The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Riddle of Ages, page 11
Kate stopped the motorcycle. The table was draped with a low-hanging black tablecloth, on the front of which, in glittery silver letters, were the words MADAME CANARD’S PALM READING! FORTUNE-TELLING! ADVICE! The figure wore a black shawl and sat hunched, her face concealed partly by the shawl and partly by the locks of unruly black hair that dangled from it. Her black-gloved hands she held before her, trembling—from fear? some affliction?—at the edge of the tabletop.
Kate narrowed her eyes. Something was definitely not right. The fortune-teller had not even glanced in her direction. Could she not hear the rumbling motorcycle? Was she too frightened to move? That seemed more likely.
Even more likely, Kate thought, was that this was some kind of trap.
She could just turn around and leave. Right now. Maybe the woman knew about S.Q., or maybe she needed help, or maybe both. But if this was a trap, then the last thing Kate should do…
Kate didn’t even finish the thought. Her heart beating fast, everything in her on high alert, she crept forward on the motorcycle, studying the area around the fortune-teller as she approached. She noted the manhole cover in the street, the ice-cream truck blocking the way not far beyond it, the fire hydrant at the corner. Nothing seemed amiss except for the figure, who still did not look up.
“Hello? Excuse me?” said Kate as she drew near. No response. Kate shut off the engine, put the kickstand down, and slid off the motorcycle.
The gloved hands on the table continued to tremble violently, making faint tapping sounds against the tablecloth. Kate removed Captain Plugg’s helmet, which was so large that it kept slipping forward and obscuring part of her vision. She glanced around again, saw no one. She took a step toward the table. Tap-tap-tap went the trembling fingers, so faintly as to be barely audible.
And yet familiar, Kate thought. The tapping was familiar.
Sometimes the fingers seemed to linger on the table; sometimes they touched it for the merest instant; sometimes they trembled without touching the table at all.
Morse code. It was Morse code.
Kate froze, holding her breath, and watched the fingers carefully.
Go. Trap. Go. Trap. Go. Trap.
“Can I help you, ma’am?” Kate said rather too loudly. She shifted the helmet, tucking it under her left arm while her right hand slipped casually inside her jacket. Her heart was hammering so loudly in her ears that she could scarcely hear her own words. If this was indeed a trap, what was her best move? Probably to pretend she didn’t realize it was a trap.
“I don’t wish to disturb you,” she said, a little more naturally this time. “But evidently there’s a gas leak. You should really come with me.”
No. Go. Trap.
“Well, okay, suit yourself,” Kate said with a sigh. She spoke soothingly, as if to a child. “I’ll leave you alone, but I’m going to let the police know you’re still here, okay? They’ll come and help you. I’m sure they’ll be here soon.” She took a step backward toward the motorcycle.
“I wouldn’t waste my breath, deary,” said a familiar deep voice. “If the biddy knows how to speak, she’s given no sign of it.”
Kate whirled to see McCracken filling the doorway of the ice-cream truck. In one of his massive hands he held an ice-cream cone. Evidently, he had served himself. He seemed in no hurry to prevent Kate from fleeing, and in her peripheral vision Kate saw the reason: the Katz brothers had appeared at the intersection of Second and Chance. Whichever direction she chose, she would have to get past a Ten Man.
Kate stood where she was, trying to decide the best course of action. McCracken was taking his time with the ice-cream cone, and the Scaredy Katz were approaching slowly and cautiously, their eyes constantly on the lookout. She had less than a minute before she would be too tightly hemmed in to choose.
“I believe you’ve grown,” McCracken said, stepping casually from the ice-cream truck, which seemed to grow itself—sitting higher on its axles than it had when McCracken was inside. “You seem larger than I remember. I suppose that happens with children.”
“You’ve grown, too,” Kate said. “I suppose that happens with prisoners.”
McCracken chuckled. “Only those who take advantage of the exercise equipment and the—how shall I put it?—the extra time available to them. Oh, dear Kate, I’ve had so much extra time these last years, a luxury I owe to you and your father. How can I repay you? Would you care for some of my ice cream?”
“What flavor is it?” Kate asked. She was watching the Katz brothers out of the corner of her eye. Neither of them was carrying a briefcase. And where was McCracken’s?
As if in answer to that unspoken question, McCracken reached back through the ice-cream truck doorway and slid his briefcase into view. In answer to her spoken one, he said, “Rocky road. It seemed rather symbolic. I haven’t had ice cream in a long time, my little chickadee. Now, how does that saying go? I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream?”
“Don’t tell me,” said Kate, “you’re about to make a dumb joke about me screaming. You can save your breath.”
McCracken looked perturbed.
The Katz brothers had gradually widened the distance between each other, the better to cover more area. Kate might be able to blast between them on the motorcycle—if she were already on the motorcycle. If the motor were already running. Yet here she stood. And she knew how fast McCracken was with the briefcase. Also, she realized, jumping onto the motorcycle was precisely what he expected her to do.
And so Kate made her decision. She waited.
McCracken, regaining his equanimity, tossed aside the remainder of the ice-cream cone. If he was puzzled by her lingering, he didn’t show it. Perhaps she’d made the wrong decision.
“I came here,” McCracken said, licking his fingers, “because I had reason to think that fine young man S.Q. Pedalian was in the area. I hoped to ask him some questions. I don’t suppose you’ve seen him? Perhaps you had plans to join him at the street fair?”
The Katz brothers had drawn within a dozen paces. Kate could smell their expensive, spicy cologne. If the breeze had been blowing from the opposite direction, she thought ruefully, she would have known that McCracken was close by.
“You have ice cream on your cheek,” Kate said to McCracken, resisting an urge to point. She kept her hands exactly where they were, and she stood very still. “Maybe you should use your handkerchief to clean it off.”
“Or better still, blow my nose with it!” McCracken said with a roll of his eyes. “I know you’d love to see me knock myself out with my own handkerchief, sugarplum, but today just isn’t your day. Now then, you didn’t answer my question.”
“I haven’t seen S.Q.,” Kate said. “But if I do, I’ll be sure to—”
“Now!” shouted one of the Katz brothers, lunging toward Kate.
Instantly his lunge—accompanied by a whispery swit! swit!—became a plunge. For a moment he appeared to be trying to run on his knees. Then he twisted and collapsed onto his back, revealing the two feathered darts (neatly pinning his handkerchief in the breast pocket of his suit) that Kate had fired from her tranquilizer gun.
The other Katz brother had skittered sideways the moment his brother stumbled, and he proved to be so fast that Kate saw her third dart miss him by a good eight inches. At the same time, Kate saw McCracken reaching into his briefcase, and she crouched behind the motorcycle for cover. She could hear the rapid-fire footsteps of the Katz brother as he raced to take cover himself—behind the ice-cream truck, from the sound of it. The fortune-teller, too, had dropped out of view behind her table. Everyone was hiding except for McCracken.
“Bravo, Kate!” boomed the Ten Man. “It hadn’t occurred to me that you would be in the dart game now! My, how things change. Just like your father, eh? I believe you may even be a little faster than he was. He was always just a touch too slow to have success with me, you know—and I imagine he’s even slower now.”
As he spoke, McCracken made no effort to move away. He stood precisely where he’d been standing, and the confidence that this must have required was unnerving. He had seen Kate use the tranquilizer gun—he knew how fast she was, how true her aim—and yet there he stood, speaking in the most carefree tone.
“Felix!” McCracken called. “Why not join us? It’s only a dart gun, old fellow!”
Kate heard the Katz brother reply from behind the ice-cream truck. “I have an aversion to darts, my dear!” he called with a laugh. “And it’s easier for you, you know—you’ve borrowed my briefcase!”
“Very true,” McCracken said. “He has a point, Kate. Our supplies are limited at present. Why, Garrotte—you remember Garrotte, I’m sure—Garrotte had to borrow a briefcase as well, and Sharpe was compelled to acquire one from a businessman we encountered on the street. It’s of a sad quality, however, and they’ve had to share supplies between the two of them. Ah, here they are now!”
Kate felt goose bumps run up her arms. She peeked over the top of the motorcycle. Sure enough, walking toward them from the intersection beyond the ice-cream truck were two of the most dangerous Ten Men alive. She recognized the bespectacled Sharpe and the bearded, bat-faced Garrotte instantly. She had spent far too much time in their company, had hoped never to see them again in her life. Yet here they were. Impeccably dressed, of course.
“Now won’t you come out and play, Kate?” McCracken called when he had greeted his associates. “It’s a veritable party! And I know you have three darts left in your gun—a present for each of us, yes?”
Kate wiped her brow with her sleeve and took a deep breath. She had wasted a dart on the first Katz brother—one would have been sufficient—but she’d been overexcited. She needed to be steady now if ever she had been.
“Do join us, Kate!” came Sharpe’s familiar voice. “We’ve missed you!”
“Yes, it’s been ever so long!” echoed Garrotte. “We haven’t had fun in years, not really. And that’s all thanks to you!”
“I’m afraid she’s a party pooper, gentlemen,” McCracken said. “Simply isn’t in the mood today. Very well, my dear! We’ll bring the party to you! You’ll notice I’m not offering you a chance to surrender. No, you had best use your darts wisely, for we do mean you harm. Did you hear me clearly, Kate? We mean you harm.”
McCracken was enjoying himself. Toying with her. He was looking forward to a fight he knew they’d win.
“Shall we, gentlemen?”
Footsteps approached.
Kate took another deep breath. You can do this, she told herself. With a little help.
“Hey, fortune-teller lady!” she sang out. “If you have any tricks up your sleeve, now would be the time!”
The fortune-teller did indeed have tricks in store.
The cloth that had been draping the table flew upward like a theater curtain, and the table overturned. When the cloth fell aside, it revealed not a hunched woman in a shawl but a tall man with dirty-blond hair and ocean-blue eyes that matched Kate’s exactly. What Kate had suspected turned out to be the case: The fortune-teller was her own father.
“Let fly, Kate!” Milligan said. “I’ve got you covered!”
Indeed, Milligan had been firing his tranquilizer gun from the moment he appeared—swit! swit! swit! swit!—and the Ten Men had scattered left and right.
Thwack! Thwack! went the sounds of briefcases deflecting darts.
“Not fair!” snarled Garrotte when the handle on his briefcase broke loose. It was Kate’s dart that caught his shoulder as he struggled to regain his grip. “Most unfair! Such shoddy materials!” This last he uttered as he sank to his knees, then to his side, and closed his eyes.
Kate was already on the move. She didn’t dare mount the motorcycle—she’d be too exposed—but with Captain Plugg’s helmet back on her head, she began pushing the motorcycle along, crouching behind it for cover. Sharpe and McCracken were concentrating on Milligan, who was using the overturned table for his own cover, but when Kate fired a dart at McCracken (which McCracken narrowly dodged), the two men spun in unison and flung pencils in her direction. Sharpe’s ricocheted off a handlebar. McCracken’s glanced off her helmet with a cracking sound that made her ears ring. Kate kept moving, and the men were compelled to refocus their attention on Milligan, who had just shoved more darts into his tranquilizer gun.
Kate headed for the ice-cream truck. Felix Katz had been hiding behind it, but perhaps he would run at the sight of her, knowing she had a tranquilizer gun. She only wanted half a minute to reload in relative safety. She was down to one dart in the gun.
Katz was not behind the ice-cream truck. Kate stooped to check beneath it. No Katz. In the near distance she could see the feet of McCracken and Sharpe moving left and right in a sort of lethal dance—they were avoiding Milligan’s attacks, looking for an opportunity to charge him. But once Kate had reloaded, she could draw a bead on them from behind the truck. They would be caught in the cross fire between her and Milligan. Kate let the motorcycle rest on its kickstand and reached inside her jacket for more darts.
No sooner had she done so, however, than Kate felt the tranquilizer gun yanked from her other hand. With a cry she grabbed at it, but it had already flown upward, out of reach. Her eyes followed it as it sailed onto the top of the ice-cream truck, where Katz stood leering at her from above. He had unfastened his necktie and whipped it down to snatch Kate’s weapon away. And now he dropped lightly onto the other side of the motorcycle, keeping it between him and Kate—still wary, even with his newfound advantage.
They stood facing each other, only a few paces separating them.
“So sorry,” the Ten Man said. “Were you hoping to reload your gun in peace? You should have known I’d be waiting for a moment like that.”
“You know what’s funny?” Kate said. “It still had a dart in it. You could have used it against me. But you thought it was empty, so you left it up there.”
Katz twitched. “Ah, well,” he said frowning, “I still have my weapons, and you have none. This conversation is at an end.”
Shaking his wrists to expose two large silver watches from beneath his suit cuffs, Katz thrust both hands toward Kate as if trying to shove her from a distance. The shock-watches emitted their familiar electrical whine, the wires shot forth from each of them, and Kate—from Felix Katz’s perspective—disappeared.
In fact, Kate had timed her backbend perfectly. She remained poised like that, her body a graceful arch, one hand pressing against the ground behind her head, until the electrical wires—having missed their target—recoiled into the watches. Reversing her original motion, Kate snapped back up into a standing position just as Katz was springing over the motorcycle with a snarl. She saw his eyes widen mid-leap when he saw the dart in her hand.
“No!” he cried simply.
“Yep!” Kate replied as she made her throw. Then she nimbly stepped aside, for Katz’s momentum carried him lurching forward several paces before he collapsed onto the pavement, unconscious. “You didn’t really think that one through, Felix,” she said, turning back toward the motorcycle.
And there stood McCracken.
He seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, boiling up into view like black smoke from a fire. And indeed, menace radiated off him like heat. The look on his face was one Kate had never seen before, and it made her shudder. Gone was his usual easy smile. McCracken was taking her seriously now. And he was angry.
“You are being very bad!” McCracken roared.
Kate wanted to run, but she dared not turn her back on him. She tried to ready herself for whatever attack he threw at her—but she was not prepared for what he actually did throw at her, which was the motorcycle. She ducked beneath it, but one of the tires struck her helmet an indirect blow and knocked it clean from her head. She stumbled, trying to get her legs beneath her.
At the same time, on the other side of the ice-cream truck, Sharpe’s voice rang out: “Watch your feet, lovey!”
McCracken, who had been about to pounce on Kate, instead leaped straight up into the air. A dart shot out from beneath the ice-cream truck, passing beneath McCracken’s feet and skittering across the pavement beyond.
The motorcycle had surprised Kate, but what happened next shocked her. The instant McCracken’s feet hit the ground, he slammed his shoulder against the side of the ice-cream truck, like a man trying to break down a door. His feet drove like sledgehammers against the pavement, his arms thrust out and up—and the ice-cream truck flipped over onto its side.
The next few moments were a chaos of motion as Kate shot forward and snatched up McCracken’s briefcase (he’d put it down to throw the motorcycle); McCracken spun around looking for it; and Milligan, his legs trapped beneath the overturned ice-cream truck and his tranquilizer gun nowhere to be seen, shouted a warning to Kate—Sharpe was swooping in on her from the side.
Kate, spying her own tranquilizer gun on the ground, made an instant calculation: She wouldn’t have time to pick it up before Sharpe was upon her. He had the better angle. But she could get close. And so she ran, and two heartbeats later Sharpe had her in a bear hug from behind, pinning her arms to her sides. The tranquilizer gun lay inches from her feet. So close.
“There, there, chicky,” Sharpe said. “No more toys for you.”
McCracken appeared, stepping up onto the side of the overturned truck so that he looked triumphantly down upon them all. “Don’t let her go anywhere with my briefcase, Sharpe—there’s a good fellow. And keep close tabs on your own.” (He needn’t have warned Sharpe, who was clutching the handle of his own briefcase so tightly that his knuckles were white.) Looking down at Milligan, McCracken said, “You’ve grown rusty, old sport. Still, that was fun.”
Milligan, visible only from the waist up, had laced his fingers together behind his head. “Who’s to say it’s over?” he said calmly. “You all right, Kate?”
