Chapter 2 Partners

Horacio walked around Davor's lab as the other man fiddled around with something on one of his work benches. Davor wasn't paying too close attention to him, so he made a point to touch any and everything that seemed interesting to him. The lab was set up with beakers, strange contraptions, crucibles, and burners. A mortar and pestle with some yellowish substance crushed within was precariously close to the end of one of the counters. He casually pushed it further back so it would not fall at the slightest vibration. He strolled back to where Davor was using a screwdriver to tighten a screw on a light bulb handle. He held the thing up into the air and Horacio could see it was shaped more like a gun with a long narrow lightbulb on the end. Davor lowered the invention and tightened the screw some more. Horacio, now bored, found a dish of some strange greenish substance that seemed to move on its own.

Davor looked up from his work as if he could sense what Horacio was thinking, "Don't touch anything without my consult." He went back to working on his invention. Horacio leaned in a little closer to the substance and then reached out to touch it. The green goo leaped from the dish to his finger and began to rapidly cover his hand.

"Davor, I touched it!"

"Not very smart." Davor said as he picked up a spray bottle and sprayed a pink substance on the green goo. It backed down and Davor caught it in the dish.

"What is that stuff?"

"An invention. I am trying to find the right formula for a snare. Something I can throw at a criminal and stop him from running. So far, the substance just coats but does not stop or impede movement. They are still running away, just running away covered in green goo." He went back to the workbench, "Come, I should show you this."

Horacio complied as he rubbed his hands together because the hand formerly covered in goo was still numb. "What is it? A gun?"

Davor laughed, of course not. It doesn't even look like a gun.

"It has a hand grip, a barrel, and a hammer."

"Well, it's not for that sort of thing. I noticed a strange smell when the Jumping Jack started his leaping. I couldn't place it at first but then it came to me. I was looking at an internal combustion engine prototype once, just a lab experiment really, and the exhaust was terrible. It smelled like the Jumping Jack but that would be impossible because internal combustion engines are heavy not to mention hot and noisy. This thing here is an exhaust detector. I can find what he is running for fuel and what he's up to if I can just find the right clues.

"You mean to tell me that jumping is done by way of a motorcar engine?"

"Well, as I said, something like that would be heavy and noisy. I do not remember such a noise coming from him. But there are smaller engines, one or two cylinders."

"Wouldn't they still be noisy?"

"Oh, yes, but that's why I am going to use this invention. I must know how he does that leaping."

"How do you expect to find him? He doesn't seem to have a pattern with his appearances I can see."

Davor put down the exhaust detector and went to another table where he spread out a map of the city. He secured the corners of the map with a heavy piece of iron on one side and a big ceramic ash tray on the other. "I have marked this map with the sightings of the Jumping Jack. If you notice he has been leaping around this part of town the most." He pointed to the center of the map. He swirled his finger around the area. "This is the radius he has traveled. If you go around the sighting places in a circle you can see the central point is here." He touched the middle of the circled area. "Our jumper must be housed somewhere in the center of this circle. Whatever he uses gives off exhaust so it must utilize fuel. I am betting he has a range. Without carrying a bucket of petrol with him everywhere he goes, he cannot get to far from his fuel supply or risk running out. Therefore, my conclusion is he is more than likely located in the centermost area in the middle of the circle of sightings."

"Brilliant! So, we go there and wait around for his to appear?"

"No," He went and picked up the invention. "We go there, and I use this to detect his exhaust and we simply follow the trail."

"Will that thing really work?"

Davor placed the thing on to a pouch on his belt. "There is only one way to find out, friend."

The laboratory Davor used was located on the first floor near the rear of the complex where the room could be adequately ventilated. As such, the smells from the kitchen tended to waft through. The smell became particularly strong when Davor lead him out of the laboratory toward the front of the complex.

"Fancy a bite to eat?" Horacio asked.

"Why not. We can't go out in the field on empty stomachs."

It was at the table in the dining room that Horacio first noticed Davor's abject eccentricities. Firstly, the man polished each piece of silverware to a high shine. Next, he placed three napkins down one on top of the other as soon as he could snatch them from the other place settings. When the soup was brought in, Davor took his soup spoon and tapped it three times on the bowl and then turned the bowl a quarter circle three times before he dipped his spoon into the liquid.

"What the devil are you doing?" Horacio asked.

Davor appeared confused, "Are you referring to me?"

"Yes, yes man. You are acting most peculiar."

"Whatever do you mean?"

"Tapping your bowl and turning it and such. What is wrong with you?"

Davor smiled, "Nothing is wrong. I just feel luckier when I do these things. If I forget one, I think maybe bad luck with have a way in and I will be sorry."

"That's ridiculous."

"Perhaps it is to you. Your culture has many superstitions. Perhaps if I take this salt and pour it here and put it back."

Horacio grimaced and tried not to take a pinch of the salt and throw it over his shoulder, but he couldn't help himself."

"See, you had to throw the salt over your shoulder into your devil's eye. Perhaps I should break a mirror next or walk under a ladder."

"Okay, you made your point."

After they had eaten, the two unlikely paired partners hailed a taxi and instructed the driver to take them to the area of town most likely to be the origin of the jumping culprit.

"This isn't our normal course of investigation." Horacio said as they traveled. "This jumping man doesn't seem at all supernatural. If your engine suspicions pan out, he seems to be a human with some mechanical knowledge, hardly our concern. In fact, I'm not sure his few assaults and threats on us to stop looking for him even count as crimes."

"Are you not curious?"

"Of course, I am. It just seems a bit anticlimactic and boring. A man invents a jumping machine and can breathe fire. No doubt the only spirits involved are those of the distilled variety in which he uses to spit the fire."

"I find it fascinating."

"Of course, you would. I have seen your lab and your inventions. Mechanical things are your forte'. I just long for something more adventurous."

Davor began to laugh.

"You find what I have to say funny?"

"I was just thinking of a saying my grandfather used to say to people lamenting for adventure such as you."

"Oh?"

"Let me see, in English it would go be careful what you wish for, you just may get it."

"We have that saying too."

"Ah, then take care, my friend. Adventure may yet find you just around the corner."

The taxi driver pulled the vehicle to a halt. Davor paid the man after they had exited, and the driver was on his way. Horacio and Davor surveyed their surroundings. This was a run-down part of town, with leaning wooden structures and fading paint. The buildings were mostly warehouses and storages facilities, an ideal place to hide endeavors of the more mechanical variety.

Davor removed the device he had made from his belt and flipped a lengthy toggle switch on the handle. The exhaust detecting gun lit up with a dull light. A gauge on the handle began to dance wildly. Davor's face contorted into a frown.

"What's wrong?" Horacio asked.

"Exhaust fumes. They are everywhere around us. I cannot pinpoint them. The air itself is thick with them."

Horacio took a deep breath and the air seemed pleasant enough, "I don't smell anything. Wouldn't exhaust all around us choke us up?"

"There." Davor pointed to a bricked warehouse not far in front of them. "Look in those windows."

Horacio could not believe his eyes. Silhouetted in the tall building's windows was a figure of a man leaping and jumping wildly throughout the building, bouncing from the floor, and pushing off the place's high ceilings.