Jupe crossed over to the house. He did not have to ring the bell. The door opened and old Mrs. Denicola stood there. She looked at him piercingly.
“Mrs. Denicola, have you seen my friend?” said Jupiter.
“Your friend?”
“He was here this morning and you talked to him then,” Jupe told her. “You had a dream about him.”
“Ah!” said Mrs. Denicola. “So that boy–the small one with glasses–he is a friend of yours. I think somehow that I knew this.”
She frowned at Jupiter in a severe manner, but Jupe guessed that she was not really angry.
“Have you seen my friend since this morning?” asked Jupe. “His bicycle is under the pier, but he isn’t here. Could he have gone out in the boat? Would your daughter-in-law have taken him for a boat ride?”
Old Mrs. Denicola shook her head. “Ernie went with Eileen on the Maria,” she said. “I saw them go. There is no one with them.”
“I wonder where Bob could have gone,” Jupe said, almost to himself.
“I do not know,” said Mrs. Denicola. She stepped back and opened the door wide. “But I think something bad is going to happen. I dreamed it, and I am afraid. I think you must tell me about you and your friend. Please come in.”
The old lady sounded like the voice of doom. For the first time Jupe wondered if Bob could be in danger.
Miles away in Oxnard, Bob approached the Pacific States Moving and Storage Company. It was on a barren lot on Albert Road. Bob saw a high chain-link fence, a windowless cement-block building, and a few grime-spattered white moving vans. The driveway that led away from the gate was rutted and pocked with puddles, and the gate was padlocked shut.
There was no one in sight. Bob started to circle the property. He saw weeds and broken crates and crumpled papers around the blank-walled building. At the back, parked vans prevented him from seeing the rear of the building, but he could hear voices from somewhere inside the yard.
Bob stood still and listened. The conversation continued, but Bob couldn’t make out the words. He noticed that one of the vans was parked alongside the fence here. He looked left and right, then took a deep breath. Putting his toe into a link in the fence, he climbed to the top and scrambled on to the roof of the moving van.
Bob lay still for a second and caught his breath. He was not as athletic as Pete, but he had done it! He was safely inside the yard. He got to his hands and knees and crept forward.
“It ain’t gonna dry in time,” said a voice that was quite near now.
“Who cares?” said a second voice. “We can take it dry or not.”
Another van was backed up close to the one Bob was on. He stood up. His sneakered feet made no sound as he stepped across the small space to the second van. He crouched again, and again crept forward. Then he was looking down into a clear area where two men with their backs to him were staring at a gleaming white truck. Bob immediately flattened himself on the van’s roof and raised his head to watch.
“It’s okay, Harry,” said one of the men. It was Strauss. He stood with his hands on his hips and his head cocked to one side. “You do nice work.”
The man named Harry made a wordless sound. He had a can of paint in one hand and a small brush in the other. The odour of paint was strong in the air. The truck that the men were admiring had freshly painted lettering on the side, replacing the name of the moving and storage company. The new lettering said: MCCUTCHEON’S MARITIME SUPPLIES.
Bob grinned to himself. The men had disguised one of the moving vans.
“A lot of trouble to go to,” said Harry, gesturing with his brush.
“There’s a lot at stake,” said Strauss. “We can’t take a chance. Anybody sees a moving van parked outside Denicola’s, there might be questions.”
Strauss turned away and vanished into the open doorway of the huge, windowless building. After a moment his companion followed him, and for a time Bob heard nothing except the sound of wood scraping on concrete. At last Strauss appeared again. He was wheeling a dolly that held three wooden crates. Strauss trundled them to the newly painted truck.
Harry came bumping out of the building with a second load of crates. Before he had gone two metres, however, he ran his dolly into a rut. One of his crates slid to the ground and broke open, spilling dozens of small boxes into the dirt.
“Hey, watch it!” yelled Strauss.
“Okay, okay!” said Harry. “Take it easy, huh?”
He knelt down and gathered up the smaller boxes, crammed them back into the broken crate, then hefted the crate on to the dolly again.
From his perch on top of the idle truck, Bob saw that one of the small boxes had split. Several objects had escaped from it, and they now lay on the ground. Bob held his breath and waited. Neither Strauss nor Harry noticed the fallen objects. They went on loading crates into the back of the refurbished truck, then returning to the building to bring out more crates.
The two worked for nearly half an hour. They loaded crates of all sizes and shapes. Some were made of wood and some of corrugated cardboard. Some were so heavy that it took both men to lift them. At last, the men closed the doors at the back of the truck and secured them with a padlock.
“We could’ve used some help on that one,” said Harry. He mopped his forehead with his handkerchief.
“We don’t need more witnesses,” said Strauss.
The men moved off into the cement-block building, and Bob lay still, waiting. Five minutes went by, and then ten. Strauss did not appear again, and there was no sign of Harry. Bob judged that the two were not going to return to the loaded van.
Bob crawled to the front of the truck that had been his hiding place. He slid down to the top of the cab, then to the hood, and then to the ground. He went swiftly to the spray of small objects that had fallen from the broken box and knelt to pick one up.
It was heavy. Bob felt cold with fright when he saw what it was. A bullet!
Then he looked up, and his fright became utter terror. He tried to swallow, but his throat was dry. He was frozen–too paralysed even to tremble.
A dog was watching him! A Doberman! It stood at stiff attention not three metres away. Its black eyes were fixed on Bob, and its ears were erect. It made no sound. It watched, pinning Bob with its gaze.
“Hey!” said Bob. It was a whisper–a breathless, rattling little whisper. “Hey, fella! Hey there, boy!”
Bob stood up slowly, and took one step back from the dog.
The black lips lifted from white teeth, and a low, threatening growl sounded.
“Hey!” said Bob.
The growl was louder. The dog moved forward, then stopped.
Bob did not move again. The dog was a guard dog, and Bob knew it. It would hold Bob there all day if it had to. Bob was caught!
16
Hot Water for Jupe
THE DENICOLA HOUSE was warm with the smell of cheese and herbs and rich tomato sauce. But for once Jupe was unaware of the smells of good food. He sat in the living room across from old Mrs. Denicola, listening to her tell about her dream.
“In my dream I saw your friend in a room,” said the old lady. “There was a terrible noise, and the walls twisted and came apart. I did not know the room where he was, and I did not know the boy. Then this morning I saw the boy painting for Ernesto, and I knew he was the boy from the dream and that he must leave here. The danger is here. I feel it very strongly. And the danger is not just for him. It is for me, too. So I tell him to go, and he must have listened. He is not here.”
Jupe frowned. “Mrs. Denicola, do your dreams always come true?” he asked.
“No. Most of my dreams are like the dreams of everyone. They are nonsense. They are made of the pieces of old memories. But some dreams are different. Sometimes in dreams I meet strangers. Then, when I am awake, I meet these same people and I know that it was a true dream. I do not know everything, of course. In my dream I have only a glimpse of something. It is like a light that flashes–a beacon. If it is a bad dream you know to beware, for the beacon marks the place where there is danger.”