The Dragon in the Ghetto Caper

by E. L. Konigsburg

  Andy next noticed his hands. He looked at them a very long time. He did not normally pay too much attention to his hands, but they were very heavy right now. That, too, was perfectly logical; his hands had absorbed all the weight from his head which was very light right now.

  With the fat fingers of his right hand he managed to spear a shrimp. He smiled at it. Boy conquers fish. He bit a piece off, and it dried up, right inside his mouth. It wouldn’t go down his throat because all of his breakfast and all of his lunch were suddenly there, clogging the passage. Andy put his napkin over his mouth and backed away from the table. He went upstairs to his room. He thought he walked up, but he couldn’t be sure. His feet didn’t remember touching the floor.

  After he did what he had to do in the bathroom, he went to his own room. He lay down on his bed and watched the grate over the air-conditioner duct bend into various abstract shapes before the weight from his hands moved to his eyelids and forced his eyelids closed.

  The lines of the air-conditioner grate were the last thing he focused on before he fell asleep (passed out). Noises coming from the air-conditioner grate were the first thing he focused on when he awakened (came to). Voices. Voices colored red and pale orange. Arguing voices. A man and a woman. No, two men and a woman: red, pale orange and a dash of sienna.

  The woman “…because everyone forgot the rice.”

  Man One: “Now, lady, you can’t make me believe that you came up here for rice. Rice is always kept in the kitchen in a nice house like this here.”

  The woman: “I just came for the dragon. It’s full, and the bride is ready. It’s instant because it weighs less.”

  Man Two: “Hold it a minute. You want us to believe that you are the only person at this whole party who knew that there was rice up here? You were throwing it around last Thursday.”

  The woman: “I wanted to surprise everyone who forgot the rice. Which was everyone. They all forgot the rice.”

  Andy’s eyes wanted to go to sleep again, but some other sight, far in back of his eyes would not let him. The voices continued coming through the air conditioning. The woman’s voice was Edie’s of course. Who else would talk such nonsense to strangers? Two men strangers. Yet, not so strange. Their voices, their tone, were familiar. Hold it a minute. The men from the Plymouth. Hold it a minute. Last Thursday she was throwing it around. Hold it a minute. The waiter who had looked at him so strangely was one of the crooks. If the champagne bubbles had not gone to his brain, he would have realized who the man was before now. He could have tipped off his father. Where were his father’s fine detectives now? He jumped off the bed. He had to rescue Edie. He’d rescue Edie and catch the crooks. Two missions in one. He would feel better about dismissing her after he had evened out the rescues.

  If only his mouth were not so dry. He could think better if his tongue weren’t drying out his brain.

  He walked down the hall to Mary Jane’s room. They had closed the door. The cheats! Couldn’t trust a crook. He was closed out. He couldn’t just turn the knob and walk in and request that they let Edie go. He’d have to be a rough-’em-up detective after all. Except that he was undersized and underarmed.

  Underarmed! That was it.

  He tiptoed past Mary Jane’s room to the bathroom. In use! He had to go through his mother’s and father’s bedroom to get to theirs. There wasn’t much time. He had to stay cool. He would find it easier to stay cool if only he weren’t so thirsty. Thirsty made a guy hot.

  The furs were piled high on his parents’ bed. They looked like a giant hairy Moby Dick, for God’s sake. Why weren’t his father’s famous detectives guarding the furs as they were supposed to? He had to do everything. All by himself. Someone was leaving his parents’ bathroom just as he reached the door. “Lovely party,” she said. Now, when he was busy being cool and committing a rescue, was no time for conversation. He gave his crotch a good tug, one that would have made Tim Feagin jealous, and he said, “Excuse me,” as he brushed past the lady into the bathroom.

  He didn’t waste a minute; he didn’t even take a drink of water, and God knows, he needed one. He reached inside the cabinet under the sink and took what he needed. He poked his head out the door, his very thirsty but cool head. The coast was clear. He walked rapidly, but coolly, down the hallway and turned the knob on the door to Mary Jane’s room. Except that it didn’t turn. Locked! The crooks had locked Edie inside. Cheats! He kicked at the door, leaving black scuff marks on the white paint. “Open up!” he yelled.

  The instant he saw a crack of light through the door, he thrust one arm in and then the other. And he sprayed.

  The man who came to the door got a shot of Arrid Extra Dry (unscented). Andy then kicked the door open the rest of the way and gave the other fellow a shot of Alberto VO Hair Spray, extra hold.

  “Okay, Yakots, make a dash for it,” he yelled.

  “Oh, Andy,” she answered, “how nice of you to come to my rescue.”

  “For God’s sake, Edie, get a move on.”

  “You can help me straighten things out,” Edie answered, still sitting.

  The two crooks were coughing and sputtering. Andy turned to them and said, “Listen, you guys, get back against that wall, or you’re going to get it again.” The men moved. Andy was surprised that they listened so well. “Listen, Yakots, will you please move yourself out the door? I’m going to lock these guys in here and then get the detectives my father has hired. I’ll do it quietly so as not to disturb the party going on downstairs.”

  “But, Andy…”

  “Move, Edie. I don’t have enough deodorant to hold these stinkers all day. Do you think I want to be this kind of detective in the first place? This isn’t exactly my bag.”

  “That’s what they want to know about, Andy. The bags.”

  “For God’s sake, Edie. Will you please get my father? Tell him to send the detectives. But don’t disturb any of the guests. Tell him dignifiedly. Nice and dignifiedly.”

  “Andy,” Edie whispered, “these men…”

  “I told you to tell my father quietly, Yakots. Now is not when you have to whisper. We’re behind closed doors.” He looked up at the first crook whose eyes were cleared now. He saw that the man was grinning. He didn’t like the grin. “Listen, wise guy,” Andy began. But he didn’t finish. He wasn’t supposed to be the kind of detective that said things like that.

  “Andy,” Edie said.

  “What is it now, Yakots?”

  “The first wise guy is one of the detectives your daddy hired, and the second one, the one blowing his nose, is the second one he hired.”

  “Hunh,” Andy replied. “That just exactly shows you how much a smart man like my father knows about crime. He’s gone and hired two crooks to guard furs and presents.”

  The man who had been blowing his nose coughed and said, “We’re detectives from the police force. We were staked out at Brother Banks’s last Thursday, and we tried to question you then. When we spotted Mrs. Yakots at this party, and we saw her sneaking up to the room with all the presents…”

  “This one,” Edie said, pointing to the one dressed as a waiter, “kept watching me and watching me and when all I wanted was our dragon back, he followed me. For the rice. Three boxes of instant. Except I only used about two and three-fourths. It’s fluffier. Mary Jane and Alton were about to leave and no one remembered rice to throw for their honeymoon, fertility and all, so I decided to open the dragon. It would go pretty far, except I didn’t. Get very far, that is. They followed me, and now I wonder if Mary Jane and Alton have left already. And it was such a pretty wedding.”

  Andy listened to Edie but watched the men. “Show me your identification,” he demanded. They did. The man dressed as a waiter was Sergeant Piper, and the other man was Officer Feeling.

  “Look,” Edie pleaded, “if you let me open my dragon and give everyone some, I promise I’ll come back and talk to you about the other bags.”

  Officer Feeling said to Sergeant Piper, “How do we
know that she won’t skip out?”

  Edie answered, “I promise I’ll come back. Harry—he’s my husband—won’t leave without me. And you don’t see him here, do you?”

  “But lady…”

  “Let her throw the rice, for God’s sake,” Andy said. “She probably believes that Mary Jane’s bottom will fall off tomorrow morning if you don’t let her throw rice at it now.”

  “I don’t know…”

  “Listen,” Andy said, “you’ve got me. I’ll stay here as hostage.”

  Edie turned to Andy and said, “Thanks, boss.” Then she looked at the two detectives and added, “I’m his sidekick.” She started toward the door, turned the knob, thought a minute and said, “I’ll throw a little something for you, boss.”

  “Yeah,” Andy answered. “Hit her in the keester.”

  “Oh, I don’t know if I can do that. You know I’m no jock. But I’ll wear my glasses, just in case.”

  Andy wanted to disown her.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Edie returned to Mary Jane’s room and Harry—her husband—came with her. Mr. Chronister followed Harry. And Mrs. Chronister, all chiffon and crying, followed Mr.

  “They wanted to come along, boss,” Edie said. “If I had worn my glasses the whole evening, I would have warned you, but it’s hard to tell a waiter when you’re hard of seeing.”

  Sergeant Piper said, “Now, why would she call you boss all the time if you are not her boss? We know that Brother Banks is not the real leader of the numbers racket here in Gainesboro. It wouldn’t surprise me one bit to find some rich little kid doing something like that just for kicks.”

  “What is a numbers racket, for God’s sake?” Andy asked.

  “Gambling,” Edie said. “Sister Henderson was picking up bets on numbers.”

  Officer Feeling asked Andy, “What did you think she was doing, running some kind of charity?”

  “Exactly,” Andy answered.

  At that point Mr. Chronister took over. After all, he was master of the house, employer of the detectives, father of the bride and one of the accused, and a lawyer besides. He first ordered Mrs. Chronister to control herself, and then he sent her back downstairs to say good-bye to the guests who might be ready to leave. He then asked each of the detectives to be seated. They sat on the edge of the bed, flanking Andy. Mr. Chronister pulled the chair from under Mary Jane’s vanity and offered it to Mr. Yakots; he politely refused. He chose to remain standing in the doorway, the line of his arms folded across his chest repeating the line of his grin. Edie was left standing almost in the hall, clutching the dragon pillow like a punctured volleyball. Mr. Chronister nodded to her and motioned for her to enter. She obeyed. She made room for herself between Officer Feeling and Andy. Once seated, she raised her hand for permission to speak.

  “Yes, Mrs. Yakots,” Mr. Chronister said.

  “I can explain,” she volunteered.

  “That would be most kind of you, Mrs. Yakots,” Mr. Chronister said patiently, encouragingly. “Would you please proceed.”

  She cleared her throat, took a deep breath and began, “I went to the meeting of the Garden Circle because even though it’s supposed to be good for your plants to talk to them, after a while they don’t answer back.” She paused and looked at Harry—her husband. He nodded, and she continued. “And the ladies there had more to say to each other than to me, so I looked at the pictures and saw Andy’s dragon and right away I went to the secretary.”

  Mr. Chronister interrupted, “Can we back up a minute here, Mrs. Yakots?”

  “Yeah,” said Sergeant Piper, “what has Garden Circles and dragons to do with the numbers racket?”

  Mr. Chronister gave Sergeant Piper a look that was enough to silence him. It was his best courtroom look. “Is that the dragon you were referring to, Mrs. Yakots?” he asked, nodding at the pillow that Edie had placed over her lap.

  “No, this is the one for Mary Jane. It was a nice rice dragon, plump with rice, instant, until everyone forgot it, and I remembered the dragon, and I got caught.”

  Officer Feeling exploded, “What has dragons to do with Sister Henderson?”

  Mr. Chronister asked Officer Feeling, “What, may I ask, has Sister Henderson to do with anything?”

  Officer Feeling said, “This lady, this Mrs. Yakots, is a big woman for the biggest numbers racket in Gainesboro. Now, Mr. Chronister, if you’ll give us just a minute, we think we can establish who is in charge of who. It just may be, sir, that your son, this Andrew, is the head of the whole collection scheme. You see, this lady, the one you call Mrs. Yakots, keeps calling your son boss. Now, it just may be that your son has decided to operate outside the law to give old dad a run for his money, something we know you have plenty of. He just may be doing it to embarrass daddy, or he may be doing it just for kicks. The pay isn’t good enough to make it attractive to a rich kid. He’s probably in it for kicks.”

  “And sidekicks,” Edie said. “That’s me.”

  Mr. Chronister looked grim. “Have you been collecting money for the numbers racket?” he asked Andy.

  “I don’t know,” Andy answered. “We collect Sister Henderson, and she collects her donations.”

  “Those ain’t donations,” Officer Feeling said. “This Sister Henderson is picking up money from the numbers writers, and she takes it to Brother Banks who happens to run the checkup house. Banks pays her a commission on everything she picks up.”

  At that point Mr. Harry Yakots stepped inside the room and closed the door behind him. He walked over to his wife and stood looking down at her. His look was gentle, loving. “Looking for dragons, Edie?” he asked gently. She nodded yes. He patted her hand and looked up at the others in the room and said, “Let’s pull this all together. Edie will tell what happened, and I’ll interpret.”

  “Oh, Harry,” Edie said, “that will be wonderful. Simultaneous translation. Just like the UN.”

  “Yes, dear,” Harry said, “just like the UN.”

  Andy knew what Edie would have to say, but he didn’t know all the details. She told how Sister Henderson had been in charge of the sale of the old church pews, one of which she had wanted to paint bright pink for her kitchen. When Edie had gone there to look them over, Sister Henderson had told her to hurry and make up her mind because she had to get the money over to Brother Banks’s before three o’clock, which meant that she had to catch the city bus that left at 2:10. Edie volunteered to drive Sister Henderson over to Brother Banks’s to deposit the money. Edie said (through Harry—her husband) that she had assumed that it was money from the sale. When they were in the car, Sister Henderson hinted at how she wished that she could have a ride every Thursday afternoon so that she could go to the houses for her collections instead of having to wait for people to bring them to her. Sometimes, she complained, they came so late that she was hard put to get to Brother Banks’s by three. And that was how Edie had begun carrying Sister Henderson every Thursday. She had volunteered.

  Sergeant Piper asked how Andy had come to be included in the pickups, and Edie through Harry—her husband—proudly explained about that. “Didn’t it ever occur to you to ask where the money came from?” he questioned.

  “I wondered,” Edie said, “but when you’re tracking dragons, there’s a lot you’re not supposed to understand.”

  Both the detectives looked at Harry to interpret that, but he didn’t, so they turned to Andy. “And you, boy, didn’t you ever wonder why all the money had to be in by three every Thursday?”

  “Not at all,” Andy answered. “When I collect for the Cancer Drive or for the Mothers’ March Against Birth Defects or Kidneys or Hearts or Cystic Fibrosis, the money always has to be in by a certain time. I always have a deadline.”

  “Well, let me ask you about this. Do members of your church go around, house to house, to collect money?”

  “No, the church doesn’t. But the Cancer Drive, the Mothers’ March Against Birth Defects, Kidneys, Hearts…”

  “All ri
ght. All right,” Officer Feeling said. “I get your point. But didn’t it seem funny to you that church donations would be made on Thursday? Aren’t church donations, most all church business, done on Sundays?”

  “Now that,” Andy said, “is easy to explain. I figured that everything that isn’t the same in the ghetto is different. Like screen doors and Coke in a cup.”

  “Do you mean to tell me that you had no idea that you were accomplices in the numbers racket called Total?”

  Andy said, “No idea.” He felt as deflated as the dragon Edie held in her lap. He looked at Edie. Harry looked at her, too; he raised an eyebrow, in a cool gesture of inquiry. Edie looked up at him and shrugged.

  The two detectives explained the operation of the illegal numbers lottery for which Sister Henderson had been picking up bets every Thursday. The lottery was called Total. Someone, anyone, could buy a chance on a number, any number from one to one hundred. They could bet five cents or five dollars, whatever they could afford (and very often what they could not afford). The person they buy the lottery ticket from is the numbers writer (Sister Coolidge, Brother Folk). Some people box their numbers, which means that if they bet on 45, they can also win if 54 hits. Boxed wins pay off less than straight hits. The pickup man or pickup lady (Brother Maytag, Sister Henderson) is assigned to a group of sellers. It is her duty on Thursday to go to each of the writers assigned to her (or meet them at a certain place) and pick up all the tickets that they had sold during the week. She also picks up the money. From there the pickup lady takes the tickets and the money to a checkup house (Brother Banks). Sister Henderson received 5 percent commission on all the money she brought in. (“Bes’ t’ tell Brother t’ hol’ up mah part.”)

  Andy asked, “How do they know what number wins? Do they pick it out of a hat?”

  “Not in Total,” Sergeant Piper said. “This operation is a Thursday lottery. They take the last two digits of the combined total of the liabilities of the twelve Federal Reserve Banks. That number is released to the New York Times at three o’clock on Thursday and is published in the paper in the Friday edition.”