Trouble is a Friend of Mine

Ezekiel punched the trunk. ‘What did you do to my eye? It’s cold. I can’t open it.’ He tried not to shout, but his panic was obvious.

‘Maybe you shouldn’t have injected an EpiPen of adrenaline directly into the brain of the guy holding the gun,’ Digby said.

The trunk opened and Ezekiel shoved the gun in my face. Tears streamed from the eye I’d stabbed.

Ezekiel grabbed the EpiPen but seeing it confused him even more. ‘What is this? What is this?’

Ezekiel pulled me out and threw me on the ground. Digby jumped him and almost got the gun, but Ezekiel wrestled it away. For a second, I thought he’d shoot us right there, but instead, he walked us toward the open cellar door.

‘I asked around about you. You’re looking for your sister. Bet it’s making you nuts. Not knowing what happened to her. Sally. But I know what happened to her. Now you’ll never know and you’re about to disappear like she did.’ Ezekiel pointed at the doorjamb and said, ‘Explosions this big, they never figure out how many bodies, never mind whose they were.’

Along the inside of the cellar door, the wads of yellow Semtex missing from the motel were wired to a black box. Before I could take in more detail, Ezekiel shut the door and left us in the basement’s total darkness. Then, ominously, we heard a beep, and a green light on the black box lit up.





TWENTY-SEVEN


‘I guess if that door opened …’ Digby said.

‘Digby … I don’t want to die,’ I said.

‘Take it easy, Princeton. No one’s dying.’

The comforting glow of a phone’s screen cut the darkness. Digby dialed.

‘How …?’

‘I got it from his pocket before he threw us in here.’

‘You just dialed a lot more numbers than 911.’

‘There’s a bomb on the door. I’m not sitting on hold for fifteen minutes. I’m calling Cooper and Holloway,’ he said. ‘Voicemail. I’m sending a text.’

I took a step and my feet slid out from under me. I fell but never hit the ground, because I landed against something on the way down.

‘Princeton, you okay?’

Digby shone the light on what I’d fallen against: a chain-link fence sectioning off part of the basement and two bodies on the ground behind it. One was a heavyset man. The other was at first only faintly familiar until I recognized her dress. Old faithful. Her Minnie-Mouse-knows-what-Victoria’s-Secret-is dress.

‘Mom!’ I screamed.

‘She’s not dead, Princeton.’ Digby clapped his hand over my mouth. ‘Shut up and listen.’

Then I heard Mom snoring. She was draped over the man’s body. All around them were huge plastic drums, bales of clear plastic tubing, and crates filled with God knows what. More of that paraphernalia was lying around outside the cage.

‘This is their lab,’ Digby said.

‘Did Ezekiel put them in there?’ I said.

‘Lock them up but leave us out here?’ Digby said. ‘I’d bet he doesn’t know they’re here.’

It took a while for my eyes to make out the police uniform on the man lying under Mom.

‘Isn’t that … Officer Cooper?’

‘Meaning whoever put them there and took his phone got my text and knows we’re here.’ Digby cursed. ‘Hide.’

Just then, the door between the house and the basement opened. Footsteps thumped down the stairs. Digby and I scurried off and were wedging ourselves behind giant plastic drums, when a bare bulb in the middle of the room came on. Then Digby, Zillah, and I stood blinking at each other in the light.

‘Why am I not surprised to see you here?’ Zillah said.

‘But I’ll bet you’d be surprised to hear why we’re here. Ezekiel’s stealing from you. I mean, you are the Bananaman, right? He’s selling your stuff in the schools. That’s why the cops are on your back and you have to leave town,’ Digby said.

‘I do not know what you mean. We are leaving because this place is no longer suitable for my flock’s moral well-being.’ But from the way Zillah’s face contorted, it was clear Digby had nailed it. ‘The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and goodwill, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children.’

Inexplicably, Digby laughed. ‘Here’s a tip. When you set up in the next town, and you’re pretending to be a religious cult and you put in time with the clothes and the weird Amish shtick, make sure you quote the actual Bible and not some fake Quentin Tarantino voodoo.’

Zillah’s shoulders dropped. She was beat. ‘Smart kid. I never checked. But do you remember the rest?’ She pulled out a huge gun. ‘And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon you.’

The gun clicked ominously. I remembered which part of Pulp Fiction she was quoting.