Jack_ Secret Vengeance - F. Paul Wilson [38]
“You tell anyone?”
“Nobody else’s business. But you tell me: How about his lock combinations. You read his mind? You got a talent?”
Talent? What was he talking about?
“I don’t know a single thing about his combinations.” Which was true.
“Then what? You just look at a lock and open it? Can you do that?”
This had to be the weirdest conversation.
“No. Can you?”
That seemed to bring Levi up short. He paused, then started to move off.
“Okay. I’m gone. You do what you gotta do. Don’t worry ’bout me sayin’ nothin’.”
“Nothing to say anything about.”
“Sure.”
“Um … why’d you stop me before?”
Levi stopped and turned. “Don’t rightly know. You don’t seem like a bad guy, and I guess I ain’t got no love for a rich uppity sort like Carson Toliver, ’specially one that Saree says is all dark inside.”
“Yeah. She told me that too. What’s it mean?”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me.”
“It’s her talent. She sees people in colors.”
“But she says she can’t see me.”
“Yeah, I know. Right strange, that.”
Strange? How about out-the-wazoo weird?
“Yesterday I saw her touch Toliver’s locker and act like she was burned, even though she said it was cold.”
“Well, if she can touch something that’s real near and dear to someone, she can see all sorts of colors.”
“But she didn’t mention a color, she said ‘cold.’”
Jack saw him shake his head in the shadows. “Never heard her say anything like that before. I’ll have to ask her. See you tomorrow.”
He merged with the shadows and was gone from view. One strange guy. Worst of all, he knew. Jack didn’t want anyone to have even a clue that he was involved. Lucky for Jack that Levi was a piney and they kept pretty much to themselves.
He turned back to the parking lot. He hoped he didn’t fall asleep waiting. Man, he was tired.
2
Not a single mention of Weezy on the bus this morning. Which was good, because Eddie wasn’t wearing his headphones. Like everyone else aboard, he was talking about what, if anything, Carson Toliver would find in his locker this morning. Stevie Ray Vaughn couldn’t compete with that.
Jack allowed himself a single pat on the back: mission accomplished.
Well, partly accomplished.
He’d succeeded in shifting the focus of talk away from Weezy, but Carson Toliver hadn’t paid enough for what he’d done to her—for laying his filthy hands on her, and for compounding that by spreading lies about her.
Not nearly enough.
Jack wasn’t sure where to go from here, but maybe he was getting ahead of himself. He’d yet to see how this morning’s drama at the locker would play out.
Carson Toliver versus the Mystery Marauder.
The mystery part was important. Crucial. Jack ached to tell someone what he’d been up to. He and Toliver were the two most talked-about people in school right now. Everyone wanted to know who the mysterious prankster was, and why he’d chosen Carson Toliver.
The why was another thing that had to be kept secret. Any connection to Weezy would turn attention back to her and her connection to Toliver, undoing what Jack had accomplished thus far.
Zip the lips, he told himself. And keep them zipped. And pray Levi Coffin did the same.
3
The boys’ room usually had a fairly steady stream of traffic first thing in the morning, but today it was virtually deserted. He had a pretty good idea why. He relocked the window—maybe for the last time—and hurried to the senior locker area.
He found what seemed like half the school there, all clustered around Toliver’s locker. Jack wasn’t tall enough to see over, and couldn’t get close enough for a clear view.
Then Toliver showed up behind him, passing nearby as he elbowed his way through the crowd.
“Coming through!” he cried with authority. “Move it, people! Coming through!”
People moved aside, because there’d be no show without Toliver. Jack leaped into the void in his wake, staying as close as he could without touching him, and managed to make it almost to the front.
Yesterday Toliver had quoted the old proverb, Fool me once, shame