Fatal Error

Bob pushed past Pete. Some guy in a night watchman’s uniform had gone to sleep on a stool. His head drooped back over a railing, and his legs were spread out in front. A big white handkerchief covered his face.

Suddenly he snored. That was the terrible buzz saw sound! The white handkerchief blasted up and sank softly down like a parachute.

As Bob bit back laughter, the two Investigators sprinted past.

“Look!” Pete nodded at the parking lot. “There’s my delivery van. Jupe is still here.”

Bob nodded, and they stopped at a warehouse door. They listened, heard nothing, and slipped inside. Carefully they watched shadows and looked for any sign of their friends. They padded toward the computer graphics department. They peered in the glass windows, but the room was dark and quiet. “No one here,” Bob whispered. “Wonder where Jupe and Branson are?”

“Yeah. And Rome!”

Thinking about Rome and his gun made the guys move even more carefully through the old office corridors. They listened at the closed office doors and then tried them, but all were locked.

The guys stared at each other, worried. There was no sound at all. The warehouse was deadly quiet.

They went upstairs, but Ek’s office was silent and locked, as were the other offices there. On the first floor the Matte Room, the Creature Room, and the Model Shop were dark and locked. The big rehearsal hall was empty. “Club Dead next?” Pete wondered. Bob nodded. “The only place we haven’t checked.” Again they listened at the door, then softly opened it. It creaked. Nervous that someone had heard, they surveyed Club Dead and the hall.

When no one jumped out at them, Pete took a deep breath. “Let’s hit it.”

The guys slipped through the doorway. The hall lights made a rectangle of yellow just inside the room. It was the only illumination on Club Dead’s exotic shapes. The Investigators split up and moved down the eerie aisles. They passed each other silently.

Then Bob turned quickly to avoid a floor robo-mouse. Suddenly soft hands seemed to wrap him in cobwebs. It made his hair stand on end! He struggled to free himself.

“Shhhh!” Pete warned as Bob thudded against more softness.

And then Bob was free! “Thanks!” he breathed. “What got me?”

Pete held up a Grim Speaker costume. “This. Looks like you pulled it down on yourself, dope.” He attached it back up to a guy wire that stretched across the room.

“Attack of the killer costume.” Bob gave a worried sigh. “That finishes me here. You find anything?”

“Nope,” Pete said grimly. “Looks like everyone’s disappeared into thin air!”

* * *

In a secret underground room, Jupe and Branson were tied roughly to metal folding chairs. They watched as Norton Rome slid a frozen pizza into his microwave oven and enthusiastically hit the ON button. Then Rome laughed and returned to a small kitchen table. He sat down.

“Money! Money! Money!” he chortled. “All mine!” He scooped a pile of thousand- dollar bills toward him and started counting. It was the blackmail money.

Branson’s face was white with fury as Rome bragged to them.

“Brannie, you and your friends are lousy tails,” Rome lectured arrogantly. “Never let your prey hear you. I was just coming into my secret room when I heard the door creak. That told me someone was entering the building. Then I connected the creaking to the cat outside. And that made me realize the cat sounded human after all.”

“You just got lucky, Nort,” Branson growled.

Jupe was too busy to be angry. Careful not to let Rome see him, he was twisting his arms against his ropes. Maybe he could get them loose enough to pull a hand free. Meanwhile, he needed to keep Rome distracted. So he sniffed the air. Rome’s Canadian bacon and pineapple pizza smelled delicious.

“I’ll bet you nuked a pizza earlier tonight, too,” Jupe said. “We smelled it upstairs.”

“Unfortunately, cooking odors have been a problem,” Rome agreed as he happily made stacks of his loot. “That’s why I was forced to, ah, borrow some of my former colleagues’ food.”

“You’re the one stealing the junk food!” Branson accused him.

Rome slid the pizza out onto a tray and carried it back to his table. “They’re such idiots they’ll never figure it out.”

“Stupid like me,” Branson said. “Right, Nort? Well, look at it this way— we found you!”

“True. But that’s rotten luck for you. You’re dead meat.” Norton Rome grinned.

Suddenly Jupe had a vision of him and Branson hanging limply from meat hooks. His stomach went hollow with fear, but he wasn’t going to let Rome see it.

“You’re a real zero, Brannie. You never could see farther than a computer screen.” Rome liked the sound of his own voice, Jupe decided. The blackmailer’s eyes gleamed as he gestured with a fistful of thousand-dollar bills at the huge underground room. “I accidentally stumbled onto this secret room, and it was perfect. Some bootlegger built it to hide his Prohibition booze. It was empty and forgotten, but I saw its potential.”

“This warehouse dates from the 1920s?” Jupe asked, hoping to keep Rome busy. That was when the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution had outlawed making and drinking liquor in the United States.

Rome looked at Jupe, but fortunately he couldn’t see that Jupe was trying to loosen the ropes that tied his arms in back.

“Yeah,” Rome said cockily. “The bootlegger did it right — ventilation shafts and even an old-fashioned toilet. Add a TV, microwave, computer, and tons of food. I am, if I do say so myself, in genius heaven.”

“A guy could live here for weeks,” Branson said.

“Exactly!” Rome said confidently.

“I get it,” Jupe said. “The one place no one would ever think of looking for a blackmailer would be in the place he was blackmailing!”

Norton Rome’s pudgy chest expanded with pride. “I’ll lie low here until everyone gives up looking for me.” He picked up a piece of hot pizza, and the mozzarella dripped onto the tabletop next to the money. “I’ll escape with my dough, and none of the suckers around here will ever figure out how I did it. I’ll be a hero!” He took a bite of pizza and chewed with relish.

“Heroes are admired,” Jupe said. “Everyone will hate you.”

“That’s not the point,” Rome said. “Once he gets the antidote, Silas will call in the cops, the Feds, the Coast Guard, everyone he can think of… and I’ll bet I’ll even be on TV and in the papers. I’ll be famous! The one who gotaway.” He eyed Jupe. “Too bad you’re such a snooper, kid. But when I saw you with Ek yesterday, I knew I had to get rid of you. Bull’s-eye instincts, right?”

Jupe shook his head. “Wrong. As long as we’re missing, Oracle won’t give up.”

Rome’s fat face turned bright red with anger. He slammed a fist down on the table. “Anyone who works at Oracle’s a scumball loser! All Oracle does is grind talent down to the lowest common denominator. Lousy pay! No recognition! I’m not going to take it anymore! They can whistle for their antidote!”

“You’ll never get away with it,” Jupe stated. His voice sounded certain, but inside he was deeply worried. He’d pretended to stumble when Rome had ordered him and Branson through the hidden door to the underground hideout. As he’d stumbled, he’d dropped the little model Qute had given him. Jupe hoped fervently Pete and Bob would spot the little statue and come to the rescue! But just then Norton Rome reached inside his leather jacket and pulled out the gunmetal-blue Walther pistol. He laid it on the table next to Jupe’s walkie-talkie.

Rome smiled nastily. “You think somebody’s going to save you? Forget it.” He pointed to a red light bulb next to the staircase that led up to the door. “Anybody tries to get in, that red baby goes on.”

Rome leaned over the table toward Jupe and Branson. His insane eyes glowed. “The only way you two’ll leave here is in body bags.” He laughed loudly. “If your corpses are ever even found!”

* * *

Pete and Bob split up to explore the warehouse one last time. Bob was getting more and more discouraged. It seemed as if Jupe and Branson had simply evaporated. There wasn’t a trace of them anywhere. Bob was just heading out to the parking lot to check the delivery van for clues when he heard Pete’s voice.