own bike
and on the condition that you attach this tracker device to the handlebars.” He took out a small, round, orange metal thing that looked exactly like a bicycle bell. “The first sign of anything suspicious, you press the green button in the middle and I’ll find you.”

It seemed like a pretty fair deal. “Sure, I can do that.”

“One other condition,” continued Hitch. “If someone ever does tail you, someone meaning someone relating to the work you are doing, someone who’s figured out what you are up to, then we have to pull the plug — no more code cracking.”

“OK.” Ruby nodded reluctantly. “I guess I can live with that.” She had no choice other than to agree. But in any case she was determined that no one was ever going to tail her.

On Saturday morning Ruby pulled on her jeans and a T-shirt that simply said,
help is at hand.
She looked out the window. Mrs. Gruber was walking her cat, as she always did in the morning. Apart from that, there wasn’t a whole lot of action. She went downstairs, scratched Bug behind the ears, grabbed her bike, and rode to Maverick Street. Halfway there she got, well, not so much a strange feeling, as an
uneasy
one. She had no idea why but she sort of felt as if a pair of eyes was watching her every move.

Getting edgy, Rube, that’s not good.
RULE 76: STAY ALERT BUT DON’T EVER GET EDGY.

But she couldn’t shake the feeling that something bad was going to happen. This feeling was justified when she arrived and the door was opened by none other than Froghorn — the Silent G.

“Oh, look, it’s the wonder kid.” He tapped his watch. “You’re late.”

Ruby’s smile faded. “I’ve been missing you too. Where’s Agent Blacker?”

“He might be in later but right now I’m the lucky babysitter.”

Ruby gave him her best Ruby Redfort bozo-look. “So where’s the baby? Don’t tell me you lost it already?”

Froghorn extended his index finger and jabbed it in her direction. “You think you’re the cat’s pajamas, right?” he hissed. “Well, let me tell you, I’m in charge, so you better toe the line, little girl. You already got me in trouble once by riding home on your own. But I’ve got my eye on you now, and not much gets by me.”

“Oh, brother!” muttered Ruby.

There was no jelly donut on her desk today, and there would be no helpful conversation, let alone convivial chitchat, to speed up the work.

Ruby picked up where she had left off and started to read Lopez’s notes.

She saw the way Lopez had put everything together, piece by piece. She had put the decoded messages in some sort of order so that they made a kind of conversation. It was easy to see what it all meant when you were looking at the whole picture. Just knowing any one piece wasn’t enough — it meant nothing. It occurred to her that this whole thing was cleverer than it looked; Lopez had seen that only the person masterminding the bank heist had actually known what the whole plan was. Each gang member had their piece of the plan, but that was all.

Smart,
thought Ruby,
very smart
.
Now that’s what I call keeping a secret.

Froghorn walked into the room. “There’s a sandwich if you’re hungry — hope you like liverwurst. I don’t, so I took the egg.”

Jeepers,
thought Ruby,
remind me never to recommend your charm school
.

Ruby sniffed at her lunch and cautiously took a bite. It wasn’t great but she had eaten worse.

She had almost worked her way to the very end of the very last file. There was another clipping which she translated as:

That was it, nothing else.

Ruby had reached the end — but what did she know? Not as much as Lopez, that was for sure. She wished she could talk it all over — get a different perspective — but there was no use trying to talk to old Froghorn.

She looked around the dingy office. She could hear him talking on the phone. He barely took a breath, and Ruby began to wonder how Lopez could have stood this. Day in, day out, sitting in an office chair trying to figure out things that might in the end lead nowhere — what kind of life was that? A lonely one.

She caught her reflection in the glass of the adjoining door. She looked at the words of her T-shirt,
help is at hand.
She tore off a piece of packaging tape and stuck it over
is at hand
so the shirt now simply read,
help.

And then, like a miracle, Blacker walked in.

He looked at her. “Did you get into a fight with the tape or are you sending some sort of SOS?”

Ruby kind of smiled. “Well, let’s put it this way, your timely arrival may have prevented a major felony.”

He motioned toward the little office where Froghorn was working. “You two not hitting it off?”

“Oh, me and Froghorn, we are getting along like cats and dogs — couldn’t be better.”

“Yeah, well, he’s an acquired taste, that’s for sure.” Blacker handed her a donut. “So I’m guessing you’ve cracked the case.”

“Yeah, yeah, very funny. I got as far as the fountain. Did you ever work out where it was?”

“’Fraid not, there must be more than a hundred fountains in the area. We knew it was likely to be in a town, ’cause most fountains are, but which town is what we couldn’t figure out.”

“So you didn’t follow it up?”

“No way we could. Anyway, Lopez was feeling kinda itchy, couldn’t sit still. It was bugging her that we couldn’t work out who these people were — we’d sorta reached a dead end. We went and got a drink at Blinky’s bar and then at around four I dropped her off at that fancy salon off of Twinford Square — she was always in there getting her hair manicured or whatever — never a nail out of place!”

“That’s not how I pictured her,” said Ruby. “I guess I thought she might be kinda dowdy.”

“Dowdy, oh no, not Lopez. Always looked like two-and-a quarter million dollars, always perfect — well, apart from the week before she went away of course.”

“How do ya mean?” asked Ruby.

“The day after I dropped her off at the salon, she came into work with only half a manicure.”

“Did you ask her why?”

“Who am I to comment?” said Blacker, pointing at his dirty fingernails. “A person wants to go about with nail polish on one hand but not the other, that’s up to them. But something wasn’t right — she was distracted.”

Ruby thought about this. “I bet you miss her, huh?”

“Yeah, I miss her all right. She was one nice person.” He paused before saying, “I’ve just packed up the things she had with her when she died — got to mail them back to her family.” He pointed to a small box, high up on the shelf by the door. “Doesn’t look like much, does it?”

Ruby could only agree.

Blacker said good-bye and wished her luck. “Maybe I’ll see you on Monday, Ruby. Just keep thinking. I know you’ll get there.”

But Ruby wasn’t so sure. She had been looking forward to the challenge of finding the missing link, the final piece, but three-and-a-quarter hours later she had found exactly zip.

Back at Cedarwood Drive, Ruby went downstairs to find Hitch, who was sitting in his small but comfortable apartment, listening to music and reading some papers.

He looked up. “Hey, kid, long time no see. How’s the world of crime?”

“Oh, you know, full of criminals.”

“But no one’s been tailing you? No strange or uneasy feelings, I trust?”

“No,” said Ruby. “No strange feelings.” She decided to keep the uneasy ones to herself.

“Know anything we don’t know?”

She paused for a second, but, realizing she had nothing to say, she shook her head. “Afraid not.”

“That’s a shame,” sighed Hitch. “We were all kind of counting on you.”

“There’s still time though,” said Ruby. “I mean, LB didn’t give me a deadline.”

“She never does,” said Hitch. “Likes to keep everyone on their toes. Yep, you could have hours before she fires you. Let’s keep our fingers crossed.”