The Boxer and the Spy by Robert B. Parker

Author:Robert B. Parker [Parker, Robert B.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Suspense
ISBN: 9780142414392
Publisher: Puffin
Published: 2008-05-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 25

Abby sat at her desk in front of the window in her upstairs bedroom. The messages started in the morning.

“Hi, Abb, it’s number seventeen,” a girl’s voice said.

That would be Suzi.

“Mr. Bullard drove by a minute ago while I was waiting for the bus.... I assume he’s going to school like the rest of us poor convicts.... Why doesn’t the cheap creep get a real car.... He looks so funny all squeezed into that little sardine can he drives....”

“Hi, Abby, it’s Otis, I forgot my number ... anyway I saw Bullard at that place, near me, where the tech arts kids are building a house.... Kip Carter was there too.”

“It’s number eleven,” a boy’s voice said.

Abby checked her list. Number eleven was Jason’s friend Perry Fisher.

“I don’t even know if it matters, but you said to report everything.... I saw Kip Carter riding in Mr. Bullard’s car with Mr. Bullard.... I don’t know where they were going.”

Abby made her notes.

“Number seven reporting ...” It was Bev. “Mr. Bullard’s car was gone from the school parking lot from two in the afternoon.... It was still gone when I went home after school.”

Abby wrote it down.

“Hey, babe.” It was a boy’s voice. “It’s number three.... I don’t like being number three ...

you know I’m number one ... Ha, ha! ... Anyway it’s seven o‘clock at night. Bullard just went into the Trents’ house.”

Number three was Carly Clark. He was black and had gone to school in Cabot as a Metco student since first grade. He was a really good basketball player, good enough for a scholarship, and his parents had rented a house in Cabot, right across from the Trents, so they could keep him in school here, and let him practice, and not waste half his day coming back and forth from Boston. When they moved in, there were some people that didn’t like it. But there was no real trouble.

“Hey, Abby ... you know who this is.... I seen Mr. Bullard talking with Mr. Malcolm, the construction teacher, for, like, half an hour outside Bullard’s office this morning.”

Abby did know who it was. Tank’s voice was still boyish and sort of high for a kid so big.

Abby put the information down. She used a Sharpie with lavender ink that matched the lines on her notepaper. Alone at night in her bedroom with an earpiece plugged into her cell phone, she wrote carefully, in a nice hand, the trivial information about Bullard and other people. It was engrossing. And she felt a little edge of excitement as she wrote and watched the shape of Bullard’s behavior begin to form. If you knew enough about a person, every day, if enough people watched him, you could figure out a lot of stuff.

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