The Fourth Stall Part III (11 page)

She?
Was this not Ken-Co that I was going to see?

“Come on, she doesn't have all day,” the twin sister said, her arms still folded.

I swallowed, but there was no point since I didn't think my mouth had produced a single drop of saliva since my split lip had crusted over about a half hour ago. Then I walked past the twins and into the next room.

It was smaller than the other chambers but still fairly large. It was about the size of a normal businessman's office, based on what I'd seen in movies. Besides the door I'd just walked through, there was one other metal door in the center of the wall to my right. A single electric, fluorescent lantern hung from the ceiling. The walls themselves were covered in posters of bands and movies and musicians, most of them bands and movies containing teen pop stars and actors from Nickelodeon shows. There were also a few shelves on the wall to my left housing several dozen unicorn toys and figurines.

In the middle of the small room sat a large wooden desk. Well, it actually wasn't all that large; it just looked large because the girl sitting behind it was so small. Her head was down, but I could tell she was in, like, probably third grade, fourth at the absolute most. There was no way she was Ken-Co, the businessperson so good, his or her operation had a whole network of underground tunnels, right? And don't think it's because she was a girl either. I mean, with what Hannah Kjelson had put me through the year before I knew never to underestimate girls. Besides, as the old saying goes: “In grade school girls are more dangerous than shotguns.”

No, I was shocked because she was so young. I mean, when I was her age, my business had been nowhere near this level.

“Are you going to sit down or what?” she asked.

I could see her feet dangling slightly off the ground under the desk. The desk was so tall that she had to sit in a regular adult-sized chair to fit it. It was actually a huge, old, ornate chair, almost like a throne or something. Her feet kicked back and forth slowly like she was on some kind of Saturday afternoon joyride in her parents' convertible.

I sat down in the much smaller chair across from her.

It was only at this moment that I noticed someone else was in the room, too. The gargantuan excuse for a grade-school kid that I saw terrorizing kids when Vince and I came to Thief Valley with Staples stood behind Ken-Co and a little to her left, my right. He wore mirror aviator sunglasses, and if I couldn't have seen his massive chest heaving slightly with each breath, he might as well have been a statue. What did they put in the water in Thief Valley anyway? HGH? Steroids? Some crazy cocktail containing both?

Her desk was stacked neatly with notebooks and binders, a single lamp that wasn't plugged in to anything, and a teddy bear. Which might have been cute if it hadn't been missing its eyeballs. Instead of fake eyes or button eyes this bear had only two dark holes with a few loose strands of white cotton poking out as if they were drowning inside and were begging to be pulled free.

“Oh, that?” she said, not looking up. “That was a gift from my brother a long time ago. He pulled the eyes out one time when I accidently lit one of his prized baseball cards on fire in an Easy-Bake Oven incident. Oops!”

She giggled just like you'd expect a little grade-school girl to giggle after telling a story in which she probably had committed arson. I think, anyway. I wasn't sure just what to expect anymore, honestly. And that's when I realized I had heard her voice before.

She looked up at me, and it was her. The too dark eyes. The face that looked way more innocent than what it concealed. I couldn't have forgotten this face. I'd seen it just a few months ago, after all.

“Holy, Blanton,” I blurted out before I could stop myself. “You're Staples's sister!”

The weight of my sudden discovery clearly didn't hit her nearly as hard as it'd hit me. She just rubbed her ear and sighed, seeming uncomfortable for the first time.

“Oh, yeah, you're that kid who came to visit me last month with Barry, you and the taller, gangly one. You're like Barry's
little brothers
.”

“Right,” I said, not able to say much more at that moment due to shock.

“Yeah, Barry,” she said, waving her hand as if to dismiss the whole thing like waving away a fly. “Barry used to think he was a big shot, and I guess I kinda did, too. I used to really look up to him. He had a cool business like this once. But where is he now? He visits me once every few weeks like that will suddenly make up for all these years of having abandoned me just like the rest of my family. Well I don't need him anymore, I can take care of myself.
Obviously
.”

She didn't say any of this too bitterly or in a way that was asking for pity. She said it all as if merely stating facts. Things had occurred but now meant nothing. But I knew better.

“But he's changed, Abby,” I said.

“Please, Mac,” she said, “call me Kinko. Abby. Ugh, I
hate
that name, it's so dumb.”

“Sorry, Kinko. . . . Wait,
Kinko
?”

“Yeah,” she said, smirking. “That's what everyone who
really
knows me calls me.”

So this was the rival businessman after all. I guess the name Ken-Co had come secondhand from Jimmy, so it wasn't surprising at all that he'd misheard or mispronounced it.

While I sat there in shock, she started writing something in a book in front of her. Probably taking notes like any good businessperson. But then after a few seconds I realized that she was coloring in a coloring book. She had an array of crayons in front of her, and the coloring book appeared to be of some cartoon about bratty-looking middle-school girls that I wasn't familiar with. She colored and then started humming. I glanced at her hired muscle, who was still motionless aside from his steady breathing. I couldn't tell for sure due to the sunglasses, but I was pretty sure he was staring right at me.

“Kinko, you need to listen to me. I swear that Staples has changed. He is really determined to get custody and take care of you.”

“You idiot,” she said.

I just looked at her.

“He hasn't changed. He just has you tricked again. He's been a screwup his whole life. Some people are just born that way. They can't, like, just change.”

“I thought so too, but—”

Then I suddenly heard a kid screaming bloody murder somewhere faintly behind the door to our right. He was just screaming incoherently at first, but then was begging someone not to do something to him. From the sound of it I didn't even want to know what.

I looked at Kinko.

“Don't mind that. That's just some other business I was taking care of before you came here.”

She started peeling stickers off a sheet of paper and sticking them into her coloring book while humming a song I recognized vaguely as belonging to one of the bands on the wall.

I didn't know what to say. The kid started screaming again. Kinko's strongman didn't react at all, as if whatever was happening behind that door was a frequent and usual occurrence. Then suddenly the door opened and the screaming was louder for just a second before another small girl emerged and closed the door behind her.

The girl was Asian, around the same age as Kinko, and wore all black to match her black hair. She smiled at Kinko. Then she walked over to the desk and whispered something into Kinko's ear.

Kinko laughed and nodded.

“Mark him,” Kinko said without any hesitation.

The Asian girl nodded calmly and then exited through the same door. This time, in the brief moment the door was open, I heard the poor kid behind it clearly scream, “No! No, don't mark me, please. . . .” And then, just like that, the screams were once again reduced to faint background noise.

Kinko shook her head. “Sorry about that. That was my
assistant
Michi Oba. She, you know, takes care of the more difficult problems for me and stuff.”

Just then the kid's screaming intensified momentarily, and then it went silent. I tried again to swallow, again unsuccessfully.

“So, I heard a rumor that some nutty Shoobee was in the playground picking fights.”

“Shoobee?”

She smirked at me like I was an idiot. “It's what we call outsiders, anybody who's obviously not from Thief Valley.”

“Fair enough,” I said. “The thing is I wasn't picking fights, though. The other kid started it.”

I realized I likely sounded way more afraid of getting “marked” than I'd intended. Never let your fear show. Never show weakness.

“Well, that's, like, not the way I hear it, but that doesn't matter anyway. The point is I don't like Shoobees sneaking into my school at all, no matter what the reason.”

As she said this, she ran a glue stick across her coloring book page. Then she sprinkled some loose sparkles and glitter across the glue trail. She raised the book and blew the excess glitter onto the floor. She examined her work and smiled widely.

“To be honest,” I said, “I only broke in because I was trying to get a meeting with you.”

She looked surprised for the first time. “With me?”

I nodded. “I'm assuming it was you who ordered the water balloon hit?”

“I didn't do it for you,” Kinko said. “The Suits would have gotten their hands on you, then you'd be no good to me. I'd never have found out why, like, some random Shoobee broke into my school. And I don't like unsolved mysteries.”

I nodded. I still didn't know what to say. I looked around at her mysterious underground lair, wondering how Staples's little sister could have gotten in the business this deep without anyone knowing about it. She was only a third grader, after all.

Kinko must have noticed me looking at the room because she said, “Pretty office, huh? Have you ever heard of Prohibition?”

“Uh . . .” I started, and then realized I had nowhere to go from there. I mean, it sounded vaguely familiar from school, but who remembers everything they learn? I really wished Vince were there with me in that moment.

Kinko smiled at me patiently. It wasn't the sort of smile that a third grader should have been able to give to a seventh grader.

“Well, I'll tell you about it, then!” she said with a laugh. “It was a long time ago, like, forever ago, when alcohol was illegal in America. You know what alcohol is, right? It's like beer and stuff that parents drink and it makes 'em, like, drunk and act stupid or whatever.”

I nodded. Now she was just insulting me, but I didn't think she meant to. Either way, of course I knew what alcohol was.

“Anyway, people still wanted to drink it even though it was illegal. So tons of underground tunnels were built all across America, from New York City to Canada to Texas, even all the way up in North Dakota! They were built under schools, police stations, even under whole towns. And they were used to make and then smuggle booze all across the country so they have all kinds of, like, secret passages and hidden entrances and stuff.”

“And these are some of those tunnels?” I said.

“Good for you!” she squealed. “You learn fast! Here, have a glitter star!”

She reached out and stuck a gold, glittery star sticker on the back of my hand, which had been resting on the desk. If this had come from an older kid, I might have taken this as a sarcastic insult, but she actually seemed to be pretty excited for me so I let it go. Besides, what was I going to do about it, fight a third-grade girl? I certainly wasn't going to try and last even half a round with her big sunglasses-wearing henchman.

“Anyway, enough small talk,” she said loudly to show that we were going to get down to business. “Why did you come here to see me?”

I
wanted to talk more about what she was thinking, getting involved in a business like this at her age, but decided to let it go for the time being. She clearly didn't want to talk about Staples, and I still had to solve the problem I came here about. It wouldn't have been a good idea to start the negotiation off with a stupid argument.

“Well, there's this kid who owes you money, apparently. Jimmy Two-Tone,” I said.

Kinko laughed. “Oh, yeah, that guy! He makes me laugh.”

I wanted to say,
“What doesn't make you laugh?”
but thought better of it.

“‘Hey, Jimmy needs more time, dude!'” Kinko said, doing a pretty good impression. Then she laughed again.

I laughed, too, this time figuring it couldn't hurt. The only one who didn't even crack a smile was old big-n-tall standing behind Kinko.

“So the point is I'd like to make good on his debt somehow. I want to square this thing with you, and I want out, for me, for Jimmy, for our entire school.”

She smiled and nodded. “Oh, cool! Yeah, that sounds awesome. Where's the money? I can send someone over to pick it up, or do you have it with you?”

I shifted in my seat. “Well, that's the thing. I'd like to make good on the debt in another way. We don't have that kind of money. Like, maybe I could work for you for a while or something? I'm pretty okay at this kind of stuff.”

She didn't say anything right away. Instead she started coloring the next picture in her book. She acted as if she hadn't even heard me. I glanced at the giant mook of a kid behind her, and he still stood there stone-faced. Was she about to snap and have me “marked” by Michi Oba? Was she thinking about it?

“I like you,” she said suddenly. “You seem like a pretty cool kid. For a Shoobee.”

“Thanks?”

“What I mean is,” she continued without looking up, “$4,334.21 is a lot of money. The kind of money where, like, no matter how much I like you and stuff, you don't get out of it without paying.
Capiche?
”

I didn't know what exactly “
capiche
” meant, but that didn't matter; the rest of it had been pretty clear. Besides, I'd heard that word used in some of my favorite gangster movies before so it was pretty cool that she'd picked it up, too.

“You know, where I come from, sometimes favors and services can be worth just as much as money,” I said. “Sometimes worth even more than money.”

She finally looked up and put down her crayons. She took out some little hair piece thing and started fiddling with her hair, looking for a way to secure it with the little feather hair clip or whatever it's called.

“This isn't where you come from, though, is it?” she asked, finally settling on a place for the hair clip. She took out a little portable mirror to examine her hair.

“Uh, well, no, but, I mean . . .” I fumbled.

She just smiled and then shrugged. “So here's the deal. I do like you guys. You and Jimmy Two-Tone are two pretty funny fellas. So what I'll do is knock the amount down to an even four thousand dollars if you can pay it back to me in exactly one week. How's that?”

It was pretty fair, actually. I mean, aside from the fact that rounding up four thousand dollars in less than a week was impossible. But at this point it was all I had.

“Can you make it five weeks instead?”

“I don't negotiate,” she said.

“Okay, one week. What about twenty-five hundred dollars?”

“I don't negotiate.”

I looked at her blankly. I guessed I was lucky to have gotten a deal at all, even if it was one that we couldn't possibly deliver on.

“Isn't that right, Sue?” Kinko asked over her shoulder. “I don't negotiate, do I?”

“Sue?” I said in disbelief. That behemoth's name was Sue?

Kinko laughed. “Yeah, apparently his dad was really into this old singer named Jimmy Cash or something, and he has this song about, like, where this dude names his son Sue so that he'll have to fight a lot and be tough to survive or something. Pretty funny.”

I looked at Sue. He didn't seem amused. But then he didn't seem angry either. He hadn't reacted at all to the question or us talking about his name.

“He doesn't talk much,” Kinko explained with a shrug. “But he's a good guy. Right, Sue?”

No reaction.

“See?” Kinko said to me with a grin.

“Okay,” I said. “Four grand, one week.”

I held out my hand. She looked at it and hesitated.

“Well, there is one more little thing I'll need you to do for me as well. A job of sorts,” she said.

“What sort of job?”

“I want to own your school,” she said.

What was I supposed to say to that? Nothing, right? So I just laughed. Kinko laughed, too.

“Okay, so not, like, literally or whatever. But I want to own everyone there. I want their information, their addresses, grades, disciplinary records, everything. I want you to get me the permanent records of every kid in your school. Electronically, of course, on a flash drive.”

Honestly, getting her the lease to the school might have actually been easier. I was starting to think Staples's little sister might be insane.

“I don't think . . .” I started.

“Listen, Mac, you can do it. Want to know how I know? Because I could do it here, no problem. You're supposed to be good, right? Well, then prove it. If I can take care of not only myself but also every kid in this school all by myself, then I bet you can do this one little task for me, right?”

“What are you going to use it for? I'm not here to get my school out of trouble only to see you mess around with it again.”

“That's my business. I give you my word, though, that none of your classmates will suffer. At least, not the ones who don't deserve it.”

I opened my mouth to protest, but I realized I didn't have any other options. We were this deep, there wasn't any other way out of it. I held out my hand once again.

She shook it, and I suddenly couldn't believe I had just made a four-thousand-dollar deal with someone with such small hands.

“Do you like fruit in Jell-O?” she asked.

“Um . . . I don't know. No, I guess not,” I said.

“I think it's gross,” she said, making a face. “Our school cafeteria puts fruit in the Jell-O here. It's
so
nasty!”

I just sat there, completely dumbstruck.

“Okay, I have business to do,” she said. “I'll have the Aussie escort you off school property using the tunnels so you don't get caught.”

“Thanks,” I said, getting up to leave.

“One last thing before you go.”

I turned back. “Yeah?”

“Not one penny less, one missing permanent record, or one day late or all of those little tiny things we've done to your school will seem like carnival games compared to what we'll do next.”

I nodded and once again failed at an attempt to swallow saliva that was basically nonexistent.

The Aussie was waiting for me in the main chamber. He greeted me with a giant lopsided smile.

“Hey, mate, you're still alive! That's good to see. And you didn't even get marked. See? I told you it would all come out good!”

 

“How did it go?” Staples asked as I got into his car.

“Fine,” I said.

“So what's this Ken-Co guy like anyway?”

I took a deep breath. I thought about telling him,
“Oh, well, you know she's okay, considering she's as smart and shrewd and psychotic as you are, which I guess isn't surprising considering it's your sister.”
But the moment I thought about that, I had a vision of him snapping and punching me repeatedly in the face for bringing him such bad news.

“He's smart,” I said. “We were able to make a deal at least.”

I decided not to tell him just yet. I mean, if he knew his sister was making all the same mistakes he did, that she was following the same path, it might just kill him. Or send him over the edge. Either one would likely end poorly for both him and me.

On the drive back I told him all about the deal we'd made. At the end he glanced at me and then said, “Well, let's just hope you're as good as you think you are.”