The Quick Fix (7 page)

I was able to furnish my office with rich people's “junk.” Rich people apparently have a different definition of junk than I do. To me, junk is something that doesn't work anymore; to them, junk is something that doesn't match the new pillows they just bought.

I had an old wood desk and matching chair, a beat-up but comfortable sofa with a faded floral slipcover, a couple of lamps, and an old-fashioned radio that had needed quite a bit of elbow grease to get working again. It was my own office: a little dark, a little musty, and totally private—crucial for a business like mine.

I pulled the piece of wood out of my back pocket and put it on the desk. Before I studied it, I did what I always do when I come down to my office. I opened the center drawer on my desk and pulled out the sheet of paper they'd found in my dad's car five days after he went missing. The car was in a parking garage, four states away; this paper was in the glove compartment. On the sheet of
paper, neatly typed in the left corner, was: TMS136P15. I had been turning it over in my head for years and still had no idea what it meant.

The phone rang. I picked it up. “Yeah?”

“Matt?”

“As far as you know.”

“It's Kevin. Where've you been? I've been trying to call you.”

“Yeah, so I heard. You should really switch to decaf.”

“What the hell happened today?” he yelled.

“Don't pretend you don't already know.”

“Listen, man, Vinny thinks you weren't being completely honest with him. He seems to think that you knew Melissa had the piece of wood he was looking for.”

“And if I did?”

Kevin sighed heavily.

“You should hold the phone away from your mouth before you do that,” I said. “I can practically feel your spit in my ear.”

“Do you have the piece of wood?”

“I don't want to talk about it.”

“That means yes,” he said. “Or no.”

“Well, as long as you've got it narrowed down to those two choices …”

“Listen, Matt, I know we haven't been the best of friends lately, but— I mean, you really saved my butt a couple of weeks ago. Come on, let me help you.”

“Nothing to help with, Kev. Really.”

There was a pause.

“All right,” he said. “Listen, Matt … I'm serious … don't stonewall yourself right into the Outs, okay? Ask for help if you need it.”

“All right,” I said. And I meant it.

“See you in school tomorrow,” he said.

“Now how am I supposed to sleep tonight, with all this anticipation!”

He laughed. “Shut up.”

“I'll dream of you,” I whispered.

“Ugh,” he said, and hung up.

I put the receiver back in the cradle. The phone rang again immediately. I picked it up.

“Yeah?”

“Matt?”

“Hold on, let me check … Yeah, it's me.”

“It's Mac.” Jimmy MacGregor was the editor of the school paper and one of the few honest kids at the Frank. “Where ya been? I been trying to reach ya.”

“Yeah, so I heard. You should really switch to decaf.”

“Nah. I'd miss the jitters too much. Listen, can you meet me at Sal's?”

“When?”

“In three weeks,” he said. “Now! Why do you think I've been calling?”

“Because you missed me and my sparkling brown eyes? Hey, don't you have a newspaper to put out or something?”

“I don't tell you your job, do I?”

“The way I've been doing it lately, maybe you should. Listen, I've already had a busy day,” I said. “Can this wait until I recover? Say, in four to six months?”

“Stop being such a sissy and meet me at Sal's in five minutes. You'll thank me.”

“Can I just thank you now and not go?” I asked, but he had already hung up. I had to hand it to him; he had given me just enough info to make me curious but not enough to know what he was talking about. It looked like I was going to Sal's after all.

I picked the wooden block up off of my desk and looked around the basement for a place to hide it.

I had an old metal filing cabinet that I kept my case files in. There was no lock on it, but the bottom drawer stuck. I pushed on the side of the cabinet and jiggled the
drawer in the special way it took to get it open. Then I put the block of wood, and the bag of designer Pixy Stix, underneath a stack of old school papers. It was the best I could do at the moment.

I headed outside, locked the door, checked it twice, then pedaled off to Sal's.

I was riding to Sal's, I went over the events of the day. I was trying to wrap my head around the particulars of the case, but like a board game bought at a tag sale, there were a bunch of pieces missing. Melissa Scott (cheerleader, member of the popular elite) hires me to watch her boyfriend, Will Atkins (captain of the basketball team, most elite member of the popular elite), because she thinks he's acting strange. Also, he gives her a block of wood to hold but tells her it's no big deal. It may not be a big deal to him, but it turns out that it's a big deal
to Vinny Biggs and the Thompsons, which pretty much guarantees there's something fishy about it. Melissa gets put in the Outs by the Thompsons, who take the block of wood. Then someone opens Tina Thompson's locker like a tin can but leaves the wood inside. Why? What was so special about this particular “decorative piece of wood”? And who gave it to Will to hold in the first place?

It was a week before Halloween, so some of the lawns looked like sets for low-budget horror movies. The air had a bite to it that wasn't there a couple of weeks ago, and I knew that pretty soon it'd be too cold to ride my bike. The wind would freeze my face off.

Sal Becker was a kid in my class who wanted to make a place where kids could get a sandwich and a soda without having to deal with the “grown-up shuffle” that kids had to face in most places. So Sal and his dad spent the summer fixing up the big old toolshed that was sitting to the side of their house. They put in a bar and some tables, made the place look nice without looking too showy. Various tag-sale lamps were scattered around, giving the place a warm, inviting glow. Sal had a little toaster oven behind the bar and could whip up a toasted cheese sandwich, or a peanut butter and jelly (strawberry or grape). Those were the only
two things on the menu. He also served root beer and cream soda—the good kind, in glass bottles. His parents let him run the place himself. They only had two rules: no fighting and no fighting.

I walked in and grabbed a cream soda at the bar. Jimmy was sitting at a table in the back with Cynthia Shea. She was wearing sweats and a baseball cap pulled low over her eyes, trying her best to look inconspicuous. It was like trying to hide a Porsche by putting a napkin over it. When Jimmy saw me, he stood up and waved.

“Mac,” I said, trying to keep my voice from cracking.

“Matt. This is Cynthia—”

“Shea,” I said finishing his sentence. “Head cheerleader.”

“We met earlier today,” she said.

“Twice,” I countered. “And so far, we're oh-for-two. So what's the plan for the third time? You going to punch me out or just have me arrested?”

“I want to hire you,” she said.

“I don't hire myself out for abuse. Plus, I'm sure you can find someone who'll let you yell at them for free, just for your attention.”

“I'm sorry about earlier. Jimmy here vouches for you. That's good enough for me.”

“Cynthia's family and mine go way back,” Mac added. I looked at him. He was more hyped up than usual, which I didn't think was possible.

“That's great. Congratulations,” I said. “If you're trying to hire me to find out who pulled the trigger on Melissa, you're too late.”

“Who?” Cynthia asked.

I didn't answer.

She looked at Jimmy, who just shrugged. I couldn't tell if he didn't know or was just bluffing.

“Who?” she repeated.

“Why do you want to know?” I asked. “So you can find them? Get a little revenge?”

“No,” she said.

“Yeah, next time try saying it without gritting your teeth,” I said. “You might be more convincing.”

“Did it have something to do with these?” She threw a handful of the Thompsons' special Pixy Stix on the table.

Jimmy Mac's eyes opened wide, as if she had just handed him a lit stick of dynamite. “Where'd you get those?” he whispered.

“Did it?” she asked me without even looking at Jimmy.

I didn't answer. Jimmy tried to pick the Pixy Stix up off the table, but Cynthia put her hand on top of his.
Once he stopped trying, she took her hand away. He left his hand on the table, obviously hoping she'd do it again.

“Melissa was a client of yours, wasn't she?” she asked.

“I know you're used to getting your way,” I said, “so this is going to be a major disappointment, but that is none of your business.”

“Hey, come on, Matt,” Jimmy Mac said. “I know her. I'm vouching for her.”

“Don't take this the wrong way, Jimmy, but judging by what I've seen so far, you'd vouch for her about anything … even if she said she was the queen of England and had traveled here from Mars.”

“Is there a right way to take that, jerk?” he asked.

“To hell with you, Mac.” I stood up. My chair made a loud raspberry as it skidded on the floor. “I don't appreciate you springing this surprise two-against-one consultation about what my next job should be.”

“Shut up!” Cynthia yelled. If the kids who were in Sal's hadn't been staring at her already, they were now. “Cut all this macho posturing! Both of you.”

I glared at her, but she glared back at me. I learned a long time ago that there was no way to win a staring
contest—or a glaring contest—with a pretty girl. I sat down and looked away.

Cynthia leaned over and whispered in Mac's ear. He had a dreamy look on his face, like he had waited his entire life for this scenario. But Cynthia must've whispered something different in Mac's dream scenario than in the one playing out in real life, because by the time she finished, his expression had changed to a bucket of ice-cold realization.

“I have to go,” Jimmy said in a stiff voice. “Paper's due out tomorrow.” He got up to leave, slowly, as if he were hoping for Cynthia to reconsider and stop him. She didn't. After a few seconds, he accepted his fate and walked toward the door. I grunted at him as he passed; he grunted back.

Cynthia waited until he was gone before she spoke again. “You guys couldn't have apologized to each other?”

“What do you think that grunt was? Jeez, for guys, that's practically falling into each other's arms.”

She was giving me a long hard look. I could see it out of the corner of my eye. There was no way I was going to look at her directly. She was too pretty, and I needed to remain professional.

“Why are you angry with me?” she asked. It was an odd question, and the last thing I expected.

“What makes you think I'm angry with you? I don't even know you.”

“I was just thinking the same thing. And yet here you are, acting like I'm your mortal enemy.”

“Let's just say I have a hard time talking to girls who expect the world to collapse at their feet when they bat their eyelashes.”

“I haven't batted them once,” she said.

“No, but I did see you purse your lips a couple of times.”

“Are you watching my lips?” she asked. A small smile started to creep across her mouth.

“Uhhh …” was all I could muster. The supersmooth Matt Stevens strikes again.

“Forget it. I withdraw the question,” she said. “So can I hire you, or what?”

“Or what, for the moment,” I said. I pointed to the Pixy Stix still on the table. “Where'd you get these?”

“Some of the girls on the squad. They use them before a game sometimes.”

“You allow that?”

“No, but they do it anyway,” she said, obviously not happy about it. “Well, they
did
. As of today, they can suck down as many Stix as they want … they just won't be cheerleaders anymore.”