Riley Mack Stirs Up More Trouble (15 page)

“Sure.”

“Good. Mongo, Jake, and Briana—we'll head up to the eighteenth hole at ten a.m. tomorrow morning.”

“Why the
eighteenth
hole?” asked Briana.

“That's where Larry and Curly are working, remember?”

“Ri-i-i-ight.”

“Am I with you guys, too?” asked Jamal.

“No. You'll hang back at the ninth hole. Here's your script. There's a fake fight in it.”

“All right. Fisticuffs!”

“Be sure you bring your cell. When Briana gives the word, you'll sneak up the blind side of the hill and start digging in the sand trap with a toy shovel and bucket.”

“How come?”

“Because, according to the treasure map Briana's working up for us, the ninth hole is where Mr. Paxton buried all of his gold!”

EARLY FRIDAY, RILEY AND HIS
whole crew crammed into Mongo's golf cart and, once again, scooted through the hedges to avoid the country club's main gate.

“We'll swing by the ninth hole and drop off Jamal first,” said Riley, steering the bouncing buggy onto the cart path. “Jamal? You've got your backstory down?”

“Yes. I may, however, embellish it slightly.”

“Just make it real,” said Briana. “Acting is believing!”

“Oh, I believe,” said Jamal, “I believe I have heard you say that line before. Several times.”

Riley took his foot off the accelerator and brought the quiet little cart to a stop.

Jamal hopped out, pressing his Bluetooth into his ear, powering up his cell phone.

“Mongo?” said Riley. “Sand bucket and shovel.”

Mongo, who was really too huge to ride in golf carts, handed Jamal his baby sister's beach toys. “Here you go.”

“Thanks,” said Jamal. “What do I owe you for it?” He plucked a shiny gold coin out of thin air.

“Careful,” suggested Jake. “That single American Eagle Gold Bullion Coin was worth fifteen hundred dollars this morning.”

“Your grandfather gave you a coin collection worth thirty-six thousand dollars?” Jamal asked.

“It's for my college education,” Mongo said.

Jamal shook his head. “All my grandfather ever gave me was a couple Butter Rum Life Savers. They had lint on them, man. Pocket lint.”

“I'll buy you a whole roll if we pull this thing off,” said Riley.

“For real?”

“Yeah. Hang here. We'll be back in less than thirty minutes with Larry and Curly.”

“Stik-O-Pep.”

“Huh?”

“I like Stik-O-Pep way more than Butter Rum.”

“Good to know. Now go hide in the woods until Briana calls.”

“Right.”

Jamal jogged to the tree line, gold coins jingling in his cargo shorts the whole way.

“Next stop, the eighteenth hole.” Riley stomped on the accelerator, cut the steering wheel hard to the right, went off the cart path, and whirred across the fairway, heading for the far forest.

Fortunately, the Brookhaven Golf Course was still officially closed for renovations. There were no other golfers out on the fairway to yell at Riley for cutting doughnuts in their beautifully manicured grass.

“Um, wh-wh-where are we g-g-going, Riley?” asked Briana, hanging on for dear life in the bucking backseat.

“The eighteenth hole is on the far side of those trees. Jake? You ready to rock?”

“A-a-a-ffirmative,” Jake stammered as the cart jounced across the bumpy grass. He was wearing a pretty heavy backpack loaded down with the underground radar gear and a laptop computer, all of it connected via thick cable to a flat metal dish attached to the end of a four-foot pole. When Jake slipped on his headphones, he looked exactly like the minesweeper in a bag of green army men.

Riley eased off the power as the cart puttered into a patch of woods.

“We'll ditch the cart here for now. Briana? Stand by.”

“Standing by.”

Mongo raised his hand.

“Yes, Mongo?”

“What am I supposed to do?”

Riley nodded toward the flapping flag of the eighteenth hole, barely fifty feet away. Larry and Curly were already on the far side of the green with their backhoe, dumping sand onto a patch of dirt that was about to become the final sand trap on the Brookhaven course. Both men were in their navy blue jumpsuits and yellow hardhats.

“Your mission, Mongo, should you choose to accept it, is to be much, much bigger than either of those two construction workers.”

“I accept!” Mongo said eagerly.

“I hoped you would. Because we also need you to hide
this
underneath the seat of that backhoe.”

Riley handed Mongo a real-time GPS tracking device. Since the high-tech gizmo wasn't much bigger than a paperclip, it practically disappeared in the palm of Mongo's humongous hand.

“There's double-sided foam tape on the back,” Riley explained. “Just peel off the paper and slap it into place when nobody's looking.”

“Okay. But, Riley?”

“Yeah?”

“When won't they be looking?”

Riley grinned. “When they're busy looking at me and my map or Jake and his underground radar gear.”

“Gotcha!”

“Jake?”

Jake raised up an ear cup. “Yeah?”

“Let's roll.”

“Good luck, you guys,” said Briana, pulling out a pair of binoculars, aiming them at Riley.

Riley tapped the side of his nose. “Wait for my signal.”

Briana waggled the binoculars up and down.

Riley, Mongo, and Jake walked out of the woods, heading for the eighteenth hole.

“Hunker down, guys,” Riley whispered.

They all hunched forward and duckwalked across the rough onto the shorter grass behind the eighteenth hole.

“Radar scan is coming in loud and clear,” Jake whispered.

Riley peered over Jake's shoulder. In the small video monitor at the top of the handheld sensor, he saw what was buried under the eighteenth hole rough.

Nothing unusual.

“They laid in drainpipes and a layer of gravel,” whispered Jake. “Other than that, the subterranean strata situation is pretty much what you'd expect. Sod, organic material, rock. Sprinkler pipes.”

“I didn't think we'd find anything buried back here,” said Riley, as quietly as he could. “The construction guys said they'd wrapped up the landfill project weeks ago. So if this was the last hole they were working on, chances are, they didn't bury anything under it.”

Riley led the way as the threesome trudged across a shallow sand trap and started up the steeply sloped side of the small mesa that was the eighteenth hole green. As he neared the crest, Riley reached into his back pocket and pulled out his copy of the official-looking Xylodyne Dynamics treasure map Briana had worked up on her computer.

“Okay, you guys. It's showtime.”

RILEY, MONGO, AND JAKE STEPPED
up onto the neatly trimmed grass of the green.

Riley saw Larry seated in the elevated cab of the backhoe, about to dump another load of sugary white sand.

Larry saw Riley, too.

“Curly?” he shouted as he shut down his growling machinery. “Curly?”

Curly toddled up over the lip of the ridge holding a menacing sand rake.

Riley didn't flinch. “Oh,” he said, quite casually. “It's you two.”

Mongo straightened his back and linked his hands together to crack a couple knuckles. At six two and 250 pounds, he towered over stout Curly and itty-bitty Larry.

“You're the hippy freak's nephew,” said Larry, climbing out of the backhoe cab backward, like a toddler trying to dismount a merry-go-round.

“That's right,” said Riley.

“Who are these other two?”

“My friends.”

“What are youse kids doing out here?” demanded Curly. “This is a restricted-type area back here.”

“Yeah. We know. And we know why.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind,” said Riley. “You guys work for
him
.”

“Him who?” demanded Larry.

“Prescott Paxton!” Riley dramatically flapped open his fake map.

“What's that?”

“This? Nothing.” He turned to Jake. “Try right here.”

“You got it, boss.” Jake swept the radar dish back and forth across the putting green so it hovered inches above the bristly blades.

“What's he doing?” shouted Larry.

As the two construction workers focused on Jake, Mongo made his way down to the backhoe perched on the lip of the sand pit.

“That's for me to know and you to find out,” said Riley.

“Is that so?” said Curly. He raised his rake.

“Whoa. Settle down,” said Riley, shooting up both of his hands. “Remember: anger is one letter short of danger.”

“What's on that piece of paper?”

Riley shot a quick look from one thug to the other just in time to see Mongo stick the GPS tracker under the backhoe's seat.

“You heard my friend, kid,” said Larry. “What's on that paper?”

“What paper?”

“The one in your freaking hands!” shouted Curly, raising his rake again.

Mongo hiked back up the hill to grab the tool on the backswing. He plucked it away.

“Play nice. You could put someone's eye out with this thing.”

“Gimme back my rake, you big galoot!”

“Not until you prove to me that you know how to use it.”

“That's it,” squealed Larry. “We're callin' the cops. Youse kids are trespassing here.”

“Hey, take it easy,” said Riley. “We're willing to share.”

“Share?”

“Sure. From what Sara says, there's enough buried out here for everybody.”

“Not here though,” reported Jake as he flicked a switch to make his radar gear beep and blip like an incoming UFO.

“What's that nerd doin' with that metal detector?” insisted Larry.

“It's not a metal detector,” explained Jake. “It's underground radar gear.” He turned to Riley. “There's nothing here worth digging up.”

Riley consulted his map. “You think this intel is bad?”

“Might be.”

“Give me that map!” Larry snatched the paper out of Riley's hands. “Hey, Curly—check it out. There's a Xylodyne logo on this thing.”

Curly shuffled over and read the title printed across the top: “Retrievables Recovery Plan.”

“Darn it!” Riley said to Jake. “Sara promised us.”

“Who's Sara?” asked Larry.

“Mr. Paxton's daughter.”

“The bratty blond?”

“You've met her?”

“She dropped by the construction site once or twice to poke fun at us,” said Curly, making a face like he was remembering the time he accidentally ate dog poop.

“Called us Munchkins,” said Larry.

“Garden gnomes,” added Curly.

“Shorty McShorts' Shorts.”

Riley pretended to be shocked. “No! How come?”

“We're short, kid. Vertically challenged.”

“But that don't mean we like hearing about it,” said Curly.

“Of course not,” said Riley. “Well, anyway, Sara is mad at her father. She wanted a flock of doves to fly in and land on her arms when she sings her big number at the talent show tomorrow night.”

Curly nodded. “Sure. Like in Vegas.”

“I guess. But, Mr. Paxton, he's all worried about the health code, so he won't let her rent the trained birds. To get back at him, Sara stole this treasure map out of his briefcase.”

“Treasure?”

“Yeah. Her father buried a ton of gold coins underneath the ninth hole. But now . . .” Riley flapped a hand toward Jake. “The radar says there's nothing here.”

“The
ninth
hole?” said Larry.

“Yeah.”

“Kid? You know how to read?”

“Sure.”

“What's that flag say?”

“Nine.”

“Try again, Einstein.”

“Nine,” said Riley. “Because one plus eight equals nine.”

“That's an eighteen!”

“Huh?”

“A one next to an eight? That's eighteen! No wonder Korea's beating America on all them math scores.”

“We're on the wrong hole?” said Jake.

“I guess,” said Riley.

“This ‘Retrievables Recovery Plan,'” Curly said to Larry as they both studied Briana's topographical masterpiece, “means Mr. Paxton was planning on coming back to
retrieve
all them sacks we buried in the so-called landfill for him!”

Score
, thought Riley.
We have confirmation.

Mr. Paxton had definitely buried
something
underneath the golf course.

Riley touched the side of his nose. His cue to Briana.

“That no-good weasel,” said Larry. “If we knew what was inside them black trash bags we was burying . . .”

Riley's cell phone started chirping.

“That's Sara's ringtone,” he said, putting the phone to his ear. “Hello? What? No way! Jamal Wilson? Thanks for the heads up!” He thumbed the off button and slid the phone back into his pocket. “Come on, you guys. Sara's up at the country club. She just saw Jamal Wilson heading for the ninth hole!”

“Whoa,” shouted Larry. “Not so fast. Who's this Jamal Wilson individual?”

“Our competition. He's already out there—stealing our gold!”

RILEY LED THE MAD DASH
back to the golf cart.

Mongo, Jake, Larry, and Curly were right behind him.

“We have a cart stashed in the woods!” Riley shouted over his shoulder.

“Good!” said Larry, who was huffing and puffing ten yards back.

Curly was having an even harder time running and breathing at the same time. Both construction workers were totally out of shape.

Riley reached the forest first and had a few seconds to check in with Briana.

“Did you cue Jamal?” he asked.