style="font-size:15px;"> Oliver had other concerns. “You haven’t noticed a newt crawling around, have you?”
“Or a suspicious person?” Moxie added.
“What kind of person?” the man asked. “I saw a woman driving by in a beat-up grocery van. And what kind of lizard?”
Oliver sighed in annoyance. “It’s an Amaranthine Newt,” he said, “and that woman is probably a thief.”
“A newt will be hard to find,” said the stranger. “But I might look in a patch of zinnias I passed. It could blend in and hide there easily.”
“You’re thinking of a chameleon,” I said, “but you’re probably right that we won’t find the newt. We might as well help you instead.”
“What?” Oliver said, blinking in astonishment, and Moxie frowned.
“Do you have a spare tire in the trunk?” I continued, talking to the man.
The supposed salesman shook his head. “Nope.”
“That’s too bad,” I said, “but maybe you have something that would do in a pinch.”
“I don’t think so,” the man said quickly, in a pinched voice.
“In a pinch” is a phrase which here means “in a difficult situation,” and a pinched voice is a whiny and nervous one. But neither of these pinches was the pinch I was thinking of. “Open the trunk anyway,” I said, “so we can see the special newt tank you have hidden there.”
* * *
The conclusion to “Pinched Creature” is filed under “Dishonest Salesman,” here.
Bouvard and Pecuchet Bellerophon, better known as Pip and Squeak, were the best cabdrivers in Stain’d-by-the-Sea, although to be fair, they were also the only cabdrivers I’d ever come across in town. The brothers weren’t really old enough to drive—or tall enough, for that matter—so Pip worked the steering wheel and Squeak worked the brakes, and in this way they got their customers around in the taxi belonging to their father, who they’d told me was very ill. The Bellerophon brothers were valuable associates of mine, so when they told me their mechanic needed help, I agreed to ride right over to Moray Wheels, a dirty and lonely-looking garage in what had once been a bustling district of town and now sat mostly empty.
“I know it doesn’t look like much,” Pip said as his brother brought the taxi to a halt, “but Jackie’s an excellent mechanic.”
“You can say that again,” Squeak said, in his high-pitched voice, but nobody did. We were busy watching an elderly man wander out onto the driveway with a limp and a sneer. He wobbled slightly as he walked and his fingers fluttered at his sides like he was counting to infinity on his fingers.
“That’s the mechanic?” I asked doubtfully, imagining those fingers trying to operate a wrench.
“That,” Pip said, with a shake of his head, “is the mechanic’s grandfather. Wednesdays he works at the bowling alley, but the rest of the time he sits around here eating molasses and bragging about his career as a race car driver. Jackie’s probably inside. Let’s go.”
Let’s go we did. The brothers led me in a curve around the old man and then into a garage that felt like a birthday party for mechanical parts, with tires and bumpers drinking gasoline punch, and stacks of tools and equipment nibbling on grease and talking together on the floor. There was no sign of Jackie or anyone else, but in the middle of the place was a car I recognized.
“What’s wrong with Cleo Knight’s Dilemma?” I asked. “Ms, Knight is an associate of mine, and her automobile has always been top-of-the-line. You wouldn’t believe some of the stunts that car has pulled.”
A figure rolled itself out from under the shiny automobile, and someone about my age sat up and nodded at all of us. “Even something top-of-the-line bottoms out once in a while,” the mechanic said. “She just needs a little tune-up, that’s all. Is this the guy, brothers?”
“This is the guy,” Squeak squeaked.
Jackie gave me a quick, frowny glance. “He doesn’t look so tough.”
“He’s plenty tough,” Pip said.
“I need someone very tough,” Jackie said.
“Do you need someone who can hear what you say, even when he’s standing right here?” I asked.
Jackie gave me an apologetic smile. “It’s nothing personal,” the mechanic said. “I just have some trouble on my hands.”
“Trouble is like grease,” I said, with a nod at Jackie’s jumpsuit. “If you have it on you, you’ll probably get it on everyone nearby.”
“Pip and Squeak said you’re good in a jam,” Jackie said.
“Depends on the jam,” I said.
“They say you’re brave.”
“Brave is what they call you until it doesn’t work,” I said. “Then they call you beaten. But you don’t want to hear my story. You want to tell me yours.”
Jackie sighed and sat down on a stack of tires. “My dog’s gone.”
Squeak gasped. “Not Lysistrata? She’s the best watchdog I’ve ever seen!”
“Loudest bark this side of the Mortmain Mountains,” Jackie said with pride, “but someone swiped her last night, and left this note for me taped to the Dilemma’s windshield.”
The mechanic took a sheet of paper out of a dirty pocket, and we all leaned in to see.
If you ever want to see your dog alive again, bring a complete set of Dugga Drills to 1300 Blotted Boulevard at midnight tonight. Be sensible. Come alone.
Yours sincerely,
The Person Who Kidnapped
Your Dog
“Dugga makes the best drills money can buy,” Jackie said, “but I’d give anything to have my dog back.”
“Who knows you have such valuable tools?” I asked.
The mechanic pointed to a corner, where there was a bright red case marked DUGGA. “Anyone who comes by,” Jackie said. “But what I can’t figure is how a stranger got my Lysistrata to come with them, and where they’re hiding her now. She’d be barking like crazy, but I rode around all morning and heard nothing.”
“Did you go by the Hairdryer Emporium?” Pip asked. “That’s probably the loudest place in Stain’d-by-the-Sea. The kidnapper could be hiding her there.”
