Project Sweet Life (8 page)

“It’s a dungeon!” Curtis said, his voice suddenly sounding dull.

“No,” I said, remembering, unlike Curtis, to keep my voice
down
. “A prison. I read about this in
Trains and Totem Poles
. We must be under Old City Hall. This must be some prison annex they sealed off decades ago.”

But moving across the prison cavern, we came upon an impassable obstacle: a sinkhole in the middle of the floor. We aimed our flashlights down. The sinkhole was
maybe eight feet across and at least fifteen feet deep, with crumbling dirt walls that would be impossible to climb.

“How do we get across?” Victor asked.

Curtis poked the light of his flashlight into the bars on our right. The doors to the first and third cells had been pried off, and the bars between the cells had been bent apart. Basically, others had bypassed the pit by working their way through the cells.

“This way,” Curtis said, leading us into the first cell.

“Wait,” I said, spotting something in the corner. “There’s something in here.”

It was the remnants of something white and powdery, like chalk. Most of it had been crushed into powder, as if someone had stepped on it.

“What is it?” Victor said.

“Looks like plaster of Paris,” Curtis said.

“There are little drops of paint too,” I said. “Black and white and tan.”

“I guess some prisoner was doing an arts-and-crafts project, huh?” Curtis said.

“Not a prisoner,” Victor said. “It’s not nearly that old.”

“Let’s keep going,” I said.

Soon we left the prison behind, and the tunnel turned to dirt again.

We didn’t have a compass, but I was pretty sure we were heading north, burrowing right through a wooded hillside just above downtown. But suddenly the tunnel turned and ended in a rough rectangle of emerald light. Daylight spilled in through a thick curtain of hanging ivy.

I poked through the vegetation.

It was an exit from the China Tunnels—a hole dug in the wooded cliffside just north of downtown. It looked down onto the whizzing cars of Schuster Parkway, a concrete expressway built in the seventies, then to the train tracks below the road and a rocky beach below that. According to
Trains and Totem Poles
, the old Chinatown had been located just above that beach. If the Chinese really had dug these tunnels and used them for smuggling, it made sense that they’d have made an opening near their settlement.

“We need to go back,” Curtis said.

“Back where?” I said. I was starting to feel a little claustrophobic, even if I wasn’t about to mention this to Curtis and Victor.

“The Tacoma Municipal Building,” Victor said. This was the current city hall building up above the Spanish Steps, where the local government had relocated to when they’d moved out of Old City Hall. “That’s where the City Council has their offices, so maybe Councilman Haft came in and out of the tunnels through the basement. I say we head in that direction.”

So back we went. But knowing the general direction we wanted to go wasn’t the same as actually going in that direction. The tunnels, apparently created without thought or design, went where they went; our only choice was whether or not to follow. At one point, we passed under a set of purple sidewalk lights—maybe the same ones we’d peered down into in front of Meconi’s Pub. Right then, it occurred to me that we weren’t mapping as we went or leaving a trail to go back the way we had come. But it wasn’t possible to get lost in the tunnels underneath a city—was it?

“Holy Labyrinthica, patron saint of brainteasers,” Victor mumbled. “We could wander forever down here.”

Right then, I happened to point my flashlight into a small alcove just off the main tunnel, and the glint of gold reflected back at me.

It wasn’t just a valise of gold coins hidden on a shelf somewhere. It was a whole treasure
chamber
containing two big wooden chests spilling forth with shiny gold coins, strings of pearls, and jeweled necklaces—even a gold crown glittering with rubies and emeralds.

Needless to say, we were struck speechless. A lavish treasure was the last thing we had expected to find—especially one that looked like it had been arranged for a ride at Disneyland.

“What
is
this?” Victor said at last. “This can’t be the Labash coins.”

“Eu-flippin’-reka!” Curtis said. “We struck it
rich
! It’s hidden treasure from Tacoma’s early history! Pirates’ plunder! Or a smuggler’s loot that was stored here, then forgotten!”

Victor shook his head. “Looking this perfect? Right out in the open like this? And completely untouched for all these years? Remember, according to those articles at the library, a lot of people have been down here over the years.”

“Yeah, well, somehow it happened!” Curtis said. “Because it’s right
there
!”

What Victor had said made sense, but what Curtis was saying made even
more
sense, mostly because I wanted it to.

“But there’s not even any
dust
,” Victor said.

Victor definitely had a point. This treasure
shimmered
. What treasure would shimmer after being abandoned for a hundred years?

Victor stepped into the alcove and right up to one of the chests. He picked up a coin and examined it.

“Well?” I said.

Then he did something that made no sense whatsoever. He peeled the coin like the surface was made of foil and bit into something dark inside.

“Victor!”
I said. “What do you think you’re—?”

“Guys?” he said. “It’s a chocolate coin. It’s not real.”

A chocolate coin?

The treasure wasn’t real. The “coins” were all made of chocolate. And the crowns and jewels were probably plastic. Was that what that plaster and paint had been used for back in the prison underneath Old City Hall, to make fake treasure? But none of this looked like it was made out of plaster of Paris.

“Okay,” Curtis said, “now I’m
really
confused. Would
someone please explain to me what is going on?”

“Kill ’em!” said a voice that echoed in from the main corridor. “Stick a knife in ’em and let ’em die!”

“That treasure is mine, I tell ya!” said another voice.
“Mine!”

Even in the wan light of our flashlights, I watched the color drain from the faces of Curtis and Victor.

“Who?” I whispered.

“I don’t know,” Curtis whispered back. “But let’s get out of here.”

We hurried out into the main tunnel and back the way we had come. But almost immediately we arrived at an intersection.

“Which way did we come?” I said.

“That way!” Curtis and Victor said simultaneously, each pointing in a different direction. As for me, I would have guessed the third direction.

“We won’t kill ’em just yet!” said one of the voices. “We’ll round ’em up and make ’em talk!” The strange acoustics of the tunnels made it impossible to know from which of the four directions it was coming from.

“This way!” I said, making a decision and starting forward.

Almost immediately, we rounded a corner. At the far end of the corridor, a torch flickered, and in the light of that torch, I caught a glimpse of ruffled shirts, heads wrapped in bandannas, even what looked like a wooden peg leg. They almost looked like
pirates
.

Only one out of four chances that we’d pick the wrong way—and I’d picked it!

I immediately lurched backward, slamming into Curtis and Victor, who were following right behind. “Wrong way,” I whispered.

I was pretty sure that whoever I’d seen hadn’t seen me.

But
pirates
? Underneath downtown Tacoma? What was
that
about? Were they ghosts of the actual pirates who had left that treasure? But the “treasure” hadn’t turned out to be treasure at all—just plastic and chocolate!

“Darn it!” muttered one of the voices behind us. “I missed my saving throw.”

Curtis, Victor, and I ran back the way we’d come, past the treasure chamber and down an unfamiliar tunnel, turning blindly, then turning again. Our feeble flashlights barely reached ten feet ahead. It occurred to me that we could run straight into another sinkhole, but we were
too frightened to slow down. At some point, I think we even went through an actual door.

Wait
, I thought.
What was that about a “saving throw”?

When the voices rumbled again, they were noticeably quieter than before. They definitely hadn’t seen me, and they hadn’t followed us, despite the clamor we’d made running through the tunnels.

When I finally took note of our surroundings, I realized that we weren’t in the China Tunnels anymore. At some point, we had stepped into the basement of one of the downtown buildings, through a door that had been left open—a door that allowed access to the tunnels. Unlike the China Tunnels, the basement wasn’t musty or dark; it was clean, paneled, and carpeted, with track lighting and plush furniture.

It was also full of treasure—but treasure of a different kind. On one wall, I saw two mounted staffs that I recognized as the ones wielded by the wizards Gandalf and Saruman in the
Lord of the Rings
movies; they had even been signed by Ian McKellen and Christopher Lee, the two actors who had played those characters. A nearby lighted glass case held clay miniatures from classic adventure movies like
Jason and the Argonauts
and
The
Golden Voyage of Sinbad
. In one corner, I even recognized the regeneration chamber of Seven of Nine from
Star Trek: Voyager
.

In other words, the room was full of
geek
treasures.

“Wait,” I said. I tried to take in all the things around us. Then I glanced back in the direction of the pirates. “Something’s going on down here.”

“Well, then please explain it to me!” Curtis said.

“Don’t you see?” I said. “Those aren’t real pirates. They’re people play-acting.
Role-playing.
They weren’t chasing us at all.”

“Holy Harryhausen!” Victor said suddenly. “The Dungeon Door!”

“I still don’t—” But then Curtis clued in too.

We were standing in the basement of the Dungeon Door, the downtown gamers’ store. Its owners had somehow found an access point to the China Tunnels. Maybe they’d rented the building knowing the entry to the tunnels was there. Or maybe they’d only discovered it after moving in. Either way, they were now taking full advantage by using the China Tunnels for real-life gaming. They’d even painted the access door so that it looked like a dungeon door, with wooden slats and a
runelike inscription above it—
SPEAK FRIEND AND ENTER
, a reference from
The Lord of the Rings
.

What was all this? Some kind of exclusive gaming club where you had to pay a huge amount of money to get in? Or maybe they were just using the tunnels among themselves and their friends.

Suddenly I had a thought: Was
this
why they had chased us away those times we’d gone in to play—not because they didn’t want teenagers, but because they didn’t want any kids in the tunnels?

“Oh, no,” Curtis said, pointing.

Hanging on one of the walls was a set of coins behind a polished wood frame.

Gold coins—
real
gold this time. Spanish doubloons, it looked like.

“The Labash coins!” Curtis said. He looked at me. “Dave, you were right—they
were
hidden in the China Tunnels! But the owners of the Dungeon Door already found them. It looks like there might have once been a real pirates’ plunder after all.”

“Hold
on
,” Victor said. “We don’t
know
these are the Labash coins.”

“What else could they be?” Curtis said. “I mean,
it makes sense they’d find ’em if they’ve been down here gaming all this time.”

Part of me agreed with Victor: We had no proof that these were the Labash coins. Curtis was totally jumping to conclusions again. But another part of me wanted to agree with Curtis anyway, especially since he was giving me so much credit for being right.

“And even if these
are
the coins,” Victor said, “they don’t do us much good. I mean, we can’t steal them.”

Victor was definitely right about this. We’d agreed Project Sweet Life wouldn’t break any laws. Plus, it didn’t seem very nice. After all, they’d found the coins fair and square.

Suddenly a voice called down from the top of a set of stairs. “You guys done already?” it said. “Seems like you just went down.”

Curtis, Victor, and I hightailed it back into the tunnels and over to the exit in Fireman’s Park.

Victor still wasn’t convinced those were the actual Labash coins. So we went back the next day and searched more of the China Tunnels.

We saw some interesting stuff, but we didn’t find any
more coins. And truthfully? Those tunnels looked like they’d been pretty well traveled. It made total sense that someone would have found the coins by now, at least if they were hidden anywhere obvious. In the end, even Victor agreed those Spanish doubloons on the wall must have been the Labash coins.

“So what do we do about the Dungeon Door?” I said that afternoon as we rode our bikes home. “What they’re doing can’t be legal. Do we turn them in?”

“Nah,” Curtis said. “That’s bad karma. If we turn ’em in, I’m sure the city’ll just close off the tunnels for good, and what good is that? You gotta admit, they’d be an excellent place to game in. Plus, if we tell other people, it’s only a matter of time until some stupid kid finds out about them and comes down here to explore and then falls into a sinkhole somewhere.”