Riley Mack Stirs Up More Trouble (16 page)

“Right after we hung up.”

“Cool. Okay, we'll meet you back at Jake's place in like an hour.”

“I'll record that security-guard track you need for later.”

“Awesome. And Bree?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks!”

She shot Riley a wink and took off through the trees.

Riley hopped into the golf cart and turned the key. He figured he'd drive down and pick up the adults.

It'd be faster than waiting for them to run up the hill or have a heart attack—whichever came first.

“You see,” said Jake, “gold is the one sure investment.”

“I know,” said Larry, who had squeezed into the backseat of the golf cart with Jake and Curly. “I seen ads on TV.”

“So,” asked Curly, “how'd this Jamal character get his hands on Mr. Paxton's treasure map?”

“He stole it!” blurted Mongo, riding up front in the passenger seat. Mongo sounded nervous because he hated it when a plan included him having to memorize lines.

“Jamal,” Mongo said, taking it from the top a second time. “The map. He stole it. From Sara.”

“At the copy shop,” prompted Riley.

“At the coffee shop!” said Mongo. “I will pound him.”

“Not if I get my hands on him first!” said Larry.

“Yeah, we're the ones who buried the gold,” added Curly. “Diggers keepers, losers weepers!”

Oh-kay.
Riley had never heard that particular spin on the phrase before.

He nudged Mongo with his knee.

“No! Jamal. Is. Mine!” Mongo turned to glare at the two construction workers.

Larry and Curly held up their hands.

“Whoa. Take it easy, big fellow,” said Larry.

“We don't mean no disrespect here,” echoed Curly.

Riley patted Mongo on the knee to let his friend know he could relax. His scripted lines were over.

“Hang on to your hardhats, everybody,” said Riley, steering the cart off the path and into the forest fringing the ninth hole. “I'm ditching the cart. We don't want anybody up at the club sticking their noses into our business.”

As the cart careened across the rough, Larry and Curly held on to their jouncing yellow helmets. Riley glanced to the right and saw Jamal using his plastic sand bucket and shovel to send up a cloud of gritty dust. His actions in the sand trap were hidden from the clubhouse by the grassy knoll of the elevated hole.

Riley slammed on the brakes. Mongo bounded out of the cart.

“I'm gonna lay down the hurt!” Arms flailing, he raced toward the sand trap.

“Let's go cream this Jamal kid,” said Larry after he and Curly had crawled out of the cart.

Riley placed a hand on the short man's shoulder. “Give Mongo a minute.” He head-gestured toward the ninth hole.

Larry and Curly looked over. All they could see were puffs of sand being flung up from the sunken pit.

“Where's Mongo?”

“My guess?” said Riley. “On top of Jamal. Pummeling him.”

In truth, Riley knew that both Mongo and Jamal were currently lying on their backs, tossing fistfuls of sand into the air to make it look like they were furiously fighting.

“Your friend Mongo. He has anger issues. Am I right?”

“Big-time. Jake? Grab your gear. It's time to check out the mother lode.”

When they reached the sand trap, Mongo had Jamal pinned flat on his back.

“Get off me, you boorish bruiser!” said Jamal, kicking and squirming.

“Hello, Wilson,” said Riley, straddling the edge of the sand trap with his arms akimbo.

“Riley Mack?” said Jamal, pretending to be terrified.

“In the flesh. I understand you took something that didn't belong to you.”

“Ha! Says who?”

“Sara Paxton.”

Larry strutted forward to sneer down at Jamal. “We hear you stole her daddy's treasure map outta the coffee shop.”

Jamal glanced at Riley.

Riley made a face to say,
Go with it.

“Yeah, that's right. I boosted it while she was enjoying a grande mocha latte with double whip.” Jamal stood and dusted himself off.

A shiny gold coin fell out of his hand.

“What's that?” said Curly.

Mongo snatched the gold piece off the ground. “An American Eagle Gold coin!”

“Where'd you find it, Jamal?” said Riley.

“Down that hole.” He flexed out the fingers on both his hands, the way a magician does to prove he has nothing up his sleeve. Then he reached into the two-foot deep pit. “Here's another one.”

Yep. Instead of pulling a coin out of an ear, he pulled it out of the sand.

“Jake?” said Riley. “Scan the sand trap. Record the visual on digital.”

“On it,” said Jake.

“So, Wilson—any more gold down in that hole?” asked Riley.

“Probably,” said Jamal. “See, my father, Ahab, he's in the treasure-reclamation business. He always says, ‘Son, where you find one gold coin, you'll find another.' Why, I remember deep-sea diving in the Bermuda Triangle, searching for sunken treasure near the wreckage of a Spanish galleon, the HMS
Pinafore
. The shark-infested waters were murky . . .”

Riley glanced at his watch. He knew Jamal could go on for hours.

“How about
this
hole? Any more gold in this hole?”

“Hand me my sand bucket and I'll show you.”

Riley tossed the bright-red bucket over to Jamal, who proceeded to reach down into the hole a dozen more times and plunk a dozen gold coins in the plastic bucket.

“That's it,” said Jamal. “That's all the coins that floated up to the surface after we had all those heavy rains.”

Riley waited for just a second.

He wanted to make sure that Larry and Curly were dumb enough to believe gold could float.

Yep. They were.

Neither one of them said a word. They just stood there nodding like Bob the Builder bobblehead dolls.

But Riley could tell: their mental wheels were spinning. The two construction workers were trying to figure out how they could dig up the ninth hole and steal all the gold—
for themselves!

“LOOKS LIKE XYLODYNE BURIED A
bunch of stuff right here,” said Jake, as he held the radar disc over the sand trap.

Riley glanced over at Larry and Curly. The two men were keeping mum. Pouting out their lower lips. Sniffing. Twitching.

Yep. Another confirmation. They knew
exactly
where they had buried a big stack of whatever toxic chemicals Mr. Paxton and Xylodyne didn't want anybody to know about.

Jake's radar gear was blipping and blooping. “It almost looks like a pile of plastic garbage bags stacked on top of one another, maybe six feet below the surface.”

“I bet all those garbage bags are stuffed with gold coins!” said Jamal.

Larry turned to Curly. “That's why those sacks were so freaking heavy!”

“Shhh!” said Curly. Shaking his head. Miming for Larry to dummy up.

“This is fantastic!” said Riley. “We should come back, late at night, when it's too dark for the country-club security cameras to see what we're doing!”

Larry and Curly probably didn't realize it, but they were both nodding.

“You guys could do the digging with your backhoe,” Riley said. “But you'll need short people to crawl down into the hole to retrieve the gold.”

Now Larry and Curly were nodding
and
smiling.

They had both just realized that, for the first time in their lives, being small would be a big advantage.

“That's where we come in,” said Riley. “You dig. We climb down and mine for gold. We split everything, fifty-fifty.”

“You're clever, kid,” said Larry.

“Thanks. So do we have a deal?”

“What about all them gold coins in the sand bucket?” said Curly.

“Those are mine!” said Mongo.

“My friend is correct,” said Riley. “Since you gentlemen were in no way responsible for the retrieval of these particular assets, you are not entitled to that fifty-fifty split, which we were discussing for all
future
extractions.”

“Sure, kid,” said Curly. “Seems fair. Right, Larry?”

“Sure, sure. No problem.”

Riley knew they were pretending to play along, but secretly itching for the kids to leave.

Larry cocked a thumb toward Jamal. “Shouldn't youse three take this Jamal character somewheres quiet and work him over so he don't blab about our plan to
his
sidekicks?”

“You're right! Mongo? Haul Jamal and that bucket of gold coins back to the golf cart. Jake? Take a reading on top of the green. We may want to dig it up later, too.”

“On it,” said Jake as he lugged his gear up the embankment.

“Now, excavating the hole, itself, undetected, that'll be a tall order. But I have an idea how—”

“Everybody down!” shouted Jake.

He leaped off the elevated green and landed hard in the sand trap.

“Jake? What's wrong?” asked Riley melodramatically.

“I think somebody saw me!”

“Where?”

“The country club. People are on the deck, eating lunch.”

Riley punched a fist into his palm. “I knew it! This is why we need to do this operation under the cloak of darkness! Okay, everybody. Keep calm. I'll call Sara. She's our eyes and ears on the inside.”

“Where is she?” asked Larry.

“On that deck having lunch.” Riley pulled out his cell. “Gosh darn it all!”

“What's the matter, now, kid?” asked Curly.

“My phone battery is dead. And we need to call Sara
right away
to see if we're busted. What if her dad is with her and saw us snooping around where he hid all his gold?”

“That would not be good.” Curly dug a cell phone out of his coveralls. “Here. Use mine.”

“Thanks!”

Riley thumbed in a number, fast.

Jake's cell phone rang.

“Hello?” said Jake.

“Jake?” said Riley.

“Yeah.”

“Sorry, wrong number.”

“No problem. You want Sara's? I have it in my phonebook.”

Jake started pressing buttons on his phone, pretending to be searching through his directory. In fact, he was recording the number of his most recent incoming call. “Got it,” he said, meaning he now had
Curly's
cell phone number recorded and saved.

“That's okay,” said Riley, pressing another string of digits on Curly's phone. “You're four-four-five-
two
, Sara is four-four-five-
three
.”

“Correct.”

“Okay. Hang on.”

He pretended to wait for Sara to answer. In truth, he had just called his own cell phone, which was powered off and in his pocket.

“Sara? Riley. Yeah. No, we took care of Jamal. Look—we're behind the ninth hole now and I made a mistake. I sent Jake up to scout out the green. Did anybody see him? No? You're sure? Awesome. Thanks, Sara. Don't worry. We're going to teach your father a lesson he'll never forget. I don't know. Maybe tonight. I have to check with our partners. Two guys. Look Sara, I had to. They have the machinery we need to dig up the gold. Right. You, too.”

Riley pressed the
OFF
button and fidgeted with the phone as he pretended to admire it. “Is this one of those press-to-talk walkie-talkie phones?”

“Yeah.”

“Cool.”

Riley was actually using the time to erase any record of his outgoing call—just in case Curly was smart enough to check to see whose number Riley had actually dialed.

He handed the phone back to Curly. “That was close.
Too
close.” He dragged his foot across the sand to fill in the hole Jamal had dug. “Let's meet up here again tonight. Actually, tomorrow morning would be better. Like two or three a.m. You guys bring the backhoe and . . .”

Larry was shaking his head.

Curly was smiling. “Why the rush, kid?”

“Huh?”

“What you're suggesting,” said Larry, “would not be prudent.”

“Or wise, neither,” added Curly.

“We should wait,” said Larry. “Until after the big reopening.”

“Definitely,” said Curly. “Best to wait at least a week. Maybe a month.”

“But, what if Mr. Paxton comes back before then to retrieve all his coins?”

“Not gonna happen, kid,” said Larry. “Otherwise, why'd he have us bury the gold in the first place?”

“You're right! That's smart thinking.”

“I know. But, then again, I'm an adult.”

“Okay. We'll do it your way. It's like I always say: grown-ups know best!”

OF COURSE, RILEY KNEW LARRY
and Curly wouldn't wait.

They'd do just as he suggested and head back to the ninth hole sand trap at two or three in the morning.

That's why he and Jake were spending the night at Mongo's house.

And why they had slapped that GPS tracker in the cab of the backhoe.

They took turns sleeping. Two guys would snooze; the third would eat Doritos and keep an eye on the laptop computer tracking the backhoe's location.

At 2:45 a.m., Jake nudged Riley and Mongo awake.

“The mole is on the move,” he whispered.

Jake and Riley had unrolled their sleeping bags on the floor of Mongo's bedroom, which was decorated with all sorts of teddy bears, not that anybody would ever tease the big guy about it. Well, at least not twice.

Riley took a minute to yawn, rub the sleep out of his eyes, and pop a breath mint.

Mongo did not.

“Okay,” said Riley, turning to Mongo, whose security uniform looked a little wrinkled, because he'd figured it would be easier if he just slept in his costume. “You've got the go bag?”

“Check,” said Mongo through a yawn that smelled a lot like the onion rings and chili dogs he'd had for dinner the night before. He hoisted his heavy backpack filled with gear off the floor.