Sammy Keyes and the Hotel Thief (9 page)

FIFTEEN

Grams knew right away that I'd been up to something. I gave her a hug when I walked in the door and she pulled back. “Where have you been?”

I didn't want to say the mall or Hudson's or something because that would've been a lie, so I just said, “Walking around with Marissa.”

That wasn't a lie, but somehow Grams knew it wasn't the truth either. She put her hands up on her hips. “Walking around where?”

All of a sudden I'm wishing I
had
gone to Hudson's or to the arcade or to the pet store for that matter. At least I would've had something to say. But I hadn't, so I didn't. I just kind of snapped the loose rubber of one high-top with the toe of the other and said, “Well, if you really want to know...I had to talk to Officer Borsch.”

Grams takes off her glasses and starts huffing and buffing. Very calmly she says, “About...?”

I snap the rubber some more. “Oh, you know. The note that was left under Mrs. Graybill's door, the guy at the Heavenly—stuff like that.” I look up from my snapping and I can tell she's not buying it. “Really, Grams! That's what I did!”

She pops those glasses right back on her nose and kind of leans at me. “Young lady, one does not reek of cigarettes after having visited the police. One does not reek of cigarettes after having simply ‘walked around.'” Her eyes drill through me like little lie-detector lasers. “One would, I imagine, reek of cigarettes after one visits the Heavenly Hotel, though.” She stares at me a minute while I'm busy tearing up my shoe. “Unless you want to tell me you've taken up smoking?”

“No, Grams! Of course not!” Then I blurt out, “How can you still smell it? It's been at least an hour.”

She gives me a little smile. “Since...?”

I flop down on the couch and sigh. “Since I went to the Heavenly to ask Gina some questions.”

Grams' eyebrows pop way above her owl glasses. “Gina?”

“You know—the lady who got all that money stolen? And really, Grams, I'm not going back. The place is seedy. You're right, all right? It's seedy.”

“Well, well, well,” she says, like I told you so. “And what made you change your mind?”

“The staircase, for one thing.” So I tell her about the mirrors, and then I kind of get carried away and tell her about Gina's room and how she shouldn't be too surprised if one of these days she's looking out the window and sees a fireball in 423 across the way—that it'll just be Gina's head running around the room looking for a bucket of water.

Grams just sits there very quietly, listening, but when I get to the part about Officer Borsch yelling at me she jumps up and says, “Of all the
nerve
.” She flips through the phone book, muttering, “I'm going to give that obnoxious toad a piece of my mind....”

“Grams, no! It'll just make things worse—they'll send him over here to talk to you and I'll be stuck in the closet in the middle of all your shoes....It doesn't matter, Grams, really! He won't believe you no matter what you say.”

She thinks about this, then sighs. “I suppose you're right.” We're quiet for a minute, then all of a sudden her eyes light up and she says, “Say! I know!” and off she goes to her room. A minute later she comes crinkling back, carrying plastic bags, saying, “When I was out earlier, I picked up a little surprise for you.”

Now you have to understand, Grams doesn't surprise me with anything. There are things I would want—like a new skateboard or a Walkman or even a watch—but I would never ask for them, and I would never expect her to surprise me with one of them. So when she says “surprise,” my ears perk up like Dorito's do when I shake around his box of kibble.

“Really?”

She sits right next to me on the couch. “Just wait until you see this.”

Well, believe me, I'm doing my best to peek in and do just that. She reaches into one of the bags and what does she pull out? Wool. Wool and a pair of knitting needles. She says, “Now, I don't expect you to jump up and down for joy—I just expect you to give it a chance.”

It's good that she wasn't expecting it, because I sure wasn't doing any jumping. “But Grams...”

She just shoots me down with her eyes, and before you know it she's whipping that wool around, her fingers flying in between those clicking needles like mice teasing a crocodile. She says, “This is called casting on,” and in no time she's straightening out a row of stitches, looking very pleased with herself. “Come here,” she says, so I scoot a quarter of an inch closer. “Come
here
,” she says again, so I scoot over.

She shows me how to knit and she shows me how to purl and before you know it I'm holding those needles, knitting and purling about as fast as a swimmer in mud. After a while Grams says, “See there? You're doing fine.”

I just roll my eyes at her.

“You wait and see. In a few rows you won't want to stop.”

She opens the other bag and pulls out an embroidery project. You know, the kind that's all sealed up in thick plastic with a picture on the front of what you wind up with when you're all done. Those pictures aren't really accurate, though, because they never show any blood spots on them.

Anyhow, I probably would've just stuck to my swimming in mud and ignored the picture of Grams' project altogether if she hadn't flipped it over so fast. Real fast. Like she didn't want me to see it.

I stopped swimming. “What's that?”

“Oh, just a project I thought I'd start on to keep you company.” She pulls out the instructions and pushes the picture aside.

“Let me see, Grams.”

She waits a second, then says, “It's just something I decided to make for St. Mary's bazaar this year.”

“Well what is it?”

She flips it over and says, “Striking, isn't it?”

I'm expecting flowers poking out of a vase like she made last year, but what do I see? A fence post with a pair of cowboy boots resting on it. And since it doesn't seem like the kind of thing Grams would like, I ask her, “Are you feeling all right?”

She laughs. “I'm just tired of doing the same old thing.” She goes back to reading the instructions, and after a minute I go back to tangling wool. And when we've both worked for a little while, she sighs and says, “I sure wish we had some of those pecan shortbreads in the house, don't you?”

Now you can
have
pecan shortbreads. They taste like the crumbs from the bottom of a toaster, all scrunched together. But Grams wanting some was all the excuse I needed. I tossed down my needles and said, “So do I. I'll go down to Maynard's and get some.”

Grams looks at me. “Really?” Then she shakes her head and says, “No, no. It's getting too late...” but you can tell—she's got her heart set on toaster-crumb cookies.

I check the clock. “Maynard's'll still be open. Really, Grams, I don't mind.”

“But—”

“And Mrs. Graybill's probably in for the night so you don't have to worry about her. I'll be right back!”

“Okay! We'll have cookies and tea and work on our projects. It'll be fun!”

*                  *                  *

T.J. was holding the phone with one hand and ringing up a customer with the other, so he was too busy to notice when I walked in. And when I found the shortbreads I kind of hung out in an aisle and listened while the other customer left. T.J. says into the phone, “No, man. I got it covered. As long as I've got it by tomorrow....That's cool with me....I'll get it to you by the end of next week at the latest....Yeah, man. Later.”

He lights a cigarette, so I go up and put the cookies on the counter. “Your dad coming back soon?”

He blows smoke in my face. “What's it to you?”

“Just wondering.”

“Well, go wonder someplace else, would ya?” he says, and gives me my change.

“Just looking forward to seeing a friendly face in here.” I smile because everyone knows—Maynard's the grumpiest guy on earth.

“Funny. Very funny. Now scram!”

I take the shortbreads and I'm heading home when I decide that it wouldn't hurt to run over to Hudson's and ask him a quick question.

So I take a little detour down Cypress Street and there he is on the porch, watching the world go by. I wave and run up his walkway. “Hi, Hudson! Got a minute?”

“Sure, Sammy. What a nice surprise! I was just going to cut into a chocolate cake I baked this afternoon. Care for some?”

“I can't. I've really only got a minute.”

Hudson eyes my cookies. “On an errand?”

I nod. “I'm supposed to be learning how to knit right now.”

He laughs. “Knit? You?” He cuts me a piece of cake anyway. “So what's the burning question?”

“I've got two of them. First off, what are pork bellies?”

“You considering investing in pork bellies?”

“Hudson! I don't even know what they are. Look, T.J. was on the phone the other night talking about pork bellies—”

He shoves over the slice of cake. “Maynard's T.J.?”

“Yeah. He was talking about pork bellies and coffee beans and oranges. He seemed pretty upset—like he'd lost a bunch of money.”

Hudson shakes his head. “Poor Maynard. That boy is going nowhere fast.”

“So what are pork bellies?”

Hudson cuts himself a piece of cake. “Sounds to me like the man is playing the commodities market. Maybe futures, maybe options. Whichever, it's a surefire way to lose a bunch of cash in a hurry.”

“What do you mean?”

“I consider it to be a sucker's game. Options brokers will tell you that you can double your money overnight—and sure, sometimes it happens, but by and large you lose money. With futures you can lose big money—more than you put in.”

I take a big bite of cake. “I don't get it.”

“Okay. Let's say your broker calls you up and tells you that the price of, say, silver has never been so low, and that you could make a quick buck by investing in silver options. He tells you that in all of human history, you could never get silver for less, and he's sure that because of some happenings in, let's say, Japan, the price of silver will go through the roof by the end of the week. He tells you that if you invest five thousand dollars at the present price of silver, when the price skyrockets later that week, you'll be set for life. Then, later that week when the price of silver
drops
, he comes back to you and says you've got to invest some more—it's never been this low, it's
impossible
that it'll go any lower. So you wire him some more money and pretty soon you've lost your shirt.”

“That sounds like gambling.”

Hudson nods. “Just like gambling. Some people win; most people lose.”

“Wow.”

“So T.J.'s up to his ears?”

“I think so. And I think it's Maynard's money.”

Hudson shakes his head. “Maynard should've given him the boot years ago. The boy's a leech.”

So I'm sitting there eating chocolate cake, thinking, and my brain's getting all tangled up. Why had the hotel thief looked familiar? Was he wearing a disguise? Was it T.J. under all that hair? I tried to put T.J. in a beard and bushy wig, but all I came up with was a big maybe.

“What's troubling you, Sammy?”

“Hmmm? Oh. Oh, nothing.”

Hudson takes a bite of cake. “Well, then, what was the other question?”

“Oh. Right. I was just wondering...how much do you know about that guy who lives in your rental?”

“Bill?” Hudson shrugs. “He's a little unusual, but I think he's a decent fellow. Rommel seems to like him.”

“What about the purse?”

“The one Rommel found?”

“Yeah.”

“What are you driving at, Sammy?”

I take a deep breath and say, “I bumped into your renter at the mall. He was carrying all these packages. It was about an hour after someone broke into the Heavenly Hotel.”

Hudson wipes up cake crumbs with the back of his fork and says, “You think
Bill's
the thief?”

“Well, Officer Borsch says all the crimes around here are connected. I mean, what was that purse doing in your trash can anyway?”

Hudson puts up a hand. “Hold on, young lady. First off, we don't know that the purse
was
in the trash can. Rommel might've found it just tossed over the fence. Second, Bill has no need to steal money. He has a well-paid job.”

Just then Bill comes walking through the gate, wearing a windbreaker and baseball cap, as usual. He's carrying a briefcase and his nose is pointing straight down, as usual.

Hudson calls, “Evenin', Bill!”

Bill just pulls his ball cap and grunts, as usual.

When he's gone I whisper, “Who would ever want to hire
him?
”

Hudson chuckles. “Ah, Sammy. That's a good one. Who might you expect would hire a man like Bill Eckert?”

“I don't know...a place that needs an accountant?”

Hudson throws back his head and laughs. He shoos a moth from his boot and says, “My dear, things are not always what they appear.”

“What do you mean?”

He looks out at the stars. “Ever listen to KRQK?”

“Sure.”

“Have any favorite DJs?”

I shrug. “Marissa's crazy about Rockin' Rick.”

Hudson smiles and hitches a thumb toward his garage. “Marissa's crazy about him.”

My jaw about drops through the porch. “You're kidding!
He's
Rockin' Rick?”

“One and the same.”

“No way.”

He laughs. “Way.”

“That's amazing!” I sit there for a minute, shaking my head, then I stand up and say, “I've got to get home. Grams is probably getting worried.”