by Matt Forbeck
“We’re just glad that everyone’s going to survive,” said Sophie. “We weren’t down there in the garage with you, but it seemed like a close business for a moment.”
“Closer than I like to think,” said Hardison. “Eliot’s even tougher than I figured him for.”
“Let’s not make a habit of this, all right?” Eliot said.
Hardison laughed. “And yet, the painkillers don’t seem to make him any more mellow. That’s how tough he is.”
“So you have the van full of artwork?” Nate said.
“Yep,” said Parker. “Your friend says we can leave it here tonight. He lives way out in the middle of nowhere, and no one’s going to see it here.”
“How are you getting back into town, then?” Sophie said.
“He’ll put us up here for the night too,” said Hardison. “He wants to keep Eliot overnight for observation anyhow.”
“I’ll be fine,” Eliot said. “I’ve had worse scratches before.”
“Listen to him,” Nate said. “The doc’s a vet, not a battlefield medic. If he made a mistake, you’ll wind up in a hospital someplace, and we’ll have a lot of explaining to do. You can’t exactly claim you shot yourself in the shoulder while cleaning your gun, and even if they buy that, they still have to alert the police.”
“All right,” Eliot said. “Fine. I get it. An evening off is fine with me.”
Nate held Sophie’s hand as they walked under the arched, wrought-iron entrance to the Gaslamp Quarter. “I don’t think we have any more to do here anyhow,” he said. “Patronus is in custody, along with the guys who tried to kill you.”
“And the police picked up Kanabe as well. Is there anyone we’re missing?”
“What about Cha0s?” Eliot said. He sounded like he wanted to take out all the frustrations from being shot on the hacker, one painful punch at a time. Nate didn’t see any reason to stop him from doing so—after he’d healed.
“He’s long gone by now,” Hardison said. “If he knows what he’s doing, he’ll stay that way too. I owe him. A lot.”
“What about the money from the auction?” Parker said.
“The police recovered it when they arrested Patronus,” Nate said. “It’ll take a little while for the accountants to work it out, but all of the funds should wind up with either the Hero Initiative or the individual artists whose work was stolen.”
“But we still have that artwork in the van,” Hardison said. “What do we do with it?”
“We just leave it someplace tomorrow and make sure the police find it,” Sophie said. “They should distribute the artwork to the people who bought it at the auction. Seems fair, right?”
“I thought maybe we would give it back to the artists,” Parker said, “but I suppose all those people at the auction didn’t know they were buying stolen goods—and getting counterfeits in their place anyhow.”
“Right,” said Nate. “Plus those artists all gave Patronus that artwork to sell anyhow. Despite the fact that he was going to keep all the money for himself, he did a fine job at the auction. I don’t think they’ll be disappointed with the results.”
“Can Simon Curtiss afford to wait until the money gets released to him?” Eliot said. “He seemed like he was in a tight spot.”
“He’ll be fine,” Hardison said. “I, ah, arranged to take care of his expenses for a while. He didn’t want to take it all, though, and his daughter refused too. She said we were doing enough for them already.”
“So how’d you change her mind?” asked Nate.
Hardison chuckled. “I can hack money out of banks, folks. Putting it in is easy. A direct deposit showed up in Susan’s bank account, made from a mysterious bank account that was then closed.”
Parker laughed too. “So she has the money now, and no way to return it.”
“Exactly. They should have enough to hold them over until the money from the auction arrives.”
“You think they made enough from that to make a difference?” Eliot asked. “Medical bills and funeral expenses can eat up cash faster than a fire.”
“I can guarantee it,” Nate said. “The Simon Curtiss lot set the auction’s record last night, by far.”
“Wow,” Parker said. “I didn’t realize that he had such a rabid fan base. That’s so cool!”
“You don’t need a whole lot of fans to make something like that happen,” said Nate. He looked into Sophie’s eyes and smiled as she grinned back at him. “Just two very determined people.”
“What’s that famous line from Spider-Man?” Sophie said.
“With great power there must also come great responsibility,” said Nate. He’d read a lot of those comics with Sam, and he knew the words by heart.
“It’s too bad more people don’t remember that when they’re in power,” Eliot said.
Nate chuckled as he and Sophie walked arm in arm into the Horton Grand for a night all to themselves. “Rich and powerful people are always going to screw that up,” he said. “And when they do, we’ll be there to stop them.”
FIFTY-THREE
Weeks later, a large flat package showed up at Nate’s apartment, and he brought it upstairs to unwrap it before he and the crew sat down for their next briefing. He set the box on the counter and opened it with a knife while the others watched.
“What you got there, Nate?” Parker asked with a curious glint in her eyes.
“Just a little present from a friend,” he said. “You remember Simon Curtiss?”
“How could we forget?” asked Eliot as he rotated and flexed his shoulder. The wound had healed perfectly, but he still tested it every now and then to make sure.
Hardison cocked his head at Nate. “What did he send you now? I thought you returned all of his artwork you bought to him.”
“That we did,” Nate said. Part of him regretted this, as the Curtiss lot had contained some fantastic pieces, but he didn’t have the space to give all that work a proper home anyhow. Better Simon get it back to do with as he pleased. “But he insisted on drawing us something to say thanks. Even had it framed.”
“So?” Sophie said. “Let us see.”
Nate pulled the frame from the box and held up the piece. It showed Spider-Man bouncing on the end of a long lever wedged over a fulcrum. At the other end of it, a panicked Lorenzo Patronus catapulted high into the air, sacks of stolen money scattering all around him.
Nate, Sophie, Eliot, Parker, and Hardison all took in the image and laughed.
“There’s a caption below it,” Sophie said. “What does it say?”
Nate peered down at the bottom of the page. “‘With great leverage comes great justice.’ And it’s signed, ‘Thanks, Simon Curtiss.’”
Nate walked the artwork over to a blank spot on the wall that he’d prepared for it. As he did, he knew one thing for sure. Sam would have loved it.
Keep reading for a special excerpt from
THE ZOO JOB
Coming March 2013 from Berkley Boulevard!
Zoe Kerrigan held up her cell phone, currently in picture-taking mode, finger poised over the camera icon, waiting for the red panda to wake up.
It was her fourth trip to the Brillinger Zoo since she and Dad moved out to this central Massachusetts town, also called Brillinger, a couple of years ago. They’d lived in Boston all their lives, but after Dad’s car accident, and after he’d had to testify in court against his former boss—and after they’d gotten all that money—they moved out here.
Zoe didn’t want to leave Boston, but Dad said he didn’t feel safe there anymore, which was silly, since the bad guys who hurt them were now in jail. But Dad said it was best, so they moved.
She still mostly hated the place, but she loved the zoo. For the first year, she hadn’t even known it existed. After she started high school, she spent an entire class day on a field trip to the Brillinger Zoo, and she got to see the giraffes and the bears and the lemurs (though they called them something else, but they looked like lemurs) and the red panda.
; Unfortunately, the red panda was asleep that day. Mind you, it was so totally cute when it was asleep, but she wanted to see it awake and moving around and stuff.
She begged Dad to take her back, and eventually he gave in and they returned to the zoo on a chilly Saturday afternoon.
Once again, the red panda was asleep. However, Zoe convinced Dad to pay for the two of them to become Zoo Boosters, which gave them free admittance to the zoo anytime and a discount on merchandise from the zoo store.
The third time Zoe visited the zoo, the red panda was again asleep, but this time it was on a different tree branch. Same thing for the fourth trip.
This time, though, she was bound and determined. When they’d arrived at the zoo on this lovely spring morning, she made a beeline for the red panda. Bypassing the reptile enclosure, the bear preserve, and the lemurs-that-weren’t-actually-called-lemurs, she walked up the paved hill to the wooden fence that separated the red panda from the people. She didn’t bother reading the placard telling the history of the red panda, as she’d long since memorized it. Zoe was fully aware that this red panda was named Mei, which was Chinese for “beautiful,” and that it came from China, mostly ate bamboo, and was more related to a raccoon than to the traditional black-and-white panda.
Of course, Mei was asleep. As usual. Zoe took out her cell phone, put it into camera mode, and waited.
The second the red panda woke up, she was going to take a picture. With her phone, which it had taken her a year to convince Dad to get her. He didn’t give in until right before she started high school. The online forms Dad had to fill out included a mandatory field for the child’s cell-phone number (in case of emergencies), so he couldn’t even place her in the school until he got her the cell phone she’d been asking for since forever.
Speaking of Dad, he’d gone off to the bathroom. When he came back, he asked, “Hasn’t he woken up yet?”
“Not yet.”
“Honey, maybe we should go see something else.”
“I want to see the red panda wake up!”
“We can go look at the giraffes, and maybe the aye-ayes.”
She turned to stare at Dad. “The what?”
“The aye-ayes. Y’know the things that look like lemurs.”
“Those are lemurs, Dad.” She sighed loudly and turned back to look at the red panda. It still lay sleeping, its paw over its eyes, curled up on a tree branch and looking incredibly adorable.
But she’d seen this adorable four times now. She wanted to see the red panda be adorable while awake.
Dad took his own cell phone out of his pocket and checked the display, then put it back. “It’s already afternoon. Surprised there aren’t more people here.”
Zoe said nothing, but she was surprised too. The most crowded she’d ever seen the zoo was the time she came with the class—but then, she was with the class the entire time. Each time she’d come with Dad, it was emptier.
A woman came walking up the incline toward the red panda exhibit. She wore a denim blouse and those beige pants that had lots of pockets. The blouse pocket had an ID clipped to it that looked a lot like the badge Dad wore to work, but it had the zoo’s name on it. It was a different color from the ones worn by the other zoo staff, though—gold instead of silver.
She was the same height as Zoe and had a big smile on her face. “Hi there! I hope you’re having a good time.”
“The red panda won’t wake up.”
Dad made a funny face at that. “You’ll have to excuse my daughter, she’s a bit… er, single-minded.”
The woman laughed. “I understand. What’s your name, sweetheart?”
“Zoe. Zoe Kerrigan.”
She put out her hand. “How are you, Zoe. I’m Marney Brillinger—I’m the general manager of the zoo.”
Zoe hadn’t particularly wanted to talk to the woman until she said she was the zoo manager, at which point she returned the handshake. “Very pleased to meet you, Ms. Brillinger.”
“The pleasure’s all mine, Zoe. And please call me Marney. Have you been here before?”
“Mm-hmm. And the red panda’s always asleep!”
Dad added, “It’s our fourth trip, and Mei here’s been out like a light each time.”
“Fifth,” Zoe muttered. Dad wasn’t there for the class trip, of course—he couldn’t chaperone like Barry Willcott’s dad and Laurie Kornetsky’s mom because he had to work. Zoe didn’t understand why Dad got the job—as a tax accountant at that little place on Main Street—when they had all that money from when he turned his bosses in, but Dad said that that money was going to pay for Zoe’s college.
“Have you always been here around this time of day?” Marney asked.
Zoe nodded.
“Well, Zoe, that’s the problem. See, red pandas are nocturnal. That means—”
“They sleep mostly at night, right?” Zoe remembered that nocturnal referred to night.
“Not quite.” Marney smiled. “A nocturnal animal is one that’s awake at night.”
“Oh!” Zoe blinked. Now she just felt stupid.
“Tell you what,” Marney said. “Why don’t you go off and look at the rest of the zoo, and come back here around four o’clock or so? By then, I bet that Mei’ll be wide-awake, and maybe you can see him eat something.”
Zoe started to say “Awesome!” but stopped herself. Barry Willcott always said “Awesome!” and he sounded like a total dork. “That’s great!” she said instead, and put her cell phone back in her purse.
“Thank you, Ms. Brillinger,” Dad said to Marney. “I honestly thought her arm was going to fall off holding her phone up like that.”
Zoe rolled her eyes. “Dad…” She put her hand in his, and they started walking away from the slumbering red panda.
“That’s quite all right, Mr. Kerrigan.” Marney followed them as they headed back the way they came.
Looking at Dad, Zoe asked, “We gonna see the lemurs?”
Dad started to nod his head, but Marney said, “Actually, they’re aye-ayes.”
Zoe couldn’t correct her the same way she’d corrected Dad because Marney kept talking as they walked slowly down the tree-lined, paved path.
“They’re just one type of lemur, and the only kind we have here at the zoo, unfortunately. People keep asking why we don’t have lemurs that look like King Julien in Madagascar.”
Frowning, Zoe said, “I didn’t like that movie. Dad made me watch it.”
Marney looked at Dad. “That’s odd—it’s usually the other way around: kids make their parents watch it.”
Dad shrugged. “I like the penguins. They kind of remind me of this group of people I met in Boston. If you don’t mind my asking, Ms. Brillinger—”
“Just Marney. Please.”
“Marney, then—I assume you’re part of the same family that founded the town and the zoo?”
Nodding, Marney said, “Chester Brillinger came over on the Mayflower in 1620. He was a Stranger, not a Saint.”
Dad frowned. “Beg pardon?”
Zoe smiled. “That means he wasn’t one of the religious Pilgrims, he was one of the other people on the trip.”
Nodding, Marney said, “That’s right, Zoe. Very good. You learn that in school?”
“No,” she said emphatically.
“My daughter’s a history buff—this year.” Dad grinned. “Last year she was a math geek.”
“Hey, I still like math!”
Marney laughed, then continued. “Well, anyhow, Josiah Brillinger sailed for the crown and was given a land grant in return in 1745. He founded the town.”
Zoe asked, “He was a privateer?”
“Yah. Then Ezekiel Brillinger built an estate north of town in 1831. He was a naturalist, so he collected a ton of plants and animals, which Thomas Brillinger turned into a zoo in 1897. That’s why it’s his name in big letters on the front gate. Ezekiel’s name is in smaller letters, so fewer people point at his name and laugh.”
Dad nodded. “Kids tend to m
ake fun of things they’ve never seen before.”
“Actually, it’s the adults who tend to ask me why anybody would name their kid Ezekiel. The kids think it’s cool.”
Zoe looked over at Dad. “Isn’t Ezekiel from the Bible?”
Again Dad nodded, smiling this time.
They arrived at the small building with the tiny sign that read little madagascar. Dad pushed the door open, and Zoe let go of his hand and ran right up to the metal fence that separated the people from the animals. Well, that and the wire mesh. She took out her cell phone and started taking pictures of the three lemurs—or rather, aye-ayes. She was the only one in the room, aside from Dad and Marney.
“I, uh, can’t help but notice how poor the attendance is,” Dad said. “Partly because the general manager has time to come over and tell my daughter about the sleeping habits of red pandas and her complete family history back to the Mayflower. Mostly because you’re practically the only other person I’ve seen since we came in.”
Marney sighed. “It’s been rough the last couple of years, with the economy and all, and these aye-ayes were our last new attraction—and we got them five years ago. It’ll be okay, though. We’ve got two black rhinos on their way from Malani today. That’s why I’m wandering around the zoo—I was going stir-crazy sitting in my office waiting for my guys to call from the docks in Boston. We’re having the big opening next month.”
Just then, one of the aye-ayes ran up a tree branch, then jumped down and ran through a hollow log. To Zoe’s surprise, it then ran back up the tree branch, jumped down again in the same spot, and ran through the same hollow log. It did this several times, and Zoe decided to start filming it with her phone.
She was startled to hear a song start playing. It turned out to be Marney’s own cell phone, playing some guitar riff that Zoe didn’t recognize.
Marney put the phone to her ear, a huge grin on her face. “Talk to me, Bobby; have we achieved rhino?”
Zoe could actually hear the person on the other end, though his voice was tinny. He sounded like he was almost shouting. “They’re not here, Marn.” He had a thick accent, and his nickname for Marney sounded more like mahn than marn.