Spy in the Alley (12 page)

Julio passed me a lemonade. Several customers leaned their elbows comfortably on the counter and sipped coffees. Everyone was listening so intently you could have heard a pin drop. Well, maybe not a pin, but most of what Roderick was saying.

The only problem was, Roderick kept trying to quiet Madge down by speaking in a soft voice. Julio leaned toward the speaker. “Justa speak up, man.”

“Your voice, Madge,” Roderick said, startled. “What's the mat — ”

“SPEAK!” Madge yelled.

“Okay. Okay. Yeah, Theo's working for us. I'm not sure what he's told you.”

“WHY IS HE SPYING ON US?”

“Spying on — um … uh … um … We, Dad and I, I mean, okay, we assigned Theo to keep an eye on you. A protective eye,” Roderick added hastily. “What with you growing famous as the Bonna Terra girl, you never know if creeps are going to start following you around. We just thought — ”

“The only creep I've had following me around is YOU,” Madge snapped — and crashed down the phone.

“YEOW,” yelped Julio, whose hand, unfortunately, had been resting on the telephone cradle.

“Dinah, why do you keep twisting around like that? Maybe we should take you to the chiropractor.”

We were wheeling our bikes into the garage.

“I'm looking for the thief you drew. The guy Buzz described.” I rubbed perspiration off my forehead. “I just know I've seen him around here.”

“Yeah, who
is
he?” Madge was frowning. “It's like I can see him through a gauzy curtain. He's so familiar, yet I can't push the cloth aside to recognize him.”

I stuck out my lower lip so I could blow air up on my face. “That's too arty for me,” I said.

Down the alley, I saw Jack in the Rinaldis' tomato garden. He was picking tomatoes and putting them in a basket.

“JA-A-ACK!” I yelled.

He saw us and waved. “Hey,” he called to Madge. “That's a great rose you drew.”

Madge was still in a bad mood about Roderick. “How'd you know
I
drew it?” she asked, rather crossly.

“I knew,” he replied, as he came up to her.

In spite of herself she began to smile at him. I remembered what she'd told the old ladies about him having gray eyes. She looked straight into them now — he certainly did have
nice
gray eyes, with flecks of gold.

If they were going to gaze at each other like that, great, but it wasn't interesting for me. After all, a new game,
Deathstalkers at Exploding Volcano
, was waiting for me. I cleared my throat. “Well, I'd better go inside.”

“Oh, me too,” said Madge.

“You could help me pick tomatoes,” said Jack.

I could see Madge hesitating. “Okay,” I said. “We will.” I knew if I didn't go, she wouldn't either. It was dumb, because I was sure neither she nor Jack really wanted me along.

“There isn't really any reason for us to go inside,” Madge admitted to him.

“And,” he said helpfully, “it
is
mid-August in Vancouver, all flawless blue sky and sunshine that happens to be reflected in the red of your hair.” He gently straightened out a tress for her.

“It's auburn,” Madge corrected, though not very indignantly.

He gave her an at-once worshipful and amused look. I was more interested in the contents of his basket. I pointed out, “You already have five tomatoes. Just how many can you eat at once?”

Jack grinned. “Your mom's remarks about food started to influence me, I guess. I figured maybe I should start varying my diet. From now on I'll alternate between peanut butter and toast and tomatoes.”

Madge laughed. I knew then that she wasn't going to go inside, whether I accompanied them or not. “Why don't I put our bikes away?” I suggested. “Block Watch precautions and all that.”

They were walking ahead, paying no attention to me. “Why
don't
I put them away?” I asked, and answered myself as well, since no one else was about to. “Why, good idea, Dinah, you just do that.”

“I still think you're overdoing the tomatoes,” Madge was commenting to Jack.

“Not if two of us shared them,” he said.

Talk about making you feel unwanted. Luckily, my skin was thick when it came to food. Madge, Jack and I sliced tomatoes and put white cheddar cheese on them. We fried them on the barbecue with green onions and shallots, and ate them outside on the Rinaldis' small patch of sunny patio.

When you were sitting down, the tomato stalks rising all around resembled a huge forest. Munching happily as the others talked, I mused that it was no wonder Buckteeth — Theo — had fled in the stalks to hide the day I'd chased him. They were terrific camouflage.

“The drawing meant a lot to me,” Jack was telling Madge. “For one thing, it took my mind off the possibility — probability, I guess — that one of my volunteers is going around defacing property. Like Roderick's car and that billboard.” He clutched his sandy hair. “I just can't believe the GASP organization has a rotten apple.”

“Ha!” I broke in dramatically. “Speaking of rotten apples, we found out today that Theo Nickablock — Buckteeth — works for Roderick.”

We told Jack about our visit to Clark Rose Gardens. “Theo wears a GASP T-shirt, all right,” I added, “but I doubt he's a very enthusiastic GASP member.”

“Doesn't sound like he's a genuine GASPer at all,” Jack reflected, frowning. “I wish he'd stop wearing our shirt.”

“Especially when he's going around defacing property,” I said. “
Not
a good advertisement.”

“We don't know he's the mad spray-painter,” Madge pointed out. “I mean, why would he slather pink paint all over Roderick's Mazda if he works for Roderick?
Not
a good way to impress your boss.”

“He wouldn't,” said Jack promptly. “Rod adores his Mazda. What guy wouldn't?”

“A guy,” I said slowly, “who adores success more.” I stared at Madge and Jack. “
What if Rod
erick ordered Theo to spray-paint the Mazda and
the billboard — all the while wearing a GASP T-shirt
— to make GASP look bad?”

It was such a diabolical concept that for a moment the three of us could only regard each other numbly.

Then Jack said, in a kind of choked voice, “By getting rid of GASP, Rod would clinch the deal with Bonna Terra and Fields.”

“And impress his father,” sighed Madge.

“I
told
you Roderick was a dweeb,” I said.

“I owe you an apology for something else besides the roses,” Madge told Jack. “I actually think that what you and GASP are doing for kids is great. I mean, that you're making them aware of the dangers of smoking, like blackened lungs and tubes having to be stuck into throats.”

She paused. “What I'm — what I also want to say is that I felt kind of hostile to GASP at the beginning. You were protesting about substance abuse, and that reminded me too much of my dad, and the substance abuse
he
died from. Drinking, I mean, rather than smoking.”

Jack did not, as most people did when the subject of Dad's death came up, start making sympathetic noises. He sat quietly and listened.

Madge said, “Dinah and Mother have talked it through pretty well. But I was so mad at Dad, because he was so cool when he was sober — Di doesn't really remember, but he didn't
used
to drink. Not so much anyway, when I was her age…”

“He didn't
always
drink,” I piped up. “When he didn't, and when he wasn't hungover, he was fun. Remember how he used to sing, Madge? He had a great voice.”

I was trying to cheer Madge up, but I guess my technique needed a little polishing. She promptly burst into tears. Her tears plopped onto her plate, adding yet another seasoning to the fried tomatoes. “I'm sorry,” she said, wiping her eyes with the back of her wrist. “I'm rambling.”

“Ramble away,” said Jack.

“Well, anyhow, I suppose I thought that if I just blanked out Dad's death, and the drinking that led up to it, the whole thing would just go away and I wouldn't have to be bothered with it. It worked for a while, sort of. Then you and GASP showed up, and were protesting a different kind of substance abuse, except that it brought back to me the feelings I'd had about Dad's kind — drinking — and about watching him blunder on and on down the worst possible path he could choose.”

Madge stopped, and gave a big, shaky sigh. “And he wouldn't listen to us, at all. Dinah was really too young, but Mother and I tried. Man, how we tried.”

I was going to object to all these references about my age, but a rare discreet impulse kept me quiet. The conversation didn't include me. I was there on the Rinaldis' patio with Madge and Jack, but not really
with
them, if you get what I mean.

Jack reached over and took Madge's hand, which was wet with tears. “This is when, as a good host, I should hold out a nice big box of fluffy tissues. Unfortunately, I don't know where my sister stashes hers. Her cupboards and closets are so tidy I've been too nervous to touch anything in them. But,” he brightened, “I do have these,” and he withdrew a couple of folded-up flyers from his back pocket.

I saw Madge look doubtfully at the flyers, and I could guess what was in her mind. We were so used to living with females we'd forgotten just how impractical the male of the species could be. I thought she'd refuse the flyers. This
was
, after all, fussy, particular Madge.

But she didn't. Of course! I thought. If she refused, he'd let go of her hand and head inside to find some proper tissues.

“Roderick, you are toast,” I murmured smugly.

Madge dabbed at her eyes with the folded part of one of the flyers, got it completely wet, then unfolded the flyer in search of more dry space.

It was at that moment that she and I both noticed the words on the flyer.

In big black capital letters, on yellow paper, they jumped out at us. They were probably swimming in front of Madge. She blinked her tears away so she could read them:

GASP RALLY AGAINST BONNA TERRA AND FIELDS TOBACCO, TODAY 5 P.M., HOTEL WANCOUVER

“Oh my goodness,” she exclaimed.

“I know,” Jack said ruefully. “What a typo:
Wancouver
instead of Vancouver. We had to get 'em printed up in a hurry because the dim-witted thief stole the original ones. That was his second dim-witted theft, you may recall. The first was an envelope of tomato photos. The thief academies are doing a pretty poor job of recruitment these days, if you ask — ”

“Stop,” Madge said, laughing. “I wasn't thinking about the typo. I was thinking that it's now,” she checked her watch, “5:17 p.m. and you, a card-carrying member of GASP, are not at your rally.”

“Oops,” he said calmly, and I knew that he hadn't forgotten the rally but, like Madge, didn't want to stop holding hands.

“I think we should go,” Madge said. “So many people are making mistakes — just like your mom and my dad did. I think it's time for me to stop hiding from that and try to do something about it.”

“Let me take a regular type of gasp,” Jack said, pleased and surprised. “But you work for Bonna Terra sometimes, right? I mean, are you sure it's in your interest to — ”

“You let me worry about that,” Madge said firmly. She winked at me. “I just hope Roderick Wellman is there, so I can shove a sign in his face. That'll teach him to sick spies, bucktoothed or otherwise, on my family.”

“He did say Theo was supposed to be ‘a protective eye' for you,” I pointed out. “I guess Rod meant well — in a dweeby kind of way.”

“What I don't get is Theo's tie to GASP,” puzzled Jack. “Wearing one of our shirts, I mean. Only volunteers are given shirts. I've asked other volunteers about him, and no one recalls meeting him, ever.”

He helped Madge up. “I'd be happy never seeing the guy again. But it'd be great if you joined in the rally. What with my laptop getting smashed up, I lost my complete database of the GASP membership. I wasn't able to alert very many people about the rally today.”

I opened my mouth to lecture him on the need to back things up —
I
certainly did, with my extensive reports for Block Watch meetings — but he anticipated me. “I copied the database on to a disk, and, you guessed it, the disk was in the briefcase.”

At his unhappy expression I clamped my mouth shut again. Of course he should always keep his a back-up disk safely separate from his computer, but he'd probably figured that out by now without my explaining it to him.

“Did the disk get smashed up, too?” Madge inquired sympathetically.

“Like a bitten-in-half Triscuit.”

I observed in disgust, “Our vaguely familiar thief certainly isn't sporting. I mean, destroying your stuff because it wasn't what he wanted. Who
is
this guy, Madge? You'd think that we could remember somebody from school or wherever who was dim-witted, scowled a lot and threw tantrums. Hey! Maybe Mr. Dubuque's our guy.”

“Don't be rude about the neighbors, please, Dinah,” Madge corrected automatically.

“Oh? Who should I be rude about?”

Usually Madge would have uttered a frosty reprimand at an uppity remark like this. But she just smiled at Jack as if the remark had been a butterfly flitting by. People in love are no fun, I thought, and decided on the spot never to be one.

At Madge's suggestion, I ran home to leave a note for Mother about where we were going. After a bit of a wait, Jack and Madge pulled up in front of our house in his rattly old jeep and he drove us to the Hotel Wancouver. I mean,
Vancouver
.

I pause and eye Madge suspiciously.

“Just why was there a ‘bit of a wait,' Madge
Galloway?”

“I have no idea what you mean,” Madge returns
loftily. However, she has reddened. “Perhaps one day
you'll grow up and stop being so tiresome.”