Sammy Keyes and the Power of Justice Jack (16 page)

“Go get ’em, Justice Jack!” they holler as he and Billy and the Man in Black go out the back door.

Casey and I slurp down our Cokes, and after Casey slips a dollar under our empty glasses, we head out the back door, too, waving a quiet thanks to Big Boy as we go.

The Man in Black is already blindfolded and in the sidecar, and Justice Jack is revving up the High Roller. Billy’s squeezed onto the seat behind him with his hands clamped on Jack’s shoulders.

“Man, what have I
done
?” I moan as they pull away.

“Well, we know Billy’s nuts,” Casey says, “but I can’t believe that guy agreed to be blindfolded. I wonder who he is.”

And that’s when I notice the shiny black car over to our right with a personalized plate that reads
SKT AGNT
.

I work it out in my head. “Secret agent?”

“Maybe a skirt agent?”

“A skirt agent? What’s a skirt agent?”

He shrugs. “Got me. But what kind of secret agent would advertise that he’s a secret agent?”

I pause. “Good point.”

“So?” Casey asks after a minute. “You ready to go?”

“Go? You want to follow them?”

“Sure, why not?” He grins. “Better’n homework.”

“But—” And all of a sudden I feel really sad. I mean, it would be a lot of fun to ride out to Pair-a-Dice with Casey, only we can’t.

“What?”

“I saw your mom roaring down the road right before I crossed the street.”

“Oh.”

I can tell he’d completely forgotten how we’re not supposed to be seeing each other, and for some reason what pops out of my mouth is, “Lars and Sasha ran off together.”

His head snaps up. “Seriously?”

“Crazy, huh?”

He looks a little worried. “You’re not thinking …”

“No!” I shrug and look down. “It’s just sad.”

“Because they’re doomed?”

I nod.

He lifts my chin. “Well, don’t worry. We’re not doomed. We’ll just be smart and work around my crazy mother, okay?”

I nod. “At least Grams is on our side. And Hudson and Billy and Holly and Dot and even Marissa.”

“See?” he says. “Not so bad.” He gives me a mischievous
grin. “So how about you go one way and I go another, and we meet in paradise?”

I laugh. “Pair-a-Dice is not my idea of paradise.”

He gives a cute little shrug. “As long as I’m with you …”

I throw my arms around him. I mean, what kind of guy says stuff like that? Then I pull back and give
him
a mischievous grin. “Race ya!”

“You’re on!” he laughs. “I’ll meet you where the road turns to dust!”

Then we throw our boards down and hurry off in opposite directions.

I took the same route I’d taken with Billy, only this time I had no one to talk to as I rode by the junkyard, so I actually noticed some things.

Like that the junkyard doesn’t call itself a junkyard.

It’s a
salvage
yard.

Sorta like Mrs. Wedgewood is well rounded.

Really. The place is
acres
of junk—zillions of cars, tons of old farm equipment, stacks of pipe and rebar, big heaps of tires … and then there’s what looks like the demolition section. Smashed metal of all shapes and sizes … and makes and models.

And popping up here and there among all the
junk
are corrugated metal buildings. The one closest to the street has big sprayed-on letters that say
OFFICE
. One farther back says
WAREHOUSE
. Another says
HUBCAPS
.

Can you believe that?

A whole building for hubcaps.

And all this junky mess is surrounded by chain-link fencing that’s topped with coils of razor wire.

Razor
wire.

Like someone’s going to go, Hey, Fred, let’s break into the salvage yard and steal some junk!

Anyway, I’m checking all this out, passing by the big open gate, when a little hiccup happens in my brain. It’s just a tiny glitch in my mental breathing, but something about it kind of throws me. And pretty soon I’m not pumping like I’m in a race with Casey. Pretty soon I’m looking over my shoulder, hearing Mayor Hibbs’ voice in my head:
I want it back before it’s sold for scrap!

So I skid to a halt, turn around, and power back to the office building. It’s not far inside the gate, and besides, Casey had to go the long way, which wasn’t fair.

A quick little detour would, you know, even things up.

There’s a pack of dogs snoozing together in a corner of the office, and they perk up when they hear me walk in, but they don’t
get
up. Two of them have one blue eye and one brown eye, which is kind of scary-looking, especially since the blue is so blue it’s almost white.

But after they check me over, they just go back to snoozing. So I walk past them and up to a counter where a guy in dark blue coveralls is typing at a computer while talking into the phone that’s cradled at his shoulder. “… Yeah, we got one. It’ll fit an eighty-eight or eighty-nine.… No problem.… Seven-thirty to four-thirty, closed Sundays.… That’s right.… Good enough.”

When he hangs up, he looks at me and says, “What can I do ya for?”

“Uh … has anyone come in here trying to pawn a life-size statue?”

“Uh …,” he says back, “we’re not exactly a pawnshop.”

“But if someone had something that was big and metal, would you buy it from them? You know, like for scrap or salvage or whatever?”

“Hmm. Depends on the metal.”

“It’s bronze.”

His eyebrows go up. “Solid bronze, or coated? And what kind of bronze?”

Well, I had no idea. I didn’t even really know it
was
bronze. It’s just what people who talked about the statue always said it was. And since the clock was ticking, I just decided to cut to the chase.

“You know the statue in City Hall? The one that was stolen?”

“No …”

“You haven’t heard about that?”

He gives a little laugh. “I try to avoid City Hall.”

“Well, you’ve seen the softball statue, right?”

He shakes his head, and I can tell that he really has no idea what I’m talking about.

“Well, look. If someone comes in here trying to sell you a statue—or pieces of a statue that might add up to softball players—call the police, okay?”

He shrugs. “Sure.”

“Actually …” I scrounge through my jeans and dig up Justice Jack’s card, which at this point is pretty bent and
rumpled. I smooth it down and pass it over the counter. “Call this guy.”

“Justice Jack?” he says with a sideways grin. Then he laughs and adds, “I never in a million years thought he’d catch on.”

“So you’ve heard of
him
?”

“Oh yeah.”

Then the phone rings, and that’s the end of our conversation.

Casey was already waiting at the end of the pavement, and after I told him about my junkyard detour and he got done teasing me about being Sidetrack Sammy, we hurried up to Pair-a-Dice, crunching through a bed of eucalyptus leaves as we cut off the road to get in close.

The High Roller was parked in front of the pink trailer, and there was a bicycle that hadn’t been there before leaning against big metal barrels that were standing between the trailer and Pair-a-Dice.

The door to Pair-a-Dice was open, and although we could hear noise coming from inside, we couldn’t really tell what people were saying or doing, and there was no way to peek in without being seen.

Finally Casey whispers, “That sounds like Pac-Man.”

It did, too. “Want to check for windows around back?”

He says, “Sure,” so we tiptoe through the leaves, making our way between the side of the shed and the heaping mound of paint-splatted junk. And when we get behind the shed, what do we see?

More junk and no rear windows.

There
is
a big dent and a split in a seam where two sections
of corrugated metal sheets come together, though. So I peek through that while Casey puts an eye up to a hole where a large screw that had held two other sections together was missing.

Now, I don’t know
what
I was expecting to see. Maybe a few plastic chairs? Some rakes and shovels? Stacks of, you know,
junk
?

But instead, I find myself looking at a cross between a cabana, a casino, and an arcade. There’s a Pac-Man machine, which Billy is playing, a pinball machine, a refrigerator, a microwave, an orange velvet couch, a roulette table, a poker table, a slot machine, Lava lamps, a television, and cool tropical decorations everywhere.

There’s also a floor-to-ceiling curtain that’s pulled across the whole left wall. And I guess I’m not the only one wondering what’s behind it because the Man in Black is pointing over at it.

Now, I can hear that Justice Jack and the Man in Black are talking, but the Pac-Man noise is making it hard to understand what they’re saying. I try putting my ear up to the split in the seam, but all that does is make the Pac-Man noise louder, so I switch back to looking in time to see Justice Jack whoosh aside the curtain and reveal …

A big, boring sheet of plywood.

And in my head I’m going,
Huh?
but then Jack flies into action, flipping down wooden legs, pulling levers, yanking down the plywood, and snapping things upright. In less than thirty seconds, we’re looking at a fully loaded workshop.

“Whoa!” Casey whispers. “It’s like a Murphy bench!”

Billy’s abandoned the Pac-Man machine, and we can hear Justice Jack announce, “From the Justice Jackknife to the Jack-Attack Smacker, this is where the Painful Punch of Justice begins!”

Now, while Justice Jack is showing Secret Agent Man around the workbench, I’m noticing something about this mysterious visitor—he’s had his arms crossed the whole time and his phone is at kind of a weird angle in his hand.

I turn to Casey. “I think that guy’s recording stuff on his phone!”

“I think you’re right!”

The Justice Jingle sounds and Jack snatches up his phone, and before he’s even said anything into it, he booms, “I’ll be back in a flash!” and dashes out the door.

Billy takes a seat on the orange couch, but Secret Agent Man ambles over to the door and looks around, then steps out.

“Okay,” Casey whispers. “This is just weird. Who is that guy and why is Jack showing him everything? And why would a guy with a high-end sports car even care about some poor schmuck’s fantasy hideout?”

“Do you think we should bust him for taking pictures?”

“You mean let them know we’re here?”

I nod. “Maybe get the phone and delete the pictures?”

“Are you saying we should
tackle
him?”

“Well, no, but—”

Just then I hear the crunching of leaves from around the building, so I put a finger up to my lips quick and motion Casey to hide with me behind a pile of junk. Good
thing we moved quick, too, because about three crunches later Secret Agent Man comes into view. He’s talking on his cell in kind of a hoarse whisper and he’s obviously all hyped up. “… It’s unbelievable! You couldn’t make this stuff up! Picture
Hancock
meets
Dog the Bounty Hunter
.… No, he’s not homeless. He’s just this side of it, though. He lives in a pink trailer out in the boonies.… Yes, pink! And he’s … Did those pictures land yet? Look at the pictures! And those news clips his manager sent? Those are all for real.” There’s a short pause and then, “No, I’m supposed to meet with her this afternoon.… I have no idea.… Look, I’m telling you, this is solid gold. It’ll start a bidding war. It’s fresh and unique and … it’s real, but it’s
un
real! The
mayor
called him today while we were at this coffee shop full of old geezers—offered to give him his own float in the Christmas parade if he can get back some statue that’s been stolen.” There’s a long pause and then, “Right, right, I know, but he has this young sidekick. Calls him the Deuce. Cute kid, very marketable.… Yeah, I know.… Okay, no problem.… Fine.… Fine.… Hey, I gotta go. He’s looking for me.” Then he clicks off and goes back the way he came.

“
Hancock
meets
Dog the Bounty Hunter
?” I whisper to Casey.

“
Hancock
is an old Will Smith movie about a homeless superhero, and I think
Dog the Bounty Hunter
was a reality show.”

“So … that guy’s a
Hollywood
agent?”

Casey nods. “That would be my guess.”

“And he’s here because he wants to turn all of
this
”—I wave my arms around at the assorted junk—“into … what? A reality show?”

“You couldn’t script this stuff,” Casey says with a little laugh. “The High Roller, the pink trailer, Pair-a-Dice …”

“And a very marketable sidekick.” I blink at him. “Wow. Do you think Billy knows what’s going on?”

“He almost has to.”

I let everything soak in for a minute and then sort of shake my head. “This all feels really … big.”

And it
does
, but something feels off about it, too. Sort of unreal. Not because there’s suddenly some guy running around Santa Martina in tights and a mask.

It’s Santa Martina. Weird stuff happens.

It’s more a feeling that it all started happening out of nowhere. Like,
poof
, a superhero appeared.

Well, superhero-slash-clown.

You know.

But obviously Pair-a-Dice wasn’t built yesterday, and you don’t just throw together a mad-scientist workbench or the whole Justice Jack persona or get a fan club like the one he had at Buckley’s overnight.

Still.

A Hollywood agent?

It suddenly all seemed … 
fake
.

“Pssst!”

Casey’s by the right side of the building now, looking down the breezeway between the pink trailer and Pair-a-Dice, waving me over.

So I follow him around the corner, stooping low as we scurry in behind the big metal barrels. “Everyone’s outside,” he whispers. “What do you want to do?”

“Lay low,” I whisper back.

A small white car turns onto the property as Casey and I get settled behind the barrels, and when the driver steps out and we see that it’s Justice Jack’s
mom
, Casey and I eye each other like, Now what?