The Man with the Red Bag (7 page)

T
he next morning, in the bus on the way to Yellowstone National Park, I told Geneva, “He seemed okay, close up and talking like that. He sounded cool. I'm beginning to wonder if we've made a mistake. If he isn't a terrorist at all.”

“Are you kidding?” Geneva opened her navy blue eyes so wide, I was afraid they might pop out. “Give me a break! You're forgetting September eleventh. You're forgetting the way he looks. The way he guards whatever is in that bag with his life, almost.”

“It's private and precious,” I said. “That doesn't
sound like a bomb. And look, my paper scrap was still in his door this morning. He didn't go out all night. And we've watched his every move. Of course, we're not in Big C territory yet.”

Geneva exhaled a long exhale. “I have a question for you. Why would anyone bring something super-private and precious on a bus tour? Wouldn't you keep it in a safe or somewhere? At home? And who
locks
a carry-on? I tell you, I don't trust him one bit. Remember, America trusted everyone, just about. Now we don't trust.”

She was actually speaking so forcefully that little spatters of spit landed on my face. I wiped them away unobtrusively.

I could almost hear Grandma's voice.
She's right. We don't trust anymore, and that's the saddest thing of all.

“You
want
him to be a terrorist, don't you,” I said.

“I want to
catch
a terrorist,” Geneva said. “So do you. If he is, and we uncover him, and stop him, we'll be heroes. Probably Oprah will want us on her show. Probably we'll get to go to the White House—and each get a medal.”

I shrugged and stared out the bus window. Even a detective sometimes has to admit he's made a mistake. Maybe I had. Stavros had seemed so normal when I talked to him. So sane.

We were passing Jenny Lake, the sky and water the same color, the mountains shining behind it. Little boats rippled across it, leaving foaming wakes.

“It's like a picture postcard.” Declan spoke through his minimike. “I never tire of looking at it.” He told us about the famous geologic wonders we'd be seeing in the park. “Restless geology,” he called it, because of the thundering waterfalls and the geysers and the bubbling mud pots.

I looked up the aisle at Charles Stavros's head and shoulders. He was looking out of his window, too. What was he thinking? That he should talk to Grandma about me? Or about his mission. If he for sure had one.

Behind him were Millie and her sister. “Not long now,” she'd whispered to me as we boarded the bus. Would we recognize Charles Stavros in her picture of suspected terrorists? She was positive now. She'd thought about it, she told us. She'd brought the
newspaper picture into focus in her mind and she was positive.

My grandma was sitting next to Midge. They liked each other, I could tell. They'd exchanged e-mail addresses for when they returned home.

Buffo and Blessing had been lying in the aisle, doing push-ups and leg lifts, bouncing up each time Declan drew our attention to something we were passing. Now they were back in their seats.

The Doves had their little gray heads together. They always seemed to have a lot to talk about, which was pretty amazing, considering how many years they'd spent together.

The Texans were laughing and calling out to each other—the Texans in their own space, as usual, taking no notice of the rest of us. They were playing some sort of word game. Sometimes one of them would shout, “Guilty! Guilty as sin!” or “Let that man go. He has a watertight alibi.” I knew none of this had to do with Charles Stavros, but I began playing my own game. I closed my eyes and decided that whatever one of them called out next would be a sign as to whether Stavros was guilty or innocent.

“Hung jury!” one of the women announced.

Thanks a lot.

Geneva's father sat alone.

I finally decided to ask her. “How come you don't like him?” I said.

“Don't like who?”

“Your dad. He's always nice to you. He was really worried when he thought you were drowning in the lake.”

Geneva made a face. “You're asking why I don't like him?”

I nodded.

“Well,” she said. “If you must know, he and my mom are fighting over me like…like two wolves over a rabbit.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, it's one of those miserable divorce things. They want to share me.”

“Hard to believe,” I said, and got one of her Geneva-cold stares.

“The judge says I'm old enough to decide. But when I said I didn't want to spend any time with my so-called father he ruled I had to go on this trip with
him so we could get acquainted with each other. As if I want to.”

“He seems like a nice guy—,” I began.

“Like you would know,” Geneva said. “He left my mom and me to go tend to all those, quote, distressed people in Africa. He didn't care at all about us. My mom asked him to come home but he said he'd made a commitment. He was needed. These were human beings. They had to have water if they were to grow their crops. He was bettering their lives. So arrogant!”

“Is that what your mom said? That he was arrogant?”

“That's what she said. And it's true.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Well—”

“Now he wants to, quote, be a part of my life. The dam he helped build is supplying water to the towns and villages. There are other engineers there now. He wants me to spend Christmas vacation with him, and summer vacations, part of them, and some weekends.”

“Well, he
is
your father. And how do you know he didn't care at all about you?”

“My mom told me.”

I thought about that. “Does your mom like him?”

“No way.” Geneva spoke quickly. “Not anymore. And now she has Eli and they…” She stopped.

“Maybe you and your mom could have gone to visit your dad,” I suggested. “In Africa. Didn't he ever come home to visit you?”

“Sure. Big deal. Two weeks.” She was staring out of the window, her shoulders hunched. “I never knew him, hardly.”

“You could get to know him now…a bit. Maybe that's what the judge thought. You're being so not reasonable.”

“Just quit it, okay? Mind your own business.”

That was what Charles Stavros had told me. More or less.

Scotty had stopped the bus and we were disembarking to see the mud pots. We walked on a path between the gurgles and plops of the bubbling mud.

“Don't go near the edges,” Declan warned. “We haven't lost a tour member yet.”

“There's always the first time,” Buffo cracked. He pretended to step into one of the small, steaming craters.

“This place stinks,” Millie said. “If you ask me, it's like hell.”

“The smell is sulfur in the form of hydrogen sulphate gas,” Declan told us. “The temperature inside one is around one hundred eighty degrees Fahrenheit. The big one over there is called the Dragon's Throat. You can see why.” Steam and stench hissed out like rotting beast-breath.

I walked behind Grandma. Not that I thought she'd fall in or anything. We kid around that she looks out for me and I look out for her.

I loved the mud pots. I'd never seen anything like them. But they were scary, too. Witches' cauldrons.

The high school kids had put on the play
Macbeth
last year. “When shall we three meet again? In thunder, lightning, or in rain?” the first witch had chanted. It wasn't hard to imagine the three witches stooped over these cauldrons in the dark of some wild night. “Fair is foul, and foul is fair.” I shivered and stuffed my hands deep in my pockets. Too real!

“Do you think it looks like this on the moon?” Grandma asked, stopping for a second to stare across the bubbling landscape.

“Mars, more likely,” Mr. Dove said from somewhere in front.

I kept my eyes on Stavros.

He walked along the circle of the path making no attempt to do anything sinister with the red bag that he held so securely. His private, precious bag.

I had this hollow feeling in my stomach as I looked at him. Maybe he wasn't a terrorist. I had wanted him to be, because of the way he looked and because of my book. But maybe, like Geneva had said, I wanted the glory. I should just wait till I saw Millie's pictures. And till I got a good look at that black, shiny thing and made sure it wasn't a bomb.

I should just wait. But more than anything, I hated waiting.

W
e would be staying at the Old Faithful Inn in Yellowstone National Park for the next two days. You can't see the famous geyser from inside the inn. Declan told us that the architect who built it, way back when, planned it that way so that visitors would immediately see the geyser when they drove up the road to the front doors in their carriages. Of course, there isn't that much to see if it isn't shooting up its big column of water at just that time. But sit in your nice fancy carriage and wait a little while. Old Faithful “blows” every ninety minutes or so and it
never fails. That's where it gets its name. There's a semi-nasty joke about laxatives and Old Faithful being “regular,” but I won't put that in my book. There are tons of other geysers around in Yellowstone, but none is as big or as famous. Declan explained to us how it works. Water seeps down into porous rock, heats, and then rises back up as a geyser.

Declan told us the doors of the hotel were painted red, the color of welcome. “Mrs. Dove and I are going to paint ours red soon as we get home,” Mr. Dove announced as the bus stopped to let us out.

“What a lovely idea.” Mrs. Dove clapped her little hands. She is so all-time cute. Like Grandma.

We were in the lobby now, inside the inn, and it was all flagstones and wooden walls and wooden beams and wooden balconies held up by tree trunks as big around as telegraph poles. A monkey could go crazy in here.

“It's one of the biggest log buildings in the world,” Declan said, so proudly you'd think he owned the place.

Millie had gone right to the front desk and was already deep in conversation with one of the clerks. I
knew she was asking about the photograph from the paper that her friend was supposed to send her. The clerk left and came back with a big brown envelope. I edged closer.

“Miss Millie Yokomata?” he asked. “Yes. This came for you. By fax yesterday evening.”

“Thanks a million.” Millie beamed at him and sighed happily. When she turned I saw that she was wearing a sweatshirt with a dancing moose printed on the front. She looked like she might start dancing herself.

Geneva whispered to me, “She's got the photograph from the newspaper. I'm so stoked.”

“Better not ask her about it now,” I said. “She couldn't open the envelope down here, right in the lobby.”

But of course she could. This was Millie.

She went across to one of the big wooden armchairs by the fireplace, ripped open the envelope, and bent her head over it. Her sister hovered next to her.

By now Declan had given us our keys.

“Millie?” he called, dangling a key with a tag on it above his head. “Beth?”

“I'll take it to them,” I offered quickly. “They're reading a message that was left for them.”

He tossed the key to me.

“I'll take it, too.” Geneva hustled over beside me.

“Better not,” I whispered. “Looks obvious. We don't want everybody crowding around.”

She slitted her eyes. “Who made you the boss?” she asked. Her eyes didn't look a bit attractive, slitted like that.

“I
made
myself
the boss. Relax.” I stole a look at Charles Stavros. “Besides, we still have to watch him, just in case.”

“So, do it yourself, boss,” Geneva said coldly.

Declan was holding up a key. “Mr. Stavros? Two thirty-four.”

Two, three, four. That would be easy to remember.

“I'll be up in a minute, Grandma,” I said. “You go ahead.” And I sauntered over to the big wooden armchair, now filled by both Millie and Beth, who were examining a sheet of photographs together. This could be it. The answer to who Charles Stavros was and what he was doing. No more wondering. No
more guessing. I was tight with excitement. Or maybe dread.

From here I could see it. Eight little squares, each as big as half a graham cracker, marched across the paper.

The pictures were upside down to me. And although I have mastered the art of reading upside down, photographs are beyond my ability.

I moved behind their chair. The pictures weren't too clear, probably because they'd been copied from a newspaper clipping.

The men looked like they had been standing in a police lineup, straight out of a program on TV. The suspects behind the glass, the witness looking in, calling out, “Number three.” And the police officer or the lawyer or someone asking, “Are you sure?”

Millie stabbed her finger at a picture of a man, only his head and shoulders showing. “Here he is! Look!” He had dark hair, a mustache, and a grim expression. To me he didn't look like Stavros at all.

“No,” Beth whispered. “But
this
might be him.” She pointed to the first guy in the lineup.

Millie shook her head. “Could be this one.
Imagine a mustache on him, and more hair.” Her voice had gone flat. “Could be any of them.”

“Could be none of them,” I said. “Look at the names. There's not a Charles Stavros in the bunch.”

“He might have changed it.” Millie swung around to look at me.

“I don't think so,” I said firmly, though I'd thought that very thought a few days ago. I'd been more suspicious a few days ago.

“I told you this was all rubbish.” Beth tossed back her blacker-than-black hair and squeezed herself out of her tight spot beside Millie. Her little silver-ball earrings bounced and jiggled.

Millie glared. “One could still be him. The trouble is, they all look alike.”

Beth sighed. “Oh, Millie. Just listen to yourself.”

I was listening to her. It's a good thing my grandma wasn't. I'm not sure what she would have said to Millie, but it wouldn't have been pretty.

“What kind of a thing is that to say, Millie?” I asked. “He's not in the picture and that lets him out. Wherever you saw him before, it wasn't here.”

“How would you like it if people said all
Japanese-American women look alike?” Beth asked. I was beginning to think of her as “Beth, the good sister.”

Millie scowled. “Well, we don't. So they wouldn't.”

I handed over their key.

Then I glanced up, and there he was. Stavros—looking at the fireplace and the humongous clock that hung over it, then turning to stare up at the beamed ceiling that stretched way over our heads.

“Quick!” Millie snatched the photo sheet from Beth, who'd been holding it, and stuffed it back in the envelope.

“Miss Yokomata and Miss Yokomata.” Stavros nodded pleasantly at them and then at me. I noticed that the bandage on his hand wasn't so white anymore. Hadn't he said something about getting the hand rebandaged in Cody, which was our next stop? As always, he held the bag clasped against his chest. Now that I knew about the padlock, I saw its small, silvery gleam.

“Don't you get tired, carrying that bag around everywhere?” Millie asked brightly. “I ask only because our nephew, Billy, has to carry this colossal
backpack with all his books in it every single day. Everywhere he goes in school, from class to class. They have no lockers, which I think is unconscionable.”

I held my breath.

“I don't get tired,” Stavros said.

“Maybe yours isn't as heavy,” Millie said. “You want me to help you carry it?”

“Thanks,” Stavros said. “I'm fine.”

“Okay then.” Millie sounded defeated.

Stavros laid his bandaged hand against one of the fireplace rocks.

“How is your hand, Mr. Stavros?” Beth, the good sister, asked.

“I think it's doing quite well, thanks,” Stavros said.

“Not too painful?”

“Not anymore.”

Stavros stepped back and looked all around. “Lodgepole pines,” he said. “I'm glad the inn was spared in the big Yellowstone fire of 1988. This place would go up like a tinderbox. All this wood.”

“Did you hear that?” Millie asked breathlessly as Stavros left us and headed for the stairs. “Maybe he's
an arsonist. An arsonist-terrorist. Oh wait, how about if he's going to blow up this inn? It's a…an American historical monument.” She stopped. “No, I like the fire idea better.”

“Like he's going to talk about a fire if he's an arsonist,” I said.

Millie's face screwed up. “You know, I did see his picture. Somewhere. That's for sure. So what if it wasn't one of these? It was in the
Times
. I'm certain about that.”

Beth groaned. “Sure. He's an arsonist. And he's been carrying matches and a can of gasoline with him from home. Get over yourself, Mil.”

“I've got to go,” I said quickly.

I wasn't sure what I felt as I went up the stairs to find my room. Millie had made me ashamed. No trust, Grandma had said. Man, was she ever right. But I had this other feeling. I was definitely disappointed. Let down. All the jazz had gone out of me. Without Charles Stavros to suspect, my mystery had fizzled. And without my mystery, well, it was still a nice trip but that extra interest was gone. Now I'd have to make up something for my novel. You just don't find
mystery plots lying around; you have to think and plan and work them out. Joan Lowery Nixon probably didn't really know a girl like the one in
Shadowmaker
. Or one like Jenny in
Murdered, My Sweet
, which I'm reading now. I bet she made them up.

Buffo and Blessing were coming down the wooden staircase. They were in their shorts and running shoes and they had identical red sweatbands around their identical spiky red hair.

“Beautiful outside,” Buffo boomed. “Can't waste time lollygagging around in a smashing place like this.”

“Right,” I said, and then I saw Charles Stavros standing at the top of the stairs, looking over the lodgepole railings, gazing down at the lobby below. He had set the red bag at his feet and was opening and closing his unbandaged hand, flexing his wrist.

He saw me and gave a half smile. “Miss Yokomata was right,” he said. “As you know, my bag does get heavy after a while.”

I took a deep breath. It was hard to decide if I was still suspicious of him or not.

But before I could gather my thoughts he lifted
the bag again, glanced at the number on his key tag, and said, “If I had two working hands, it would be easier. I could switch over, you know?”

I nodded.

“But never mind,” he said, and now he spoke so softly I could hardly hear him. “Before long it will all be over.”

Are you talking to me? Are you talking to me?

What would be over?

Inside me, things had started fizzing again. My ears tingled like crazy.

Now I knew for certain-sure that Stavros was up to
something
.