Spy in the Alley (15 page)

Roderick interrupted nervously, “Okay, show's over, Dinah. Let's take you home.”

“No.” His dad was studying me. “Let Dinah continue.”

“Well,” I said, “when we told Roderick about Theo, except that we were calling Theo Bu — oh never mind about that.” I didn't want to embarrass Theo by referring to his buckteeth. After all, personal remarks are rude, even when applied to spies. “Anyhow, Roderick said he'd bring a security expert, Buzz Bewford, in to catch Theo.
But he really brought
Buzz in to help Theo sabotage Jack
.”

I stared accusingly at Theo, who'd at least had the decency to stop grinning, though not the intelligence to make a quick getaway. I accused him, “I
did
see you the other night, didn't I? You were the thief, the only thief, and you were burgling Jack's place again. The first time you botched it, by taking pictures of tomatoes. The second time, though, you helped yourself to a box of GASP supplies, including a T-shirt, right? Convenient — because then you could spray-paint Rod's car and the billboard of Madge, and everyone would see the shirt and blame GASP. You're the mad spray-painter!”

Theo cleared his throat. He'd grown pale — kind of sickly-looking. “At school, I always did enjoy art class,” he mumbled.

“Your second visit was when you really hit pay dirt,” I continued. “You saw some brochures on the kitchen table, so you dumped juice all over them.”

“I also had a drink of it,” Theo defended himself. “I was thirsty. So the juice wasn't totally
wasted
, if you know what I mean.”

I forged on. “The box you stole also contained brochures for the next GASP rally. You handed the box over to Buzz — as well as Jack's laptop, crammed with GASP information. Buzz then mangled it.”

“Buzz was waiting in the alley with his car,” Theo admitted, looking even more sickly. “He took off in a hurry before I could climb in. The security alarm was going, see. So I had to make my own getaway. First I whipped on the GASP T-shirt, though. I'd spilled juice on my own shirt. I stuffed
that
in somebody's garbage can while I was running down the alley.”

“And then you skulked in the blackberries,” I accused.

“No wonder Theo has scratches all over his arms,” remarked Cindi, who, to my surprise, had a mellifluous voice.

Theo folded his arms behind his back. “Well, I gotta run now,” he announced — and began exiting the room sideways, to keep his arms concealed.

Since he wasn't looking too closely at where he was going, this maneuver led him
smack
into Madge, Jack and a bunch of GASPers.

Grabbing Theo by the collar, Jack yelled, “I've been waiting for this!”

He raised his free hand for a punch. He might well have flattened Theo's buckteeth into place had not Madge and the intense-looking girl stopped him.

A box-like hand clamped on Jack's shoulder. Behind it, Buzz Bewford leered, “I've bin following these GASPers, like you asked, Roderick. Want me to call the cops and charge them with trespassing?”

Jack wrenched out of Buzz's grasp. He addressed Roderick: “We're here to file a formal complaint against Wellman Talent for unethical business practices. I — ”

“Accepted.” Mr. Wellman smiled into the stunned silence that greeted his remark. He said hi to Madge, then held out his hand to Jack, who shook it somewhat dazedly. “You must be Mr. French. I'm Rod Wellman, Senior. The owner of this agency.” And Mr. Wellman gave his son a much less friendly look than he'd given Jack.

I was busy clutching my head, partly because I felt it had failed me sadly on several points. “Madge, I was just telling Mr. Wellman how we were totally taken in by Buzz. When he described a scowling thief with a forelock of brown hair, we believed him. Dumb! There was never any second thief.

“You remember how we kept thinking we recognized him?” I asked her.

She nodded. “All we knew was that we'd seen him somewhere around the neighborhood.”

Even though I was still boiling at Roderick, I grinned. After all, detectives
should
be allowed their moment of triumph, and this was mine. I said, “The mysterious boy with brown hair is
in
our neighborhood, but not
of
it.”

Stares all round. I loved it. “I saw him this afternoon in a commercial — a jeans commercial, just like the ad he's in on the back cover of
Vogue
,” I explained. “That's where Buzz got the idea for his phony description. He must've seen the cover the day you kept holding it up to avoid looking at Jack. Remember?”

“Um,” said Madge, but her puzzled frown started to clear.

“A red herring,” I went on. “Just like in Sherlock Holmes. Buzz wanted to throw me off the track when I figured out that Theo was the thief. So, on the spur of the moment, he invented this other thief, whose picture he'd seen on
Vogue
. Right, Buzz? Buzz …? ”

Everyone stepped back to look around. Buzz's box-like head was fast becoming a box-like speck down the hallway: he was making a prudent exit. I couldn't blame him.

“Madge,” Roderick interrupted, in a choked-sounding voice, “I know this looks unfavorable. And, in several respects, it is.”

“Several!” snorted Cindi. “Wait'll you guys hear about this poor kid being locked in a closet!”

“What!” shrieked Madge.

Everyone began shouting then, GASPers and corporate types alike. Mr. Wellman bent down and inquired of me, “Those people with Jack and your sister. Are they
all
— ?”

“GASP,” I replied.

“My sentiments exactly,” sighed Roderick's father.

Chapter Eighteen

Pizza and paint

Mr. Wellman turned out to be not such a bad guy. He ordered pizzas. Soon the GASPers were munching happily away and chatting in the boardroom.

The corporate types from Bonna Terra and Fields Tobacco declined his offer of pizza. Twisting his cigarette-pack tie clip, the starchy-looking man sneered that we weren't the sort of people he and his colleagues would wish to dine with. Instead, he barked at the receptionist to phone for cabs — and, as she did, they stood about making loud, insulting comments about Wellman Talent.

Ignoring the executives, Mr. Wellman ordered Roderick to pack up his things and leave the office. “It seems I was a bit hasty in bringing you into work,” Mr. Wellman said. “I think a year's
community
work would be much better for you. Give you some perspective.”

He ordered Theo to go home and wait to hear from the police. At this, Madge whispered to Mr. Wellman that a phone call to Theo's ornery aunt, Rosalie Nickablock, would probably result in much crueler punishment than anything the police could devise. “I
like
it,” said Mr. Wellman.

He ordered his secretary to telephone my mother and tell her where I was, and then to call Buzz Bewford, and fire him. He ordered Cindi to go into another room and practice her screaming. Then he politely asked Madge, Jack and me to join him for pizza in his office.

“This is my company. Therefore, these spy-in-the-alley shenanigans are my fault,” Mr. Wellman said, after the three of us had explained to him the events of the past few days.

Madge beamed at him. “I knew it. Mother kept saying how nice you were, and so I got to thinking, maybe you would listen to GASP's point of view. That's why we came downtown to see you.”

Mr. Wellman lapsed into a rueful, and rather sad, smile. “It
is
my fault, in a lot of ways,” he sighed. “All the time, when Rod was growing up, I was busy at work, trying to make a go of the business. He and I had very little time together. In his last years of high school, he begged to help out at Wellman Talent — to be with me.

“Then, last spring, I realized how tired I was. All those years of work — and I'd never bothered with a vacation, and worse, not bothered nearly enough with my family. I suggested we all take off — my wife, Rod and me — but he wanted to stay here. To prove himself. To take control of Wellman Talent and impress me. So we could work
together
, he said, when I got back.”

Mr. Wellman massaged his forehead. Feeling sorry for him, I decided to inject some humor. “Rod
does
tend to be a headache, doesn't he?” I said cheerfully.

Madge gave me a sharp elbowing. “Ow!” I yelped. Mr. Wellman laughed. “You're an honest soul, Dinah. I can see now that I haven't been honest with myself for years. But I'll change that. I intend to spend lots of time with Rod — and not at the office. He's not ready for that: my kid has the business sense, it seems, but none of the insights. Going hand in hand with a tobacco company, in this time of awareness about the dangers of smoking — what a mistake!”

Mr. Wellman shook his head. “I think that, as well as just hanging out with my son over the next months, which is the most valuable thing I can do for both of us, I'll put him in some of the arts courses he disdained so much at school. If the boy admitted a few ideas into his head, from the creative people in our past, he'd see things in a much more balanced, thoughtful way. People like Emily Carr, with her appreciation of nature. Or Plato, with his concepts about caring, involved citizenry.”

“Wow,” I commented. “You talk just like our mother when she gets on a rant — I mean,” I said, blushing, “on, a, um — ”

“Quit while you're behind,” Madge advised me kindly.

Roderick staggered into the doorway. His arms were loaded with books and files from the desk he'd hurriedly cleaned out — and, on top of them all, wavered a can of paint. The lid rested crookedly on it; dried pink paint smeared the can's sides.

Mr. Wellman eyed the can with distaste. Then, with sorrow more than anger, he shook his head. “You had that buck-toothed goon vandalize your car — my
gift
to you, Roddy. You intended GASP to take the blame, which, for a while, it did. Did a business deal mean that much to you?”

The tower of items Roderick was carrying swayed as his face crumpled. “Aw, Dad, I — ”

Mr. Wellman held up a weary hand. “Never mind, son. It's my fault as much as yours. We'll talk, you and I. But for now — ”

“I'm going, I'm going,” Roderick sniffled. He retreated a step — only to back into the starchy-looking man with the tie clip.

“Our cabs have arrived,” Starchy informed Roderick and Mr. Wellman. “But, before I leave, I want to tell you that I intend to blacklist Wellman Talent among all my contacts in the business world. Nothing can stop me.”

“A little girl with a big voice seems to have stopped you for the moment,” Mr. Wellman pointed out mildly. “I imagine that, over time, a lot of little people could eventually stop you altogether. It might be a long time, I'll grant you that, but it will happen.”

Starchy spluttered, unable to think of an immediate comeback.

“Would you like some pizza?” asked Mr. Wellman.

“Ha!” Starchy shouted. “Don't think you can whitewash today's events by offering us pizza!”

“Um, sir,” pleaded Roderick, trying to move away.

“Don't you
um
me, boy.” Starchy grabbed Roderick by the collar. “There will be no whitewashing, I tell you!”

“Uh, really, I beg you … ”

“Into begging, are we! I knew it would come to this!”

Shaken by the collar, Roderick had less and less control of his tower of items. The paint can rattled atop a book called
Better Business Practices
; the lid slipped sideways.

“Watch out!” cried Mr. Wellman.

“No whitewashing, I say!” Starchy shouted.

The lid flew off, and the can overturned, drenching Starchy in a coat of pink.“Pinkwashing, maybe,” chuckled Mr. Wellman.

The corporate types left, with Starchy trailing pink splotches like sulky teardrops. Jack asked, “Sir, could we back up a bit here? Not that I don't agree with you about arts courses. That's one of the reasons I want to become a teacher — to open up kids' imaginations, so they'll see lots of different points of view. But I couldn't help noticing that you said ‘going hand in hand with a tobacco company' was a mistake. Do you mean you would consider never accepting a business deal with a tobacco company again?”

“I'm not considering it,” Mr. Wellman replied. Then, as Jack's eager expression started to fade, Roderick's dad assured him, “I've
decided
it. No more cigarette sponsorships of any kind. In fact, even if Huck Finn shows up here with his corncob pipe, he'll be tossed out.”

Madge glowed. Jack reached across the table to shake Mr. Wellman's hand. I leaped out of my chair and whooped with joy.

Cindi shouted from the next room, “Hey, is somebody giving me competition?”

I stopped whooping, but only because I was growing hoarse. “You are a hero, Mr. Wellman,” I proclaimed. “An inspiration. A saint. A — ”

“I am not a saint,” he said quietly, taking my hand. “Do I like tobacco personally? No way. I'm well acquainted with its effects on health, and its addictive properties.

“However, here at Wellman Talent, I'm a businessperson first and foremost, and I can see the way public opinion is bending. I don't want to associate with the tobacco industry — for the sake of our image.”

“Oh,” I said, deflated.

He smiled. “However, saint though I am not, I am an honest businessperson. I will always be straight with you, Ms. Dinah Galloway. Always upfront, as I am being now. Do you think you would find that an acceptable foundation for a friendship?”

“Y-yes,” I said, struggling against my normal tendency, which was to view things in extremes. Maybe it
was
okay for someone to be neither saint nor villain, but somewhere in between. As long as they were honest about what they were. Not like Buzz, Theo and — ahem! — Roderick the dweeb.