Dare to read: Нэнси Дрю и Братья Харди
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ПРИЯТНОГО ЧТЕНИЯ!
Franklin W. Dixon
The Hardy Boys: Undercover Brothers. Super Mystery
Volume Two
Kidnapped at the Casino
Copyright © 2007 by Simon & Schuster, Inc.
ATAC BRIEFING FOR AGENTS FRANK AND JOE HARDY
MISSION:
Look into the disappearance of Kathy Boutry, a college reporter who was hot on the trail of several huge stories.
LOCATION:
Atlanitc City, NJ.
POTENTIAL VICTIMS:
The longer Kathy’s missing, the more danger she’s in. And if one of you gets too close to the truth, you could be the next target.
SUSPECTS:
Kathy was about to reveal secrets that would put a number of very important people in serious hot water—seems like everyone in Atlantic City has something to hide!
THIS MISSION REQUIRES YOUR IMMEDIATE ATTENTION.
THIS MESSAGE WILL BE ERASED IN FIVE SECONDS.
Smackdown at Sea
“Ouch,” I said when I came to. I thought about it for a moment. “Ouch,” I said again.
How was it possible to be so uncomfortable? I tried to stretch—and I couldn’t. I couldn’t move at all, in fact. I was trussed up like a calf at a rodeo. My hands and feet were tied together and then to each other, forcing me to stay hunched over in a fetal position, lying on my side.
No wonder I was uncomfortable.
Okay, think, I told myself. How did I get here? From the pain in my head, I guessed that someone had jumped me. I couldn’t quite remember. Thinking made my head hurt more, so I decided to concentrate on just looking around.
It was dark. Pitch dark.
And there seemed to be a wall less than an inch in front of my face. And one next to my hands. And next to my legs.
I’m in a box, I realized. Or maybe a trunk. Not a large trunk, given how bent over I was. Definitely very mid-sized. I’m not claustrophobic, but this bothered me.
“Tied up,” I muttered. “In a trunk. With a headache. And no idea how I got here.” That pretty much summed it up. “Could be worse.”
The big question was, where was Frank?
If I was trapped in a box, my brother couldn’t be far away. Because the only reason something like this would happen to me was if an ATAC mission had gone bad. And I don’t do ATAC missions alone. Whatever the mission is, Frank and I are in it together.
We had been recruited together by American Teens Against Crime. And we worked together for them. No matter what, I knew Frank had my back.
Unless I was supposed to have his back. If only I could remember.
“Frank?” I grunted as loudly as I could. News flash to me: When you’re bent over with your face mashed against a wall, you can’t make a very loud sound. Not a chance anyone was going to hear that.
Once I gave it more thought, I realized I probably shouldn’t try yet, anyway. Whoever tied me up could still be out there and not know I was awake yet. Talking would just tip them off. And I’d lose whatever strategic advantage I had.
That’s Frank’s term. I don’t think he uses it right. He likes to plan ahead, so he thinks “strategic advantage” means having something that might help him, something other people don’t have. Like his stupid boots. His ugly black combat boots that he has to lace up around his ankles. I hate those boots. We had a bet about who could get up the cruise ship’s climbing wall the fastest. Frank swore the boots were going to help him win. He was totally wrong about that.
Wait, I thought. The cruise ship!
Frank and I aren’t usually on cruise ships.
And that’s what finally made it all snap back into place. Frank and I were onboard the Queen o’ the Marina cruise ship on a mission for ATAC. We were posing as deck waiters while we investigated a string of thefts on this ship over the past several months. Along with the typical jewelry, cash, and other valuables, the thieves had gotten their hands on some sensitive documents. A few of these had shown up on the black market, so ATAC wanted to know more about who had taken them. They figured that a couple of teenage waiters would be inconspicuous enough to fly under the radar and catch the crooks.
Apparently they were right. Frank and I figured out who the thieves were and got close to them... too close.
Suddenly I heard a tapping sound. It was faint, but I could just make it out. I concentrated, every muscle in my body tense. That tapping didn’t sound random. I felt a grin break across my face. It was Morse code—taps with short and long pauses strung together. That had to be Frank. No one else I knew would use something that old. About a year ago, he made me learn how to decipher Morse code before we went on an ATAC assignment.
And now it was a strategic advantage.
“Hey Joe. R U there. Getting out soon. Thanks to boots.” Boots? I was pretty sure that I had gotten the taps right. Maybe “boots” meant he had his feet free?
I wriggled around and got my finger to the side of the trunk. I tapped out, “Here. Tied up. Boots?” At least I think that’s what I said.
“Boots kick butt” was all I got in response. Maybe Frank got hit over the head harder than I did. Dylan and Rosie were big dudes. They could hit pretty hard.
Dylan Krause and Roosevelt “Rosie” Lincoln. The names flooded back into my head. Those were the guys we needed to catch. They were the thieves. Dylan was one of the ship’s engineers. Tall and lean, he looked more like one of the bridge crew, until you looked in his eyes. He knew gears, switches, and fuses, but not too much else. He was the kind of guy who would be fine if he didn’t fall in with the wrong crowd.
Rosie was the wrong crowd. He was huge. The other waiters said he had been a college football star but had gotten into too much trouble for the pro football scouts to want him. Rosie had an ax to grind with everyone. Onboard, he was just a hired hand—security for casino night, broad back for lugging trunks around. Nobody suspected him of the burglaries. No one usually thinks of the big guy as the mastermind, but Rosie was it.
Pretty soon after we got onboard, Frank and I knew it was Dylan and Rosie. It took us two stops at idyllic little coastal towns and many sleepless nights of snooping to prove it. But we did. We had a folder full of evidence on them. We couldn’t pass it off to ATAC until we got close to shore, but we were only a day away from the next stop, St. Yves.
One day too long. The details were still fuzzy in my scrambled egg of a brain, but Rosie and Dylan were waiting for Frank and me when we got off work that night. Right before I went down, I remember seeing…
The folder! They got the folder of evidence. I frantically tapped out a message to Frank: “The folder. Who has it.” I waited for a response. And waited some more.
Tied up and in the dark, I didn’t have much of a sense of time. Was it five minutes since I’d heard from Frank? Fifteen? Was he still out there at all?
Wham. Wham. Wham. Crack.
That didn’t sound like Morse code. Had somebody heard us messaging each other? I waited, worrying.
“Joe.” Frank’s voice sounded close by. “Get as far back from the banging as you can.”
“Banging?” I asked.
Wham! The whole side of the trunk rocked with the impact. “Oh,” I said. I inched as far from that side as I could, which was all of about three inches. I hoped it was enough.
A little bit of light appeared as Frank plunged the saw tool on his Swiss Army knife through the side of the trunk. He did this four or five times, weakening the area around the lock. Then, with light streaming in, he hit the lock one final time and it fell off.
The trunk lid opened.
“You okay?” Frank asked as he cut the ropes around my wrists and ankles.
I stood up, stretching my back. “Peachy. Were you in a trunk too?” There was a lot of splintered wood lying around. “How did you get out?”
“It’s all about the boots!” he bragged. I was so happy to see him and be un-pretzeled that I didn’t even mind his gloating tone. “When they tied my legs together, they did it over my boots. So my feet could still move inside the boots. All I had to do was keep wriggling my feet out of them and I could kick the side out of my trunk.”
I looked down at Frank’s feet. There they were. The ugly black boots. Laced loosely up his ankles like always.
“You put your boots back on before you got me out of the trunk!” I cried, hitting him in the shoulder. “First save your brother, then put your boots back on.”
“You weren’t going anywhere.” Frank looked me up and down. “Where’s the folder?”
“I don’t have it,” I said. “Dylan and Rosie have it.”
“We must be coming up on St. Yves,” Frank said. “I guess we’ve been in the trunks all night. I think we’re in the luggage holder—look at all the suitcases.”
“They didn’t want to hurt us, but they needed us out of the way long enough that they could get away with the folder,” I guessed.
“What are we waiting for, then?” Frank asked. “We have to find them before they get off.”
“Let’s do it.” I tore out of the luggage holder, with Frank right behind me.
“The Exercise Deck,” I yelled over my shoulder to Frank. We ran through the long corridors of the passenger cabins, up some stairs, and through another set of corridors to get to the decks. We were pretty far down into the belly of the ship.
Before this assignment, I never knew the amount of fun they crammed onto the decks of big cruise ships. Above the passenger levels, there was a ton of decks—the Sun Deck, the Fun Deck, the Lido Deck, and so on. They ranged from serene oases where passengers relaxed with a drink and a book, to action-adventure settings with rock-climbing walls and water-park slides. Frank and I worked on the quiet decks and played on the exciting decks.
Right now, though, we were heading to the Exercise Deck, which included a jogging track that ringed most of the other decks. I figured we stood the best chance of seeing Dylan and Rosie from up there.
“Over there,” Frank yelled to me, pointing up toward the start of the jogging track. “If we don’t see them right away, we’ll have a really good view of them getting off on the dock at St. Yves.”
We dodged around the champagne pool, which had warm water with little light bubbles floating up from the bottom. I took the stairs two at a time up to the Exercise Deck. I didn’t see Rosie and Dylan anywhere. I heard my brother pulling in air. After being stuck in a box for hours, we were both a little winded from the sprint. There were people all around, the same passengers we had been waiting on all week. But not the two people we were looking for.
“Frank!” One of the dancers from the onboard Broadway revue waved up at us from the Sun Deck below. Shanie. She was hot. And right now she was wearing a bikini and had her hair up inonytails. Superhot. “What are you doing?” she called.
Frank looked flustered. Busting out of boxes, fighting bad guys—these things he could do. But talking to girls was beyond him. He’s such a dork.
“Hey, Shanie!” I jumped in.
“Oh. Hi, Joe.” She hadn’t even noticed me.
“Any idea where Dylan and that big guy Rosie are? Have you seen them?” I asked.
“I think I saw them over by the reading lounges.”
Frank and I turned to each other in concern. “The reading lounges…,” I started.
“That’s over by the lifeboats,” Frank finished. “They’re not even going to wait for St. Yves. We’ve got to run.” He took off toward the stairs.
“No, not that way!” I yelled after him. “We need to go to the wall. It’s faster.”
The climbing wall ran four stories up from the first open-air deck—which was also the deck with the boats. I ran to the top of the wall just as a pair of passengers successfully stepped off. The teen worker holding the safety ropes tried to stop me.
“Dude. You have to start down there.” He pointed to the bottom of the wall, where a couple who wasn’t going to make it to the top was about to bail on the whole thing. Frank and I would be safe going down once they were out of the way.
Frank jogged up behind me. “Good call. It’s the fastest way.”
“Seriously, dude. You can’t just go down there,” the worker said.
“We have to,” Frank told him. “Don’t worry—we work here.” He stepped out onto the climbing wall and started down.
“We’ve got an urgent drink order that has to get in, so we’re going down the fastest way possible,” I added.
“Oh. Well, if you work here, why don’t I just rappel you down?” the dude suggestion.
“Cool. Thanks.” He handed me the ropes and helped me get strapped in. Frank had already disappeared down below our feet.
I looked over the edge of the platform. Frank was moving well until his foot slipped out. I told him those boots wouldn’t work for climbing. The front was too square to use for toeholds. Frank was hanging by one hand!
“Frank. Hold on!” I yelled.
My brother looked up at me, sweating from the effort of hanging on with just one hand. He swung his boots around, trying to gain purchase. It didn’t look good. He was facing a three-deck fall!
“Don’t drop me,” I told the worker. I stepped off the platform—and dropped like a stone. My heart skipped a beat. If I fell, I would probably take Frank with me.
The ropes pulled taut, and I stopped falling. “Sorry,” the guy called down. “I’m used to pulling people up and there’s no extra rope when you do that….”
“It’s fine. Let’s go,” I called back. The guy began lowering me again, slowly this time. As I got closer to Frank, his feet slipped out again. His body dropped, and his hand only just barely held on to the handhold.
I kicked off the wall, making myself swing out on the rope. This way I could get behind my brother. I threw my arms under his, hugging him from behind. “Gotcha,” I said.
Frank breathed a sigh of relief. “Thanks,” he said. “I guess the boots are one out of two for life-saving feats.”
“We’re good to go,” I called up to the dude at the top.
He lowered us the rest of the way to the bottom, and we took off toward the reading lounges—and the lifeboats.
It was easy to spot Rosie. He was just about to lower a lifeboat into the water. Frank didn’t even slow down. He just launched himself at Rosie… and bounced off, landing on Dylan. Dylan took a swing, and Frank ducked.
I turned my attention to Rosie. The big guy leaned down to grab a lockbox near his feet. I figured it held today’s haul and the folder we’d accumulated on them. He would want to dispose of that properly to make sure it didn’t fall into the wrong hands.
“Not so fast, Rosie!” I ran toward him and jumped up, landing a nice straight kick in his chest. He fell back a little, but not enough. His giant mitt of a hand grabbed the back of my neck while his other moved under my arm. He was going to throw me off the boat!
“Stay out of my business, spy boy,” he growled.
I twisted around, but I couldn’t get any purchase. Luckily, Frank saw what was happening. With Dylan’s hand wrapped around his ankle, trying to pull him away, Frank grabbed one of the lifeboat oars and smacked Rosie in the side of his knee.
Rosie bellowed in pain and let go of me. I fell, slamming hard on the deck. Rosie grabbed the front of the oar to pull it from Frank’s hands. Meanwhile, Dylan ran to the lockbox, picking it up.
I flipped myself to my feet and used a low roundhouse kick to sweep Rosie’s feet out from under him. Big guys fall hard. Or at least that’s what it looked like when he landed on Dylan. Dylan squawked and let the lockbox go. It slid across the highly polished wooden deck, right to a security officer who had come over to stop the fight.
Frank and I stood up as the officer pulled his gun on the four of us. I wasn’t worried. Once they opened that box up, they would know it was Rosie and Dylan they wanted, not my brother and me.
I grinned at Frank. “Nothing like a relaxing cruise vacation,” I said.
College Life
“Frank, honey, will you get the paper?” Mom asked the next morning. She was sitting at the kitchen table with a huge mug of coffee, looking just as tired as she did every other day of the week. She’s not a morning person.
“Of course,” I said, giving her a smile. Every morning, she asked me to get the paper, and every morning, I did. It was like a little ritual or something.
I pushed open the door and stepped out into the crisp early autumn air. The sun was shining, the leaves on the maple tree had just started to turn red, and the sky was impossibly clear and blue. I grabbed the newspaper from the grass, and stopped.
Something was wrong.
The plastic bag wrapped around the newspaper was intact, but it was blue. It’s usually clear. And the paper was folded into more of a square shape than usual. I kept my back to the door and took a look. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but something was bothering me. So I grabbed the end of the plastic and pulled it open.
A folder fell out from inside the newspaper. It was black, with a big neon green question mark in the middle.
I opened it up, looking for a disk. And there it was. I grinned.
“What’s that?” asked a voice in my ear.
I jumped, and turned to see Aunt Trudy standing about two feet away. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t heard her come outside. I guess she’s pretty stealthy for an old-ish lady.
“Oh, it’s a—”
Aunt Trudy didn’t let me finish. She just snatched the disk from my hand. My stomach gave a nervous lurch—I knew what the disk was. It was a mission assignment from ATAC. They had hidden it in the paper because they knew I was the one who picked it up every morning. But now Aunt Trudy had it in her hands, and if Aunt Trudy discovered that Joe and I were ATAC agents, well, we wouldn’t be ATAC agents for long.
“Kidnapped?” Aunt Trudy said, squinting at the disk.
I glanced at the thin cardboard cover wrapped around the mission disk. It matched the folder, with the big question mark in the middle. But the disk had the title KIDNAPPED floating over the question mark.
I grinned. ATAC always manages to hide its identity.
“Cool—I’ve been wanting to try that game.” I reached for the disk.
Aunt Trudy frowned. “Somebody put a game in the newspaper? For free?” she asked suspiciously.
“It’s probably a trial. Yon know, for one-use only,” I explained. And I wasn’t even lying. ATAC’s mission disks did destroy themselves after one use. That way, no one could track them.
“What’s in the folder?” she asked.
I shrugged. “All the promotional stuff to get you to buy the game.”
Reluctantly, Aunt Trudy handed over the disk. I brought the paper inside to Mom, then headed straight upstairs to Joe’s room.
My slacker brother was still asleep. I jerked the pillow out from under his head on my way to the computer.
“Hey,” Joe protested as his head smacked onto the mattress.
I yanked the blinds open, spilling bright sunlight into the room.
“You suck,” Joe muttered.
“I know, but this is worth getting up for,” I told him. “We’ve got a new assignment.”
Joe was out of bed in less than a second, all the sleep gone from his eyes. “Gimme,” he said. He grabbed the disk and stuck it into his computer. He’s always just as psyched as I am to find out what awesome adventure ATAC is sending us on next. The computer screen went black for a few seconds, and then a photograph appeared. A girl’s face—a pretty girl’s face. I could feel myself clamming up already. Did we have to go talk to this girl for the mission? Because I can’t do that, not without looking like a complete idiot.
“Kathy Boutry,” said a deep voice. “Age nineteen. A sophomore at Hewlett University, a member of the soccer team, president of the Journalism Club—”
“Total hottie,” Joe put in with a grin.
“No known enemies,” the voice was saying. “So why did she vanish without a trace?”
I frowned. “She’s gone?”
“Kathy left for class yesterday morning and hasn’t been seen since,” the voice went on. “Campus security had no reports of anything unusual occurring at the time, and a thorough search of the college grounds has turned up nothing.”
“Still,” Joe said, “it doesn’t really sound like an ATAC case. Maybe she just took off.”
“Or maybe somebody grabbed her. Just because no one saw anything weird doesn’t mean—”
“Shh!” Joe shushed me. “It’s just getting good.”
A newspaper article had appeared on-screen. Followed by another, and another, and another. All different papers. But all had the same byline: Kathy Boutry. “Kathy isn’t a minor, and she hasn’t been missing for forty-eight hours, so she cannot be reported to police as a missing person,” the voice said. “However, the reason this case has come to our attention is simple: Kathy is a reporter who frequently investigates criminal activity. ATAC believes she was abducted in order to prevent her from exposing illegal behavior.”
“If that’s true, she could be in real danger,” I said. “Criminals tend to kill whistle-blowers.”
“Kathy’s notepad was recovered from her desk at the Hewlett Horn —the university newspaper,” the voice went on. “It appears that she was working on several different stories. It’s up to you to figure out which—if any—could have led to her abduction. We feel that the two of you will have an easier time fitting in at Kathy’s college than an adult investigator would.”
“Piece of cake,” Joe said. He leaned back in his chair and stretched his arms over his head, yawning.
“In the attached folder you will find a map of the campus and Kathy’s class schedule,” the voice said.
I flipped open the question mark folder and found the map, the schedule, Kathy’s notepad, and a small stack of money for us to use while on the case.
“Statistics show that most kidnapping victims are killed within three days of their abduction,” the voice went on. “If the criminal element learns that law enforcement is closing in, they are likely to kill their hostage rather than let her be rescued. Kathy Boutry’s life is in your hands. As always, this mission is top secret. This disk will be reformatted in five seconds.”
A digital clock appeared on-screen. It counted down from 5 to 1, and then The Killers came blaring from the computer speakers.
Joe reached over and turned down the volume.
“We better hope it’s a piece of cake,” I told him. “Kathy’s life depends on it.”
FROM KATHY’S NOTEPAD:
Tony Calenda—election scam
Stuffing boxes?
*Background: Calenda serves as sophomore election commissioner. Frat brother of presidential candidate. Writes disparaging editorial of Opposition candidate. Overheard in dining hall: “I control election.”
*Need: source to confirm ballot box stuffing
*Check: campus rules governing student elections. Who oversees student gov’t.? Are the ballots still around?
MetaChem dumping
Toxic waste?
*Background: MetaChem manufactures polujurethane. Benzene found in trace amounts in Hammonton Lake. Benzene used to make adipic acid for polyurethane manufacturing. Possible dumping of by-products upstream?
*Check: other possible sources of contamination-leaks from other areas?
*Saul Gold, CEO
*Does this contaminate drinking water? Pulitzer!
Slots rigged?
Check complaints from old-timers.
“College girls!” Joe said happily as he hopped off his motorcycle in front of Kathy’s dorm at Hewlett University. We had driven down here on our bikes as soon as Mom had left for work. We didn’t tell her we were skipping school that day, and we certainly didn’t tell Aunt Trudy. But ATAC would call and let the principal know we were on a mission. They had an arrangement with the Bayport High School administration. We could skip classes whenever ATAC missions required us to, as long as we always made up all the work.
“Focus, Joe,” I told my brother. “We don’t have time for flirting.”
“Who’s flirting?” Joe asked. “I can just look. That doesn’t take any time.”
I shook my head and pulled the map of the campus from my backpack. While Joe studied the females, I studied the layout of the place. “The dorms are that way,” I said, pointing to the west. “Kathy’s room is in Kellerman Hall.”
I led the way down the brick pathway.
“So we’re checking her room why?” Joe asked, following me.
“To see what her roommate knows about this Tony Calenda guy,” I said. “Kathy’s notes talk about a student election, so the dude probably goes here.”
“Kathy has notes on two other stories too,” Joe pointed out.
“Yeah, but she goes to college here, she lives on campus, and she was last seen leaving for class,” I said. “This is the obvious place to start.”
We’d reached Kellerman. It was three stories high, and Kathy’s room was on the top floor. “Here we are,” Joe said, knocking on the door of room 326.
A short, African-American girl opened the door. “Yeah?” she asked.
“Hi…” My voice trailed off.
“We’re friends of Kathy’s,” Joe jumped in. He’s used to me being tongue-tied around girls. “You’re her roommate, right? She told me your name, but I forgot it. Sorry.”
“Beth.” She raised an eyebrow. “And you look a little young to be hanging out with Kathy. How do you know her?”
“My brother went to high school with her. Right, Frank?” Joe asked.
Nice. Throw it all on me, I thought, glaring at him. “Um … yeah,” I said.
I guess Beth decided that I looked old enough, because she opened the door and waved us inside. One side of the room was filled with pillows and stuffed animals. On the other side, newspaper and magazine articles were taped all over the wall. It was pretty obvious which side belonged to Kathy Boutry.
“Kathy’s not here,” Beth said. “And don’t ask me where she is, ’cause I don’t know.”
“She’s missing?” Joe asked. “Since when?”
“Yesterday,” Beth replied. “I told the campus security guys, but honestly I’m not that worried. You know Kathy.”
I wasn’t sure what to say. I didn’t know Kathy. But luckily, Beth didn’t expect an answer.
“I bet she’s just off on one of her investigations,” Beth went on. She plopped down on her bed and grabbed a little stuffed dog. She tossed it back and forth in her hands as she talked. “She couldn’t care less about school. I don’t think it would even occur to her that she’s missing classes or anything.”
“Do you think the editor of the newspaper would know where she is?” I asked.
Beth snorted. “Which one?”
I shot a look at Joe. He shrugged. “Um, the school paper?” I said. “That’s who she’s writing for now, right?”
“No. I mean, yes, sometimes.” Beth got bored with the dog and put it down. “But she says that’s just amateur garbage. She only cares about the real papers. She’s always sending story ideas off to the county paper. And last week she started saying she had a story for the Press of Atlantic City. Seriously, I think if she could get a gig working there, she would quit school.”
“Still, wouldn’t she call you if she was going to be out all night?” Joe asked.
“Doubtful.” Beth shrugged. “She stopped telling me about her so-called investigative journalism after I told her student adviser about the trespassing thing.”
“What trespassing thing?” I asked.
“You know, that chemical place. She thought they were doing something wrong, so she started hanging around there. The security guys kept kicking her off the grounds for trespassing.” Beth grinned. “So then she went and got a temp job there answering phones. But the security guy recognized her and had her escorted out like a criminal. Isn’t that awesome? She was, like, stalking the chemical company. Isn’t that just like her?”
I laughed, as if I knew what she was talking about.
“Kathy mentioned she was doing a story about an election,” Joe said. “A student election?”
“Yeah. So?” Beth asked.
“So, uh, do you know anything about that?” I asked.
“Was there some scandal?” Joe put in. “Kathy said the ballot boxes were stuffed or something. By Tony Calendar.”
“Calenda,” Beth corrected him. “There were some rumors. And Kathy followed him around for a while to try to find proof. But she hasn’t mentioned it lately. Why?”
“Do you know what dorm Tony lives in?” I asked.
“He’s not in the dorms—he lives at his frat.” Beth was frowning. “What’s your deal, anyway? Why do you care about Tony?”
“I don’t,” I said quickly.
“We’re just looking for Kathy,” Joe added.
“Well, she’s not here. And she is definitely not at Tony’s.” Beth stood up. “I have a class in ten minutes.”
I could take a hint. We said our good-byes and left. Downstairs in the dorm lobby, Joe turned to me. “Now what?”
“I guess we find Tony’s fraternity,” I said slowly. “There was a frat row on the map, right next to that little nature preserve. Maybe we can just knock on the doors and ask if he’s there.”
“Let’s do it,” my brother said, jogging off toward the bikes.
Joe wasn’t jogging anymore by the time we reached the fourth house on frat row. He was just dragging himself along behind me, complaining about how hungry he was. He’s always hungry—Aunt Trudy calls him the human vacuum. “This is taking forever,” Joe mumbled as I checked off the Phi Gamma house on the campus map. Tony wasn’t a brother there, and nobody seemed sure which frat he belonged to. For a guy at the center of a college scandal, he didn’t seem very well known. “I’ll do the talking at this one,” Joe announced, heading up the brick walkway to the Delta Psi house.
“Joe,” I called after him. “Wait!”
He ignored me, as usual. He just grabbed the big brass knocker on the door and banged it loudly.
I followed him to the door. “Uh, Joe?”
“What?” he yelled over the sound of his own knocking.
“This is a sorority house,” I said. “Look.” I pointed to banner hanging from one upstairs window. It read: SISTERS UNITE.
“Oh.” Joe stopped banging on the door. But it was too late. An Asian girl with an annoyed expression on her face had already yanked open the door.
“What?” she asked.
“Um … sorry about the noise,” Joe said. He put his typical flirtatious smile on his face. “We’re trying to find a girl who’s missing, and it seemed like this was a good place to ask for assistance.”
She frowned at him, and then she turned to me. “Who is this missing girl?”
“Her name is Kathy Boutry,” I told her. “We have reason to believe that a guy named Tony Calenda may be involved.”
The girl ran her eyes from my head down to my toes. “Are you a cop?” she asked.
“No, he’s just a dork,” Joe said helpfully. “Do you know Tony?”
“Yeah, I’ve seen him around,” she replied. “I doubt he would be involved in something like kidnapping or … whatever.”
“Do you know which frat he belongs to?” I asked.
“Omega Rho,” she said. “It’s the last house on the block.”
“Great. Thanks.” Joe gave her another smile. “Hey, you don’t have anything to eat in there, do you?”
“Excuse me?” she said.
“I’m starving,” Joe said.
She just rolled her eyes and closed the door on us.
“That was rude,” Joe muttered as I led the way back to the sidewalk.
“We should take the bikes,” I said. “It looks like a long walk.”
A few minutes later we parked at the curb in front of the Omega Rho house. It was the biggest one, and it was the last one on the incredibly long block of fraternity and sorority houses. Behind it ran the nature preserve, which just looked like a regular forest to me.
“Who knew there would be so many frats?” I said. “I’m surprised anybody is left to live in the dorms.”
“Look, we know he belongs to this one,” Joe said. “We know he’s a brother here. Let’s just go get dinner.”
“Kathy’s time is running out,” I reminded him.
Joe sighed and got off his motorcycle. “I know. It’s just hard to believe she would be in danger from some stupid frat guy who wants to hide a student government thing.”
“If he took Kathy, that makes him more than some stupid frat guy,” I said. “It makes him a kidnapper. It makes him dangerous.”
“You’re right.” Joe went up to the door and pounded on it. The thick wooden door opened, and a huge guy with a buzz cut scowled at us.
“Hey,” I greeted him. “Is Tony here?”
He grunted and walked away, leaving the door open.
“Let me handle this. I speak Neanderthal,” Joe cracked. “I believe he just said, ‘Come on in.’” He stepped inside, and I followed. The place was swanky, with a pool table, two huge vintage video games, and a supersweet entertainment system in the living room. But I knew Mom would say it needed a woman’s touch. I think that’s code for “It needs to be cleaned.” There were jackets, shoes, and books flung all over the place, along with a few dirty towels and some half-eaten sandwiches. You could tell a bunch of guys lived there.
The question was, where was Tony?
“First place you look for a dude is in the kitchen,” Joe said. He made his way through the living room, stepped over a life-size dummy in a football jersey, and went into the dining room on the other side.
I stopped to look at the dummy. It was one of those CPR training dummies, but somebody had painted blood all over it and slashed its jersey. “I hope he’s from the opposing team,” I muttered. Still, it was pretty violent.
I glanced around the room. Two huge guys were playing some kind of game on the big flat screen. They were shooting at each other on-screen and shouting at each other in reality. One blew the other’s head off in the game, hooting in victory.
These guys definitely like their violent video games, I thought. And the one who answered the door didn’t seem to have any great people skills. And we’re walking right into the middle of their house to find out if one of their brothers is a criminal.
Suddenly this didn’t seem like such a terrific idea. I jogged after my brother.
“Joe,” I hissed, grabbing his sleeve, “how do we know they’re not all in on it?”
He looked at me, then raised his eyes to Big and Bigger, who were just starting a new game in the living room. “You mean, they might all be willing to nab Kathy in order to cover their brother’s butt?”
“Yeah.”
Joe hesitated. “I guess we’ll just have to try to get Tony alone,” he said. “We won’t mention Kathy’s name.”
“Okay.” I figured we could come up with some cover story if we found the guy. “Is he in the kitchen?”
“I don’t know. There’s some kind of contest going on,” Joe said.
I peered over his shoulder. Three guys were stuffing saltine crackers into their mouths while a fourth one timed them. Their cheeks were bulging, and their eyes were watering, but those dudes just kept shoving crackers in.
“Wow,” Joe said beside me. “That’s impressive. I think that blond guy is up to twelve crackers.”
I just stared at him.
“What?” my brother said. “It’s hard. You try eating that many saltines without a drink to wash them down. They turn to mortar in your mouth.”
“How do we know if one of them is Tony?” I asked.
Joe shrugged and kept watching. I spotted a middle-aged woman heading out the kitchen door. “Be right back,” I said to Joe. I edged around the saltine brothers and caught up with her. “Excuse me,” I called. “I’m looking for Tony Calenda. Do you know if one of these guys is him?”
“Nope, he’s not in there,” she replied.
“What are they doing, anyway?” I asked.
She chuckled. “Honey, I’m paid to cook for them and wash the dishes. That’s it. I don’t even try to interpret the weird things they do.” She left, and I turned back just in time to see the fourth guy call time. The eaters all collapsed onto the kitchen chairs and grabbed for their water glasses.
I went back over to Joe. The brothers were all so busy trying to dissolve the crackers in their mouths that they didn’t even look at us.
“You know, I’m getting the feeling that these guys aren’t in on the Kathy Boutry kidnapping,” Joe commented. “They don’t even seem to care that a couple of total strangers are wandering around their house. Watch.” He went over to the table and grabbed a half-empty sleeve of crackers. “You guys mind if I snag some? I’m starving,” he said.
The brothers all grunted. The fourth one glanced at him, then at me, then went back to tallying up how many saltines each guy had eaten.
“See?” Joe said, stuffing a cracker in his mouth. “If they had something to hide, they’d be beating me up right now.” He held out the cracker sleeve to me.
“Let’s just keep looking,” I told him.
We headed for the wide staircase and started up. Another frat brother was coming down, but he just glanced at us and kept going. At the top was a long hallway with a bunch of bedrooms. I stuck my head into the first open door and nodded at the guy sprawled on his bed watching TV.
“Dude, you know where Tony Calenda is?” I asked.
“Second to last door on the right,” he said.
“Thanks.” I walked down to the door and knocked. No answer.
“If he’s not here, we can search his room,” Joe said. He glanced around to make sure nobody was watching, then opened the door. We slipped inside quickly… and saw a big guy climbing out the window!
3. Blackjack!
I started to yell, but Frank clapped his hand over my mouth. “Heeef gebbim mmwee,” I protested.
“I know he’s getting away,” Frank replied. “But if you let him know that we saw him, he’ll just run even faster. Right now he thinks he’s sneaking out with nobody noticing.” He moved over to the window and peered out after Tony. “He’s cutting through the woods.”
“He’s probably got a car parked on the street behind it,” I said.
My brother took off down the hall of the frat house, running for the stairs. “Where do you think he’s going?” Frank asked as he burst out the front door onto the porch. “It has to be someplace he doesn’t want his brothers to know about, right? Why else would he climb out the window?”
SUSPECT PROFILE
Name: Anthony “Tony” Calenda
Hometown: New York, NY
Physical Description: Age 20, 5’11”, 180 lbs., dark brown hair, green eyes
Occupation: Student at Hewlett University
Background: Son of Michael Calenda, head of Futuro Management Consulting
Suspicious behavior: Listed in Kathy Boutry’s notepad; boasted of controlling student elections; was discovered sneaking out of his own room through the window.
Suspected of: Fixing student government election; kidnapping Kathy Boutry’
Possible motive: To prevent Kathy from exposing his election tampering.
I nodded, getting it. “So following him might help us more than questioning him,” I said.
“Hopefully he’ll lead us straight to the place he’s holding Kathy.” Frank hurried over to his bike, parked at the curb. I climbed on my own bike and powered up. We raced back down Fraternity Row and rounded the corner, following the tree line. When we reached the other side of the small nature preserve, I spotted a black Mercedes convertible pulling out in front of us.
“It was nice of Tony to put the top down,” I said into the mic in my helmet. “Now we’ve got a positive ID on him—that is definitely the guy we saw inside.”
“Seems like this case will be a piece of cake after all,” Frank’s voice answered through the speaker near my ear.
I revved my motorcycle and sped up to keep Tony’s car in my sight. I would be happy to get Kathy back to her dorm, and I’d be even happier to get Tony thrown in jail. What kind of loser kidnaps somebody just to keep his name out of the paper? And what kind of idiot thinks he’ll get away with it? It was amazing this guy had gotten into college at all!
Tony’s car took a sharp turn and raced up an entrance ramp onto the Atlantic City Expressway. I felt a jolt of surprise. Somehow I’d figured that he was keeping Kathy nearby. I leaned into the turn and followed him up onto the traffic-clogged highway. Tony’s car was already several car lengths ahead—but that’s no problem when you’re on a motorcycle. I weaved through the traffic until there was only a VW Bug between me and him. Frank pulled up beside me.
“Where’s he going?” my brother asked through the radio.
“No clue,” I replied. “We’ll just have to wait and see.”
Wherever it was, it was taking a long time, I thought half an hour later. We were still on the Atlantic City Expressway, still stuck in Atlantic City traffic. Was Tony keeping Kathy in the city somewhere?
But he kept on going even after all the other cars had turned off the road. We had been following the Mercedes for forty minutes by the time Tony took an exit with a sign for OLDE TYME.
The exit led right to the circular driveway of a six-story-high hotel that was built to look like a big Mississippi River steamboat. Tony pulled his convertible up to the front doors and hopped out, snatching a valet ticket from a guy dressed like a sailor. He went inside.
Frank and I drove our bikes past the door and pulled over to the side of the driveway. “What is this place?” I asked my brother, pulling off my helmet.
He squinted up at the sign over the entrance. “‘Olde Tyme Resort and Casino,’” he read. “Never heard of it.”
“Atlantic City is only twenty miles away. Why would anybody go to a casino out here when they can go to all the different casinos there?” I asked.
Frank shrugged. “Maybe if they’re tired of driving they can just stop here first. Or maybe they like gambling but don’t like how crowded A.C. is. Or maybe they like—”
“Okay, okay, whatever,” I said. “Why is Tony here?”
“I don’t know,” Frank admitted. “We’d better get inside and see what he’s doing.”
“Uh, Frank?” I said. “You have to be twenty-one to go into a casino. And ATAC didn’t give us fake IDs along with Kathy’s campus map.”
“Well, ATAC didn’t know we’d end up at a casino,” Frank said.
“I guess they need to give us fake IDs to always keep with us in case of emergency,” I cracked.
“Yeah. That’ll happen,” Frank said sarcastically. My brother nodded at a small wooden sign that read SELF-PARKING. A smaller driveway led down to an underground parking garage. “We’ll have an easier time of it if we don’t use the valets,” Frank said. “I don’t know who checks IDs, but we’ll just have to avoid them.”
We revved our bikes and headed down to the garage. “How did Tony get in?” I asked once we had parked. “Kathy’s notes say he’s a sophomore. He’s not twenty-one either.”
Frank shrugged. “He’s not the most honest guy in the world. He probably has a fake ID.”
“I bet they pay more attention to the elevators, so let’s take the emergency stairs,” I suggested.”
On the main floor, the stairs opened right into the casino. The whole place was loud—slot machines ringing and beeping, brightly colored lights flashing, and some kind of ragtime music playing in the background. “Check it out—shops,” Frank said, pointing down a hallway to our left. I spotted a bunch of fancy-looking stores with big picture windows, decorated as if they were the shops along an old-fashioned Main Street.
“O-kay.” I shot my brother a questioning look.
“We need to buy sport coats,” Frank said, leading the way toward the little mini-mall. “If we’re wearing jackets, we’ll look respectable, blend in more.”
“You mean we’ll look old.”
Frank laughed. “I just mean Security won’t notice us.”
We passed three boutiques with women’s clothes before we finally found a golf shop for men. They had about five sport coats on a rack in the back. We found the ones that fit us the best, and Frank slapped down some of the money from ATAC. I bet they never thought we’d go clothes shopping with it!
“I look good,” I commented, checking out my ensemble in the store mirror. The jacket was dark blue, and it made my jeans seem a little classier. “Maybe I should get a hat or something too.”
“Don’t push it,” Frank said, rolling his eyes.
I grinned and went back out into the hallway. We made our way to the main casino, carefully avoiding the security guards. One of the things I had learned working undercover for ATAC is that as long as you act confident, people don’t usually question you.
“Let’s hope Tony is in the casino,” Frank said. “If he went up into the hotel, we’ll never find him.”
I glanced around, taking in the place. To my left were a bunch of gaming tables—blackjack, poker, roulette, all that stuff. To my right were rows and rows of slot machines with shiny metal arms that you pull down to spin the wheels. The slot machines were mostly taken by older people who sat around with big plastic buckets full of nickels and quarters, feeding them into the machines. A younger crowd was at the gambling tables.
“There he is,” my brother said suddenly. “Blackjack.”
I peered through the room and finally spotted Tony Calenda at a blackjack table with three other people. He sat scowling at his cards, a huge pile of chips in front of him. “He’s gambling?” I said. “What about Kathy?”
“I don’t know.” Frank frowned. “Why did he have to climb out the window just to come to a casino? Who cares if he wants to play blackjack?”
“Maybe he’s here to meet somebody,” I suggested. “Maybe he’s just waiting for his accomplice to show up.”
“I guess we’d better keep him under surveillance,” Frank muttered. “It won’t be easy, though. I don’t think we can gamble away ATAC’s money.”
“We can just watch,” I said. “Lots of people are standing around watching.”
Frank nodded. “I’ll hang out at the roulette table behind Tony,” he said. “You hang near Tony’s table.”
“Good idea. We’d be more conspicuous together,” I agreed. Frank went over to fake-watch the roulette, and I joined a middle-aged couple who were watching Tony’s game. Tony was playing the odds—holding on sixteen, hitting on fifteen. I figured he must’ve read Blackjack for Idiots or something. But it wasn’t working. The dealer raked in Tony’s chips after every hand.
A big, middle-aged guy in a Mickey Mouse shirt elbowed his way past me and sat down next to Tony. “Hey, yo, chips here,” he said. He tossed four hundred-dollar bills onto the blackjack table, and the dealer gave him a pile of chips.
“Hey, buddy. How’s the table?” Mickey asked Tony. Tony just winced. “That good, huh?” The guy laughed loudly.
But I could tell that Tony wasn’t wincing at the table. This guy was already on Tony’s last nerve.
The dealer tossed out the cards. Tony was showing a seven on top, but from the look on his face, he had something like an eight or a nine underneath. Low odds for winning.
But Mickey was having a little celebration in his seat. “All right. Blackjack,” he bellowed. The dealer paid out and moved on to Tony.
Tony looked at his down card and waved off the dealer. The dealer flipped his own cards, showing a seventeen. Tony punched the table, hard. “This sucks,” he snapped.
“Sir…,” the dealer began.
“What?” Tony flipped his card at the dealer, sneering. I could see that he’d had sixteen. Once again, he’d lost.
His pile of chips was down to only two. Two hundred dollars is still more than I’d be willing to risk, I thought.
The dealer cleared the table, and the players anted up. Mickey pounded Tony on the back. “Don’t worry about it, my friend, the worm’s gotta turn sometime.” Tony glared at him, but the dude didn’t seem to notice.
I yawned and looked at my watch. I like blackjack, but it’s not much fun watching other people play. And Tony wasn’t very good at it. The Mickey Mouse guy wasn’t bad, but that only seemed to make Tony madder.
“Double down,” Tony told the dealer. He tossed his last chip in.
Good, maybe he’ll lose, I thought. This was way too boring. When Tony was out of chips, maybe he would do something else, something more interesting. Like take us to Kathy Boutry.
I turned to look for Frank. He was standing next to a gorgeous girl in a short black dress. But he was oblivious. Typical. My brother is just not good with women. I must’ve gotten all the talent in that department.
“You took my ten, loser.” Tony’s voice pulled my attention back to the game. He was nose-to-nose with the Mickey Mouse guy, yelling at top volume.
“Calm down, kid, we’re all playing the dealer here,” Mickey Mouse told him.
“Calm down?” Tony repeated. His voice was pretty much the opposite of calm.
“Frank,” I called to my brother. “Some help?”
Frank made his way toward me, pushing through the little knot of people watching the game.
“Looks like you’re out of chips,” Mickey Mouse said. “I guess you’re done.”
Tony pushed away from the blackjack table so hard that his stool toppled over backward. He didn’t bother to pick it up, or to apologize.
“You’re done,” he growled. He grabbed the older guy’s shoulder and cocked his fist.
Tony was about to flatten Mickey Mouse!
A Bad Bet
I had no time to think. I just tossed my Coke through the air, hoping it would land on Tony and not the other guy.
Perfect, I thought as the soda spattered Tony’s shirt. He backed up, surprised, and forgot about hitting the Mickey Mouse man.
“I’m really sorry—” I started.
Tony ignored me. He just turned and stalked out of the casino. I shot a look at Joe, and he nodded. We followed Tony, catching up to him just before he reached the front doors.
“Excuse me,” I said. “Do you know—”
“No,” Tony barked, sneering at me. It was all we needed. While his attention was on me, Joe lifted Tony’s wallet from the pocket of his khakis.
“Hey,” he snapped, turning on my brother.
“Hey,” Joe replied with a friendly smile. “I bet there’s a fake ID in here, huh? Should I tell Gigantor over there, or would you rather come have a talk with my brother and me?”
Tony glanced at the huge security guard near the door, who was staring at us pretty hard. “I don’t mind having a talk,” he replied.
“Good. Let’s go grab a drink,” I said. I led the way to a restaurant across from the main casino. It had small, wrought-iron tables and was decorated to look like an old-fashioned ice-cream parlor.
“Give me my wallet,” Tony demanded as we sat down.
“Not right now,” I told him. “First we have a few questions for you.”
“Who are you guys?” he asked. “Why should I tell you anything?”
“We’re looking for Kathy Boutry, and we think you have her,” I said, cutting straight to the point.
Tony’s mouth dropped open. “Excuse me?”
“Kathy. Where is she?” I asked.
“How should I know?” Tony began to laugh. “Are you serious? My fraternity brothers didn’t send you?”
Joe was frowning. “Why would they send us?”
“Oh, they’re all sensitive about my so-called gambling problem,” Tony said. He flagged down a waiter. “Get me a root beer. And whatever these dudes want.”
I ordered iced tea, but Joe just waved the guy off. I could tell my brother wasn’t happy. “You have a gambling problem?” he asked Tony.
“No.” Tony squirmed in his seat, blushing a little. “Okay, maybe. I just like to gamble. What’s the big deal?”
“It’s illegal until you’re twenty-one,” I pointed out. “Also, you lost more than a thousand dollars tonight. Sounds like a problem to me.”
“Whatever. I can afford it.” Tony shrugged. “My father makes tons of money. He’ll never notice a few thousand missing.”
“Wow. Must be nice,” Joe said sarcastically. “I guess your frat brothers don’t agree. Is that why you had to sneak out of your room? And go to a casino in the middle of nowhere?”
“Yeah. So what?” Tony crossed his arms. “It’s none of their business, anyway. And it’s none of your business. Who are you guys?”
“We’re Kathy’s friends,” I said. “You still haven’t told us where she is.”
“I told you, I don’t know. That chick is nuts,” Tony said. “She used to follow me around all the time, asking questions and stuff. I figured she was into me. So I brought her here, like, on a date. I even gave her money to play the slots. After that, she totally ignored me. I haven’t seen her since.”
“So you think she’s nuts for dumping you?” Joe asked, sounding amused.
“She didn’t dump me. It was only our first date. Before that, she was just stalking me or something.”
“She was investigating you,” I corrected him. “She’s a reporter, and she knew you fixed the student government election.”
Tony jumped up. “I did not,” he snapped. “There’s no proof of that.”
“Especially not now, with Kathy missing,” I said. “Did she find proof? Is that why you kidnapped her?”
“You’re crazy.” Tony looked seriously upset. “I didn’t kidnap anyone. I didn’t even know she was a reporter.” He sat back down. “Just because I like to gamble doesn’t mean I’m a kidnapper. I wouldn’t do something like that. I barely knew the girl. Why don’t you call the cops if she’s missing?”
“You want us to call the police?” I repeated.
“Yeah, if you can’t find your friend.”
He was being totally honest. He wanted us to alert the authorities. I shot Joe a look, and I could see that he was thinking the same thing I was: Guilty people don’t suggest calling the cops. Guilty people try to avoid the police at all costs. Tony really didn’t have Kathy.
We were back to square one—no Kathy. And no suspects.
• • •
“Now what?” I sighed, leaning back on the fake ice-cream parlor chair. Tony Calenda had just left, after getting his wallet back from Joe. “Tony was our top suspect.”
“He was our only suspect,” Joe pointed out. “Let me look at Kathy’s notepad again.”
I pulled the notepad out of my backpack, and Joe flipped through it. “We should head back to the college,” I said. “People don’t just disappear—someone must have seen her.”
“What about these other stories she was working on?” Joe asked. “That MetaChem place? And check it out: ‘slots rigged?’ I bet she was talking about this place, the casino.”
“Let me see,” I said. I glanced at the page where Kathy had scrawled a note about complaints from old-timers. “Olde Tyme Casino, complaints from old-timers. I guess that could be what she meant,” I said thoughtfully. “But it’s not very clear.”
“Sure it is,” Joe argued. “Tony said she came here with him, and then she totally blew him off. It’s because she found a better story than some college election scandal. She found a story here, at the casino. Look, it says the slots are rigged.”
I frowned down at Kathy’s scribbled note. It did mention rigged slots, but what did that even mean? She made no mention of a casino. “For all we know, she’s still talking about the election here. Tony rigged the ballot boxes so the slots open in the student government went to his friends.”
Joe rolled his eyes. “We’re already here. We might as well check out the casino.”
“I think we need to investigate MetaChem,” I disagreed. “She’s got more notes on that story, and Beth said that Kathy spent a lot of time hanging out around that place. They kicked her off the premises. They obviously had something to hide.”
“Fine. We can do that. But it won’t take long to rule out the Olde Tyme. All we have to do is sneak into the offices and snoop around a little, make sure it’s all on the level.”
“You just want to stay in the hotel tonight,” I told him.
“Well, yeah.” Joe’s face broke into a huge grin. “This place has a roller coaster, did you know that? On the roof!”
That did sound cool. “Fine,” I said. “It’s too late to do anything else tonight, anyway. But first thing in the morning, we head over to MetaChem. Kathy’s time is running out.”
Under the Casino
The clatter of a room service cart out in the hallway woke me up good and early the next morning. I sat up and stretched, ready for the day. Frank will tell you that I sleep late, but that’s only when we’re not on a mission. If I’ve got cool stuff to do, I don’t like to waste my time in dreamland. That’s more than you can say for my brother, though. Frank was still fast asleep in the other bed.
Should I wake him up? I wondered.
I tossed a pillow at him. Frank just turned over and kept on snoring.
I jumped out of bed and quickly got dressed. No point in me wasting time just because Frank was lazy. I’d go downstairs and check out the casino offices, just to see if I could find any evidence of… well, of anything weird. Kathy’s notes hadn’t said much about the Olde Tyme. But if she had spotted something weird after coming here one time with Tony, I should be able to spot the same thing.
Frank was still out cold when I left, pocketing one of the two key cards. I jogged down the hallway and took a glass-walled elevator to the ground floor. The sounds from the casino were just as loud as they had been the night before. In fact, the whole place seemed exactly the same in the morning as it had at night. There were no windows, so no sunlight got inside. The same music was playing over the speaker system, and the gambling machines were making all the same little beeps and dings and whirs. The only way I could tell it was daytime was that there weren’t as many people in the place. The blackjack table where Tony had played was empty: no cards, no chips, not even a dealer. Most of the roulette wheels weren’t spinning, and I only saw two poker games going on.
I headed for the slot machines. Kathy’s notes had said something about rigged slots, so that seemed like a good place to start. Two old ladies were sitting side by side, chatting while they fed nickels into the machines.
“Excuse me,” I said. “Do you mind if I ask you a question?”
“That depends on the question, sweetheart,” one of the ladies replied. The other one laughed. I laughed too.
“I was just wondering if anybody ever wins at these things,” I said. “The slot machines.”
The two ladies exchanged a look, and the first one pursed her lips. “I’ve won some money from slots from time to time,” she said. “Nothing big, of course. Just the occasional little jackpot.”
“But not here,” the other lady muttered.
“I haven’t seen anybody win at this casino,” the first one said. “It’s new, though.”
“The Olde Tyme is new?” I asked, surprised.
“It’s only been here for a couple of years,” the first lady answered. “Could be it takes time for the slots to start paying out. And we’re not here all the time, of course.”
“I’m sure people win sometimes,” her friend added. “We just haven’t seen it ourselves.”
“Why do you come if you never win?” I asked, confused. “Do you also play roulette or something else?”
The ladies laughed. “No, sweetheart, that’s too rich for my blood,” the first one said. “I’ll stick with the nickel slots.”
“We like the feel of the place, and we like these old machines,” the other lady added. <