Sammy Keyes and the Search for Snake Eyes (12 page)

When I was done, I had twelve names, two with no addresses, just S Mra.

Now what? The water was boiling like crazy, so I threw in the rice and stirred. Then I went to the phone and started dialing.

The first number picked up. “Hello?”

“Is Lena home?”

“Who?”

“Lena.”

“You got the wrong number.”

“Sorry,” I said, and hung up.

The next number had an answering machine. “If you want to leave a message for Sara, Tim, Eddie, or Sophie, please speak after the beep. If you want to leave kibble for Tudor, just come on over! Have a great day!”

I hung up and dialed the next one.
“Hola?”
a woman answered.

“Uh … is Lena home?”

“Que?”

“Lena?”

“Que?”

“Is Lena
en su casa
?” I tried. “No. No Lena here,” she tried back.
“Gracias,”
I said.

She hung up.

I tried the next two numbers. No answer, no machine.

The rice water was spattering out of the pan, so I turned down the flame, then tried the next phone number. “Yeah,” a man answered. Not a question, not really a
greeting
, just “Yeah.”

“Is Lena there?”

Silence. “Hello?”

“Who's this.” Again, not really a question.

I could feel my heart speed up. “Uh, a friend.”

He snorted—an airy, disgusted snort—then said, “A friend.”

I didn't want to blow it by saying something stupid, so I just said, “That's right.”

Finally he says, “Well, Lena ain't here.”

“When do you expect her?”

All of a sudden I hear a woman's voice in the background saying, “Let me talk to them!” but then the line goes dead. Just
hmmmmm
, dead.

I clicked off and waited a minute. The voice in the background hadn't
sounded
like I remembered Lena sounding. The accent was heavier. It was probably her mom—and she'd wanted to talk. I pressed Redial, hoping the woman would get to the phone first.

The phone rang twice, three times, four times. And on the fifth ring it got picked up, but right away it got disconnected.

I tried again. Busy.

I rinsed the lettuce, shook it out, shredded it into a bowl, and thought about calling the police. Instead, I called the Morenos again.

Still busy.

Okay. So he'd taken the phone off the hook. I'd show him! I ripped a corner off a half-blank government page and scribbled all the information down—Tito Moreno, 410 S. Pinos, 555-3741. Maybe he doesn't want to talk to me, I thought as I tucked the paper away in my back pocket, but he'll be wishing he had when he sees Officer Borsch on his porch in the morning.

And I was in the middle of tucking the phone book back in its drawer when the phone rang, scaring the daylights out of me. I jumped back and stared at it all bugeyed. Did Moreno Man have Caller ID? Star 69? Why would he be calling
me
back? Did he want to find out where
I
lived?

On the fourth ring I picked up. “H-hello?”

“Are you doing your homework?” the voice asked. It was a grown-up. Female. No Mexican accent. And I recognized it—sort of.

“Wh-who is this?” I stammered.

“Your coach.” “Oh! Ms. Rothhammer, hello. And no, I'm making dinner, but of course I'm going to do my homework.”

“I heard you didn't last night.”

“But…that's because there were, you know, extenuating circumstances.”

“Make up last night's.”

“But … but most of my teachers don't accept missed homework.”

“I don't care. Do it anyway. And don't miss another assignment.”

“Ms. Rothhammer, you sound so …so
mad
. Did I do something wrong?”

Her voice softened. “No, Sammy, not at all. And I'm sorry to sound that way. Just make sure you get your homework done, all right? Don't compromise your eligibility.”

“My eligibility? But my grades are fine!”

She took a deep breath, and when she finally spoke, all she said was “Just do your homework, all right?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“See you tomorrow,” she said, and then hung up.

I barely had the phone down when Grams came through the door. I jumped again, squeaking, “Hi!”
Then I tried to compose myself and nodded at her basketful of clean clothes. “I see the nightie-napper wasn't on the prowl tonight!”

She eyed me suspiciously. “What have you been up to?”

“Making dinner! Look!” I said, putting the red snapper in the microwave, punching it like crazy to get it going, “Dinner's served in four minutes.”

“Well!” she said, breaking into a smile. “Isn't this nice?”

I flew around, setting the table and fluffing the rice and in general acting way too hyper. Then during dinner, I answered all Grams' questions about how I'd finally turned Pepe over to the police, and tried not to shovel my food or act like a freak. But between Mrs. Wedge-wood and Ms. Rothhammer and Madman Moreno, my brain felt completely overloaded—like I had to
do
something or I was going to explode.

But what? There was nothing I could think
to
do.

Except homework, that is. So after we ate and did the dishes, Grams went to make up her bed while I tackled my missing assignments. But I had trouble “staying on task,” as Mr. Pence would say. If I wasn't thinking about the Moreno phone calls, I was thinking about school. How'd Ms. Rothhammer hear about my science homework, anyway? Were the teachers talking? Was Mr. Vince trying to dig something up to make me ineligible? What was going
on
?

Then the phone rang, which made my pencil go shooting out of my hand and through the air. And when it
came clanking down on the linoleum floor, Grams eyed me but didn't say a thing. Instead, she picked up the phone and said, “Hello?”

In an instant I knew it was Trouble calling. In what form, I couldn't tell right off, but I knew it involved me because Grams scowled, put her free hand on her hip, and looked at me, shaking her head.

I crept over to my pencil, picked it up, and waited, while Grams just stood there, listening. But then, when she said, “It's much too late for her to be going out. I'm sure you can manage until morning,” I heaved a sigh of relief.

It was only Mrs. Wedgewood.

Grams talked to her for a minute, but then there was a long silence. A
very
long silence, and finally my grams says, “Very well,” and hangs up the phone.

She looks at me. “I knew it.” “Grams, I don't mind. What does she need?”

Grams sort of wobbles her head. “Tylenol. I offered her mine, but she insists on Tylenol PM. The gelcaps. And a quart of half-and-half.”

“A
quart
of half-and-half ?”

She goes into her bedroom, calling, “To wash it down.” She comes back out with her coat and umbrella. “So it doesn't upset her stomach.”

I cringed and then realized what Grams was doing. “Hey, you're not going out—this is my job.”

Grams gathered her purse and said, “You're still busy with your homework, Samantha, and besides, it's just not right. You shouldn't have to go out this late at night.”

“Come on, Grams. It's no big deal. I'll be back in no time.” I wrestled the purse off her arm and made her hand over some cash; then I threw on my sweatshirt.

“Wear your jacket, would you?”

“I'll be fine!” “Well, take this,” she said, handing me the umbrella. “It's drizzling outside.”

“Really? Darn!”

“What's wrong?” “The fields'll be all soggy tomorrow.” “It's just a light rain, Samantha. I'm sure they'll be fine.”

I put up the hood of my sweatshirt and tried leaving the umbrella on the table, but Grams would have none of that. She forced it on me, then checked the hallway, and before you know it I was pounding down the fire escape, on my way to Maynard's Market.

It felt great to be outside. Great to be
moving
. And it
was
drizzling, but I didn't mind. Grams' umbrella is one of those big black old-fashioned jobbies that really works. The sky can be dumping buckets and it doesn't matter. It's like a cone of dryness guiding you through town. I cut across the grass, jaywalked across Broadway, and basically just swooped into Maynard's without feeling a drop.

Maynard's is your average ma-and-pa corner store during the day. And I don't know if it's the location or the fact that the
son
is running the ma-and-pa, but the people who seem to converge there at night act a little off. Like they've left the majority of their marbles in their fridge, or in an ashtray, or just scattered around their house. And
maybe if they'd collect them all and stuff 'em back in their heads, you could actually have a conversation with them, but with the way they show up at Maynard's unassembled, well, it's best to just shop around them.

So I don't like Grams going there at night. She takes it all a little too seriously. Gets wigged out if some guy's talking to himself with his head in the cooler or something.

But T.J.—who's Maynard's son—seems to know all the drifty people who pop in. And since they don't seem to faze him, I don't let them faze me, either. T.J.'s more worried about kids in his store. Thinks we're all out to shoplift the bubble gum. I've given up trying to show him he's wrong. Hating kids is his religion, and there's no converting him.

Anyway, I shook out Grams' umbrella under the awning, then collapsed it and ducked inside. There was a middle-aged man digging a six-pack out of the cooler, so I just do-si-doed around him and started looking for Tylenol PM.

Right away, T.J.'s radar goes off. “Hey!” he calls. “What'cha doing back there?”

“Just lookin' for some pain relief, T.J. Something to survive the experience of being in this store.” You gotta talk to T.J. that way. Either that or just forget about shopping there if you're under twenty. Besides, it's good for him. Gives him a reason to pump blood, if you know what I mean.

“Sassy brat,” he mutters from behind the counter, but he quits harassing me after that. I find the Tylenol, no
problem. And while I'm digging through the cooler for two pints of half-and-half because Maynard's doesn't stock quarts, he rings up Six-Pack's Budweisers and pulls down a pack of cigarettes for him.

So okay. I'm on task. No sidetracks, no checking out the ice cream cooler for Double Dynamos or anything like that. I get my stuff, go to the counter, and wait politely.

Six-Pack puts out some rumpled bills, which would've gotten my head bitten off if I'd done it. But T.J.'s Mr. Nice to him about it, straightening them and saying, “Did you catch the fight on Pay-4-View tonight? I heard they were
floggin
'.”

Six-Pack snorts. “Don't need to
pay
to see a fight. I get plenty of that from my old lady.”

Now, all of a sudden I'm zooming in on the guy, because his snort sounds a
lot
like the snort Tito Moreno made when I said I was a friend of Lena's. And I know the chances of this guy being Tito Moreno are like, zilch, and besides, his voice doesn't really sound the same. But still, I can't help staring at him.

T.J. bags the beer, then gives Six-Pack his change, saying, “Take it easy, man.”

“Yeah. Likewise,” he says, then takes off.

Now, since T.J.'s the kind of guy who likes to impress you with how much he knows even more than he likes to tell you how much he can't stand you, I plop my stuff on the counter and risk asking, “Is that guy's name Tito?”

“What, you got the hots for him?”

I just stare him down, saying, “Guess that means you don't know.”

“Sure I know his name. And it ain't no Tito, either. It's Kenny.” He starts ringing me up. “I know all my customers, even the ones that are pains in the rear.” He throws me a look, but I ignore it and pull the government page scrap out of my jeans. “Well, how about South Pinos? Do you know where that is?”

“Two—nah, three blocks thataway.” He hitches his thumb behind him. “Something like that.”

He starts to flip open a paper sack, but I stop him. “Can I have plastic?”

He scowls at me with the sack midair. “It's raining out, T.J., come on.”

He puts it in plastic, grumbling the whole time.

“I need the receipt, too.”

Grumble, grumble.

I take the sack from him and say, “Thanks, T.J. Can't wait for next time.”

“Scram, kid. You're giving me a headache.”

I take the Tylenol PM out and rattle the box at him. “Aisle four.”

“Scram!”

I zip out of there, all right, because I've already decided. It's only two, three blocks thataway. I'll be home before Grams even
suspects
I took a detour.

So I tie the plastic bag closed around Mrs. Wedgewood's medical supplies and ditch it behind the first bush I can find. Then I
whoosh
open the umbrella and dash down the sidewalk, wondering just what I'll find at 410 South Pinos.

I know I should have known better, so don't even tell me about it, okay? And everything
was
going along fine. I mean, 410 South Pinos was a decent house. And a pretty friendly-looking lady answered it, too. “Yes … ?” she asked through the screen door.

“Mrs. Moreno?”

“No…?” She sort of sings it at me, dragging the word along and up.