D. MacHale - The Never War

Now I had to bolt out of there. I snuck back to the door and put my ear to it, listening for sounds of anyone hanging around outside. I didn’t hear a thing, so I grabbed the doorknob and gently gave it a turn. What happened next was so impossible, my mind wouldn’t accept it at first.

The door was locked. I turned harder, but that didn’t make it any less locked. My heart started to race. Maybe it was just stuck. I gave it a jiggle and a twist and a push. But no amount of jiggling or twisting or pushing helped. Nope, the door was locked all right…and I was on the wrong side. I looked to see if there was a locking lever that I could flip. There wasn’t. There was only an old-fashioned keyhole. But seeing as I didn’t have an old-fashioned key, that wasn’t any help.

I wanted to scream. How could I have been so dumb as to pull the door closed without checking it first? This was totally my fault. I had snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. It would only be a matter of time before I was discovered, and then any hope of untangling the mystery of May 6 and LZ-129 would die right along with me.

Bobby Pendragon, DeadUndercover Traveler.

Things couldn’t be worse. I was locked in the private office of a vicious mobster who was going to eat me for dessert. Max Rose had a lot of goons on the payroll. One of them was bound to come by any second. I had to think fast and figure out some other way out of there.

I spun around and scanned the office. Yes! There was another door behind his desk. Why hadn’t I seen that before? I ran for it and twisted the knob. It was locked.

Ahhhh! What was it with this guy and locked doors? You’d think he was a crook or something. I had to come up with a Plan B. Fast. Uncle Press always had a Plan B. I really wished he were there to give it to me, because I was coming up empty.

Then I saw the telephone. Of course! Max Rose had slammed down this very phone a few minutes ago. How could I forget? I could call Gunny for help. I wasn’t exactly sure of what Gunny could do, but right now, this was my only hope. So I dove for the old (okay, new for 1937) black phone, yanked the receiver off the cradle, and dialed. It was a rotary dial thing, and my hands were shaking as I stuck my finger in the “9” hole. Number 99 was the bell captain’s desk. Dialing 9–9 would bring Gunny to me, and hopefully Gunny would bring me to safety. I dialed the first nine and winced as it made a loud, raspy sound like a saw cutting through wood. But I couldn’t stop now.

I was just about to dial the second nine when I heard something. It was a quiet sound, but it might just as well have been a nuclear explosion, because I was sure it was going to be just as bad for me.

Someone was opening the door behind the desk.

It was too late to run and there was no place to hide. I was busted. As scared as I was, I made surenotto dial the second nine. I didn’t want them to know I was calling Gunny. No sense in getting usallkilled. So I slowly returned the receiver to its cradle and waited for a gun muzzle to be jammed into my back.

“I don’t think you’re supposed to be in here,” came a voice from behind me.

Yeah, right. You think?

But the sound of this voice gave me a flicker of hope. For one, it was the voice of a woman. She didn’t sound angry, either. Maybe I could talk my way out of this. After all, I had the Traveler power of persuasion, right? Without turning around I said, “I just brought lunch up to Mr. Rose. The hotel wanted to make it special, but somebody forgot to put champagne on the cart. It was supposed to be a gift, on the house. So I came in here to call down for somebody to bring it up and the door locked behind me.”

It was a total bluff, but all I could think of. Would she buy it? Or would she scream for Rose’s goons to come in here and toss me out the window? The next few seconds felt like a lifetime.

Finally she said, “Here, take this.”

Uh-oh. Was it a bullet? ”Turn around,” she said with a laugh.”Iwon’t bite.”

I slowly turned around to see who I was dealing with.

Wow. Standing in the doorway was a beautiful woman who looked like some kind of old-time movie star. She was dressed in a long, ivory nightgown that looked as slick as silk. It wasn’t embarrassing or anything because she had a silky robe over it. Her hair was dark and done in a perfect do. She wore perfect makeup, too. This wasn’t somebody who had just fallen out of bed. She looked ready for a photo shoot. I couldn’t tell how old she was, not with all the elegant makeup and all, but I’m guessing she was in her twenties. She had a little smile that told me she knew exactly how scared I was.

Once I got over the shock of seeing her, I saw something else that made my heart leap. She was holding out an old-fashioned brass key on a ring.

“I don’t know why he makes all the doors lock that way,” she said softly. “Maybe to catch people who go into places they shouldn’t.” She said this with a smile, like she was needling me. I think she liked to see me squirm. Good for her, because I was definitely squirming. I reached out and took the key.

“Thanks,” I said. “It was a big mistake. I never should have come in here.”

I went back to the main door and used the key to unlock it. When I opened the door, I was relieved to see that nobody villainous was lurking around in the entryway. I was beginning to think I had a chance of getting out of here alive. Quickly I returned the key to the woman, saying, “I’m very embarrassed.”

“Don’t worry about it,” said the woman. “I’ll never tell.” She put her finger to her lips to emphasize her promise to “shush.” It all seemed kind of flirty. Oh yeah, this was going to work out. I gave her a sincerely grateful smile, then turned for the door and freedom.

“Hey!” she shouted after me. I froze. I was seconds away from a clean escape. What had gone wrong? I turned back to her sheepishly.

“What about the champagne? Aren’t you going to make that call?”

Oops. I hadn’t followed through with the bluff. I was such a bad liar. Was this going to bite me in the butt? I had to think fast, again. “Uh… I really shouldn’t be in here,” I said. “I’ll go downstairs and bring it back up myself.”

“Good idea,” she said. “You’re a smart kid.” With that, she left through the door behind the desk…

Ding Dong! The doorbell rang. In a few seconds one of Rose’s thugs would appear to answer it, and I was still in the office! I quickly dashed out and across the entryway toward the front door.

“Hey, you still here?” somebody bellowed. It was the guy who first opened the door for me when I arrived.

“Just leaving,” I said. The thug pushed past me and opened the door. Standing outside was Gunny, with a bottle of champagne chilling in a bucket of ice.

“For Mr. Rose,” he said. “Compliments of the Manhattan Tower Hotel.”

I glanced back over my shoulder and saw that the movie-star lady was watching from the corridor. It was perfect. Gunny had cemented my bluff without even knowing it. I was home free.

The thug took the champagne, then pushed me out the door and closed it behind us. Gunny and I made brief eye contact, but didn’t say a word. We walked quickly past the two security guards in the corridor, stopped at the elevator, and rang for Dewey. The elevator arrived seconds later and we rode silently down to the lobby. Dewey looked at me the whole way down, dying to know what had happened. But he wasn’t going to ask with Gunny there, and I sure as heck wasn’t going to tell him anything. When we got to the lobby, Gunny and I stepped out of the elevator and kept walking until Dewey was out of earshot.

Finally Gunny said under his breath, “You were up there too long, shorty. I was getting nervous. I had to make up an excuse to go up.”