Suddenly Bob bellowed across the yard. “Jupe! Pete!”
The guys turned. Bob was running toward them. He looked both surprised and alarmed.
“There’s a guy out there,” Bob panted. “He’s watching the salvage yard! He’s got on a green jacket and white high-tops!”
The investigators ran to the junkyard entrance. They looked up and down the shadowy street. There was no traffic and no one was in sight.
“Where is he?” Pete demanded.
“Down there,” Bob said, nodding toward a pepper tree growing next to a street light.
Suddenly the growl of a motorcycle erupted, then died.
“That’s him!” cried Bob.
The guys ran toward the motorcycle. The man in the green jacket stomped the starter again. This time the engine caught, and he took off.
“Back to my car!” Pete ordered.
The Investigators reversed directions and piled into Pete’s Aries, parked just inside the junkyard. They zoomed away.
“There he is!” Jupe pointed down a side street. But just then the motorcycle veered off around a corner.
Pete sped up to the corner of the next block, where the motorcycle appeared to be heading. He couldn’t wait to get his hands on the guy. He turned the corner.
“We found him!” Bob exclaimed at the sight of the speeding motorcycle. “Good going, Pete!”
The Investigators leaned forward, excited to be closing in on the dangerous stranger. Now they’d get some questions answered.
Then the motorcycle turned again… and disappeared into the middle of the block! Pete accelerated to the spot. He turned too — right into an enclosed public parking lot.
“You sure he came in here?” Bob asked Pete. The parking lot was empty!
“Nowhere else he could’ve gone.” Pete touched the gas pedal, and the Aries rolled forward. The parking lot was eerily quiet.
“Man, this place is a tomb,” Bob said.
“Why can’t we hear his motorcycle?” Jupiter muttered. “Where’d he go?”
At last the Aries reached the opposite end of the lot. The Investigators were on edge, looking for a motorcycle that was suddenly invisible.
“He’s disappeared into thin air!” Bob exclaimed.
Then, like breaking glass, the motorcycle’s roar shattered the silence. The guys jumped.
“There he goes!” Pete shouted as a streak of light zipped from around a dumpster enclosure and roared behind them back across the lot. The cycle had been hiding in the dumpster’s shadows, its lights off.
Pete raced the Aries in a circle toward the exit. But the street was deserted, and Jupe was dizzy.
“So close,” Bob moaned.
“We haven’t lost him yet!” Pete said stubbornly. “Hang on!”
Pete pressed the gas feed and the souped-up Aries took off, crisscrossing the area’s streets.
“Let’s get that turkey!” Jupe urged, holding his stomach. Maybe he wasn’t dizzy, he decided, maybe he was hungry. He thought longingly of a ripe banana slathered with peanut butter.
Suddenly the sound of a motorcycle again pierced the twilight. The Investigators leaned forward eagerly as Pete raced toward it.
“We’re closing in!” Bob said, excited. The motorcycle sound was a roar.
And then they rounded a corner.
“Oh, boy! Hell’s Angels!” Pete groaned as they came in on the tail end of a pack of motorcyclists. The famous gang members wore leather vests, long hair in ponytails, and tattoos on their arms. They glanced disdainfully over their shoulders at Pete’s souped-up Aries, then resumed their ride as if the guys in the car didn’t exist.
“Good going, Pete.” Jupe shivered.
“Think that about does it,” Pete grumbled as he let the Angels roll far ahead. “We lost Greenjacket, I guess.”
Bob and Jupe nodded.
“I hate to wimp out on you guys,” Bob said, “but I’m going to be late for work.”
Pete turned the Aries back toward the salvage yard and wondered aloud, “Who is that guy?”
The Jones Salvage Yard was closed for the night. Pete dropped Bob off at his antique red Volkswagen beetle, which was parked on the street, and Bob drove away.
Inside the junkyard, light bathed only the grease pit where Ty was hard at work, finishing the tune-up on the Ford van.
“So what’s the report?” Ty took out a rag and wiped his hands.
As Jupiter and Pete filled Ty in, the three guys headed into Jupe’s electronics workshop. The shack was an even bigger mess than the trailer. Pieces of three dead PCs were spread out on the worktable, surrounded by tools and parts and wires. TV sets, a VCR, tape deck, and stereo system crowded the walls beneath posters of rock stars. Junk-food containers cluttered every surface.
Pete pulled cans of soda from the refrigerator and handed them around. Jupe peeled an overripe banana and spread peanut butter thickly along it.
“What’s that? ” Ty asked, astounded.
“Supper,” Jupiter said, and took a huge bite.
Ty rolled his eyes. “His new diet?” he asked Pete.
“Uh — huh.” Pete grinned.
“Man, you’re not gonna lose weight eatin’ that,” Ty advised. “I mean, look who eats peanuts and bananas — elephants!”
Ty and Pete roared with laughter while Jupiter paused in midchew. His round face flushed.