Do Not Inhale
A Drake Dallas Adventure
Published by PNC Publishing at Smashwords
Copyright 2011 N.C. Pennington
* * * * *
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. Cover photos by: Jeffrey Leiendecker and Biohazardt, SXC.
* * * * *
Do Not Inhale
A Drake Dallas Adventure
Chapter 1
“Okay, left side kick!” Sensei Matsu yelled. Drake leaned back and snapped his leg at the red kicking bag Alex held. Alex turned his head and grimaced as the blow knocked him back half-a-foot.
“Again!” Sensei yelled. Drake grit his teeth and kicked again. This time he knocked Alex off the blue cushioned pad onto the hardwood perimeter.
“Back on the mat,” Sensei said to Alex. He walked over to them and took the padded shield and gave it to Drake.
“Right side kick!”
Alex powered his bare foot into the padding. Drake rocked backwards gently, but didn’t move his feet. He smiled at Alex.
“Going to have to kick harder than that,” he said. Alex showed his clenched teeth, pivoted, and smashed his foot into the pad. Drake held firm.
Alex set to kick again. He lifted his foot into the air. Suddenly he placed his foot back on the ground and lunged forward and brought his other knee low into the pad.
Drake’s eyes widened as he tipped over and smacked onto the mat. Alex then felt a firm hand on his shoulder. He looked over his shoulder into the black eyes of the sensei.
“We’re practicing side kicks, Alex,” he said in a quiet, reproving voice.
Alex lowered his head. “Yes, Sensei.” He pointed to the sign on the wall, which read “Ten Commandments of the Martial Artist.”
“On the sign,” Alex said. “Number three, ‘Thou shalt be ready for anything.”
Slowly Sensei nodded his head; he looked at Drake. “He’s got a point young duckling.” The others in the room laughed. “All right. That’s it for today!” Sensei yelled.
Drake got to his feet. “Duckling?”
“Quack, quack,” Joey said as he walked to the showers.
“Duckling?” Drake said again. “My name is Drake. Not Duck!”
“Hey, I did knock you down. And you’ve got thirty pounds on me,” Alex said.
“You surprised me.”
“Be ready for anything.”
“Yeah, yeah. I still can’t believe he called me ‘duckling’.”
Alex shrugged. “Quack, quack?” And he took off running, Drake right behind him.
Fifteen minutes later the two of them stepped out of the dojo, each with a duffle bag over their shoulders holding their white uniforms and red belts.
A girl, in her early-teens, pushed off of the street lamp she’d been leaning against and approached them.
“Drake?” she said.
“Uh, hi.”
“You don’t recognize me?”
He frowned. “Oh, yeah. You live two houses over from me. Trinity, isn’t it?”
“Right, we also were in the same Spanish class,” she said.
“Oh.” Drake nodded thoughtfully as though he remembered, but he didn’t.
“Last several months you were in the paper a lot. On TV too.”
“So was I,” Alex said pushing forward.
“Yeah, I guess I was.”
“We were,” Alex corrected, but no one seemed to notice.
“You’ve been called ‘the young detectives, real life Hardy boys’,” she continued.
“Right. It’s kind of embarrassing.”
“Yep. It’s embarrassing,” Alex said. He may as well have been talking to the sidewalk with all the attention he got.
“Are you building up to something?” Drake asked.
Her cheeks turned pink. “Well, yes. I wanted to ask you a favor.”
“Go on,” Drake said as she paused.
“I lost my cat.”
“Oh boy,” Alex said. “She lost her cat.”
“Not just any cat. She’s a Sphynx cat. Her name is Coco. She’s pregnant, and every kitten she gives birth to is worth over seventy dollars.”
“Sphynx? Those are the hairless cats, right?” Drake asked.
Trinity nodded.
Alex grabbed Drakes shirt. “Hey duckling.”
Drake held up a finger. “One moment,” he said to Trinity. Then he turned on Alex and pushed him back five paces.
“Don’t you ever call me that again!” He said under his breath.
Alex held his hands up, palms outward. “Whatever you want, chief. I just had to get your attention.”
“You got it. Speak.”
“Let’s get going.”
“We’re going to,” Drake said.
“I mean now. Forget this cat stuff. We don’t find cats.”
“Why not?”
“Look if you’re trying to impress her, forget it. If she was interested in you, she wouldn’t have waited until she lost something to talk to you.”
“Mind your own business.”
“All she wants is her expensive cat back. She’s not into you.”
“Shut up and quit assuming things,” Drake said. He walked back to Trinity. “We’ll keep an eye out for your cat.”
“Thanks,” she said softly and moved off.
“I can’t believe it. ‘Can you find my cat’?” Alex mimicked.
“Hey, I sorta have an ulterior motive here,” Drake said.
Alex smirked. “I knew it.”
Drake elbowed him. “Not that kind of an ulterior motive. Say the cat has six kittens. Seventy times six is. . .”
“Four hundred twenty,” Alex said.
“Half of that is two hundred ten. You and I will get that. We’ll split it. It won’t take more than a day to find the cat, if it’s in the area.”
“One hundred five dollars each for a day’s work. Not bad,” Alex said. “What makes you so sure we can find the cat in a day?”
“A hairless cat wouldn’t survive outside here. I don’t care if it is summer. It still gets pretty cool at night. Second, people would remember if they saw something as strange as a cat with no hair.”
“So you think someone’s got her?”
“Right. And it would probably be someone in my neighborhood.”
“Like I said, I’m all for this cat finding business.”
“Yeah right,” Drake said.
“I convinced you,” Alex said with mock sincerity.
Drake gave him a shove.
“Hey, watch it,” Alex said. “Look.” He pointed down the street to Marv’s Pet Shoppe.
“What?”
“Let’s buy some catnip. Maybe it will come in handy tomorrow.”
Drake shrugged. “You got some money on you?”
Alex nodded and jogged off. Drake trailed.
By the time Drake reached the door, Alex was already inside. He stopped and bent over slightly and sucked in some air. Man, Alex was fast. Those annoying bells tinkled overhead as he entered. Alex was next to the main checkout counter. The store seemed deserted.
“Where is everyone?”
“The guy’s in the back. I guess some family is buying a dog,” Alex said.
“In the back?”
“Yeah, this place has a whole dog kennel in the back.”
Drake nodded. “Wow.”
Alex held up a smallish package. “I got the stuff. It’s expensive.” Drake nodded disinterestedly. A man came out from the back.
“Okay,” he said. “Got what you need?”
Alex nodded and placed the catnip and his money on the counter. A dog barked in the back; then it barked again. Several erupted at once, and there was a crash followed by some savage barking.
The man’s face became pale. “That sounds like . . . the pit bull.”
Drake whipped around. “Pit bull?” He raced towards the door to the back. The man picked up a stun gun.
“Stop!” He called after Drake.
Drake didn’t.
Inside the back, there was a man and woman backed up against the far wall. Two low-built, powerful looking dogs were pressing against them.
Chapter 2
Drake sprinted towards them. He kicked one of them. He chopped at the top of the neck of the other with the “knife hand” karate move. His hand glanced off of the dog. The other came from behind and clamped down on his ankle.
In a fluid motion, Drake knelt and drove his fist into the dog’s nose. It skittered backwards whimpering, its claws scrapping at the smooth concrete floor for traction.
The dog he’d karate-chopped jumped on his back. He reached backwards grabbing its front paws and slung him over his shoulder. The dog’s back smacked solidly against the hard floor. Instantly, it spun like a corkscrew and was on its legs again. It lunged straight for his neck.
Just before the saliva covered teeth sunk into the soft flesh of his neck, he got his arm in the way. The dog’s jaw smashed down on Drake’s forearm.
Drake screamed and writhed as the pressure of hundred’s of pounds per square inch compacted on his arm. There was an electric snapping sound.
Then the dog sagged. The store worker removed the stun gun from the body of the dog. With both hands, he pried the dog’s mouth open. Drake extracted his arm. He tried clinching his fingers; pain shot up and down his arm. He grimaced and drew air in through his clamped teeth.
“I told you not to come back here,” the guy said.
Alex looked over the man’s shoulder. “Yeah, he told you that.”
Drake looked up at the couple, who was still pressed up against the wall.
“They needed help,” he answered.
The two, guy and girl, moved forward. “Thanks kid,” the guy said. To the store guy he said, “Maybe we’ll come back another time.” Quickly they walked by. Seconds later the bells over the door tinkled as they exited.
“Come, I have some antiseptic behind the counter.”
“It’s broken,” Drake said.
Alex gave him an ugly look and shook his head. “He said to stop—not to come back here.”
“Shut up, Alex.” He got up and started walking towards the front.
Alex got in front of him. “Do you think you’re from Krypton?”
“Huh?”
“The planet Superman came from?”
“What are you driving at?”
“Quit acting like you got to save the world,” Alex said.
Drake held up his arm with the imprint of a dog’s jaw. “Look, I’ve got more important things right now to take care of.”
“You’ve got an ego problem.”
“Shut up, Alex!”
The two of them stared at each other. “We’ll talk more.”
“Get out of my way.” Drake pushed him into a kennel and walked by. At the front desk, the guy cleaned the surface wounds.
“Can I borrow your phone?” Drake asked. “I need to call my aunt. I’ll have her take me to urgent car.”
As Drake dialed, Alex stalked out. The two glowered at each other.
A couple hours later, Drake sat on the edge of his bed. Alex stood at the foot board. Drake’s mother wasn’t home. She usually wasn’t. By day she was a secretary to some lawyer snob, and half of the night she was a waitress at a truck stop that never closed. Money had always seemed short since Drake’s dad had died in Iraq years ago.
Drake’s arm hadn’t been broken all the way through. He had a jet-black, lightweight cast on it.
“We need to talk,” Alex said.
“About?”
“I think you’ve got HS.”
Drake frowned and shook his head. “What?”
“Hero Syndrome.”
“Oh, brother.”
“Drake, listen to me,” Alex said. “Do you remember when you were almost hit by that car last month?”
“The driver was going to smash into that old lady.”
“And it was your job to save her?”
“Who else was going to do it?” Drake asked.
“Some girl comes to you about a cat. So you’ll go hunting for it. Some dog gets loose. So you give up your body to ‘save’ some couple.”
“What is your problem with me doing good?”
“So you threw a picture frame at some insane insurance agent and kept my dad from being shot up. Does that make you God’s gift to humankind?”
“You don’t get it do you?” Drake said. “No one is doing these things except me. I have to.”
“You’ve watched superhero movies way too many times.”
“You know, you’re really bothering me. Why all this all of a sudden? Is this about Trinity?” Drake asked.
“You’re going to die.”
“No, I won’t.”
“You’re going to get KILLED!” Alex yelled. “If you don’t stop trying to be everyone’s savior, you’re dead. Normally, you’re the most level-headed guy I know. You’re extremely smart. You think better than most adults! But these last several months, you haven’t been you. All you can think about is gratifying your ego. It’s like someone has removed your brain. You’ve become a do-gooding moron.”
A pregnant pause followed. Still more silence. Alex stared at Drake; Drake stared back, but the anger was gone.
“I don’t know,” he said.
“You do know. Think about it. Get control of yourself.”
“So you don’t want to find the cat?”
“I’ll be here tomorrow morning. We’re going to find the cat; I want the money,” Alex said.
“Whatever,” Drake said.
“Just think about what I said.” He pulled the door to Drake’s room shut, and he left. Drake heard him exit and watched him walk away through his bedroom window.
He stared down at his forearm in the cast. What was he going to tell his mom about his arm? She’d seemed to be so worried about him recently. Maybe he really had “lost his head” as of recent. Kind of a scary thought.
He decided to go outside for some fresh air.
The next morning Alex appeared at Drake’s front door. He was a little breathless from his bike ride over.
Drake was still munching some frosted flakes. “Want some?”
“So we’re okay, you and me?” Alex asked.
Drake shrugged. “If friends can’t speak their minds to each other, what is the world coming to?”
“We’re cousins,” Alex corrected.
Drake shrugged again. Alex took a bowl and spoon and poured himself a bowlful. He began to eat them dry.
“Milk?” Drake asked and pushed the carton towards him.
“No. It mutes the flavor.”
Drake stared at him.
“Hey,” Alex said. “Everyone is allowed to be strange in at least one way.”
“So that’s the only thing you’re strange about?” Drake asked.
“What did your mom say about your arm?”
“I was asleep before she got home. She was gone before I awoke.”
Alex put down his half eaten bowl of flakes. “Let’s go.”
“You’re not finished.”
“Save ‘em for me.”
Drake snorted in disgust. He followed his cousin outside.
“So we start with your next door neighbor?” Alex asked.
“Yeah, let me do the talking.”
“What’s my job?”
“Watch.”
“Watch what?” Alex asked.
“Everything. Notice everything.”
“Why? You’re not making sense.”
“Just because. I have this . . . feeling. Just watch, okay?”
They rang the doorbell at the front. A guy in slippers, robe, and newspaper in hand opened the door.
“Hello!” Drake said in his most cheerful voice.
“Huh?”
“Hello. You know, good morning,” Drake said explaining himself.
“Are you guys selling candy bars or something?” The guy asked.
“Do you want candy bars?” Drake asked.
“Huh?”
“Candy bars. Are you in the mood for candy bars?”
The guy grunted. “Maybe later. Not right now.”
Drake beamed. “Great news. I don’t have a single candy bar!”
“Uh, kid, you’re confusing me.” The guy leaned against the door frame. “What are you here for?”
“We’re not selling candy bars. We’re here for a cat.”
“I don’t want to buy a cat either.”
“Cool. I don’t want to sell you one,” Drake said.
The man let out an exasperated breath. “My coffee is getting cold.” He started to shut the door.
Drake held up a hand. The man stopped.
“Have you seen a hairless cat?”
“What?” The guy said.
“You just woke up, didn’t you,” Drake said. “A hairless cat is a cat with no hair. Have you seen one recently?”
“A cat with no hair,” the guy said. “Doesn’t exist.” He slammed the door shut. Drake walked away.
“Hey, so what was I watching for?” Alex asked running up behind him.
“Nothing there. He hasn’t seen the cat.”
“You sure got under his skin.”
“He got under mine first,” Drake said.
They knocked on all the neighbor’s doors. Three out of seven people had a missing cat or dog too.
Drake and Alex stood on the street corner.
“Well?” Alex asked.
“Interesting,” Drake said staring across the street. “That house over there has a ‘beware of the dog’ sign on the fence.”
“Where?” Alex asked. Drake pointed. Alex squinted. “You can read that from here?”
“Are you noticing a pattern?” Drake asked.
“You mean missing pets?”
“Four out of eight of my neighbors are missing pets. Some recently, some not so recent. But still, it is interesting.”
“So what’s it mean, brain boy?”
“I don’t have a clue,” Drake said.
“Couldn’t be coincidence?”
Drake shrugged. “It’d be a weird coincident. Let’s go talk to the guy over there with the dog sign.”
“What’s up with that tone of voice?” Alex asked.
“I know him. His name is Cliff. I believe his unaware of the existence of bathtubs. He’s not the nicest guy around,” Drake said. They crossed the street.
“He hasn’t painted in a while,” Alex said.
“It’s the same coat of paint that was on it from when I can first remember.” Drake rang the bell.
The door opened four inches; a chain prevented it from opening more. Inside looked all dark. Then just above the chain an eye appeared.
“Yes?” A low, quiet voice came from inside.
“Cliff? You know me; it’s Drake.”
The door shut. There was a scraping noise as the chain was undone. The door was opened enough to show all of Cliff. His shirt was too short—his belly stuck out under its hem. The shorts he was wearing where heavily stained.
“What?”
“Do you have a dog?”
Cliff turned his head sideways and stared at Drake crooked. “Why?”
“You have that sign on your fence that says ‘beware of the dog’,” Drake said.
“That’s just to keep intruders away.”
“So you don’t have a dog?”
Cliff stared at him even more suspiciously. He breathed very audibly through his nose. “No dog.”
“I see. We were just wondering because a lot of people here have been missing their pets.”
“How would you know? You don’t have one,” Cliff said.
Drake stared at Cliff for a moment. “How do you know that?”
Cliff breathed loudly though his nose, but he never got a chance to answer.
Chapter 3
A white, fluffy cat head poked its head between Cliff’s ankles. Cliff raised his foot and kicked his heel into the cat’s face. The cat meowed loudly as it tumbled backwards into the darkness of the house. Then there was more meowing and more scuffling.
“I’m watching, and I just saw something,” Alex said. He put his hand hard into Drake’s back. Drake stumbled forward and ended up belly-to-belly with Cliff. Cliff stared down at him.
“Hey, mind if we come in for a moment?”
Alex’s hand pushed into his back again walking Cliff backwards into his house. It took just a moment for their eyes to adjust.
Drake found himself staring down at a short-haired gray cat. He picked it up. It had a collar on. At the end of it was a little heart shaped tag. Stamped in tiny letters on it was the word “Anderson.”
Drake looked up at Cliff. “Is this your cat?”
“I found it,” Cliff said.
“It’s Mrs. Anderson’s cat. We talked to her this morning.”
“Take it back to her. I don’t care,” Cliff said. “Would you guys get out of here? I have stuff to do.”
Drake picked up the white cat that Cliff had kicked. He started to look at its collar. Cliff stepped over and grabbed at the cat.
“Give me that,” he said.
Drake pulled back. “What don’t you want me to see?”
“Nothing,” Cliff said. He let go of the cat. Quickly he snatched at the tag on the cat’s collar and snapped it off and flung it over his shoulder. He smirked at Drake.
“So you like other people’s cats?” Drake asked.
“What if I do?”
“It isn’t legal to grab others cats.”
“It is if they wander on my property.” His face suddenly became very irritated looking. “Now both of you get out of here. I never invited you in anyway.”
“One thing first,” Drake said. “The whole reason we came over this morning is because we’re looking for my neighbor’s cat. You wouldn’t miss her. She’s hairless. And seeing your fancy for the neighbors’ cats, you must have seen her.”
Cliff shook his head. “No.”
Drake shrugged. “Okay. Let’s go Alex.” He turned around. Alex wasn’t there. “Alex?”
“He’s outside,” Cliff said. Drake looked out. He wasn’t there.
“Alex!” Drake yelled.
“Over here,” Alex’s voice came from deeper in the house.
Cliff swore.
Alex was standing in front of an opened door leading down into a basement.
“Get away from that!” Cliff shouted.
“Animals. Lots of animals down there,” Alex said. “I can smell them.” He was already sounding stuffed up as his allergies were kicking in.
Drake went down the steps three at a time. The entire basement was cages and kennels. Cats and dogs filled all of them. Cliff clumped down the stairs behind him. He grabbed Drake’s collar from behind and began to drag him up the stairs.
Drake reached backwards and found two pressure points on Cliff’s hand. His fingers dug into the soft flesh. Cliff swore again.
Drake spun around, and Cliff faced each other, Cliff higher up the stairs.
“Kid, get out of my house,” Cliff said. His voice had become unnaturally quiet and strained.
“I’m going to find the hairless cat first.”
“Look, you want the hairless cat? I’ll give you the freakin’ bald cat.” He pushed passed Drake. Moments later he returned holding a fat-looking Sphynx cat. He thrust it into Drake’s arms.
“Get out of here!”
“I was just leaving anyway,” Drake said. Alex was waiting for him outside.
“Doing better?” He asked.
“Oh, man. My lungs tightened up instantly on a whiff from that basement,” Alex said. “Hey, you got the cat!”
“Yeah, I got the cat.”
“It’s almost lunch. Let’s drop the cat off and go to my dad’s place for pizza.”
Trinity wasn’t home, but her mom was. So they left the cat with her. At Lenny’s Pizza, Alex and Drake shared a large pizza and a two liter of soda. Alex had nothing but anchovies on his side. Drake had the “Wisconsinite Pizza” on his half—bratwurst sausage chunks and sauerkraut under one hundred percent Wisconsin cheese.
Uncle Lenny brought them their pizza personally. “You boys have some strange tastes in pizza.”
“Hey, Uncle Lenny,” Drake said. “I’ve heard that you like pineapple and jalapeños with Canadian bacon.”
“What’s strange about that? Spicy Hawaiian pizza!”
“More like hot, chewy, and sweet,” Drake said.
“That just sounds wrong,” Alex said.
“Whatever. Just enjoy your pizza, boys.” He left.
For a while, the two of them just sat and ate. Finally on his fourth piece, Alex broke the silence.
“So?”
Drake shrugged.
“Go ahead. Give me your thoughts.”
“I don’t know,” Drake said.
“What’s he doing with all those animals?”
“I don’t know,” Drake repeated.
“I’ll tell you what I think. He’s selling them.”
“The only valuable pet I saw was Trinity’s cat,” Drake said. “You don’t steal pets to resell them. There’s no money there.”
“You’ve missed my point. I didn’t mean that he sells them whole.”
“Um, Alex,” Drake said. “I’m eating pizza, okay?”
“Oh come on,” Alex said. “You’re stronger than that.”
“I don’t think you’re right. Laboratory animals can be bought for experiments,” Drake said.
“You’re still missing my point.” He leaned closer. “You can’t buy animals to use for inhumane purposes.”
Drake shook his head. “No.”
“Perhaps he sells them to satanic groups for ritual killing.”
“You’re being unrealistic. I don’t think so,” Drake said.
“Okay, what’s your theory?” Alex asked. “Do you think he just stole them because he likes dogs and cats?”
“Why couldn’t that be the answer?” Drake asked.
“No, you tell me why that couldn’t be the answer,” Alex said.
“Because it doesn’t make sense,” Drake said thoughtfully.
“Exactly.”
“Do you know why it doesn’t make sense?”
Alex shrugged. “It’s your job to figure that out.”
“We barged into his house.”
“Kids should never go into a stranger’s house alone,” Alex said.
Drake continued, ignoring him. “We went into his basement. I hurt him. Repeatedly he asked us to leave. We didn’t.” Drake looked up. “If someone did that in your house what would you do?”
“Throw them on their back and punch them in the throat.”
“Yeah, yeah. But what if you weren’t Jet Li.”
“Then I’d call the police,” Alex said.
Drake nodded. “He didn’t even threaten us with police.”
“That’s weird.”
“Yeah,” Drake said.
“So what’s your theory? What’s going on?”
Drake shook his head. “I don’t have a theory. It doesn’t make any sense.”
“Oh come on,” Alex said. “You’ve got to give me something.”
Drake looked at his watch. “I got to go or I’ll be late.” He stood.
“Late for what?”
“My late summer job. You remember. I’m working with that old man fixing bicycles.” Quickly he left Lenny’s Pizza and ran towards the bike shop.
The bike shop looked like it itself might fall apart, but looks can be deceiving. Mr. Cates, owner of the bike shop, had told Drake that the building had been constructed back in the middle of the 1800s. It was built to last.
Drake peeked at his watch as he slipped in the door. He was fifteen minutes late. Mr. Cates didn’t seem to be around. Drake pulled his full leather apron off of its nail. There was a bike already mounted in his repair vise. He removed the tag from the handle bars and started to read it.
“Drake!”
Drake spun around.
“This is the third time you are late,” Mr. Cates said. He was almost as short as Drake—barely over five feet tall. He still had all his hair, but it was fully white.
“Yes, Mr. Cates. I’m sorry.”
“Why are you late?”
“My dog ate my watch,” Drake said.
A smile cracked on Mr. Cates face. Quickly it disappeared. “None of that. Come on, give me the details.” His face became comically stern. “Or I’ll have to write you up.”
“I was at my uncle’s pizza shop with my cousin. We were discussing earlier events of the day.”
“’Earlier events of the day’?”
Drake started working on the bike in front of him. He told Mr. Cates all about Cliff, his basement of stolen animals, and his not even threatening the police.
“Something’s definitely up,” Drake concluded. A silence followed. Drake looked up. Mr. Cates just continued to oil the chain he was working on.
“Well?” Drake said.
“Did you know I was a spy in World War II?”
Chapter 4
Drake’s eyes widened.
“Well, we weren’t called spies. We were called ‘military intelligence’. We were spies just the same. So you know what that means?”
“You’re good at finding things out without others finding you out,” Drake said.
“Right.” Mr. Cates nodded. “You’re right. Something’s up with your neighbor. You should figure it out. Maybe it’s something big.”
Drake couldn’t believe an adult was encouraging him. Not that he needed any encouragement. “Figure it out how?”
“I’ve never lost interest in spy equipment. I have lots of it. Perhaps I’ll loan you some of it tomorrow. If nothing else, it will keep you off the streets and away from drugs.”
“You’ll loan me spy equipment?”
“It’s worth several hundred dollars. So you’ll have to be careful with it, but I know you will.”
“How do you know that?” Drake asked remembering just moments earlier when he was in trouble for being late.
“You’re trustworthy. You tell the truth,” Mr. Cates said.
“For example?”
“You didn’t lie about being at the pizza shop. I knew you were there.”
“How?”
“I was spying on you,” Mr. Cates said. He smiled a crooked smile.
Later that afternoon, Drake and Alex were walking towards Drake’s house.
“Spy equipment? Like bugs and infra-red night scopes?” Alex asked.
“He didn’t say what stuff exactly he was going to loan us,” Drake said.
Alex patted Drake’s arm. “Trinity.”
Drake looked up to see Trinity walking towards them. She stopped in front of them.
“Hey guys,” she said. “Thanks for finding my cat. Where was she?”
“Over at Cl—” Alex started.
Drake flung his hand into Alex’s stomach. “Just around.”
“Well, thank you,” she said.
“So,” Drake said. “Do you have buyers for all of the kittens yet?”
“Actually, yes.”
“Great. Since we found the cat, I was thinking that we could split the profits.” Drake smiled brightly.
Trinity’s face became ugly. “Get away from me, you creep.” She pushed Drake backwards. He stumbled, and his foot caught on Alex’s. He went down to the sidewalk hard. Trinity stalked off.
Drake got back to his feet and spit towards her. “You bi—”
“Hey, watch it,” Alex said.
“But she. . .”
“Yeah, I know. Let’s go.” He began moving Drake away from Trinity’s retreating figure towards his house.
The next day Drake and Alex were just leaving an early karate lesson and were heading to the bike shop to get the promised spy equipment.
“I would’ve killed you,” Alex said.
“I would’ve run,” Drake said.
“Coward.”
“No. Smart.”
They had been practicing self-defense against knife attacks. One person held a rubber knife. The other person would then try to disarm him.
Alex had slashed Drake across the throat with the fake blade before Drake could block the attack.
They walked into the bike shop. Mr. Cates was bent over a disassembled bike.
“Oh. Hello Drake,” he said.
Alex bent close. “He’s short,” he hissed.
“Shh,” Drake said without moving his lips.
“Who is your friend?” Mr. Cates asked.
“Alex. He’s my cousin.”
Mr. Cates hoisted a large but skinny suitcase onto the worktable. Drake ran his fingers over it. Its outside shell was constructed of hard, black plastic. Mr. Cates snapped the two latches and lifted the lid. Gray foam padded all the equipment inside.
“Wow,” Alex said.
Everything inside looked expensive. There was a set of two-way radios, three wireless video cameras (very small), and a receiver for the cameras that was hooked up to a small video recorder. There were about nine “electric eyes” that could be set up to monitor motion.
“What’s this?” Drake asked holding up a black disk that was a little smaller than a button.
“That’s a bug,” Mr. Cates said. “Hide them somewhere and they listen to everything. Their signal is transmitted to this receiver. It records on mini cassettes.”
“And those are night vision goggles?” Alex asked pointing into the case.
“Right.”
“And you are just letting us borrow this?” Drake asked. He couldn’t believe it.
“Why not? Otherwise it sits unused.” There was a sly twinkle in his eye.
“So when do you want this equipment back?” Drake asked.
“When you’ve figured out what’s going on with your pet-stealing neighbor,” Mr. Cates said.
Drake and Alex left with Drake lugging the suitcase. The two of them arrived outside of Cliff’s house. His car was gone.
“Hey look. No one’s home,” Drake said.
“No. I won’t do it!” Alex said.
“I haven’t suggested anything yet,” Drake said.
“You’re going to say that we should go inside.”
“What a great idea!”
“Nope.”
“Who’s the coward now?” Drake asked.
“You think I’m a coward because I’m not interested in breaking and entering? Seriously?”
“Well, I’m going in whether or not you do.”
“Hold on,” Alex said. “I’m not going to stand out here waiting for you. What if the police show up?”
“Yeah, right,” Drake said. He shoved the case of spy equipment under some neighbor’s shrub bushes. Then he walked up to the fence that had the “beware of dog” sign and opened it.
“Maybe there is a dog in there.”
“If there is,” Drake said. “I’ll let him chew on my cast.” He held up his left arm.
Alex didn’t reply, but he gave him a look. Together they went around to the back yard. The back door was locked.
“Okay brain boy, now what?” Alex asked.
“I could just kick the door in,” Drake said.
Alex drew his breath in sharply.
“I was kidding. Don’t inhale so loudly,” Drake said. “It’s annoying.”
“Don’t inhale?”
“Whatever,” Drake said. “Hey look!” Drake pointed.
“The open window?”
“Yeah. Let’s go in,” Drake said. He lifted Alex up so he could remove the screen and shove the window up all the way. Then Alex went inside.
Drake jumped up and grabbed the sill. Alex helped to pull him in.
“I would’ve done that myself if it hadn’t been for my cast,” Drake said.
“What if the guy comes back home while we’re in here?” Alex asked.
“Then we’re in trouble. Go look out the front.”
Alex did and saw nothing. “Okay. So what are we looking for?”
“I don’t know. Anything. I’ll check his bedroom. You look somewhere else. Maybe the laundry room.”
“Laundry room?”
“Think. Where would you hide something if you didn’t want anyone to find it?”
Drake walked into Cliff’s bedroom. The bed wasn’t made. The sheets looked like they hadn’t been washed in a while. Junk covered the carpet. A pizza box from his uncle’s place lay half open on a dresser. The several pieces that were still in it had white fuzz on them.
Drake realized that it was going to take quite a while to check everything in here.
The doorbell rang followed by pounding on the door. Drake ran out of the bedroom. Alex stood frozen in the hall.
“Police,” he whispered.
“Quick, let’s get out through the back,” Drake said. No sooner had he said that than an officer showed up in the back. Drake pulled back out of view.
“Did he see you?” Alex asked.
“It was a she.”
“Fine! Did SHE see you?”
“I don’t think so,” Drake said.
“Hurry, hurry!”
“I’m thinking as fast as I can!” Drake said.
“There’s a window opened back here,” they heard the female officer say into her radio. “Affirmative. We have a break-in.”
“Into the basement,” Drake whispered.
Alex’s eyes got wide. “I won’t be able to breathe down there.”
“We’re just going to be there a minute. We’ll sneak out a window.”
“Are you sure there are windows down there?”
“I saw one,” Drake said. He opened the basement door and quietly latched it behind them. Alex pulled his shirt up over his nose. As they got to the bottom of the stairs, they heard footsteps overhead.
“The police are inside.” Alex shivered.
The dogs in their kennels started barking.
It was then that Drake realized his mistake. There were several windows in the basement, but each had a crossbar bolting it shut. Without a power screwdriver, they weren’t going to get out.
“I can’t breathe,” Alex said in a panicky voice. The dogs continued to bark.
“Quickly unlock as many cages as you can,” Drake said.
“You are nuts!” Alex said, but Drake didn’t hear him. He was already letting dogs loose. So Alex began fumbling with the cage locks too.
The door to the basement opened. Alex sloshed through dogs over to Drake. In the corner of the basement was a water heater and water softener. Drake squeezed behind one and Alex got behind the other.
“I really am having trouble breathing,” Alex whispered.
“Hang in there,” Drake said. He peaked out from around the edge of the water heater. Two policemen were pushing dogs back into cages. The female officer came down and helped. When all the animals had been re-caged, the three of them sat on some of the smaller cages catching their breath.
“So, did the dogs set off the alarm?”
The other guy shrugged his shoulders.
“I don’t think so,” the female officer said. “I’m sure that window upstairs was what set the alarm off.”
“Maybe a pet escaped and exited through the window. I’m mean; we’ve looked around and found nothing.”
“Are you going to call animal control about this? Kind of looks like a puppy mill.”
This time the female officer shrugged her shoulders, obviously not a dog lover.
Alex coughed. Drake quickly looked at him and gave him the signal to be quiet.
Alex mouthed the word, “Sorry.”
“What was that?” one of the men asked. His hand was resting on his gun.
“Someone coughed,” the woman said.
The other guy laughed. “I was just dragging these nails under my boot.” He moved his leg and scraped his foot on the ground.
The female officer let out a sigh. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Yeah,” one of the guys said. “It smells bad down here.”
The three of them left. Alex started to move. Drake grabbed his shirt.
“We’ve got to wait for a bit and make sure that they’re gone. If the dogs start barking again before they’re gone, we’re done for,” Drake whispered.
“I gotta get out of here!” Alex said.
“Soon. Just wait a bit.” Drake kept track of the passing minutes on his watch. They only waited six more minutes, but it felt much, much longer.
Then the two of them made there way up the stairs. The dogs barked at them as they left. On the main level, everything seemed normal. The window they’d come in had been returned to its half-open position. The two of them wiggled and squirmed out of it without moving it, assuming that the alarm had been reset.
“Well, that blows your police theory. He has an alarm set that calls them,” Alex said in between short breaths.
“Let’s get the spy stuff and get out of here.” Drake walked to the bush where he hid the suitcase.
“Why didn’t we take some bugs in with us?” Alex asked.
“I don’t know. Guess I wasn’t thinking,” Drake said. “We’ve got a problem here.”
“What?”
“Did you move the spy stuff?”
“No.”
“Well, it’s not here.”
Chapter 5
Alex moved up beside him. “Wow. That’s not good.”
“You know, stating the obvious is really annoying,” Drake said.
“Do you think the police took it?”
Drake shrugged. “I don’t know. I doubt it. I don’t think anyone could’ve just seen it. I had it hidden well.”
“So someone watched you do it?” Alex asked. He scanned the windows of the neighbors’ houses. “I don’t think anyone’s home.”
“I don’t have the money to replace that stuff!” Drake kicked the bush.
“We could check on Ebay and see if we can find it cheaper,” Alex said.
“Let’s just forget this whole Cliff thing. There’s nothing to it. The police just searched his house and didn’t find anything.” Drake started walking home.
“Hold on,” Alex said. “Before you decide that, maybe you’d like to know what this is.” He ran up to Drake and held out a baggie full of whitish crystals.
Drake wrapped his hand around it and pushed it into Alex’s chest. “Not interested.”
“What if it’s cocaine? I can test on my lab at home and find out for sure.”
“Where’d you find it?” Drake asked.
“In the basement.”
“Well, let’s test it.”
“I have the results for you first thing tomorrow morning,” Alex said.
The next morning, even before breakfast, Drake was in Alex’s room. Alex had thick rubber gloves on and was wearing goggles. He was comparing the color of the liquid in his test tube to a chart.
He apparently found what he was looking for because he put the test tube in a holder and took his equipment off.
“Well,” he said as he took his lab coat off. “I know what those crystals were.”
“Go on, tell me!” Drake said.
“They were NaCN.”
“What the heck is that?”
“Sodium cyanide,” Alex said. “In layman’s terms, solid cyanide.”
“Cyanide,” Drake whispered. “Wow. What’s the connection between lots of pets and a deadly poison?”
“We didn’t find any dead ones,” Alex said.
“We need more information. We need to know if he has more of this stuff.”
“I really don’t want to hear this,” Alex turned around and plugged his ears.
“I know you can still hear me,” Drake said.
Alex started humming loudly, fingers still in his ears. Drake sat on his bed and patiently waited. Fifteen seconds later Alex stopped humming and turned around.
“Are you ready to listen?” Drake asked.
“I’m not going to break in again. That was a disaster.”
“I agree. Breaking in isn’t a good idea. We’ll distract him.”
“What do you mean?” Alex asked.
“I’ll go to the front door. You’ll go to the back. I’ll distract him for at least ten minutes while you quietly search the house.”
“How are you going to hold his attention for that long?”
“Simple,” Drake said. “I’ll sell him my watch.”
“He won’t buy,” Alex said.