Swindle

  “What if the good dog’s been trapped so long that it’s gone forever?” Griffin wondered, laying it on thick to get to Savannah. “Then you’re just left with one-hundred-percent bad dog. That’s so sad.”

  “There’s no such thing as one-hundred-percent bad dog,” said Savannah with certainty. “You take me to this Doberman.”

  6:10 p.m. As Tom Dufferin drove away from Palomino’s Emporium, Griffin and Ben emerged from an alley, escorting Savannah to her meeting with Luthor.

  “He’s spectacular,” she whispered at her first sight of the Doberman, and then choked back a sniffle of emotion. “Sorry,” she said, catching herself. “But what kind of a heartless person imprisons an elegant and noble animal behind a fence?”

  “The kind who doesn’t want his elegant and noble animal eating any pedestrians?” Ben suggested drily.

  “He’s kidding,” Griffin put in quickly. “The guy whose store this is — he runs a simple comic shop like a military base. You should see the inside. Everything’s locked away and alarm-wired.” Griffin’s outrage was genuine. Of all the places in town to break into, Palomino’s Emporium had to be the most treacherous.

  Savannah nodded grimly. “To him, this beautiful dog is just another Keep Out sign. We’ll see about that. Luthor, sweetie,” she called in a loving tone, “come and say hello. I’m a friend.”

  The Doberman stopped dead in its yard patrol and regarded her, its gaze oozing anything but friendship. A low rumble seemed to rise from its belly.

  “You’re right,” she intoned to Griffin. “I can feel the resistance. The poor thing has been taught to be hostile and angry.”

  “No, you’re doing great!” Griffin hissed. “When it was me, he tried to chew through the gate.”

  She took another step forward. The boys did not accompany her. Luthor’s ears went up. The growl got louder.

  “I can’t look,” moaned Ben.

  Savannah glared at him. “You’re ruining everything. A living creature has a sophisticated radar that can sense the emotions around him. Your negativity is spooking him.”

  “Godzilla couldn’t spook that dog,” Ben mumbled, backing away.

  Savannah unzipped a small duffel bag and produced a hard rubber toy in the form of a pink poodle with voluminous fur and a pompom tail.

  Griffin frowned at it. “What’s that supposed to be? His long-lost brother?”

  “Part of the cruelty of a guard dog’s training is the way his world becomes all confrontation and conflict,” Savannah explained. “We have to bring out the playful side of his personality, which has been suppressed for so long. The imagination, the whimsy, the fun.” She turned to the Doberman, smiling encouragingly. “Here, Luthor. I’ve brought something for you.” She gently lobbed the poodle over the fence.

  It never reached the ground. With a bloodcurdling roar, Luthor leaped into the air and intercepted the gift with snapping, tearing jaws.

  The poodle was dismantled in a matter of seconds. And there stood the Doberman at the center of a scattering of pink rubber shreds. The scene looked like someone had fed a box of erasers through a jet engine.

  “Wow,” Griffin managed in awe.

  Savannah nodded her agreement. “What a magnificent animal!”

  Magnificent was not the word Griffin and Ben would have chosen.

  While Savannah made nightly visits to the store in an attempt to reach Luthor’s inner puppy, Griffin and Ben turned their attention to Swindle’s burglar alarm.

  For three straight days they spent the after-school hours in the Slovaks’ den, squinting at the plasma TV. Their noses were pressed to the screen as they painstakingly followed the path of a huge finger.

  “I see blue spots in front of my eyes,” Ben complained.

  “You’re lucky,” Griffin told him. “I can barely see at all. Come on, we’ve almost got it.”

  It had been Griffin’s idea to secretly videotape Tom Dufferin punching in the alarm code. Then they could work out the numbers from the movement of the assistant manager’s hand. Over the past seventy-two hours, the boys had memorized his every hangnail and skin wrinkle. But the four-digit sequence continued to elude them.

  Griffin backed up the tape and ran it again. “I think the first and last numbers might be one. See? The finger’s at the top left. And the third is probably zero — it’s at the very bottom of the pad. That leaves just the second number.”

  “It’s in line with the one, only lower down,” Ben observed. “What’s under one on a keypad?”

  “Four or seven. So it’s either one-four-zero-one or one-seven-zero-one.”

  “If we guess wrong, the alarm will bring every cop in town down on our heads,” Ben said nervously.

  With a sigh, Griffin paused the tape. “So how’s Savannah coming along with Luthor?” Supervising the evening sessions at the fence had become Ben’s job while Griffin crafted the rest of the plan.

  “Terrible,” Ben reported. “At this rate, we won’t have to worry about the alarm. We’re both going to be torn to pieces before we get to the door.”

  “No better than last time?”

  “The barking isn’t quite as loud,” Ben offered. “But that’s only because she’s feeding it peanut butter treats, and I think its mouth is glued shut. If the gate wasn’t there, it would spit out the treats and eat Savannah.”

  “She says she can do it,” Griffin insisted. “The dog just has to let down its guard and trust her.”

  “I feel kind of lousy tricking her into this,” Ben admitted. “She probably has better ways to spend her nights than kneeling at a fence trying to sweet-talk a ferocious beast.”

  “We’ll give her a share of the money from the Babe Ruth card when we get it,” Griffin promised.

  “You sure you boys can see from there?” came a voice.

  Startled, Ben reached for the remote, but it was too late. His father was already in the living room.

  Mr. Slovak frowned. “What’s this, some kind of homemade reality TV?”

  Griffin spoke up. “It’s a project for school. You have to guess the code.” He hit the PLAY button on the VCR. “We’ve got it narrowed down to one-four-zero-one or one-seven-zero-one.”

  “School sure has changed since the days of the three R’s,” commented Ben’s father. “I don’t have a clue. Unless —” An odd expression appeared on his face. “Is there a chance your teacher might be a Star Trek fan?”

  Griffin perked up. “Why?”

  “People choose combinations that will be easy for them to remember. On classic Trek from the 1960s, the serial number of the USS Enterprise was NCC 1701.” He looked embarrassed. “I know — I’m an old nerd.”

  Griffin thought back to the security cases of figurines, models, and toys at Palomino’s Emporium. There had been merchandise from dozens of TV shows, movies, and fads of every variety. But sixties Star Trek seemed to be a favorite.

  “Don’t worry, Mr. Slovak,” Griffin said, unable to keep the triumph out of his voice. “I think the guy we’re dealing with might be an old nerd, too.”

  9

  For Griffin, watching a plan coming together was like completing a jigsaw puzzle. It started as a flimsy frame on the outer edges, then slowly the pieces filled in until the final image began to appear. With the baseball card heist, however, the finished picture was marred by a gaping black hole named Luthor.

  It was Savannah’s fourth meeting with the Doberman, and the girl was still baffled. “I don’t understand it,” she confessed, leaning against the fence outside Palomino’s Emporium. “I’ve fed him, soothed him, talked to him, reasoned with him. I watched The Horse Whisperer twice last night, hoping for inspiration.”

  “Maybe you should watch Dog Whisperer,” Ben suggested glumly.

  “I’ve already TiVo-ed the entire season,” she replied earnestly. “Nothing helps. I never thought I could write off an innocent animal. But I have to admit it — this dog is beyond my reach.”

  Griffin was stricken. “You??
?re giving up? No! You can’t!”

  She shrugged helplessly. “Believe me, it doesn’t make me happy. But what choice do I have?” She indicated Luthor on the other side of the fence. “Look at his eyes. There’s no letup in the anger. Not even any curiosity about me. This is my fourth night here, but to him I’m just an intruder.”

  Griffin was devastated. “You can’t quit now!” he moaned. “Please, please give it one more shot!”

  Savannah’s look of disappointment morphed into deep suspicion. “Wait a minute. I know you guys. You’re not getting this worked up over a dog. What’s this really about?”

  Griffin hesitated. The more people who were in on a conspiracy, the greater the chance that one of them would let something slip. But he had no choice. Without a dog whisperer to neutralize Luthor, any plan would be doomed.

  There was no way to sugarcoat it, so he told her straight out, “We need you to calm down the dog so we can break into the store and steal a baseball card.” Savannah’s jaw dropped open in shock, so Griffin quickly stammered, “It’s not as bad as it sounds! We’ll give you a cut of the money!”

  Her face burned bright red with fury. “I can’t believe you just said that! You want me to help you pull off a robbery! You’re either crazy or you think I’m crazy! I’m telling my mother! I’m telling Mr. Palomino! I’m telling the police!” As her voice rose, she gestured wildly, and a couple of fingers penetrated the chain-link fence.

  Like a shark smelling blood in the water, Luthor snapped at her hand and would have taken off both digits if Ben hadn’t pulled her back from the gate.

  Her rage doubled, Savannah wheeled on the Doberman. “You miserable mangy waste of dog food, how dare you do that to me? I’ve shown you nothing but kindness — and this is how you behave? You don’t deserve to be an animal! Rabies would be too good for you! You should be put on a rocket ship and blasted to Alpha Centauri, you evil soulless ill-tempered psychopathic canine!!”

  Griffin and Ben were frozen in shock at the sudden change in their classmate. Never had they heard such a tirade — and certainly not from soft-spoken, levelheaded Savannah Drysdale.

  But the boys’ reaction was mild compared to the effect of the outburst on Luthor. The lunging beast tumbled off the fence as if it had suddenly become boneless. It dropped to its belly and began groveling toward Savannah, wagging its tail and whimpering, gazing up at her with soulful, pleading eyes.

  “Savannah —” breathed Ben. “Look!”

  “I’m never going to forgive you guys for this!” she hissed. “Do you think I wanted to take a proud, glorious animal and break his spirit?”

  “It’s okay!” Griffin insisted. “This is exactly what we were hoping for!”

  “Now you see where crime gets you,” she seethed. “Not only are both of you going to jail, but you’ve forced me to go against everything I’ve ever believed in! I’ve destroyed this beautiful dog!”

  “This beautiful dog almost ate two of your fingers,” Ben reminded her.

  “Savannah — listen,” Griffin said, “we’re not criminals. That card is rightly ours —”

  “I don’t care!” Savannah interrupted hotly. “I’m leaving!” She reached through the fence and stroked the dark fur behind Luthor’s neck. “I’m sorry, boy. I didn’t mean to do it.”

  The Doberman rolled over, presenting its belly to be tickled.

  Griffin was desperate. “Fine — you can leave. You can even hate our guts. But please don’t tell anybody what we’re planning!”

  “No fear of that.” Savannah was clearly both angry and hurt. “As far as I’m concerned, you two nut jobs don’t even exist anymore! If you want my opinion, you should both seek mental help!” She kissed Luthor through the fence, promised “I’ll come visit you, sweetie,” and stormed off into the night.

  Griffin watched her walk away. “Well,” he said, “that could have been a lot worse.”

  Ben gawked at him. “I hope you’re kidding.”

  “Think about it. She took care of the dog and promised not to rat us out. What more could we ask for?”

  Luthor tossed them a baleful look and trotted off into the shadows near the store.

  Ben was unconvinced. “I don’t know, Griffin. He doesn’t look so taken care of to me. What if the dog whispering only works for Savannah?”

  Griffin shrugged. “You saw how to handle him. If he gets uppity, you just have to yell and scream and threaten to send him to Alpha Centauri. I’ve got that special feeling in my gut — and it says the time to act is now.”

  Ben frowned. Griffin’s gut was as reliable as Old Faithful when it came to choosing the right time to put a plan into action. Only —

  “We’re not ready yet,” he protested. “The plan isn’t even finished. We still don’t have a way to get past the dead bolts and into the store.”

  “Oh, yes we do.” The Man With The Plan could not suppress a smile. “Remember that fifth-grade project on the Trojan War …?”

  10

  On October tenth at exactly 5:30 p.m., S. Wendell Palomino left his store and drove off in his Honda Element. He never noticed two furtive eyes peering out of a narrow alleyway at the end of the block.

  A moment later, Griffin teetered onto the sidewalk, struggling with a heavily laden hand truck. Balanced on the cargo ledge was a large crate that might have held a thirty-three-inch TV.

  It did not hold a thirty-three-inch TV.

  There was a grunt of pain as the hand truck bounced over a spot of broken pavement, and a voice from inside the box hissed, “Watch it!”

  Griffin said nothing. In the Trojan War, talking to the warriors hidden inside the wooden horse was a definite no-no.

  Twisting his neck to see over his shoulder, he backed down the street and peeked in the open gate in front of Palomino’s Emporium. Perfect. No customers. Tom Dufferin was alone, tidying up the sales counter.

  Griffin frowned. The assistant manager had a clear view of the door.

  Come on, he thought. Move.

  A minute passed. Then two. Sweat formed on Griffin’s brow. How long could he stand here before someone noticed a thousand-pound crate in the care of an eleven-year-old deliveryman?

  At last, Dufferin picked up an armload of comics and headed to a display case at the back of the shop.

  Now!

  Griffin nearly dislocated both shoulders tipping the load so he could roll it again. Ears roaring, he hauled the shipment in through the gate and set it down at the entrance.

  Uh-oh. The hand truck was stuck under the weight of the container. He couldn’t budge it.

  “What’s going on?” came an urgent whisper from the box. “What’s all that shaking?”

  “Shhh!” Griffin hissed.

  Inside the store, Dufferin had finished shelving the comics. In another few seconds, he’d be back at the front.

  Griffin marshaled his strength and gave a mammoth yank. With a screech, the cargo ledge pulled free. One of the metal handles whacked him in the mouth, and he staggered backward, tasting blood. Reeling, he scampered out through the gate.

  It had been close, but he’d made the drop-off.

  The operation had begun.

  Tom Dufferin frowned at the bulky crate that had suddenly appeared at the door. He hadn’t heard the delivery truck. It must have come in the last few minutes, when he’d been in the back.

  He examined the brown paper that covered the wooden frame. It bore the address of the shop and the message:

  Attn: S. Wendell Palomino — Personal and Confidential

  To Be Opened by Addressee Only

  With a shrug, Tom dragged the heavy container inside. Idly, he wondered what was so special that Palomino himself had to open it. Printed matter, probably, judging by the weight — somebody’s lifelong collection of comic books or magazines.

  He set the store’s alarm, stepped out, and locked the door behind him. Whatever it was, the boss would deal with it when he arrived the next morning.

  On the oth
er side of the glass, the paper moved ever so slightly — the rustle of nervous breath through air holes.

  There were times that Ben Slovak wished he had an ordinary best friend instead of The Man With The Plan. An ordinary best friend never would have convinced him to shut himself in a TV crate to get inside Palomino’s Emporium. That was definite.

  As Trojan horses went, the crate was a cramped affair. Ben was the smallest kid in sixth grade. Still, he had to lie on his side, with his knees pulled into his chest, to fit into the small space.

  No pain, no gain, he reminded himself. This is for a million bucks.

  For some reason, the money didn’t seem quite real to him. Helping the Bings, saving them from having to sell their house — that was real. He’d do anything not to lose Griffin. But a million dollars for a baseball card? Science fiction.

  Yet the weight of all that cash closed in on him as relentlessly as the frame of the crate. Stealing something worth a million was the same as stealing the million itself, wasn’t it? On top of everything else that made him uneasy about this caper, he couldn’t escape the feeling that they might be committing a very serious crime.

  He peered through the gloom at his watch — 6:03. Sundown was supposed to come at 6:57. After that, the plan added thirty minutes more to let it get dark. By that time, it would be impossible to read the dial.

  “Count,” Griffin had instructed.

  Easy for him to say —

  Eighty-seven minutes equaled 5,220 seconds. And … hey! Now it was 6:05. The first hundred and twenty seconds were already over. He could start at 121 … 122 … 123 …

  Just before two hundred, he was aware of the first yawn. Stop it, he commanded himself. Nobody falls asleep in the middle of a heist …

  Yet as he counted doggedly on, he could feel his eyelids getting heavier, the way they always did.

  No! Not here! Not now! He had barely reached five hundred.

  “Five twenty-nine! …” His voice filled the empty store. “Five thirty! …”