“But,” Dad went on, “it’s also one hel of a leap to accuse Gordon Brussard of doing the kil ing. I’d almost prefer to blame this mysterious klazen.”
That shocked Jack. His dad was the least superstitious person on Earth.
“But no one’s ever heard of it. It doesn’t exist.”
“It doesn’t have to, Jack. Al it needs is for some people to believe it exists. Like voodoo. People who believe in voodoo and learn that it’s being used
against them wil often sicken, and some have even died. Because they believe someone with magic is trying to kil them. Septimus Lodgers believe al
sort of crazy crap—”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. They keep it to themselves. But when I was being courted they made veiled references to al the secret knowledge I would be privy to once
I joined. So maybe if they believe a kil er klazen is after them, they work themselves up into a heart attack. Don’t forget, they al died of cardiac arrest in
public places. Nothing came and tore their throats out.”
Jack wasn’t giving up. “But what’s in those little red boxes? What if it’s some sort of amulet with a spring-loaded poison needle?”
Dad laughed. “That’s it! No more. Any more pulp fiction talk like that and I’l send those old magazines straight back to Mister Rosen.”
Wel , okay, Jack thought as he took the stairs down, maybe an amulet with a poison needle was taking it too far, but something was going on. Had to
be.
9
After checking to make sure Tom was stil around, Jack retrieved his doctored pistachios from his room. Back in the kitchen, he made a show of pouring
a few dozen nuts onto the counter from the untreated bag. Keeping the spicy ones separate, he shel ed five of those first.
From the corner of his eye he saw Tom walk past the doorway, slowing as he looked into the kitchen.
Perfect.
He shel ed two of the regular nuts and ate them.
Kate finished loading the dishwasher and leaned against the counter.
“Mind if I snag a couple?” she said, pointing to the pile.
“Not those,” Jack whispered without moving his lips.
Her eyes widened. “You mean …?”
Nodding, he quickly shel ed a couple of regular nuts and slid them toward her. As Tom passed again, Jack pretended to take them from the pile and
hand them to her.
“Here you go,” he said in a louder voice.
Kate popped them into her mouth and smiled. “I was going to go read, but maybe I’l hang around awhile.”
She opened the paper and began to flip through it.
“Oh, look,” she said. “Here’s a picture of that assemblyman just minutes before he died. What a shame.”
Jack resisted snatching the paper from her. Instead he hurried around the counter and stared over her shoulder.
The grainy photo showed a grinning Assemblyman Vasquez holding a large pair of scissors poised to cut a wide ribbon outside a shopping mal . Yeah,
he was the guy in Steve’s house last night.
“Wel , I’l be,” Kate said. She tapped a figure in the smal crowd behind Vasquez. “Look who’s there: Bert Chal is, our trusty insurance man.”
Jack stifled a gasp as he recognized him. Hadn’t Mr. B said he was in L.A. at some convention? A strange comment came back to him:
Idon’tknowaboutyou,butBertChallisworriesme.
Worried him how?
Had he been there to warn Vasquez … or was he the problem?
Just then Jack spotted Tom peeking around the edge of the doorframe. He lowered his voice again.
“I think the show’s about to start.”
As Jack resumed his seat on the far side of the counter, Kate wandered back to the sink and pretended to be busy.
With Tom watching, Jack shel ed five more hot ones, al of which he added to the pile. That done, he made a show of opening one untreated nut and
popping it in his mouth. Then a second. Then he quickly shel ed the rest of the doctored nuts and added them to the pile.
Tom, apparently unable to hold out any longer, glided into the kitchen and slid the nuts off the counter into his palm.
“Gotcha!”
“Hey!” Jack cried. “Better not. Those are hot.”
“Not this time. I saw you and Kate eating them.”
“I’m warning you,” Jack said.
Kate chimed in. “Better think twice, Tom.”
“Oh, right,” he said with a laugh. “Like you don’t back up Miracle Boy every chance you get.”
Kate shrugged. “Your funeral.”
Tom waved and headed for the back door. “These’l taste great on the way to Phil y.”
Jack lowered his voice and did his Wil y Wonka thing again. “Stop. Don’t. Come back.”
But Tom didn’t—at least not right away. As the screen door slammed behind him, Kate grinned at Jack and began a countdown.
“Five … four …”
Jack joined her.
“Three … two …”
They heard a faint, “Oh,no!”from outside, then the screen crashed open and Tom rushed back in, holding his mouth. He ran for the refrigerator, yanked
open the door, and started guzzling milk from the carton. Kate was hysterical, so weak with laughter she was down on her knees, clutching the counter so
she wouldn’t fal over.
But Jack wasn’t laughing. Served Tom right for being in his room last night.
At least he hoped it had been Tom.
10
Fol owing the old saying about discretion being the better part of valor, Jack had skedaddled before Tom recovered from the pistachios. He didn’t want to
deal with him tonight.
Was it okay to dislike your brother? Real y, real y dislike? He thought of another old saying: You can choose your friends but you can’t choose your
family. They had that right. No way in a mil ion years would he have chosen Tom for a brother.
He reached Steve’s front door and knocked.
“Hi, Mrs. Brussard,” he said as she appeared. “Steve around?”
He was glad Steve’s mom had answered instead of his dad. Maybe he wasn’t a kil er. Maybe he’d real y been trying to protect his three Lodge brothers
from the mysterious and dreaded klazen. Maybe they’d died of natural causes or, as Dad thought, scared themselves to death. But Jack had trouble
buying that. And he feared that Mr. Brussard would take one look at him and realize that Jack suspected the truth.
Mrs. B smiled as she pushed open the door for him. She was short and pudgy with straight brown hair. Steve looked nothing like her.
“He’s down in the basement with that computer. I swear, if he devoted that much time to his homework during the school year he’d be a straight-A
student.”
Jack doubted that. Not with the condition Steve was too often in by the end of the night. But he said nothing about that as he headed for the basement
stairs, hoping he’d find Steve sober for a second night in a row.
No such luck. Steve was slumped on the couch watching that sappy Knots Landing.He looked looped.
“I never noticed before,” he slurred with a sil y grin, “but Michele Lee is cooooool.”
She waspretty good-looking, but …
“I thought you were locked out of the liquor cabinet.”
“I am.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
Steve raised an amber plastic vial and rattled its contents. “I was forced to improvise.”
“Pil s? Whose?”
“My mom’s.” He tossed Jack the bottle. “Check it out.”
Jack caught it and examined the label. Under Steve’s mother’s name it read: Valium5mg#30.
“What’s this stuff?”
Steve grinned again. “A tranquilizer. My mother’s had them around forever. Hardly e
ver uses them.”
“You’re taking a tranquilizer?Are you crazy?”
“Better believe it.” He crossed his eyes and stuck his tongue out the side of his mouth. “Completely nuts.”
Jack tossed the vial back. Steve tried to catch it but was too slow. It sailed right past his hand.
“Don’t you want one? They take the edge off everything and make you feel sooooooo mel owwwwww.”
Jack didn’t get it. Life was too cool to spend in a fog. He didn’t want to miss a thing.
“Maybe I prefer edgy to mel ow.”
Steve’s gaze drifted back to the TV. “Isn’t she beauuuutiful?”
“She’s old enough to be your mother!”
“I wish she was. I’d sit and look at her aaaaaal day.”
“I thought we were final y gonna get some work done on the computer.”
Steve looked up at him with bleary eyes. “Let’s do it.”
“Yeah. Like you could be trusted with a soldering iron right now.”
“Hey, I’m fine.” He held up a hand. “Look. Rock steady.”
It did look steady, but steadiness wasn’t al that mattered.
“Yeah, but touch your pointer to your nose.”
Jack demonstrated.
“Easy.” But when Steve tried he missed by half an inch. “Aw, who cares anyway? I ain’t soldering my nose.”
Jack was losing respect for Steve. He’d been a smart, funny kid until he’d returned from soccer camp. Since then he’d been sprinting down the road to
Loservil e. Maybe he couldn’t help it, maybe something had gone wrong in his brain. Nothing Jack could do about that.
Weezy’s words from this morning echoed back to him: Sowhatareyougoingto do,standbyandwatchhimgodownthetubes?
No, Miss Know-it-al , he thought, I’m not.
But right now, other than ratting him out, Jack didn’t see that he had much choice.
No, that wasn’t true. There were always choices. Steve could choose whether or not to take one of his mother’s pil s, and Jack could choose yesor no
as to getting him some help. He decided on yes. Easy to make a choice. The real problem was figuring out howto help without Steve feeling he’d been
ratted out by a friend.
Jack needed to give this some serious thought. He was sure he’d find a way.
As Steve’s eyelids started to drift closed, Jack shook his head.
Wel now, thiswas exciting. He’d be better off watching TV at home.
He headed for the stairs.
“Later, man.”
Steve mumbled something that sounded like, “Yeah.”
Upstairs, as he was passing the den, he spotted the black humidor. Mr. Brussard had been holding it when he’d said good-bye to Vasquez. Why? They
hadn’t been smoking.
Did he dare?
No. Too risky.
But he hurried into the den anyway. Quickly he lifted the top and found an oddly shaped little red container about the size of a jewelry box for a ring; it
had six—no, seven sides.
What was in them? What was the “it” that had to be “used” at dawn with your back to the sun?
He had to know.
As he was reaching for it he heard footsteps hurrying down the stairs. Too heavy for Mrs. B—had to be Steve’s dad. With panic tightening his chest,
Jack snatched his hand out of the humidor, replaced the lid, and leaped behind a high-backed upholstered chair.
Immediately he realized what a stupid move he’d made. If Mr. B came in and spotted him, what could he say? That he and Steve were playing hide and
seek?
Yeah, right. That would fly—like a penguin.
Looking around he spotted Mr. Brussard’s stack of stereo electronics. He jumped up and stepped over to it. With his hands behind his back, he stood
before it and pretended to be studying al the neat-looking equipment.
He heard Mr. B come in behind him and stop.
“Jack?”
He turned. “Oh, hi, Mister Brussard. Just looking at your disc player here. I’d love to get my father to buy one, but he’s not al that into music.”
“Real y liked the sound, did you?” His smile looked forced, like he had something else on his mind
“Awesome.”
He picked up the humidor and looked inside.
“Wel , I’d play some for you now, but I’ve got a little work to do. Why don’t you get cracking on that computer. I’m real y looking forward to seeing it in
action.”
“I’ve got to get home.” Jack started for the hal . “We’ve stil got a ways to go.”
“Uh-huh.” He seemed to be only half listening.
“See ya,” he said and headed for the door.
When he reached the hal way he looked back and saw Mr. B pul a key ring from his pocket and lock the humidor in the liquor cabinet.
What was in that little box that needed to be locked up?
11
He suspects something, Jack thought as trotted toward home.
He’d have to be careful.
He was a block away when he realized he’d just missed a perfect opportunity to
expose Steve’s problem. He could have said something to his father,
something like, Idon’tthinkSteve’sfeelingsohot.That would have sent Mr. B
down to check on him. Or at least he thought so. He knew his own dad would be downstairs in a flash. But the terror of almost getting caught had
blanked his mind.
Which meant the Steve problem remained. Jack had done nothing to solve it. He’d think of something. And soon.
Night was fal ing by the time he reached his house. He noticed that Tom’s car
was gone, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t left a little surprise for Jack. He waved to his parents as they watched FalconCrest.Family drama was not
Dad’s favorite by a long shot, but Mom loved it—Jack had even heard her humming the theme music now and again.
“That was a quick trip,” Dad said.
“Yeah, wel , Steve wasn’t in the mood.”
He laughed. “You guys better get cranking. Once you start high school you’re not
going to have much spare time.”
It occurred to Jack that tonight might have been a good time to try his new
lock-picking skil s on Dad’s lockbox, but things had turned hectic at USED and he’d forgotten to bring home the picks. Maybe tomorrow. Anyway, he wasn’t
in a lock-picking mood.
Like last night, he checked his bedroom door for booby traps. Finding none, he
stepped inside, turned on the light, and looked around. Unlike last night, he had no sense that the room had changed. Everything seemed just as he’d left
it.
Then he remembered the Xeroxes of the tracings Weezy had given him for
safekeeping. He’d stuck them in the top drawer of his desk before running off to USED this afternoon. He’d been running late and hadn’t hidden them as
he’d promised.
He quick-stepped to his desk and yanked open the drawer. Relief—stil there.
Then he wondered why he was relieved. Why would they be anywhere but where he’d left them?
But he’d promised to hide them, and his top drawer wasn’t exactly hidden. Had
to find a safer spot.
Safer …
Listen to me, he thought. I’m starting to think like Weezy.
As he began looking around for a hiding place, he noticed his open window. He
checked the screen—stil latched as he’d left it last night. Wel , of
course it would be. Who besides Tom would have any reason to want to sneak
into his room.
Stil …
He turned out the bedroom light, then pul ed out the bottom drawer of his
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