“She wants to talk to me?” Jupe asked, a little surprised.
His Aunt Mathilda and his Uncle Titus had given him a home since he was four years old, when his parents were killed in an automobile accident. Jupe was still grateful for that, and he was fond of both Titus and Mathilda. But now that he was seventeen, they no longer played the important part in his life they once had.
A few years ago summonses from Aunt Mathilda had been as frequent as homework assignments. They had usually meant one thing — work. She had endless jobs for him to do in the salvage yard. But recently Jupe had computerized the inventory in exchange for freedom from those chores. So a call from Aunt Mathilda these days was as rare as girlfriends for Jupe.
“No. She just had a message for you,” Bob said. “There’s someone over at the house who wants to talk to you.”
“Who?” Jupe asked.
“Name of Rice.” Bob smiled. “Something to do with that puzzle contest you auditioned for.”
“Yeah?” Jupe felt his interest rise. He hadn’t forgotten about the crossword contest. He never forgot anything. But he had been so busy trying to lose weight that he hadn’t thought much about it lately.
Now he might have a chance to find out who was putting up the dough for those two weeks in Mexico.
The Three Investigators decided they all should meet Mr. Rice. They were crossing the road outside the junkyard when a man appeared on the porch of the Jones house.
He was tall and lean. In his late thirties, Jupe guessed. And he looked like quite a dude in his designer jeans and hand-tooled cowboy boots. He had an expensive Stetson cocked at an angle on his head. As the Investigators approached him he took it off and waved it in greeting.
“Hi. I’m Dustin Rice.”
He looked at the three guys in turn. “So which of you is the lucky one?” he asked. “No, don’t tell me. See if I can guess.”
He turned to Pete and smiled at him. “Just for fun, let me hear your voice, friend. Say. ” He hesitated. “Say, ‘South of the border, down Mexico way.’ ”
“South of the border, down Mexico way,” Pete obliged him grudgingly. He wasn’t much taken with Dustin Rice.
Rice shook his head. He waved his Stetson at Bob.
“Now you.”
“Mouth of disorder, brown Mexico day,” Bob said. He had never liked the song anyway, and he didn’t feel like taking orders from this cowboy.
Dustin Rice managed to keep smiling. He looked at Jupe. Jupe looked back at him.
His first impression of this man was that he was slightly unreal. His jaunty smile and breezy manner weren’t altogether convincing. He reminded Jupe of someone walking a tightrope, carefully planning his next step.
“Would you mind letting me hear you say it?” he asked Jupe.
“South of the border, down Mexico way.”
The effect was astonishing. Rice’s eyes brightened with excitement. He stepped forward and shook Jupe’s hand.
“My friends call me Dusty,” he said. “You must be Jupiter Jones and your aunt says they call you Jupe. It’s my great pleasure to tell you you’ve won the grand prize in my crossword puzzle contest! A free visit to my ranch.” His smile broadened. “Down Mexico way. And I’m looking forward to having you there as my guest, Jupe, and. ”
His voice trailed away. Jupe was holding up his hand like a traffic cop at a busy intersection.
Given his height and weight, Jupe was not a naturally imposing figure. But he had the remarkable ability of asserting his authority when he felt like it.
He felt like it now. He wasn’t going to let Dustin Rice take it for granted that the dream of Jupe’s life was to spend two weeks on a Mexican ranch hopping on and off horses. He had some questions he wanted answered first.
He said so.
“Shoot,” Dusty agreed. “Ask me anything you like.”
“How many other people won this grand prize?”
“None. Only you. You were the only winner.”
“I was the only one who got all the answers right?”
Dusty hesitated a second. “Sure,” he said.
Jupe nodded thoughtfully. He knew that was a lie. Pete and Bob had sent in exactly the same answers as he had. Why was Dusty holding back the real reason Jupe had been chosen as the winner? And why couldn’t a girl enter or win? The Investigator tucked those questions away in his mind. They’d be answered later when he had more information.
“Where’s the money coming from?” he asked next. “Who’s paying for everything?”
“I am.”
“What for?”
“Publicity. Publicity for my ranch.” Dustin Rice put his Stetson back on. It seemed to give him more confidence. “I’m planning to turn the place into a summer camp for guys like you. And I’m hoping to get a good write-up about the contest in the Sunday papers.”
That did make some sense to Jupe. Barely.
He was about to go on with his questions, but his attention was distracted for a moment. A blue car, a Chevy, was approaching the house. It slowed as it came nearer and at first Jupe thought it was going to stop. Then it suddenly gained speed again and drove out of sight. The sun had been shining on the windshield and Jupe hadn’t been able to see the driver clearly. He had made out that it was a woman. A woman with blond hair, wearing dark glasses.
He turned back to Dusty.
“If I accept this grand prize,” he said, “is it okay if my two friends here come with me?”
Dusty frowned. “You mean I’d have to pay their expenses too?” he asked.
“Yeah, that’s exactly what I mean,” Jupe said firmly.
Dusty took off his Stetson and thoughtfully twisted the brim. He began to talk about bus fares, food at the ranch.
Jupe let him talk. He had already made up his mind to turn down the prize unless Pete and Bob were included. This puzzle contest was becoming a promising case for the Three Investigators. And the Three Investigators were a team.
Dusty was still going on about money, adding up how much more everything would cost if Jupe’s friends.
“Then I’m afraid you’ll have to give the prize to somebody else,” Jupe interrupted him.
Dusty shifted his feet, looking down at his hand-tooled boots.
“You win, big guy,” he agreed. “I guess I can swing it.”
Bob reached out and touched Jupe’s arm. “Let’s take ten,” he suggested. He walked off the porch, followed by his two friends.
“You really want to do this, Jupe?” he asked as soon as they were out of hearing.
Jupe did. The thought of not pursuing this case was agony to him. “Absolutely,” he said. “Something really weird is going on if this guy is willing to pay for three vacations. Don’t you want to know why?”
“Well. ” Bob had been working so hard these past few weeks, he felt he could do with a change of scene. Sax would be leaving on a trip to Hawaii as soon as the rock concert was over. There would be nothing to keep Bob in California while his boss was away. He’d just miss a few of his karate lessons.
“Okay,” he said. “Deal me in. Anytime after the concert Thursday night.”
Jupe and Bob both looked at Pete. It was up to him now.
“I don’t know,” Pete said. “I’m kind of afraid that if I leave town, Kelly might forget all about me.”
“She might miss you, too,” Bob pointed out.
“Yeah, maybe.” Pete remembered a line he had once seen on a greeting card: “Absence makes the heart grow fonder.” The idea of Kelly with a fonder heart, a Kelly who would never stand him up again, was very appealing.
“Oh, okay,” he said. “I guess I can keep sending her cards and things so she’ll know I’m still alive.”
Dustin Rice couldn’t hide his relief when the Three Investigators returned to the porch and told him they had decided to accept his grand prize.
He gave them a map of northern Mexico, showing them how to get to Lareto, the town nearest to his ranch. After a bit of haggling, he also handed over six hundred dollars in cash for their expenses on the trip. Dusty gave them his phone number so they could call him once they crossed the border. He would pick them up in Lareto. The three guys watched the rancher climb into his Jeep with its Mexican plates. Then they went back to their tasks in the junkyard.
Early the next morning Jupe made his usual trip to the mailbox at the bottom of the drive. Uncle Titus always got what he jokingly called “junk” mail — notices of sales of scrap metal and other junk he might want to buy for his salvage yard.
Jupe sorted through it until he came to a manila envelope. He could feel something hard and rectangular inside it. It was addressed to Mr. Jupiter Jones and had no address and no stamp. It had been delivered by hand.
He took it back to Headquarters and opened it. Inside the envelope was a tape cassette. Nothing else. No writing on the tape label to explain what it was.
Jupe fitted it into his recorder and hit the play button. He heard only a long silence as the tape unwound. Then finally a male voice spoke clearly and urgently.
“Please don’t come to Mexico,” the voice said. “You’ll be in terrible danger if you do. Please, please, don’t come down here. Stay in California and — ”
The voice suddenly cut off.
That was all. Jupe played the tape to the end. He heard nothing else but silence.
He sat back in his swivel chair. The message was disturbing enough in itself. “You’ll be in terrible danger. ” But something else about it puzzled and worried him. He couldn’t help feeling he’d heard that voice before. It was somehow weirdly familiar.
When Pete drove up next to Headquarters a few minutes later, Jupe asked him to listen to the tape. After explaining where he had found it, he played it straight through.
To Jupiter’s surprise, Pete began smiling. “Is this some kind of joke, Jupe?” he asked.
“A joke?”
“Sending yourself scary messages.”
“I didn’t send it. I told you. I found it in the mailbox.”
“Then someone’s doing a great job of imitating your voice.”
“My voice?”
“Sure.” Pete picked up the recorder. “I’d bet my MG that was you talking on that tape, Jupe.”
The Three Investigators had originally planned to drive down in Pete’s convertible. But a call to AAA had warned Pete that unleaded gas was hard to find in Mexico. Leaded gas would wreck the MG’s catalytic converter, and Pete would have to get a new one before he could legally drive the car in California again. That would cost at least three hundred dollars.
“No way,” Pete decided. “I’m going to need all my dough to take Kelly out when I get back. So she’ll be glad to see me.”
He had also refused to travel several hundred miles sandwiched in the back of Bob’s VW bug. In the end the three guys had decided to accept Dusty’s suggestion and take advantage of the cheap Mexican bus fares.
Jupe was wearing a new T-shirt. It said
He twisted on the hard plastic seat to look back at the other two Investigators. Bob was reading the paperback history of Mexico he had brought with him. A stunningly pretty Mexican girl had found a place beside him. Naturally. She kept glancing at Bob as though she hoped he’d stop reading and talk to her.
Pete had somehow managed to fit his long legs under the seat in front of him and was fast asleep.
Both of them were wearing new T-shirts too. Bob’s said
Pete’s T-shirt had
her
Jupe glanced at the woman sitting behind Bob. She didn’t look any different from any of the other Mexican countrywomen on the bus. She was brown-skinned and dressed in a cotton blouse and wool skirt. Two long black pigtails dangled below the purple shawl she wore over her head. Jupe had first noticed her in the bus station in Santa Monica. And although they had already changed buses twice after crossing the border, she was still traveling with them.
Bob had put down his book and was enjoying a talk with the pretty young Mexican girl next to him. He was glad to find she spoke English.
“I’m afraid my Spanish is lousy,” he apologized. “Just
“And in Mexico?” she prompted him with a smile.
“It’s more like a jam session. Everybody taking off and doing their own thing. Not just the way they drive down here. But the way the bus keeps stopping in the middle of nowhere and a bunch of people just disappear into the desert.”
“They’re going to their farms,” she explained. “And they may have to walk five miles from the road.”
“But they don’t seem to mind,” Bob said. “They set off smiling and talking together. Like they were going to their own private party.”
“Maybe you’re right.” She nodded thoughtfully. “I lived for several years in America. Life is much easier there. But people do seem more cheerful in Mexico.”
The bus lurched to a stop in a small town. Jupe glanced at his map, then signaled to Pete and Bob. They had to change buses again, Bob said good-bye to the Mexican girl as he took his tote bag down from the rack. The bus station was a small cafe in a busy street. The three friends hurried into it.
“Boy, am I starved!” Pete exclaimed as they sat down at a table.
Pete and Bob ordered beef burritos with rice and beans. Jupe hesitated. He wasn’t going to be able to stick to his new diet in Mexico. Dusty had warned them not to eat salads or uncooked vegetables on the trip. But rice and beans! That was like begging to put
“Argh!” Jupe said as the three guys left the cafe to catch their bus. “My tongue feels like it’s on fire.”
As Jupe walked toward the bus a man in a torn leather jacket suddenly stepped in front of him. He was tall, heavily built, about twenty years old. He put his hand on Jupe’s chest and pushed him back roughly. “No room,” he said in Spanish. “No room for you on this bus.”
The three guys exchanged surprised looks. The Mexicans they had seen so far had seemed so friendly.
Jupe could see half the seats on the bus were still empty. Using his most polite Spanish, he explained this to the Mexican.
The man gave him another, harder push. It felt like a punch in the chest this time.
“No,” he said. “Go away. Get out of here. You and your friends go back to the United States. We don’t want you here.”
“I’m not going back to the United States,” Jupe stated firmly in Spanish. “I’m taking this bus. Please get out of my way.”
Instead of stepping aside, the man in the leather jacket grabbed Jupe by the shoulder and drew him close.
“Get lost,” he said. “Or I’ll beat your brains out.”
Jupe had been practicing his judo particularly hard these past few weeks in his effort to lose weight. He was getting quite good at it. But he didn’t think he was any match for this hefty young Mexican. Before he could get a hold on him, the man would knock out several of his teeth. He quickly freed his shoulder from the other’s grip and stepped back to avoid the blow.
Pete and Bob had been trying to follow the Spanish, but Pete had no trouble understanding exactly what was happening now. He moved up beside Jupe.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
Jupe explained that the man in the leather jacket didn’t want to let them on the bus.