The Man with the Red Bag (3 page)

T
he next day, day three, we got on the bus, left Salt Lake City, and drove north, along the edge of the Great Salt Lake. This lake sure is a big sucker! Declan told us that it's about eighty miles long and thirty-five miles wide and that it probably had once been part of a much larger lake, long, long ago. He said we'd stop for photographs later and there'd be a chance to swim for anyone who wanted to.

There was a chorus of “Are you kidding?” and “No way!”

The Texans began singing something about three
little fishes and Grandma said to me, “That song's as old as I am. Their grandmothers must have taught them.”

We all applauded at the end, and Declan said, “Very nice! But you'll not see any little fishes in the Great Salt Lake. There are only brine shrimp.”

He went on to tell us more about the lake, how it's so buoyant you couldn't sink in it even if you tried. You'd bob up like a cork. He said the water was saltier than that in any ocean in the world.

I jotted down some notes for future mystery novels (something that Mrs. Nixon strongly advises). What if someone, not knowing as much about the Great Salt Lake as I do, had murdered someone and thrown the body into the water, thinking it would sink and be gone forever, and it popped up, and kept popping up? I liked that idea a lot. But it wasn't happening here. And the key word was “focus.”

I was closing the notebook when I heard two voices calling to Declan.

“
We
want to swim. Absolutely.”

Buffo and Blessing Roberts.

“Are there changing rooms, Declan?” Blessing asked.

“There are. Out at the end of the causeway.”

“Great!”

I turned around and saw Buffo and Blessing smiling happily at each other.

Grandma shuddered. “As I recall, that lake may be one of the natural wonders of the world but it's not very attractive for bathing. Unless it has changed.”

I had no hope that Charles Stavros would go for a swim and leave his bag behind. If he did swim, it would be pretty hard for him to hold the bag over his head. And what about his bandage?

Scotty pulled the coach into the parking area and we began to file out.

Buffo and Blessing jogged ahead of the rest of us, heading for the lake. They had white towels around their necks and carried black swimsuits. In their shorts their behinds were very big but I noticed they didn't jiggle. All muscle, I thought.

Grandma and I walked behind Stavros.

Geneva and her dad were ahead of him. I couldn't help observing again the space between them and the
way she kept her face turned away from him as if there was something really interesting on the other side of the lake.

Still, it surprised me when Grandma said, “That little girl is very troubled. I talked with her father at breakfast. He's an engineer and he's just back from Africa. It seems he spends a lot of time there.”

I don't know why I was surprised that Grandma knew so much. People tell her things. I think it's because she's such a good listener.

“Was Geneva in Africa, too?” I asked.

“No. I don't think his wife was, either. There's a sadness about him. Have you noticed?”

I shook my head.

Charles Stavros was hugging the red bag against his chest. I noticed everything about
him
. Wouldn't a regular person carrying a regular bag sling it over his shoulder? Was there something in there he didn't want to get bumped? In case it would get broken? Or hurt? Could it possibly be his puppy—that he hadn't been able to leave it after all? But a puppy would whine or bark. And it would have to be fed. And it would need to go to the bathroom. But if he had a
bomb…It wouldn't be good for a bomb to get bumped. I froze at the thought.

Grandma was looking at me strangely. “Are you all right, Kevin?”

I realized that I had stopped walking.

I bent over. “Something in my shoe.” I untied my shoelace and shook my sneaker vigorously. “Got it,” I said.

Buffo and Blessing disappeared into the dressing rooms while the rest of us gazed at the lake. We actually stood well back because the shores were thick with kelp or some sort of weed. Tiny black flies hopped and swarmed silently around it.

Millie took out a tissue and held it to her mouth as if she was afraid one of them was going to jump in.

“Nasty.” Mrs. Dove gave a small ladylike shudder. “I suppose the…the swimmers…will have to go through that to get in the water?”

“No other way, my dear,” Mr. Dove said.

“They must be crazy,” Millie muttered. “I hope they don't bring any of those flies back in the bus with us. You know, in their hair or crawling around.”

“Millie!” Beth said sharply.

Millie took a deep breath. “Only kidding.”

We waited as Buffo and Blessing emerged from the dressing rooms in black swimsuits that were identical, except that Blessing's had a top. They each had a red tattoo on the right shoulder, but from where I stood I couldn't see what it was. Hand in hand they plunged in, making whooping noises, the flies rising around them like shifting black clouds, kelp clinging to their legs.

“Gross!” Geneva started to scratch herself all over even though the flies were nowhere near us.

We watched Buffo and Blessing lying on top of the water, their heads and toes and bellies poking up.

“It's great,” they shouted. “You could sleep in here. It's a humongous water bed.”

The Texans began a chorus of “Shoo, Fly, Don't Bother Me,” and Midge moved closer to Grandma and whispered, “Who needs the Mormon Tabernacle Choir when we've got them, Mrs. Saunders?”

I wondered if I should ask Midge, since she was a dog expert, if a little puppy could live in a Star Tours bag and never bark, whine, or go to the bathroom. But I decided not to. It might not be a good idea to
get any of the tour people involved with my mystery just yet. I'd wait and watch my suspect some more until I had proof.

There weren't too many people visiting the Great Salt Lake today. Buffo and Blessing were the only two floaters. At a distance, three people walked along the path, two dogs frolicking beside them. The dogs kept darting off to leap into the kelp, biting and snapping at the rising flies. Suddenly they seemed to see us, and they came at a gallop, tails wagging, ears turned inside out, pink tongues lolling.

“Hello, ladies,” Beth said, bending to stroke one as it streaked past her.

Millie lit a cigarette and laughed. “They're gentlemen.” She held out a hand but the dogs ignored her.

“Probably they don't care for the smell of tobacco,” Beth said, waving smoke away from the front of her face.

One of the dogs suddenly stopped, legs rigid, then raced straight at Charles Stavros. The other followed, his nose in the air.

Stavros saw them coming and instantly lifted the red bag at arm's length over his head.

The dogs leaped, trying to reach it. They were big dogs, with shiny black coats. One of them had his paws on Stavros's chest. The dog didn't look menacing, just excited.

“Get down! Get away!” Stavros shouted.

Geneva's father rushed toward him, and so did Midge. Midge pulled on the collar, but the dog was too strong. Stavros was almost knocked off balance as he staggered back, the bag high above his head. I remembered how heavy it had been.

“Woof, woof,” the dogs laughed. “Woof!”

I started forward, but Grandma grabbed my arm. “Stay right here, Kevin,” she said.

From the lake Buffo shouted, “Hey! What's going on?” He and Blessing had their heads lifted to see better, and I thought how much they looked like the black otters I'd seen in Monterey Bay, lying on their backs munching on abalone.

The dogs' owners sprinted along the path, shouting, “Primo! Casper! Stop that this minute.” As if on cue the dogs dropped down, shamefaced, and stood with their tails dragging.

The owners were apologizing to Stavros and clip
ping heavy leashes on the dogs. “Bad boys,” they scolded. And then to Stavros: “They weren't going to hurt you, honest. They're really gentle.”

“You could have fooled me,” Millie said quite nastily.

“It's all right.” Stavros yanked down on his windbreaker, which had risen almost to his armpits.

“It's whatever you have in that bag that attracted them,” one of the owners, a guy with a spotty face, said. “Do you have steaks? They do go crazy for steaks.” He gave a little nervous laugh.

“No. No steaks,” Stavros said.

Geneva stood next to me. “What do you think he
does
have?” she asked. “It's weird how he never lets go of that bag. Everywhere he goes, it goes.”

“I've noticed,” I said, casually.

She stared at me. “I think you know something,” she said.

I couldn't help noticing that her eyes were a much darker blue than the lake behind her. Of course, her eyes were probably not as salty. And you definitely couldn't float in them.

Buffo and Blessing came trudging out of the lake
through the kelp and flies. Their spiky red hair had turned dark in the salt water. “That was terrific,” Buffo said. “A once-in-a-lifetime experience.”

“Exhilarating,” Blessing called out as they headed for the showers. The tattoo on her shoulder was a red heart with
BUFFO
printed in it. His was identical, except it said
BLESSING
.

“Sorry we missed all the excitement,” Buffo said to Charles Stavros. “What were the hounds of the Baskervilles after, anyway?”

Charles Stavros shrugged, held the bag close against him, and headed back toward the bus.

I
decided to make Geneva my partner, or actually my assistant. Even Sherlock Holmes had Watson. And two watchers might be better than one.

As we were getting back on the bus I told her, “You said you thought I knew something about Charles Stavros. I don't. I suspect. We could discuss it if you like. I'll ask my grandma if she minds if you and I sit together for a while.” I knew Grandma would say “Fine,” and I was right. She believed Geneva was troubled, and she would think I might help her. “You can ask your dad if it's okay,” I said.

Geneva sniffed. “I don't care if it's okay with him or not. He's left me plenty of times,” she said.

We sat in one of the empty seats at the back.

“One good thing about a bus,” I said. “Stavros isn't getting off until the bus stops. It's easy to keep an eye on him.”

“Is that our plan? To keep an eye on him? You mean because of the bag?”

I nodded and took out my mystery notebook. “I've been writing down things about him in case we need them for evidence,” I told her.

“Write about the dogs,” Geneva ordered.

I gave her a cold look. “I'm going to.” Maybe this wasn't going to work. It wouldn't if she turned out to be impossibly bossy. This was my mystery and she was just lucky I was sharing. “Here,” I said. “You can read.”

She flipped through the pages. “You don't have much,” she said.

I gave her another look. “I'll get more.”

“We,” she said. “We'll get more.”

Was she going to be a total affliction?

I leaned toward her. “I thought he might have a
bomb in there. He definitely looks like someone who could be carrying a bomb.”

Geneva's eyes opened wide. “He does look exactly like a terrorist. I've never seen a real one, but I've seen pictures on TV.”

“Listen to this.” I told her what Millie had said about the photograph in the newspaper.

“Oh, wow!” Geneva breathed.

“I bet he's not even Greek,” I went on. “But I can't figure out how he could have gotten a bomb past the security at the airport in New York. My grandma wasn't even allowed to bring her knitting needles. She had to buy new ones in Salt Lake City.”

“Maybe he bought a new
bomb
in Salt Lake City,” Geneva said.

I caught my breath. “Hey! He was late, remember? What if he had an accomplice who brought it to him the night before? Or that morning?”

Geneva looked smug. “That's what I was thinking. Actually, that's what I said. But wait!” She tugged at a tuft of her yellow hair. “If he has a bomb, he could blow us up anytime. Just ka-boom and we'd be all in pieces.”

We stared at each other. I flashed back to the Twin Towers and 9/11, the terrible pictures with the smoke and the screaming, running people. A bomb in a bus wouldn't kill thousands, like that. But it would kill us.

“Why would he want to?” I was mad at my voice for sounding so babyish. “We're not important. Are we?”

We sat back. I half heard Declan telling us that we were now in Idaho, and how Meriwether Lewis and William Clark explored the region, after crossing the Bitterroot Range, and about the fur-trading forts and the Nez Perce Indians. It was probably great stuff and the kind of thing my parents wanted me to learn about on this trip, but I had immediate, pressing problems to deal with, not ancient history.

I was glad when he started on one of his long, dumb jokes—about an old prospector—and I could turn him all the way off. What if I went up to him right now and confided my suspicions? After all, he'd be smarter than Geneva. But I was back to the same old thing. All I had were suspicions, and as Geneva had so rudely pointed out, I didn't have much to base them on.

I was thinking hard. “
We're
not important. But suppose one of the other passengers is? Suppose one of them is a…a senator or a…a general in the United States Army…or the vice president of the United States in disguise?”

Geneva looked thoughtful. “Maybe.”

We reeled off the names of the people in the tour group. “The Doves?” I said. “Impossible. Buffo and Blessing—the two otters? Couldn't be. Millie and Beth?”

“If Millie were the vice president of the United States, she'd have blabbed about it already,” Geneva said.

“Besides,” I added, “she doesn't trust Stavros, either. Midge? I can't imagine her being a general in the army.”

Geneva bristled. “Why? Because she's a woman?”

“No. Because she looks after dogs. She doesn't have time to do army stuff. Could be one of the Texans. Who from Texas would be so important on this trip that a terrorist would want to blow
that person
up?”

Geneva shook her head. “I can't think of anyone.”

We sat staring at the seat-back in front of us, hoping for inspiration.

“Your grandma, then,” Geneva said at last.

“My grandma! Get serious! What about your dad?”

“He's too busy working for the Africans. He's too busy even for us.”

Uh-oh, I thought. Better to stay off the subject of her dad.

Geneva sighed. “We're stymied.”

I stood up, pretending to stretch, grabbing a look at Charles Stavros. I couldn't see the red bag but I knew it was there, right next to him.

“Still aboard?” Geneva asked.

I thought she was probably being sarcastic, so I sarcasted right back. “No, he jumped out the window but we didn't notice.”

Geneva giggled.

I hoped she was taking this seriously. “This is not a game, you know,” I said.

She sniffed in an offended way and said, “Not to me.”

Then I told her my last idea.

“I think it's a building he's after,” I said. “A building
we stop at. Or pass.”

“What building?”

I shrugged. “How do I know?”

 

We crossed the border from Idaho into Wyoming, the forty-fourth state admitted to the Union. Declan told us how the pioneers had streamed west on the California, Mormon, and Oregon Trails. He told us about the great blizzard of 1887, in which thousands of cattle died. When he said part of Wyoming had once belonged to Texas, there was a cheer from the four Texans. I was afraid they might burst into song, but they didn't. I guessed they were miffed that Texas had ever had to give up anything.

Geneva and I were quiet, inspiration gone.

I gazed out of the window at the endless grasslands, the rivers, the cattle grazing peacefully. It was good to give my brain a rest. I let myself imagine how it must have been, back in the days of Jim Bridger, the famous trapper and mountain man, the days of the covered wagons, creaking along the narrow trails. Bison would have been everywhere. It must have been beautiful. And it was beautiful still.

We stopped in the town of Jackson outside a big, old-time-looking wooden hotel with a porch all the way around it.

“I bet Jim Bridger tied his horse up to one of those posts,” Geneva said.

“Yep.” I could just see it.

“One hour,” Declan announced. “Scotty will pick us up again right where he lets us off. You're welcome to sit awhile on the porch and have yourselves a cold drink. Or wander the town, if you like.”

“On guard,” Geneva whispered, sliding out of her seat.

She and I were the last off the bus. I immediately checked for Charles Stavros. There he was, standing aloof from everyone, red bag securely against his chest.

“Check your watches,” Declan said. “We'll get under way at four sharp. We want to make it to Grand Teton National Park in time for our elegant dinner at Jackson Lake Lodge.”

Millie and Beth were standing right next to us.

“You know what?” Millie said to me. “I'm dying to know what Stavros has in that bag. I might just ask
him. It's always better to be straightforward.”

Beth groaned. “Give us a break, Millie. You don't mean straightforward. You mean nosy.”

Geneva nudged me and we made sure we were close by as Millie wandered casually up to Stavros.

“I'm leaving,” Beth said. “You are such an embarrassment sometimes, Mill.”

“Go for it, Millie,” Geneva breathed.

Millie gave Stavros a bogus smile. “Hi, Chuck. Do you like to be called Chuck? It's friendly, don't you think?”

“Actually, it may be friendly but I don't like it.” His smile under his mustache was just as bogus as hers.

Geneva gave an excited little hiss.

Millie leaned forward and touched the red bag with the tip of her finger. “Your bag must have something very valuable in it. I mean, even those two black dogs, Primo and whatever his name was, wanted to know.”

Stavros took a step back. For a second I thought he was going to hold the bag above his head the way he did with the dogs. He stood before her like a mountain, maybe as big as one of the Tetons we were
going to see later. “It is valuable to me, yes,” he said. “Now, if you'll excuse me.” He stepped toward her and this time Millie was the one who moved back.

“Well, what an ignoramus,” she muttered as he walked away. Her face was red and mottled, like a chicken's comb. “You just wait, Mr. so-called Charles Stavros.” She turned to me. “I've called my friend Paulie back at the office. He's going to get that picture from the
Times
and fax it to me tomorrow at the Old Faithful Inn in Yellowstone. We'll be there day after next. Then we shall see what we shall see, and find out just who Stavros is.”

“Will you show the picture to us?” Geneva asked.

“Show it to you? I'll show it to the police, that's what I'll do.”

She whirled away.

“Ooh, she's mad!” Geneva said. “Just imagine, though, if she's right.”

Midge had been leaning against the porch railing. “I overheard a bit of that,” she said mildly. “I just want to say that if Mr. Stavros's puppy lay against that bag, back in his apartment, or if she maybe urinated on it, the bag would be a big attraction to dogs.
Especially to male dogs.”

Geneva held her nose. “Gross,” she muttered.

I wanted to have a tantrum, right there. Were all my mysterious clues going to turn out to have ordinary explanations? No, there was still the question of what was in that bag.

Geneva's dad came up then and said: “Geneva. Would you like to take a walk up Main Street?”

“Sorry, Kevin and I are going to the Cowboy Emporium,” Geneva said.

It was the first I'd heard of it.

“Oh,” her father said. Just that one word before he turned away.

“Why are you so mean to him?” I asked.

Geneva tossed her head, which would have been a lot more dramatic if she'd had long hair instead of those yellow clumps. “Want to go to the emporium?”

“Sure. Just let me check with Grandma,” I said.

Grandma said okay. But she told us to stay together and not be too long.

The Cowboy Emporium was just across the street. There was a statue of a cowboy on his horse at the doorway and an Indian war bonnet in the window,
and I did want to go in.

I looked along Main Street. No cowboys in sight. No Indians in war bonnets or feathers. No covered wagons. Just traffic, plenty of it. SUVs and trucks, and even a Hummer. There were women in shorts and skimpy tops; young guys with skateboards; a teenager with dyed blond hair, a nose ring, and a USC sweatshirt. I figured Jackson wasn't the way it used to be. Jim Bridger would never have recognized it.

And then…and then I saw something that gave me such a great idea my head almost burst open. Sometimes good ideas just jump into my brain.

“Not the emporium,” I said. “I want to go to that bookstore farther along.”

“For what? Another one of that author's mystery books?”

“Not this time. Come on.”

The Step Inside Bookshop had paperbacks for sale in bins on the sidewalk. A black cat slept in the window. There was a poster for a new Harry Potter novel.

We stepped inside and a bell rang. Immediately there was that great bookstore smell. I'm not sure if
reading has a smell, but that's what I always think of when I'm around books. It's the smell of secrets hidden, and words and thoughts. And adventures.

“I could stay in here all day,” I muttered.

“We only have a half hour left, so hurry up. I still want to go to that emporium.”

It was the kind of bookstore I love, where nobody bothers you. You can just browse.

I walked along the aisles, not allowing myself to stop and look till I came to the travel section. My fingers trailed along the spines. What if the Step Inside didn't have what I wanted? But, great! There it was! An English-Greek, Greek-English dictionary.

“Eureka!” I said, which might even be a Greek word, for all I know. It means “I've got it!”

Geneva beamed, I think admiringly. “Now I see what you're planning,” she said. “You're going to say something to him in Greek and see if he answers.”

I nodded. “Right.”

The dictionary cost $12.95, which was a lot for a book I didn't actually intend to read. Expensive, but worth it.

Outside again, I checked down the street. Stavros
was sitting upright in a chair on the wooden porch, all by himself, the bag on his knees.

Grandma and some of the other tour members plus two old fellows in overalls and cowboy hats were clustered around a big table, drinking what—from where I stood—looked like iced tea. I realized I was superthirsty.

I opened the bookstore bag and took out the dictionary.

“Don't look at it now,” Geneva said in an impatient voice. “We won't have time to stop at the emporium.”

“So?” I stopped and opened it. “Let's talk to Mr. Stavros,” I said. “Let's find out if that Greek man understands Greek.”