by Marcia Wells
“Hi, Marilyn,” I say, approaching her desk. She gives me a tentative nod, hand nervously fiddling with the glasses that hang on a chain around her neck. I’m sure she knows what happened a few days ago in his office. Bovano’s voice almost shattered the windows.
“Can you call Detective Bovano for me and tell him I need to speak to him? I have new information about the case. I fear for his safety.”
I give her my winning I’m-just-an-innocent-kid smile. Like my mom, she falls for it hook, line, and sinker.
I pretend to be very interested in the gray spotted tile beneath my feet, and then sneak a quick peek as her pink polished fingernails move over the phone pad.
She leaves a message for him. Voice mail.
“Thanks, Marilyn,” I say, shaking her hand. “It’s been nice working with you.”
“Keep in touch, Eddie. Come back and visit us.” She sniffles a little. Sweet, dependable Marilyn.
Mentally digesting the ten-digit number I saw her press, I head out to the street and call him from my cell phone.
“Detective Bovano, it’s me, Edmund . . . Eddie. Please don’t delete this message. Don’t get mad at Marilyn, either. She didn’t give me your phone number. I figured it out myself. I’m sorry that I snooped in your office. I just wanted to help. But there are some Picasso paintings and an old lady who might be in danger.”
I tell him Matilda’s name and address. “I’m going there right now. I need to speak with her, get her to hear me. Maybe she’ll move the paintings to a storehouse or something. Go and stay with her kids for a while.”
I hesitate. What else do I have to say to this man?
“If my theory is correct, then Alisha is in on it. I’m sorry, Detective. I know you don’t want to hear that. And I hope it’s not true.”
More pausing.
“Thanks . . . and I’m sorry.”
I hang up. It’s his move.
I trudge over to Lexington, worry weighing down each step I take. What if I’m wrong? What if her Picassos are completely safe and I have violated her privacy and Bovano’s as well? What will Bovano do? Will he tell my parents? Of course he will, and at high volume. How can I look them in the eye after that? Will he arrest me? Make me do community service?
I should have kept my big mouth shut and just been a camera like he wanted.
A strange twitch in my neck causes me to look up as I approach Matilda’s building. A pang of warning. Marco—the real Marco this time—is jogging up the stairs dressed as a painter in white overalls, his stringy hair tied back in a braid. Followed by Jackie Vincent and the bald man. And last but not least, the elusive Lars Heinrich. It’s the Picasso Gang, in living color. Dressed in painter’s gear.
Quickly I duck into an alley, undetected.
Into an alley.
Chapter 30
Alley Pipes
My first time in an alley. The circumstances could be better, but it’s actually not so bad. Not evil, or even smelly. Just quiet, like an abandoned path that’s poorly lit. The late-afternoon sun is falling fast, the alleyway blanketed in cool shadow. It would almost be peaceful if my nerves weren’t exploding. I glue my shaking fingers to my phone in a death grip as I pull it from my pocket. You will not drop the phone like last time. I pause. Bovano or 9-1-1?
The 9-1-1 people will believe me. They will have to come.
“Eddie,” a voice says softly behind me and I jump out of my skin. A gentle voice. A feminine voice.
“Alisha!” I say in the brightest, most non-freaked-out tone I can muster. “Wow! What a strange coincidence seeing you in an alley! My grandma lives in this building and she lost her cat and I was just calling to tell her that I can’t find Sparkles anywhere!” I motion to the corridor with my open cell phone. “Oh, and have you seen a black and white cat with a striped tail? No? Hmm. Well, I’ll have to put up posters.”
My brain has officially disconnected from my mouth, but I think she’s buying it. I am famous in my family for having the worst poker face in the world; just last month my grandmother took me to the cleaners in a game that cost me ten bucks. Nice little old lady, my foot. I’m hoping Alisha doesn’t play cards.
She hasn’t said a word. I feel the urgent need to infect the silence with more inane chatter:
“All right, well, I guess I’ll be seeing you down at the station. I mean, I guess not, ’cause I got fired and I don’t work there anymore and I have nothing to do with police business. But maybe I’ll see you at another art show.” A strange, nervous twitter escapes my mouth. Time to go, Edmund.
Alisha blinks those big green eyes at me, like she’s not computing what’s going on here. I seize the opportunity. “I’ve got to get back to my grandma’s. Great to see you, Alisha.” I turn to go. Ten paces to daylight and safety. I’m almost there.
The sound of a gun clicks and I freeze mid step.
“Eddie,” she says in a quiet voice. “I don’t believe you.”
I hate poker. And chess, too, come to think of it.
She whips me around to face her nice, shiny gun. “I’ll take that,” she says, ripping the phone from my hands. I let her have it without a struggle, cringing away from the weapon.
She lowers the pistol slightly, eyes flitting around the cramped space as if Bovano’s going to jump out from the shadows any second now.
Nope, it’s just me.
Her shoulders relax, along with her pistol-packing arm. “Don’t worry, Ed. I like you. But you will seriously ruin my day if you interfere. So I’m going to tie you up. Now be a good boy and come here. Don’t test me, Eddie. I will hurt you if I have to.”
A moment of brilliance enters my mind before terror snuffs out any other coherent thoughts. Turn on your IPODICU, Edmund. I manage to flip it on inside my pocket before she drags me away. She’s freakishly strong, but I don’t put up a fight. She does have a gun, after all.
Pulling me back even farther into the alley, she calmly pulls out a roll of duct tape. Of course. Probably number two in the bad-guy survival kit. The first on the list would be a gun. Maybe a ski mask for number three. I wonder if this was what Jonah had in mind when he brought duct tape on our recon missions.
“Give me your arms,” she demands. I hold my hands out in front of me and she winds the tape around and around my wrists, then anchors me to a section of drainpipe. I’m glad I have on a long-sleeved shirt, because this tape would take off several layers of skin otherwise.
The metal supports on the pipe are nailed into the brick wall, making it impossible for me to slide my arms down and off the end of the pipe. I’m stuck in a standing position, my wrists and the drainpipe connected in a tangle of gray sticky bonds.
She likes you . . . She said she likes you. She won’t hurt you.
I watch her while she’s laboring away, really stare at her to try to see what’s going on in her mind. Does she have it in her to kill me? She’s sweating, her forehead creased in determination to glue me to the pipe. A strand of brown hair falls into her eyes; she flicks it away impatiently. If it weren’t for those green eyes, she’d be a bit on the mousy side. Vanilla. Librarian. But the librarians always get you in the end, don’t they . . .
She stops taping me and steps back, surveying her handiwork. I’m not going anywhere. She ponders me for a moment. “How’d you figure it out?” she asks.
“Chess moves,” I reply, trying not to let my voice shake.
“Hm . . . clever boy. And does Bovano know about our little chess game?”
I hesitate, which is not good because that just makes it look like I’m lying. I go for broke:
“Yes, but he doesn’t believe me. And I won’t tell anyone anything, Alisha. Please, if you just let me go . . .” Dread seizes me. Alone and left for dead in an alley? All sorts of horrible images flash though my mind: drug dealers, gang members, rats gnawing at my eyeballs, cats . . . Oh, no, cats! Angry alley cats bent on revenge after the Taser incident!
Her gaze rakes over me, the emerald in her eyes a c
old laser beam. Then she leans in. I flinch. She rips off one more piece from the roll and tapes my mouth. I hyperventilate, tugging at my wrist bonds while gasping through my nose. I’m glad I don’t have Jonah’s sinus infection, because I’d either be covered in snot or plain dead from not being able to breathe.
I can feel tears building. Alisha pats my face and makes shooshing noises like I’m a toddler. She’s just making it worse. I try to pull away but she traps my face between her hands and plucks off my glasses. “There,” she says, placing them on the ground out of my reach. “Now you can’t be a material witness.”
I blink and squint, but the alley is a blur of black and brown. I’m blind as a bat, completely helpless.
“I suppose you want to know why I did it,” she whispers.
I shake my head hard. I want no part of her alleyway confession. No information whatsoever. People with information Die.
She ignores my flailing. “I was always a good cop, always saying no while others said yes to the bribes. I looked the other way while everyone got richer around me. Except for your Bovano, of course. He’d never take a bribe. Not Frank Angelic Bovano.” She says his name scornfully. It seems I’m not the only one on the outs with the detective.
I am trying to block my ears by squinching my eyes closed. Obviously, not working.
She drones on, amusing herself with her little speech about how she fell in love with Lars and the world of art and all the money she can make off this deal. It’s like I’m in a cheesy police movie. Except this movie might jump off the screen and shoot me.
“It was Lars’s idea for the chess moves,” she says, tapping a finger to her chin. “He’s so obsessed with playing games. You have no idea what it’s like to be around someone so focused, so fixated on one particular thing.”
I think of Jonah and his military obsession. Lady, you have no idea.
She sighs. “So you see, Eddie, it was all for love.” She leans in closer, setting off a rash of goose bumps on my neck. “Love of money, that is.” She chuckles. I fail to see the humor.
“I have business to attend to,” she announces as if we’re at a board meeting or out to coffee. “I’ll be back to check on you. And if you’re good, maybe I’ll let you live.” She tugs on my bonds to see if they’ll hold, and leaves.
Massive panic attack.
I spaz out and yank on the duct tape, back and forth, back and forth, trying to rip the drainpipe away from the wall. After several pathetic attempts, I stop. The only thing I’m accomplishing is giving myself sore arms and a headache. I calm my breathing, assessing the situation:
I am taped to a drainpipe in an alley by a cop-turned-criminal. I can’t see farther than my hand in front of me. Yep, that’s about all I can handle assessment-wise right now. The other stuff is entirely too scary to even contemplate.
Jonah would be disappointed. He’d expect me to come up with some kind of brilliant Houdini maneuver, like cutting my bonds with a paper clip or enticing an alley rat with some spare peanut butter to chew through the tape.
Did Bovano get my phone call? Did he have his IPODICU receiver turned on? Does it even work if he’s not close by? Probably not. You know things are bad when you pray that Detective Bovano will come rescue you, knowing full well that he will strangle you afterward for breaking every Bovano Rule in the book.
The logical side of my brain kicks in. You’re in a nice neighborhood, Edmund. No one’s going to hurt you. There are no rats, no drug dealers. Just sweet little old ladies who have a lot of money, lethal purses, and expensive Picassos. Someone will find you on their way out to do errands. Or Alisha will make good on her promise and come check on you. She’ll see that you’re cooperating and will decide to let you go. Now settle down, think, and live through the next hour.
I calm down. Time passes slowly. My arms fall asleep and my legs are twitching from standing in the same spot. I actually start to get a little bored.
Bang!
A clattering noise sends my heart rate through the roof. I twist my head from side to side but all I see are dark, blurry shadows.
Clank, bang!
Squinting my useless eyes, I am desperate to find the source of the sound. The noise comes closer with a soft shuffle. It’s definitely human footsteps. I pray it’s not Lars. I don’t think he’s a very stable individual.
The person is right next to me.
Close enough for even me to see.
I blink. There, with an unusually concerned expression on his face, stands Detective Frank Bovano.
Chapter 31
Shots
“Are you okay, Eddie?” he asks, removing the tape from my mouth and cutting my bonds with a pocketknife. He squats down by me and pats my back, his furry eyebrows crinkled together in worry.
“You’re not hurt, are you? Let me see your arms.” He inspects me with the lightest of touches, and then straightens my red cap like a father would for his son.
It’s like I’ve stepped into the Twilight Zone.
“My glasses,” I say, pointing to the area where Alisha placed them. He bends down and picks them up. Not even a scratch.
“Who did this to you?” he asks.
“Alisha.” The name hangs there like a big fat I-told-you-so.
“Did you see anyone else?”
“I saw Marco go into the building dressed as a painter. He’s with the other three suspects. The Picasso Gang.” I might as well use their code name. No more secrets, no more lies.
Bovano nods, absorbing the information. “All right, Eddie, this is what we’re going to do. You—”
A noise cuts him off, which stinks because I’m sure the plan would have involved an Evacuation of the Child, which I could truly go for right about now.
Bovano whips around, shielding me with his body.
Alisha is back with her gun raised, but not before Bovano has lifted his own pistol. A standoff, and we’re trapped. It dawns on me that with two guns drawn, things could get very ugly.
I slide behind him, grateful that he is such a large guy. I take back every bad thought I’ve ever had about him. This man wants to protect me, I sense it with every ounce of my puny, shaking body. He will protect me, take a bullet for me, even.
“Drop the gun,” he commands. “It’s over, Alisha.”
She laughs. “Next you’ll tell me there’s a SWAT team waiting down the block. You didn’t believe the kid. Nobody did.”
I hear her gun cock with a click. Petrified, I bury my face into Bovano’s jacket. It smells like spaghetti sauce, I’m not even joking.
“Let him go, Alisha. Then it’s just you and me. Let Eddie leave the alley.”
I peek around his arm just a little bit so I can see Alisha’s reaction. Will she consider letting me go? That would be awesome.
She’s smiling. A very evil, very I-am-not-a-nice-person smile. “Eddie’s my leverage. You don’t want a dead kid on your conscience, do you, Frank?”
Detective Bovano stiffens.
“Drop the gun,” she says. “Or I shoot. The boy.”
I am thrilled that she has to clarify who her target is. Very comforting.
Bovano drops the gun.
There’s the sound of an engine firing up. Alisha hesitates, then takes off running.
Bovano scoops up his gun and sprints after her, yelling, “Stay where you are!”
I’m not sure if that’s supposed to be directed at me or Alisha, but I take him at his word.
Crouching behind a garbage can, I am safe in the alley. Safe-ish, anyway. How ironic.
A shot is fired. Squealing wheels. More shots and then the horrible sound of screeching metal and shattered glass.
I jump up and sprint for the street. I don’t want to, but my feet are in charge, and they zip me out of the alley faster than you can say “Italian in peril.” I know this is not what Bovano had in mind when he said “Always run,” but my partner needs my help.
A van has crashed into a light post, the driver’s door open and ab
andoned. Alisha and the others are nowhere to be seen.
Detective Bovano is lying on the sidewalk, face-down. I run to him, yelling “Detective! Detective!”
Is he dead? It’s all my fault. I crouch down, managing to roll him over with my adrenaline-spiked arms. He moans. Thank goodness. Dead people don’t moan. Unless they’re zombies, and don’t even get me started on that scenario.
I reach into my pocket for my cell phone but then remember that Alisha took it from me. “Help!” I yell. Where is everyone? I can’t believe there was a loud car crash and no one has come running. That’s city noise for you.
A growing spot of blood under Bovano’s jacket catches my eye. I push the leather coat back to reveal a dark red stain on his right shoulder. Not near his heart, at least. I peel off my top shirt, wad it up and apply pressure like we learned in health class. I check his vitals, counting with my watch. His color is like blanched spaghetti. The blood like tomato sauce. Now I’m thinking like an Italian, and that wigs me out even more.
Focus!
Last year in health class, we went from stop-drop-and-roll and eat-your-veggies boredom to first-aid-for-Jonah-Schwartz in the course of a week. They claim it was time for a new curriculum, but the change came on the heels of Jonah’s piercing his leg with a pair of scissors. So we learned about wounds and pulses and blood flow instead. It’s a good thing, too, because this year Jonah sliced his hand open on a paper cutter (what moron left that sitting out in the classroom, I have no idea).
Bovano moans again. His jacket flops open, revealing something small and silver on the inside pocket. A cell phone. I fish it out with my blood-soaked fingers. This time, I make the call.
It’s hard to talk on the phone and tend to his shoulder at the same time. The blood isn’t stopping like it’s supposed to. After I tell the 9-1-1 operator where we are, I drop the phone to the sidewalk and press on the wound even harder, leaning on it with both hands and all my minuscule weight.