Bob looked at Jupiter in dismay. “Jupe? If he doesn’t have a brother, Ty has to be lying!”
Up on the bandstand the four Piranhas stared at Jupiter and Bob. Jake Hatch returned with a stack of photographs in his hand. He looked at the guys and then at El Tiburon and the Piranhas tuning up for their next set. The talent agent walked over to the band.
“Come on,” Jupiter said quickly, “let’s get out of here.”
“Don’t you want the photo?” Bob said.
“Watch me.”
They pushed through more arriving people and went out into the night. As they passed the display board outside on their way to Bob’s VW, Jupiter grabbed the photo of Tiburon and pulled it off.
Bob was still dejected when they got into the car. “He wouldn’t lie about a brother, Jupe. It’s got to be your cousin who’s lying.”
“Not if Tiburon was making Ty deliver a stolen car and lied about a brother then,” Jupiter said as Bob started the car and drove off. “And,” he added grimly, “someone is sure lying now.”
“Who, Jupe? What lie?”
“Tiburon could only have heard Ty’s story from us, the police, or Joe Torres and his friends. We didn’t tell. The police wouldn’t have. So Tiburon had to have been told what happened at the bodega by Torres or one of the other two. Which means one or all of them do know Tiburon and were lying to us and to the police!”
“You’re right, Jupe!” Bob said.
“And,” Jupiter added, “neither of us mentioned Oxnard to Tiburon tonight, yet he knew Ty had gotten the car in Oxnard.”
“Wow! So either Torres told Tiburon about Oxnard, or Ty is telling the truth about Tiburon. Or both. What do we do?”
“What we do,” Jupiter said, “is turn this car around and go back and wait for Tiburon and the Piranhas to come out of The Shack.”
The music, and the few customers drifting in and out of the cafe, went on until midnight. Then silence. The last patrons came out in twos and threes. Finally the band exploded through the double doors in a bedlam of swearing and raging and bad temper.
The surliest of all was Jake Hatch. Under the single street lamp he waved his arms at a bearded man who seemed to be the owner of The Shack. Tiburon and the Piranhas stood around them in a sullen circle. At last Hatch said something short and sharp to the band, stalked off to a silver-gray Rolls-Royce, and drove away. The Shack owner threw up his arms and went back inside. Tiburon and the Piranhas vanished around the back of the building.
“Follow them, Bob!” Jupiter said quickly.
“That’s the parking lot back there, Jupe. They have to come out this way,” Bob said. He nodded his head in the direction Jake Hatch had vanished in his Rolls-Royce. “That Rolls has to be secondhand, but I still can’t figure how Jake can afford it on his talent business. Sax says even he couldn’t.”
Bob was still shaking his head over the Rolls-Royce when the first of the band’s cars came out from behind the now darkened building.
“Holy cow!” Jupiter exclaimed.
It was a large sedan, what make or year neither of them could tell. It was totally covered with spray-painted graffiti from one end to the other, even on the windows!
The car was painted so thickly with messages that its original body color was invisible. It was so low to the ground that its real shape was difficult to make out.
“It’s a lowrider!” Jupiter exclaimed.
The specially rebuilt car rode only six inches above the street. Its springs and shocks had been cut down, or perhaps it had been modified with a hydraulic system that lowered the whole car. If the car was hydraulic, the driver could reraise it for highway driving. The car had steel plates under the front and rear to protect the underside when it hit bumps in the road, or when going in and out of driveways.
It was followed out in a stately procession by four other lowriders. They all turned toward the barrio.
Only young Latinos drove lowriders. The cars were part of life in the barrio, a special way to be different from Anglos and dazzle the girls. Usually lowriders were beautifully kept. They were painted and repainted, polished and shined, decorated outside and in, until they were in perfect condition for parading on Saturday night and competing in car shows.
But these lowriders were different. They were ugly, with thickly painted messages that proclaimed the name and talent of El Tiburon and the Piranhas in ten different colors.
“It’s advertising,” Jupiter said. “Their trademark. At least they’ll be easy to follow. They have to drive slowly.”
Bob gave the gaudy lowriders a block’s head start before he began to follow them. He had to keep reducing speed to stay far enough behind the slow procession. At last they reached the edge of the barrio. Bob was still hanging back when the lowriders all turned into a car wash next to a Taco Bell only two blocks from Rocky Beach High School. On a school holiday there were a lot of cars parked at the Taco Bell, even after midnight. It was a hangout Bob and Jupiter knew well.
They cruised slowly past the car wash, where Tiburon, the Piranhas, and their girlfriends had left their cars. Now they were lounging in the indoor waiting area, having snacks and soft drinks. Some other young Latinos had joined them.
“We’d better stake out,” Jupiter said. “The Taco Bell looks like a good place.”
“I’ll bet it does.” Bob grinned.
“And what does that mean?” Jupiter demanded.
“I never heard of a diet with fast-food tacos.”
“There are diets with everything on them,” Jupiter said loftily.
“Not tacos on a grapefruit and cottage cheese diet.”
Jupiter groaned. “But I’m starving.”
“Hey, I don’t care if you’re fat.”
“I am not fat! A little… heavy, maybe, but — ”
“Jupe, it’s okay. Pete and I like you, heavy or skinny. Now come on, what do we do?”
“We stake out at the Taco Bell,” Jupiter said stiffly. “And if we don’t have a taco, we’ll stand out too much.”
Bob turned his head to hide his smile as he made a U-turn. He drove back down the street and into the Taco Bell parking lot. They got out and mingled with the crowd at the stand. They knew some of the kids from high school and chatted with them as they waited in line.
Bob and Jupe took their tacos to a table by the window. They had a perfect view of the car wash. The bench was gone from this table, so they sat on the table as they munched and watched.
At this late hour the car wash was closed to customers, but it seemed to open for El Tiburon and the Piranhas. An older man stood behind the food counter, but all the car wash attendants were gone. El Tiburon was clearly in charge. He lounged in the only easy chair, with the Piranhas and their girlfriends all around him. He talked and they all listened.
Except one girl. She got up and went to buy something at the counter. El Tiburon pointed a long finger and shouted loud enough for Bob and Jupiter to hear at the Taco Bell.
“Get back here, chick! No groceries when we talk business. You got that, Owner?”
At the food counter the older man shrugged and shook his head at the girl. She whirled around and snapped out something to Tiburon. Instantly Tiburon was up and beside her. He grabbed her arm. One of the guys who wasn’t a Piranha jumped up and pulled Tiburon’s hand away.
Everyone froze inside the car-wash lounge.
Tiburon reached out and held the other guy’s shirt. The guy knocked Tiburon’s hand away. Tiburon hit him with a hard right. The girl’s defender staggered but came back with a wild left of his own and then a right-hand punch. Tiburon ducked the left, blocked the right, and knocked the other guy down with a single powerful punch. This time the guy didn’t try to get up.
Tiburon said something and laughed. Everyone laughed. Except the girl who had defied Tiburon. She bent down over her fallen champion. Tiburon strode back to his easy chair and started to talk again as if nothing had happened.
Jupiter and Bob watched from their table at the Taco Bell.
“He acts more like a gang leader than a band-leader,” Bob said.
“Yes,” Jupiter agreed. “He seems to be both. As if the band is part of a larger gang. I think — ” The leader of the Investigators stopped in mid-sentence.
A car had pulled into the car wash. A man got out and motioned toward the lounge.
“It’s Joe Torres!” Jupiter exclaimed.
Inside the lounge Tiburon stood up, said something to a Piranha, and hurried outside to meet Torres. They stood talking in the shadows for some time as the rest of the gang waited inside.
“Torres was lying!” Bob cried. “He definitely does know Tiburon. I’ll bet he was the one the stolen car was really supposed to be delivered to. Tiburon just made up the story about his brother.”
“Maybe and maybe not,” Jupiter said. “Torres was lying about not knowing Tiburon, but that doesn’t make the rest true, Bob. I mean, maybe Torres was protecting Tiburon, but doesn’t know anything about the stolen cars. Or Tiburon did what Ty says up in Oxnard, but was only being used. Maybe Tiburon had no idea the car was stolen.”
“So how do we find out?”
“We have to know more,” Jupiter said. “We’ll watch awhile longer.”
“It’s getting late,” Bob said. “If Sax gets back from L.A. tonight, I might have to work tomorrow.”
“We’ve got to find out if Tiburon knew the car was stolen, or if he didn’t, who told him to get Ty to drive it down to Torres’s bodega.”
“Jupe!” Bob said suddenly.
Tiburon had gone back inside the lounge, and Joe Torres was heading straight for the Taco Bell!
“He’ll recognize me!” Jupiter said, panic-stricken.
He looked for a place to hide. There was nowhere!
The Taco Bell was all but deserted now, the few remaining patrons widely scattered among the bare tables. The parking lot was well lighted and almost empty. The long counter inside the hacienda-like building had no customers.
“Quick!” Bob said. “Kneel down!”
Jupiter knelt down on the floor beside their bench-less table. Bob took off his denim jacket and sat on Jupiter’s back, using it like a bench! He draped his jacket over his knees as if his legs were cold. Then he leaned casually back against the table in the dim light, munching the last of his second taco.
Bob looked innocently at Torres as the scrawny Latino went by. He hoped the bodega owner wouldn’t notice that there was no bench on either side of the hidden Jupiter. But Torres barely glanced at Bob as he walked past him to the counter.
Jupiter’s voice was muffled. “For a skinny runt you weigh a ton. Can I get up?”
“He’s still at the counter. He could look this way again any second. Better stay down.”
Jupiter groaned.
Bob laughed silently. “You make a pretty good bench. Nice and soft.”
“You wait!” Jupiter’s muffled voice fumed. Bob gave Jupiter a gentle poke in the ribs. There was a strangled explosion as Jupiter fought to stay silent. Bob stopped teasing him as Torres got his burrito and came back past them on his way to the car wash and his car. This time the thin, dark Latino didn’t even glance at Bob.
“Okay, he’s gone,” Bob said, standing up.
Jupiter got to his feet, holding his back and hanging on to the table until he could straighten up. He glared at Bob, and then smiled.
“That was fast thinking,” he admitted. “But we’d better get out of here. Some of the others could decide to have a taco.”
They hurried to Bob’s red VW in the parking lot and drove to the salvage yard and Jupiter’s house. The yard was locked and dark. So was the house.
“Everyone’s asleep,” Jupiter said. “But let’s find out if Ty’s here.”
Inside the house they tiptoed to the downstairs den. The door was open and the room was empty. Upstairs they looked into the guest bedroom. It was empty, too. Bob was worried.
“Maybe the police have more evidence than you thought.”
“Perhaps,” Jupiter said. “I’ll ask Aunt Mathilda in the morning. But I still think Ty is telling the truth.”
“I sure hope you’re right, Jupe.”
“Anyway, we’ll all meet at HQ after breakfast.”
“Unless Kelly’s got something for Pete to do.”
Jupiter didn’t seem to hear this last thrust at their absent friend. “You know,” he said slowly, “a band that moved up and down the coast almost every night would be a perfect cover for a gang of car thieves.”
Jupiter was still at breakfast with his aunt and uncle. He was eating grapefruit and cottage cheese. He didn’t look too happy, and it wasn’t only the diet.
“We still can’t get Ty out of jail!” Jupe said.
Aunt Mathilda fumed. “The judge still hasn’t set bail! My lawyer is throwing a fit, but there’s almost nothing you can do to hurry a judge. The prosecutor is insisting that Ty is a suspect in this case. He’s afraid Ty will run away. My lawyer is almost sure we’ll get a ruling today, but he isn’t at all sure it’ll be in our favor.”
Uncle Titus, a short, slim man with a huge mustache, looked at his wife. “You sure this cousin is on the level?” he asked. “That’s a pretty shaky story.”
“We’re sure, Uncle Titus,” Jupiter said. “We’ve uncovered enough facts already to make us almost certain his story is true.”
“Now all we have to do is prove it,” Pete said.
Uncle Titus frowned. “You be careful, you hear? Car thieves are nothing to fool with.”
“We’ll be careful, Uncle Titus.” Jupiter finished his cottage cheese. “I’ll go and open up the yard. We’ll be over in Headquarters, then we’re going out. Aunt M, if Ty gets his bail set, would you leave a message on our answering machine? We’ll call in every hour or so and get our messages.”
“All right, Jupiter. I’ll just call the lawyer again, then be right over to open the office.”
Pete and Jupiter crossed to the gates and opened the electronic lock with Jupiter’s belt control. In HQ, Jupe told Pete what had happened last night. Pete laughed at the description of El Tiburon and the Piranhas in the tiny and almost empty cafe. He was excited when Jupiter got to the appearance of Joe Torres at the car wash.
“So Torres did know someone named Tiburon!”
“Clearly.” Jupiter nodded. “Now all we have to do is prove it’s the same Tiburon who asked Ty to drive the Mercedes down from Oxnard, and that he knew the car was stolen.”
“That’s all?” Pete said. “So where do we start?”
“We take what we’ve found, make a hypothesis, and work from there as if it were true.”
“Make a what? Give it to me in English, Jupe.”
“A hypothesis, an assumption, a theory, Pete. In this case we’ll assume that Joe Torres is a member of a gang of car thieves. Then the best way to prove Tiburon’s involvement is to watch Torres and see where he leads us.”
“Sounds good,” Pete agreed. “When do we go back to that bodega?”
“As soon as Bob gets here.”
“I’ll do some work on the Corvair for a while.”
“Which reminds me, when do we find me a car?”
“I told you. As soon as I get the Corvair in shape. That won’t be long. Anyway, now we’ve got to wait here for Bob, right?”
“Excuses, excuses.”
“Okay, okay! We’ll go now. I know a lot where people sell their own cars. We’ll start there.”
“We can’t go yet.” Jupiter sighed. “Bob should be here any moment.”