Jack_ Secret Vengeance - F. Paul Wilson [69]
But that didn’t mean Toliver was home free. No way. One way or another he was going to find something ugly in his locker tomorrow. Jack would saw off the lock, place the surprise, then glue the shackle back together. He had a chance, a very slight one, that no one would notice the seam. Maybe it looked obvious to Jack just because he knew it was there.
Nah. No use in kidding himself. If no one else spotted it, Toliver surely would when he got close. And he’d point it out. And then the ugly surprise would no longer be a surprise, merely ugly.
Toliver would have a moral victory: He’ll have forced the Mystery Marauder to abandon sleight of hand and resort to naked force.
Crap-crap-crap!
Jack walked back to the workbench but halfway there he froze as the solution, blinding in its simplicity, hit him like a wrecking ball.
He could do it.
Yes!
MONDAY
1
Jack sat on the school bus and stared glumly through the window at the teeming rain.
He should have been buzzed with the prospect of Toliver discovering the surprise he’d left him, but just the opposite. Maybe it was the weather. Maybe because he was dead tired after his trip to the school at two A.M.
Nah. He knew what it was.
Weezy hadn’t shown up at the stop this morning. Neither had Eddie, for that matter.
He’d been doing this for her and now she’d let him down.
No, that wasn’t fair. She didn’t know he had anything to do with it, so he couldn’t take her staying home personally. Still, he thought he’d brought her around last night.
Last night … how weird was that? What had Toliver been doing in that dead zone? Kneeling and screaming … to whom or what? The ghost he’d thought was haunting him? If he’d only said a name, it would have cleared up so many questions.
But one thing was clear: He was losing it. He’d sounded inches away from a nervous breakdown. But he’d probably be his usual fine-and-dandy self when he walked into school this morning.
Jack shook his head as the bus turned into the school lot. The world continued to make less and less sense.
He pulled up the hood on his yellow nor’easter slicker and ran through the downpour, straight from the bus to the locker area where a crowd had already gathered. He skipped the trip to the boys’ room to lock the window. He wanted a good vantage point. He found one and settled in to wait.
During the next few minutes, as more and more buses emptied, the hallway became packed in both directions. Jack wished Weezy were here.
“Hope you’ve got your five bucks ready.”
Jack turned and found Eddie squeezed in behind him.
“How’d you get here?”
Eddie made a face. “The Weezster. First she’s gonna go, then she’s not gonna go, back and forth, back and forth. Finally it got so late we missed the bus, so my mom drove us.”
“‘Us’? You mean she’s here?”
He jutted his chin toward the other half of the crowd on the far side of the locker. “Right over there—the Bat Lady herself.”
Jack looked and found her right away—a small island of black in a sea of color. He caught her black-lined eyes and gave her a grin and a little salute. Her face remained grim as she responded with the slightest nod. He could tell she was wound tighter than a magneto coil.
Eddie nudged him. “About the five bucks?”
Jack didn’t want to cheat Eddie out of his money, so …
“I’m canceling the bet.”
“Hey—”
“I thought about it and you’re right.”
“That Carson’s got him beat?”
“Yeah, or maybe the guy’s given up bothering him. Either way, nothing’s gonna be in that locker.”
A kid standing in front of them half-turned their way.
“You’re probably right,” he said. “Too bad.”
Eddie frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“After the way he blew the game, I hope there’s a can of yellow paint waiting to tip on him.”
Hmmm … Jack thought. A little anti-Toliver sentiment. Interesting.
“There he is,” Eddie said, pointing. “The man himself.”
Jack looked, and sure enough, here came Carson Toliver, carrying a duffel bag. He was pale, with baggy, bloodshot eyes, but putting on a game face for his audience.
“He doesn’t look