The Mystery of the Kidnapped Whale - Marc Brandel [26]
“You’re a good boy, Jupe,” she told him. “A good, hardworking boy when you put your mind to it instead of fussing with those puzzles of yours. I’ll fix you some pecan ice cream for dessert tonight.”
After dinner, as soon as he had finished the ice cream, his favorite kind, Jupiter wheeled his bicycle out of the yard and rode off to the other side of town.
Burbank Park looked as forbidding as an unexplored jungle when Jupe got off his bike at the edge of it. He took a piece of white chalk from his pocket and quickly scribbled a ? on the sidewalk.
It was a trick the Three Investigators had often used. Each of them carried a different-colored piece of chalk. Jupe’s was white. Bob’s, green. Pete’s, blue. They had chosen the ? sign to mark their trails, not only because it was the symbol on their cards, but because it looked so innocent. Anyone else seeing a ? on a building would hardly notice it, or think some child had scrawled it there.
Jupe found a path leading into the park. He guessed it was a path because there were streetlights and bushes on both sides of it but only weeds down the center. Wheeling his bicycle, he advanced along it, stopping every few yards to draw another ? on a tree or on one of the broken wooden benches he found along the way.
Jupiter Jones was not an imaginative boy. His brain was naturally logical and deductive. To him a bush was a bush. It might be something else as well, of course, like a hiding place. But it was still just a bush.
But as he walked on into the deserted park, it began to seem to Jupe that everything around him was alive, grasping, menacing. The branches of the trees were like twisted limbs, the twigs at the end of them reaching fingers. They were reaching out to grab him and drag him off into the night.
He could see the bandstand ahead of him now. Its roof had collapsed and weeds grew up through the floor. He leaned his bicycle against it and drew another ? on the rotting wooden boards.
“Mr. Jones.”
Jupe started so violently that he almost knocked his bicycle over. He searched the gloom around him. There was nobody there. Nobody he could see anyway.
“Yes?” he managed to gasp out at last.
There was a rustling sound. Footsteps approaching through the grass, Jupe guessed. The rustling came closer and closer. It seemed to be coming from less than a yard away before Jupe could make out the figure of the man in front of him.
He was a very tall man, and he was wearing a soft, dark hat with the brim tilted down over his ears. If he had any eyes, Jupe couldn’t see them. He couldn’t make out any of the details of the man’s face. His features looked blurred, out of focus, the way a photograph looks if you jog the camera while you’re snapping the picture.
The one thing Jupe could make out about the man was his size. He was enormous. He was wearing a Windbreaker and his shoulders were so broad, his arms so thick, they reminded Jupe of a gorilla’s.
“If you’ll just step forward, Mr. Jones,” the man said. “I’ll give you what you came for.”
Jupe stepped forward. Instantly the man’s hands seized him by the shoulders. Jupe felt himself being spun around. An arm was pressing against his neck, forcing his head back. Jupe tried to grab it. His fingers closed for a second around the man’s forearm. It felt curiously yielding. It was like sinking your fingers into hamburger.
Then Jupe’s other hand was wrenched behind his back and forced up between his shoulder blades. The man’s bony wrist tightened across Jupe’s throat.
The First Investigator was helpless. He couldn’t struggle anymore. The man had him in a hammerlock.
“Now you do exactly what you’re told, Mr. Jones.”
Jupe could feel the man’s breath against his ear as he spoke.
“Understand, Mr. Jones?”
Jupe tried to nod. He couldn’t move his head.
“Because if you don’t, Mr. Jones,” the voice close to his ear warned him, “if you don’t do what you’re told, I’m going to break your nay–uck.”
Chapter 11
Ramble and Scramble!