Touchdown Tony Crowne and the Mystery of the Missing Cheerleader (21 page)

Giggling with delight and with his bedroom whirling wildly around him, Tony only heard, “Oh, I see.—whoosh—Now you’re calling me—whoosh, whoosh—a fat, old man!—whoosh”

Resting in a favorite spot next to the heat register in the kitchen, Curly’s ears shot to attention when he heard those excited voices coming from upstairs. Fun! Someone’s having fun! He woofed twice, stood up and barreled past Maria as she was preparing a cup of coffee for the Judge.

Looking up to the kitchen ceiling, Maria shook her head and said, “Right, if those three break something again, I’m going to wring each one of their little necks!” She walked over to the table and served the Judge his coffee.

“Maria, please sit down. The last time those two made a fuss upstairs and that dog ran after them, well, you remember, don’t you?” The Judge’s eyes widened as he rubbed his lower back. “I’m still a little sore from that morning.”

Galloping down the hallway to Tony’s bedroom, Curly spied his favorite target, Anthony Jr. twirling Tony around in the air.

“Dad!—whoosh—Dad!”

“What?—whoosh, whoosh.”

“Watch out!—whoosh—It’s Curly!”

When Curly leapt into the air, Anthony Jr. stopped, twisted his hips in the opposite direction and Curly sailed by them with only a glancing blow, landing on Tony’s new bed with a thud and bouncing off. Stopping in mid-twirl, however, made Anthony Jr. cross his feet in a weird way and he lost his balance, stumbling back into Tony’s bedside table and knocking the lamp off onto the floor where it shattered into several pieces.

Anthony Jr. uttered a long, deep and drawn out “Uh-oh-h-h!” when the lamp broke and he brought Tony down to his chest so he could try to regain his balance. He took a half-step backwards, but stubbed his foot on an oblong shard from the lamp. He lurched forward and stepped into the lampshade lying on the floor.

Curly thought this was all great fun, woofed and took another short run at Anthony Jr. who was standing on one leg while shaking his other leg to get the lampshade off. Curly landed a brutal one-two paw punch into Anthony Jr.’s midsection which caused him to go down for the count or, in this instance, a backward flop onto Tony’s bed.

CRACK! BOOM!

Once they stopped bouncing up and down on the mattress, Anthony Jr. and Tony stared at each other for a second, turned, surveyed all the damage in the bedroom and simultaneously sighed.

“You know what?” Anthony Jr. dully asked.

“Yep, I know.” Tony said.

Shaking their heads up and down with a glassy stare, they said at the same time, “Mom’s gonna be mad!”

Tony, Judd, Curly, Ash and Boogs will return for another sports mystery packed with action and adventure.

Be on the lookout!

A word from Peter:

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Bonus chapter from the newest Tony Crowne mystery:

“The Tiny Heist”

by Peter Guy George

Available from all eBook sellers.

The Tiny Heist-Chapter One

Alert for any potential troublemakers, Walter Vass drummed the butt of his holstered revolver with his fingers as he stood on the sidewalk in downtown Dersee and surveyed the crowd milling around the open-air “Arts by the Lake” festival a block to the west. His salt and pepper hair haphazardly spilled out from beneath his ill-fitting one-size-fits-all ball cap as the Sunday afternoon September sun beat down upon his wrinkled uniform and the sweat rings on his shirt were becoming noticeably evident.

“C’mon, c’mon. Hurry up. I’m melting out here.” He grumbled as he frowned and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Glancing down at his watch, he noted they were also a good 15 minutes behind schedule. Standing next to his armored truck, he caught a glimpse of himself in the front door of Rudy’s Sports Store and sadly shook his head as his reflection revealed a man in his early fifties carrying an extra twenty pounds in his midsection, neck and face. His body was slightly distorted by the glass door, but he clearly could tell that he was not just a little, but a lot, out of shape.

He spun away from his unflattering image and tried, without success, to suck in his belly and appear thinner. “Okay, one last good meal at the restaurant tonight and then I start my diet. This lousy job is going to kill me,” he muttered as he exhaled and his body returned to its more familiar donut shape. He took off his Battle Armored Truck Security cap, ran his fingers through his damp hair and leaned his shoulder against his truck, fidgeting with his key chain and daydreaming about losing weight as he stared down the street.

“WALT! Get your bee-hind in gear, fat man!” Pavel Teague hooted as he held the front door open for Rory Ayers to bring his large duffel bag of coins and cash out to the armored truck. Pavel and Rory were the other two guards teamed with Walter that day and they did all the customer contact and heavy lifting. They were the “hoppers” as the industry calls them, hopping in and out of the truck at each stop while Walter did all the driving. “Man, all you have to do is drive this hunk of junk all day. Can’t you at least be ready when we bring this loot out? Seconds count if something were to happen. I don’t care if you do have a dinner reservation tonight, keep your mind in the game dude!” Pavel barked as he strut by Walter with his chin stuck out and his muscles bulging from the weight he was carrying. Pavel was an ex-Army man, still in great shape and still loved to give orders, especially to people he thought were slacking in their duties.

“I’m coming! I’m coming!” Walter slipped to the back of the truck and stuck his key into the top lock as Pavel inserted his key into the bottom lock. They turned their keys counter-clockwise at the same time and the back door swung open. “What took you guys so long?”

Rory Ayers burst out into a big grin, leaned into Walter’s ear and half-whispered, half-shouted, “Lorna in the front office wouldn’t give Pavel the time of day.” He climbed into the truck with his bag, turned around and added, “No matter how nice he was to her!”

Pavel rolled his eyes and grunted, “You know that ain’t true, boy. She was busy getting us all squared away with the deposits and such. She didn’t have time for small talk with all the people in the store today.” He stared at Walter for a second and said, “Are you keeping a lookout or not?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Walter swiveled his head around and looked in both directions. “But, we’ve still got to refill all those ATM’s before we can head back to the office. We’re late now as it is.”

“Don’t you worry about that. We’ll get done, when we get done and not a minute sooner. You got that?” Pavel tossed his money bag into the back of the truck, climbed in and sat next to Rory who was busy sorting his coins and paper money.

Walter took another look around and said, “Hey, I know a shortcut to our next stop. It’ll shave about ten minutes off—”

“Negative!” Pavel cut him off with an answer at a decibel level that shook the truck and made Rory flinch. “We go by the book and the book says to keep to the route dictated by the office. No deviations. Now get back to your post, radio in and tell’em we're heading to the ATM in front of the restaurant. Asap!”

“Aw c’mon, Pav. Lighten up. Ol’ Walt was just trying to be efficient. Right, old feller?” Rory smiled, leaned forward and lightly slapped Walter on the shoulder, trying to soften the blow of Pavel’s tongue-lashing.

Red-faced and stung by Pavel’s attitude toward him as well as Rory’s innocent remark about his age, Walter looked down at his shoes and mumbled, “Yeah, something like that.” He shot a hurried glance at them, shut the door, locked his side and then climbed into the driver’s seat. Walter radioed the office, eased the truck into drive and immediately turned right onto North Lakepointe Street.

Normally, Walter would have driven straight from Rudy’s Sports Store down East Market Avenue to the restaurant, but the city of Dersee always closes a portion of downtown to vehicular traffic to accommodate the arts festival and the horde of people who come from around the state to browse and to buy artist’s wares.

Parking was at a premium near downtown and traffic was heavy for Walter as he fought his way north to Byerman Boulevard, headed west and turned left onto Gayle Street, driving south on the temporarily one-way street to the mobile ATM that sat in front of Tiny’s Restaurant.

Less than a block from the restaurant, Walter caught sight of a flatbed tow truck with a brown tarp covering its cargo nosing into traffic from an alleyway, helped by a middle-aged man wearing a t-shirt with EVENT STAFF printed on the front and back of it. He directed the car traffic around it, but stuck his hand in the air for Walter to stop. “Aw! Why didn’t he let me pass, too?” Walter wondered and softly braked his truck. The man gave him a smile with a friendly wave and motioned for the tow truck to pull completely out onto Gayle Street.

Glancing into his driver-side mirror to see if could back up a little and give the other driver more room to maneuver, Walter noticed another large truck creeping up and almost touching his bumper. “Can you get any closer, buddy?” Walter groused as he checked the left-side mirror too.

Because the gap was so narrow between the cars parked on the street, the tow truck would have to swing close to Walter’s truck to make it around the corner without putting an unwanted crease in someone’s door. The EVENT STAFF man directed the tow truck to cross within inches of Walter’s front bumper. As the other driver came into Walter’s view, he saw a massive forearm with equally massive biceps perched on the open window giving a thumbs-up sign to the other man. The other driver braked, turned his huge bald and sun-glassed head toward Walter and gave him the thumbs-up sign as well as a huge grin. If there wasn’t a windshield in his truck, Walter could have had a pleasant conversation with the man without raising his voice.