Hot Wheels Read Online Free PDF Page B

here.”
    “Don’t you want the photo?” Bob said.
    “Watch me.”
    They pushed through more arriving people and went out into the night. As they passed the display board outside on their way to Bob’s VW, Jupiter grabbed the photo of Tiburon and pulled it off.
    Bob was still dejected when they got into the car. “He wouldn’t lie about a brother, Jupe. It’s got to be your cousin who’s lying.”
    “Not if Tiburon was making Ty deliver a stolen car and lied about a brother then,” Jupiter said as Bob started the car and drove off. “And,” he added grimly, “someone is sure lying now.”
    “Who, Jupe? What lie?”
    “Tiburon could only have heard Ty’s story from us, the police, or Joe Torres and his friends. We didn’t tell. The police wouldn’t have. So Tiburon had to have been told what happened at the bodega by Torres or one of the other two. Which means one or all of them do know Tiburon and were lying to us and to the police!”
    “You’re right, Jupe!” Bob said.
    “And,” Jupiter added, “neither of us mentioned Oxnard to Tiburon tonight, yet he knew Ty had gotten the car in Oxnard.”
    “Wow! So either Torres told Tiburon about Oxnard, or Ty is telling the truth about Tiburon. Or both. What do we do?”
    “What we do,” Jupiter said, “is turn this car around and go back and wait for Tiburon and the Piranhas to come out of The Shack.”
     

6
Follow That Shark!
    They shivered in the unheated VW and listened to the loud music from The Shack. Southern California is really a desert climate, warm during the day but cold at night. In spring the cold chills to the bone. It was a long night for the Investigators.
    The music, and the few customers drifting in and out of the cafe, went on until midnight. Then silence. The last patrons came out in twos and threes. Finally the band exploded through the double doors in a bedlam of swearing and raging and bad temper.
    The surliest of all was Jake Hatch. Under the single street lamp he waved his arms at a bearded man who seemed to be the owner of The Shack. Tiburon and the Piranhas stood around them in a sullen circle. At last Hatch said something short and sharp to the band, stalked off to a silver-gray Rolls-Royce, and drove away. The Shack owner threw up his arms and went back inside. Tiburon and the Piranhas vanished around the back of the building.
    “Follow them, Bob!” Jupiter said quickly.
    “That’s the parking lot back there, Jupe. They have to come out this way,” Bob said. He nodded his head in the direction Jake Hatch had vanished in his Rolls-Royce. “That Rolls has to be secondhand, but I still can’t figure how Jake can afford it on his talent business. Sax says even he couldn’t.”
    Bob was still shaking his head over the Rolls-Royce when the first of the band’s cars came out from behind the now darkened building.
    “Holy cow!” Jupiter exclaimed.
    It was a large sedan, what make or year neither of them could tell. It was totally covered with spray-painted graffiti from one end to the other, even on the windows!
    The car was painted so thickly with messages that its original body color was invisible. It was so low to the ground that its real shape was difficult to make out.
    “It’s a lowrider!” Jupiter exclaimed.
    The specially rebuilt car rode only six inches above the street. Its springs and shocks had been cut down, or perhaps it had been modified with a hydraulic system that lowered the whole car. If the car was hydraulic, the driver could reraise it for highway driving. The car had steel plates under the front and rear to protect the underside when it hit bumps in the road, or when going in and out of driveways.
    It was followed out in a stately procession by four other lowriders. They all turned toward the barrio.
    Only young Latinos drove lowriders. The cars were part of life in the barrio, a special way to be different from Anglos and dazzle the girls. Usually lowriders were beautifully kept. They were