A Dastardly Plot

  “That’s right,” Jasper said brightly. “You got Jasper Bloom with you. And if there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s saving famous people. I assume. I have yet to do such a thing. Unless you count the time I—”

  “Jasper,” Molly interrupted. “Take us to your ashcart.”

  26

  Den of Thieves

  “OOF! WATCH THE bumps!” Emmett whispered from beneath the tarp in the back of Jasper’s ashcart.

  “These eyes of mine might be beauteous pools of autumn twilight, Emmett Lee, but they cannot see in the dark,” Jasper replied. “Speaking of which, we have arrived. Whoa, Prancey-Pie!”

  The clip-clopping of pony hooves stopped and all was quiet. Molly squinted as Jasper whipped the tarp off, expecting a surge of light, but none came. She and Emmett climbed out, stretching their stiff limbs and brushing the ash from their clothes. There was one dim gas lamp on the corner where they stood, but across the intersection, the street appeared to vanish into nothingness, a black hole between two decaying buildings with boarded-up windows and doors riddled with bullet holes.

  “It’s over there?” Molly asked.

  “That’s right, Molly Pepper,” Jasper replied. “Just across the street in that terrifying void of shadow and nightmare.”

  “Wishing your mother was here?” Emmett asked.

  “Yes,” said Jasper.

  Molly was wishing it too, but rather than admit that—to herself or anyone else—she thrust her shoulders back and marched across the street. Emmett and Jasper hurried to follow. Some of the empty tenements they passed looked rickety enough to be brought down by the vibrations of a stray cough, but a light shone from within one.

  “Well, looks like you found it,” Jasper said. “So, I’ll be back at the—” He turned to point back at his cart and saw a small man—maybe even a boy—untying his pony.

  “Prancey-Pie!” Jasper yelped. “Hey! Stop!” He took off.

  “Jasper, no!”

  “Don’t worry, Miss Molly, he’s just a little one. I’ll scare him off,” the ashman said as he ran. “I swear, if Balthazar Birdhouse has anything to do with this . . .”

  Molly and Emmett looked to each other, both unsure of whether to follow. But soon a second figure stepped into the lamplight and clubbed Jasper over the head with an unseen object. Their friend slumped over the side of his cart. Before the children could even react, the thieves were gone—along with Jasper, Prancey-Pie, and their ride back to the bookmobile.

  “Oh, no,” Emmett breathed.

  “We can’t chase those guys down on foot,” Molly said, trying to think clearly through the sudden fog of panic.

  “But Jasper—”

  “We need Bell’s help more than ever now,” Molly said, motioning toward the one lit building. “Let’s just find him and get out of here.”

  She hopped a fence and peeked inside a smudged window. Behind a bottle-lined bar and handful of stained tables, she saw walls adorned with dartboards, portraits of dancing girls, and a smattering of wanted posters, the faces on which most likely belonged to the very people in that room—a rowdy band of hooligans in ragged coats and patched bowler hats.

  Molly checked around the corner. A rope ladder dangled from a second-floor window.

  “It’s probably for making sneaky exits during police raids,” Molly whispered. “It’ll work just as well for sneaky entrances.”

  She climbed up with Emmett close behind. “It’s amazing,” Emmett whispered, “what climbing the Brooklyn Bridge will do for a fear of heights.”

  Inside, they found themselves on a balcony, overlooking the barroom. They peered over the railing.

  “That’s not good,” Emmett muttered.

  The riled-up ruffians below had formed a circle around one man, who stood fiddling with the brim of the hat in his hands.

  “Fellows, fellows, we can all be civilized here,” Alexander Graham Bell said as hooligans lobbed foul words at him. The men to his left were decked out in various shades of green—emerald-colored derbies, lime-tinted ties, pine-toned trousers. Those to the right all had pink carnations pinned to their lapels. While it was clear to Molly that these were two opposing gangs, Bell did not seem to pick up on that detail.

  “For those of you who may not have heard me over all the buzz and huffle,” the inventor went on, sounding more annoyed than intimidated, “I have already apologized—thrice, if I’ve not miscounted—for interrupting your . . . business transactions. Now, if you’ll allow me one brief question, I’ll be on my way.”

  This is it, Molly thought. We’re about to witness the transformation of Alexander Graham Bell into a human pancake.

  Emmett peeked through his fingers as a tall man in a kelly-green vest approached Bell, a wry grin beneath his waxed mustache. “Never has it been said that the Green Onion Boys are inhospitable hosts,” he declared. He paced a slow orbit around Bell, whose sudden rapid blinking gave tell that he was beginning to understand the gravity of his situation. “So, let’s hear it, Fancy Dan,” the tall man said. “What’s your inquestigation?”

  “I, um, I’m trying to locate a boy. He . . . he gave this address.”

  “Please don’t tell them anything else,” Emmett prayed quietly. “Please don’t tell them anything else.”

  “A Chinese boy, not quite twelve years old,” said Bell. “His name is Emmett.”

  Several of the green-clad men whooped. “Little Emmett Lee,” said the tall one.

  “You . . . know him?”

  “Oh, yeah,” the tall man said drily. “Emmett’s an old ’quaintance of ours. How do you know Emmett?”

  “He works for me.”

  “Well, isn’t that something!” The tall man cheerfully slapped Bell on the back. “Because we thought Emmett worked for us. And he owes us quite a bit of money. Seeing as you’re his new employager, though, I think it’s perfeckly fine if his debt gets repaid by you. Now.”

  Molly was afraid Emmett might melt through the floorboards.

  “But . . . but Emmett’s a decent boy,” Bell said. “I have a hard time believing he was employed by such . . . such . . .”

  Several men with shoulders like cinder blocks cracked their knuckles.

  “How much is it the boy owes?” Bell asked, taking out his wallet.

  “Two thousand,” said the tall man. “Plus another four hundred for the guns. And at least another five g’s that we coulda earned with those guns. Plus interest. Plus a two-dollar inconvenience fee. Let’s just round it off to ten thousand.”

  Bell goggled at him. “Dollars? I . . . I don’t carry that kind of money on me. I daresay no one does.”

  The tall man turned to his brothers in green. “Notice he didn’t say he doesn’t have that kind of money.” He tapped his head to show how smart he was.

  “Is that Oogie MacDougal?” Molly whispered.

  “No, his name’s Pembroke,” Emmett said. “And if we stand any chance of talking our way out of this, we need to do it before MacDougal shows up. For one thing, you can understand Pembroke. Mostly.”

  Below, Pembroke waved a switchblade in Bell’s face. “Friends and fellow enterpenoors, I think we can temporarily put aside the deals we was working on,” Pembroke said. “’Cause Fancy Dan here is going to lead us into more dough than any of that business.”

  “Stop!” Emmett shouted. “You don’t realize who you have there!”

  All heads turned up to the balcony.

  “Emmett?” Bell gasped, seeming all the more puzzled.

  Though his legs were shaking, Emmett placed his hands on the rail and held his head high. Molly had no idea what he was about to try, but she felt oddly proud of this dangerously bold move.

  “Hey, if it isn’t my old buddy Emmett,” Pembroke called up with a smile.

  “That man is Alexander Graham Bell, the famous inventor,” Emmett said. “The Inventors’ Guild will pay a king’s ransom for him. But not if he’s hurt.”

  “Oh, really?” Pembroke said sarcastical
ly.

  “That’s what Oogie MacDougal told me,” Emmett continued. “Yeah, that’s right, I’ve been working with Oogie all along.”

  Molly beamed. Her friend had come so far.

  As gang members on both sides began muttering, a man with an enormous carnation on his hatband gave Pembroke a fat-fingered poke. “You been holding out on us?” the man sneered. “You told us Oogie had a big job in the works, but you didn’t say it was VIP-ransom big.”

  “Don’t jump to delusions, Chaswick,” Pembroke retorted, poking the portly man back. “That kid ain’t trustable.”

  Molly recognized the lost look in Emmett’s eyes. He was freezing up, doubting his own plan. She needed to jump in.

  “Do you think anyone could really be that stupid,” she said, rising to Emmett’s side, “to steal from the Green Onion Boys?” She nudged Emmett with her foot.

  “Certainly not me,” Emmett said. “I am not that stupid. No, um, look, Oogie thought I’d be the right person to . . . infiltrate Bell’s organization, pretend to work for him until I could lure him down here. The money and guns were my . . . payment.”

  When Emmett saw his mentor’s face fall, his own did too. Molly nudged him again.

  “Pardon my skepticasm,” Pembroke said, squinting at them. “But why then did Oogie tell us you stoled it?”

  “The plan was secret,” Molly interjected. “No one could know the truth except Oogie and Emmett. And me. Penelope von Venturesworth, professional saboteur.”

  Chaswick elbowed Pembroke and whispered, “I think I’ve heard of her.”

  “Hey, don’t believe me,” Emmett said. “But I wouldn’t want to be you when Oogie shows up and finds out what you did to his prize captive. Look, why don’t—”

  “Penelope,” Molly whispered.

  “—Penelope and I take Mr. Bell out back and babysit him while you finish up with the Carnation Boys—”

  “Ugly Flowerpots!” Chaswick barked.

  “Sorry!” Emmett sputtered. “You can finish up with the . . . Flowerpots and we can iron out this Bell business when Oogie returns.”

  Suddenly, behind the bar, a door that had been disguised as a shelf of liquor bottles swung open, and a reedy man in a long green coat strode into the room on spiderlike legs. Curly red sideburns framed his face and several gold teeth flashed when he smiled. He tipped his emerald top hat to Emmett and “Penelope.”

  “Nae need tae hauld yer wheesht,” the man said in the world’s thickest Scottish brogue. “Oogie’s ’ere.”

  27

  The Bandit King

  “OOGIE,” PEMBROKE CRIED. “Is it true what the kid says?”

  “Nae a word, Pembroke.” Oogie MacDougal gave his lieutenant a crooked grin. He pointed to the balcony and ordered, “Fetch they bairns!”

  Several of the gangsters looked to one another for a hint of what to do.

  “The bairns, the wee weans!” Oogie barked. One gangster tentatively reached for a bowl of pretzels. “The children!” Oogie shouted.

  Several thugs bounded upstairs to the mezzanine. There was probably time to duck out the window, but Molly saw Emmett’s eyes locked with Bell’s and stood fast by his side. The goons lugged them downstairs and dropped them next to Bell.

  “Ah cannae hawp ye fell fur sic stories,” Oogie said, waving a long, thin finger in Pembroke’s face. There was a clear cruelty in MacDougal’s grin, but beyond that, nothing about the fragile-looking, rail-thin man seemed overly threatening.

  “Stories?” Pembroke said. “Oh, the kid’s stories. You think I believered them? Is that what . . . ? I think that’s what you said. Well, no! I never doubted ya for a second.” But the tremor in his voice betrayed him.

  “Ah kin see it in yer een, gowk,” Oogie sneered. “Gang tak’ a nap.” Molly had no idea what MacDougal had said, but she knew a threat when she heard one. The gang leader grabbed a fistful of Pembroke’s shirt, hoisted the man over his head—one-handed—and threw him across the bar into a shelf of glass mugs.

  “How the heck is a guy built like a drinking straw so strong?” Molly muttered to Emmett.

  “I had no idea he was,” Emmett replied.

  “Shh. Hear that?” Bell whispered.

  Hear what? But then Molly noticed it: With every step Oogie took, there was a metallic creak. MacDougal had some kind of machinery under his coat.

  As two Green Onions hauled away the moaning Pembroke, Oogie strode over to his captives. “Emmett, mae wee mukker. Yer a pernicketie jimmy tae fin’.”

  “Emmett,” Molly whispered out of the corner of her mouth, “I officially apologize for doubting your ‘I couldn’t understand him’ story.”

  “He said you’re a hard man to find,” explained Bell. “I grew up in Scotland.”

  “I know,” said Molly.

  “I’ve git three questions fur ye, Emmett,” MacDougal said.

  “That’s far fewer than I have,” Bell muttered.

  Oogie raised one finger. “Whaur’s mah dosh?”

  “Where’s his money?” Bell translated.

  Emmett looked down and bit his lip. Just lie, Molly thought. Say it’s stuffed in a tree, buried on an island, booby-trapped in a pit full of deadly vipers—anything.

  “In the river,” Emmett said.

  MacDougal’s face grew a full shade redder. “Whaur ur mah guns?”

  “Where are his . . . guns?”

  “It was a mistake. I didn’t know who he was,” Emmett said to Bell. Then to Oogie, “The guns are with the money.”

  The gang leader sucked his teeth and took a step back. When the crimson in his cheeks faded, he raised a third finger. “How come shouldn’t ah murdurr ye this minute?”

  Bell winced. “He wants to know why he shouldn’t—”

  “I got that one,” Emmett said. Wobbly and bleary-eyed, the boy looked as if he might have passed out had a burly gangster not been holding him up.

  “Please, Mr. MacDougal,” Bell said. “From one Scotsman to another—”

  Oogie’s laughter cut him off. “Quit yer havering, ye doolally auld gallus! Ye’v bin makin’ hoose in the States fur sae lang noo, ye cannae tell a braw haggis frae a drookit pipe poke!”

  Emmett and Molly looked to Bell for a translation, but the inventor shrugged. “Sorry, even I couldn’t follow that one.”

  MacDougal gripped Bell by the collar. “Awright, muckle brain . . .”

  “Wait!” Molly cried out. “I can answer your question. You’re not going to kill us because . . .” She hoped to come up with a reason by the time she finished the sentence. She looked at Emmett, his face drawn with despair, and Bell, who stared upon Emmett with equal dismay. She looked at the Green Onion Boys thirsting for violence, and the Ugly Flowerpots with imaginary dollar signs before their eyes. She looked at Oogie MacDougal, a man with the apparent physical strength to hurl an elephant across the East River. And she knew what to do. “You’re not going to kill us,” she said, “because when you hear what we have to say, you’re going to want to join us.”

  “Is that so?” MacDougal mocked.

  “Absolutely,” Molly said without a quiver in her voice. “Because however much you think the Inventors’ Guild is going to pay you for Bell, I bet they’ll reward you twice as much for saving the World’s Fair from a madman.”

  The silence was painful. Finally, though, MacDougal gave the smallest hint of a smirk and leaned closer. “Ye’ve git me interest, dearie. Let’s blether it ower in back.”

  The gang leader guided Molly, Emmett, and Bell into the hidden room behind the bar. Their entrance interrupted the billiards game of two men who, based on their bruised, scar-adorned faces, had seen their fair share of violence.

  “What was the hullabaloo out there?” the taller of the two called out as the door opened. But Emmett was the first one to walk in.

  “You!” spat the shorter of the gangsters—who was still roughly the size of an orangutan. Wielding his cue stick like a club, he rushed at Emmett, but MacDougal thrust
an arm out and the man fell as if he’d hit a brick wall.

  “Settle doon, Crikes,” Oogie said.

  “But I thought we was supposed to kill this kid if we ever saw him again,” groaned the man on the floor.

  “Wee Emmett’s under mah protection fur th’ moment; least till ah hear the barry business deal th’ lassie haes tae offer. Hulp him up, Tusk.” Molly assumed the taller of the henchmen was called Tusk because of the one large tooth jutting up past his lower lip (either that or the man’s parents had been awful at baby names).

  She stepped confidently up to the pool table. After a series of catastrophic misfires, she was finally going to set things right. She and Emmett needed help if they were going to defeat the masked man—and the Green Onions certainly knew how to take down an enemy.

  “Here’s the deal,” Molly said, taking a moment to look each gangster in the eye. “Emmett and I uncovered a plot to murder everyone at the World’s Fair. At first, we thought Mr. Bell was behind it, but we were wrong. Sorry about that, Mr. B.”

  The inventor looked as if someone had poured a bucket of ice chips down his back. “But, but, but . . . What in heaven’s name made you think I could be involved in such horror?”

  “We found it in your office,” Molly answered.

  “My—?” Bell’s indignation melted into disappointment. “The break-in. That was you, Emmett.”

  “No, just me,” Molly said. “Emmett was only there because he was secretly living in your workshop and didn’t want you to know he was homeless.”

  “Molly!” Emmett said.

  “Might as well get everything out in the open now, right?” Molly replied. “Keeping secrets is what got us into this mess.”

  Oogie MacDougal scowled with impatience.

  “We’ll discuss this later,” Bell said quickly. “Right now, I want to know what you found in my office that set your imagination running off.”

  Molly whipped the incriminating scrap of paper from her boot and slapped it down on the billiards felt. She pointed to the various notations. “Targets, victims, death machines . . .”