Swindle Read online

  With that, Darren pulled himself forward on the undulating branch and reached for the Bambino. His probing fingers passed just a few inches beneath it.

  Griffin powered on the SmartPick and pressed the button. With a low whir, the aluminum pole telescoped outward, soaring high above them into the night.

  It works! he thought in amazement. Not that he’d doubted his father. Yet never could he have imagined that it would be so impressive. The air was filled with blowing leaves. Trees rolled and weaved with the wind. But the SmartPick never wavered, rising laser-straight into the maple’s branches.

  “What the —?” Pitch did a double take as the gleaming metal whizzed past her shoulder.

  “Wow,” breathed Ben. “Your old man really is a genius!”

  Griffin shuffled his feet and tried to aim the FruitSafe pincers at the tiny card. Every motion on the ground translated into a major swing on the other end of the long pole. The picking mechanism pitched wildly as it neared the top of the tree.

  Darren shuffled a little farther on his branch. He extended his arm and felt his fingertips brush the edge of the card. This was it!

  As he braced for the final stretch that would make him a millionaire, a metallic ring rose up right in front of him. The device opened into rubber-tipped pincers that closed delicately on the Babe Ruth card and, with a twist, plucked it from the branch.

  His eyes bulged in dismay. The — the — DumbPick?!

  He snatched at the Bambino, but the pincers had already begun to retract, bearing the collectible away. There was a sickly cracking sound.

  Uh-oh …

  Far below, the team watched in tense anticipation as the prize made its descent.

  “Careful,” Ben said anxiously. “Don’t rip it.”

  Griffin hung on to the SmartPick like a fisherman landing a shark in the middle of a full gale. “Don’t worry. The patented FruitSafe mechanism is guaranteed not to damage fruit.”

  “That’s not fruit,” Savannah pointed out. “That’s my vet school tuition, Melissa’s computer, Logan’s acting lessons, Pitch’s climbing trip. College paid for, new cars when we’re old enough —”

  Melissa wore a grin so wide it nearly split her face. “I can’t believe we actually did it!”

  And then a voice from above called, “He-e-elp!”

  26

  Darren was falling, still clutching the useless limb as it tore away from the tree. The team watched helplessly as he plummeted toward them. Ten feet up, the ripping wood held suddenly firm. Darren cried out as the branch lurched violently and swung around in the direction of the house.

  Crash!

  The bough slammed into a downstairs window, shattering the glass and tossing the boy like a rag doll back into the Palomino home.

  An earsplitting wail blasted through the neighborhood as the UltraTech alarm system burst to life. Griffin abandoned the SmartPick and joined Ben, Savannah, and Melissa in a mad dash for the house. Pitch dropped from the tree and limped after them.

  Griffin could taste bitter dread boiling up in his throat. He peered in to see Darren sprawled in the wreckage of the window, unmoving.

  Oh my God, is he dead?

  And then the big boy rolled over, shook his fist, and started shouting with rage. The rush of relief nearly knocked Griffin over. He couldn’t imagine ever being so happy to be yelled at by this jerk.

  With Melissa’s help, he hauled Darren over the sill. Except for torn clothing and cuts and bruises, their betrayer was unhurt.

  “You okay?” Pitch bawled in his ear. And when Darren nodded sheepishly, she hauled off and punched him in the stomach.

  Logan pounded onto the wild scene, hollering like a madman. It was impossible to hear him over the clamor of the siren, but his meaning could not be mistaken: This outdoor chaos wasn’t part of the plan. What had gone wrong?

  Griffin grabbed him by the shoulders. “You were supposed to stay with Mr. Mulroney!”

  “You think he’d sit through this kind of noise?” the actor shouted back. “He went inside to call the cops, so I took off! Did we get the card?”

  The card! The SmartPick was lying on the ground somewhere, with a million-dollar payload in its pincers.

  Griffin retraced his steps, desperately scanning the grass. He could see nothing in the darkness.

  This can’t be happening … not when we’re so close —

  A glint of metal caught his attention. Heart pounding, he snatched up his father’s invention. The Bambino was still nestled in the mechanism.

  The alarm’s gut-churning howl died abruptly. After such overpowering noise, the sudden silence was as explosive as a bomb blast. The unexpected quiet revealed two sounds: police sirens in the distance and the barking of a guard dog — no, two guard dogs —

  “Code Z!” Griffin bellowed.

  There was a code Z in all Griffin’s plans — the escape clause. The moment when the operation was either completed, or busted, or both, and all that remained was to get the heck out of there.

  The team scattered.

  “Hey!” cried Darren. “Somebody’s got to help me with my ladder!”

  “In your dreams!” snorted Pitch, who was limping at top speed, indicating that her ankle felt a little better.

  Darren raced to the side of the house and tried to pull the twenty-four-foot length away from the wall. The top overbalanced, and he had to dive to safety as the entire thing fell with a resounding kong to the grass. Chest heaving, he began the process of collapsing the six-foot sections and snapping them into place. The second piece wouldn’t budge. Frantically, he tried to stomp it down. “Come on!”

  He made a split-second decision and ran after the others. “Wait up!” If those two dogs found the broken window, he didn’t like his chances of outrunning them with a ladder on his back. And that same ladder was going to look pretty suspicious if the cops caught him with it on their way to investigate a rooftop break-in. Nothing was free in this world, and the cost of tonight was one ladder. He’d explain it to his parents somehow — even if he had to tell them Griffin Bing stole it.

  Griffin stuffed the card in his pocket, and he and Ben made a beeline for the bike. “Hold this!” Griffin commanded, handing over the SmartPick. “And try to stay awake this time!” And they were off, riding double along Park Avenue Extension, swerving down a side street to avoid an approaching squad car.

  Ben was frantic. “What if Swindle figures out it was us? The police will search us and find the card!”

  Griffin cruised up and stopped beside a mailbox. “I’ve got it covered.” He reached inside his shirt and produced an envelope with the address and stamp already on it. He popped the Bambino inside, sealed the flap, and dropped the letter through the slot.

  Ben was bug-eyed. “You mailed it? To who?”

  “It’s better for you not to know.”

  They got back on the bike and rode to Ben’s house. Ben jumped off and handed over the SmartPick. “I’ve always had a lot of respect for you, man,” he said solemnly. “But I never dreamed we had a prayer of pulling off what we did tonight!”

  “If you’ve got the right plan,” Griffin told him, “that’s all you need.”

  Just the thought of a successful operation brought a smile to his lips. As he pedaled toward home he allowed himself a few moments of self-congratulation. True, there had been hiccups — Pitch’s injury, Ben’s catnap, the empty safe, the extra dog, the guy at the door, and especially Darren’s betrayal. But the team had improvised, sidestepped, overcome. After all, the team was part of the plan. And this had been the plan to end all plans.

  As he rounded the corner to his own block, his heart very nearly jumped out of his rib cage. Dancing colored lights whirled across the brick front of the Bing house. A squad car was parked in the driveway, flashers ablaze.

  27

  He was astounded. How could the cops be here already? The team had gotten away before any officers reached the Palomino home to investigate the alarm. And Swindle
should still be at the hockey game …

  For a moment, Griffin actually thought about turning his bike around and making a break for it. How crazy was that? A fugitive, living on the lam, never to see his family or friends again? No, there was nothing to do but face the music and hope for the best. At least he didn’t have the card on him. The police couldn’t prove anything without that.

  Steeling himself, he ditched his gloves and stocking cap in a bush, and pedaled for home.

  “Hey! Hey!” Two uniformed officers were running across the lawn. A third figure was right behind them. Dad.

  Before Griffin could dismount, the larger of the cops grabbed him under the arms and hauled him bodily off the bike. The man’s partner snatched the SmartPick and held it up to Mr. Bing.

  “Sir, is this the prototype that was stolen from your garage?”

  Stolen? The truth came crashing down on Griffin. This had nothing to do with the robbery! Dad must have gone to investigate the noises coming from the garage. When he found his invention missing, he called the cops.

  Mr. Bing looked shocked and embarrassed. “I’m sorry, officers. It seems I’ve been wasting your time. This is my son.” To Griffin, he said, “What were you doing with my prototype?”

  Griffin was so relieved to be off the hook for the baseball card that he had a hard time working up a shamefaced expression. “Ben wanted to see how it worked. We were just picking pinecones out of trees.”

  The senior officer spoke up. “You weren’t anywhere near Park Ex, were you? We’ve had reports of some vandalism over there. Broken window, alarm signal.”

  Mr. Bing stepped in. “No, his friend’s house is nowhere near there. I’m afraid this is all my mistake. I apologize for dragging you over here.”

  Griffin withered under his father’s disapproving gaze as the officers got back in their car and drove away.

  Mr. Bing returned the invention to its place in his workshop. “You nearly gave me a heart attack,” he said finally. “When I stepped into the garage and the prototype wasn’t there, I just about lost it. I’ve poured my blood and sweat into that baby — not to mention most of our savings.”

  Griffin studied his sneakers. “Sorry, Dad.” But what he wanted to say was: We’re going to have more than enough money to develop your invention — and we won’t have to sell the house to do it.

  “What were you thinking? If you and Ben wanted a demonstration, all you had to do was ask.” A ghost of a smile tugged at his lip. “So, how did it go? Did the prototype perform up to expectations?”

  It was like a sequence from a movie — the telescoping pole defying gravity to snatch the card away from Darren in the nick of time. “Oh, Dad,” he said earnestly. “In a million years, I never would have believed what a SmartPick can do!”

  The text message came halfway through the second period of the Rangers–Maple Leafs game:

  ULTRATECH SECURITY

  E-ALERT SYSTEM

  TIME OF ALERT: 8:47 P.M.

  ATTENTION: PALOMINO, S. WENDELL

  AN ALARM SIGNAL HAS BEEN

  RECEIVED FROM THE FOLLOWING

  ADDRESS: 531 PARK AVENUE

  EXTENSION, CEDARVILLE, NY

  ULTRATECH CENTRAL STATION

  MONITORING HAS REPORTED THE

  INCIDENT TO POLICE

  Never before had the highways of New York City seen a Honda Element driving at such reckless speeds. Weaving in and out of traffic, S. Wendell Palomino streaked eastward toward the Cedarville exit. He was still doing at least sixty as he screeched to a halt inches from the police cruiser in his driveway.

  The dealer was already breathing hard as he rushed up the front steps and fixed his sunny-side-up eyes on the officer positioned at the door.

  “You’re the homeowner?” she inquired.

  Palomino nodded, but stood there wheezing, incapable of speech.

  “There’s been a break-in,” the officer informed him. “The entry point was from the roof through the bathroom skylight. It looks like the thieves got what they were after. Your safe has been burned open, probably by blowtorch.”

  “Never mind the safe!” Palomino babbled frantically. “What about my turkey?”

  “Your turkey?”

  The agitated dealer blew by her and ran into the kitchen, where a horrifying sight greeted him. What had once been a twenty-pound turkey was now perhaps a three-pound skeleton. Luthor and the hired German shepherd lay side by side on the tile floor, too stuffed with ice-cold meat to do more than raise their heads and growl.

  “We found one suspect hiding in the basement, a Mr. Lamar Fontaine. But he seems to be unconnected to the crime. His ID says he works for an auction company. We think he walked in on the robbery, and the dogs chased him down there. He’s pretty shaken up.”

  “But what about the real thieves?” Palomino wailed. “Why didn’t the dogs go after them?”

  “Impossible to tell,” the officer replied. “The turkey was probably used as a distraction.”

  Palomino knew the truth was much more awful than that. He could see right through the turkey ribs that the chest cavity was empty. Discarded on the counter was the Ziploc bag that had kept the card clean and dry inside the frozen bird.

  The Bambino was gone.

  28

  THIEVES NAB $1M CARD ON EVE OF AUCTION

  In what is being called the most spectacular robbery in the history of sports collectibles, a 1920 baseball card valued as high as $1,000,000 was stolen from its owner’s home last night. The rare card, which portrayed slugger Babe Ruth as a member of the Boston Red Sox during his first season as a Yankee, was taken by thieves who dropped from a skylight wearing climbing harnesses.

  The daring heist was carried out under the noses of two trained guard dogs and a bonded courier hired by Worthington’s Auction House, where the card was to be sold scarcely twelve hours later. Police are investigating leads, including the harnesses and an extension ladder found at the scene….

  Quiet, sleepy Cedarville was suddenly on the map. TV news mobile units wandered the town, searching for Park Avenue Extension and Palomino’s Emporium. A fleet of vans equipped with satellite dishes formed in front of West Suffolk Medical Center, where S. Wendell Palomino had gone, suffering from nervous collapse.

  “I didn’t expect so much publicity,” Ben mumbled worriedly at school on Friday. “Every time you turn on the TV, there’s Swindle tearing his hair and weeping.”

  “Get real — it’s a million bucks,” retorted Darren. “What I want to know is how long do we have to lie low before we can sell the card and get our money.”

  “Your money?” Pitch was indignant. “You tried to rip the rest of us off. I don’t see why you should get a cent.”

  “Because I can turn you in to the cops,” Darren said smugly. “Like it or not, we’re in this together.”

  Griffin didn’t relish the idea of Darren profiting from his betrayal. But he had to admit his enemy had a point. They were in this together. All day, the heist team clung to one another like shipwreck victims adrift in a small lifeboat.

  When Ben headed down to the nurse for his “allergy medicine,” he made sure to stop by the media center to check the TV monitor. “We made CNN,” he reported after his catnap. “The sound was off, but in the scrolling headlines, they called it a ‘professional job.’”

  “Well, that could be good news,” Griffin mused cautiously. “Professional means they probably don’t suspect kids.”

  “Guys,” Savannah called in a strangled voice. “Look.”

  The team joined her at the window. Two police cruisers were pulling up the circular drive of the school.

  Melissa’s haunted eyes took refuge behind her curtain of hair.

  “Maybe there’s a safety assembly today,” Logan suggested hopefully.

  Oh, how Griffin wished for it to be so.

  A few minutes later, the PA system burst to life. “Would Darren Vader report to the office, please? Darren Vader to the office.”

&nb
sp; With a sinking heart, Griffin told himself that there were a million reasons for a jerk like Darren to be in trouble. But he knew it was the ladder.

  How could we just leave it there at the crime scene?

  At the time it had seemed like Darren’s problem and Darren’s only. Now he realized that one member could be the police’s stepping-stone to the entire team.

  Griffin waited in agony for Darren to return to the classroom. He never came back. Savannah communicated the news through panic-stricken eyes. From her seat by the window, she had a perfect view of Darren being driven home by his parents.

  “Would Antonia Benson report to the office, please? Antonia Benson.”

  “What’s with our class today?” joked Mr. Martinez. “Did you guys rob a bank or something?” He frowned at the raw fear on Pitch’s ashen face as she limped to the door. “I was only kidding.”

  Griffin had a chilling vision — a pile of nylon ropes tethered to a broken vent pipe, sitting in Swindle’s bathroom. Everybody in Cedarville knew the Bensons were the only climbing family in town. Of course the cops had put two and two together.

  Was the perfect operation unraveling before their very eyes?

  Like Darren, Pitch did not return to class. The other members of the team spent the remainder of the day in stiff-necked misery, wondering whose name would be called next. But as of the three-thirty dismissal, the PA system had remained mercifully silent.

  After school, all Griffin could offer was an appeal for calm. “I admit that it doesn’t look good, but the last thing we can afford is panic. Remember, we don’t know anything for sure yet.”

  It was a measure of just how frightened everyone was that there was no babble of disagreement in the ranks of the guilty. At this point, there was nothing left to do but hope.

  On the walk home, though, Ben could not keep silent. “How bad is it, Griffin? I mean, if the cops find out everything, how much trouble are we in?”