Sammy Keyes and the Search for Snake Eyes (17 page)

I head straight for the garage, where three guys in dirty blue overalls are working. Two are across the garage, measuring a length of pipe, and the one closest to me is standing under a car on a lift, a welding mask flipped up on his head. “Excuse me!” I call to the guy with the mask.

He doesn't budge.

I take a few steps past the AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY sign and call, “Excuse me!” again, this time louder.

He does a double take, then comes over. “Yeah?” “I was wondering… did a guy named Joey Martinez used to work here? It would have been about a year ago.”

He doesn't answer me. Instead, he calls, “Hey, Luis!” across the garage and waves another guy over.

The Luis guy comes over, wiping his hands on a rag. “What's up?”

“I'm wondering if you knew a guy named Joey who maybe used to work here.”

The guy just stares at me.

“Joey… Martinez? Ever heard of him?”

He keeps staring at me, and let me tell you, he's not looking too nice.

“He had freckles, used to go out with Lena Moreno…?”

At that the guy spits. Right on the asphalt,
splat
. “That witch'll burn some day.”

My heart starts skipping around. “You really think she killed him?”

“I know it! I saw the whole thing with my own two eyes. First she calls his name, then the gun comes up and
blam!
Joey's gone.”

“But
why
? Her sister said they were married.”

He snorts. “Once a banger, always a banger. I warned him, Mama warned him, but he knew better. One thing about Joey—he wouldn't never listen.”

I could feel the click in my brain. And I tried not to sound too stupid as I said, “He …he was your… brother?”

He squints at me. “Why you here? You some friend of hers or something?”

“No, I —” I stopped suddenly. “When's the last time you saw her?”

“The day she gunned my brother down, that's when.”

“Then you don't know.” “Know what?”

I took a deep breath and decided that it was a chance I ought to take. “That you're an uncle.”

“What?”

“Lena had a baby.”

“No way.”

“According to my grandmother, he's about three months old.”

I could see him doing the math in his head. “Then it's not Joey's.”

“Oh yeah?” I took another deep breath. “Well, she says it is.”

His face clouds over. “So you know where she is?”

I shook my head. “She's disappeared. A couple days ago she asked me to take care of her baby—I haven't seen her since.”

He stands there for a minute, not saying anything, then shakes his head, muttering, “No way it's his. Probably belongs to that creep she went with before.”

“Ray Ramirez?” “I don't know his name. Some hot-shot banger who came up from Vegas and likes to roll the dice. That's all I know about him.” He stands there wiping grease around his hands with the rag. “So where's this baby?”

“I turned him over to the police.”

“So they know about all this?”

I nod. “All about it.”

A man with an oily face and a clip-on tie comes out of the office, saying, “Hey, what are you doing back here?”

Luis says to me, “If you see that witch, you tell her I ain't never gonna forget what she did to my brother. You got that?” Then he says, “Sorry, Mr. Thorton,” and gets back to work.

By the time I hit the sidewalk, I had more questions than ever. What in the world had happened? Here I'd just spoken to an eyewitness, and still I didn't believe it. But maybe I was just all wet. Maybe Lena was a coldhearted
banger. Maybe Pepe's father didn't have freckles at all. Maybe he had hatred for eyes. Steel for a mouth.

Was Pepe a baby Snake Eyes?

Would he grow up and get scars and tattoos?

In my mind I could see little Pepe on his back on the roof of the mall, cooing and kicking and spraying the world with pee. What would he be like in ten years? In twenty years?

The more I thought about it, the more helpless I felt.

It was late. And I knew Grams would be worried, but still, I thought I should make triple sure the Gangster Girls hadn't followed me back to the Senior Highrise. So I wound up crouching behind a bush near the fire escape, waiting and watching until I was positive the coast was clear.

When I finally made it to the apartment, I closed the door without a sound and whispered, “Hi, Grams!” as I unloaded my backpack.

Grams was all preoccupied with some book she was reading at the kitchen table. She smiled at me, then glanced at the clock. “Practice run late?”

I couldn't believe it. Normally she'd be wringing her hands, fretting about where I'd been, and here it was way past dinner and there
she
was, back with her nose in a book.

And what was I supposed to say to her question? Uh, gee, no. Actually, I'm late because there was this group of South West gangsters hunting me down and I had to ditch them?

I don't think so.

So I just said, “Uh-huh,” and peeked under her book at the cover. “What'cha reading?”

“It's absolutely fascinating.”

“
Online Marketing
? Grams, we don't even have a computer!”

She nods. Like I'm somewhere in the distance of her consciousness. “Hudson does.”

“Hudson?”

She snaps to. “Don't jump ahead of yourself, young lady. I'm just reading.”

“Does, uh, Hudson know you're reading?”

“Not yet.” “But what are you planning to market?” I ask her, then mutter, “Online. With a computer you don't own.”

She snaps the book closed, shoves away from the table, and says, “I thought we'd heat up leftovers tonight.”

“Don't change the subject! I really want to know.”

She just scowls at me.

“Okay, I'm sorry. It just seems so out of the blue and, you know, not you.”

“Oh, really? Well, I don't make fun of your ideas, and I happen to think this one's a pretty good one.” She starts passing cold food to me from the refrigerator.

“Grams, really. I'm sorry. What's the idea? What are you planning to market?”

She hesitates, then says, “Handkerchiefs. Monogrammed handkerchiefs.”

I didn't want to put my foot in my mouth again, but I had the hardest time not saying,
Handkerchiefs?
Who's gonna want those?

I guess it was written all over my face, though, because she says, “Brides. Babies. Sweet-sixteens. Victorian
tea
rooms—which are becoming very popular again, in case you didn't know.”

“Tearooms? Why would they want handkerchiefs?”

She tisked at me and closed the refrigerator. “Or cloth napkins, Samantha. You have to think broadly if we're going to go into business.”

“We? You mean, you, me, and … Hudson?”

“Well, I don't know about Hudson. We'll see.”

“But Grams —” “We'll see!”

One thing about my grams. When she's excited, you can always tell because she moves fast. And right now she was
flying
around the kitchen, whipping those leftovers in and out of the microwave, shoving me plates and utensils to put on the table. And I thought, Okay. If she's excited about it, well fine. Who was I to break it to her that there was a
reason
Kleenexes were popular.

“Scraps, Samantha. Do you understand? I can make them out of scraps. Remnants from the fabric store. The embroidery's nothing—it's just a monogram. Or a name. Say, I could charge by the letter! Yes! That makes more sense. And imagine, Samantha, pennies to make, and I could easily charge eight or ten dollars apiece, don't you think? Plus shipping and handling. That's why handkerchiefs and napkins and not blankets and towels or some such bulky product. The book says you should charge just under ten dollars for shipping and handling, but postage would be next to nothing!”

“Ten-dollar shipping for an eight-dollar handkerchief?”

“Well, you would prorate it, of course, but think! Just think! There's real money in this!”

I felt like saying, That's only if someone
buys
them, but I didn't. And then the next thing she said made me really glad I hadn't. “Samantha, I am bound and determined to find us a way out of here. We can't wait forever for your mother, and with Mrs. Wedgewood next door, why, it seems that any moment we might be thrown out on our ear.”

I felt awful. She'd probably been racking her brains for a way she could earn some money, and why? Because my living with her was putting her at serious risk. So rather than send me off to live with my mother—which she knew would
kill
me—she'd come up with the master plan. A way to save us from despair and desolation. A scheme so big, so broad, so bold, we would dominate the world! And it all revolved around …

Snot.

But I'd never seen Grams so excited. So I didn't say one snide word to her about marketing nose-nugget napkins. I just let her talk.

After dinner she invited me to do my homework next to her at the table. So while she took notes from her book, I scribbled answers out of mine. And you know what? It was really nice. It made me feel, I don't know,
safe
. Like if I was with Grams, nobody could hurt me. She wouldn't let them. She didn't think of me as a jinx that brought her bad luck. Everything
else
was the jinx, and she'd be doggoned if she was going to
let it ruin our life. No, my grams would find a way to save us.

Hankies to the rescue!

The minute I hit the fire escape the next morning, I was back to feeling stressed. Three nights had gone by since Pepe had been handed off to me, gangsters had tried to follow me home, and Snake Eyes was out there sniffing around. By now he probably knew my name, where I went to school… stuff you sure don't want gangsters to know about you.

So I took a new way to school, trying to mix things up a little, but I still kept looking over my shoulders.

And instead of just walking past graffiti like I used to, I started trying to make out what it said. It was scary, too. Well, not scary like
boo
, more unnerving.
It
had been there all along, I just hadn't stopped to analyze it. Like the day you realize where hamburger comes from. You feel squeamish and sort of unsure. Like everyone around you has been playing some sort of gross joke on you.

Everyone except the cow, of course.

Anyway, even though a lot of the graffiti still looked like scribbles, I was beginning to be able to make out bits and pieces.

The graffiti at school, though, anyone could read. Still. They'd tried to clean the red BRUSTER'S #1 off the steps, but it was still legible. The lawn was looking worse than ever, too. It had gotten browner overnight.

I ran past it all and slid into homeroom while the bell
was ringing, then waved to Marissa and Holly and ignored Heather's sneer from across the room. All in all, it was a pretty typical start to my school day.

But then in the middle of the Pledge, Vice Principal Caan appears. He stands looming in the doorway fidgeting with his scuba watch, and it's easy to see something has him pretty agitated.

The second we're done pledging, he goes up and whispers with Mrs. Ambler. Then it happens. Mr. Caan crooks his finger, right at me.

I jump up and I'm about to say, What did
I
do? when Mr. Caan does something that makes my heart stop.

He crooks his finger again.

Right at Marissa.

Marissa looks at me like, What is going on? and I shrug at her and shake my head, but as she looks from me to Mr. Caan and back again, I can tell what she's thinking.

Jinx.

Holly gives us worried looks on our way out, so I shrug and smile. But then I see Heather, and my smile disappears. There's a twinkle in her eyes. A
twinkle
.

Mr. Caan wouldn't talk about it on the march back to the administration building. And I kept telling Marissa, “I don't know! I swear, I didn't do anything!” but she was worried, too. Worried big-time.

Then we entered the conference room and relief swept over me. Officer Borsch was there!

“What's going on?” I asked him as I slid into a chair.

“Hrmph,” he says, his arms folded across his chest. “As if you don't know.”

Marissa sits down next to me. “I swear,” she says to the whole room, “we didn't do a thing!”