Behind the Curtain (15 page)

“Sure thing,” said Mr. Rubino, coming into view, Tupperware container of orange peels under his arm.

Mom and Dad exchanged a look.

“She’ll be fine with us,” said Mr. Rubino. “And Ellie’s a nurse, don’t forget.”

“True,” said Dad.

“I don’t—” said Mom.

“Have a blast,” said Mr. Rubino. “
Bon voyage
.”

S
UNDAY MORNING
, breakfast at the Rubinos’. Sausages, ham, eggs, pancakes under lakes of butter: piles and piles of food, Mr. and Mrs. Rubino both wearing aprons.

“Don’t care for sausages, Ingrid?” said Mr. Rubino.

“I do, but—”

“Here’s a couple more,” he said. “Make it three. How about you, son?”

Sean grunted something, stayed hunched over his plate at the far end of the table. He had a little cut over one eye. So did Mr. Rubino.

Mr. and Mrs. Rubino exchanged a look. “We’ve
got a surprise for everybody,” Mrs. Rubino said.

“Like what?” said Stacy, dipping a forkful of ham in an egg-yolky pool.

“Monster trucks,” said Mrs. Rubino.

Mr. Rubino reached into his apron pocket, fanned five tickets on the table. “A customer laid these on me,” he said. “Don’t forget your earplugs.”

“Hey,” said Stacy, picking up a ticket. “Front row.”

Oh, God, Ingrid thought. The monster trucks—they wouldn’t go away, kind of like real monsters. “Thanks,” she said. “But I don’t know if I’m really feeling…up to it.”

“I thought you were all better,” said Mrs. Rubino.

“I was,” said Ingrid. “I mean, I am. Just a slight little headache, that’s all. But monster trucks…”

Mrs. Rubino nodded. One of those total lies that lucked into making sense.

“We can see them another time,” said Mr. Rubino.

“Oh, no,” said Ingrid. “You guys go. I’ll be fine by myself.”

“I’m not sure—” said Mrs. Rubino.

“Really I will,” said Ingrid. “I’ll just watch movies, lie around, relax. That’s what I feel like doing.”

Mrs. Rubino thought it over. “I guess it’s all right,” she said.

Sean looked up. “I’ll give it a pass too,” he said.

“No way,” said Mrs. Rubino.

“Why not?” said Sean.

“You know the arrangement,” said Mrs. Rubino. “About being alone in the house.”

“I wouldn’t be alone,” Sean said. He pointed his chin at Ingrid. “I’d be with her.”

“She has a name,” said Stacy.

Sean glared at his sister.

“Kids,” said Mr. Rubino. “Let’s not spoil it. This is going to be a real fun day.”

The Rubinos left at ten thirty. Stacy said good-bye to Ingrid down in the entertainment center, Ingrid lying under a blanket,
Pretty in Pink
on the big screen.

“Sure you’re all right?” said Stacy.

“Yeah.”

“You’ve really got a headache?”

Ingrid hated lying to Stacy. “Just a little one. Tiny.”

Stacy gave her a long look. “Okey-doke.”

The Rubinos drove off, on their way to Hartford
and the monster trucks. Five minutes later, Ingrid was on Stacy’s bike, heading home.

She turned into the driveway at 99 Maple Lane. The house looked different in some way. Ingrid ran her gaze over it, saw no changes, but that didn’t keep it from having a strange effect on her. Was it because this had never happened before—by herself, house empty, her whole family thousands of miles away, or hundreds at least, and Nigel in the kennel? Was this the feeling you got revisiting a place you’d lived in long ago? Then she glanced over at the spot in the front yard where St. Joseph stood buried right side up, making sure that 99 Maple Lane couldn’t be sold. When she looked at the house again, everything was back to normal.

Ingrid unlocked the front door and went inside. The house was cold. Thermostat check: Dad had it all the way down to fifty. She went to her room and got the digital recorder. Time: 11:06.

What else would she need? Money, of course, key part of every sting, and in this one for sure, what with Carl Junior counting a big wad of the stuff, and the $1,649 in Sean’s desk drawer. In her own desk drawer she had $102, combined birthday
money and Booster Club tips. She took it all. Time: 11:09.

At that moment, Ingrid remembered another police term: not
sting
this time, but
backup
. Then came a crazy thought: How about calling Grampy? She went back and forth on that for a while. Cop-show cops always called for backup, but Holmes never seemed concerned about it. Cop shows came and went. Holmes was forever.

Time: 11:11. Early, but didn’t that make tactical sense, the way brilliant generals like George Washington used the element of surprise? She half recalled a packet about the Battle of Trenton, or possibly Tenafly.

Ingrid left by the back door and walked into the woods.

She followed the path, around a bend and up a little rise. There, on the left, stood the thick double-trunked oak with the tree house about twenty feet up. Ingrid went closer, her feet silent on damp leaves. She peered up through the round hole in the tree house’s plywood floor, saw nothing but her red stool and the crude roof above. This was where she and Ty had played Dark Forest Spies, where he’d fought off
the Meany Cat with Ping-Pong ball grenades. Now she had a real prop, the digital recorder, in her pocket. Ingrid got hold of the wooden rungs nailed to the trunk and started climbing up.

She stuck her head through the hole, boosted herself into the tree house. The first thing she saw was the old sign.
THE TREEHOUS
.
OWNR TY
.
ASISTENT INGRID
. Then she rose and swung around.

And there was a man, his back to her, gazing out the window.

Ingrid’s heart went wild, a terrified little creature in her chest. On the inside, she was losing it completely, on the outside, she was frozen in place—except for some remote automatic part of her that remembered about the digital recorder in her pocket and sent the signal to switch it on.

The man turned, in no hurry, and faced her. An old man, bent and creaky, with beaky broken nose, pointy chin, big flat ears with lots of sprouting hairs: Carl Kraken Senior. He held out a piece of paper. Ingrid recognized it: the desktop calendar page from Carl Junior’s basement office in the high school.
Echo Falls athlete looking to get stronger.

“This your handiwork?” he said. His tiny old eyes, sunk way back in his head, looked into hers.

At that moment, Ingrid felt one of those inspiration buzzes. She could just say, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m here to play in my tree house.” Situation resolved, easy as that. But then where would she be? Square one. For the first time in her life, Ingrid overrode that buzz.

“Yeah,” she said. “My handiwork.”

Her heart calmed down a little. What was there to be afraid of? This was a creaky old guy, not strong like Grampy. Then she remembered two things. One: The story of the noose, when Carl Senior and Grampy were little boys. Two: He was still strong enough to climb up to the tree house.

“What’s it supposed to mean?” said Carl Senior.

“Just what it says,” said Ingrid.

He put on a pair of glasses and squinted at the writing, holding the page very close. His eyes were bad. Was it possible he hadn’t recognized her? He’d only seen her once, that time at Chloe’s.

“Who’s this athlete?” he said.

“Me,” said Ingrid.

“You’re a girl.”

“So?” said Ingrid. “I’ve got money.”

“Think there’s other girls interested in this?” he said.

“Interested in what?” said Ingrid.

A long pause. “Getting stronger,” said Carl Senior.

“You haven’t sold to any girls?” Ingrid said.

“Not yet.”

Wow. As close as you could get to an admission of selling to boys, digitally recorded. She tried to nail it down. “So I’d be the first.”

He nodded.

A nod was no good to her.

“The very first,” she said.

Another nod, this one barely perceptible.

“And all the rest are boys,” she added.

But he wouldn’t bite. Instead he peered down at her. “I know you from somewheres?”

“No,” said Ingrid. “Did you bring the stuff or not?”

“In a hurry, ain’t you?” said Carl Senior. “What’s the rush?”

“You don’t have it?” Ingrid said.

“I didn’t say that.”

“It’s the”—what was the right kind of sleazy expression?—“good stuff I want,” said Ingrid.

“The good stuff?”

“That the boys get,” she said. “From Mexico.”

“Mexico?” said Carl Senior. “What do you know about Mexico?”

“Nothing,” said Ingrid. “I don’t even know how it gets here from Mexico.”

Carl Senior went still. “What’d you say?”

“Like all the stops along the way,” Ingrid said. “Or do you go down there and get it yourself?”

Carl Senior came a little closer. Ingrid stepped back. “You ask a lot of questions,” he said.

“Everyone says that,” said Ingrid. Breezy, all of a sudden. What was wrong with her? Had she gone insane? “If you’ll just sell me the good Mexican stuff, I’ll be out of your hair.”

Carl Senior gave his head a hard little shake, like some bee was buzzing close by. “What’s all this about Mexico?” he said.

“Forget I mentioned it,” Ingrid said. “I don’t know anything about Mexico.” But then another bit of insanity took over. “I don’t even know any Mexicans—except maybe that guy at the hospital.”

Carl Senior slid one hand inside his coat. “Hospital?”

“And he might not even be Mexican,” Ingrid said. “His name’s Rey Vasquez.” A quick shift of those sunken eyes. “Know him, by any chance?”

“No.”

“Then that’s that,” Ingrid said. “I’ve brought a hundred and two dollars. What does that get me?”

“Let’s see the money,” said Carl Senior.

“First I need to know you brought it.”

“I brought it.”

“You brought what?”

“The pills, for Chrissake. The steroids. What else are we talking about?”

There. At last, he’d spoken the magic word. She’d done it! Now just a quick exchange, money for—

But at that moment, a third voice spoke. This third voice, metallic and soulless, spoke from her pocket.

“Remaining recording time two minutes and ten seconds.”

Carl Senior’s gaze dipped to her pocket, then rose back up to her face. His own face went through quick changes—confusion, understanding, rage.

In one motion, without a thought, Ingrid jumped right through the hole in the tree house floor. She clutched at the tree trunk, got a grip on one of those footholds, lost it, and fell. A long fall—hands flailing at the bark, fingernails breaking—that ended with a hard landing in damp leaves, the
wind knocked out of her.

Ingrid looked up. Carl Senior’s booted feet came through the hole, felt around, found a foothold. He started down.

Ingrid sat up, sucked in air. Carl Senior’s boots scraped against the tree. Ingrid got to her feet. His head appeared through the hole. She turned for home, not feeling great, but good enough. No way she couldn’t outrun this old man.

She ran. Back onto the path, back up the rise, a minute or two from being in her locked house and dialing 911. Around the bend, running hard now, almost full speed, and—

A man stepped out from behind a tree, cutting her off. Very tall, huge hands, that same beaky nose, comb-over: Carl Junior.

Ingrid spun around. Carl Senior came over the rise, walking stiffly but pretty fast with—oh my God—a noose swinging in his hand.

Ingrid looked left, then right. Left led deeper into the woods, but wouldn’t right take her toward the long rutted drive behind 113 Maple Lane? She bounded off the path, heading right. Turning it on now, with hard footsteps fast behind her, Ingrid dodged around a tree, leaped over a boulder, ripped
right through a clump of those purple brambles, tripped over a tree root, regained her balance, and charged through a little clearing—straight into the arms of Carl Kraken the third.

His fingers dug deep in her shoulders. “Hey,” he called out. “This is her—little snoop I was tellin’ you about.”

“Hold her right there,” Carl Junior called back.

“Don’t worry, Pop, I got her.” One hand still digging into her shoulder, the other grabbing her hair. That hair grabbing: Ingrid had never hated anything more in her life. Grampy’s words came to her:
I kicked him in the place where sometimes you got to kick a guy.

Ingrid kicked Carl the third right where Grampy said, hard as she could. When it came to kicking, Ingrid wasn’t at the level of big girls like Stacy and Glastonbury’s red-haired sweeper, a long way down from that.

But good enough. The air went whooshing out of Carl the third, and he let go of her and crumpled down on the forest floor, making agonized noises. Ingrid took off. The problem was, those agonized noises were so loud, she hadn’t heard Carl Junior coming. He tackled her before she’d gone two steps.

Ingrid tried to wriggle away. No good. Carl Junior was strong. He flipped her over, locked both her wrists in one of his huge hands, stuck a knee in her back.

Carl Senior came hurrying up, stepping over his writhing grandson without a glance. He was breathing hard, a foamy ring around his mouth. “She’s got some kinda tape recorder in her pocket.”

“Goddamn,” said Carl Junior, pressing harder with his knee.

“I’m gonna kill her,” groaned Carl the third.

Ingrid started to scream, but Carl Junior clapped his other hand over her mouth. His hand smelled horrible. Carl Senior leaned down, squinted at her. Recognition dawned.

“By God,” he said. “Aylmer Hill’s little darlin’.” He felt his crooked nose. Then he smiled, a horrible smile, all brown pointy teeth and a strange white-tipped tongue. That scream of fear ballooned inside Ingrid, bottled up by Carl Junior’s stinking hand. She was about to bite it when someone shouted, “Freeze!”

Someone Ingrid knew.

They all looked up. Chief Strade stepped into the clearing. He had a gun in his hand, pointed right
between Carl Junior’s eyes.

“Whether you see another day, Junior,” said the chief, “depends on how fast you let go of her.”

Carl Junior turned out to be very fast.

“Hands up,” said the chief.

The Krakens raised their hands. By now, Carl the third was on his feet. He started backing away toward the trees, his mind easy to read:
How’s he going to cover us all?
That was when Sergeant Berry, who played Santa in the Christmas parade, came huffing and puffing into the clearing from the direction of the tree house, a few other cops behind him. Carl the third froze again. Sergeant Berry clapped the cuffs on him.