Read Running on Empty Online

Authors: Franklin W. Dixon

Running on Empty (3 page)

BOOK: Running on Empty
13.96Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Frank tried to look unnerved. He crossed his arms and sighed.

"My brother and me have a sweet little thing going in Bayport. Plenty of rich kids driving expensive cars. The pickings are easy. The only problem is that we've had a hard time moving cars. No one wants to take a chance on buying a hot car in one piece."

"I still haven't heard anything to interest me enough to keep me from plugging you and your brother," Smith said.

Snake let loose with a loud cackle that echoed throughout the warehouse.

Joe curled one end of his lip and growled. Snake coughed and moved behind Smith.

Frank ignored the two. "Here's the deal. We can bring in more bread by chopping our cars. The problem is we don't have the funds to start our own shop - "

"So you want to use my little business here," Smith interrupted.

"Exactly. We boost the cars from those Bayport brats, chop 'em here, and split the proceeds."

"And what do you figure would be a fair split?"

"Seventy-thirty."

Smith laughed loud and hard.

"What circus did you two clowns escape from?" He shook his head. "No way. I've got the shop, I got the equipment, I got my man Snake here who can boost any car, and I got it easy. Why should I take on two punks who just waltzed in off the street?"

"Because you're not a fool," Joe spoke up. "What my brother and me are offering you is too good to pass up, and you know it. Snake may be a good thief, but he's two cylinders short of full power. It won't be long until the Bayport police catch him and your little operation goes up - kaboom!" Joe made an exploding gesture with his hands.

"We know every little street and alley and escape route in Bayport," Frank added.

Smith sat silently, clutching and unclutching the .45 with nervous agitation. His expression was blank. Frank and Joe weren't sure what his reaction would be.

"You've got a point," he said after several tense moments. Smith stood, thrusting the .45 into his waistband. "Before we finalize this deal, you two have to pass a little test."

Frank smiled. "Name it," he said with confidence.

"Let's see how good you are. Joey here can stay and keep me and Snake company while you find a nice little expensive car to boost. Bring it back here without getting caught, and we'll see about finalizing the deal."

"That's all?" Frank asked.

"No. If you're not back here in fifteen minutes, I'll assume you got caught or can't do the job and Joey here - well, let's not think about that."

"I'm not going to be a hostage," Joe said angrily.

"Did I say anything about a hostage? You're just a little insurance to make sure your brother doesn't blow it." Smith tossed a small plastic black box to Frank. "Garage door opener," he explained. He glanced at his watch. "Now you've got fourteen minutes and twenty seconds."

"See you in ten," Frank smirked as he strutted through the door.

Once outside, Frank quickly walked several blocks and then hailed a taxi. Two minutes later, he stepped from the taxi into the high-priced restaurant district of Southport, the parking lots bulging with expensive cars ranging from Cadillacs to Sterlings.

Frank knew the type of car that would best impress a chopper like Smith - a high-profile speedy sports car with high resale parts.

He casually crossed the street and entered a parking lot from the shadowy side of the restaurant, away from the parking valet who stood out in front of the driveway.

He strolled up to a midnight blue Porsche, using his peripheral vision to keep track of the valet and anybody else who might see him.

In a few seconds he was sitting in the Porsche's red leather front seat, its engine rumbling to life. He kept the lights off so as not to attract the valet's attention and slowly pulled the car out of its parking space. He guided the car toward the rear of the parking lot, away from the valet and traffic of the restaurant.

He let the car hop the curb and then gently accelerated forward. The last thing he wanted was to attract attention. This was no time to be stopped by the cops.

Suddenly the bright red and blue lights of a police cruiser filled the Porsche's small compartment. The ghostly cry of a police siren pierced the air.

Frank glanced at the speedometer to make sure he wasn't speeding. The dash was dark.

The lights! He had been so intent on going unnoticed that he had forgotten to turn on the lights once he had hit the brightly lit street.

He pulled on the light switch and mashed the accelerator to the floor. The Porsche jumped forward, and the rear wheels screamed as raw horsepower was unleashed.

In the rear-view mirror, Frank could see the cruiser lurch forward, nudging closer to the Porsche. He shoved the gears into high and the smaller, swifter car soon outdistanced the police cruiser.

He pulled into an alley, and a second later slipped out onto a parallel street. He headed for the garage and was relieved to hear the police siren moving farther and farther away from him.

***

Joe sat on a rusty oil drum, avoiding the hard eye Smith was giving him. They said little to each other since Frank had left. Snake had whined, and Smith had ordered him to move a stack of tires to the other side of the garage.

Joe jumped as the warehouse suddenly echoed with a loud grating sound as the garage door began to rise. It had risen only four feet when a midnight blue Porsche burst through the narrow opening and screeched to a halt. Immediately, the garage door began to close again.

Frank jumped from the front seat, beaming with a big grin. He looked at his watch.

"Ten minutes and fifteen seconds exactly," he announced. He tossed the remote control to Smith.

Smith whistled. "Not a bad haul on such short notice." He paced around the Porsche. "I'm impressed, Frankie."

"You okay?" Frank asked Joe.

"Yeah. Just a little stiff," Joe replied. "We had a swell time." Noticing that Smith was distracted by the Porsche, Joe leaned closer to Frank and whispered, "You found it where Uncle Ed said it would be?"

Frank nodded and winked. They had anticipated that Smith would want some proof that he and Joe were honest-to-goodness car thieves, and what better way to prove this than to "steal" a car. Uncle Ed had willingly given up one of his finer cars in the hope that Chet would be found.

"You two staying somewhere?" Smith asked as he joined them.

"Yeah. The Southport Motor Inn," Frank replied.

"Good." He handed Frank another small black plastic box. "Here's a beeper. I'll call when I want you and Joey to make another hit."

"I thought we passed the test," Frank protested.

"One test does not a partnership make. After all, I don't know if Joey knows the difference between a clutch and a steering wheel. But you, Frankie, are aces as far as I'm concerned."

"Okay," Frank said reluctantly. "Just one thing before we leave."

"What?"

"Don't call us Frankie and Joey again. Call us Frank and Joe or just call us Davis."

Smith's high-pitched roar of laughter echoed off the brick walls of the warehouse.

***

Half an hour later Frank and Joe "Davis" lumbered toward their second-floor room at the Southport Motor Inn. They were tired and worried. They had gained a foothold in Smith's operation, but they weren't any closer to finding Chet.

Frank unlocked the door and pushed his way into the darkness. Joe flipped on the light.

Then they froze.

A man sat in a chair across the room from the door. In one hand he held an open wallet. In the other he held a .357 magnum, its single barrel staring at Frank and Joe in deadly anticipation.

"Welcome home, Frank and Joe Davis. Or should I say Hardy? Whatever you two yahoos call yourselves, you're under arrest!"

Chapter 5

"What are the charges, Detective?" Frank asked, taking in the gold shield gleaming from the man's open wallet.

The detective stood and put his wallet inside his jacket. He held up his hand and began counting. "Auto theft. Interfering with a police investigation. Using a false name to register at a motel." The detective snorted a laugh.

"Not funny," Frank said.

"It's a riot from where I'm standing."

Joe studied the short and balding detective with the puffy eyes and massive bulldog jaw. Not only did the man have bad manners, but his clothing looked like Salvation Army rejects - matching dark green polyester jacket and slacks, a food-stained paisley print blue tie, and an orange double knit shirt. His walrus mustache held the crumbs of what had probably been his dinner.

"Just who are you?" Joe asked.

The man straightened up, a hard look crossing his face. "I'm Detective-Sergeant Terry Cronkite, head of Southport's Auto Theft Division."

"So? What do you want with us?" Joe asked.

Cronkite shifted his cold, hard stare to Joe. "I'll tell you what I want from you, wise guy. I want you out of Southport in the next fifteen minutes or I'm booking you into our finest accommodations."

"How did you know our names and where we were?" Frank asked.

"I get a call last Saturday from Ed Brooke wanting to file a stolen car report. So, I file it. I return this afternoon for more information, and I find Mr. Brooke climbing the walls with worry because his nephew tried to play cop," Cronkite said. He put his pistol in its shoulder holster. "I trust you two won't do anything foolish."

"Just finish your story," Joe said.

Cronkite shrugged. "Anyway, I finally get Mr. Brooke calmed down, and he not only tells me that he thinks this nephew of his - a, uh, Chet Morgan - "

"Morton," Joe said through clenched teeth.

"And he's not his real nephew. Mr. Brooke is an old family friend."

"Yeah. Right." Cronkite took a stick of gum from his pocket, unwrapped it, and put it in his mouth. "Not only is this Morton kid missing, to make matters worse, you two yahoos talk Mr. Brooke into letting you 'pretend' to steal a car for the very people who may have kidnapped Morton!"

Cronkite rubbed the back of his neck and sighed. He looked from Frank to Joe.

"And you know what happened to that thirty-five-thousand-dollar car you so politely delivered to Smith and that numbskull assistant of his? They chopped it!" He blew and popped a small bubble.

"Real comedian, aren't you?" Joe said.

Cronkite's face turned crimson.

"Listen, punk. The only reason you and your brother aren't in jail now is because Brooke is a friend of mine and he's worried sick about his nephew. He doesn't need any junior detectives from Bayport botching up my case."

"We're not 'junior detectives,' Detective," Frank insisted. "We want to find Chet as much if not more than you do. He's our best friend. We've known him all our lives."

Cronkite's breathing was hard. He continued to stare at Joe, who glared back at him. He glanced at Frank, then returned to Joe. He pulled on his mustache.

"Yeah. That's what Brooke said."

Frank was relieved to see some calm return to Cronkite's face.

"I'm sure you two don't mean any real harm," Cronkite continued, "but this is out of your league. We're talking major serious here."

"We know that. We wanted Uncle Ed, uh, Mr. Brooke, to call the police, but he was afraid that Smith would harm Chet if the police were involved. We were going to contact you in the morning."

"We can help you on this one, Detective," Joe added.

"Uh - uh, no way," Cronkite asserted with a wave of his hand. "That's all I need in my file, that I let a couple of crazy kids from Bayport assist in a police investigation."

"We're not kids," Joe said.

"You know Officer Con Riley in Bayport?" Frank asked.

"Con? Sure. What about him?"

"Call him. He'll square with you that Joe and I are legit, that we know what we're doing."

"Didn't you two hear me? You're not a part of this case, you're through. Period."

"Then arrest us," Joe insisted.

"What?"

Joe stood directly in front of Cronkite. "The way I see it, you're going to have to either arrest us or let us help in some way. We're not returning to Bayport without our friend."

A heavy burden seemed to weigh on Cronkite's shoulders. He sighed, then threw his hands into the air.

"All right. I'll phone Con. But that doesn't mean I'm going to open the doors and welcome you yahoos with outstretched arms. I ought to call your bluff and let you spend some time in a Southport holding cell with the other derelicts."

Cronkite shook his head and reached for the phone.

Frank motioned Joe over to the opposite side of the room while Cronkite made his call.

"We've got to convince him that he can't do without us," Frank whispered to Joe.

"Got any ideas?"

"Yes," Frank answered.

Minutes later, Cronkite hung up the phone.

"You boys have quite a rep for putting bad guys away. I'm impressed."

"Good," Joe said, excited. "What do you want us to do?"

"Whoa, cowboy! I didn't say I wanted you two to do anything," Cronkite said, his hands raised. "I just said I was impressed. You may have Con convinced that you're a pair of heroes, but to me you're still two kids interfering in a police investigation."

"Why haven't you busted Smith's operation before now?" Frank asked. "You obviously know he's chopping cars."

"Smith is just the icing. We want the whole cake - the fencer, the guy who's actually moving the parts. So far we haven't been able to get anyone undercover to find out who that is."

Frank rubbed his chin. He looked at Joe, winked, and smiled, then back at Cronkite.

Innocently, he asked, "You mean that in several months of investigation by the South port Auto Theft Division you haven't been able to accomplish what two junior detectives from Bayport did in a couple of hours?"

Cronkite's bulldog jaw dropped. "I - I - I ... "

Frank could tell Joe was stifling a laugh, and he, too, had to control himself.

"How much longer is it going to take before you get someone on the inside as deep as Joe and I are right now? But that isn't our concern, is it, Joe?" Following Frank's lead, Joe shook his head. "Joe and I have to get back to Bayport, tell Officer Riley how his old buddy passed up an opportunity to shut down one of the biggest chop shop operations in the area. Let's split, Joe."

BOOK: Running on Empty
13.96Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

Foolish Games by Tracy Solheim
Three's a Crowd by Sophie McKenzie
The Trainmasters by Jesse Taylor Croft
Between Two Thorns by Emma Newman
Ransom by Julie Garwood