The Giant Smugglers Read online

  Tim disappeared into the night.

  “What now?” asked Bruce.

  “Wait, I guess.” Charlie looked up at his giant friend, and considered Tim’s warning. His brother was probably right: The world might not understand Bruce without the proper introduction, but Charlie figured there were people in Hollywood who could help them with that. They’d schedule a press conference. Adele could help them make a website: brucethegiant.com or meetthebigguy.org, something like that. People would love Bruce, as long as it was all handled in just the right way. The whole thing was so real in Charlie’s mind that he couldn’t imagine a way that it wouldn’t …

  Tink tink tink.

  The car was moving again.

  Tink tink tink.

  Where were they going? Charlie split the drapes on a window and peered out. They were heading in the opposite direction from the Accelerton van, where a man in a security uniform waved some kind of device over the trucks hauling freight in and out of the yard. He was definitely looking for something big, but as far as Charlie could tell, he wasn’t paying any attention to the double-decker passenger car slowly rolling away.

  Charlie and Bruce peeked out through the curtains on the other side of the car. The Express had been unhitched from the long line of cars and a locomotive was towing it down a side track into a building that looked like an aircraft hangar. Once the car was safely inside, the locomotive disengaged, and the hangar’s huge doors slid shut.

  The car’s forward door opened again with a loud click. And for the second time, in walked the blind man, Parran. He pointed his cane at Charlie.

  “Gotcha,” Parran croaked in his Cajun accent. He swiveled his cane to Bruce. “And your giant buddy here, too.”

  “You’re … you’re Hank’s friend?”

  “I’m the old man’s eyes in this here part of the country. Ironic, ain’t it?” Parran slapped his knee at his own joke, hacking out a laugh that quickly turned into a cough. “Make good and sure nobody is sniffin’ around this car, and I’m good at dat. No one ever thinks a blind man is watching. Then, of course, when Hank needs a fixer, I’m his man.”

  “F-f-fixer?” asked Bruce, trying to get his teeth and tongue around the new word.

  “I arrange things, so the story goes on,” said Parran. “Dat brother of yours tells me you desperately need some fixin’ right about now.”

  “Great,” Charlie said. “You’ll give us a ride then?”

  “Well,” Parran huffed, “it ain’t as easy as all dat. You can’t be seen, and we can’t be using no truck. People are on to you.”

  “Then how are we going to get out of here?” asked Charlie.

  “We put you where they ain’t lookin’,” laughed Parran. “And then we roll you right outta the Big Easy.”

  32

  “You didn’t find them?”

  Even in the dim midnight moonlight, Tim saw the frustration and fatigue filling the Juice Man’s face. The guy looked like he could use some sleep. He’d been on guard duty at the back of the Creep Castle for nearly four hours now, fiddling with his GPS device to pass the time. His jaw had to be sore from holding that penlight in his mouth.

  “Oh, I found them all right,” explained Tim, just as Tiger and Wertzie arrived at the back of the haunted house to get the update. The carnival had arrived earlier in the evening, and Wertzie had paid the local crew early, ensuring they’d head into town to blow their earnings. The Creep Castle was parked at the very back of the caravan, away from prying eyes. Even so, the giant smugglers kept their voices low. They were barely audible over the rush of the gulf tide on the beach adjoining the park.

  “So where are they?” asked Wertzie, rubbing sleep from bleary eyes with his four-fingered fist. “That giant needs to get gone tomorrow.”

  “New Orleans,” said Tim. “Parran’s got ’em. They’ll be here tomorrow, right on schedule.”

  “New Orleans?” asked Tiger. “How in the world did they…?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” said Tim, waving off her questions. “They’ll be here.” He didn’t mention Charlie and Bruce’s plan to grab the gold and go. He still had time to talk some sense into them, and spooking the rest of the smugglers wasn’t going to help.

  “New Orleans,” muttered Juice Man. “Your brother’s bright idea to go to Mardi Gras, Lawson? I knew we should have left him back in Wisconsin!”

  “Tell it to the giant.”

  Juice Man spat in the dirt.

  “Parran gives me the creeps,” complained Wertzie. “That whole blind act seems fishy to me. I don’t trust him.”

  “Hank trusts him,” said Tim. “Good enough for me.”

  “Since you didn’t bring the giant back with you, we don’t have a whole lot of options, do we?” Tiger said, glaring at Tim.

  “Everything’s cool. You guys get some sleep,” he replied. “I’m so wired, I couldn’t sleep if I tried. I’ve been chugging energy drinks all the way back from N’Awlins. I’ll take Castle watch. Tomorrow, we’ll hook up with Parran and get the giant on his way.”

  “And then we get paid,” snapped Juice Man.

  “And then we get paid,” Tim agreed.

  “Fine,” Wertzie said, giving the Creep Castle a final once-over. “I’ll relieve you at four.”

  The giant smugglers, save for Tim, returned to their trailers. He hopped up on the back of the Creep Castle and checked his phone for messages. Nothing new, just a few more worried texts from his mom asking about Charlie. He reassured her for the hundredth time, sighed, and opened the doors at the back of the trailer.

  Four hours later, Wertzie stumbled back through the dark, ready to take his appointed turn at the back of the Creep Castle. He reached the end of the trailer convoy and stopped in his tracks. He looked over his shoulder. Then he spun entirely around.

  “It’s gone!” he hissed into a walkie-talkie that he pulled off his belt. “The Creep Castle is gone!”

  Wertzie ran up and down between the other trailers, looking frantically, as if something the size of the Creep Castle could have just been misplaced. “I knew we couldn’t trust Tim! I knew it!”

  Tiger came sprinting to the empty spot where the Creep Castle had stood just hours before. “Tim!” she screamed into the dark. Her hands were balled into angry fists. “I can’t believe he did this to us!”

  Wertzie kicked at the sandy dirt in frustration. “This whole business with his brother was just a diversion so he could take off with the gold! Our gold!”

  “I did my part! Everything I was asked to do!” The Juice Man staggered into the void created by the missing Creep Castle. “I want my money!”

  Wertzie took a few deep breaths, cooking up a plan. “Okay. Okay. It’s not like he’s going to get far in that thing. Weighted down with all that gold, it can barely go forty-five miles an hour. Tiger, you got this?”

  “Damn right I do,” she growled, launching herself into one of the carnival’s beat-up SUVs, a far more agile mode of transportation than the lumbering amusement ride. “I’ll take the interstate—it’s the only road out of here. Juice Man, you take…”

  “The town. I’m way ahead of you.” Juice Man hopped into a second SUV, but not before pounding the hood a few times in frustration. “I’m going to kill him! I want my money, Wertzie!” The veins in his thick neck bulged as if to reinforce the message.

  Wertzie approached the second SUV, calm and slow. “Oh, I see. You want to get paid.” Then he exploded in frustration at the Juice Man. “We all want to get paid! Get moving!”

  The Juice Man peeled off in his ride, with Tiger right behind him. Wertzie did a quick check of the dark grounds to make sure none of the other carnies had heard the heated discussion. But they were still in their trailers, sleeping off the fun from the night before.

  “Excuse me?”

  Wertzie turned to see a man striding in his direction through the shadows. “It’s a little early, pal,” said the carny, in no mood for conversations with strangers. “We’re obviously
not set up yet. Why don’t you come back later, buy yourself a ticket? Bring a girl or something, have yourself some fun.”

  “I’m not looking for fun,” said the man. “I’m looking for someone. And I suspect you might be able to help me find him.” He held out a business card featuring a green double helix in the shape of a leaf.

  Accelerton.

  33

  “A little more to the right,” Charlie coached.

  Bruce adjusted the position of twin court jesters, masked and wearing jingling fool’s hats. He was trying to fasten them dead center on the front of a massive parade float.

  “Yep, right there!”

  Bruce lowered the two grinning clowns, and hooks caught the hard edge that rimmed the float, glittering in a garish array of gold and purple. The giant stood back to make sure the jokers hung straight. Then he turned back to Charlie, who had discovered Tim’s cheap phone could take photos and even video. The boy was documenting the whole escape for history.

  “Bruce, what you got there?”

  “Ride,” the giant proclaimed, smiling broadly for the camera.

  After allowing the guys to grab a few hours of sleep, Parran had roused them at an absurdly early hour to decorate the rolling spectacle. It was practically complete now, with room for an entire marching band to perform on its wide platforms. The words King’s Court were emblazoned in dazzling gold on both sides of the float. Charlie still hadn’t figured out where Bruce was going to ride without being seen.

  Parran emerged from a room at the back of the hangar pulling a wagon full of green five-gallon buckets. “Looks good,” he called, though Charlie couldn’t figure out how he knew that. “I took the liberty of getting lunch for us. Can’t visit New Orleans without having red beans and rice. Personally I’m partial to a shrimp po-boy, but dat’s impractical in this case.” He swung the wagon around, and Bruce rubbed his hands together in anticipation.

  Without waiting for an invitation, he threw a bucketful of food into his mouth. The unfamiliar sting of Cajun spices lit up his face, and he squeezed his eyes shut. After an excruciating swallow, Bruce searched frantically for some water. Parran was in no hurry to help the giant. He had a pretty good idea about how the big guy’s first taste of Cajun cooking was going to go.

  “Thought you might need some water,” Parran chuckled.

  Finally, Bruce, his big face red and sweaty, found an industrial spigot and swallowed a gallon of water. Then he rushed back for more food.

  Parran helped himself to a slice of cornbread. “Bet you’re busting at the seams to know how all dat going to work?”

  Charlie tried a cautious spoonful of the sausage-filled rice. “Actually, I am. Where’s Bruce going to sit?”

  “Who said anything about sittin’?” Parran brushed cornbread crumbs from his hands and tap-tapped his cane around to the front of the float. Reaching underneath a lip, he felt around until there was a loud pop.

  A hidden panel, disguised by white crepe paper, swung open, and a long, rectangular box emerged. Bruce stopped eating and joined Charlie to examine it. Parran flipped open the lid, revealing an interior lined with cushy blue foam. It gave Charlie a queasy feeling.

  “Is that a coffin?”

  Parran pulled his sunglasses down to the end of his nose, exposing his milky blue eyes. “Don’t be morbid, boy.”

  Charlie winced. The blind man’s eyes looked like they hurt.

  “Here’s what’s going down. Big fella, you’ll take a load off right in there. Charlie, you’ll be beside him the whole time.”

  “We’re both going to be inside the box?”

  “See those two clowns?” deadpanned Parran, nodding to the jesters hanging above them. “Dat’s you two. After we’re finished eating, in you go.”

  At the rate Bruce devoured the food, it didn’t take long. Charlie finished off his meal in short order as well. Someone knocked on the big door at the front of the building.

  “Just a minute,” Parran yelled. Then he got quiet and held the box lid open for Charlie and Bruce. “It’s showtime. Get in there, get comfortable. I’ll handle the rest.”

  Bruce climbed into the box and stretched out. Charlie hopped in after him; there was just enough room along the giant’s side to squeeze in. Parran closed the lid of the box, and the two friends were enveloped in darkness. Charlie thought about all the spicy food Bruce had just eaten and hoped the box was well ventilated.

  “Too small,” the giant complained.

  “Relax! Sorry the accommodations ain’t first class!” Parran reached under the lip again, and the box sucked back into the float, which sealed up tight. “It ain’t dat bad. See them air holes along the sides? You might even watch the city go by. Lots to see!”

  Even though it was plenty dark, Charlie saw what Parran meant. The walls of the box had perforations at regular intervals that coincided with lookout points on the float. Charlie and Bruce found the ones closest to their heads and peeked out at the hangar. Charlie found his phone and pointed it at Bruce. The picture was dark and fuzzy, but that made it look cool.

  “This is the part,” he whispered, “where the heroes escape!”

  “Yep!”

  “Let us venture forth,” Parran cried. The boys heard the sliding front doors to the building open.

  Charlie couldn’t believe what he was seeing through the peephole: at least thirty people, dressed in eggplant-colored coats with gold trim. Matching hats sat atop their heads. They all carried instruments—tubas and trombones, snare drums and saxophones. A few others twirled ornate umbrellas. A big truck crept along behind them.

  “Good afternoon, everyone,” bellowed Parran. He pushed his hat back higher on his head. “And thank you for coming.”

  One man at the front of the line twirled his parasol and frowned. His salt-and-pepper goatee scrunched up at the corners as he looked dubiously at the massive float. “What kind of job is this, Parran?”

  “We having a short parade up to Woldenberg Park,” replied Parran. “Climb aboard.”

  Several of the musicians stormed their way up onto the float. Inside the box, it sounded like a particularly nasty hailstorm. Charlie and Bruce rocked back and forth.

  “Crazy,” whispered the giant.

  “My man, Parran,” came the voice of the fellow with the parasol. “What are we doing here? Some kind of new holiday or something?”

  Parran motioned for the truck to back up and hitch to the float. “As if the Big Easy needs a reason to have a parade! But if you must have one, think of it as a celebration of our rich heritage. And in case anyone is wondering, your friend Parran does have a permit. Dis is a legal parade sanctioned by the proper authorities.”

  The man with the parasol laughed. “That must have been one serious bribe.”

  “Well, we are in New Orleans. Now, if the truck is in place? Music, please!”

  The musicians raised their instruments and played a soulful tune. Some marched alongside the float, while another bunch played up on the platform. Parran pulled on a colorful hat and twirled his walking cane like a baton. The truck pulled the Trojan horse of a float slowly out of the building and through an exit reserved for rail yard workers.

  Across the yard, the Accelerton man turned his head in the direction of the brassy music. He squinted at the strange spectacle, then switched to another app on his phone. A bizarre float wasn’t an unusual sight in New Orleans, but he snapped pictures just in case and sent them along to his superiors.

  The float moved down the streets of the city. Inside the box, Bruce mugged for Charlie’s camera, bopping his head side to side in time to the Dixieland beat.

  Even with their limited view, there was so much to see: The buildings of New Orleans were as colorful and unique as the float itself. Colorfully dressed onlookers waved white handkerchiefs and danced alongside the float. A red streetcar rolled past, clanging its bell in time to the music. The tombs in a neighborhood graveyard jutted above the ground as if the dead were buried that way in ca
se they wanted to rise up and join the party. Charlie couldn’t think of a city less like Richland Center.

  “Crazy,” whispered Bruce.

  “I’ll say.”

  Finally they reached Woldenberg Park, full of joggers, rollerbladers, and people posing as living statues, trying to coax coins from tourists. The muddy Mississippi River ran alongside the procession. Parran sniffed the air.

  “You see a hovercraft nearby?” he asked a trombone player.

  “Yes, sir, there’s one tethered to the pier up ahead.”

  “Outstanding! Dat’s our destination.”

  The float turned in the direction of the pier to the strains of “When the Saints Go Marching In.” Soon the brassy procession was at the pier, with a beat-up hovercraft moored at its end.

  Charlie peeked out the viewing hole. Onboard the hovercraft, he saw four unsavory-looking characters, two older and two younger. Fathers and sons? wondered Charlie. All of them had goatees and wore sleeveless shirts over their ample bellies. Gnarly alligators were tattooed on the younger men’s sunburned biceps.

  One of the fathers, squinting beneath a camouflage baseball hat, raised his arm and shouted over the music. “Heyo, Parran!”

  “Benoit,” Parran hollered back. “Good to hear your voice!”

  “Charlie?” The giant kept a wary eye on a peephole.

  “Keep it down,” Charlie whispered back. “We’re almost there.”

  “Charlie!”

  The giant pointed out the viewing space at the end of the float. Weaving in and out of traffic, and moving dangerously close, was an Accelerton security van.

  “Oh man.” Charlie tried not to panic, but fear and the stuffy air inside the box made him feel claustrophobic. “How are we going to tell Parran?”

  Charlie watched the van pull over to the side of the road, and two guys with dark glasses and green Accelerton jackets hopped out. One produced a phone, letting someone know that they were getting close. A phone! Was Tim smart enough to…? Charlie checked the contacts in the one that his brother had left him. Parran! He punched the name and waited impatiently for the blind man to answer.