Chapter Twelve

The next morning got off to a bumpy start. Two days of hard labor, trekking back and forth to school, put Blue in a foul mood. She got that way every Wednesday. I managed to coax her down the driveway only to have her drop her chain once we hit the sidewalk. “Blue!” I said. “Pull yourself together.” It took me a few minutes to set everything back to rights, and then I gave her a dollop of hard truth.

“Here’s the thing, Big Blue. You’re a bike. You’re built to carry people around. That’s never going to change, so you’re gonna have to get it square in that rusty noggin of yours.” I patted her headlamp affectionately. “We’re only halfway through the week, and I still have business to conduct. It’d be nice if you could try to maintain at least a small level of professionalism. Do that for me and you can have the weekend off. Deal?”

She didn’t fall over or bust a tire, so I figured it was safe to assume we had an understanding. The rest of the ride was smooth until we hit Maple Street. Blue and I slowed down so I could adjust my lunch. We were nearly at the corner when I heard a familiar voice calling my name.

“Howard Wallace! Wait!”

Blue rattled to a stop, and I turned to see Ivy huffing down the sidewalk after me. This was the last thing I needed: a partner who didn’t stick to a plan. “Weren’t we supposed to meet at school?” I asked, frowning. It was one thing for me to deal with Tim and Carl every morning. I had no intention of dropping off innocent bystanders at their feet.

“Good morning to you too, Howard.”

“How did you even find me?” I hadn’t been training her that well.

Ivy leaned against the stop sign, fanning herself with the edges of her coat. “I’m a crazy good detective,” she said. “Plus I stopped by your house first, and your mom told me you’d be going this way.”

“Ratted out by my own mother. The shame.” The woman had no idea what she’d done.

“I’m going to pretend you said, ‘Hey, Ivy! Nice to have some company on the walk to school.’” Ivy hopped away from her post and twirled on the sidewalk. “So,” she asked. “What do you think?” It was a bright, balmy October day and Ivy had on a neon green raincoat with yellow daisies on it.

The misfortune of having an older sister had taught me a number of hard and fast life lessons. Never to comment on fashion choices was in the top five. Besides, appropriate outerwear was the least of my concerns at this point. I grabbed a piece of gum from my pocket and chewed it as I decided the best avenue of avoidance. On all fronts.

She nudged me with her elbow. “Every P.I. wears a trench coat, right?”

“Is that what that is?” Good thing I’d never answered the question.

Ivy sulked and yanked on my sleeve. “First of all, look who’s talking, bathrobe boy. And what was that you told me? ‘Work with what you’ve got’?”

At least she’d been listening.

“Don’t expect to be doing any surveillance in that getup.”

“Right, because the girl in the raincoat would look so out of place next to the boy in the loungewear.”

“Brown loungewear, Ivy,” I said. “Earth tones blend.”

Ivy started up the hill, flapping the sides of her coat as she went. “I’ll tell you one thing,” she said. “Plastic doesn’t breathe. It is Sweat City under here.”

Her wardrobe complaints turned to white noise as my brain whipped through different scenarios, trying to figure out how to redirect Ivy and get her out of the line of fire. We might have been spotted by now. If I stuck around as a distraction, Ivy had a chance at getting to school uninterrupted. I slid off Blue and wheeled her alongside my clueless partner. “You should cut over to Hickory Street.” I said, grasping at straws. “More trees, lots of shade.”

“Trying to get rid of me?” Ivy asked.

We were getting close to the danger zone, but Ivy still had time to turn back. “Only looking out for my partner,” I said.

“Aw, how sweet,” she said. “But why would I take a detour when we’re almost there?”

“This route has its drawbacks,” I said.

Right on cue, Tim and Carl surged out of the bushes, and Ivy yelped in alarm.

“Morning, Howie, you know the drill—” Tim cut off abruptly when he noticed Ivy standing beside me. “What a surprise,” he said in a long drawl. “Howie’s got a friend.”

With a miniscule shake of my head, I shot Ivy a hard look that I hoped said, Keep quiet and follow my lead.

“Did you get a lady friend to go with your lady cycle?” Tim asked.

“Excuse me?” Ivy snapped. Cringing inwardly, I made a note to work on more effective silent eye communication.

“No offense to you, Freckles,” he said, “but it’s most unusual to see our pal Howard in the company of other humans.”

I rummaged through my bag for my lunch. “I’ve got what you want, Tim. Leave her alone, okay?”

Tim sucked in a breath and hocked a wad of spit at my feet. “No can do, Howie,” he said. “She wants to pass, she’s gotta pay the toll.”

Ivy put her hand up. “Toll?”

“Your lunch.” Tim pointed at her bag and grinned.

“For real?” she asked. “This is your thing? Ambushing kids and stealing their lunches? Way to aim low in life, guys.”

“Ivy,” I hissed at her as quietly as possible, but it didn’t matter. She was on a roll.

“Who actually puts up with this ridiculousness?”

Tim pointed at me, and Carl coughed. Ivy’s mouth fell open when she caught sight of the lunch bag in my grasp. She put a hand on her backpack and shook her head. “No, no way.”

I passed my lunch over to Tim. “How about we call it even with that, eh, guys? Give her a pass.”

Tim gestured for Ivy’s bag. “We do not disseminate.”

“Discriminate,” Carl said.

“Or that.” Tim took a step toward Ivy. “Equal stealing from all.”

A stubborn look clouded Ivy’s face, and she held her ground.

“Ivy, just do it,” I pleaded. “We’ll get you something else to eat.”

“That’s not the point,” she said, holding her bag tight to her chest. “I refuse to hand over my lunch simply because these idiots said so.”

I closed my eyes briefly. “Ivy, I’m begging you.”

She swung her gaze back and forth between me and the moron patrol. Her chin lifted a fraction of an inch. “No.”

Tim smiled. He never encountered much opposition and was enjoying the change of pace. “If you don’t pay the lunch toll,” he said. “You have to pay the W toll.”

Ivy stared at Tim, bewilderment crowding out her anger. “What’s the W toll?”

Tim cracked his knuckles, and he and Carl stepped forward as one. I groaned, and Ivy turned to me.

“Seriously, what’s the W toll?”

... .- -- -..-. ... .--. .- -.. .

Five minutes later, we were back on our route, picking our underwear out of our teeth.

“If you’d listened to me even a little bit, this could have been avoided.” I shook my head as I kept a shaken-up Blue on a steady course. “Junior partner,” I said. “You’re supposed to follow my lead.”

Plucking at her pants, Ivy did a high-stepping dance down the sidewalk. “In all my life,” she said, “I’ve never been given a wedgie. I thought that only happened in movies. Thanks, Howard, for helping me reach that horrible milestone.”

I snorted out a laugh and carried on coaxing Blue along to school. Ivy had gotten off easy. I turned to tell her so, only to see she wasn’t there. Looking back, I saw her parked a few feet behind, glaring at me.

“It’s not funny,” she said. “Why didn’t you do anything to stop those guys?”

She didn’t get it at all. “There’s no stopping Tim and Carl,” I said. “There’s just surviving them.”

Ivy shook her head. “How is giving in the only option? There were two of us and two of them.”

“Ivy, c’mon,” I said, throwing my hands out to highlight my less-than-impressive frame. “Two of us barely equals one of them.”

“My dad says a bully can only push you around for as long as you let them.”

Parents give the worst advice. “No offense, Ivy, but your dad is full of it.”

Her head snapped up, indignant anger boiling out of her. I held up a hand before she could defend her father’s shortsighted words of wisdom.

“Listen,” I said. “There are two kinds of bullies in this world: those who are trying it on for size and those who mean business.”

Disbelief ran rampant over Ivy’s face. “Oh, and Tim and Carl mean business?”

“They own a franchise.”

Ivy started walking again, kicking along a small pebble as she went. “I’m trying to get this straight. You let them take your lunch? Like, every day?”

“Not every day,” I said. “Sometimes I take the long way to school. Or I get a ride.” But detours and rides weren’t always possible, and the truth of it was—there would always be a Tim and Carl. Guys like that can pop up anywhere. Every encounter with them I made it through was another check in the endurance column.

Ivy sniffed and made a little hmm noise before going back to kicking her rock.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing.”

“Spit it out.”

“It’s disappointing, that’s all,” Ivy shrugged. “I never figured you for a pushover.”

I slammed on the brakes, and Blue’s gears screeched in protest. It was bad enough Ivy had witnessed my daily ordeal. I didn’t need her judging me for it. “I am not a pushover,” I said. “I’m smart.” When did being sensible suddenly become being a pushover? “Who asked you to come along, anyway?” I demanded. “If you’d listened to me and stuck to the plan, you’d be at school and we’d both be able to walk properly.”

“So now it’s my fault?”

“I’m not saying it’s not.”

“Howard!”

Blue creaked and shuddered while Ivy glared at me. Now I was getting it from both sides. Guilt squirmed in my stomach. “I’m sorry, okay? I should have at least warned you what you were walking into.”

“That would’ve been nice,” Ivy said. “Why didn’t you?”

“And have you go charging in there to give them a piece of your mind? You think that would have gone better than this did?”

“We’ll never know, will we?” she sniffed.

“You gotta understand that I’ll deal with Tim and Carl in my own way, in my own time,” I said. “In a way that is not saying no to their faces when they’re in possession of giant fists.” I held up my own considerably smaller fists for emphasis.

Ivy looked unconvinced, but the dynamic of the delicate balance between thugs and their targets wasn’t easily explained to those on the outside. I set my feet back on Blue’s pedals and started forward again. Maybe something good could come of this, what Ms. Kowalski would call a “teaching moment.” If Ivy was determined to join the P.I. game, she’d have to get used to all the dirty tricks that came with it.

“This was an important lesson for you this morning,” I said.

“Explain that one to me.”

“Rule number ten,” I said. “Pick your battles. You’ve got to be in control of a situation and only fight when you know you can win.”

“And you think Tim and Carl—” Ivy trailed off.

“Are not a battle worth fighting right now,” I said. “We have more important things on our plate. Like Meredith’s case.” We arrived at the bike racks, and I locked Blue up tight. “You want in on this gig, you have to learn how to compartmentalize.”

“I get what you’re saying,” Ivy said. “Right now, I’m really annoyed at you and kind of want to punch you, but you’re saying we have to work on the case, so I should save it for later.”

Hmm.

“I think I should explain it again,” I said.

“You could try.”

As we rounded the corner to the office, Ivy froze. “Howard,” she said. “Your desk!” The whole place was in shambles. All the buckets were toppled over, and the desk was lying butter side down in the dirt. I sighed. You came to expect this sort of thing when you didn’t have a lock. Or a door. Or walls, for that matter.

“Grab the guest chair, would you?” I got busy turning the desk back over and resettling my own bucket to its optimal lean against the tree.

Ivy brushed dirt off of the desktop. “Who would’ve done this? There’s not an evil rival agency around, is there?”

“This isn’t an unusual scene to walk into,” I said. “Could’ve been squirrels. Or delinquents. Or—delinquent squirrels.”

Ivy shook her head and wiped off her hands on her jeans. “And you’re okay with your stuff being trashed on a regular basis?”

I pulled open a desk drawer. Juicy Smash stash unharmed. At least I could chalk up one win to the morning’s numerous losses. “It is what it is,” I said. “People are going to mess with me no matter what. Having an outdoor office kind of invites this sort of thing.”

She flopped down onto the guest bucket. “Sadly enough, that’s only the second weirdest thing I’ve learned about you this morning.”

I reached into the drawer and reorganized the packs back into neat, orderly rows.

“Listen,” I said. “It’s not like I keep important files here. It’s a pretty small price to pay for, you know, not having to pay for anything.”

“Haven’t you ever thought about setting up some sort of security system?” Ivy asked.

“I did,” I said, “but then I took on a partner. I could probably swing it if I fired her.”

“A private eye and a comedian.” She tapped a finger on the desk. “You’ll need new business cards. Sorry, business sticky notes.”

People always had to take a jab at the sticky notes. “Enough with the gags,” I said. “We’ve got a case to solve and not a lot of time to do it.”

“What’s the plan?” Ivy asked.

“It’s time to meet the president.”