Part 2 (1/2)

”Everyone does,” I said, opening the door. ”No, Gordon, you can't go in early; you'll have to wait until nine like everyone else.”

Gordon straightened up and smirked at me. You couldn't call it a smile when his beady eyes weren't involved at all, and he had an awkward way of trying to open his mouth as little as possible to hide his front teeth, which were oversized and underbrushed. His appearance would improve enormously if you could swap his nearly nonexistent chin with his exaggerated Adam's apple, and he'd be much more pleasant to have around if he'd stop using aftershave by the quart. I deduced from the red bandanna knotted over his head, the red sash around his waist, the painted-on handlebar mustache, and the single gold clip-on hoop earring that he'd typecast himself as a pirate.

”s.h.i.+ver me timbers and call off the dogs,” he said, throwing up his hands. ”I'll come clean.”

”Very funny, Gordon,” I said, and started to close the door.

Gordon's foot got in the way.

”I'm here for the yard sale,” he said, in an injured tone. ”And you've got all these dogs running around loose.”

”They're not loose,” I said. ”They're inside a fence, with a BEWARE OF THE DOGS sign.”

”Well, how am I supposed to get in with all those dogs running around?”

”We'll be removing the dogs when the yard sale starts,” I said. ”At nine.”

”But that's two hours from now,” Gordon complained. ”What am I supposed to do for two hours?”

”Go have breakfast somewhere,” I suggested.

”Aw, come on,” he said. ”After all I did for you when you were getting ready for this? What's the harm?”

”See you at nine, Gordon,” I said. I raised my foot and took deliberate aim, as if about to stomp on the foot he still had stuck in the door. He jerked his leg back and I shut the door.

Good riddance.

Chapter 4.

”After all he did for you?” Dad repeated. I turned around to find that he had his back to me and was attempting to peer over his left shoulder at me.

”What are you doing?” I asked.

”Owls can rotate their heads a full 270 degrees,” he said.

”I expect their necks are built rather differently from yours,” I said. ”You'll pull something if you keep trying that.”

”Yes, they have several extra vertebrae,” Dad said, rotating his head and trying to peer over the right shoulder. ”Exactly what did Gordon do for you?”

”Beats me,” I said. ”He gave us estimates on some of the books and antiques, but since everyone else's estimates were at least twice what he offered, we didn't sell him anything.”

”That doesn't sound helpful,” Dad said.

”What's more, he missed every appointment he made with us,” I added over my shoulder as I headed back to the kitchen. ”And then he'd show up at some maximally inconvenient time and get huffy when we refused to leave him alone in the house. I'm surprised he waited until seven to show up.”

”If you mean the weasel in the pirate costume, he was skulking around the yard earlier,” Rob said.

”How can you say something like that about a perfectly nice animal like the weasel?” I asked.

”The sewer rat in the pirate costume, then,” Rob said. ”He was the one who set off the dogs in the first place, but somehow he managed not to get bitten.”

”That's Gordon,” I said. ”How is Mr. Sprocket?”

”Please; Barrymore,” the man in question said, offering me his hand to shake.

”Sorry,” I said. ”Mr. Barrymore, of course.”

”No,” he said. ”Just Barrymore. Barrymore Sprocket.”

”Nice to meet you,” I said, with more enthusiasm than I felt. ”Have some doughnuts; I hear the doorbell again.”

As soon as I was out of sight, I dried my now-damp hand on my jeans leg and made a mental note to introduce Barrymore to my cousin Leo, the mad inventor, who might still be looking for guinea pigs to test his revolutionary new antiperspirant hand cream.

”Has this been going on all morning?” Dad said, as I appeared in the hall again. He had perched on the newel post at the bottom of the banister, the better to practice his head-swiveling.

”Only since five-thirty,” Rob called from the kitchen.

”Five-thirty isn't this morning, it's last night,” I muttered, on my way to the door. ”If it's Gordon-you-thief again, I'll kill him.”

A pleasant-looking woman in her fifties, wearing a flowered dress and a flower-decked hat, stood on the doorstep. Overdressed for a yard sale-she even held a pair of white kid gloves in her left hand. If this was a costume, it was too subtle for me. But there was no mistaking her purpose. She had that now-familiar acquisitive gleam in her eye and she clutched a copy of the Caerphilly Clarion, open at the cla.s.sifieds.

”Excuse me,” she said, with an ingratiating smile. ”Is this where the yard sale is being held today?”

I pointedly looked past her to the road. Yes, the half-dozen yard sale signs Dad had tacked up several days earlier were still there, and even though it wasn't quite fully daylight, they were clearly readable even from here. For that matter, while driving up to the house, she could probably have spotted the fenced-in sale area. The multicolored tents and awnings were hard to miss.

I focused on her face.

”Yes, we're having a yard sale, but it doesn't open till nine a.m.,” I said.

”I'm so sorry,” she said. ”I did so want to come, but you see, we're having a luncheon at church today, and I have to be there at nine.”

”For a luncheon?”

”I'm in charge of preparations,” she said. ”Anyway, I just wanted to see if you had any little bits of china.”

”Little bits of china,” I repeated.

”Yes,” she said. ”I just love little china figurines. But I can't afford to buy many of them in stores-fixed income, you know. And between church events, and Scout meetings, I just never seem to have a Sat.u.r.day free for yard sales. So I was wondering-if you had anything like that, maybe I could just slip in and take a peek. I won't take much of your time, really. And I'd be so grateful.”

By this time, I realized I'd encountered another well-known fixture of local yard sales-the Hummel lady, who'd built her enormous collection for peanuts by using her sharp eye and sharper bargaining skills at flea markets and yard sales. And, of course, by conning her way into yard sales before anyone else.

”Oh, no, I don't really think we have anything like that,” I said. ”Not anymore, anyway. Well, we did find a box of figurines my great-aunt picked up when her husband was stationed in Germany in the fifties, but they weren't anything fancy. Just these cutesy little kids with lambs and puppies and things.”