Stone Investigations (Stone Series Book 4) by Bob Blanton (open ebook txt) 📗

“I’ll think about it.”

“Bye, Malcom.”

The guy grabbed the backpack from the floor and held it inhis lap.  Matthew kept his portal on him, making sure he would be able to openit at his location later.

◆ ◆ ◆

“Matt,” Emily whispered.

Matthew closed his portal and looked up.  Mr. Ward waslooking at him expectantly.  He opened a portal over Emily’s desk.  ‘What wasthe Smith Act?’ was written in her notebook.

“Sorry, I was just gathering my thoughts.  The Smith Act waspassed in 1940 and it outlawed advocating for the overthrow of the government. Its passage was spurred by the occupation of Czechoslovakia by Nazi Germany.”

“Very good, Mr. Brandt.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Thanks,” Matthew said after class was over.  “I wasfollowing up on my lead.”

“I could tell.  So what happened?”

“I’m not sure, we’ll talk later.”

“Hey, Matt, Emily.  Where are we going for lunch today?”Jason asked.

“You two ditched us three days this week, and then you justwaltz up and expect us to join you?” Emily chided Jason and Alex.

“Hey, we’re working on our parts.  I told you this morningwe’d go to lunch today,” Alex said.

“Oh, right.  I forgot.  Well, how about the burger place onEl Camino Real?”

“Okay, we’ll follow you.”

Matthew followed Emily to her car.  Jason and Alex were rightbehind them since Jason had parked next to Emily.

“Okay, you got three minutes to fill me in,” Emily said onceshe and Matthew were in the car.

“Okay.  The cops busted the woman at the Starbucks when shegave a guy nine hundred bucks and got a bag of M&Ms.  But when they openedthe bag it just had M&Ms in it.  They roughed the guy up a bit, searchedhim, and found nothing so they let them go.  The guy told the cops his name wasMalcom.

“I followed the guy.  He took a bus back to his apartment. He checked his backpack out.  It had a book that was hollowed out with somefoil packets in it.  Then he grabbed some money and a box and put them in hisbackpack.”

“Why didn’t the cops find that stuff when they searched him?”

“He swapped backpacks with some kid on his way home.  I’mguessing the kid was one of the skateboarders that were outside of Starbuckswhen the bust went down.  Anyway, I’d just caught Malcom at the bus stop whenwe were in class.  He rode the bus for a few stops, a guy got on, they tradedbackpacks and then Malcom got off.”

“Wow, that’s sure a lot of action with the backpacks.  You’llhave to tell me more later.  Are you still tracking them?”

“I’m focusing on the new guy.  And get this, when he got offthe bus, Malcom called the new guy Malcom.  And I think Malcom’s real name is Frankie.”

“I hope you can keep it all straight.  Well, here we are. Alex and Jason would decide to go to lunch with us when you have so much totell me.”  Emily parked her car and they got out to join Jason and Alex.

◆ ◆ ◆

Emily and Alex split a burger although Emily did get her ownorder of French fries.

“I’ll burn them off playing tennis,” Emily said when Alexteased her about the fries.

“Jason, what parts are you guys going for?”

“We’re doing You Can't Take It with You and I’m going forTony Kirby, Alex is going for Alice Sycamore.  Those are the parts that JimmyStewart and Jean Arthur played in the movie.

“Wasn’t Jimmy Stewart tall?”

Jason waved a fry at Matthew, “The part doesn’t have a heightrequirement, and you just wait; next time we play tennis, I’m going to show youhow useless all that height is.”  Jason, at 5’ 8”, usually didn’t react when Matthew,who was pushing six feet, would tease him about his height.  Matthew wonderedwhat had happened that he’d got such a strong reaction from him and daggersfrom Alex.

“Okay, down boys, save it for the court,” Emily said.  “Whatbrought that on?”

“Oh, one of the guys in drama keeps making a big deal abouthow he’s six feet tall and the perfect leading man.  It’s gotten under Jason’sskin.”

“Well, did you beat him out for the part?” Matthew asked.

“Not yet.  Final auditions are next week.”

“I’m sure you’ll nail it.”

Alex and Jason spent the rest of their lunch talking abouttheir parts.  Matthew could tell Emily wasn’t her normal self.  She was barelypaying attention.  Obviously, she would rather be talking about Malcom.

◆ ◆ ◆

As they got into her car, Emily looked at Matthew.  “Now, . . .  oh, don’t tell me, you’re checking up on himagain.”  Matthew had a glazed look on his face, so Emily knew he was using hisportal.

The entire way back to school, Matthew used his portal. Emily had to poke him when they were in the parking lot.

“Just a second, I’m almost through.”

“What’s he doing?”

“Posting on Facebook.”

“What’s Facebook?”

“It’s a new social media app, like MySpace, but easier touse.”

“Why haven’t I heard about it?”

“This is their first year; it’s only available to collegestudents now.  I’m sure they’ll expand soon.  Probably in a few years, everyonewill have a Facebook page.”

“Why, MySpace works just fine?”

“Facebook lets you do more, like posting these notes.  Iwonder if they started using MySpace and switched to Facebook.”

“Who cares?  What is he posting?”

Matthew waved his hand at Emily while he watched Malcom IIfinish up a last post.  Then he closed his portal and turned to Emily toexplain.  “I think he’s using Facebook to message his clients about when tocome get their drugs.  It’s in some kind of code.  I’ll have to figure the codeout.”

“No fair.  We’ve got class now, so I’m still in the dark.”

◆ ◆ ◆

Matthew wrote down what he’d seen Malcom II post on theFacebook pages with his guess at what they meant.

Meeting: ‘Jess-MD@11:00.’  He made four, each with adifferent time and a different name.

Then he surreptitiously slipped the page to Emily.

Emily looked at it and wrote her suggestions below each line.

‘See you at McDonald’s at 11:00.’

◆ ◆ ◆

“How’d you get McDonald’s out of MD?” Matthew asked Emily asthey left class and they headed toward their environmental science class.

“I’m guessing they like places like Starbucks, so MD,McDonald’s, same layout, lots of traffic and no one will notice if you hang outfor an hour