The Man with the Red Bag (6 page)

B
efore we left the bus that had brought us back to Jackson Lake Lodge, Declan came around to each of our seats.

I'd moved next to Grandma again, but Geneva had stayed in back.

“The schedule says you are at leisure this afternoon,” Declan said. He had a clipboard and a pen. “But there are lots of things you can do here. I have a few suggestions, and I'm taking names. Or you may want to just hang out down by the lake, or up on the patio.”

He glanced at his clipboard, which already had three short columns of names on it. “There's a boat ride on Jackson Lake. There's a nature walk, not difficult at all. And then there's an energetic hike, partway around the lake, that I'll be leading. This time of year we'll see lots of wildflowers.”

“That last one sounds great,” Grandma said.

“Good,” Declan said. We watched him print “Mrs. Saunders” on his list.

While he was writing I squinted at the upside-down names in the three columns. I'm very good at upside-down reading, a trick I picked up from my best friend, Justin. It is a very useful skill when a teacher invites you to her desk to talk about your test paper or your homework that she has all marked up in front of her. It gives you breathing space to prepare your excuse.

Declan had been to Charles Stavros's seat before he came to ours. But I could upside-down see that Stavros's name wasn't on any of the lists. That meant he was hanging out at the lodge, which was dangerous.

“I think I'll just stay in the hotel,” I told Grandma.

“Well…” Grandma sounded doubtful. “I don't
like you being here on your own, Kevin.”

“Oh, Grandma,” I protested. “There are tons of people. How could I be alone?”

Declan smiled. “Midge is staying. She wants to do some sketching, down by the lake. You could mention to her that Kevin's going to be around, too. He'll be fine.”

“Okay, then.” Grandma looked up at Declan. “What time?”

“Two-thirty. On the patio.”

I turned to look at Geneva, who was still sitting alone in the back seat. She was twirling her rodeo cap on one finger, like a Frisbee.

“Excuse me,” I said to Declan. “I'm just going to speak to Geneva.”

I didn't appreciate at all the way he raised his eyebrows and gave me a sly little smile. What was he insinuating? He'd better not be insinuating what I thought he was insinuating.

I scowled at him as I pushed past.

“Geneva,” I said, when I got to her seat, “Charles Stavros isn't going on any of the trips. We have to stay here, too.”

Geneva looked up at me and beamed. “Perfect,” she said.

“So?” I asked. “Are you going to fill me in on your plan?”

“Uh-uh.”

“Have you ever heard of Mata Hari?” I asked.

“Uh-uh again.”

“She was a spy and she was very mysterious. Everybody hated her. In the end she was executed. Do you think you're Mata Hari?”

“No, I'm Geneva,” she said.

 

Before Grandma and I went to lunch I packed my red bag, as my assistant had suggested. But I was careful what I put in it. There were two phone directories in my room, both pretty skinny. I guess there aren't as many people living up here as there are in L.A. Fortunately there was also a spiral-bound book telling of all the things the Jackson Lake Lodge offered: the room service, the spa, and so on. I jammed it in, too.

As I weighed the bag in my hand I tried to remember the few seconds I'd held Stavros's. Was it just about the same weight? I considered, and then I
put in the Greek dictionary. Grandma might ask me anyway if I'd brought it.

I knocked on her door, and the minute she opened it, she reminded me.

“The dictionary for Mr. Stavros? I can tell how anxious he is to read your note. He was so pleased that you would take the time, Kevin.” She gave me one of her special loving smiles and I felt like a weasel.

I tapped my red bag. “It's in here,” I said. “Geneva's staying, too. I brought books and stuff in here, in case we want to read.” The phone books? I thought. Sorry, Grandma!

Unlike Declan, Grandma did not look even slightly insinuating when I spoke Geneva's name and said I would be spending time with her. Grandma wouldn't.

“Well, have fun,” she said. “But check in with Midge now and then. I called her room and she's okay with looking out for you.”

“Okay,” I said.

We went down for lunch.

Buffo and Blessing invited us to sit with them at
their table. They were wearing baggy khaki shorts and identical long-sleeved blue T-shirts, and their bright red hair stuck up in the same kind of wet-looking spikes. Mousse, I thought. She moussed his and he moussed hers.

They were cheery and hungry. I couldn't believe how much they ate.

“Blessing is such a lovely name,” Grandma said warmly.

“Isn't it?” Buffo reached over and pinched Blessing's cheek.

“My real name is Mary Jo,” Blessing said. “But when Buffo and I met, he said I was such a blessing in his life that he changed my name, there and then.”

“That is the nicest story,” Grandma said.

“He's like that,” Blessing said. “Romantic. He brings me flowers.”

Buffo went on spreading butter on his roll but his face was a little pink. “Be quiet, woman,” he said gruffly, but the smile he gave her wasn't gruff at all.

I took a nice crusty roll for myself. Who would have thought! Buffo the romantic!

I glanced up then and saw Millie and Beth coming
into the dining room. They stopped at our table.

“Hello,” Millie said. She looked directly at me and rubbed her hands together the way you'd do to get them warm. “Tomorrow, Yellowstone,” she said. “I can't wait!” She spoke with such significance that Grandma and Buffo and Blessing stopped eating to pay attention.

“Something special is happening at Yellowstone?” Blessing asked.

“Very special.” Millie gave me another knowing look. She was talking about the picture, of course. What she didn't know—and what I wasn't about to tell her—was that Yellowstone was inside the Big C. The thought of that made my bite of roll snag in my throat, just about choking me.

“You don't like the Tetons, Millie?” Buffo asked.

“Oh, sure,” Millie said. “But Yellowstone is going to be more exciting.”

Maybe more exciting than she thought.

Beth sighed. “Come on, Mil. Let's get lunch.”

“Look!” Millie whispered, half turning. Charles Stavros and his red bag were making their appearance.

“Just you wait, 'enry 'iggins, just you wait,” Millie
sang in a sinister, whispery voice.

“Pardon?” Grandma asked, but Beth had a grip on Millie's elbow and was steering her away.

Stavros sat at a table across the room from us.

“Have you noticed how closely he sticks to that bag?” Blessing asked in a low voice. “I think it's filled with money, millions and millions of dollars. You don't think he's someone we need worry about, Mrs. Saunders?”

“I do not,” Grandma said in a tone that closed the conversation.

The waiter brought us refills on coffee and iced tea and we talked for a while and then rose to leave. I edged the dictionary out of my bag.

“I think I'll just give him this now,” I told Grandma.

“Good idea,” she said. “I wonder what he's signed up for this afternoon?”

I shrugged my shoulders as if I didn't know.

Stavros thanked me for the dictionary. I thought he looked supiciously at my red bag, but that was probably my guilty imagination.

“I don't have any plans for this afternoon,” he
said. “So I'll do my translation from this and get it back to you by dinnertime.”

“Okay.” I stood there looking at him. He had a kind of assurance about him, a confidence. As if he needed nobody but himself. Writers are observant about things like that.

Yikes! I was probably staring. I was about to turn away when he said, “Kevin?”

I stopped. Panic filled me. What?

“Thank you for taking the trouble to write to me. I'll write back to you, in Greek, if I can figure it out. We can keep this going!”

His smile flashed white under the mustache and the dark eyes smiled, too.

Oh my gosh!
“Cool,” I said.

Let me out of here!

Geneva and her dad were sitting in two of the chairs in the big lobby, facing the wall of glass. There was an empty chair between them. Through the windows I saw the dance of sun on the lake, the deep blues and greens of the Tetons behind. A drift of birds swerved against the sky, their wings changing from gray to silver as they turned.

“They're like leaves,” I told Geneva. “You know, when you see the underside of a leaf it's a different—”

Geneva gave me a blank stare. “What are you talking about?”

“Nothing,” I said.

She lifted her foot and touched my bag. “You're all set?”

“Yes,” I said. “I don't know for what, but I'm set.”

“He's still eating lunch.” She twitched her head in the direction of the dining room. “The plan is this: He's not signed up for anything today. So we watch him. And wait for our chance.”

“To switcheroo?”

“Yep. Want to sit? This is a good stakeout place.”

I gave Geneva a glare. Now she was talking
my
kind of detective talk, but there wasn't much I could do about it. I'd take some of her dialogue out when I wrote my book.

As I sat down her dad smiled at me and said, “How's it going, young man?”

“Fine.” I settled the red bag at my feet.

He nodded and went back to his book. It was still
The Boer War
. Well, it sure was a thick volume. I was
glad he had it, since his daughter was being such a jerk to him.

Geneva and I watched the dining room door.

Stavros came out and walked toward the stairs.

We were behind him.

He stopped to buy a newspaper.

We pretended to look at magazines.

We peered around the corner as he went along the corridor and into his room.

We wedged ourselves behind a soft-drink machine till he came back out five minutes later and then we followed him back up the stairs and onto the patio. He was still carrying his bag and my dictionary.

All the outside patio chairs were filled. He walked along the flower-lined concrete path and then down the steps and across the grass to one of the wooden seats by the lake.

“Come on,” Geneva ordered. So we sauntered down and sat on the thick trunk of a fallen tree, almost next to him. I was glad to set my red bag on the path at my feet. Those skinny phone books were getting heavier and heavier.

Stavros saw us and nodded.

I nodded back and Geneva gave a little wave.

Midge was a little farther away, on one of the benches, her unopened sketch pad on her lap. She was gazing up at the mountains.

A man and a little girl came strolling along the path. Geneva and I sat in silence. I guess we were waiting for them to pass.

Beside me I could feel Geneva throbbing like a drum.

“Are you ready to tell me what's up?” I asked. “It's so not cool to keep your”—I was going to say “boss,” but at the last minute I changed the word—“partner uninformed.”

“You don't need to be informed,” Geneva said. “What
you
have to do is this. When he's occupied, and leaves that bag of his on the bench where it is now, you have to grab it fast and leave yours in its place.”

“But how will he be occupied? Do you mean you're going to create a diversion?”

“You could say that.” She gave a nervous titter.

I looked at Stavros, and—oh no!—he had taken out my note, unfolded it, and opened the dictionary.

I went clammy all over.

“He's going to read—,” I began, but Geneva said urgently, “Be ready!”

After a few minutes, she got up and walked to the edge of the lake, almost into the water, where little ripples washed in and out, clear as iced tea. Now she strolled along till she was right in front of where Stavros was sitting.

He had his head bent over the dictionary and he paid no attention to Geneva. Not until she yelled, “Help! Help!”

I jumped up. She'd waded in, way beyond the lake's edge, and now she was floating facedown, as if she were drowning. Her Cody Rodeo Queen cap bobbed beside her. One arm windmilled skyward.

Midge leaped to her feet. Two women, farther along the path, screamed and began running in Geneva's direction.

But Stavros was closer.

He sprang up, sprinted toward her, reached down into the water, and grabbed her arm.

I could hear her saying, in a small, blubbery voice, “I'm all right. I just slipped. Sorry to freak you all out.” She was dripping, her sweatshirt black with lake
water, her jeans plastered against her legs. She wiped her wet face with her wet sleeve.

And there was Stavros's bag, unattended for the first time, sitting on the bench where he'd rushed off and left it.

Could I do this? Could I? I had to!

YES!

I picked up my bag, ran over, changed it for his, ran back, and set his on the path where mine had been. The diversion and the switcheroo!

We had it.

Mission accomplished.

A
small crowd had gathered around Geneva. I could hear her protesting again: “I just slipped. It's nothing. Thanks for helping me, Mr. Stavros. I was only up to my knees and I swear I thought I was drowning.”

The bag! I had it and this was my chance. Everyone was watching Geneva and no one was watching me.

I had to look in it right now before Stavros discovered the trade.

I grabbed the end of the zipper and pulled. Nothing happened. It was stuck. I glanced frantically at the group surrounding Geneva, including Stavros.

Then Geneva's father came rushing down from the patio. “What happened?” he shouted. “Is Geneva all right?”

“I think so.” I shooed him off toward her the way you'd shoo a pigeon in the park. Go, go, go, my thoughts urged.

I bent over the zipper. Maybe I could force it. I gave it a humongous tug but—oh no!—it wasn't stuck. There was a small combination lock fixed so the zipper wouldn't open. I hadn't seen it there before. Had he bought it back in Cody? Or brought it with him? He definitely had something to hide.

I gave the lakeside group another nervous glance.

Stavros was hurrying back to the bench where my bag was waiting for him. Mine, not his. He'd see there was no lock and he'd know right away that the bag wasn't his.

I sat, frozen.

Geneva waddled and dripped up onto the path. Her hair was smeared across her head like yellow
seaweed. I saw that her father had draped his tweed jacket over her shoulders and he was carrying her rodeo cap. Her gaze was fixed on the bag beside me.

My brain swirled with indecision. What should I do?

Stavros had picked up my bag from his bench. He was checking it out.

I stood, clutching his against my chest, the way he always did.

Mr. Jenson had his arm draped around his daughter as they hurried toward the hotel. I heard him ask, “Sweetheart? Are you sure you're all right?”

“I'm okay.” Geneva turned back to look at me. “Are you coming with us, Kev?”

Stavros was heading straight for me,
my
bag under his right arm,
my
dictionary in his left hand.

“I'm dead meat,” I muttered, and Geneva said “Uh-oh” and began walking faster toward the lodge. “I'm really cold,” she said, and her teeth chattered so loudly I could hear them. Fake, I thought. She just wants out of here. No way does she want to have to face him.

“You need a warm bath, honey lamb,” Midge told
her. Then, to me: “You stay away from the lake till I get back, Kevin. Your grandma will have my hide.”

“Okay.” Stavros was almost upon me.

I couldn't just stand there waiting for the axe to fall. Action! Action! A hero is never passive. Not in mysteries, anyway.

“Kevin!” I'd never heard an angrier voice.

I took off, running like an antelope along the path that curved around the lake.

“Kevin!”

I held the bag tight against me. If there was a bomb in here, it wouldn't be too smart to jiggle it.

Running, running.

Two women stood aside to let me pass. One had a cane. “Sorry,” I muttered as I just about tripped her.

“Really!” she said, superoffended.

Stavros's boots pounded on the path behind me.

“Hey! You've got my bag!” he yelled.

It was like he was saying, “Stop, thief!” My heart thumped with fear.

One of the women shouted, “Stop! You've got this man's bag!”

I pistoned on. My brain cells were pistoning, too, asking where I was running to. What good was this? I'd have to give up the bag. Action is excellent, but not if it's stupid.

In front of me four people walked, strung across the path. I'd have to power on through them.

“Excuse me,” I bellowed. And then I saw they were the Texans.

They all turned.

“Whoa, cowboy! What's up?” one of them asked.

I stood still, panting. “It's okay,” I gasped. “Just—”

And then he was beside me. Stavros's jeans clung to his legs. His boots were not shiny anymore.

“We had a bit of a mix-up with the carry-ons,” he said pleasantly to the Texans. He handed me my dictionary and my bag.

I unglued his bag from my sweaty self and held it out to him. I couldn't think of another thing to do.

Mission abandoned.

“Did you go in the water, Mr. Stavros?” one of the Texan women asked, sounding incredulous.

Stavros smiled. “Only momentarily.”

“Jim-dandy, then,” another Texan said. I didn't
know his name. I didn't know any of their names. They strolled off and I stood staring down at my own carry-on as if I'd never seen it before.

“How did that mix-up happen?” I asked in the world's most dodo-brained voice.

Stavros didn't answer. Instead he pointed to a bench and sat down. When he nodded to the space next to him I sat, too.

“I think I know exactly how it happened,” he said. For the first time I noticed that his eyebrows were almost as thick as his mustache. From underneath them his eyes watched me carefully.

He knew all right. He knew. This was so not good.

I was suddenly petrified. Here I was, sitting with a possible terrorist who knew I suspected him.

“I've read your note,” he said.

My insides curled up small. Worse and more worse.

“I decided I would just answer you in English. No need to play the translating game.” He stroked his bag with his bandaged hand and I saw that the bandage was still dry. He'd used the other hand to grab
Geneva. That was why he'd had to leave the bag behind. I was noticing these details but my mind was fussing about, not wanting to absorb what he'd said. He'd read the note. He was going to answer me.

I turned the dictionary round and round in my hands, examining it as if it were the most interesting thing I'd ever seen. A sideways glance told me that he was looking at a line of ducks dappling along the lake.

“You asked a question,” he said at last. “And then I guess you decided not to wait for an answer. You needed to find out for yourself.”

“I suppose.” I took a quavery breath.

“Inside this bag,” he said, “is something private and precious. It is not something I want to share.” He faced me but I kept examining my dictionary, leafing through its tissue-paper pages, then partway opening and closing the zipper of my bag, which sat like an accusation between us.

“Don't you have some things that are private and precious to you, Kevin? Things you don't want to share?”

“Not really.” An ant was chasing another ant across my knee and I moved my attention to them.

“The bottom line is,” Charles Stavros said softly, “the bottom line is, it's none of your business what I've got in my bag.”

“Okay.” I dared to look up at him. “Of course, if you told me, I wouldn't tell anyone else.” How nutty! Like if it was a bomb he was going to tell
me
.

He stood up. “I'm not about to tell you. Just don't try to steal my bag again.”

I was insulted. “I wasn't stealing it.”

“Just don't try it again.”

And he was gone, holding the bag firmly against him, striding across the grass.

I felt as if I'd had a narrow escape. After all, he could have forced me up on a cliff and pushed me over. Just knowing I suspected him could have been enough to set him off. At the very least he might tell Grandma what I'd done. Terrorists are ruthless.

If he
was
a terrorist!