They stared at each other for a long, tense minute. The chief was obviously upset.
“Bring in Norman,” the chief finally said to Officer Klint.
When the door opened again, Barry Norman walked in. As soon as they saw him, both Pete and Jupe gasped. Norman was Michael Anthony!
He was wearing a business suit with his shirt collar open and necktie loose. And his sunglasses hung around his neck on a red cord. Everything about Barry Norman — a.k.a. Michael Anthony — was cool and relaxed. But he looked at Jupe and Pete with a gaze so intense it practically burned holes in their eye sockets. Then he blinked and looked at them again as if he had never seen them before.
“Mr. Norman,” said Chief Reynolds, “these are the boys who reported that your car was blown up. I can vouch for their character. I’ve known them all their lives. Their story is they’ve been driving your Porsche since Friday, when someone gave
“Perhaps whoever stole it decided to give it away — although I can’t imagine why.”
“Have you ever seen Pete or Jupiter before?” Barry Norman slowly shook his head. “And Jupiter, you refuse to tell me who your client is?”
Jupe’s mind raced through the possibilities like a high-speed computer. He could see that Barry Norman was doing the same thing.
The bottom line, Jupe decided, was that Barry Norman was a small catch. By his own admission, he worked for someone who wanted to remain anonymous. But who? If Jupe blew this case open by telling Chief Reynolds about it, chances were good that the man behind the scheme would quietly disappear.
“We can’t tell you anything right now,” Jupe replied.
“Client? Are these kids detectives or something?” Barry Norman asked, trying very hard to look unconcerned.
“Darned good ones,” answered the chief.
“How’s that for a surprise?” Pete said.
Norman shrugged. “The world is full of surprises,” he said. “Sometimes you get a break and sometimes your car blows up.”
“So do you want to file charges against them, Mr. Norman?” asked the chief. “No,” said Barry Norman. “I think you’re right, Chief Reynolds. These guys didn’t blow up my car. Now I’ve got to go try to explain this to my insurance agent.”
“I’ll be in touch,” said Chief Reynolds.
Norman walked out. After he was gone, the chief leaned back in his chair. “I should make you two hotshots tell me the whole story,” he said.
“You’d only get half the story if you did that, Chief,” Jupe said. “We’re still writing the conclusion.”
“Jupiter,” the chief said, “you guys better be careful. Very careful. Someone who blows away a $45,000 car doesn’t care about happy endings!”
Pete sat in the back of the Rocky Beach High School bus by himself, letting his mind wander. Sometimes he tried to put the pieces of the case together. Sometimes he just focused on the upcoming basketball game. His legs were stretched out on the seat, the back of his head bumping on the window to the jerky motion of the bus.
The rest of the Rocky Beach basketball team rode up front. They were talking and laughing and trying to blow off some nerves before that night’s game. But they were leaving Pete alone because that’s what he said he wanted.
Everyone on the bus had heard one story or another about Pete’s Porsche being blown to bits. They had a million questions, but they weren’t asking them.
Pete took deep breaths, trying to relax completely so he’d be loose for the game. It was weird playing a basketball game in the middle of winter break. But that’s the way the schedule had worked out and Pete didn’t mind. He was glad for the chance to get away from the case — away from homicidal college jocks and strange phone calls and exploding cars.
Everyone thinks I’m mad about losing the Porsche, Pete thought.
But he wasn’t as upset about that as he was about Chief Reynolds chewing him out. And the warning. The warning from the chief had freaked him. Because the chief was right. This case had suddenly gotten dangerous. Really dangerous.
That’s why he was sitting in the back of the bus doing deep-breathing exercises. He was trying to make the fear go away.
The bus finally pulled into the Wolfford High School parking lot. As the team filed into the visitors’ locker room, Coach Tong called Pete aside. “Are you okay, Pete? Can you start tonight?” he asked. “And don’t give me a quick answer. Four other guys, your teammates, need you to tell me the absolute truth right now.”
“Coach, I’m totally ready,” Pete said. Coach Tong smiled for a second. “That’s what I wanted to hear,” he said. “Get dressed.”
The locker room was a typical visitors’ locker room — small, dark, and either too cold or too hot depending on which would make the players more uncomfortable. Pete sat down on a wooden bench that needed a good sanding and jerked open the door of a banged-up old metal locker.
And all of a sudden his heart started pounding —
— like a hard basketball on a new gym floor. There was an envelope lying on the rusty bottom inside. Another envelope!
For an instant Pete wanted to slam the door closed. But he didn’t. He picked up the envelope, opened it, and unfolded the note inside. It said:
Pete’s pulse was racing and his lungs were trying to keep up. He kicked the locker closed. “Who put this in my locker?” he shouted. He had everyone’s attention immediately. “Come on. Who did it?”
“Hey, Pete, what’s the problem?” asked Bill Konkey. “I put it in there.”
Pete stormed over to Bill’s locker and stood over him. “Why?” he demanded.
“Some guy outside gave it to me and said it was from Kelly. I know you always use the locker that matches your basketball number, so I stuck it in there. What’s the problem?”
Pete got a chill. He looked at the note again. Was it the same typewriter as before? Was it from Michael Anthony? Did he really know who Kelly was?
Coach Tong stuck his head inside the locker room. “What’s going on? Are you guys waiting for an invitation? Let’s play basketball!”
Pete tossed the letter into the locker and hurried to dress for the game.
A few minutes later the Rocky Beach team ran onto the court. The gym was filled with a raucous mixture of sounds: cheers for the Wolfford team, the Wolfford band playing their fight song at triple speed, scattered boos for the Rocky Beach players when they hit the court, and the game announcer warming up and testing the PA microphone. Over it all, a small traveling section of the Rocky Beach marching band was struggling to be heard.
It was the kind of chaos that normally got Pete really pumped up for the game and the competition. But tonight it just intensified his fear. Right now what he needed more than anything in the world was to forget about the case, relax, and play ball. But how could he? Someone was out there waiting to hurt him. Who?
Pete looked at the crowd, an ocean of unfamiliar faces. The noise in the gym seemed to get louder every second, but Pete heard only one thing. “You could get hurt real bad — like you will tonight.” The words of the note pounded in his head.
Okay, Pete thought, getting tough. They can try to take me out, but I’m going out fighting!
In the next instant the Wolfford team came out, and the game was under way.
Wolfford was a tall team. Every player was taller than Pete. And they controlled the tip, moving quickly toward the Rocky Beach basket. But their shooting was cold. A miss. A miss on the rebound.
Rocky Beach took the ball. A long pass from Valdez to Bill Konkey got the ball across midcourt. Konkey kept looking to pass to Pete, but a Wolfford player named Traut was all over him. Traut kept holding Pete with a hand to his chest, pushing Pete from the side.
Pete faked a move one way and then moved the other way around Traut. Konkey saw that Pete was open and passed him the ball. But suddenly Pete crashed to the floor, banging his elbow and landing on his other hand. The ball went sailing out of bounds. Wolfford’s ball.
Pete was furious. Traut had tripped him, but no one saw it. “Watch it,” he snapped at Traut.
“I’m watching you,” the lanky player said.
As the game went on, more things started to happen. And Pete quickly realized that Traut was the heavy who was going to hurt him real bad. Pete tried to avoid Traut, but he had to play ball — and Traut was clearly out to kill him.
First Pete got an elbow in the eye and sat out for a few minutes with an ice pack on the side of his face. When he went back in, he got shoved off the court on a fast break lay-up. Pete ended up sprawled on someone’s lap in the crowd, his head bleeding from hitting the bleachers.
Nine of the guys were out there to play basketball. But Traut was out there for one thing only: to destroy Pete.
It made Pete so mad he played harder, moving, twisting, making fakes and then impossible shots while flying through the air. Rocky Beach was ahead, but it was a close game all the way.
. Traut was dribbling across the center stripe. Pete picked him up, guarding him, moving with him, blocking him from getting close enough to take a shot.
“You’re taking a lot of chances. Get smart,” Traut said to him. “It’s going to get worse.”
I’ll get smart, all right, Pete thought. “
Pain shot through Pete like an electric charge. But he wasn’t going to show it — not for a second. “Kiss me again, sweetheart,” he told Traut, glaring at him.
On a rebound the ball came sailing back into Traut’s hands, and without pausing a second, he dribbled down the court and leaped into the air.
The ball sank and Traut said with a grunt, “There’s your kiss — sweetheart.”
The game stayed close and tough. It was tied at 48 going into the final five minutes. Traut threw a pass that hit Pete in the back of the head. To everyone else it looked like a bad pass. But Pete knew it was a direct hit, another reminder from Michael Anthony — or someone else — to get off the case.
With less than a minute left Coach Tong called a time-out, the team’s last. “Sit down, Pete.”
“No way,” Pete said. “Traut’s been after me all night. He’s trying to hurt me. I can’t let him get away with it.”
“I’ve seen good aggressive basketball, not a hitman,” said the coach. “Don’t make this personal or I’ll yank you.
Pete nodded and huddled up.
“Okay, we’re up by two,” said Coach Tong. “Now — pressure defense, no cheap fouls, and don’t give them an easy basket.”
The team clasped hands and charged back onto the court.
But as soon as play resumed, Pete knew that Wolfford wasn’t ready to roll over and play dead. Wolfford threw the ball upcourt and scored an easy lay-up to tie the game. Then they stole the ball right back from Rocky Beach, and held it. They were eating up the clock and trying to take the last shot.
“Stay cool! Stay cool!” Bill Konkey shouted to the team.
Finally, with only seconds left to play, a Wolfford player took a shot at the basket and missed. Konkey got the rebound and passed it to Pete.
The crowd was going nuts, screaming the count-down. Time was almost out. “Three... two... ” Pete dribbled, but there was no time to pass. So he went for a desperation move. He leaped into the air and heaved the ball sidearm as hard as he could.
And then to his utter amazement he watched the ball smash into the backboard, bounce off the front rim of the basket, and — somehow — drop through the hoop! The buzzer rang before anyone could believe their eyes. Pete had won the game from two feet past center court!
His team swarmed around him, pounding him, lifting him up and carrying him back to the locker room. The Wolfford crowd was still stunned silent. Pete wanted to find Traut, to get in his face, but he was carried away too fast.
The victory celebration was going to go on all night, but Pete didn’t want any part of it. All he wanted was to shower quickly and then go find Traut. He waited for him in the dark parking lot outside the gym. “Hey,” he said when Traut came out. For a moment Traut looked surprised. “What’s your problem?” Pete asked. “Who told you to come after me?” Traut said nothing and glared at Pete. “Come on, buddy. No officials, no time-outs now,” Pete said. “So you tell me what was going on in there, or I’ll show you the real meaning of the words ‘personal foul’ !”
“Bug off,” Traut said. He shoved Pete into some cars and tried to get past him.
Pete bounced back and shoved Traut. Recovering quickly, Traut threw a punch that caught Pete right in the gut.
For an instant Pete could hardly breathe. The wind was knocked out of him. It only lasted an instant, though. Then he flew into action. “Hi — yaaaaa!” Pete karate-kicked Traut, sending him flying onto his back on the hood of a car. Traut kicked back, his legs flailing like a child’s. Pete grabbed Traut’s ankles, yanked him forward, and then threw him over his left shoulder in one smooth, twisting motion.
Nothing like knowing karate, Pete thought as he looked at Traut lying on the ground. None of Traut’s tough-guy moves, now or during the game, could stand up to the karate skills Pete had developed over the years. Traut knew it, too, because he just lay there, even though he wasn’t really very hurt. He
“Okay,” Pete said. “Now tell me. Who told you to do a number on me? Come on, slimeball. The truth!”
“I don’t know,” Traut said weakly.
Pete reached down and jerked Traut up by his shirt. “The truth!”
“I don’t know, I swear. The guy wouldn’t tell me his name. Not his real name, anyway,” Traut said. “He just gave me two hundred bucks and told me to rough you up during the game. And he gave me a letter to deliver to you. I didn’t even read it.”
“What do you mean, ‘not his real name?’ ” Pete demanded, giving Traut a yank to put him back on his feet.
“I mean he gave me a phony name. He admitted it,” Traut said. “What was it?” Pete asked.
“Michael Anthony.”