“Peanut butter’s full of calories, Jupe,” warned Kelly. “Bananas, too. Very bad for the figure.”
“They’re high in protein and potassium,” Jupe informed her as he listened to his call ring. “Very healthy.”
“High in carbs and fat,” said Kelly. “Very stupid. Try salads.”
Jupe hung up the phone. “No answer. I guess we’ll just have to go over there.” Jupe licked his finger.
“No, Jupe,” Kelly corrected him with a shake of her head. “We’re playing tennis. You’ll have to go solo.” Her nose wrinkled as she screwed the lid back on the peanut butter jar.
Jupe peeled a banana, then opened the telephone directory. “Can’t. Uncle Titus needs the truck, so I need a lift. Besides, this looks like a case for The Three Investigators.”
“That’s you guys, isn’t it?” Elizabeth said. “I’ve heard of you but, really, what can you do? I mean, you’re
“Yeah, and the gorillas we’ve sent to jail!” Pete spun enthusiastically in a karate
“I’ve got Rome’s address.” Jupiter closed the telephone book and tossed his banana peel toward an overflowing wastebasket. He missed.
“Look at it this way,” Jupe told the girls. “If a virus got into a bank’s computer system, people could lose their life savings. Or if it got into a hospital’s computer system, it could kill patients by messing up the orders for medication. We need to stay on top of this. Maybe Rome can tell us if somebody else used his game disk, and we can track the virus back to the guy responsible.”
“But what about us?” Kelly asked forlornly.
“Bob, I was really looking forward to our date,” Elizabeth said with a sweet smile.
“Sorry, girls, but duty calls,” said Jupiter firmly. “Pete and Bob can’t ignore a line like YOU AND YOUR DATA WILL BE ERASED. That blackmail message means big trouble for somebody!
“Besides,” Jupe added airily, “this won’t take long. We’ll be back in plenty of time for your game.”
“That is one hot car,” Bob said.
“And one crazed driver!” Jupe laughed. “Come on, let’s hit it.”
Under swaying palms, Jupe and Bob strode up a wide walkway toward a cluster of rambling stucco garden apartments. According to the telephone book, Norton Rome lived here, and according to the small glassed-in directory that stood next to the sidewalk, his place was apartment 5C.
The guys wove through the complex, passing playing children and Sunday barbecuers in tropical garden settings.
“Hey, Jupe, smell those burgers,” Bob teased. “You can’t tempt me. Peanut butter and bananas are very filling.”
“I’ll bet.” Bob chuckled. “Like concrete!”
5C was a corner unit about a hundred yards in from the street. Like the other apartments in the complex, it had its own flower-lined sidewalk, redwood porch, and tall entry door.
“Newspapers!” Bob said. “I don’t like the looks of this.”
Two newspapers lay on Rome’s porch. Jupe picked them up. “Saturday morning and Sunday morning.”
Bob lifted the mailbox lid. “A gas bill and a computer magazine. Saturday’s mail, probably.”
“I’d say Mr. Rome is gone.” Jupe pushed the doorbell.
“Maybe he’s on vacation.”
The guys waited, and Jupe pushed the bell again. He pressed his ear to the door to listen. Bob tried to peer in the front window, but the curtains were closed tight. At last the guys looked at each other and shrugged.
“I saw the manager’s apartment back there,” Jupe said.
“Let’s go.”
They strode off again. The manager lived in Building 3 in a corner apartment identical to Rome’s. Above the doorbell was a sign that said simply manager. Jupe rang the bell, and instantly a dog started barking.
“That dog sounds
“I’d offer to protect you, but he sounds big to me, too!”
Beyond the door they could hear the trudge of feet and the heavy clatter of long-nailed paws.
“Quiet, Monster!” a woman shouted. “Quiet!”
Jupe and Bob stared at each other.
“Monster?” Jupe said.
The barking quieted, and the door opened just enough to show a pink-cheeked woman with gray hair.
“Yes?” she said. At the waist of her jogging suit a dog’s black nose appeared, followed by a large head wedging into the doorway.
Jupe cleared his throat, his eyes on the enormous head. That dog’s got to weigh one-eighty! He thought. “We’re looking for Norton Rome, one of your tenants?”
Suddenly the door burst wide open and Monster leaped forward. Jupe and Bob jumped away, but they weren’t fast enough.
“
” Jupe fell backward into a bed of pansies, his shoulders pinned by two gigantic paws. Monster’s big, wet tongue slurped up Jupe’s chin, over his nose, and up his forehead.
Bob collapsed with laughter.
“Monster, shame on you!” the woman scolded, tugging on his leather collar.
“Off, Monster!” Jupe tried gamely, but his voice was shaky. He tried desperately to shove the dog away. No luck.
Bob grabbed the leather collar and pulled too. He was laughing too hard to speak.
After one final lick, Monster at last stepped nimbly away. Jupiter got to his feet and tried not to look annoyed.
“Bad doggie!” The woman pointed her finger at Monster. “You go right in the house and stay there!”
Monster lowered his head and trudged to the apartment.
“Some watchdog!” the manager told the guys. “He sounds fierce, but he’s really a baby. The only other time I’ve ever seen him knock someone down was when my niece stopped by. She was eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and Monster went wild. He loves peanut butter!”
Bob broke into fresh guffaws.
“You don’t have peanut butter with you, do you?” she asked Jupe.
Jupe’s round face turned bright red. “Not on me,” he said. “Now about Mr. Rome… ”
“Oh, yes.” She returned to the doorway to pat Monster’s head. “You’re the third person today to ask about him. I wonder why. He’s a very quiet man — a little strange, but aren’t we all?” She chuckled and scratched Monster’s ears.
“Who asked about Mr. Rome?” Jupe prompted her.
“I don’t know their names.”
“Could you describe them?” Jupe asked quickly. “Tell us when they came?”
She thought. “Well, one came this morning. He was a bald man, very severe-looking, and he had on a business suit. The other man was here not long ago. He had black hair and wore a dark green Windbreaker and white sneakers.” She looked down at the high-tops on Bob’s feet. “Like yours.”
Jupe pondered this information. Other people were looking for Rome. Could it have anything to do with the virus?
“Did they say why they wanted him?”
“They said they were friends of his. Are you friends of his too?”
“Sort of,” Bob said. “I mean, he gave a talk once to Jupe’s computer club. Do you know where he is?”
“Out of town for a few days. He didn’t say where, but I got the impression he’d be back shortly.”
The guys thanked the woman and left. Behind them Monster gave a farewell woof. Jupe glanced back, watched the door close, and sighed.
“I thought it was your drop-dead good looks.” Bob chortled. “And here it was your delicious peanut butter scent!”
“You want to talk about animal magnetism,” Jupe retorted, “let’s talk about guys who attract girls like flypaper!”
Jupe turned onto the sidewalk that wound through the complex.
“Hey, where are you going?” Bob demanded. “The street is back there.”
“Let’s check out Rome’s place.”
The two guys moved briskly through the long shadows of late afternoon. A cute blond girl in shorts was watering plants on her porch as the guys passed by.
“Hi!” She waved at both of them, but she looked at Bob.
Bob gave her a big smile. “Hi there!” he called.
“Back to Earth, Romeo,” Jupe said. “There’s Rome’s apartment. You stand guard out front. I’ll do recon.”
“What?” Bob said, his mind still on the blonde.
“Later.” Jupe glanced around quickly to make sure no one was watching, then slipped past Rome’s porch and down the side of the cottage. It appeared to Jupe that Rome’s apartment must extend the full length of the building. There were three windows. He stopped at the first one and peered inside. The living room was a mess! Drawers had been turned over onto the floor, papers were scattered, and a wastebasket had been dumped upside down and its contents searched. What was going on?
Jupe tried the window, but it was locked tight. He strode to the next window. It also looked into the trashed living room, but it was open an inch! Jupe quickly worked the window up, heaved himself onto the ledge, and stepped inside.
Talk about destruction, Jupiter thought. Anyone who complained about the mess in the Investigators’ headquarters trailer ought to see this!
Jupe headed for the computer. The cover was a heap on the floor, and the disk box was open. Jupe searched through the disks, looking for the game disk. But it wasn’t there. He turned on the computer, popped in a disk, and called up all the files with no trouble. He tried two more disks with the same result. No virus here that he could see. Jupe dropped to his hands and knees and picked through piles of junk on the floor.
As he crawled toward a mound of paperbacks, the floorboards shuddered. He froze, trying to understand what caused the movement.
Suddenly there was an ominous rolling sound of something heavy on wheels.
Jupiter looked up just in time to see an enormous microwave cart hurtling through the kitchen door. It had a clear path through the floor’s rubble, and it was bearing down straight at him!
“His visitors seem to play rough,” Bob said as he sat down in the passenger seat next to Pete. “It’s a good thing you looked up in time, Jupe. You could’ve been mildly squashed. That was a pretty big cart.”
They drove back to the junkyard silently, each wondering what the intruder had been after… and why.
* * *
It was nearing dusk when the Investigators parked in The Jones Salvage Yard.
“Hey! Look at the door!” Pete said, pointing across the yard to their headquarters trailer.
The guys jumped out of the car. Pete and Bob ran ahead to investigate while Jupiter trailed. He’d had enough fast moves for one day.
“It’s notes!” Bob realized as they drew closer. Small papers were taped to the door, fluttering in the breeze.
“Kelly!” Pete guessed. “I’m dead!”
“Oh, no!” Bob smacked his forehead. “I forgot Elizabeth!”
Behind them Jupiter guffawed. “Boy, are you two in trouble!”
“Hey, you wanna talk about somethin’ real,” called the familiar voice of Ty Cassey, Jupiter’s second cousin. “Talk
“You’re back, Ty!” yelled Pete.
“Obviously. Man, you know you got engine pingin’?”
“No!” Pete made a beeline for the grease pit. Then he spotted Jupe’s laughing face. “Kelly!” he reminded himself, and turned back to the trailer. Inside he flicked on the lights and dialed her number. The guys heard him say, “Kelly, baby!” Then he slammed the door.
Bob picked notes off the door. “ ‘No one plays tennis in the dark, dummy!’ ” he read, “ ‘Investigators should investigate something important — like why they can’t tell time!’… ‘All guys are the worst!’ ”
The trailer door opened and Pete walked out, whistling. He looked very pleased with himself.
“So?” Bob and Jupiter followed him to the grease pit.
“So, no big deal,” he said. “Tomorrow afternoon I’m taking her to see
“So the third movie’s out already?” Ty asked Pete as he climbed behind the van’s wheel. Everyone knew about the megahit science fiction trilogy. The first two films had made Hack and his costar Qute den Zorn hot box-office stars. Qute — pronounced “cute” — was also Hack’s twin sister.
“Me, I’d go just to see Qute,” Pete confided. “She is one be — yoo — tiful babe.”
“Don’t let Kelly hear you say that,” Jupe advised.
Jupe went into his electronics workshop, a shack on the other side of the trailer from the grease pit. He pulled out a stool and sat in the doorway. Closing his eyes, he turned over in his mind the meaning of the CHAO$ message. Someone was in danger, and it had to be someone with a computer.
The van’s motor roared to life, and Pete stuck his head under the hood. Ty stepped on the gas. Every time he did, the engine pinged. Ty sped around the van to join Pete under the hood.
Just then the trailer door opened, and Bob emerged with a triumphant smile on his handsome face.
“We’re going with you to the movie tomorrow!” he shouted to Pete. “Jupe, you’ve got to come too. Elizabeth has a cousin she wants to set you up with!”