Authors: Franklin W. Dixon
Improvise.
"I just came from in there," Frank began, "and I think I left my wallet inside - "
"Hey, look, kid," the bouncer said, turning his full attention to Frank. "If you don't have an ID, step out of the way." The man folded his arms across his chest and glowered threateningly at him.
"Never mind," Frank said, turning away. Now what was he going to do? He had to get inside to find out what Delaney was doing - and if necessary, warn him that Poletti was after him.
He trudged away from the club, so deep in thought that he almost missed the iron fence blocking an alleyway that ran right next to the club. He took a quick look around. The only people on the street were those at the entrance to Cosmos, and the only thing on their minds was getting into the club.
Taking a deep breath, Frank jumped up, caught the top of the fence, and carefully boosted himself up and over the spikes on top. He jumped, bending his knees to land quietly on the other side.
A door from the club was pushed out into the alley just then.
Frank dropped to the ground and lay still.
A man, wearing a white apron over a plain white T-shirt, stepped through the door carrying a large trash bag in each hand. Whistling happily, he dropped the bags in the alley next to a pile of about twenty others, wiped his hands, and went back inside. The door swung shut behind him.
Frank got up slowly and dusted himself off. This must be my lucky day, he said to himself.
He was right. The door was unlocked - and when Frank cracked it slightly, he heard whistling and the muffled thump of noise from the club.
He pulled the door open a hair farther and peered in.
The man he had seen take out the trash was at a sink off to the left, about twenty feet away. His back was to Frank, and he was scrubbing a large pot and singing along with the music coming from inside the club.
Directly opposite Frank was a set of double doors with small square windows. Through them, he could see pulsing lights.
Frank eased the door back and slid inside. He strode quickly and quietly toward those lights, taking off his jacket as he walked.
Walking into the club was like being on the fifty-yard line during the Super Bowl halftime show.
The first thing that hit him was the music - the song playing had a thudding, droning, synthesized beat and was turned up so loud he could actually feel the thump of the bass drum in the pit of his stomach. Lights flashed on and off, making the white shirt he was wearing change colors, from orange to green to red - and back to orange again.
Inside, Cosmos was one huge round room, broken up into different levels with what looked, almost like construction scaffolding. And standing on that scaffolding were some of the strangest looking and most strangely dressed people he had ever seen.
In the center of the room was an enormous, sunken dance floor. Across the room, almost directly opposite Frank, was a horseshoe-shaped bar.
In the crowd at the bar, Frank saw the man who'd pulled the gun on them at Delaney's.
As Frank watched, he took two bottles of what looked like champagne from the bartender and headed up some metal stairs toward the rear of the club.
Frank circled around the dance floor and followed the guy up the stairs. They seemed to go on forever, leading Frank away from the club. As Frank got closer to the top, the noise from below faded, and the stairs dead-ended on a large landing at a plain gray metal door.
Private, it read. No Admittance.
Frank tested the knob. It turned silently in his hand. He nudged the door open slightly and risked a quick peek behind it.
He caught a glimpse of a large, comfortable-looking room, with wood paneling, skylights, and a desk on the far wall. Seated on a large couch in the center of the room was Johnny Carew, smoking a cigar. Two men in turtlenecks and dark sport coats stood behind the couch, flanking him. Billy Delaney sat with his back to Frank on a chair in front of the couch; the two men he'd brought with him to the club sat in chairs behind him.
Frank eased the door back, leaving it ajar an inch, his ear up against it, and listened.
"And I want to assure you I had nothing to do with Daniel's death." That was Delaney speaking.
"If I thought for a moment you had killed him," Carew said, his voice clear and ringing, "you would have been dead within an hour, Billy."
"Maybe," Delaney said. "And maybe if you'd come gunning for me, you'd have been the one to end up dead."
There was an uncomfortable few seconds of silence. Even through the door, Frank could sense the two glaring at each other, each waiting for the other to back down.
Delaney cracked first.
"Look, Johnny, there's no sense in our fighting," Delaney said. "Especially with Emily trying to have the whole will nullified. You know that'll turn it into a free-for-all."
Carew still said nothing.
"The only way to make sure we keep control of the situation is if you let me remain in charge of Josh's concerns," Delaney continued. "I'll see you get a percentage, of course."
"A percentage?" Carew demanded loudly. Frank heard the scrape of a chair against the floor. "All right, I'll take a percentage. How about one hundred percent?"
"Johnny, you have to negotiate with me," Delaney replied.
"I don't have to do nothing," Carew said. "You've got no power, Billy. It all dried up and blew away when Josh Moran died. You don't even have Emily Moran to count on. So I'll take back the territory Josh stole from me, sure - but I won't give you anything for it."
Delaney's voice hardened. "Then maybe we should be talking about fighting, Johnny. Because I won't - "
Suddenly there was a sharp crack! - followed instantly by the tinkle of shattering glass.
Frank risked another peek inside.
Four of the men in the room had drawn guns. All of them were staring straight up at a skylight.
And on the floor, lying motionless at Johnny Carew's feet, was Billy Delaney.
Joe trailed Tommy Poletti around the block to an abandoned building, his thoughts paralleling Frank's. He'd watched Delaney arrive at the club, and Poletti had obviously timed his arrival to coincide with that of Josh Moran's former lieutenant.
The big question was why?
Huge letters painted on the side of the building, now long since faded, announced it as the home of Schickelman Importers - New York's Largest. But Schickelman, whoever he had been, was obviously long gone, along with his importing business. Now as Joe watched Poletti lift himself up and over the sill of a window and disappear into the building, he grew even more suspicious. He hoped his suspicions would turn out to be misplaced.
Giving the man a few seconds' lead, Joe boosted himself up and in, landing in a pitch-black space.
When his eyes adjusted to the small amount of light filtering through the filthy windows, he saw that the inside of the former warehouse had been completely gutted. Toward the back, he just made out Poletti climbing the only staircase. Joe stole across the vast floor, his feet scratching the gritty dirt against the hardwood. He climbed up after Poletti and found himself on the roof of the building itself.
He scanned the adjoining rooftops. Nothing. There was no sign of Tommy Poletti. Had the man managed to slip behind him? Joe turned to head back down into the warehouse.
Then a sudden, all-too-familiar crack echoed behind him. The crack of a gunshot.
Joe whirled. The sound had come from off to his left. And running straight toward him from that direction was Tommy Poletti.
Joe ducked behind a chimney. As Poletti ran even with him, Joe tackled the former football player.
They rolled over on the hard rooftop together. Poletti might not have played football for several years, but he was still in excellent shape - beneath the jacket he was wearing, the man was solid muscle.
He threw Joe off easily and sprang to his feet.
"What did you do?" Joe asked shakily, also standing up. He couldn't believe it. Poletti was the killer after all. "Where's the gun?"
"Gun? What are you talking about?" Poletti was furious. "What did you tackle me for?"
"That gunshot," Joe said, his voice shaking. "Who did you kill?"
"Kill? Are you nuts?" Poletti said. He looked at Joe for the first time. "Hey - you're the Hardy kid. You were at the reading of the will, weren't you?"
"That's right," Joe said. "What are you doing here?"
"I could ask you the same thing," Poletti said.
"I'm following you," Joe said. "And I just heard a gunshot and saw you running away - "
"I don't have to tell you what I'm doing here," Poletti said defensively.
"Maybe not," Joe said, unable to keep the bitterness out of his voice. "But you'll have to tell the cops."
"Cops?" Poletti shook his head. "Oh, no, I'm not talking to any more cops."
"I'll tell them about this," Joe said fiercely. "Unless you kill me, too."
"All right," Poletti said, shaking his head. "But you're wrong about this, kid."
"Maybe I am," Joe said, but he didn't believe it. As far as he was concerned, the evidence was doing all the talking.
***
For what seemed like forever, Frank watched as no one in Carew's office moved.
Finally one of Delaney's men bent over his boss's body.
"He's dead," the man announced.
"The shot came from up there," Carew said, pointing up at the skylight. He turned to a couple of his men.
"Monk, Moses, you two check it out."
Both nodded and turned toward the door.
Frank started to ease the door shut, preparing to step away from it and rush back down the stairs.
"Hey - what are you doing up here?"
Frank turned. A lean, sharply dressed man with straight blond hair was standing a few feet to the side of him, glaring.
"I guess I got lost," Frank said. He smiled and shrugged.
The man wasn't having any of it. "And I guess you just decided to listen in to what Mr. Carew was saying, is that it?" He clenched his hands into fists. "We'll see what he has to say about this."
Frank shook his head slowly and pretended to look scared. "Please," Frank said. "Don't - "
When the man was just a foot away, Frank sprang into action. Backing up, Frank grabbed the stair railing with both hands. He kicked at the man approaching him, slamming both feet into his chest. The man tumbled back, stunned.
Frank turned and tore down the stairway.
"Hey! Stop that guy!"
At the next landing another man was standing, blocking the stairs going down. He made a snatch at Frank, arms wide. Frank ducked and caught the man in the side with his elbow as the man lunged past. Frank bolted down the next flight of stairs, to the next landing - the one closest to the club floor.
This landing was packed with people, talking and staring down at the dance floor below. The stairs leading down were so crowded that it would take him a full five minutes to travel that one flight, and his pursuers would be all over him by then.
As he was figuring out how to negotiate his way down, a man forced his way up through the crowd on the stairs to the landing. It was the bouncer from the front door. When he caught sight of Frank, he did a double take.
Clearly the man remembered Frank from earlier. Anger darkened his face, and he began heading straight for Frank, parting the crowd between them with no more effort than he would have expended wading through a creek.
Frank looked up and behind him. The two men he'd fought with earlier were down the stairs, closing on him.
He pushed his way to the edge of the landing and looked out over the railing and down the scaffolding to the dance floor a good twenty feet below him.
It was too far to jump, so he swung over the railing and began climbing down the scaffolding, hand over hand, toward the floor.
It was actually an easy climb - there were plenty of handholds and joints in the scaffolding where he could rest his feet. He got about halfway down before he looked up to check on his pursuers.
Carew's men were leaning over the railing, yelling. But the music was so loud, no one on the dance floor could hear them. One of them drew a gun, but the bouncer grabbed his arm, and shook his head. Then Frank couldn't see them anymore - they had disappeared from the railing.
He guessed they were going to try to beat him down the stairs to the dance floor.
Redoubling his efforts to reach bottom quickly, Frank noticed that a lot of people were now aware of him. Several had even stopped what they were doing to look up at him. As he swung to the floor, many of them started applauding.
So much for trying to be inconspicuous, Frank thought.
"Cool, man," one dancer said. "I never saw anybody climb up that high before."
"Or down," the girl with him said. "That was really neat."
Frank nodded, breathing heavily. The crowd blocked his view of the staircase, but he was certain he'd beaten Carew's men down. Now to get out of there . . .
He began threading his way through the crowded dance floor. But it was jam-packed with people, and it was impossible to move very fast. By the time he reached its edge, he knew that whatever time he'd picked up on Carew's men was lost. His only hope was that he'd lost them in the crowd.
He broke through - and suddenly, right in front of him, was the entrance to the club.
The bouncer was standing directly in front of it, looking right at him.
Frank scanned the room desperately. The double doors he'd entered from the kitchen -
One of the men he'd fought on the stairs was standing there, blocking that exit, too. Frank was trapped.
There was no way out. No way at all.
Frank decided to head for the front door. It was closest to him, and if he was lucky, the bouncer wasn't on Carew's payroll. . . .
The bouncer saw him coming and grinned.
Then Frank broke into a grin of his own.
Detective Mike Lewis was standing at the door, just behind the bouncer. Joe was just behind Lewis. Frank didn't know what either of them was doing there, and at the moment he didn't care.