The Mystery of Silas Finklebean by David Baldacci, Rudy Baldacci Page A

green.”
    “I’mfinethankyoubutldon’ttrustyou,” mumbled Curly.
    “Uh huh,” said Dubowski, who obviously had no idea what Curly had just said. He looked back at Si. “So what can I do for you?”
    Curly handed him the list and Dubowski studied it. “Steering wheel, check. Dashboard, we got that. Suede seats. Got a nice set right off of Elvis’s own Cadillac. That’ll cost you extra.”
    “Elvis! Cool,” exclaimed Si.
    Dubowski continued with the list. “Muffler, check. AM/FM/CD player, okay. Yep, we got all this stuff.” He whistled at some workers in the yard and barked instructions. In a few minutes all the items had been assembled.
    Dubowski took out a calculator and added everything up. “Okay, that’ll be four thousand eight hundred and sixteen dollars.”
    “What?!” said Meese. “That can’t be right.”
    “Whoops, you know what? I did make a mistake,” said Dubowski. “I forgot to add in the sales tax. It’s actually an even five thousand dollars.”
    “Great,” said Si. “What a bargain.”
    “Are you crazy?” said Meese. “It’s just a bunch of junk. Why, I bet all that stuffs not worth more than few dollars.”
    Dubowski looked very offended. He rubbed his hand along the blue suede car seat. “Why, this is the very seat where the King of Rock and Roll himself, the one and only Elvis Presley, situated his one and only posterior.”
    “Yeah, Meese,” said Si. “It’s got the King’s butt marks right on it. That’s probably worth more than five thousand dollars all by itself.”
    Dubowski slapped Si on the back. “I knew I liked you, son. You’ve got style.”
    Meese said, “If Elvis Presley sat on that, then I’m a monkey’s uncle.”
    “Boy,” said Si, “what fun you must have had swinging around those trees and eating all those bananas with your nephew.”
    “I give up,” said Meese.
    “We’ll take it,” said Si. “Here’s our money.”
    Dubowski took the cash, counted it slowly, and then his round face flushed. “We got ourselves a little problem here, fellers. This is only twelve dollars.”
    Si slapped him on the back. “Twelve dollars, five thousand dollars, what difference does it really make between friends?”
    “The difference,” said Dubowski firmly, “is four thousand nine hundred and eighty-eight dollars. And if you don’t have it, you don’t get any of this.”
    “Well, what can we get for twelve dollars then?” asked Si.
    Dubowski picked up the rusted muffler, tore off one corner, and held it out. “Here, you can have this for twelve bucks and consider it a gift.”
    “Wow, thanks,” said Si, reaching for it, but Meese slapped his hand down.
    “You can keep that thing. It’s not worth twelve cents.”
    “YeahsothereandImightstickoutmytongue-atyoutoo,” mumbled Curly.
    Dubowski glared at them. “We got us a couple of special employees for dealing with customers like you.”
    “Wow, special employees just for us,” said Si.
    Dubowski whistled and they could all hear the sounds of something hurtling toward them.
    Curly saw them first. “Ohboythisdoesn’tlook-goodsodon’tevenlook.”
    Two very large and very fierce guard dogs flashed around a corner of junk and headed right toward the Fries with their very big fangs bared.
    “Get ’em, boys,” yelled Dubowski.
    “YEOW!” yelled Si, and he took off, dragging Meese along. Curly started running too, but in a different direction. “CatchmeifyoucanbutIdon’tthinkyoucan.”
    The two dogs ran after Curly. The green Fry, however, was very,
very
fast, and the dogs were not gaining on him. In fact, he was so speedy he had to keep stopping to let the dogs catch up.
    Curly flew up the side of a large crane and ran out onto its arm. Swinging around and around, he then let go, uncoiled his long arms, and snagged a weathervane on top of the junkyard’s office building. From there he sailed to the ground, did a forward roll, popped up, came around behind the two dogs, and zoomed in