Nightmare in Angel City (9 page)

THE OFFICE WAS enormous, decorated all in leather and mahogany. At one end was a large desk. A painting of Stuart Bates hung on the wall behind it. Two black leather couches faced the desk. Frank and Callie were shoved onto one couch and Joe on the other.

"Sit there and don't touch anything," said one of the guards. They left the brothers and Callie alone.

The office door clicked shut. Instantly, Frank and Joe were on their feet. Joe pressed at the edges of the window, which overlooked all of Meteoric Studios. "No openings here, and we're twelve stories up in any case," he said. "Any luck there?"

Frank wiggled the doorknob. "Locked." He walked around the room, tapping at the wood paneling on the walls, while Joe slid the painting to one side. "No secret passages in the wall."

"No safe," Joe replied. He let the painting slip back into place. "Anything he's got here must be in his desk."

"What's with you guys?" Callie said. "So we get scolded for trespassing. It's no big deal."

Frank rolled his eyes. "We never told her." He fished the photograph from his pocket. "See that painting on the wall?"

Callie studied it. "Sure."

"Recognize him?" he asked, and handed her the photograph.

Callie paled. "You mean Stuart Bates is — ?"

"Looks that way. Whatever you do when he gets here, don't let on that we know," said Joe, who pried uselessly at a desk drawer. "Frank, you still have your credit card?"

Frank handed it to Joe, who bent over and slipped it between a drawer and the desk frame. He wiggled the card until there was a loud click, and the center drawer popped open. With a look of triumph Joe passed the card back.

"Nothing," Joe said as he rifled the desk. The triumphant look faded. "Paper clips, a pen, blank paper." He found a manila file, took it out, and flipped through it. "Company financial records. Nothing out of the ordinary. From his desk you'd think this guy was squeaky clean."

He returned the file and shut the drawer. Keys, jingled on the other side of the door. Frank and Joe dove for the couches, and when Stuart Bates came in, they were waiting meekly in their seats.

"We try to run a safe tour here," Bates said in a flat voice as he sat behind his desk. "We can't have people running off on their own no matter how much fun it looks like." He gazed at them impersonally, and for all Frank or Joe could tell, Bates had never seen them before in his life. He had the relaxed, suntanned appearance of a typical Hollywood executive. "I am as much in favor of young people having a good time as anyone else," he said, "but there is simply no excuse for what you did. None."

"You're right," Frank began apologetically.

"Don't blame them," Callie interrupted. "They were saving me."

"From what?" Still the casual but fiat, distant tone.

"I was being threatened by a man wearing an eyepatch," Callie said, watching Bates's face. He sat back and gazed at her, almost blank-faced. "He wanted to kill me."

There was still no reaction from Bates. "I hope you're not making this up," he said. Then he shrugged. "I'll tell my men to watch out for such a man." His phone rang. Bates pardoned himself and answered it.

"What'd you say that for?" Frank whispered to Callie. "Did you see his face?" she whispered back. ; "He didn't know what I was talking about. He never heard of Patch." Frank frowned. "Or he's a good actor." Bates hung up the phone and stood up. "I have an appointment. You'll have to leave the lot immediately, and please don't come back." He opened the office door and signaled Callie and the Hardys out. In the outer office Bates told his ' secretary, "Call security and have them escorted off the lot." He went back into his office and closed the door. [ Frank looked down at the secretary's desk as he passed it. "Distract her for a second," he quietly told Callie.

"Excuse me," Callie asked the secretary,' 'but is there a — " She paused to glance at Frank and Joe in embarrassment, then leaned close to the secretary and said in hushed tones, "Could we go into the corner? I hate talking about this in front of boys."

The secretary stared at Callie in silence, then abruptly stood and walked to the corner. As her back turned, Frank reached down and slipped a small card and envelope off the desk and into his pocket. In the corner Callie giggled nervously. The secretary flashed her an impatient frown, then marched back to her desk, drew a key from a drawer, and handed it to Callie.

Callie vanished out the office door and returned just in time to meet the security guards, who ushered the three of them to the front gate of the studios. They waited in silence for a bus.

On the bus Callie said, "What was all that about?"

Frank produced the card and read it aloud. " 'You and a guest are invited to a party at the home of Mr. Stuart Bates.'"

"We're going to a party?" Joe said. "Great."

"Callie and I are going," Frank replied. "At least through the front door. You can get in any way you can."

"Frank, we can't go there," said Callie. "He'll recognize us."

"He'll have to see us first. We'll just stay out of his way," Frank explained. "I've got a hunch his house can tell us a lot if we push a little. Joe, do you still have the videotape?"

Joe pulled the cassette from under his shirt and handed it to Frank.

"We're probably barking up the wrong tree," Callie said. "I don't think Bates knew anything. He certainly didn't act guilty."

"Don't forget," said Joe, "nothing's what it looks like in that place. It's all smoke and illusion. Why should Bates be any different?"

"Besides," Frank said, "if Bates doesn't have any interest in us, what's that man doing here?"

, He jerked his head toward a man sitting across the aisle and several rows back. The man was short and blond, in his forties, reading a newspaper. He paid no attention to the Hardys. Callie stole a furtive glance. "I've never seen him before."

"He came out of the studio about the time we got on the bus," Frank said. "He rushed on at the last moment. I think Bates is having him follow us. That's why the security guards took so long to get to the office, to give this guy time to get after us."

"You could be wrong," Joe said. "He looks harmless enough."

"There's an easy way to find out," Frank said. He stood up, and Joe and Callie stood up with him. Together they moved to the front door of the bus. The short man folded his paper and casually moved to the back door. The bus stopped and the doors opened. Callie and the Hardys got off in front, and the man got off in back, but at the last moment, Frank, Joe, and Callie climbed back on. The bus pulled away, leaving the short man at the stop, angrily throwing his paper on the ground.

"That answers that question," Frank said as he sat down again. To Callie he said, "Can you 'duplicate tapes at UCLA?"

"Sure."

"Then that's where we're going," he said, smiling. "It's time to bait a trap for Mr. Stuart Bates."

"STOP!" FRANK SHOUTED through the door. "We'll do whatever you say."

Patch grinned and loosened his grip on Callie, then reached out and flipped the bolt on the doors. "Get in here," he ordered.

Frank and Joe cautiously stepped back into the hall. They looked around. Unfortunately, no one was in sight. "Here's the tape," Frank said, the cassette in his hand. "Let her go."

"Not yet," said Patch. He flagged them back into the lab and to a metal door at the rear of the lab. "Over there." Keeping a tight grip on Callie, he dragged her to the door as the Hardys followed.

"Inside," he said.

Joe opened the door and peered in. The room was filled with shelves, and on each shelf were dozens of round, flat metal boxes. A puff of cool air washed over him. "It's cold in there," he protested.

"In!" Patch demanded, and Joe entered. Frank stepped onto the threshold.

"You promised you wouldn't hurt her."

"Shut up," said Patch. Suddenly his hand snaked out, snatched the cassette from Frank, and shoved Callie into him, knocking them both into the room.

The door slammed shut. Frank and Joe rammed into it, but it wouldn't open.

"What is this place?" Joe wondered aloud.

"The film vault," Callie said. "It's an ongoing project of the school. They track down prints of rare films, restore them, and then make new prints and transfer them to video."

"I remember reading about this stuff," Frank said. He opened a box. Inside was a reel of browning film. "Old film is highly unstable. Something to do with the nitrates in it. Callie, when you say vault, exactly what do you mean?"

"I mean vault. Like in a bank. We're locked in here until someone opens it from outside."

"We're trapped?" Joe asked. He pounded a fist on the door and yelled, "If you can hear us, open up! Help! There are people in here!" "That won't do any good," Frank said, opening another film can. "No one could hear us. Meanwhile, there might be enough oxygen in here to last till morning. We can't take the chance, and I want to be at Bates's party tonight."

"I don't see that we have any choice," Callie said. "We're stuck here."

"No, we're not," Frank said, opening a third can. "Start going through these and tear off any excess film you can find. Leader footage, projector markers, that kind of thing."

"Great," said Joe. "At least we can stay busy while we're trapped."

"Have some faith," Frank replied. "This place is climate-controlled. I bet they wouldn't like a fire here."

Callie blanched. "I don't like the sound of this, Frank."

"It's simple," he said, tearing off a strip of film. "We burn the film scraps in a can top. There's got to be a fire alarm in a place like this. The fire alarm goes off, someone comes to put out the fire, and we get out."

"Yeah, simple," Joe said, dubious. "I guess it's worth a try."

For several minutes they went through the cans, breaking off whatever blank film they could find, until they had a can filled. "Only one problem," Joe said. "How do we start the fire?"

Frank grinned and turned to Callie. "Nail file."

Callie dug into her purse and brought out a small metal file. Quickly, Frank worked on the screws on the light switch next to the door, until the switch plate came free from the wall. He pulled the wiring from the switch and touched two wires together in the film can. The film burst into flames.

"I don't hear any alarm," Joe said.

Moments later Callie noticed a strange sensation. She realized the air in the room was rushing upward. "Frank! It feels like a vacuum cleaner's loose in here." Then she knew. "There's no alarm. They have a built-in vacuum that puts out fires by drawing all the oxygen out of the vault."

She gagged. "I can't breathe."

Callie sprawled against a shelf, and the Hardys collapsed against her.

This is it, Joe thought as he rolled over on the floor. I never thought it would end this way.

The struggle to breathe was so hard they didn't hear the door quietly click, and didn't realize it had opened until they felt the welcome rash of warm, fresh air. Greedily, they gulped oxygen until they were able to talk again.

"What happened?" Joe asked as they crawled out into the spacious, empty lab. The fire in the vault had gone out completely.

"It must be one of those fail-safe systems," said Frank. "In case anyone was trapped in there during a fire, they'd be able to get out as soon as the danger was over."

"I don't care how we got out," Callie said. "I'm just glad we did."

"You feel like doing some shopping?" Frank asked her.

"Shopping?" Joe and Callie said together, astonished.

"To get some nice clothes," Frank said. "We have a party to go to."

Bel Air lay north of UCLA and west of Beverly Hills. Among the wealthy in Los Angeles, it was the place to have a home. To enter Bel Air, cars had to pass through gates.

Stuart Bates's house was a mansion, a sprawling three stories high with more than two dozen rooms. To one side of the house was a swimming pool and tennis court, and to the other side a smaller pool.

The whole estate was nestled in woods at the north end of one of the canyon roads and was surrounded on three sides by a man-made stream that looked like a moat. It was a home fit for a king of Hollywood, and Stuart Bates, as head of Meteoric Studios, could certainly lay claim to the crown.

Only one bridge led over the stream. And at the entrance to the bridge a man built like a moose checked invitations. No one would get into the Bates party uninvited. Callie and the Hardys were dropped off by a cab and walked down the road, awed by the line of limousines waiting to get onto the grounds. \ Frank wore a tuxedo, and Callie had on a deep purple strapless evening dress with a gold sash ; around the waist. Joe was more casually dressed, in a tan suit and a tie.