Priceless: Crime Travelers Spy School Mystery Series Book 3

by Paul Aertker

  “Nice,” Jackknife said.

  Astrid crossed her arms. “Well, what about him?”

  “His name is Rufus,” Nalini said.

  “Great name,” Alister said.

  “He’s from London,” Nalini continued, “and he has a silver medal from the International Whistling Convention.”

  “Wow,” Jackknife said. “Always been a dream of mine: competitive whistling.”

  “He can supposedly whistle every national anthem,” Nalini said. “But we’re supposed to wait for him to pick us up.”

  “Why?” Lucas asked.

  Nalini said, “Mr. Benes thinks someone from the Good Company may have broken into our hotel last night.”

  “So?” Jackknife said. “That was last night.”

  Nalini said, “They might still be here.”

  WHISTLING CHAMPION

  The combination of climbing the stairs and whistling was making Rufus Chapman woozy. When the seventy-year-old butler pushed open the door to the seventh floor, he nearly fainted. He stepped into the hallway and leaned the tails of his tuxedo against the wall. As he pushed his top hat up, he wiped his brow.

  Rufus scanned the hallway. A sign on the wall pointed to rooms 701 to 725. Between rooms 703 and 704, there was a glass case housing a fire hose wrapped on a spool. Two broken sconces flickered light on the wall, and the carpet smelled of old sweat. All the doors were closed. Rufus let out a long whistle, holding it as if calling out to someone far down the corridor.

  Nothing came back.

  The butler glanced at his watch and saw that he had a few minutes to catch his breath.

  While Rufus waited for oxygen to return to his bloodstream, he heard a curious series of groans coming from room 701. He approached and cupped his ear close, listening for the suspicious sound to come again.

  Suddenly the door sprang open and startled Rufus. He stumbled back.

  Standing in the doorway was Charles Magnus, head of Good Company Security. Magnus was clean-shaven and dressed exactly like Rufus in a tuxedo with tails and top hat.

  “Nice monkey suit,” said Magnus in a fake British accent.

  “You frightened me,” Rufus said. “I thought I was looking at a mirror of my younger self.”

  The two men laughed.

  “You look terribly familiar,” Rufus said, searching his foggy mind for a memory. “Do I know you from London, perchance?”

  “Just another handsome face,” Magnus said.

  The two men chuckled.

  “Room 701?” Rufus asked. “Under what name are you registered at the hotel?”

  “My name?” Magnus said. “I’m Charles Sungham.”

  “Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Sungham,” Rufus said, extending a warm handshake. “I’m Rufus Chapman, head butler here at the Globe Hotel Barcelona.”

  “Just the man we were looking for!” Magnus said, pointing to the back of the hotel room. “We’re all in these penguin suits because we’re going to a wedding.”

  Rufus whistled the “Wedding March” as two more men wearing tuxedos emerged from the back of the room. One was tall, and the other sported a mustache. Both men lumbered forward and stood behind Magnus, giving Rufus a clear view into the room.

  “A wedding?” Rufus asked. “I’m sorry—I don’t recall seeing a wedding booked on the hotel’s calendar for today.”

  “It’s taking place down at the Sagrada Família.”

  “Beautiful place.”

  “We’re having a bit of a problem,” said the mustached man. “Hoping you could be of assistance.”

  “It’s my pleasure and duty to serve,” said Rufus.

  The tall man standing directly behind Magnus said, “My brother back here is having trouble tying this bloody bow tie.”

  Rufus glanced at his watch.

  “In a hurry?” Magnus asked.

  “I have some children to pick up.”

  “At what time?” asked the mustached man.

  Rufus spoke without thinking. “Seven a.m. sharp.”

  “What room are you picking the kids up in?” asked the tall man.

  Something was not right. Through his nose, Rufus inhaled deeply as he tried to quicken the oxygen to his brain. But the forest of hair in his nostrils slowed the flow of air.

  Rufus yawned. “Seven two five.”

  “Only twenty-four little rooms away,” said the mustached man.

  “Ah!” said Magnus as he closed the door behind Rufus. “You’ve got plenty of time.”

  “Should always help another when in need,” said the mustached man. “Right?”

  Rufus hesitated. “I presume so.”

  “Spoken like a true gentlemen,” said a voice from the back of the room.

  Rufus followed the voice and rounded the corner of the hotel room. A fourth man was sitting on the bed, trying to knot a bow tie. He had dark hair and a full beard. The man looked up at Rufus and dropped the tie to the carpet.

  Then, like a bolt of lightning, he charged headfirst into Rufus’s gut, sending both of them flying into the closet door.

  The tall man threw open the sliding panel while Magnus ripped sheets from the beds. Rufus struggled for air as he lay on the floor of the closet.

  The men piled on. The mustached man rammed a pillowcase into Rufus’s mouth, gagging him, while the others spun the sheets around his arms and legs, like cowboys roping a calf.

  Rufus groaned and squirmed.

  The men tossed bedspreads into the closet and closed the door.

  “Let’s go,” Magnus said.

  “You said there was no hurry,” said the mustached man.

  “Listen,” Magnus said as he stared at the men before him. “I’ve been trying to quit the Good Company for almost a year now.”

  “What?” asked the tall man.

  “News flash,” Magnus said. “The Good Company is going broke. I haven’t been paid in nearly six months.”

  “Horrible,” said the tall man.

  “She’s been paying us with five-hundred-euro notes,” said the bearded man.

  “They’re fake,” Magnus said. “Counterfeit. Probably from her frenemy in Bangladesh.”

  The tall man asked, “Who’s that?”

  “His name is Ching Ching,” Magnus said. “That’s all I know.”

  “I knew something was up with that lady,” the mustached man said.

  “Yeah,” said the bearded man. “We should quit.”

  “I know I should,” Magnus said. He paused and dropped his head. “To be honest with you, I feel terrible. I’ve been the quiet guy forever. I said yes to everything Siba asked for, and I never said no to all the awful things we did. I didn’t want any of it. All I really wanted was a Maserati and an island.”

  “That’s sounds sweet,” said the mustached man.

  “Who doesn’t want that?” asked the bearded man.

  “We could have made a fortune this summer,” Magnus said. “A mass kidnapping in Paris and a diamond container in Rome. And each time it was botched.”

  The three men nodded.

  “What’s the one common denominator?” Magnus asked rhetorically. “It’s a kid down the hall by the name of Lucas Benes.” Magnus huddled his group. “We’re all in this for the money, right?”

  The men’s heads moved up and down.

  “If we are ever going to get any money from the Good Company, it will be with this next job that Günerro is thinking about. But if we get Lucas to tell us what that secret message in the sunken container means, then we’ll get there first and we’ll be rich forever.”

  “Yeah,” said the bearded man.

  “What happens if it doesn’t work out?” asked the mustached man.

  “After today,” Magnus said, “either one of two things is going to happen.”

  “What’s that?” said the mustached man.

  “I can’t do this anymore,” Magnus said. “I’ll do it one more time if I can get the secret treasure from Lucas—then I’ll slip away to my island and be
gone forever; otherwise, I’ll have to come clean and tell the truth.”

  “You serious?” asked the mustached man.

  “Yes,” Magnus said. “I’m going to spill the beans on Siba Günerro and her Good Company—to the police.”

  “You’ll go to jail,” said the tall man.

  “Negative,” Magnus said. “I’ll get immunity.”

  “What’s that?” asked the bearded man.

  “Basically it’s protection. I tell the cops all about Ms. Günerro and her Good Company and she goes to jail and I go free.”

  “Either way,” said the tall man, “we’re with you.”

  “Let’s do it then,” said the bearded man. “For good.”

  He put his arm in the center of the group. The others chimed in and stacked hands like a team preparing for a game.

  “For good!” they said in unison, their arms rising.

  “You heard the butler,” said the man on the bed. “Room 725.”

  “I’ll use me British accent,” said the mustached man.

  Magnus looked at the others and smiled. “As Siba would say,” he said, “get the kids.”

  KNOCK, KNOCK

  At the beginning of every school year Lucas felt like there was a whole new list of rules. Brand-new made-up laws that someone created and everyone else had to follow. For the playground. The cafeteria. School trips. And now at this hotel-school in Barcelona, he and the others had to wait on some butler just to come pick them up. Lucas was certain this new guy would have a truckload of his own control systems. Secretly Lucas hoped there would be a ban on girls coming into his room. That would be a rule he could follow.

  “Not to be rude,” Lucas said, “but can you girls please get out of our room? At least let us get up first?”

  “And take that diaper out of here, would you?” Jackknife said. “It stinks like, well, you know.”

  “We have to wait,” Nalini said. “Something’s going on with our hotel and the Good Company.” She huffed and snatched Gini up to carry her to the bathroom. She closed the door behind her, and the diaper smell seemed to fade.

  “Why do we have to wait on a butler to pick us up?” Jackknife asked.

  “I’m sure there’s a rule,” Lucas said.

  “Why do we have a butler anyway?” Alister asked.

  “I don’t know,” Astrid said. “But my dad obviously hired him for a reason.”

  Jackknife fell back on his bed and pulled a pillow over his head.

  “Okay, Astrid,” he said. “Nalini came to tell us about this whistling butler. Let me guess—you came to tell us something important about...”

  Still holding the newspaper in her hand, Astrid stood in front of the TV.

  “I came to see if you guys had read the paper?” she asked.

  Alister, Lucas, and Jackknife goggled each other.

  Alister said, “Sorry, but I haven’t got round to it just yet.”

  “Top of my list, I can assure you,” said Jackknife. “I plan on reading it all afternoon down by the pool instead of getting on that giant slide.”

  “It’s off-limits anyway,” Astrid said. “Coach Creed said the tubes and slides were dangerous.”

  “I know, I know,” Jackknife said. “I would never break that rule.”

  On the bedside table there was a bus and metro map on top of a sealed envelope that read HOMEWORK PAPERS.Lucas pushed them aside, clicked on the lamp, and sat up in bed.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I’m way ahead of you. I read the paper hours ago. I was even thinking about writing a blog about it and giving it to our new English teacher.”

  “Who’s the new English teacher?” Astrid asked excitedly.

  “I have no clue,” Lucas said.

  “Oh be quiet,” Astrid said. “I know normal kids don’t read the news, but I thought you might be interested in this.” She unfurled the newspaper and showed them the front page.

  The headline read GOOD COMPANY MARKS ONE YEAR OF LOSING MONEY.

  The boys looked at one another. Lucas felt like they had missed a few days of life.

  “Since you’re not going to read the article,” Astrid said, “I’ll tell you that it essentially says that the Good Company is on the verge of bankruptcy.”

  “What’s that mean again?” said Jackknife. “Bankruptcy is like, um ...”

  “Alister,” Astrid said. “Your dad’s a banker. You want to explain?”

  “Sure,” Alister said. “The simple definition is where a company loses a lot of money, and they basically go out of business because they can’t pay their bills. They probably owe money to a lot of people. That’s called debt. And they will probably have to sell everything at super cheap prices just to pay some of the people they owe.”

  “Serves her right,” said Jackknife. “And we’re the ones who helped make that happen, too.”

  “In part,” Lucas said. “But Ms. Günerro is still a scary lady. She’ll do anything to win.”

  Alister dropped an ace of hearts on the third floor of his hotel construction project.

  “I have a bad feeling,” Alister said, “that we will soon have another go at the Good Company.”

  “Good,” Jackknife said. “I hope we do. Finish what we started.”

  Astrid folded the paper under her arm. “Well,” she said. “Dad and Coach Creed are in a meeting right now about the Good Company going broke.”

  “Why?” Jackknife asked. “Why would they be in a meeting about the Good Company?”

  “Because,” Astrid said, “if Ms. Günerro has to get rid of something, she might sell the Good Hotels; then our Globe Hotels might get a chance to buy Good Hotels and rename them.”

  “That would be great,” Jackknife said. “She has awesome hotels in really nice places.”

  “Remember her hotel in Las Vegas?” Alister asked.

  “With the ocean theme?” Jackknife asked. “That was the best.”

  “No offense,” Alister said. “It was better than this dump in the Globe Hotel chain.”

  Lucas shook his head. “Before Ms. Günerro sells anything, she’ll do something rash.”

  “Yeah,” Jackknife said, adding a rhyme. “To get some extra cash.”

  “Maybe her plan is in that sunken container,” Astrid said.

  “Why do you say that?” Jackknife asked.

  Astrid said, “The Good Company divers keep going into the diamond container but not coming up with any diamonds.”

  “How do you know all this?” Lucas asked.

  “The guy who cleans the pool here at this hotel, Cesar, has a boat,” Astrid said. “He took some divers out yesterday.”

  “And they’re not getting any diamonds?” Jackknife asked.

  “No,” Astrid said. “The site’s picked clean because there’s some sort of vacuum boat out there.”

  “So why are the Good Company divers going into the container?” Alister asked.

  “Yesterday,” Astrid said, “one of the divers overheard something about a message spray-painted on the inside wall of the container.”

  “What did it say?” Lucas asked.

  “They don’t know,” Astrid said. “Or at least they didn’t tell the boat driver.”

  “Why not?” Jackknife asked.

  Astrid sighed. “Because there was a team of divers that wouldn’t let anyone in to see it.”

  Jackknife said. “That’s fishy.”

  “Always is,” Lucas said, “with the Good Company.”

  There came a knock at the door.

  “It’s the butler!” Nalini yelled from the bathroom. “Come in.”

  Someone knocked again.

  THE BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS

  Ms. Günerro was looking out the wide windows of her penthouse apartment at the Good Hotel Barcelona when she heard the knocking at the door.

  She ignored it.

  Like most successful people on the planet, Siba Günerro liked to plan things in advance. Many people booked vacations months or years ahead of schedule to sec
ure hotels and flights to far-off destinations, beaches, and foreign cities.

  The Good Company was no different.

  But ever since Lucas Benes found a baby in the parking lot at the Globe Hotel Las Vegas, things had gone decidedly bad for the not-so-good Good Company.

  Through the western-facing window, Ms. Günerro could see tourists snaking through Park Güell. In the other direction, boats swarmed an area off the coast where scuba divers were combing the seafloor for the remaining Kapriss diamonds that had spilled a few days earlier.

  This particular morning Ms. Günerro wore a long housecoat made of West Bengal silk that shimmered in the light. She pretended not to hear the knock at the door and sat at the grand piano in the corner.

  She set her fingertips on the keys and resumed playing a tune she had written as a child. It was called “I Did It the Rich Way.”

  Listening to this music and sprawled across the beds was the remaining portion of Ms. Günerro’s security team: Goper Bradus from Greenland and Ekki Ellwoode Ekki from Iceland.

  Ekki was watching a video on his phone, while Goper was picking his nose. Both guards were waiting for their uniforms to be cleaned. For the last three days they had been lounging in plush white bathrobes and pink pedicure sandals.

  The knock at the door turned to a rattle and startled Ms. Günerro.

  The chief executive stopped playing the piano and looked up. The sound of Ekki’s video escaped his earbuds and crackled into the room. Goper flicked his booger onto the carpet and stared blankly at the ceiling.

  “If you truly want more responsibility,” Ms. Günerro said, “then start by getting the door.”

  Goper sat up. The Barcelona humidity had pumped up his blond curls so that his hair was now bigger than his actual head. The pouf looked like a golden halo floating above him.

  “I’m not dressed,” said Goper as he shuffled across the room, his freshly painted toenails gleaming through the shag carpet.

  He opened the door and found a teenager dressed in the resort’s room service uniform. A gold name tag on his coat read ANDRÉS.

  “Room service,” he said, handing Goper a long plastic bag of dry-cleaned suits.

  Goper hung the clothes in the closet and stepped out of the way.