The Impossible Fortress(46)

Tyler turned on Alf, grabbing his fatigues and pushing him up against the wall. “You told me he had the code. You said it was one-zero-zero-two.”

“That’s what he told me!” Alf sputtered. He turned to glare at me. “Tell him the truth, Billy!”

“Maybe that’s the code, maybe it’s not,” I said. “That’s the problem, I don’t know. There’s a chance we get in the store and the alarm goes off anyway.”

Rene never moved or changed his expression. I was starting to wonder if he even understood English.

“So why are you here?” Tyler asked. “Did you come here to warn us?”

I nodded. “I don’t want anyone to get busted.”

“That’s very thoughtful,” Tyler said. “You put on your ninja costume and sneak out here at twelve thirty just to warn us? That’s really considerate, Billy.”

His right hand swung out, and I braced myself for a punch. Instead he reached around to my back pocket and yanked out the crowbar. “So why’d you bring this?” He shoved me against the Dumpster and pushed the tip of the crowbar into my throat, like he was getting ready to pry off my head. “Why are you lying?”

It was hard to speak with twelve inches of steel pressed into my trachea. “I’m trying to help you,” I said, but the words came out like croaks.

“Easy, easy,” Alf said, trying hard to keep the peace. “We all want the same thing, guys. We’re all here to see Vanna White’s hoo-ha, am I right? Let’s keep our eyes on the prize. That’s the important thing.”

Wrong, I thought. Tyler and Rene weren’t going through all this trouble just to see Vanna White’s hoo-ha. They were clearly after something bigger.

Tyler’s eyes were inches from mine. He was searching my face for signs of duplicity. Finally he released me, and I slunk to the ground, clutching my throat, surprised to find that I wasn’t actually bleeding, just scratched.

“Get the crates,” Tyler said.

“Now you’re talking,” Alf said. “Let’s do this!”

Earlier in the evening, Clark had stolen some milk crates from the loading dock of the Food World and stored them in the Dumpster behind General Tso’s. Now Alf was climbing into the Dumpster and passing the crates to Clark, who stacked them under the fire ladder in a pyramid. If I was going to bolt, this was my last chance. I couldn’t beat Tyler in a footrace—but if I made it to the backyards along High Street, I’d have a decent chance of escaping him. I knew all the hidden gaps in the fences; there were plenty of trees and gardens and toolsheds that would conceal me.

But what then? If I managed to escape, they’d just go into Zelinsky’s without me. And I couldn’t let that happen. Anything that went wrong at the store would be my fault. If I was going to keep it safe, I’d have to help Tyler and Rene break into it.

Up in the second-floor window, Arnold Schwarzenegger rose to his feet, turned around in a circle, and sat down again.

“You guys go to the roof,” Alf said. “I’ll ring the doorbell.”

Tyler pointed me toward the ladder. “Ladies first.”

I wiped my palms on my jeans—it wasn’t particularly warm, but I was sweating like crazy—and walked up the crates. When I stood on top, I was just tall enough to grab the bottom rung of the ladder, but I didn’t have the strength to pull myself up. My arms were shaking too much.

Clark grabbed my legs and gave me a boost. “Plant your feet against the bricks,” he said. “Walk yourself up, all right?”

I was surprised by the calm in his voice. From the way he spoke, you’d think we broke into stores every weekend. With Clark pushing from below, I was able to reach for the second rung, then a third, until I was finally standing upright on the ladder.

“Sweet Jesus,” Tyler said, marveling at our incompetence. “I can’t tell which one of you is more crippled.”

I climbed one rusty rung at a time. The ladder shook and rattled like it was breaking away from the wall, but the drone of the air conditioner masked the noise. I was halfway up when I heard the high-pitched chime of the doorbell and the even higher-pitched yapping of the dog. Now the meter was running. We had three minutes to get on the roof and cross over to the bike shop.

Some ten feet below me, Clark grabbed the bottom rung and pulled himself up. Even with the Claw, he was stronger and faster than me, climbing right on my heels and urging me higher and higher. Little bits of concrete and rusty ladder were falling all around me; I climbed as fast as I could and threw myself onto the roof, wriggling onto the surface like a worm. There wasn’t much to see—just a flat asphalt surface and a few PVC vents. I walked up to the east edge of the roof—to the alley separating General Tso’s from the bike shop next door—and my stomach flip-flopped.

At ground level, the alley looked small, a narrow gap you could easily hop across. But here on the roof it was a vast chasm. You’d need a running start to clear it—but there was a knee-high wall surrounding the roof, designed to keep debris from spilling off the sides. We would have to stand on top of the wall and leap across.

Clark walked up behind me. “Five feet, two inches.”

“How do you know?”

“I measured it. When we built the model.”

“I’m not sure I can make it.”