Nightmare in Angel City (4 page)

Frank nodded. "The trouble all started when you made that videotape. It's a good bet that's what that policeman was after. Now, who else would know about that videotape?"

Callie could tell by his voice that he wasn't really asking a question. ; Joe picked up on Frank's thought. "And would know enough about the bottling plant to turn it into a deathtrap?"

"And would know you were hanging out here?" Frank continued. "And would want the videotape for his own reasons?"

"Patch?" Callie said, dismayed. "He's one of the most harmless men I've ever seen. They say he's been around here forever."

"Obviously, the policeman didn't think he was harmless, or he wouldn't have tried to shoot him," said Joe. "So what was supposed to be in the briefcase? What's the connection between Patch and the policeman?"

"I bet that tape shows more than you know," Frank told Callie. "I'd like to see it. Where is it?"

Callie chuckled. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you." She picked up her bags and began digging through them.

Her grin faded. "No," she mumbled. "Oh, no. It's gone. Someone took it."

"What?" Joe said. "You had the tape on you all this time?"

"Sort of," Callie revealed. "It must have happened inside the plant. Someone must have stolen the tape."

"Terrific," Frank said. "Everyone from inside was scattered now. I think it's time Joe and I had a talk with this Patch. You said he had a shack on the beach. Where?"

"There's a fish restaurant a couple of miles up the coast, where Sunset meets the ocean," Callie said. "Go about a quarter of a mile past that. It's there, hidden behind a boat house." She got to her feet. "Come on. I'll show you."

"No way," said Frank. "You're staying right here."

"I'm coming with you," Callie retorted.

Frank sighed. "Not this time, Callie. You're safer here with your friends. Maybe you can see if one of them knows where the tape went. Plus, there could be trouble. ..."

Anger raged on Callie's face. "I can take care of myself."

"Under most circumstances, yes," Frank said. "But this Patch could turn out to be a lot more dangerous than you think. I think you should stay here. Come on, Joe." They turned and walked off down the beach without her.

"I won't forget this, Mr. Frank Hardy," she yelled after them. "Just wait till you need my help next time!"

A hand tugged on her arm. It was Lewis, looking anxious. "Callie," he began.

"Not now, Lewis. I have to catch up to my friends."

"But, Callie," Lewis insisted. "I got a message from Patch. He wants to see you at the mall right away."

"Patch?" Callie looked at Lewis quizzically, then a smile widened across her face. "Thank you, Lewis. Thank you very much." She smiled triumphantly at the figures of Frank and Joe, already vanishing in the distance. "Now we'll see who's so smart."

Santa Monica Mall at midnight looked like a Hollywood set that had been abandoned but not torn down.

Callie Shaw, decked out in her street costume, walked cautiously through the outdoor mall, looking for signs of life. There were none.

"Kind of quiet here this time of night, isn't it?" said a raspy voice from the shadows.

"Patch?" Callie asked as a hefty man stepped into the light. His shoes didn't match, his clothes were threadbare, and a black patch covered one eye. His hands were in his pockets. Smiling, he stepped very close to Callie, and she backed up against a building. Patch's one eye looked sinister and cold in the blue light.

"I know you, Patch," Callie said, trying not to sound afraid. "I know you'd never hurt me."

"Don't be so sure," he said slowly, drawing his hand from his pocket. With a sharp click a switchblade knife flashed into view. "I've killed before." He sighed loud and long. "And you're next on my list."

With one strong motion he shoved Callie against the wall. She screamed as he raised the knife to her throat.

"I DON'T THINK I've ever walked so much in my life," Joe Hardy complained. He and his brother were tromping down the beach. Behind them was the fish restaurant, its sign bright against the night sky.

A wave washed onto the beach, soaking Joe's shoes. He splashed out of the surf, but his feet and ankles were already drenched. For the hundredth time he wished he were in a nice warm bed.

"I think that's the shack," said Frank, who was farther up the beach, avoiding the water. Ahead Joe saw an old boat house. It looked as if it hadn't been used in years.

"That's what you said at the last three," Joe replied. "I don't see the shack Callie was talking about."

"Doesn't matter," said Frank. "It couldn't be anything else. Maybe Callie was wrong about the Shack."

"Figures," Joe said. He reached the boat house and rubbed one of the windows clean with his hand. It was dark inside and, as far as he could tell, empty. "I wonder why there's so much abandoned property out here."

"Beats me," Frank answered. The boat house was set on the end of a large pier that stretched far out into the ocean. Like the boat house, it was no longer in use. Many of its planks were missing. Joe was right. There was no shack.

"What are you doing, Frank?" Joe called as Frank walked onto the pier, stepping over the gaps.

"Just a hunch," said Frank. He stared through a hole at the ocean below. White foam and dark water were rushing onto the land, bringing the water level almost to the pier, and then the tide ebbed. What water had covered just moments before was now muddy sand.

"Come down off there," Joe shouted. "Look at it swing. It could give way any second."

Just then Frank disappeared. It seemed that he had dropped through a hole in the floor. Horrified, Joe sprinted onto the pier. His foot crashed through a plank, and the pier split open, dumping him rudely onto the sand ten feet below.

"Nice of you to drop in," said Frank, grinning "Oh, you came down here for a look-see?" Joe said angrily. "You could have let me know. I thought you'd broken your leg, falling through like that, and gotten washed out to sea — "

Frank interrupted him. "We will be if we're still here when the tide comes back in. Anyway I found what we're looking for." He pointed deep under the pier, at the end by the boat house.

Hidden in the shadows at the very end of the pier was a tiny, crude hut cobbled together from odd pieces of wood. It was half soaked, but it was clearly a shack.

"Patch lives there?" said Joe, surprised. "No way. If he slept there, he'd drown."

"Maybe that's the point," Frank said. He walked back to the shack and pushed the door open. Frank and Joe went inside, and paused for a moment to let their eyes get used to the darkness.

The shack was empty except for a shovel and an old pair of shoes on a shelf inches from the ceiling. "Why would he build a shelf way up there?" Joe wondered aloud. "And how does he reach it?" His thoughts were broken by a dull roar.

"The surf," Frank said. "It's coming back in."

"No time to get out," Joe said. "We'll have to ride the wave."

Water slammed into Joe, pushing him to the back wall of the shack and filling his mouth and nose. He pushed himself off the wall and up, fighting the force of the wave. A second later his head bobbed up into the air pocket next to the ceiling.

"Now we know how Patch reaches the shelf," said Frank, who treaded water next to Joe. The water had raised them so Frank could easily reach over and touch the old shoes.

"That's not all," Joe said, looking up. Light crept through the cracks in the ceiling. "We must be right under the boat house." Propping himself against the shelf, he shoved at the ceiling. It gave way.

Straining against the weight of their waterlogged clothes, the Hardys pulled themselves up through the trapdoor and into the boat house. Light moved across the boat house and disappeared, thrown by headlights of cars passing on the nearby highway.

"This Patch is no dummy," Joe said. "He really does live in the boat house, but the only way in, without breaking through the padlocked door, is through the shack at high tide. Pretty clever." In a corner of the boat house was a small bed made of newspapers. Other than that, there was no sign that anyone had been there. Joe looked at Frank, who stretched his arm down through the door. "What are you doing?"

Frank was holding the shoes that had been on the shelf. "Just seeing what's so important about these." He reached inside them. "That's odd. The toes are stuffed with scraps of newspaper."

"Maybe he wants to hold their shape."

"Maybe," Frank agreed. "But inside them were a airtight plastic bags with more newspaper inside them."

They tore open the bags and took the clipping out, spreading them on the boat house floor. They read them in the flashes of light provided by the passing cars. "These are all ten years old," he realized. "And they're all about the same thing.'

Frank raised one of the clippings so it would get as much light as possible and squinted at the print. "According to this, there was an armor car heist in Philadelphia back then. Two masked and armed robbers dropped from a highway overpass onto the truck, forced the driver to pull over, overpowered the guard, and walked off with two million dollars."

"Walked off with it? On foot? That's a lot of money to carry."

Frank nodded. "It says they escaped on foot through a drainage tunnel."

"So they got away?"

"Not quite. One of them did." Frank rubbed his eyes and waited for another car to pass. "The police sent dogs out after them. After two days one of their bodies was found near the Delaware ver. It had been burned, but could be identified - a professional robber named Sam Moran." "What about the other one?" Joe asked.

"They never found him, or the money," read Frank. "At least at the time these stories were printed."

Joe rubbed the back of his neck. "I think we're up to something. Let's say the money was never recovered. Maybe Patch was the other robber, and he has it stashed somewhere."

"No," Frank said, shaking his head. He folded the clippings and put them back in their bags. "I don't buy it. Why would a man with two million dollars be living like this? After ten years?"

"It would explain why a policeman was hunting him," Joe suggested. "Maybe he's been hunting Patch all this time and finally found him."

"Or maybe the cop knows where the money is and Patch has been hunting him all this time," Frank said. "It makes sense—almost. Patch wanders from place to place looking for the two million some cop made off with. But why would a corrupt cop, on the run, be in uniform?"

Joe raised an eyebrow. "You're right. It almost makes sense, but not quite. Maybe the library has information on the heist. We'd better pack up this stuff and get out of here."

Frank stuffed the resealed bags into the shoes. "Of course, the clippings may not have anything to do with anything." But instinct told him they did.

Another set of headlights lit up the boat house. This time they stopped and shed a continuous glow inside the little building. A car motor was turned off, but the lights stayed on. One car door slammed.

"Someone's out there," Joe whispered. "And coming this way. The tide's too high, so we can't go out through the shack."

"Try the back window," Frank said to Joe. "We'll have to hope no one sees us go that way."

Joe was starting for the rear window of the boat house, when Frank called in a loud whisper, "Get down!" The silhouette of a man appeared at the window. The Hardys clung to the shadows and didn't move. Then the man turned away. A few seconds later the car motor started up again, and the lights backed away. It was dark again.

As soon as the car was gone, Joe was on his feet.

"Good idea," Frank said. They unbolted the window and forced it open. Frank motioned for Joe to climb through. Then Frank followed. The brothers landed on the beach beside the boat house.

But before they could run off, half a dozen shots rang out. First Joe, then Frank cried out and fell violently backward onto the sand. They lay still in the foaming surf.

As THE SWITCHBLADE plunged at her throat, Callie bent down and twisted out of the way. The knife struck the wall behind her. Thrown off balance, Patch cried out in surprise and stumbled. Callie drew her head up and butted the arm still pinning her to the wall. She slipped out of Patch's reach and ran off, but stopped a few feet later when Patch didn't follow.

"Won't do you any good to run, Callie. Old Patch knows where to find you." He laughed.

"Then you did turn on the gas at the bottling plant," she gasped. "Why? Why do you want to kill me?"

"That man on the beach," Patch said, leaning against the wall but keeping his good eye on Callie. "No one can connect me to him but you. No way I can let you go."

"It won't work," Callie said. "I got it all on videotape."

Patch reached into a pocket and drew out a small black case. "This one?"

"H - how?" Callie stammered. "You weren't there."

Patch raised one corner of his mouth. "Easy to pay people to do things." He dropped the videocassette back into his pocket. Then, unexpectedly, he raised the knife again, waving it at Callie. She jumped back. "Killing, though, I do myself."

Callie hesitated for just a second, deciding whether to fight or run. She did neither. Instead, she screamed at the top of her lungs.

Patch, unfazed, shook his head and took one step closer. "No one around. No one's coming to help you now," he said menacingly.

She ran.

But then he was in front of her, grabbing at her, swinging the knife. Callie surprised him, stopped dead, and launched herself straight at him. They fell to the ground in a tangled heap. Callie got up first and started to run, but Patch's hand snaked out and caught her ankle, pending Callie stumbling forward. She landed against a garbage can set out for the morning pickup.

Callie rolled onto her back just in time to see the switchblade flashing down at her again. There was no time to think. She scuttled away crablike on her hands and feet. Her hand touched the cold metal top of the garbage can and launched it straight up at the knife.

The switchblade fell from Patch's fist and skittered along the sidewalk. Callie kicked out, driving her shoe into Patch's shin.