by Nic Saint
“That does it,” said Alice. “I think we need to return to our original plan and tell the mayor what’s going on.”
It was an option, Felicity conceded.
“Yeah, now that he’s been reunited with Moe, I’m sure he’ll be quite agreeable to hearing Mark’s story,” agreed Rick.
“So what’s the plan?” Alice wanted to know.
Felicity relented. “Let’s go and see the mayor. But first we need to pick up Mark Stokely, so he can explain what’s going on.”
“Shouldn’t we wait until morning?” asked Virgil, who looked like he could use some sleep.
Felicity shook her head decidedly. “This is an emergency, Virgil. If something’s wrong with that plant, we need to act now.”
“Great plan,” said Alice. “Let’s go.”
“I still feel we should be the ones breaking this story,” whispered Rick as they got into Virgil’s patrol car. “If only we could get a couple of nice shots of those cracks…”
“Forget it, honey,” she said. “That ship has sailed, I’m afraid.”
Rick sat back. “You’re probably right,” he grumbled.
She felt truly sorry for him, but the safety of Happy Bays came first.
They drove on in silence, the events of the night and tiredness weighing on all of them. For the first time Felicity felt beat, and she thought if only she could take a nap, she’d be right as rain. But then the night was almost over. All they needed to do was convince the mayor that there was something rotten in the state of the nuclear plant, and then it was home to bed. She’d ask Mom to give the first shift to one of the boys, and she was sure Alice could get a reprieve from her Uncle Mickey as well. They were going to have a long sleep-in.
They arrived at the Stokelys, and she volunteered to trot up to the door to ring the bell. When all was quiet, she rang it again, and added a vigorous rattle of the door knocker for good measure. Nothing. Weird. For a moment she wondered if the couple were so fast asleep they wouldn’t hear the bell, but then the door opened next door, and Mrs. Baumgartner waddled up to the porch, looking none too friendly.
“What’s with the noise?” she grumbled.
“Where are the Stokelys?” Felicity asked.
“They’re gone!”
A sudden ripple of dread arced through her. “Gone? What do you mean gone?”
“Left about an hour ago. Asked me to water the plants and pick up the mail.”
“Where—where did they go?”
Mrs. Baumgartner shrugged. “London, Rome, Paris, Amsterdam…you name it, honey. Mabel told me they were finally going to take that European cruise they always talked about.”
Felicity closed her eyes. Oh, God. The key to this whole story was Mark Stokely, and now he was gone. She hurried back to the car, where three pairs of eyes looked at her inquiringly.
“Mabel and Mark have gone on a European tour,” she said.
“European tour? Who are they, Beyoncé and Jay-Z?” asked Rick.
“Mabel always did say she wanted to travel,” Alice said slowly.
“Yes, but not now!” cried Felicity. “How are we going to convince the mayor to shut down the power plant?”
“We’re not,” said Rick, his sooty face shining. “We’re going to do it ourselves.”
Felicity’s shoulders slumped. Oh, no. “Honey, isn’t it enough that you got electrocuted once? Do you really want to do it again?”
“We’re not going through the fence this time,” he said, animation returning to his features. “We’re going in through the main gate.” He punched his fist against the headrest, eliciting an irritated cry from Virgil, who was the designated driver. “We’re going to crash that plant!”
“Yay,” said Alice without much enthusiasm.
It summed up the general sentiment.
Chapter 35
“I’m sorry, Jer. I really am.” Johnny was riding shotgun while Jerry directed the car along the Interstate. The two wannabe parrot kidnappers were on their way back to New York, where Jerry hoped they could leave this unfortunate incident behind them as soon as possible.
“It’s all right,” he grumbled, though it wasn’t. For one thing, his stomach hurt. One week into his fast, and he was having a hard time not killing everyone in sight, most notably Johnny Carew, his longtime partner, who’d seriously dropped the ball this time.
“I should have collared that bird and dragged him back home with us.”
“It was too late and you know it. The moment he arrived at the mayor’s house he had the home advantage.” He pounded the steering wheel. “He was taunting us—simply taunting us.”
“You think so, Jer? I didn’t even know birds had brains.”
“Oh, that bird has brains all right. Plenty of brains.” He would have added that Moe had more brains than Johnny himself, but decided to let the matter rest. They needed to move past this failure—the first in their pet banditing career. Get right back on the horse and pick their next victim. That way it would almost be as if their winning streak hadn’t been broken. “We need to snatch us another one.”
“Why don’t we go back and snatch Moe?” suggested Johnny. “The mayor’s got our money, and we know where the beast lives now.”
Jerry glanced over at his colleague. It was a daring scheme, in fact the most daring Johnny had ever come up with in their long partnership. “You sure about this, Johnny? You want to have another stab at that mongrel?”
Johnny grimaced and hit his palm with his fist. “I want to get some of my own back, Jer. I want to show that parrot that Johnny Carew isn’t a Johnny to be trifled with.”
It was obvious that Moe had messed with the wrong Johnny. “But what about the mayor? He must have called the cops by now. They’ll be watching that bird twenty-four seven.”
“I don’t think so, Jer. They’ll think we’re gone. They’ll think we ran off with our tails between our legs. But we’ll show em, won’t we, Jer? We’ll show ‘em what we’re made of, huh?”
Jerry pondered this. There was some sense in what Johnny was saying. The mayor probably had that money ready and was definitely willing to pay through the nose for that foul bird. But what if he’d given their description to the cops? By now he must have put two and two together and figured out that it was the hairdressers that did it.
Another shooting pain lanced through his gut, and he groaned softly. Why, oh, why had he ever agreed to go on this fast? After the last time he’d sworn he’d never let Marlene drag him into this ordeal again, and now here he was, a prisoner to his own digestion. Or lack thereof. On an impulse he jerked the wheel around and made a U-turn. Traffic at this time of night was light, and no one rear-ended him. He gripped the steering wheel a little tighter, and when he felt Johnny’s eyes on him, he grumbled, “What?”
Looking over, he saw that his partner was grinning from ear to ear. “We’re going back in, Jer?”
“We’re going back in,” he confirmed. “We’re going to show that bird that we ain’t afraid of no parrots.”
“Yippie!” cried Johnny quite unnecessarily, but in spite of himself, Jerry had to grin. The Pet Bandits were going to complete their mission and pocket that hundred grand. And no damn parrot was going to get in their way.
Half an hour later they were parked outside the MacDonald residence, where not a creature was stirring, not even a mayor.
“I don’t see any cops,” whispered Johnny, as if afraid that they might hear him.
“You were right, Johnny. They think we split.”
“So how do you wanna do this, Jer?”
“I’ll keep an eye out while you go in and fetch the parrot.”
Johnny’s exuberance faltered. “Me go in?”
Jerry suppressed a strong inclination to hit his partner on the snout. “You suggested we come back, didn’t you? Now you get in there and don’t come out without that damn bird!”
“But what if I meet the mayor on the stairs? What do I tell him?”
“You don’
t tell him a thing. You just smack him.”
This gave Johnny pause. “But he seems like such a nice guy.”
“I don’t care! Smack him, or I’ll smack you!”
“All right, Jer. But if he’s upset and decides to keep the money it’s your fault.”
Jerry ground his teeth freely. “Just…get…going already!”
Johnny stepped from the car, and waddled over to the two-story home that Jerry simply knew would haunt his next nightmare. He watched his associate trudge up to the front door, lift his foot, then think better of it. That fateful ladder was still leaning against the windowsill, and Johnny now started to climb it. Even from across the street, Jerry could see that the window was open a crack, and he commended his partner on conquering his fear and using his brain for once in his life.
Moments later Johnny had reached the window, and was carefully pushing it open, then started heaving his big bulk inside. For a moment his legs wiggled as he balanced on the sill, then he disappeared from view. His moonlike face appeared, and he gave Jerry a cheerful wave, indicating all was well.
Jerry gnawed his lapel for a moment, then his eye fell on a half-eaten sub Johnny had been in the process of devouring, and he stole out a tentative hand. The sensation of hunger was now so pervasive that he couldn’t even think straight. He decided to throw caution to the wind and sank his teeth into the sub. The moment the food hit his palate, he closed his eyes, enraptured. Finally. Food…
And it was as he was devouring the last bit of sub, that his ears pricked up. Was that…a knocking sound? Then he looked up, and found himself gazing into the icy gray eyes of a large policeman.
Chapter 36
Inside the house Johnny had trouble finding his way. Everything had gone quite nicely so long as he was climbing that ladder and crawling in through the window, but now that he was in, he cursed the mayor’s habit of not leaving a little nightlight on. Mother Carew had always left on the nightlight, knowing how much her Johnny hated the dark. He felt around, and thought he touched some solid object. This gave him a bright idea, and he brought out the penlight he never left home without.
And it was as he flicked on the light that he saw he was in some sort of study, the large bulky object his host’s desk. He quickly shone the light around, and started violently when the light landed on the hideously snarling head of the mayor. Heeding Jerry’s command, he hauled off and struck the head on the nose. There was a dull clunking sound, and a sharp pain in his fist told him something was wrong with the works.
Dancing around for a moment, nursing his wounded fin, he saw he’d attacked a bronze bust. It took him a few moments to regain his poise, and cursing under his breath at that sneaky mayor he pushed on.
Furrowing his brow, he thought about where a man like Mayor MacDonald would keep his parrot. As he’d never owned a pet himself—not counting the goldfish he’d received as a gift from his Uncle Paulie and which had croaked after three days—he figured that since Moe was the mayor’s most prized possession, he would probably keep him downstairs in his den. Johnny himself collected pinball machines, and that’s where he kept them.
So he pottered over to the door, and tiptoed across the landing to the staircase, careful not to wake up the house. He figured he could simply snatch the bird, and make good his escape through the front door. But even though his plan had definite merits, the snag came in the form of a steel wire some idiot had fastened across the staircase.
Johnny wasn’t aware of this but Ted and Eve MacDonald didn’t believe in alarms. What they did believe in were tripwires. One of these was fastened on either side of the stairwell opening, and they reckoned it would give any burglar, whether coming or going, pause.
It certainly gave Johnny pause, for as he started descending the stairs he tripped and rolled down in a jumble of arms and legs. He came to a full stop at the bottom, his head plastered against a potted plant, and remained there for a moment, contemplating his life up to that point, and thinking very harsh thoughts about the mayor, the mayor’s wife, and the mayor’s parrot.
Then, seeing as the house didn’t stir, he did a cursory examination of himself, decided that no bones were broken, and with some difficulty got up to resume his exploration. Figuring he’d tripped over his own clumsy feet, he decided to be more careful next time, and, moving at a snail’s pace, inspected the various rooms giving out onto the hallway.
Respectively he shone his beam across the living room, the dining room, the kitchen, a small library, and finally came upon the den. He was surprised that instead of Moe the Parrot he found a billiard table as the centerpiece of the room, and when he entered failed to notice a second tripwire stretched across the doorframe. This time he went down like a ton of bricks, and performed a perfect face plant. And as he was going down, a familiar voice spoke to his immediate right.
“Dumb-ass! Dumb-ass! Dumb-ass!”
His heart rejoiced, or would have, if his face wasn’t hurting so much from plowing into the parquet. “Damn bird,” he huffed, and staggered to his feet, reaching out for the birdcage that was positioned by the window, affording Moe a nice view of the garden. Johnny picked up the cage, and glared at the bird whom he now considered his worst enemy.
“I got you now!” he hissed. “I got you now, you stupid parrot!”
Moe cocked his head, surprise reflected in his beady eyes. “Moe doo-doo?” he asked tentatively.
“No doo-doo this time,” growled Johnny, as he carefully stepped over the tripwire and hoisted the cage along en route to the front door. And he would have actually made it, if not for the third tripwire, this one neatly spanning the hallway.
Johnny tripped, sending the cage, and Moe, flying.
The parrot, not accustomed to all this activity, seemed to enjoy tonight’s entertainment, for he screeched loudly.
Johnny, however, crashed into a small statue of a parrot placed on a gateleg table by the door. As Johnny toppled into the table, the statue was sent flying, and as he crashed to the marble floor below, the statue, describing a perfect arc through the air, landed with a thud on his head.
“Touchdown!” cried Moe, who at this moment landed on the exact same spot on Johnny’s head in a remarkable twofer.
And as he lay there, counting stars, Johnny thought that anything was better than having to listen to abuse from this damn parrot. Luckily for him at this moment the hall lights were switched on, and a tubby little man with a huge shotgun appeared, directing the double-barreled contraption at his face.
“Gotcha!” the mayor bellowed. “I should have known you weren’t a barber. I’ve never seen such a horrible hairpiece in my life.” And to add insult to injury, he flicked aside Johnny’s toupee, his one great secret in life, one he hadn’t even shared with Jerry.
At that moment the doorbell rang, and the mayor was quick to open the door. On the mat, a large police officer was standing, and next to him, Jerry Vale, his hands cuffed in front of him, and looking none too happy. Then Jerry heaved a soft burp, and Johnny knew that at least his partner had had something to eat. It was but a small consolation.
Chapter 37
Alice’s phone dinged, and she took it out of her pocket. She frowned at the message. It came from an unknown sender, and contained a link. She hesitated for a moment, then clicked on the link. When she saw where it took her she frowned even deeper. Dorothy Valour’s Facebook page. A post about how Dorothy was retiring from business, and was selecting a successor. Already there were thousands of comments, all hopefuls eager to take Dorothy’s crown. She didn’t get it, but then suddenly she did.
Dorothy Valour was retiring…because she was getting married!
A sickening sense of dread filled her, and her heart constricted.
Dorothy had stolen Reece away from her, and was determined to rub Alice’s nose in it. And she was about to click the link closed when a pop-up appeared. It read: ‘Watch this space closely, Alice Whitehouse.’ A timer popped up, counting down one hour to zero. She checked
her clock. It was five in the morning. In one hour it would be midnight in LA.
The blood drained from her face. In one hour Dorothy was going to announce her engagement to Reece!
“What’s wrong, honey?” Felicity asked, who’d noticed her distress. They were heading for the power plant.
She swallowed away the tears. “Just—just some stupid joke.”
She was not going to let this get to her, she decided. She was going to go on with her life, and not bother with what Reece Hudson did or didn’t do. She had her own life to live, and would live it without him. The thought of never seeing him again, and of having to watch the coverage of his upcoming nuptials—probably dubbed the ‘marriage of the century’ by the gossip rags—brought tears to her eyes, but she angrily dabbed them away. She would not let this affect her. Not again.
She directed a brave look ahead, and asked, “So what’s the plan?”
Rick grinned. “Simple. We drive this truck through the gate, straight past security, and while you guys distract the guards, Virgil and I run straight to those towers and collect the evidence we need.”
There was a momentary silence in the van, then Felicity, Alice and Virgil all started talking simultaneously, until finally Felicity’s powerful voice drowned out the others. “You’re crazy!” she voiced the general sentiment.
“Arnold did it,” Rick commented.
“Arnold? Who’s Arnold? Is he one of your reporter buddies?”
“The Arnold,” Rick said, appalled. “Don’t tell me you’ve never seen Terminator 2?”
“Rick, that’s Hollywood!” cried Virgil. “It’s all special effects. We’re actual, real people driving a bakery van. We’re gonna get killed.”
“You think so?”
He sounded disappointed, Alice thought. Poor guy. Sometimes Rick really seemed to live in his own world. “Virgil is right. We’ll never get past the gate. We need to handle this with a little more finesse.”