Nickel Bay Nick

by Dean Pitchford

  Now they just look dumb.

  Did Mr. Wells let me out of his car right here because he wanted me to see my old graffiti? I wonder. Is he deliberately rubbing my nose in my past? And if he is, how does he know so much about my life?

  I shiver, but this shiver has nothing to do with how cold it is.

  • • •

  By the time Dr. Sakata picks me up two hours later at our rendezvous, my fingers are stiff and my eyebrows are growing little icicles.

  Back in Mr. Wells’s kitchen, Dr. Sakata feeds me a bowl of clear soup with mushrooms and tiny shrimp floating in it. Normally, I’d turn up my nose at any meal that includes mushrooms and tiny shrimp, but I’m so cold that, at that moment, I’d be willing to drink lava.

  Afterward, in his office, Mr. Wells spreads out my map of Bay Front and studies the route I traced between the buildings and down the side streets. As he does, I consider asking him whether he’s deliberately sending me to the scenes of my previous crimes, but I’m not sure I want to hear his answer. Instead, I lean across the desk.

  “I tried to avoid restaurants with bright lights out front,” I point out, and he nods silently. “And if you look there”—I jab my finger at a spot on the map—“I’m gonna cut through the parking lot at Pirro’s Pasta Palace. You think that’s a good idea?”

  “I’ll trust your judgment.” He looks up. “After all, this mission is a first for Nickel Bay Nick.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that I have never done what I’m asking you to do.”

  I blink in surprise. “You’ve never tried this?”

  “Even seven years ago, when I first acted as Nickel Bay Nick, I was not a young man,” Mr. Wells explains. “I never had the speed or agility to slip in and out of shadows or crouch in dark doorways, waiting to strike.”

  Now he’s got me worried. “How do you even know it can be done?”

  “I don’t,” Mr. Wells says with a shrug. “But I do know that the job requires”—he counts on his fingers—“someone small in stature, someone fast on his feet and someone with the cold-blooded cunning of a cat burglar. You’re more than qualified.”

  We spend the next few hours reviewing and revising the route that I devised through Bay Front. After that, I spend an hour practicing my miserable pickpocketing skills with Dr. Sakata, and by the end of the afternoon, my shoulders are slumped again.

  “Tired, Sam?” Mr. Wells asks.

  “This whole business of being mysterious,” I say, “it’s actually kind of exhausting, isn’t it?”

  “Ah!” Mr. Wells exclaims. “Now you know the dirty little secret about espionage. For every moment of hair-raising excitement and breathtaking adventure, there are ten thousand hours of mind-numbing preparation.”

  “Give me an example.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You owe me a story,” I remind him. “You promised.”

  “Perhaps tomorrow,” Mr. Wells protests. “It’s late.”

  I throw my arms wide, the way I’ve seen him do, and flop back into a high-backed leather chair. “I’ve got all the time in the world.”

  So Mr. Wells clears his throat.

  “Years ago, while I was stationed at the U.S. Embassy in a war-torn dictatorship, which shall remain nameless, one of our operatives—”

  “Operative? Isn’t that a fancy way of saying ‘spy’?”

  “Spy is . . . another word for what he was, yes.” Mr. Wells nods. “Anyway . . . the identity of this operative had been—how should I put this?—compromised—”

  “You mean somebody ratted him out,” I suggest. “His cover was blown.”

  Mr. Wells scowls.

  “I’ve seen spy movies,” I say with a shrug. “I know how these things work.”

  “Do you want to tell the story?” Mr. Wells sounds annoyed.

  I pull an imaginary zipper across my lips, and he continues.

  “As I was saying, when our spy’s cover was blown, he was in fear for his life. After narrowly avoiding capture by the dictator’s army, he managed to slip into the capital city and take refuge in our embassy. The ambassador at the time was a cheerful but rather daffy older gentleman who spent more time obsessing about his six Saint Bernard dogs than he did worrying about matters of state. After the spy arrived, enemy soldiers surrounded the embassy and maintained surveillance twenty-four hours a day, determined to capture him. They checked every vehicle that entered and left the grounds. Then they began to confiscate all our food deliveries, and within just a few days, we were down to our last supplies and feeling like prisoners.

  “The spy was desperate to flee to safety, and the ambassador was equally impatient to get him off the property. But how could we manage that? All the generals and diplomats on staff, all of us were stumped, until I came up with a suggestion that sounded so crazy—”

  “That it just might work,” I chime in. Mr. Wells glares at me, and I immediately regret my words. “Sorry. They say that a lot in movies, too.”

  Mr. Wells goes on. “While in the country, I had made the acquaintance of a particularly gifted local tailor, a cheerful little man with one gold tooth and an amazing way with fabric. Through one of our kitchen workers, I sent a message to the tailor, who arrived the next day, bringing with him a large crate of toilet paper.”

  “Toilet paper?” I ask. “How are you supposed to save a spy with toilet paper?”

  “Oh, the toilet paper was merely a fake-out,” Mr. Wells answers. “Hidden in a false compartment at the bottom of that crate was a small sewing machine and twelve yards of a very special fabric the tailor had managed to smuggle in.

  “Two days later, a pickup truck was stopped as it was leaving the embassy grounds, and it was searched by the dictator’s soldiers. In the bed of the truck was a large, wooden dog crate, and through the slats of the cage, the soldiers could see one of the ambassador’s Saint Bernards.

  “‘Why,’ they demanded to know, ‘is this dog leaving the property?’

  “‘Because,’ I explained to the soldiers, ‘she is pregnant and about to give birth.’”

  I sit up. “Wait! What do you mean, you explained? Were you driving the truck?”

  “I was.”

  “Were you in disguise?”

  “From head to foot.”

  “Cool!” I exhale, and sit back.

  “The dog was experiencing complications, I told the soldiers, and we were on our way to the animal clinic. ‘So be careful,’ I warned them. ‘She might be disagreeable.’ Of course, they ignored me and leaned in for a closer look. But when the dog lunged at them, growling and snapping, they quickly jumped back and waved me through.”

  “Did you get to the hospital in time?”

  Mr. Wells wags a finger. “I was never headed for the hospital.”

  “You weren’t?”

  “Oh, no. Instead, I drove to a checkpoint at the country’s border, where we transferred the crate to another of our government’s trucks waiting just on the other side of the border crossing.”

  “Why did you send that poor, pregnant dog out of the country?”

  “Because as soon as that crate crossed the border, our agents on the other side opened it and released . . . our spy.”

  I couldn’t believe my ears. “You put your spy in a crate with an angry, pregnant Saint Bernard?”

  “Sam,” Mr. Wells chuckles, “our spy was the Saint Bernard.”

  My jaw drops. “Huh?”

  “The tailor I had summoned to the embassy was actually the costume designer for a famous theatrical troupe in that city. He smuggled in yards of synthetic fur as well as bottles of dye and jars of paint. He even managed to conceal a box of glass eyeballs. Once he arrived at the embassy, he set about sewing and painting and clipping the furry fabric until he had created a Saint Bernard suit, complete with a mouth
that opened and eyes that blinked.”

  “No way!” I gasp.

  “Way! And while the tailor was building the costume, I had our technical staff record the growls and barks of the ambassador’s dogs. We transferred those sounds onto a playback device that was controlled from inside the dog suit and connected by wire to mini speakers hidden inside the wooden kennel.”

  “So what did the soldiers think when you returned without a dog in your truck?”

  “Oh, we had anticipated that,” Mr. Wells says. “After leaving the border, I drove to the cargo hangar at the local airfield, where I picked up two Saint Bernard puppies that the ambassador had just purchased from a breeder in Switzerland. When I returned to the embassy, the soldiers, of course, crowded around the crate to look at the cute newborns.”

  “Didn’t they wonder where the puppies’ mother was?”

  Mr. Wells nods. “When they asked, I lowered my chin and shook my head sadly. And do you know? Every one of those enemy soldiers bowed his head, pulled off his cap and observed a moment of silence for that poor, departed dog.”

  “Wow.” I sigh. “When I grow up, I want your job.”

  “There is one final chapter to the story,” Mr. Wells says. “As a favor to the tailor for his invaluable help, I arranged to smuggle him, his wife and their little boy out of that war-torn country and into Japan, where I supplied them with passports and a new family name.”

  “That was a pretty nice favor,” I say.

  “Perhaps,” he says with a shrug, “but that tailor’s little boy grew up, entered the field of medicine and has more than adequately repaid my favor over the years.”

  He turns and nods to Dr. Sakata, who makes a deep bow in return.

  THE BAD NEWS OF BOOKKEEPING

  December 31–January 1

  The sixth day of Christmas is December 31, the last day of the year. As if to remind us of what a rotten year it’s been, the weather is especially lousy. A cold rain has been falling for hours by the time Dad is ready to leave for the bakery.

  “I don’t know why I’m even bothering,” he grumbles as he slips his coat on. “Nobody’s going to be out buying cupcakes in this weather.”

  When I get to work, Dr. Sakata leads me into the first-floor office, where Mr. Wells is studying the map of Bay Front that I marked up the day before. I move toward the chair opposite him, but Mr. Wells suddenly looks up. “Don’t sit,” he orders. “We have another job to do.”

  Hoko pads along behind us as Dr. Sakata pushes Mr. Wells’s wheelchair out of the office and down to the end of a hallway I’ve never been in. We stop in front of a carved oak door, and Dr. Sakata presses a button that’s hidden in the dark wood molding. Instead of swinging open, though, the door slides away to reveal—

  “An elevator?” I gasp. “You’ve got an elevator?”

  “The house came with it,” Mr. Wells explains as he rolls in. “Normally, I take the stairs to stay in shape, but it sure comes in handy now that I’m in this chair.”

  We descend to the basement and make our way to the large workroom where Dr. Sakata and Mr. Wells had loaded the money into all those items I’d bought for the Red Mission. Again, fifteen one-hundred-dollar bills are arranged down the middle of the steel worktable. The marble chop with the carving of the phoenix and the bottle of purple ink are carefully laid out, too.

  As he pulls on a pair of white cotton gloves, Mr. Wells says, “I thought that it was time you acquire another of the many skills in Nickel Bay Nick’s arsenal.”

  “What skill is that?”

  “The preparation of the money,” he says, holding out a smaller pair of gloves to me.

  I’m surprised. “You got gloves in my size?”

  “An operative is only as good as his equipment.” Mr. Wells rolls up the sleeves of his sweater and gets down to business.

  First, he explains, I have to learn the proper technique of inking the chop. Too much ink and the image smudges. Too little ink and the image is faint. Once the stamp is properly inked, Mr. Wells demonstrates how to apply it—with one smooth rolling motion. He sits at my elbow as I practice stamping thirty or forty small squares of scrap paper. Then, with the magnifying eyeglasses strapped to his forehead, Mr. Wells inspects each one as carefully as if he were examining a cut diamond. Finally satisfied, he declares, “I think we can move on to the real thing.”

  He nods to Dr. Sakata, who gathers up my test pages, piles them in a corner fireplace and sets fire to them. All of us, including Hoko, watch the flames consume the papers until all that’s left of my practice sheets is a smoking pile of black ash. Then slowly, carefully and—if I do say so myself—expertly, I stamp fifteen purple phoenixes onto fifteen crisp hundred-dollar bills.

  Over lunch, Mr. Wells is all business. “The next time we see each other will be Wednesday, January second. Be here at one o’clock. You and Dr. Sakata can continue your pickpocketing exercises, and then, just before sunset, you’ll take the cash and leave for Bay Front. By the time you walk across town, it’ll be dark, and you can begin the Green Mission.”

  In the middle of the afternoon, Mr. Wells calls Dad at the bakery. He starts the conversation by going on and on about how impressed he is by my filing skills and how “invaluable” my help has been. Once he’s got Dad all buttered up, he makes his request.

  “So, Dwight, listen. I’ve got a favor to ask. The day after tomorrow . . . yes, Wednesday . . . I’ve got an appointment that’s going to take me out of the house all morning. Sam and I have been working at such a good clip that I’d hate to lose eight hours of work, especially with tomorrow being a holiday and all.”

  From where I’m sitting, I can hear Dad through the phone exclaiming, “No, no! Of course not.”

  “So what I’m hoping,” Mr. Wells continues smoothly, “is that Sam can start work that afternoon—say, about one?—and we’ll knock off at about nine. Is that okay with you?”

  I don’t have to hear his exact words to know that Dad is thrilled to have an evening to himself. And Lisa, probably.

  Mr. Wells hangs up and says, “I like your father.”

  “Try living with him,” I grumble.

  “Why is that so hard?”

  “Where do I start?” I ask. “First of all, he expects me to be perfect, like him. And I’m not.”

  “You think your father is perfect?”

  “He was a state champion football player!” I exclaim. “He was a fireman who saved lives! And what am I? A pasty-white, scrawny punk made out of spare parts. And all I ever do is disappoint him.”

  “Is that how he feels?” Mr. Wells says quietly. “Has he said that you’re a disappointment to him?”

  I look away before I answer, “He doesn’t have to.”

  “Well, before you beat yourself up,” he says, “perhaps you should ask the question.”

  • • •

  Hoko sleeps in a corner and snores loudly through the next three hours of my frustrating pickpocketing lesson with Dr. Sakata. At the end of the afternoon, I gloomily pull on my sweater and shoes at the back door. As I reach for the knob, Mr. Wells stops me. “Aren’t you forgetting something?” he asks.

  I turn to find him, Dr. Sakata and Hoko lined up.

  “What?”

  “Happy New Year, Sam,” Mr. Wells says with a little nod, and Dr. Sakata bows and says something in his language. Hoko simply yawns.

  “Oh, yeah.” I sort of nod, sort of bow. “Happy New Year, you guys.”

  • • •

  After he gets home from work, Dad showers before getting dressed for Lisa’s New Year’s party. When I walk out in ripped blue jeans, he shakes his head.

  “You’re not wearing those.”

  “Apparently I am.”

  He sighs. “Don’t be difficult, Sam.”

  “I’m not being difficult,” I insist. “I’m being com
fortable. If I’m going to have to go to a party that I don’t want to go to, at least let me wear what I want to wear.”

  Dad folds his arms. “Is this about Lisa?”

  “What?”

  “Has Lisa ever done anything to make you dislike her?”

  “No! But—”

  “Have you got a problem with me seeing Lisa?”

  “You can see whoever you—”

  “Answer the question: Are you upset that I’m dating someone who isn’t your mother?”

  “Mom got remarried!” I spit out. “Or did you forget?”

  “How could I forget?” Dad shouts, throwing his hands up. “I think about her every day.”

  That hits me like a sucker punch. “You do?”

  “Sam,” Dad says gently, “your mother was my high school sweetheart. We started a family together. When she left, she broke my heart.” His voice cracks a little on that last part.

  Outside, the last winds of the year rattle through the eaves as Dad and I face each other, neither one moving. Finally I groan. “All right.” I trudge into my bedroom, announcing, “I’ll find something uncomfortable to wear.”

  • • •

  Surprise, surprise. Lisa’s party doesn’t suck.

  “You look very nice tonight, Sam,” she says as she welcomes me with a hug.

  “Thanks,” I say. “You, too.” And I mean it. Lisa’s wearing a dark green velvet dress that looks good with her curly red hair, and when Dad kisses her hello, her smile lights up the room.

  Lisa’s small apartment is crammed with people in a holiday mood, drinking happily and loading their plates from the platters of food on the dining room table. There are some other kids there, so Lisa’s two little girls have enough playmates that they leave me alone. I pour myself a cup of the eggnog (“From the nonalcoholic punchbowl,” Dad warns), and I wander around, eavesdropping on conversations. And guess what they’re all talking about?