Disappearing Acts by Betsy Byars Read Free Book Online

driver’s license. The picture didn’t actually look like the girl on the bathroom floor. Her hair had been straighter and longer, but sometimes girls changed things like that.
    The statistics didn’t quite fit, either—five feet seven inches tall, 185 pounds. The girl on the bathroom floor had seemed taller than that, thinner too. Of course he wasn’t an expert on girls’ sizes.
    He checked the rest of the wallet, though he knew the contents—no folding money, three quarters, two dimes.
    But wait. What was this? There was a folded piece of paper behind the driver’s license.
    Meat took it out and unfolded it. He read the words and drew in his breath.
    â€œAll right. All right. I’ll be at F.B. at 7:00. We’ll talk.”
    F.B. Funny Bonz.
    And seven o‘clock was about the time he found the body.
    He glanced again at Herculeah’s bedroom window. He wanted to run across the street, beat on the door.
    â€œI found a note—a note. You have to see this!” he wanted to read it aloud, giving it the menacing quality he felt it deserved.
    But he had been left standing at Herculeah’s front door enough times today. He went down the steps and at the corner turned toward Broadview.
    Â 
    Â 
    Herculeah watched from her mother’s office window as he put on his jacket and went through the blue wallet.
    She watched intently as he discovered the piece of paper, watched as he unfolded it. The look on his face made her want to run across the street and read the message for herself. But she couldn’t face Meat, not yet.
    When Meat was out of sight, Herculeah picked up the phone and dialed a number of her own.
    â€œPolice Department, zone three. This is Captain Morrison. Can I help you?”
    â€œHi, it’s Herculeah Jones, Captain. I want to speak to my dad.”
    â€œHe’s not here, but I can give him a call if it’s important.”
    â€œI’m afraid it is.”
    Herculeah waited until he came back on the line.
    â€œDid you get him?” she asked.
    â€œYes, he’s out that way. He says he’ll stop by on his way back to the station.”
    â€œOh, thanks.”
    She hung up the phone and waited, walking back and forth in front of the window until she saw her father’s car. She burst through the front door and was on the sidewalk before her father had opened the door.
    â€œHi, Dad, I am so glad to see you. Can you come inside? Please!”
    â€œI’ve got a few minutes. What’s up?”
    â€œTwo things really,” she said as they went up the steps. “One is sort of, well, police business.”
    â€œOh?”
    â€œI was wondering—well. Met thought he found a dead body last night.”
    â€œHerculeah, you kids have got to stop finding dead bodies—”
    â€œJust listen, Dad, please. Don’t give me the finding-dead-bodies lecture. Meat went into the bathroom of Funny Bonz. Funny Bonz is a comedy club in the basement of the old hotel. There was a body on the floor—it sort of fell out of the toilet stall. Well, then the man who runs the club, Mike Howard—”
    â€œMike Howard ... Mike Howard,” her father said as if he were turning through a mental Rolodex.
    â€œYes, Mike Howard. And this is really suspicious. Mike Howard goes to check and he is gone a long time—much longer than it would take him to check. And then he comes back and says there was no body—that it was probably some sort of April Fools’ joke.”
    â€œMaybe it was. And it’s not unusual for people to do drugs in public rest rooms.”
    â€œI guess, but I was wondering if a body fitting this description had turned up. The corpse was a girl with brown hair, maybe dyed. Her name could be Marcie Mullet.”
    â€œIs Meat at home?” her father interrupted.
    â€œNo.”
    â€œI’d like to hear what he’s got to say about this.”
    â€œHe could have gone over