Sammy Keyes and the Hotel Thief (11 page)

She looks, but she can't see it and then all of a sudden she looks down at her drumstick and says, “Ooooh, yuck! This thing's melting all over me!”

Both our Double Dynamos are oozing out of their wrappers, dripping all over us. So we sit down and slurp like crazy until we've got them under control.

And we're sitting there, kind of roasting in the sun, licking away on our drumsticks, when Marissa says, “Do you think Danny's cute?”

I work on my drumstick some more. “Yeah, he's cute. But he ought to lose the ring.”

Marissa sits up a bit. “Lose the ring? The ring's cool.” Then she goes on and on about how him wearing his ring on the index finger of his left hand is so significant and how if he ever gave it to a girl it would mean something. And you can tell—she's spent hours thinking about Danny Urbanski's ring and why he wears it where he wears it and what it would mean if he gave it to
her
.

I laugh and say, “He only wears it on that finger 'cause it fits there,” and we spend another ten minutes talking about Danny Urbanski's ring.

Finally she takes the last bite of drumstick and says, “You don't
like
him, do you?”

“
Like
him? No!” I'd never even thought about liking him. I mean, I've known for a long time that Marissa liked him so what in the world would
I
be doing, liking him?

She laughs and gives me her trash. “Want to go down to the arcade for a few minutes?”

I think about the twelve cents I've got left in my pocket. “Nah—I'd better get home. I want to tell Grams about what happened with Heather today!”

So off we go, down the stairs, and when we get back into the mall Marissa goes one way and I go the other.

And I'm in the middle of putting our napkins and wrappers in the trash when a shiver runs down my back. I stand there a minute with my hands halfway in the trash can, then I pull the napkins back out and sit down, right there on the floor. And the longer I stare at the napkins the colder I feel, until finally my whole body is shivering.

I whisper, “No...it can't be,” but Hudson's voice keeps echoing through my brain: “My dear, things are not always what they appear.” And the more I think about it, the more I know.

I know who the hotel thief is.

SEVENTEEN

To prove it, I need money. Serious money. None of this twelve cents stuff.

I thought about running home and asking Grams, but I knew she wouldn't give me a bunch of money without me telling her why I needed it, and if I did tell her why I needed it, you can bet she wouldn't give it to me at all.

Then I remembered Brandon. I raced back down the corridor, dodging people left and right, and pretty soon I'm at the counter of Juicers panting, “Is Brandon here?”

The girl who's working says, “Yeah, hang on,” and goes to get him.

Brandon pops out from the back room and smiles. “Hi, Sammy! What's up?”

I practically got down on my hands and knees. “I need to borrow some money—ten dollars? Twenty dollars? I promise I'll have it back to you tomorrow—maybe even today. Please?”

He checks his wallet. “I've got like four dollars on me. That's it. You're welcome to it, but that's all I can do.”

My brain's racing. Four dollars is not going to do it. A five-dollar bill, maybe, but not four singles, no way. I lean as close to him as I can and whisper, “It's an emergency....Can you lend me some from the register?”

He whispers right back, “What are you, trying to get me fired? No way I can do that.” He straightens out. “Why don't you ask Marissa?”

“I would, only I don't know where she went!”

“If it's an emergency, why don't you have her paged?”

I blink at him for a minute, feeling really dopey; then off I go to have Marissa paged.

Only I never make it to the security office. I'm running down the mall, when all of a sudden right in front of me is Marissa. And standing next to her is Heather. That's right. Heather.

Now I should've gotten Marissa by herself and explained the whole thing to her, but I was in such a hurry I didn't. Instead I interrupt and say to Marissa, “I have to borrow some money—”

And I'm about to tell her it's an emergency when Heather starts laughing real mean. She crosses her arms and wobbles her head back and forth, saying, “‘Sammy never asks me for money. Sammy wouldn't
think
about asking me for money....Sammy's my friend.'” She laughs some more, “Well, Marissa, I guess that shows you, doesn't it?”

Marissa looks at me like I've just punched her in the stomach. She digs in her pocket, pulls out a wad of money, and throws it at me. “Here, take the stupid money!” she says, then she runs off crying.

And I'm standing there feeling horrible, looking back and forth from the money on the ground to Marissa running toward the escalator, and I'm about to go chasing after her to explain everything when Heather reaches down and snags the wad of bills.

Well, there's no way I'm going to let Heather walk off with Marissa's money. No way. I say, “Hey! Give it back!”

She snickers. “You're dreaming.” And she starts running away.

I don't care how much fun Heather Acosta's made of my high-tops, she was wishing for a pair right then. She saw me gaining on her, and I think her nose was starting to remember what happened the last time she tried to mess with me because all of a sudden her stupid grin disappears and she yells, “Help! Help!”

People are staring but that doesn't stop me. I chase her all the way to the escalator and tackle her so that she winds up with her face a little over the edge of the top step. I get on top of her, grab her hair, and say, “Give me Marissa's money!”

“No!”

I know I don't have much time before some security guard comes and hauls me off, so I push her face down toward the moving steps and say, “Give me Marissa's money!”

There go those steps,
thunk-kathunk-thunk-kathunk
, just skinning her nose, and all of a sudden she's very quiet.

I let her get a good whiff of the escalator and then I lean down and whisper, “I'd love to grind that snotty little nose of yours completely off, Heather. It's your choice—your nose or Marissa's money.”

A second later her hand comes around and opens up. She chokes out, “Get off of me!”

I grab the money, step right over her, and go flying down the escalator. And when I turn around to look back, there are all these people standing around just
staring
. The whole escalator's practically surrounded by people with their mouths open.

I raced around looking for Marissa, but I couldn't find her so I ran outside and looked for her there. Still no Marissa.

What I probably should've done was call the police. Or at least go over to the station and tell them what I thought. Trouble is, they would've called in Officer Borsch and I would've been stuck talking myself blue in the face to someone who wasn't about to believe me. Not unless I could clobber him over the head with some proof.

And maybe I was crazy thinking I could prove who the thief was, but I had a plan. So I didn't go to the police station. I went straight to St. Mary's to get my proof.

St. Mary's Church is on a corner and has big bushes with yellow flowers along the sidewalk. And if you go up the brick walkway, there's a nice fat hedge around a statue of the Virgin Mary in the front courtyard. The hedge and the statue are up in this tall planter, so when you're walking into church, there's Mary, way up high, protected from kids scribbling on her legs by a nice fat hedge.

Between the hedge and the statue is the perfect hiding spot. You can sit right down on Mary's feet and have a real good view through the hedge of what's going on from the middle of Church Street, clear up and around the corner, halfway down School Street. And no one would ever think to look inside the hedge to see if somebody was there. I mean, it's
Mary's
spot, y'know?

About half a block from St. Mary's walkway I slowed down and pulled Marissa's wad of money out of my pocket. There were three ones, a five, and a ten. I took the five and the ten and scribbled on them to mark them.

So I'm at the walkway, about to make a dash for the hedge, when Father Mayhew decides to take his dog for a walk. The last thing I need is for Father Mayhew to catch me camping out with Mary, so I just sit tight. Pretty soon the bell tower chimes and there goes Father Mayhew, around the corner and out of sight.

Then I see him—the hotel thief—turning onto Church Street, way down by the mall. I crouch down by the bushes along the sidewalk, keeping an eye on him as he gets closer and closer. Part of me's saying, Plant the money and hide! and part of me's saying, No, no. Wait until he's a little closer. And while they're battling back and forth, I'm just kind of frozen there behind those bushes feeling my heart beat faster and faster.

Then I hear a bike clicking along School Street. I look over my shoulder and can't believe my eyes. “Marissa!” I whisper as loud as I can.

She practically falls off her bike screeching to a stop. I put a finger up to my lips to stop her from saying anything, then I run over and make her get off her bike.

She says, “What are you
doing?
”

“Sssh! Come here!” I haul her bike back up the street and stash it behind some bushes.

“I was just on my way over to your apartment to tell you I was sorry for being such a jerk back at the mall.”

“You weren't a jerk. I was being a moron! I should've gotten you away from Heather and explained.”

“Well, what's going
on?
”

“Come on! I'll show you.” I hurry her over to the statue; then I run toward the sidewalk and peek down Church Street. There he is, all right, about a block away.

I back up the brick walkway a little and put the ten- dollar bill down, face up, looking like a gift from God. Then I take a few steps back and put down the five. First I leave it wide open too, but I decide that's too obvious so I fold it in half and move it a little closer to the statue.

By now Marissa's doing the McKenze dance, biting a nail, dying to know what I'm doing with her money.

All I say is, “Quick! We've got to hide back here. Don't say a word!”

When Marissa sees that we're going diving in bushes she pulls back and says, “No way!”

“Come
on!
” I shoot her a you're-dead-if-you-don't look, and before you know it she's right there next to me, sitting on Mary's feet.

And when he reaches the walkway, my heart starts beating so loud that anyone coming by right then would've thought it was a miracle and the statue of Mary had come to life.

I whisper, “He's the hotel thief—I'm almost positive!”

“Who?”

I point to the end of the walkway. “Him!”

EIGHTEEN

Marissa looks at me like my marbles have just completely shattered. “
Oscar?
He can't be. He's blind!”

I just kind of smile and whisper, “How would a blind person know if his glasses were clean or not?”

She whispers,
“What?”

“Sssh! Watch. Just watch.”

Then it happens—Oscar stops.

Now he doesn't go racing over and snatch the money off the ground and
then
look around like anybody else would. He stops and stands there for a minute, thinking. Then, very slowly, like he's stretching his back, he moves his head from side to side, and backs his cart up a little to turn onto the walkway. Then he kneels down like he's going to tie his shoe, and when he stands back up the ten is gone.

I look at Marissa and she looks at me and we're both totally bug-eyed. Marissa mouths, “
Now
what?”

Well, I don't know, but I'm not going to tell her that. I just put my finger in front of my lips because the last thing I want is for ol' Oscar to find us. I go back to watching him, and sure enough, he's coming after the five. He moves forward a little, kneels down to tie his other shoe, and
whoosh
, there goes the five.

I look over at Marissa and that's when I notice it—the biggest, ugliest spider you'd ever want to see, climbing right up her sleeve.

She must've seen me looking at her arm because the next thing you know she
screams
. Then she jumps up, slaps at herself like crazy, and screams some more.

Who knows what happened to the spider. All I know is that Oscar the ice cream man was staring straight at Marissa, and when I stood up and looked at him, well, he knew right away that that money hadn't come from God.

And you'd think he'd just run away, but he didn't. He stood there, kind of looking over one shoulder, then the other. And that's when I realized that he wasn't about to just let us go.

Marissa's still screaming about the spider so I grab her by the shoulders and shake her. “Marissa! Stop it! Run to the police station. Now!”

I jump out from behind the hedge and I'm about to hop off the planter when Oscar grabs me by an ankle. Now this is no feeble grab—it's like a tourniquet around my leg. And any second he's going to yank me off the planter and I'm going to go
splat!
on the walkway, so I smack him with the sole of my other foot, right in the forehead.

His head goes flying back and his glasses fall off, and as I break free, sure enough, there's the face I saw through the binoculars. Only it's looking a whole lot madder than the last time I saw it.

I jump down and start running as fast as I can to the police station, but in the middle of running I realize that all Oscar has to do is get in a car and go, and no one'll ever find him. Then for the rest of my life I'll have to worry about where Oscar is and whether or not he's on the lookout for
me
.

So I circle back around to St. Mary's, and I sneak up to the courtyard, and what do I see? Nothing. He's gone, his glasses are gone, the cart's gone…there's no sign of him anywhere. Very carefully, I peek down Church Street. No ice cream man. Then I look down School Street. No ice cream man. I start running again, but now I'm not trying to get away from Oscar, I'm trying to find him.

So I head over to the mall, and I wind up running around it—the whole thing. And before you know it I'm cutting across the dirt where the new mall parking lot's going in, thinking that he's already gone and there's no way I'm ever going to catch him.

Then these kids come tearing by on their bikes, chasing each other through the dirt. I watch them go, and then I notice their bike tracks. I stand there studying the tracks, and suddenly I've got a good idea where Oscar might be.

So I start running again, but when I get to Maynard's Market I decide that what I've got to do is call the police. I tear up to the counter all panting and dying for air. “T.J.! Can I use your phone? Please! It's an emergency!”

He's holding the phone in one hand and lighting a cigarette with the other. “Can't you see I'm using it?”

“
Please!
It's a matter of life and death.”

He blows smoke out his nose like a dragon. “This ain't a public phone—now beat it!”

I slap the counter. “Then
you
call! Dial 911 and tell them the hotel thief's on the corner of Broadway and Wesler!”

“What?”

I yell, “Call them! Now!” and then race out the door.

I just
knew
there had to be a shortcut, so instead of running clear down to Wesler Street I turned down an alley. That was a mistake. It's not like I've never been down an alley before. I've been down plenty of alleys—just none quite as scary as this one. The ground was slimy, like the sun never really got a chance to dry it out, and there were old metal garbage cans that smelled like sewage and were buzzing with flies.

And I was slipping along the dirt, trying to stay up on the edge where the ground was a little bit drier, when this gigantic dog comes charging up to the fence, snapping and growling and barking, trying to crash through the pickets.

My heart was already pumping pretty good, but the second that dog popped up it exploded. I jumped back, slipped, and landed flat in the mud. I tried to calm myself down, but really, all I wanted was to get out of there.

I knew I was close because I could see the back of the Heavenly Hotel. So I decided to climb the wall. And it probably wouldn't have been that hard, only my high-tops were caked with mud and I kept slipping. By now there's a whole chorus of dogs barking up and down the alley, sounding like they're all going to break out at the same time and eat me alive, and I'm really starting to panic.

I look around real fast and roll one of those stinky garbage cans over to the wall and then flip it upside down. I climb on top of it and look over the wall and there's the old pepper tree, bent over, all by itself in the middle of the empty lot. Trouble is, I can't see past the tree's branches to tell if he's there or not.

So I climb over the wall and circle around the back side of the tree as quietly as I can. My heart's going a million miles an hour and I'm barely breathing, and when I peek past the branches what I see is a man with long blond hair and a goatee, hunched over an ice cream cart, looking in a mirror.

It's Oscar, all right. And in his new disguise I
did
recognize him, only not as the ice cream man or the hotel thief, but as the guy who'd stopped to talk to André the day Marissa and I had gone to see Gina.

He starts changing his shirt, and that's when I decide that I don't need to see any more. What I need is the police.

Trouble is, as I stepped away from the tree I snapped a twig and the newly blond ice cream man freezes with his shirt half off. Then he looks over his shoulder, right through the branches, right at me.

For a second we both just stared at each other, but then he took a quick look around and came charging after me.

I wasn't about to try any more shortcuts. No way! I ran straight to Wesler Street and headed toward Broadway with ol' Blondie right behind me. And when I got down to Broadway I turned the corner and nearly crashed into a lady with three lavender poodles coming out of the Pup Parlor. I danced around them and tangled them up pretty good, so by the time Oscar got there they were going every which way, trying to knock him to the ground.

I raced across the street, dodging cars and jamming traffic, but when I looked over my shoulder, he was still after me and gaining.

Now I'm heading for the police station by way of the mall because I figure if I can make it to the mall, Oscar'll stop chasing me. There are just too many people at the mall. And since the fastest way to the mall is through the parking structure, I decide to cut through that.

So I go charging up this grassy slope between the sidewalk and the parking lot, but the sprinklers must have been on earlier because the grass is all wet and I wind up slipping and falling.

Oscar's charging at me, only about fifty feet away. And there's the side entrance to the mall, straight through the parking structure, about a hundred and fifty feet away. I scramble back to my feet but it's easy to see—I'm never going to make it.

I run down the hill and into the parking lot, calling, “Help!” as I work my way between cars. But I don't see anybody, and then I remember how many people had come to Heather's rescue when I'd tackled her by the escalator: Zero. So I quit calling for help and started looking for a place to hide.

First I crouched behind one car, then another. But no matter where I moved I was still exposed on three sides. Then I saw a Dumpster in a corner against a wall, so I crawled over and squeezed behind it.

And I've just crouched down, hugging my knees real close, when Oscar runs by. And I'm about to breathe a sigh of relief when I hear him stop and come walking back.

My heart's already slamming against my chest and my lips are all dry and there's sweat dripping down my face, but I practically turn inside out when I hear a noise inside the Dumpster.

The noise happens again, and that's when I realize there's something inside the Dumpster. Something alive. Oscar hears it too, because he walks right up to the Dumpster, looks in the top, and laughs. “You're history, girl.”

I hold real still and watch his feet go back and forth along the ground. Then it happens again—that
noise
. Oscar leans over and gets halfway inside, looking for me.

Leaning on the wall right above me is the Dumpster lid. And I know it's heavy because I've lifted one before—just a few inches to throw trash away. And there's Oscar, digging through the Dumpster saying, “Where are you, you little brat? I know you're in here!” So I take a deep breath, stand up, and yank down on the lid as hard as I can. And when the lid clanks closed, Oscar's pinned inside with his legs sticking out.

Cuss words start echoing around inside that Dumpster, and even though I'm holding the lid down as hard as I can, I know that any second he's going to bust loose.

Giving up would've been like trying to get away from an angry yellow jacket—it's just not something you can do, even in high-tops. You're better off just staying where you are and trying to swat it down. So I pull myself up on top of the Dumpster and sit on the edge. But Oscar bucks around even harder and you can tell—he's going to be able to push the lid open, even with me on it.

So I stand up on the lid and start jumping up and down like a jackhammer. The lid's clanging like crazy and I'm yelling, “Help! Help! Somebody, help!”

And I'm up there for what feels like
days
, bouncing on the Dumpster, yelling at the top of my lungs, hearing the ice cream man spew out words I didn't even know
existed
, when who comes charging around the corner?

The Borsch-man.

I never thought there'd come a day when I'd be happy to see Officer Borsch, but let me tell you, I don't think I've ever been so relieved to see anyone in my whole life. He takes one look at me bouncing on the Dumpster, puts a hand on his holster, and says, “Come off of there.”

I sit down and start to slide off the front when Marissa comes running around the corner with Tall 'n' Skinny. She yells, “Sammy!” Then when she sees what's going on she starts jumping up and down. “You caught him! You caught him!”

Officer Borsch tells Tall 'n' Skinny, “Chad, get the lid.” He motions Marissa and me back. “Move back…now!”

We back up, all right. About two inches. And we watch Tall 'n' Skinny prop up the lid while Officer Borsch stands back with his feet spread and his gun drawn. And Oscar's in the middle of pulling himself out of the Dumpster when a mangy orange alley cat comes streaking across his back and hits the ground running.

When Oscar gets out, he's looking like the Man from Planet Slime. His wig's all crooked and has spaghetti and lettuce smashed in it, his back is covered with dirt and rust from the lid, and there's a tea bag dangling from one shoulder.

Officer Borsch shouts, “Spread your hands out against the wall! Move it!” then comes in from behind and kicks Oscar's ankles apart. And while Tall 'n' Skinny frisks him, Officer Borsch hollers out his rights and before you know it Oscar the ice cream man is wrapped up in handcuffs and on his way to jail.

And Marissa and I are coming along for the ride.