Mister Max: The Book of Secrets: Mister Max 2

  The man sat down on the throne and stretched his legs out in front of him. His boots gleamed with polish, even in that dim room. He adjusted the sword at his side and instead of answering Colly’s question, asked one of his own. “What do you remember about the boy you kidnapped?”

  An odd question, but Colly had no reason not to answer. He tried to remember, to picture the boy, walking along the street, then stumbling on the roadway when they had the bag over his head, and his surprised expression when they’d snatched the bag off.

  And now Colly wondered why he’d been surprised, not scared or confused or lost.

  “Not much,” he admitted. “A normal, ordinary boy—brown hair, tallish, the usual pants and shirt. He didn’t move like an athlete but he was coordinated enough. I can’t really remember him,” he realized. “Except …”

  The man waited patiently.

  “His eyes, he had—” Colly pictured them, trying to remember. “His eyes were a weird, non-eye color, kind of …” He tried to think of what else he had ever seen that was the same color. “Where I work, the ink factory?”

  The man nodded as if he already knew this. But how could he know this about Colly?

  Something was going on, Colly guessed, and it was not a happy thought. How badly will all this turn out? he wondered.

  “We use charcoal in the ink. The charcoal comes in these brown hemp bags that, after a while, with use and reuse, turn a black and brown and gray color. His eyes were like that.” Colly thought some more, then had to say, “That’s all I can remember about him.” Then he went on the offensive. “But I don’t think he is really your cousin and I also don’t think he was someone standing between you and something you want.” Having said that, he waited to hear how the man would respond.

  Colly had no plan to try to get away. He had the dismal suspicion that even if he tried he wouldn’t succeed, that eventually he’d find himself back in the presence of this man.

  The man said, “I find myself wondering if you are different from the other two.”

  Of course I am, Colly thought impatiently. When you are expecting the ax to fall, you can’t enjoy the wait. But he spoke with rock-bottom honesty—because what was the point of trying to fool himself, or this man. “Not so’s you’d notice.” He had done what he had done. He was responsible for what he had done.

  He thought: This must be how his mother felt, after the death of his father, caught in a trap she had made herself and with no fight left in her.

  He said, “If you’re not going to tell me anything, then I wish you’d get on with whatever you’re going to do to me.” In case the man doubted it, he added, “I’m not going to plead guilty to murder, whatever you do.”

  “I should hope not,” said the man. He looked closely at Colly. “But what about the other crimes?”

  Colly shrugged. He couldn’t deny those charges.

  The man waited.

  Colly knew what he was waiting for. “You want me to say I’m sorry—and I am, because those people needed the money, maybe not the same way I need it, but they earned it and I didn’t. But there’s no point in me saying I’m sorry because if I thought it would work I’d probably do it again. Or something like it because … just because,” he concluded. That was all he was going to say.

  “You should be in school,” the man said.

  That was obvious, although what it had to do with his present situation, Colly couldn’t guess. “Who are you, anyway?” he asked.

  “Someone who thinks you’re worth taking a chance on. So”—and the man rose to his feet—“can you go on living with your grandparents?”

  “Is there anything you don’t know about me?” Colly wondered.

  “Do you want to keep your job in the ink shop?”

  “What do you think?” Colly laughed.

  The man had yet another question. “Are you willing to repay the money that was taken from your victims?”

  “I’d have to work for years,” Colly pointed out. “I only took a third.”

  “You’d only be asked to return what you took. But would you do it?”

  Colly hesitated. The only thing that had made it possible for him to be part of Kip’s thuggery was the pile of coins that grew larger every week. If he didn’t have the coins, what he had done became even worse, and it was already bad enough as far as Colly was concerned. This wasn’t an easy question to answer, even if he knew full well that the money didn’t really belong to him. “I guess. I know I should.”

  “There are other jobs, for boys who know how to work,” the man assured him. “How do you feel about washing dishes?”

  “I’ve had lots of practice,” Colly told him.

  The man nodded, and changed the subject. “Where’s your hoard of coins?”

  “There’s a room down the hall, full of costumes. You know this is a theater? I put them into the pockets of jackets. Not all together, in case Kip … I can get them for you.”

  “Actually,” the man began, but instead of finishing that thought, he stepped into the doorway to call, “Tomi?” and before Colly could wonder about that, who should step into the bathroom but Tomi Brandt.

  Colly couldn’t think what Tomi Brandt had to do with this man. In fact, for a moment, he was so surprised that he couldn’t think at all. Then he turned to the man to ask yet again, “What is going on? Who are you?”

  “Someone your grandparents will be afraid of,” the man said, this time with a smile that made him look young. “Meanwhile, you and Tomi can go about repaying your victims, and don’t you think that you might also apologize to them?”

  Colly shook his head. He knew what would happen. “At least one of them will want to turn me over to the police. And if none of them do, when my grandparents hear about it, they’ll do it. You don’t understand how much they … They really want … What they really want is to get the best, the biggest, revenge they can on me. Because there’s no one else to blame, and punish,” he explained. “I’d rather you just turned me over yourself,” he said, and pointed out, “You know where to find the coins now.”

  “So you don’t want to go on living with them?”

  “What choice do I have?”

  The man didn’t argue with him. He stood thinking, but not for long, while Colly and Tomi waited, patient as horses, for him to say whatever he decided to say. Finally, he nodded. “After you and Tomi gather up the coins, you can tell him how much to give to each shopkeeper, and, Tomi, if you’ll take care of that?”

  “With pleasure.”

  “You can also inform them that there won’t be any more payments asked of them. Tell them the Mayor has taken care of the problem. And here”—he reached into his own purse to take out a silver coin—“I think we should give that to Bert Cotton, with thanks for his generous help.”

  “When I got the bucket from him this morning, he sounded like he was so glad to be part of it he wouldn’t need any more thanks.”

  “Tell him, we thank him anyway. I’ll be paying a call on your grandparents, Colly.”

  Without a word, Colly led Tomi out into the corridor and down into the costume room, stupefied and amazed by the morning’s events, the utter turnaround and flip-over that had happened in his life. He did no more than glance at the policeman leaning against the far doorway, standing on guard in a lazy and relaxed manner, his cap low on his forehead. He barely recognized himself in the mirror that stood just inside the costume room door. His hair was still the same corn yellow, but the eyes that met his looked like they belonged to someone he had never seen before.

  When the two boys had left the hallway, Max slipped away, going out the stage door and across to the small square, where he sat and waited for the others to join him. As writer and director of the scene just enacted in the bathroom, he was entirely satisfied with how it had played out. His actors had done their jobs well. Even Ari had been convincing. Those who had—all unbeknownst to them—been assigned roles had stayed in the character he had predicted. Word would
have begun to spread when Tomi asked Bert Cotton for a bucket of blood from slaughtered chickens, so Officer Torson might already know the good news. Kip was probably on his way to where—as Grammie had announced—he’d either be killed or find some useful training for his violent impulses. Blister and Colly would be better off, and that pleased him even more than ridding the city of Kip. Nobody could say for sure if the rough life of a goatherd would offer Blister the chance to learn a sense of his own worth, but it might, and Max was confident that given half a chance, Colly would make his own way. Who knew? He might even become a good lawyer, the wiser for his unhappy childhood, and maybe even a judge with a broad streak of mercy in him.

  In less than an hour, three lives had been entirely changed, and by him. Well, by the Solutioneer, and with help, but it was his plot they had acted out, his story, and they were his lines, most of them. This must be how his father felt, Max thought, onstage, taking his bows, as if there was nothing he couldn’t do next.

  Now he could write a letter to the Mayor announcing that the extortionists had been discovered and dealt with. He expected the Mayor would be so glad to know there would be no publicity at all about it that he’d gladly pay a large bill. Everything was turning out as Max had hoped, and planned.

  But Ari, he thought—looking at the silent theater in front of him, waiting for his troupe to join him—Ari said he couldn’t act. So what had been going on there?

  In which secrets are revealed

  Ari was the first to join Max. They sat side by side on a bench and listened to the plashing of water in the fountain, looking out on the quiet street and the blank face of the theater. Ari undid his belt and set the sword at his feet. “Well,” he finally began, but before he could continue, Tomi and Colly emerged from the stage door and separated at the end of the alley. Colly ran off, but turned back at the corner to call, “Thanks! I don’t understand, but … Thanks!” And he was gone.

  “I’ve got the list,” Tomi reported to his two companions in the plot. “That was fun, Eyes.” He grinned. “We all envied you your parents, with their theater, and missing school the way you could, and we were right to be jealous.” He looked across to the empty building, and grinned again. “I guess I should get started,” he said, but all he did was shift from one foot to the other. “You better replace that chain, but it was fun. Wasn’t it, Ari?” he asked.

  Ari, who was staring curiously at Max, admitted, “It had its moments.” Then he gave a little laugh, so Max knew that Ari, too, had liked being a part of the performance.

  “You were really believable with Kip,” Tomi added. “Are you one of their actors?”

  “Eyes?” Ari asked Max. “Is that what they call you at school?” He asked Tomi, “Is it a friendly name? Because it doesn’t sound all that friendly.”

  Before either Tomi or Max had to answer those questions, Pia hurried up the street, her face as red as her skirt after the long run back from the docks. She didn’t have enough breath to say anything, but she didn’t need to speak. The expression in her eyes, as she stood panting and looking from one to the other, said it for her—part mischief and a lot self-satisfaction. When she finally had enough breath, what she said was, “I wish—I’d been in—the room. I heard—most of it, but”—and now her breathing had entirely steadied—“I wish I’d been there to watch it. You were brilliant, Ari. With Kip, I mean.”

  “It’s true,” Max agreed. “What was going on? Because you said you can’t act.”

  “That wasn’t acting,” Ari answered. “Unfortunately.”

  “What do you mean?” Pia demanded.

  “Why unfortunately?” asked Tomi.

  Ari’s smile was uncomfortable, even embarrassed. “Bartholds have tyranny in their blood, so—”

  “You’re a Barthold?” Tomi asked, shocked and alarmed and pleased all at once. “Don’t tell me you’re the next Baron,” he added.

  Pia, who already knew exactly what Ari was, had her own question. “Does this mean you’re going to come out of hiding? And everyone will know who you are? That would be great news because my mother is already green with envy that I go to the castle and that I’ve met the Baroness. She’ll have two cows if I tell her I know you.”

  Being in the line of fire of Pia’s attention like that made Ari rise to his feet and strap the sword around his waist again. He pulled the red jacket down so that the gleaming buttons were lined up straight, and carefully adjusted the sash. “I should talk to those grandparents,” he said, not looking at anyone.

  “Aren’t you going to answer me?” Pia demanded.

  “Answer which question?” Ari asked, and before she could start off again, he turned to Tomi. “Do you know where they live? Can you show me?”

  “Sure, and then I’ll set about going to the shopkeepers, which will also be a lot of fun.” He turned to Max. “Thanks for doing this, all of it,” he said, with an earnest expression. “If anyone asks me, can I tell them it was you? Mister Max, I mean. The Solutioneer.”

  “Give the Mayor credit, too,” Max advised.

  “Oh, I know how things go. I will. See you around?” Tomi asked.

  “Sure.”

  “No, I mean it,” Tomi said.

  “So do I,” Max answered, and discovered, unexpectedly, that he did.

  With Ari and Tomi gone, only Pia remained. She stood in front of him, expecting something. Max waited for her to leave. He really wanted to be alone so that he could … could feel entirely glad, just for a few minutes, all by himself. But Pia sat down and looked at him expectantly.

  Max stood up. “Thanks for your help,” he said. “I don’t think Blister would have gone off with just anyone,” he added, even though he didn’t think that was entirely true.

  She allowed a small smile of satisfaction to curve her mouth. “We did it, didn’t we? You never said how you’re related to the people who own the theater,” she told him. “You are related, aren’t you?”

  Max didn’t answer.

  “Never mind, I can find it out for myself,” Pia said, and with that pronouncement, exited.

  For several long, satisfying minutes, Max didn’t move. He stayed where he was, looking at the theater’s glass doors but not really seeing them, smiling to himself. Then he remembered Tomi’s warning. Like any unhurried policeman, however disorganized his uniform might appear to an onlooker, Max went up to take a look at the chain that secured the front entrance. That was when he saw what waited for him.

  He didn’t have to go up close to know what it was. He recognized from several paces back the round shape and the gold color, long before he could distinguish the three peaks stamped on it. He didn’t have to take it down from where it had been stuck on the glass with—with chewing gum? Who used chewing gum to stick something gold onto glass?

  Crossly, Max pulled the chain free. He unlocked the padlock, re-wrapped the longest section of chain around the door handles, fitted the padlock through two loops, and snapped it shut again. With Kip out of operation, the theater would be safe again.

  Crossly, he picked up the remaining length of chain and pulled the gold button off the glass. He had to scrape the gum off the glass, too, which made him no less angry. He jammed the button into a pocket and carried the chain in his hand as he stomped off to Thieves Alley.

  The good feeling he’d been floating along in, the feeling of his own courage and cleverness, was gone. Maybe he had solved the Mayor’s problem and saved the city, but that wasn’t good enough, was it? This button felt like a mocking message, each of its three sharp mountain peaks sticking a pin into Max. Apparently his father believed that Max should have done better. Apparently he was getting impatient.

  Max knew what he wanted to do with this message, but he decided instead to just toss it into the dark back corner of his drawer to join up with the other button. Max wasn’t going to let his father steal this morning’s show from him.

  Max had agreed to join Grammie for a picnic lunch behind the city library, to tell her ho
w things played out, but there was still time before then to go home and feel content, feel pleased with himself, feel proud. This was the most difficult job he had undertaken and he had completed it successfully. There had been luck involved, granted, and he had had a lot of help for sure, but still … Also, he hadn’t had a paintbrush in his hands for much too long. He was curious to see if he could paint the sky as seen—seen but not really visible—through dirty windowpanes. He didn’t know if he could paint from memory and he doubted that he could, but he looked forward to trying.

  Gentle rains in the night had left the grass and leaves and flower beds glistening in midmorning sunlight. Birds chattered and chirped to one another as they went busily from branch to grass to bush, clouds floated sedately across a pale sky, and Max would send a large bill to the Mayor’s office, enough to live on all summer. He still had the job of Carlo’s girl waiting, and it looked like a real challenge for the Solutioneer. Moreover, he had discovered the secret worry Grammie was hiding from him and had figured out the secret message in his father’s letter. For just an hour he could let himself forget exactly what that message was. For just what was left of the morning, he planned to be proud of his success, and relieved to have escaped harm, and not to be worried about anything.

  After a long and peaceful hour, he gave it up. It was the glass he couldn’t get right, especially the way unwashed window glass affected light. He couldn’t make it look like the daylight sky or the nighttime sky, both of which he remembered clearly. He was going to have to ask Joachim about how to produce that effect, and he looked forward to that conversation, the two of them working on a painting problem.

  His stomach reminded Max: Grammie was expecting him. He quickly washed out his brushes and spread the three unsuccessful pictures out on the kitchen table. Maybe when they had finished drying they would look more as he had envisioned, but he doubted that. Then he went upstairs to find a pair of short trousers, of the kind worn by little boys, and one of the plain blue collarless shirts such boys wore during the summer. His best disguise was to look even younger than he was, Max had decided. At least, for the moment. He went out as a schoolboy on the loose for the summer.