The Further Adventures of Jack Lime Read Free Page A

every dumb mug that came his way.
    â€œPut me down for fifty that Eastern wins,” Tall and Pimply said.
    â€œMe too,” Crew Cut added.
    Mike scratched down the bets in his notebook, then headed for the door. That’s when Leoni stormed back in, flexing the muscles in his handlebar mustache.
    â€œHow many times do I got to tell you kids there’s a toilet outside for the fans!”
    They all nodded and tried to scurry out, but Leoni stepped in front of the door.
    â€œDon’t forget your friend,” he said pointing in my direction.
    That was my cue to leave. I flushed the toilet, strolled out and acted casual. Mike’s jaw hit the floor and the two rubes stared at me like they’d seen a ghost.
    â€œI found this,” I said, handing Lance’s phone over to Leoni. “You should tell the owner to be more careful. There are a lot of thieves roaming around this school who have very sticky fingers, right, Mike?”
    â€œI don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.
    â€œSure he does,” I said, looking from one dumb mug to the other. “Sure he does.”
    â€œYou don’t know squat about football,” Tall and Pimply said, smirking.
    â€œYeah,” his friend chirped in, “stick to finding bicycles, Lime.”
    I was going to remind them that a rube and his money are soon parted when Leoni put an end to our little give and take.
    â€œGet outta here!” he yelled, curling his hands into fists. “The lot of ya!”
    He didn’t have to ask twice. Mike and the two knuckleheads bolted outside and went one way and I went the other. I got back to my seat just in time to watch Lance fumble the ball one more time. Lucky for Lance the ref blew the whistle for halftime before Eastern could put any more points on the board. The teams jogged off the field, and the average, ordinary kids in the stands went back to talking about their average, ordinary lives. Me, I got to thinking about calling Lance’s mystery friend, Red. But, like I said before, thanks to Tobias Poe I don’t have a cell anymore, so that call would have to wait until later. For now I’d have to be content with the Iona High marching band’s halftime show.
    Friday, October 4, 5:14 p.m.
Iona High, The Football Field
    Lance started the second half by throwing another interception. Coach Shultz pulled him aside and yelled up one side of him and down the other. The two rubes from the bathroom weren’t too upset with Lance’s terrible performance, though. They were sitting a few rows down from me and low-fiving every time Eastern High got a little closer to the Warriors’ end zone. They got downright giddy when Eastern kicked a field goal at the end of the third quarter and went up by twenty points. When the fourth quarter started, people began to trickle out of the stands. Oddly, that’s when Bucky King decided to show up.
    FYI — Bucky King is a rather large and nasty galoot who runs a gang of hoodlums and tough guys known as the Riverside Boys. He’s the current kingpin of the criminal underworld at Iona High and has his gigantic, hairy fingers in everything from extortion to the sale of stolen goods.
    Bucky’s usually not the type of guy to stand around watching a football game, so when he took up position behind the fence on the far side of the field I got interested. I got even more interested when Mike the Bookie slithered up beside him. Mike whispered a few things in Bucky’s ear and then exited stage right. Bucky lit up a cigarette, puffed on it for a minute and then flicked it on the ground and left. Besides being responsible for a serious fire hazard, Bucky, I had a hunch, was up to no good. Something fishy was going on here, but I didn’t have much time to think about it because that’s when the crowd went wild. Lance Munroe had just thrown a seventy-five-yard pass downfield for a touchdown.
    In the future,