Hot Wheels - Arden William - Страница 10

8

Vanishing Act

Slowly their eyes became accustomed to the dim light.

They were in an enormous room with thick pillars and a few feeble lights-shining down from the ceiling. Rows of cars stood parked among the pillars. At the right a wide ramp led up to the second floor. Up against the rear wall was a large automobile elevator. Its shaft was enclosed on the sides by wiremesh and in front by slatted wooden gates.

There were doors at the far right side of the room, next to the ramp. At the left were half-glass doors leading to offices. There were no lights behind the office doors, and no sign of Torres or anyone else.

Nothing moved anywhere.

“You think they’re all stolen?” Pete whispered as he looked at the rows of cars.

Jupiter shook his head. “This seems to be a regular parking garage. See, the pillars and wall sections are all numbered.”

“So where’s the parking attendant? And the service shop and body work?”

“Good question.”

In the dimness, among the rows of ghostly cars, they listened. After a moment, they heard small sounds somewhere above.

“It doesn’t sound like much,” Pete said.

“It’s an old building,” Jupiter replied. “The walls and floors are thick enough to absorb sounds. Someone is definitely upstairs.”

“If we’re going up there,” Pete said, “I sure hope that elevator and the car ramp aren’t the only ways up.

“There must be stairs. Let’s try that door at the foot of the ramp.”

They walked over to the unmarked door and Pete pulled it open. Inside was a dusty stairway. The sounds from above were clearer in the dimly lit, echoing stairwell. But the guys couldn’t hear any footsteps or voices. Cautiously they crept up the steel stairs to the second floor. Jupe opened the door on the landing and the guys peered out.

Here the cavernous space among the pillars was better lighted. The room contained cars in various stages of repair. Most of them were standing there like forgotten skeletons. Three had electronic instruments attached, to analyze cylinder compression, fuel injection, spark-plug operation, and other electrical functions. The instruments were bleeping and flashing, but no one was in sight.

“The mechanics must have gone somewhere in a hurry,” Pete said. “They left those instruments still working.”

“Well, they didn’t go down. No one passed us as we came in.”

“So where did they go?” Pete said. “And where’s Torres and that orange Cadillac?”

“Must be on the third floor.”

They continued silently up the stairs.

This time the large open area was even better lighted, with cars scattered all through the spaces between the pillars. There were more cars here than on the second floor, but still far fewer than on the first. Here the cars were having bodywork and painting done.

But no one was in sight on this floor either!

Sanders and buffers and other bodywork tools lay on the floor plugged in to electrical outlets. The painting booths were filled with cars and the air compressors were working. Exhaust blowers hummed. But no one was at work. And there was still no sign of Torres or the orange Caddy.

“Weird!” said Jupe.

“My dad always says no one works in garages except when a customer is watching,” Pete said.

“Your dad may be right, but mechanics were working here very recently,” Jupiter said. “They’ve gone, and so has Torres. We’d better try to find out where.”

“You mean go out there?”

“There’s no one around.”

“What if they come back?”

“We have to take the risk,” Jupiter insisted. “Torres and that Cadillac must be somewhere in the building.

Jupiter led the way around the large room. They stayed close to cars, using them as cover in case anyone came back suddenly. But no one did, and they were able to circle the whole room back to the stairwell. They found no doors and no other stairs. The elevator was up on this floor, but it hadn’t been used while they were in the building. Neither had the ramp.

“No car came past us,” Pete said. “We must have missed the orange Caddy on one of the floors.”

Jupiter was doubtful. “I don’t see how, but we’d better go back down and look again.”

They tiptoed down the stairs to the second floor. They didn’t spot the orange Cadillac anywhere, but there was a mechanic at work now! “Where’d he come from?” Pete whispered “I don’t know,” Jupiter whispered back. “But we didn’t walk around this floor, remember? We’ll have to look here, too.”

“You mean go out there on this floor? There’s a guy out there!”

“We’ve got to be sure the Cadillac isn’t here.” Jupiter and Pete slipped out of the stairwell. They walked quietly, keeping to the shadows and behind the cars. The solitary mechanic could discover them at any moment, but he was making noise that helped cover them. He also seemed intent on his work, as if trying to catch up. He never even looked up as the two Investigators slipped from car to car through the gloom.

They found no trace of the orange Cadillac.

“I guess we missed it on the first floor,” Pete said when they finally made it back to the cover of the stairwell.

“Unless,” Jupiter said, and stopped. His eyes were thoughtful and a little excited. “Come on, let’s look at the first floor again.”

In his sudden excitement Jupiter moved too fast down the steel stairs. He slipped near the bottom and slid down the last three steps with a clatter.

Both guys froze. They held their breath and listened.

One, two, three minutes passed.

Jupiter stood up carefully.

There was only silence on the ground floor — and the faint sounds from above where the mechanic worked.

“Whew,” Pete said. “That could have been close!”

Jupiter nodded, a little pale. He led the way out into the dimness of the ground floor parking garage. There was still no light behind any of the half-glass doors on the far side of the echoing room.

And there was no orange Cadillac.

They searched the entire floor, walking among the rows of cars.

“Let’s face it, Jupe,” Pete said. “It’s just not here.”

“No,” Jupiter said, his voice almost eager. “And I think I know — ”

A sudden hissing and rattling sound seemed to fill the room. Startled, they looked frantically around for the source of the sound.

Then they saw it. The car elevator was coming down on its hydraulic piston. The platform was already emerging from the second floor!

“Hey! What are you doing in here?”

A dark-haired man leaned out of a black Buick sedan on the elevator. He pointed at Jupiter, who was directly under one of the lights. Joe Torres leaned out of the passenger window.

“It’s that fat kid from the bodega, Max!”

“You, kid! Stop!”

Jupiter jumped back out of the light and crouched in the shadows beside Pete. The two quickly ducked behind a station wagon. The elevator gates opened, and the Buick roared down the narrow lanes between the rows of cars to cut them off from the front door. It screeched to a stop at the exit. Torres got out, followed by the squat, muscular, bearlike driver.

“Torres was here all along!” Pete whispered.

“We’ll talk about it later,” Jupiter said in a low voice. “Right now we’ve got to get out of here.”

“They don’t look so tough,” Pete said. “You already handled Torres with your judo. I can take that short guy with my karate.”

At the door the two men stood and peered all around into the shadows.

“You can’t get away, kid,” the short, squat one called out.

“Watch him, Max,” Torres said. “The kid’s pretty good with that judo stuff.”

Max pulled an ugly-looking pistol from his belt. “He ain’t gonna play judo with this.”

Peeking past the station wagon, the guys saw the gun appear in the stubby man’s hand.

Pete gulped. “Now they look tougher.”