2
Murder on Liberty Pier
Bronson shoved the last bite of gyro into his mouth. He took out his handkerchief and dabbed at the dark spots of lamb juice on his t-shirt.
“Not half-bad, Mr. Horum,” Bronson said. “What did you say the sauce was again?”
“Cucumber sauce. Very best stuff. You betcha,” Mr. Horum said. He steered his sailboat, Mariska, out across the Stratemeyer’s brown water.
Bronson opened his backpack, took out his binder, then cracked it open and started working on his English homework for summer tutoring. He’d missed some school toward the end of the year and was doing his best to catch up.
They were studying The Odyssey, a story in which the hero Odysseus goes missing for ten years while at war then returns home to find out everybody moved on without him. Bronson liked the story but he couldn’t imagine anything more heartbreaking than fighting to return to a home that didn’t exist anymore.
A trawler flew past them. One of the men doled out rope from the vessel’s stern.
“Where do you think they’re going in such a hurry?” Bronson asked.
“Maybe pulling nets along bottom to find body or something,” Mr. Horum said. He tied down the sails then leaned back and kicked his feet up over the rail.
“When can you teach me more tricks, Mr. Horum?” Bronson asked.
“Oh, trick eh? Trick most important thing? No! Here, I show you.” Mr. Horum took out a deck of cards and held them out to Bronson. “You pick, yes?” he said.
Bronson took a card, studied it, then placed it back in the deck. Mr. Horum shuffled the deck then flipped over the top card to reveal a six of diamonds.
“This your card, hmmb?”
“Yeah,” Bronson said.
“What? You no seem too impressed. Here, I do better trick now.” Mr. Horum closed his eyes, humming a weird eastern melody as his tongue flicked out between his teeth. “I mystical magic man from Far East. I have six sense. Can see inside your head, yes? Now you think of something you care for with all your heart.”
Bronson thought of his parents, who’d passed away a few months prior. He remembered his mom’s hair… his father’s smile.
“Got it,” he said.
“Great, now you keep image in head and pick card again.”
Mr. Horum held out the cards. Bronson took another one, studied it, then slid it back in the deck.
“Now you tell me what you think, hmmb?”
“I thought about my parents,” Bronson said, his throat catching on the words.
Mr. Horum frowned then closed his eyes, humming the weird melody again. “I use my powers of six sense to find the card of this boy’s parents. I reach mind out through the spirit world, seeking a spirit named— What your pop’s name again?”
“Duncan. Duncan Black.”
“I reach mind out through spirit world seeking a spirit named Duncan Black to guide me to his boy’s card.” Mr. Horum’s jowls shook, his belly quaked, as he slammed his hand on top of the deck. He turned over the top card.
“Ace o’ spades?” he asked.
“Ace of spades,” Bronson said. “What a cool trick, Mr. Horum. I didn’t know you had powers.”
Mr. Horum chuckled, putting the cards back in the pack. “Powers? Horum has no powers. It trick. Same trick as first time. Difference is presentation. See, I do trick like normal and it decent, right? If I make it story more interesting, see? You get away with more if audience focused on story instead of trick. Any story good, but best tales ones where you almost tell the truth. You love your momma and pop, so when I make the trick about them you not care so much how Horum finds card.”
“Aw, why’s it gotta be a fake-out? I’d give anything to talk to my mom again.”
Mr. Horum smiled at Bronson and put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “She be proud of you, boy-o, you pop too.” Bronson looked out across the water, avoiding the old man’s gaze. “Is okay to think about them. Even talk about them. All this helps you remember.”
“Some things you don’t want to remember,” Bronson said, pushing the car wreck, his parent’s deaths, out of the forefront of his mind.
“Is good to look back,” Mr. Horum said as he pointed behind them. “Great even. Help you see new stuff about places you been. You got to be careful, though. You better look at what coming up once in awhile or you gonna crash, you betcha.”
“Got it, Mr. Horum,” Bronson said. He looked at his watch and noticed it was almost seven o’clock. “Say, you think we can go back now? I’m supposed to meet Cindy at the arcade back on the pier in a little bit.”
Cindy McNeil was the head of the A-V department at Woodrow Wilcox Junior High where Bronson went to school. She’d taken him under her wing when he’d started there, but more importantly she’d given him his first kiss in the moments after his victory against the Guild of Thieves.
Mr. Horum winked at his young companion. “I see how it go. You kiss girl once and now Horum a second-rate banana!”
“Fine, if you’re going to be that way I’ll take her back myself.” Bronson jumped up, untied the sails, then steered the boat in a wide arc until they faced back toward the suspension bridge. Three trips out on the Mariska and Bronson was finally getting used to steering the thing.
“Ah, I remember how it was with my Bala,” Mr. Horum remarked. He laid his head back on a balled up jacket and closed his eyes. “You sail, Bronson. I sleep.”
Bronson carried the cooler, following Mr. Horum down Liberty Pier. The sky grew cloudy and gray, but the pier was still crowded. A million different colors of light from Tralbert’s Arcade painted the boardwalk.
As Bronson passed a pay phone next to the arcade, he heard a man in a green suit and bow tie barking into the phone.
“Sal,” he said, “we discussed this. You aren’t supposed to hand me any more of these stories you got from those bozos over at the Chamber of Commerce. I’m supposed to be a journalist. Not a PR agent.”
A young lady approached the reporter and touched his arm.
“‘Excuse me,” she said. “Did you say you was an agent? If so do I have a head shot for you.” She pulled an 8×10 out of her handbag and shoved it into the man’s face. “I’ve done all sorts of plays. Brecht in Boston. Miller in Montgomery. Joyce in Juneau. I done some commercial work for Vic’s over on S. 4th too.”
“I’m a free agent, lady. And I’m on the phone.”
“Well that’s a shame,” she responded, “I thought you was kinda cute.”
Mr. Horum took the cooler from Bronson.
“Go on, boy-oh,” he said, “you got big important things to do. I see you back at shop.”
The free agent in the green suit walked by with the lady clasping his arm. Bronson smiled at them. How nice, he thought. He’d never been the romantic type (or even somebody mildly interested in romance) but since he’d shared a kiss with Cindy he thought stuff like that was nice.
Really nice.
In fact he was so smiley he almost didn’t notice a man in a purple hooded sweatshirt bumping into him.
“Watch yourself, kid,” the man said as he continued up the pier. Odd, but not so odd as to give Bronson pause.
A different man in the same purple hooded sweatshirt crossed in front of him. In fact, Bronson saw no less than seven men in the same outfit. They scattered in different directions, each assuming a post on a corner or by a shop.
Except for one.
This purple-hooded man adjusted his bug-eyed sunglasses as he walked down the pier. He wound a path around anybody he crossed then looked behind him a few seconds later to make sure they weren’t still there.
Bronson followed him to an archway at the far end of the pier with a great view of the water, the skyline shining in the background. Most travel guides consider it the “can’t-miss” stop for any visitor, as essential as a picture in Times Square when visiting New York City.
A big block of a man in a tack-sharp suit stood under the archway behind three small children . Two of them had ice cream cones. The other munched on some roasted peanuts. The man in the suit argued with a photographer, who knelt in front of the group adjusting his shot.
“We shouldn’t get any of the factories in the background,” the businessman said. “Factories are dirty, right? The people think they’re dirty? I don’t want them associating Dexter Stonehouse with dirt. I want them to think of puppies and children and ice cream. Right, kids?”
The kids half-glanced at Mr. Stonehouse then went back to gobbling their treats.
The purple-hooded man grabbed the camera from the photographer and smashed it on the ground then flipped around to face Mr. Stonehouse.
“I got beef with you, Stonehouse,” he said
“I own half this city, my boy. Everybody has some ‘beef’ with me. How much money do you want to make yours go away? Thirty dollars? One hundred?”
“I don’t want your money, Stonehouse,” the man said.
“Sorry? Is that not enough? Oh dear, I have people for this. Gerald? Gerald? Where did you go?”
Bronson could tell the hooded guy wasn’t there for a payoff. He ran over to the edge of the pier and swung down, landing on the sand with a crunch. The mask went over his head, then he tied on the cape and strapped on his weapons.
Dogboy grabbed a few pieces of driftwood, laying them on top of his backpack to hide it. He only had a few comics and his homework in it, but he didn’t want somebody to steal them before he got around to reading them.
He heard feet scuffling across the boardwalk above him. As he jumped over the handrail he saw the hooded man’s hands reaching out for Mr. Stonehouse’s neck.
“Stop, criminal,” Dogboy shouted as he ran over to the men. Both men looked, breaking their grip on each other. The hooded man reached into the front pocket of his sweatshirt and pulled out a Walther automatic pistol.
Dogboy looked around. The kids had gone, as had most of the crowd.
The free agent (and his companion) crouched behind the ice cream hut. The man scribbled in his little notebook.
“This is for Lyla,” the hooded man said as he leveled the Walther at Mr. Stonehouse’s chest.
“This isn’t worth going to jail for. I don’t know what happened to this Lyla person but we have to be able to work this out.”
“I know her,” the hooded man said. “That’s why I have to do this.” He pulled the trigger. The sound of the gunshot cracked like a trap out across the water.
The bullet hit Mr. Stonehouse in the chest, knocking him back. A red stain oozed through his dress shirt. He looked at his shirt.
“Oh no,” he said.
The man shot him two more times— BANG BANG— then kicked him square in the chest, sending him over the railing and into the thumping waves below.
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