Nickel Bay Nick (14 page)

Squatting behind a mailbox across the street, I notice that, after the attendant parks each car at the back of Pirro's dimly lit lot, he doesn't bother to lock it before returning to his valet stand at the front. So once a taxi cruises by, I dash across Bay Front Drive, circle the block, sneak down an alley and enter the back of Pirro's parking area, where I wait for a few new customers to arrive. Then, in the time it takes for the valet to open each driver's door and hand them a parking stub, I make my drops.

One goes into the glove compartment of a Toyota compact.

A few spots over, I place the final Nickel Bay Buck in a Chevy truck.

And then it happens.

My cell phone rings. I drop to the pavement like I've been shot, but not before I see the valet's head snap in my direction. Did he see me?

Running footsteps crunch across the parking lot gravel.

Yup, he saw me.

Fumbling, I flip open the phone to stop it from ringing. “Did you take your pill?” Dad asks.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I whisper desperately. With my cheek pressed against the gravel, I can see between tires to where—four or five spaces away—a pair of feet race back and forth.

“Why are you whispering?” Dad wants to know.

“Uh . . . Mr. Wells is concentrating,” I hiss. “Okay, gotta go.”

Before I can hang up, though, the valet shouts, “Who's there?” and Dad asks, “Who's that?”

“Who's who?” I reply. I don't dare hang up. Dad will only call back.

“Who's that yelling?” Dad asks.

“It's . . . it's the TV,” I stutter.

“If Mr. Wells is concentrating, why does he have the TV on?”

“Good question,” I answer. “I'll ask him. Bye!” I gently close the phone. The valet is one car away, so close that I can see that he's wearing white socks with black dress shoes.

“Don't think I didn't see you!” He yells into the night. “I saw you!” With two more steps, he'll round the corner and find me on the ground, so I tuck in my arms, roll
under
the SUV and watch, breathless, as he steps into the very spot I had occupied two seconds before.

Keep walking!
I plead silently.
Please keep walking!

But the shoes stop. Back up a step. Then, to my horror, a knee lowers to the pavement. Then another. In the next split second, he'll peer under the car, and the Green Mission will be all over!

At that exact moment, headlights sweep the lot. A driver pulls in from Bay Front Drive and toots his horn impatiently. “Be right there!” the valet shouts, springing to his feet and sprinting toward the parking lot entrance.

In a flash, I roll out from my hiding place and scramble up to a crouch. Like a black ninja duck, I waddle into the alley behind Pirro's and dash a full city block before I stagger up against a Dumpster. As I gasp for breath, I'm suddenly aware of horns honking. On tiptoe, I slink between buildings and peek down Bay Front Drive.

At the other end of the street, back where I began making drops over an hour before, I hear people hooting and hollering in celebration. By squinting, I can see them flashing their headlights and even dancing in traffic. For a moment, I let myself enjoy the spectacle of adults acting like kids on Christmas morning, but the spell is broken when a police cruiser, sirens wailing and lights flashing, squeals past me and skids to a halt in front of Pirro's Pasta Palace. Two patrolmen—Officer Brockman and Officer Ferguson—jump out of their squad car, and they're met by the valet, who's rattling away at about a hundred miles an hour and gesturing wildly toward his lot. The cops pull flashlights from their holsters and follow him.

Inside my chest, my heart is still beating so hard it actually aches. I'm only a half block from where I'm supposed to rendezvous with Dr. Sakata, so I pull out my phone and autodial Mr. Wells. After one ring, he answers and simply barks, “He's on his way,” before hanging up.

I snort at the phone. “That's it?” I mutter. “‘
He's on his way
'? No ‘How'd things go?' or ‘You okay?'”

The sounds of merriment move down Bay Front as more people along my route discover Nickel Bay Bens.
I wish that Mr. Wells were here to hear this,
I find myself thinking. Maybe then he'd appreciate what I've done and wouldn't treat me like such a schmo. I pace, trying to stay warm now that I'm no longer on the move. I work up a mouthful of saliva to swallow my seven-thirty pill, but when I reach into my jacket pocket for it, I'm horrified to discover one last Nickel Bay Buck. I thought I'd gotten rid of them, but in all the excitement, I guess I lost count.

Great! Just great! I can only imagine what's gonna happen when I return without distributing every last Benjamin we stamped. Mr. Wells, I'll bet, is gonna sigh and roll his eyes. He'll exchange looks with Dr. Sakata and they'll both shake their heads, disappointed by my unfinished mission.

I'm not going to give them that satisfaction.

The flashing lights from the police car are sweeping the street as I poke my head around the corner, searching for one final drop. Within a block I can see a Honda Accord, a Chevy Silverado and a BMW. Not one of them looks like an easy mark.

When I see the police cruiser, though, I flash back to all the times I've found myself caged in the backseat of one, and you know what I remember? Whenever officers pull up to a crime scene and jump out, they never stop to lock their doors or set an alarm. Why would they?
Who's gonna steal a cop car?

Giggling, I scamper across the street and ease open the driver's door of the NBPD cruiser. Leaning across the front seat, I stick my final Ben in the handset of the two-way radio.

Green Mission accomplished!

I run the last half block to the abandoned church, where Dr. Sakata is idling in the SUV with the headlights off. The second I jump in and shut the door, Dr. Sakata whips a U-turn and glides up a side street, away from all the celebrating down on Bay Front Drive.

Without a word, he hands me a thermos, which happens to be filled with hot mint tea. I pour a cup and take my seven-thirty pill. “Thank! You!” I say loudly and distinctly to Dr. Sakata, who simply nods.

Although I'm still trembling a little from the scare I got in Pirro's parking lot, I once again find myself feeling the way I did at the end of the Red Mission.

No shouts of triumph.

No backslapping or high-fiving.

Being a hero, I guess, is a quiet thing.

• • •

“How'd it go?” Mr. Wells wheels out of his office to meet us the second we walk in.

“Just as we planned,” I say coolly. “That's why it's called a plan.”

“Fifteen bills, fifteen drops?”

I nod. “Check.”

Mr. Wells notices the mud and gravel on my pants and jacket. “Spent a little time on the ground, did you?”

“There was one close call,” I admit, “but nobody saw me.”

“Good.” He jerks his head toward his office, from which I can hear the sound of a television. “The local stations have interrupted their regular programming to broadcast live from Bay Front Drive. There are a lot of happy people down there tonight.”

“I'll watch when I get home,” I say. “Right now I just want to get out of this ninja gear.”

After I change, I carry my clothes into the kitchen, where Mr. Wells and Dr. Sakata are sipping tea while watching reports of Nickel Bay Nick's latest visit on the countertop TV.

“Where should I put these?” I ask.

Mr. Wells mutes the TV and turns to me. “Set them down there.” He points to an empty countertop. “Dr. Sakata will dispose of those.”

I dump the clothes, brush my hands off and zip up my jacket. “Same time tomorrow morning?”

“Same time.” Mr. Wells nods. I turn to exit by the back door when Mr. Wells stops me with, “And, Sam?”

I spin around. “Yeah?”

“From what I can tell,” he says, “you wrote a new chapter in the history of Nickel Bay Nick this evening. Well done.”

His compliment catches me by surprise.

“Uh . . . thanks.” I shrug. Nobody knows what to say next, but then Hoko sneezes, and that breaks the awkward silence.

I pull on my gloves and mumble, “See ya,” before I head out.

Walking home down the back alley, an unexpected thought pops into my head. Unlike the Red Mission, in which Mr. Wells laid out every single move I was expected to make, I had plotted my own journey down Bay Front Drive. I had chosen my hiding places. I had selected the cars I would hit.
That was all me tonight,
I realize.
I did that.

Even with Jaxon and Ivy, it's never been that way. Every job we've ever pulled, all the trouble we get into together—it's always Jaxon's idea. I go along, like I don't have a mind of my own. But tonight, I felt . . . capable. Skillful. Talented, even.

Once I get home and slip into my sweatpants, I'm suddenly dog-tired. All the nervous excitement of the Green Mission catches up with me, and I fall asleep standing at the bathroom sink while brushing my teeth. It's only when the front door closes behind Dad as he tiptoes in from his date with Lisa that I jolt awake and find toothpaste hanging from my chin in one long drool. I quickly rinse and spit before Dad pops his head in to say, “Hey, kiddo, did you hear? Nickel Bay Nick paid a visit to Bay Front tonight.”

“Saw it on TV,” I mutter, eyes half shut, as I stumble past him into my bedroom, where I fall face-first into my pillow.

THE
PLACE I'M NOT WELCOME

January 3

“You were seen last night,” Mr. Wells says the next morning in place of a greeting.

“What?” I ask quickly. “Who saw me?”

“I taped this from the morning news.” Mr. Wells points a remote control at a wide-screen TV on the office wall and the screen lights up with the image of . . .

“The valet!” I gasp. “That's the guy who parks cars at Pirro's Pasta Palace.”

“He's suddenly famous.” Instead of sounding angry, Mr. Wells seems amused. “Apparently he's the only eyewitness to Nick's visit.”

In the daylight, I can see that the guy is barely out of his teens. He seems very excited to be on camera, as he practically shouts into the reporter's microphone, “I thought it was a carjacker. But then everybody started findin' that special money, and, man! I'm tellin' you! Nickel Bay Nick was in my lot!”

“And can you tell us what he looked like?” asks the interviewer.

“Okay, well . . . he wasn't real tall,” the valet starts to answer.

I turn to Mr. Wells and grimace. “What if he describes me?”

“Just watch,” Mr. Wells replies.

“But he wasn't short, either,” the valet continues.

“Did you get a hair color?” asks the reporter.

“Black. Black and long. Or brown, maybe.”

“Did you see his face?”

“He had a beard. Definitely a beard. I think.” Then the guy explodes. “Heck, I don't know! It was dark! All I can tell you for sure is that I was this close”—he holds his hands two feet apart—“
this
close to grabbing Nickel Bay Nick.”

I exhale in relief. “In other words, he doesn't have a clue.”

Mr. Wells snaps off the TV and hands the remote to Dr. Sakata. “Our secret is still safe.” He picks up the morning paper. “And have you seen this?” On the front page of the
Nickel Bay News,
under the headline
NICKEL BAY NICK STRIKES AGAIN!!!
are about a dozen photos of happy people who, after dining out last night, returned to their cars to find that they had been . . . visited.

“Today is the ninth day of Christmas, and the media has apparently been doing their math,” Mr. Wells says.

“What does that mean?”

“They've figured out that last night's drop was four days since Nick's first appearance, so it would seem that I . . . or, rather, you . . . are back on Nick's schedule.”

“So they'll be expecting the final mission four days from yesterday.”

“This Sunday. Correct. But they don't know where.”

“Neither do I,” I point out.

“And that's our work for today.”

Dr. Sakata, Hoko and I follow as Mr. Wells rolls out of the living room. “It should come as no surprise that the White Mission requires you to move among crowds of shoppers and slip money into their jackets and purses.”

“You mean put-pocketing.”

“Exactly.”

“But my lessons with Dr. Sakata have been total disasters,” I remind him.

“True.” Mr. Wells nods. “Your put-pocketing skills are nowhere nearly as refined as I would like.
Yet.
But we still have three days, and we'll need every precious minute.” As we enter his office, Mr. Wells says, “The excitement generated by Nickel Bay Nick's first two strikes has resulted in an amazing post-Christmas boom at businesses all over town, which is all very gratifying.” He turns to me. “But it's also a little scary.”

“Why ‘scary'?”

“Because it means that wherever we choose to carry out Sunday's White Mission, crowds will be at record levels,” he explains. “The good news is that more people provide you with more cover. The bad news is that most of those people will be hoping to get a look at Nickel Bay Nick. Instead of sneaking about under cover of darkness, you will now be operating in broad daylight. In full view of thousands of people.”

His words make my stomach flutter. “You make it sound dangerous.”

“It
is
dangerous. Operation Christmas Rescue—and the entire legacy of Nickel Bay Nick—depends on your flawless execution of the White Mission.” He stops rolling. “Taking all of these variables into consideration, I have decided that you'll execute the White Mission . . . here.” He sweeps an arm to the bulletin board, where a full-color foldout map is thumbtacked, and when I see the diagram posted there, the blood drains from my face.

“That's . . . the Four Corners Mall,” I stammer.

“Precisely.”

The Four Corners Mall is a big, five-story shopping arcade, built on what used to be swampland out near the border of Nickel Bay County.

“But . . . I'm not allowed in there!” I say.

He spins his wheelchair around. “I know.”

“You
know
?!” I yelp.

Mr. Wells folds his hands in his lap. “Take a deep breath.”

“But . . . but . . . !” I can't even make a sentence.

“Breathe!” he orders.

So I do.

“Now, Sam. I know from your files that you are . . . how should I put this? . . .
unwelcome
at the Four Corners.”

“
Unwelcome
?” I cry. “I'm banned for life!”

“So it says in the police report,” Mr. Wells says, “but the details are sketchy. Why don't you fill me in?”

So I tell him about all the stores and stalls at the Four Corners Mall where Jaxon and Ivy and I used to shoplift. I tell him about the clerks and mall cops who'd chase after us as we'd run the wrong way down escalators or split off in three separate directions. “And then one day,” I explain, “we go into JC Penney to pick up a few items—”

“And by ‘pick up a few items,'” Mr. Wells interrupts, “you mean . . .”

“I mean exactly what you think I mean.”

Mr. Wells nods. “Go on.”

“As soon as we walk in the store, these two security guards start tailing us, and they don't stop. Finally, we get so nervous, we leave without taking a single thing we'd come for. But we were mad. I mean, we hadn't even done anything!”

“Apparently, your reputations preceded you.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that people had come to expect a certain kind of behavior from you three.”

“Well, yeah, maybe that. Anyway, we decide we want revenge on JC Penney, so we split up and sneak into the store later that same day. And between the three of us, we're carrying a dozen eggs in our jacket pockets.”

“Raw eggs?”

“Fresh off the shelf.”

“Did you steal those, too?”

“What do you think?”

Mr. Wells purses his lips, and I continue. “Each of us goes into a clothing department—men's, women's, children's—and we slip those eggs down into the folds of sweaters or whatever clothes are stacked up on the counters and tables. Then we hide behind the mannequins and watch what happens.”

“Let me guess,” Mr. Wells says. “An unsuspecting shopper wanders by, sees an interesting item of clothing, picks it up and shakes it out to examine it . . .”

“And then
splat
!” I laugh. “From where we're hiding, we can hear eggs falling all over the store. And there's people yelling, ‘Oh, no!' And not just ‘Oh, no!' but a lot of other words that people shouldn't yell in public.”

“You sound proud of what you did.”

“At the time, yeah!” I chuckle. “We thought we were being hard-core. Getting revenge, y'know?”

“And now?”

“Now?”

“Sam,” he says, “you've been Nickel Bay Nick for eight days. You've brought joy and hope to an entire town. You've lifted the spirits of thousands of people. How do you feel now about getting revenge by cracking raw eggs in the aisles of a department store?”

My scalp burns with embarrassment. Mr. Wells lets his words hang in the air long enough to make me squirm, before he says, “And that's when you were caught on tape?”

“Jaxon and Ivy hid their faces, but stupid me! They got me on surveillance camera,” I grumble. “After that, the guards at every entrance to the mall were given my picture and told to stop me on sight. I haven't been back since.”

“And that is why,” Mr. Wells says, “we're going to have you go in disguise. Or, I should say,
disguises.
”

“You mean, like, a few?”

“At least a few,” he says. “But we'll deal with your wardrobe tomorrow. Today we're going to perform a complete inspection of the Four Corners Mall.”

“How?” I moan. “I told you I can't walk in the place.”

“Which is why we're taking a virtual tour,” he says, holding up a DVD.

“What's that?”

“While you were mapping out Bay Front, planning your route for the Green Mission, Dr. Sakata and I visited Four Corners with this in my lap.” He opens a thick hardcover book to reveal a space in the middle where pages have been cut away to create a nesting place for a small digital camera. In front of the lens, a peephole has been punched through the book cover. “From the parking garages to the food court, from the day care center to the tanning salon, we covered the mall.” He inserts the DVD into his computer and punches a button. “Let's visit Four Corners, shall we?”

For the next few hours we watch the chronicle of Mr. Wells's journey. Nothing's changed much since I was last there, so I'm able to call out store names as the camera travels down the arcades. “Here comes the Gap . . . and Brookstone is next . . . and now Jamba Juice.” As we make our way around all five floors of the mall, Mr. Wells points out escalators, elevators, emergency exits and all the doors marked “Employees Only.” “Every step of your journey,” he advises, “always know your nearest escape route.”

After lunch, Dr. Sakata puts me through another humiliating three-hour lesson. Mr. Wells watches quietly as my frustration builds, until Dr. Sakata snatches my wrist for about the hundredth time, and I shout, “I can't do this stupid put-pocketing stuff! Maybe we oughta just scrap the whole White Mission!”

Mr. Wells wheels over, puts a hand on my shoulder and squeezes. “Sam, there's no reason you can't be a terrific put-pocket,” he says. “You're the right height, you've got quick hands, and as you proved last night on the Green Mission, you can move like a panther.”

I drop my head. “Then how come I suck?”

“Because you lack confidence.”

I look up. “Confidence?”

“Dr. Sakata and I both notice that whenever you move in close to your mark, you hesitate. And that hesitation will ruin you.” He releases his grip on my shoulder. “Once you can act with confidence, you'll be fine.”

“So I've got three days to learn confidence,” I mumble.

“You don't need to
learn
confidence,” he corrects me. “Anybody who can sneak a Nickel Bay Buck into an idling police car is not lacking in confidence. Now you've got to apply it.”

At the end of the afternoon, Mr. Wells hands me a copy of the Four Corners Mall map. “Take this home and study it. Tomorrow, we'll discuss where you'll enter the mall on Sunday, the route you'll take, and how to get you out of there undetected.”

I wag a finger at him. “Don't think I don't know what you're doing, Mr. Wells.”

“What am I doing?”

“First you sent me to Colodner's Drugstore for the Red Mission. Then, for the Green Mission, you dropped me off in front of that old graffiti I painted, and now you're sending me back to Four Corners Mall.” I smack the map against my open palm. “You want me to feel guilty by making me return to places where I've gotten into trouble. I'm right, aren't I?”

“What choice do I have, Sam?” Mr. Wells leans forward. “I can't think of a single shopping area, street or neighborhood of Nickel Bay where you haven't caused trouble, done damage or wreaked havoc. Can you?”

My mouth hangs open until I snap it shut.

“Didn't think so,” he says, and rolls away.

• • •

When I slip through the hole in the fence behind our garage, I panic at the sound of a lawnmower revving right behind me. Whipping around, I find Jaxon sitting on our stoop, doing one of his impressions.

I laugh nervously. “Good one!” I say, not wanting to let on how he startled me.

“If it isn't Alexander Sam-ilton!” he cries. “What're you doin' out in that alley, buddy?”

“I'm, uh . . . just getting some air,” I splutter, and before I can slip Mr. Wells's map under my jacket, he snatches it from my hand.

“Whaddya got?” He reads the cover. “Four Corners Mall? Are you checkin' out the after-Christmas sales?”

“Who's got the money for that?” I laugh as I pluck the map from his hands. “So. What're you doin' here?”

“I hate Christmas vacation!” he shouts, throwing his head back. “It's practically two weeks already, and I've been stuck with my boring family, doing holiday crap the whole time.”