What Could Go Wrong? (16 page)

Charlie went up and down a little on the balls of his feet, his legs spread apart for balance. He looked absurd in the plaid shorts and the San Francisco Giants shirt with the orange baseball cap. “How you doing, princess?” he asked me.

The man with the gun jerked it toward Charlie. “Shut up,” he said.

The play. How well did I still remember the play? We'd done it two whole years ago. But Charlie was feeding me a line from it, and beside me I was aware of Eddie tensing to spring. I was afraid my own muscles were paralyzed. What if we made a move and the man fired?

“Don't you kids try anything cute,” Hawaiian shirt said, and he sounded nasty. “This room's practically soundproof—you notice you can't hardly hear the jets taking off?—and I won't hesitate to shoot all three of you if I have to.”

“That's what you're planning to do eventually anyhow, isn't it?” Charlie asked. There was a gleam in his eyes much like he'd had the time he proposed we all jump off the bridge into the Pilchuck River, when Dad came along and stopped us and told us we'd have broken our necks because the water was too shallow.

No, Charlie, no! I was saying silently, but the rest of me—except for my mind—got ready for whatever was coming.

“Don't be stupid, kid. The boss may tell us to let you go.”

And he may not, I thought, wanting to scream from the tension. Because we can describe you and your cronies, and we know you've got a whole briefcase full of money, and you knocked Mrs. Basker over the head, and we know you've got a key to get into this room. Probably not very many people have keys. If we talk to anybody, they'll catch you sooner or later. And put you in prison for a long, long time. And you know that.

Charlie was looking at me, and I knew what he was waiting for. He didn't dare say that final line aloud, not with that gun
pointing at him, but he was thinking it right at me, and I understood.

In the play I only partly remembered, the villain had sworn to keep me captive forever, and I'd screamed for the prince to come to my rescue.

I opened my mouth and shrieked.

“Help! Help, save me!”

Hawaiian shirt was as nervous as we were, I guess. He didn't shoot, but he was startled enough to lose his cool. He jerked toward me so the gun was wavering between me and Charlie.

We all moved at once, and in different directions.

Charlie grabbed the squeegee and swung it, connecting with Hawaiian shirt's mouth. Eddie had the broom and slammed it into the side of the man's head. I grabbed the only thing I could reach that was loose and not covered by plastic, which was a long decorative ceiling light fixture that had been taken down for the painting. It was heavier than I expected, which slowed me down, but it made a satisfying
crash
when I brought it down on the hand holding the gun.

It got a little confusing for a minute or so after that.

The gun skidded across the floor and Charlie kicked it. Eddie yelled “Bonzai!” and swung the broom again. Charlie came back with the squeegee from the other side, and they caught our enemy's ears from both sides in a sort of sandwich effect.

Just then the door began to swing inward. I saw it moving and closed my eyes. If Mr. Upton had orders from the boss to eliminate us, it was all over. They'd shoot us here in this practically soundproof room. We would be dead, and my little brother, Max, would get my room and my tape player and my—

But the voice that spoke wasn't Mr. Upton's. It belonged to Agent Santori. My eyes popped open.

He didn't look as if he'd been shot or hit over the head. And he wasn't alone. There were two other men with him. The only one who had drawn his gun was the young guy Charlie had declared innocent and harmless, the one in the patched jeans and colorless sweatshirt.

We all froze as if we were playing that old game Statues. The man who had held us captive until a minute ago was the stillest one of all.

Everyone but The Enemy let out the breath they'd been holding.

Eddie and Charlie put down their weapons. Hawaiian shirt was swearing and wiping at his bloody nose.

“Where were you?” Charlie demanded of the F.B.I. agent. “I thought you'd never get here in time!”

“I was afraid they'd killed you,” I admitted, my voice wavering. “And then they were going to kill us!”

Agent Santori gave me a small, tight smile. “Sorry I had to let you get so scared before I showed up, but we needed as much incriminating evidence as possible. We may be able to pin a kidnapping charge on them now, too. That's an offense that should add a few years to your sentence, Donovan,” he said to the man who was glaring at us over a bloody handkerchief. “Get him out of here,” he told the young man who looked like a leftover hippie.

“There's another one, a guy who calls
himself Mr. Upton,” Charlie said as the other two agents led our captor away. “He went to call his boss, to see what to do with us—”

“I think they were going to shoot us,” Eddie added eagerly. He was still pale, but he was grinning.

We followed the men out into the corridor, and stopped. Because there were more agents here—and they had Mr. Upton spread-eagled against a wall, searching him. He was swearing, too.

One of the men swatted him on the shoulder. “Ah, ah, don't use that kind of language in front of juveniles, Morales.”

“His name's Morales?” Eddie asked. “Not Upton?”

“That's one of his names,” Agent Santori said dryly. “Come on, get them out of here, fellas. I have some questions to ask you kids, though. Let's go up to the security offices, where we won't have an audience.”

I finally found my tongue. “Our aunt's looking for us—Molly Portwood, she had us paged, only when Charlie got on the phone Mr. Upton—Morales—made him hang up.”

“We'll find your aunt as soon as we've talked,” Agent Santori informed us.

Actually, we found her before he asked us any questions. She was just coming out of the security police office, looking concerned until she saw us.

“Oh, there you are! I had you paged again after we were cut off, but you didn't call back.” She stopped and looked at us. “Good grief, I left you here alone too long, didn't I? What will your folks think when you go home with those outfits? Well, I'm sorry it took me so long, but we got delayed in traffic as well as at the emergency room. I didn't worry about you, I knew how self-sufficient Charlie is—”

About that time it dawned on her that the tall, good-looking man with us was
with
us.

“Is . . . is something wrong here?”

I've said before that Aunt Molly is pretty. She has dark brown hair and dark eyes, and she was wearing one of those outfits that Aunt Joan thinks are “too extreme”—this one was butter yellow and had a swirly pleated skirt and only narrow straps over her shoulders—and I could tell Agent Santori thought she was pretty, too.

He flashed his I.D. again and she let her mouth fall open. Even that way, she was pretty.

“Miss . . . Portwood, is it? And these youngsters are your niece and nephews?”

“Yes, that's right. What's going on? Has something happened?”

“You might say that,” Charlie told her cheerfully. I was breathing normally again, too, although I felt sort of shaky.

“I need to ask them some questions,” Agent Santori said. “It'll take a little while.”

“Now? You mean I can't take them home and feed them? Look, they aren't in trouble, are they?” Aunt Molly demanded. “I mean, you're not
arresting
them, are you?”

“No, no. But we do need to learn some particulars of the case we've just wound up. Perhaps—” He hesitated. “Well, of course it is getting late, and they're probably hungry. Tell you what, Miss Portwood—it is
miss,
isn't it? Why don't I take your address and I'll give you a couple of hours to get them fed, and then I'll ask my questions at your place. More comfortable than headquarters, anyway.”

Aunt Molly considered, looking up at him
through sweeping dark lashes that Aunt Joan swears are artificial, and Mom says are real except for the mascara. “Well, I only intend to feed them pizza. We could always pick up enough for one more, if you'd like to join us, Agent Santori. That way I wouldn't have to give you directions to my place; you could just follow us.”

He didn't hesitate very long. “That sounds like a great idea. I'll pick up the pizza. Pepperoni or Canadian bacon? Or anchovies?”

The way he said it, nobody would have dared asked for anchovies. Aunt Molly was the only one who liked them, anyway, and she didn't say a word when the rest of us voted for pepperoni.

In the car, on the way to Aunt Molly's new house, I poked Charlie in the ribs with an elbow and leaned toward him to whisper. “I think she likes Agent Santori.”

He never even heard me. “I hope he's going to explain it all. The case, I mean. I'll bet we guessed right about just about everything, but I'd like to hear the details. It wasn't drugs, so what was it they were stealing and selling
across state lines and even out of the country? It had to be something worth a lot to make up a whole briefcase full of money. What I saw was in hundred-dollar bills.”

I doubted if real agents explained things to civilians the way they do on TV, but I didn't say so. I wanted to know the details, too.

I wondered if there was any way to keep my dad from hearing everything that had happened to us, and sighed.

He wasn't going to be happy about it, even if it had turned out okay. Maybe we'd be lucky and they wouldn't mention us when the story came on television.

Aunt Molly's new house was on the top of a hill—San Francisco has lots of hills—and when it got dark we could see the lights coming on all over the city below. The bridges looked like sparkling diamonds across the black water of the bay.

By that time, we'd finished our second supper—nobody mentioned how much we'd eaten at the airport—and Aunt Molly had called each set of parents to warn them that we might be mentioned on the news, but that there was nothing to worry about.

I was glad she talked to my dad, not me. I didn't want to know what he thought until he'd had a chance to calm down. I heard her say, “It wasn't anything the kids did wrong, Don. They saw a crime committed, and the
authorities are asking them some questions, that's all. No, they don't need a lawyer present, they aren't accused of anything, nor suspects in the case. In fact, they helped solve it. They'll tell you about it later, okay?”

At least he didn't demand to speak to me personally. I was grateful for that.

What I wanted, though, was for Agent Santori to start explaining things. We were sitting around this big living room looking out at the lights, mostly on cushions on the floor because she didn't have much furniture yet except for a blue couch from her old apartment; she sat on one end of that, and Agent Santori—who was generally called Jim, we'd found out—on the other end.

He leaned forward and took the last piece of pizza, then got out a small notebook and started to ask questions, occasionally writing something down. We answered truthfully, sneaking a glance at Aunt Molly once in a while when we thought she might not approve of what we'd done.

She rolled her eyes a lot, and when we told about finding Mrs. Basker unconscious she
made a squeaking sound the way I do when I can't come up with the right words. When he finally closed the notebook and stuck it into an inside pocket, though, she had her own questions.

“Okay, now what was it all about? Where did the money come from? Who does it belong to?”

Eddie sat cross-legged on a big yellow pillow. “Was it a drug deal? A million dollars?”

“I'm afraid I can't tell you any more than I already have,” Agent Santori said, and we all groaned, including Aunt Molly.

“That's hardly fair,” she said, sounding like Charlie. “You could at least give us an idea of what they got mixed up in. You said yourself they helped you turn up the evidence you need to prosecute what must be an important case. The F.B.I. doesn't get involved in minor cases, does it?”

He grinned, and he didn't look scary now, I thought. Maybe it was the pizza sauce on his chin. Aunt Molly handed him a napkin and he wiped his mouth.

“The F.B.I. gets involved in all kinds of cases,” he said, “and we aren't allowed to talk
about any of them. What the kids have told me has been very valuable, and it's quite possible they'll be called upon either to testify or to give depositions. That means giving a statement to a court official and swearing that it's true.”

“We know that,” Charlie said witheringly. I could see he was as disappointed as I was that we weren't going to hear the juicy details. After all, we'd come close to getting killed trying to get them. “I hope they're going to call us as witnesses. Do you get paid for being a witness?”

Aunt Molly rolled her eyes again, but Agent Santori replied seriously. “No, but if they should decide to have you testify in person they'd pay your expenses to come back to San Francisco to do it.”

“Aren't we even going to be able to find out how Mrs. Basker is?” I demanded.

He drained his Pepsi can and stood up. “If you don't mind my using the phone, I'm sure I can find out about that for you.”

“Sure,” Aunt Molly said, and directed him to the telephone in the kitchen.

When he came back, he said, “Mrs. Basker
is staying in the hospital overnight for observation, and she'll probably finish her flight home tomorrow. She's awake and remembers very clearly the man who threatened her and hit her over the head. One of our agents is there with her now, and she'll be testifying, too, no doubt. Tell you what. You'll read about most of this in the papers over the next week or so. Before you go back to Seattle, if your aunt doesn't mind, I'll come over again some evening and tell you anything additional that I'm allowed to reveal. How will that be? You've guessed most of it anyhow.”