Disappearing Acts

by Byars, Betsy

  His dad pulled Meat against his chest and hugged him hard. Then he pulled back for another look.

  “So what’s going on in your life, Albie? You keeping busy?”

  “Yeah, I just solved a murder.”

  “Murder?”

  “Yes, I found the body and then it disappeared and then I found it again and then I found the murderer.” He shook his head. “Only I could never be a real detective like Mr. Jones—he’s the man who brought me here—because I felt sorry for the one who did it. It turned out to be a girl. She’s going to plead guilty to accidental homicide which isn’t quite as bad, and Mike Howard’s pleading guilty to obstruction of justice.” Meat glanced over his shoulder at Chico Jones to make sure he had told it right. Chico’s nod told him he had.

  The Macho Man cleared his throat. “Speaking of disappearances, son,” he began, “I always felt bad I left the way I did.”

  Meat waited.

  “This doesn’t justify it—nothing does—but it seems like almost every man in my family got what we call the gotta-go gene. We must have had nomads for ancestors. We can’t help ourselves. One day we go out to get a newspaper or a haircut and we’re outta there—just keep going. My dad dropped me off at school one morning and we didn’t see him again for sixteen years.”

  “That’s a long time to be without a dad,” Meat said, speaking from experience. Ten years had been almost more than he could bear.

  “I wouldn’t have stayed at home as long as I did if it hadn’t been for you.”

  Meat managed a smile. “I hope you didn’t pass the gotta-go gene on to me. I like where I am.”

  “Well, one thing you can be sure of. Now that we found each other, son, we aren’t going to let go.”

  He put his arm around Meat and drew him close.

  “You know,” Herculeah said to her father, “Meat doesn’t seem bitter at all.”

  “You expected him to be?”

  She nodded. “But then I also expected he would be ashamed that his dad turned out to be a professional wrestler.” She smiled. “I guess I don’t know Meat as well as I thought I did.”

  “Yes, he seems very proud of his father.”

  They looked at Meat. Pride showed in his face, in his stance. Herculeah slipped one arm around Chico Jones’s waist, and she smiled up at him.

  “I know the feeling,” she said.

  25

  THE NEXT MYSTERY

  Herculeah lay on her bed. It was three o‘clock in the morning. She and Meat had sat in the backseat of her dad’s car, talking, all the way home. She was tired. She was talked out. Yet somehow she was troubled, which really didn’t make sense.

  The phone rang. Herculeah knew it was Meat, so she picked up the phone on the first ring.

  It woke her mother anyway. “Herculeah, was that the phone?”

  “It’s for me, Mom.”

  “Who’s calling at this hour?”

  “Probably Meat. I’ll find out.” She spoke into the phone. “Meat?”

  “Yes,” he whispered.

  Herculeah called, “Go back to sleep, Mom. It’s just Meat.” Into the phone she said, “Why are you whispering?”

  “I don’t want my mom to hear. My mom thinks three o‘clock in the morning is no time to call anybody.”

  “So does mine,” Herculeah said. “What did your mom say about your dad?”

  “About what I expected. I told her about how great Dad was and showed her his picture in the program, the one with his hands out, like he’s getting ready to grab the cameraman.”

  “They all looked mad at the cameraman.”

  “True. Anyway, my mom looked at it and she got that expression she gets when she smells something bad, and she said, ‘Your father may be bigger and he may have fancier clothes, but he’s the same man who walked out on us and don’t you forget it.’”

  “Don’t let her spoil it for you.”

  “Nobody could. It’s been the greatest night of my life.”

  Meat waited a moment for her to answer and when she didn‘t, he said, “Are you still there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is anything wrong?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I feel sort of, I don’t know, dissatisfied.”

  “Not me. I’ve never felt better in my whole life.”

  Herculeah shifted the telephone. “You should. You found your father and solved a mystery.”

  “No, you found my father. It was a quest—like Hercules’ search for the Golden Chalice.”

  “That wasn’t Hercules.”

  “The Golden Fleece?”

  “No.”

  “Well, he searched for something golden and valuable, something nobody else in the world could find. I know that much. And I know he found it! And finding my father was something no one else in the world could have done but you.”

  Herculeah smiled. “Your father is not golden.”

  Meat’s voice was serious as he said, “He is to me.”

  “Anyway, that was an accident. I bought the camera and, let’s face it, I didn’t have any reason to think you and your father would be in the photos. And then it was my dad who tracked your father down. I just stood by. I hate standing by.”

  “No, you found my father,” Meat said firmly.

  “But you solved the mystery.”

  “Is that what’s bothering you—that I solved a mystery?”

  “No! Oh, maybe. I guess. Meat, there’s something about solving a mystery, something about putting the last piece of the puzzle in place, that is really satisfying.”

  “Yes!”

  She grinned into the phone. “Anyway, the next mystery is mine.”

  Meat realized his enthusiastic “Yes!” had come too quickly. He thought back to the terrible parts—finding a dead body in the men’s bathroom with the murderer in the next stall; hiding in a janitor’s closet, alone; and then worse, with Herculeah, while a supposedly funny comic did an unfunny impression of him. And the most terrible moment of all—waiting for the knife to plunge into his heart.

  He shuddered.

  “The next mystery is all yours,” he said firmly. There was a pause, then Meat asked, “‘Why are you talking about the next mystery? Herculeah, do you have one of your premonitions?”

  “Well...”

  “What? Tell me!”

  “It’s probably nothing.”

  “Tell me. Let me decide. I’m an expert on nothings.”

  “Remember that wrestler called the Lion King? Remember he actually roared? Remember you said his hair frizzled just like mine?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, when I saw the Lion King, I got a premonition.”

  “Lion ... lion.” Meat gasped. “The Nemean Lion! I know I’m right about that.”

  “Yes, I thought of that, too.” She smiled. “But there are no lions around here so I’m not going to waste my time worrying about it.”

  “Me either,” Meat lied. “Anyway,” he added, more for himself than for Herculeah, “if Hercules can overcome his lion, so can Herculeah.”

  “Thanks, that was nice. Goodnight, Meat.”

  “Goodnight, Herculeah.”

  And as she hung up the phone she said thoughtfully, “The Nemean Lion.”

  Turn the page for a preview of the newest

  HERCULEAH JONES MYSTERY,

  THE BLACK TOWER!

  1

  THE TERROR IN BLACK TOWER

  Slowly she climbed the circular stairs in the tower, drawn against her will to what waited at the top.

  Halfway there, she paused. She heard the sound of the tower door close below her. Had it been a hand that closed it? She looked down. The thought that she might be trapped made her dizzy.

  She touched the wall to steady herself. There was an eerie coldness to the stones beneath her hand.

  She lifted her head. She listened.

  She heard nothing, but she knew someone was up there, waiting for her.

  And whoever it was knew she was coming.

/>   Slowly she took another step and another. Higher ... higher. With each step, her fear grew until it seemed to swirl around her like a cape that held no warmth.

  Herculeah stopped reading and let the book fall to her lap. “Are you positive this is the book you want me to read?” she asked.

  The old man on the bed blinked his eyes once. That meant “yes.”

  “Well, I’m getting spooked,” Herculeah said. “Particularly because this house, your house, has a tower attached to it. It’s exactly like this one, isn’t it?”

  One blink. Yes.

  “Have you ever been up there?”

  Yes.

  “What’s up there? Oh, I forgot. You can’t answer that kind of question. Only yes or no. Is there a room up there?”

  Yes.

  “Does the tower have circular stairs?”

  Yes.

  “That was stupid of me. I guess all towers do. Either that or they have a ladder.”

  Herculeah glanced out the window. She could see the tower now. It rose, black and forbidding, part of the house and yet somehow separate. Halfway up the tower there were windows. They were slits so deep in the stone that no daylight could come through.

  Herculeah paused in thought. Her hands tightened on the book in her lap. The silence continued.

  Herculeah had come here to read to Mr. Hunt. Her mother, a private detective, had asked her to do this. Mr. Hunt was, or had been, one of her mother’s clients.

  “Why was he a client?” Herculeah had asked, instantly curious. “What did he want you to do?”

  “That doesn’t concern you.”

  Herculeah had leaned forward, more interested than ever. “What did he want you to find? That’s what all old people want you to do—find someone or something from their past.”

  Her mother’s wry smile made Herculeah think she had hit the mark.

  “So what could it have been?” she went on thoughtfully. “What could have happened? Murder? Was it a murder?” Her gray eyes lit up. “It was murder, wasn’t it?”

  “Whatever it was happened a long time ago.”

  “So it was murder.”

  Her mother lifted one hand to silence her. “If you’re going to play detective—”

  “Mom, I don’t play detective. I have solved six murders.” She began to count them on her fingers. “Mr. Crewell, Madame Rosa...”

  Her mom sighed, and Herculeah discontinued her list. “Oh, all right, what do you want me to do?”

  “Just read to him for an hour or so. The man is lonely. He can’t move at all since his stroke. He can only blink his eyes—one blink for yes, two for no.”

  “How awful! Sure, I’ll do it. Actually, I enjoy reading to people. What kind of book would an old man like? Something about old horses, old airplanes, or”—she grinned—“old women? I’ll take a bunch of books so he’ll have a choice. First thing tomorrow I’ll go to the library and load up with books.”

  “Oh, there’s a huge library at the house. You won’t need to take anything.”

  “A huge library? This old man has a huge library in his house?”

  Her mom hesitated a moment before she answered. “Have you ever heard of Shivers Hunt?”

  “Mom! Not the Shivers Hunt!”

  “There couldn’t be but one.”

  “Mom, you mean I’d actually get to go inside Haunt House?”

  “What?”

  “Haunt House. That’s what all the kids call it. And, Mom, nobody has ever been inside it. I cannot believe that I’m going to Haunt House.”

  “Well, you aren’t going unless you stop calling it that.”

  “Right! Hunt House!”

  “I won’t let you go unless you promise you won’t do anything to upset Mr. Hunt.”

  “I won‘t, I won’t! I promise! But I can’t help being excited. I, Herculeah Jones, am going inside”—she swallowed the word—“Hunt House.”

  But when Herculeah got there, she hadn’t been taken to the library to choose a book as she had expected. The nurse took her straight up the stairs to Mr. Hunt’s bedroom. The book had already been chosen for her. It was waiting on the table by the old man’s bed.

  Herculeah picked up the book. She read the title aloud. “The Terror in Black Tower. This is what I’m supposed to read?” she asked the nurse.

  “Yes, Herculeah. When I told Mr. Hunt that you were coming to read to him, I asked if there was any particular book he’d like. He blinked yes. I must have carried a hundred books up from the library before he finally saw this one and gave a very definite yes.”

  Herculeah picked up the book. On the cover, embossed in the black leather, was the silhouette of a tower. It was outlined in gold, but it looked as if someone had rubbed their fingers over the gold, as if to erase the whole tower from sight. It gave the book a sinister look. She rubbed her own fingers over the gold, then stopped abruptly.

  “Well, let’s get on with it.” She opened the book. “Ready, Mr. Hunt?”

  Yes.

  Inside, the pages were thick and yellow with age. They smelled of mildew and dark passages and old secrets. Herculeah loved it.

  Perhaps, she thought, Mr. Hunt had read the book as a boy, and back then it had seemed scary, probably full of family madness and secret passages and—who knows?—maybe some terror actually had been up in the black tower.

  But those things didn’t exist in modern times.

  They didn’t.

  She paused.

  Or did they?

  2

  THE TRAP POOR

  Herculeah glanced at Mr. Hunt. He was waiting for her to continue. She looked down at the page.

  “Where was I? Oh, yes, she’s going up the tower steps.” Herculeah smiled. “Actually, this will probably sound foolish to you, Mr. Hunt, but I can understand the girl doing this. I mean, she knows she’s not supposed to. She knows there’s something up there, something dangerous. But she can’t stop herself. That’s the way I am. I would do the exact same thing. The only difference would be that at this point my hair would be frizzling. I have radar hair. It gets bigger when I’m in danger. Like this.”

  She laughed and fluffed out her hair. Mr. Hunt watched. His bright bird eyes never left her face.

  At that moment, her hair actually seemed to be frizzling on its own, as if it were anticipating the day she would climb the tower, the day she—heart racing with fear—not the character in the book, would take those circular stairs.

  She patted her hair into place and said, “Oh, here’s where we were.” She began to read.

  Slowly she took another step and another. Higher ... higher. With each step, her fear grew until it seemed to swirl around her like a cape that held no warmth.

  In the distance came the sound of thunder. She glanced out the window. She could see nothing through the dense chilling fog that circled the tower.

  A storm was coming. She must hurry.

  Still she hesitated before taking the next step. Only eight steps remained. She could see the heavy wooden door at the top now, a trapdoor.

  Only seven steps.

  Now she could hear it. The sound of breathing seemed to move from side to side behind the trapdoor. It was as if whoever, whatever was there, was trying to find a way out.

  “I’m coming,” she whispered.

  The door to the bedroom opened behind Herculeah, and, startled, she spun around.

  “Your hour’s up, Herculeah,” the nurse said.

  “Already? I just started. I’ve hardly read two pages. I got started talking about myself—I do that all the time. Plus I was getting to the good part. The girl in the book was hearing breathing. I’ve got to find out what’s doing that breathing.”

  “Sorry. It’ll keep. Tomorrow the print will still be right there waiting for you.”

  “I know.” Herculeah sighed. “Actually I read a lot of books, and I’ve learned that authors save important things—things like what’s waiting up in the tower, doing that heavy breathing—until the very en
d. If I know authors, this one will start a flashback just when she gets to the trapdoor. Then, on the last page—finally, finally—we’ll find out what was in the tower.”

  “You must do a lot of reading.”

  “Yes.”

  “But we don’t want to tire Mr. Hunt.”

  “No. Did I tire you, Mr. Hunt?”

  Two blinks. No.

  “But did I scare you?”

  No.

  She laughed. “Well, I scared myself.”

  Herculeah folded a ribbon into the book to hold her place. She closed the book and set it on the table.

  “I’ll be back tomorrow to pick up. Remember where we left off? It’s getting ready to storm. The girl heard thunder. It’ll be a dark and stormy night when anything can happen.” She gave her words a dramatic reading.

  He blinked a forceful yes.

  “Dramatic things always happen during storms—though it’s dramatic enough with something waiting for her at the top of the tower.”

  Another forceful yes.

  “Do you know what’s up there?”

  Yes.

  “Because you’ve read the book before?”

  “Time,” the nurse reminded her.

  “I have to go.” Herculeah smiled at the old man, his face pale against the pillows, his bright bird eyes trying to tell her something, something important.

  The nurse said, “Your friend is waiting for you outside.”

  “Meat?”

  “I think that’s his name. I tried to get him to come inside, but he wouldn’t.”

  “That’s Meat.”

  Herculeah almost explained that Meat was afraid of this house, that he half believed the ghost stories that surrounded it, believed the stories that the portraits had holes in the eyes so that someone in a secret passage behind the wall could watch your every move.

  “Meat ... Herculeah ...” the nurse said. “What wonderful names!”

  “Meat got his because there’s a lot of him. I got mine because my mom was watching a Hercules movie when she was waiting for me to be born. Mom was kidding around about naming me Hercules if I was a boy. The nurse said, ‘What about if it’s a girl?’ Mom said, ‘She’ll be Herculeah.’ I guess I was lucky. The doctor got in the act and said, ‘How about Samson?’ He even sang it, ‘Oh, Samson-ya!’” She laughed. “Anyway, everyone who knows me says it suits.”