The Giant Smugglers (23 page)

In response, Tim pushed “Play
.”
Charlie and Bruce watched the video, a blurry handheld clip titled
Bloomington Bigfoot???
Even though the video was dark and fuzzy, Charlie easily recognized Bruce racing through the apartment parking lot back in Illinois to catch the train. Some guy narrated about how he'd been barbecuing on his balcony when he heard a monster running through the trees and caught it on his phone. It was impossible to tell exactly what it was, but there was definitely something big rumbling past the pickup trucks and mopeds.

“Me!” said Bruce, excited to see himself on-screen.

“You can barely see anything,” Charlie countered, his voice defensive. There were only 325 views on the video, anyway. Practically no one had seen it.

Tim stashed his phone. “Once I saw how close you were to the train, it wasn't hard to put two and two together. The train, Charlie! There's a reason Hank only uses it for emergencies. Too many people all along the way. How do you know someone hasn't seen you back here?”

“Nobody,” protested Bruce. “Careful!”

“Well,” said Charlie. At this point, there wasn't much to lose by coming clean. “I did meet a blind guy, some kind of drifter. But he had no idea Bruce was here. Like he said. We've been careful.”

“Careful doesn't always keep trouble away, Charlie. Remember your friend with the stick?”

“Dead!” argued the giant.

“Bruce is right. We saw a tornado coming right at him!”

“That twister must have chickened out, because Stick-O is very much alive,” said Tim. “Last night he backflipped off a motorcycle going seventy and attacked the Creep Castle!”

Charlie couldn't believe the guy had survived the tornado. And he remembered the merciless look in his eye as he was about to zap Charlie in the head. To counter his fear, he puffed out his chest. “Sounds like we made the right decision to get out of there.”

“Way to go. You snuck off like a real hero,” said Tim, his voice sticky with sarcasm. “But we know someone's after Bruce. We got to keep him safe until he gets to his new home.”

“No.”

Tim looked up at the giant and snorted. “What do you mean,
no
?”

“He means he's not going,” said Charlie. “Not to the place with the rest of the giants.”

“Where does he think he's going instead?”

Charlie swallowed hard. “To California. He's coming with me. He's going to be in the movies.”

“Movies,” Bruce agreed, pointing to Tim's phone as if the online video was his big debut.

Tim exhaled and ran his hand over his face. “Charlie. You guys get major props for what you've pulled off so far. But you're in
middle school
. How exactly do you think this is going to work?”

“We're still hammering out the details,” Charlie admitted, the words
middle school
stinging like a slap across the face. “But we decided. He wants to hang with me in our world. He's about the same age you were when you left home. So he's getting his share of the gold in Grand Isle. And he's not going where you tell him to go.”

“So you and Bruce are just going to waltz down the streets of Richland Center? Or Hollywood? What do you think people will do when they see him for the first time? Applaud? Or maybe they'll get big-time scared. What are the odds someone panics and whips out a gun? This isn't hypothetical, Charlie—you know people are after him, bad people. What happens when your friend with the stick knows just where to find Bruce?”

The giant made two fists to show that he wasn't afraid of any man, stick or no stick. Tim rolled his eyes and kept right on talking.

“There's one other thing Adele told me—she's seen Accelerton vans crawling all over Richland Center looking for something. That's the place where the other giant's dad worked, right? I've seen the vans myself, right here in this rail yard.” Tim pulled one of the red drapes back an inch. On the other side of the yard, a security vehicle was stationed near a gate where big freight trucks came and went. The green Accelerton logo was stenciled on its side. “Quite a coincidence, huh? Can you guess who they're looking for?”

Charlie swallowed hard. Maybe there were a few things he and Bruce hadn't thought through. But winging it had worked great so far. “We got each other's backs.”

“Having fun, hanging out—that's only one part of being a friend, Charlie,” said Tim. “It's not just about what's best for you. What about what's best for Bruce?”

“Friend!” The giant crossed his arms. The two of them were in this together, no matter what.

Tim gave a frustrated laugh and threw up his hands, the sign of a man who could tell he was getting nowhere fast. “Tell you what. You're going to Grand Isle anyway, right? For the gold, if nothing else?”

“Yeah, we're going to Grand Isle,” said Charlie, though he had no idea how they were getting there.

“Gold.” Bruce was emphatic. He was getting his share.

“Then let me help you get there. And give all of us some time to think along the way.”

Charlie looked at Bruce. They had agreed to do this on their own, but grabbing a ride didn't seem like such a bad idea. Bruce gave the boy a small nod, and Charlie turned back to his brother.

“Okay, fine. We'll go with you.”

“Not with me. Hank has a guy who can help you get out of town. He's the man down here.” Tim reached into his pocket and pulled out a cheap plastic cell phone, the kind convenience stores sold for twenty bucks. He handed it to Charlie. “My number's in there in case there's trouble. Meantime, I've got a few things to take care of.”

That sounded familiar, like the note Tim had left their mother a few years back. “How will Hank's guy find us?”

“Oh, he already knows you're here. He'll get you out, as long as you don't go AWOL again.” Tim opened the back door of the car and slipped halfway out. “And Charlie? Think about what I said, okay?”

Tim disappeared into the night.

“What now?” asked Bruce.

“Wait, I guess.” Charlie looked up at his giant friend, and considered Tim's warning. His brother was probably right: The world might not understand Bruce without the proper introduction, but Charlie figured there were people in Hollywood who could help them with that. They'd schedule a press conference. Adele could help them make a website: brucethegiant.com or meetthebigguy.org, something like that. People would love Bruce, as long as it was all handled in just the right way. The whole thing was so real in Charlie's mind that he couldn't imagine a way that it wouldn't …

Tink tink tink.

The car was moving again.

Tink tink tink.

Where were they going? Charlie split the drapes on a window and peered out. They were heading in the opposite direction from the Accelerton van, where a man in a security uniform waved some kind of device over the trucks hauling freight in and out of the yard. He was definitely looking for something big, but as far as Charlie could tell, he wasn't paying any attention to the double-decker passenger car slowly rolling away.

Charlie and Bruce peeked out through the curtains on the other side of the car. The Express had been unhitched from the long line of cars and a locomotive was towing it down a side track into a building that looked like an aircraft hangar. Once the car was safely inside, the locomotive disengaged, and the hangar's huge doors slid shut.

The car's forward door opened again with a loud click. And for the second time, in walked the blind man, Parran. He pointed his cane at Charlie.

“Gotcha,” Parran croaked in his Cajun accent. He swiveled his cane to Bruce. “And your giant buddy here, too.”

“You're … you're Hank's friend?”

“I'm the old man's eyes in this here part of the country. Ironic, ain't it?” Parran slapped his knee at his own joke, hacking out a laugh that quickly turned into a cough. “Make good and sure nobody is sniffin' around this car, and I'm good at dat. No one ever thinks a blind man is watching. Then, of course, when Hank needs a fixer, I'm his man.”

“F-f-fixer?” asked Bruce, trying to get his teeth and tongue around the new word.

“I arrange things, so the story goes on,” said Parran. “Dat brother of yours tells me you desperately need some fixin' right about now.”

“Great,” Charlie said. “You'll give us a ride then?”

“Well,” Parran huffed, “it ain't as easy as all dat. You can't be seen, and we can't be using no truck. People are on to you.”

“Then how are we going to get out of here?” asked Charlie.

“We put you where they ain't lookin',” laughed Parran. “And then we roll you right outta the Big Easy.”

 

32

“You didn't find them?”

Even in the dim midnight moonlight, Tim saw the frustration and fatigue filling the Juice Man's face. The guy looked like he could use some sleep. He'd been on guard duty at the back of the Creep Castle for nearly four hours now, fiddling with his GPS device to pass the time. His jaw had to be sore from holding that penlight in his mouth.

“Oh, I found them all right,” explained Tim, just as Tiger and Wertzie arrived at the back of the haunted house to get the update. The carnival had arrived earlier in the evening, and Wertzie had paid the local crew early, ensuring they'd head into town to blow their earnings. The Creep Castle was parked at the very back of the caravan, away from prying eyes. Even so, the giant smugglers kept their voices low. They were barely audible over the rush of the gulf tide on the beach adjoining the park.

“So where are they?” asked Wertzie, rubbing sleep from bleary eyes with his four-fingered fist. “That giant needs to get gone tomorrow.”

“New Orleans,” said Tim. “Parran's got 'em. They'll be here tomorrow, right on schedule.”

“New Orleans?” asked Tiger. “How in the world did they…?”

“Doesn't matter,” said Tim, waving off her questions. “They'll be here.” He didn't mention Charlie and Bruce's plan to grab the gold and go. He still had time to talk some sense into them, and spooking the rest of the smugglers wasn't going to help.

“New Orleans,” muttered Juice Man. “Your brother's bright idea to go to Mardi Gras, Lawson? I knew we should have left him back in Wisconsin!”

“Tell it to the giant.”

Juice Man spat in the dirt.

“Parran gives me the creeps,” complained Wertzie. “That whole blind act seems fishy to me. I don't trust him.”

“Hank trusts him,” said Tim. “Good enough for me.”

“Since you didn't bring the giant back with you, we don't have a whole lot of options, do we?” Tiger said, glaring at Tim.

“Everything's cool. You guys get some sleep,” he replied. “I'm so wired, I couldn't sleep if I tried. I've been chugging energy drinks all the way back from N'Awlins. I'll take Castle watch. Tomorrow, we'll hook up with Parran and get the giant on his way.”

“And then we get paid,” snapped Juice Man.

“And then we get paid,” Tim agreed.

“Fine,” Wertzie said, giving the Creep Castle a final once-over. “I'll relieve you at four.”

The giant smugglers, save for Tim, returned to their trailers. He hopped up on the back of the Creep Castle and checked his phone for messages. Nothing new, just a few more worried texts from his mom asking about Charlie. He reassured her for the hundredth time, sighed, and opened the doors at the back of the trailer.

Four hours later, Wertzie stumbled back through the dark, ready to take his appointed turn at the back of the Creep Castle. He reached the end of the trailer convoy and stopped in his tracks. He looked over his shoulder. Then he spun entirely around.

“It's gone!” he hissed into a walkie-talkie that he pulled off his belt. “The Creep Castle is gone!”

Wertzie ran up and down between the other trailers, looking frantically, as if something the size of the Creep Castle could have just been misplaced. “I knew we couldn't trust Tim! I knew it!”

Tiger came sprinting to the empty spot where the Creep Castle had stood just hours before. “Tim!” she screamed into the dark. Her hands were balled into angry fists. “I can't believe he did this to us!”

Wertzie kicked at the sandy dirt in frustration. “This whole business with his brother was just a diversion so he could take off with the gold! Our gold!”

“I did my part! Everything I was asked to do!” The Juice Man staggered into the void created by the missing Creep Castle. “I want my money!”

Wertzie took a few deep breaths, cooking up a plan. “Okay. Okay. It's not like he's going to get far in that thing. Weighted down with all that gold, it can barely go forty-five miles an hour. Tiger, you got this?”

“Damn right I do,” she growled, launching herself into one of the carnival's beat-up SUVs, a far more agile mode of transportation than the lumbering amusement ride. “I'll take the interstate—it's the only road out of here. Juice Man, you take…”

“The town. I'm way ahead of you.” Juice Man hopped into a second SUV, but not before pounding the hood a few times in frustration. “I'm going to kill him! I want my money, Wertzie!” The veins in his thick neck bulged as if to reinforce the message.

Wertzie approached the second SUV, calm and slow. “Oh, I see. You want to get paid.” Then he exploded in frustration at the Juice Man. “We all want to get paid! Get moving!”

The Juice Man peeled off in his ride, with Tiger right behind him. Wertzie did a quick check of the dark grounds to make sure none of the other carnies had heard the heated discussion. But they were still in their trailers, sleeping off the fun from the night before.

“Excuse me?”

Wertzie turned to see a man striding in his direction through the shadows. “It's a little early, pal,” said the carny, in no mood for conversations with strangers. “We're obviously not set up yet. Why don't you come back later, buy yourself a ticket? Bring a girl or something, have yourself some fun.”