The Extraordinary Adventures of Alfred Kropp (6 page)

“If it's anywhere in this place,” he breathed, “it would be in there. Hold the light, Al.”

I shone the flashlight on Uncle Farrell's key ring as his shaking fingers searched for the right key. I tried to check my watch, but it was too dark and Uncle Farrell needed the light.

He found a key he thought was the right one, but it wasn't. He cursed and started over.

He tried another key. This one slid right in and we stepped into Mr. Samson's inner office. There was a massive desk facing the door, a leather sofa along the wall beside it, and bookcases lining three sides of the room. The place was huge, about twice the size of Uncle Farrell's apartment. Against the far wall, to the left of the desk, was another door.

“Okay,” Farrell said. “Where would it be?”

I thought about it. “Well, it's a sword, and it must be pretty big. He can't just hide it anywhere.”

“Maybe those bookcases open to a secret chamber or somethin',” Uncle Farrell said. “Saw that on
Scooby-Doo
.”

“You watch
Scooby-Doo
?”

“When I was a kid. Al, that show's been around forever.”

“If this was
Scooby-Doo
, you'd be the bad guy,” I said. “The bad guy was always the janitor or the night watchman.”

“What a relief it is, Al, that it's not.”

The far wall was one big window, all glass, commanding a view of the downtown below. Just enough light came through that Uncle Farrell could switch off the flashlight and still see. He went to the other door and disappeared inside. I heard him gasp. “Jeez Louise!” He stepped back into the room.

“Bathroom. I think the faucet's made of solid gold.”

I looked at my watch. “Nine minutes into the window. We got to hurry.”

I didn't know where to look in the big, sparse office. All I could see were bookcases, filled mostly with knickknacks and pictures, a potted palm tree, a sofa, a coffee table, the desk and chair, and that was about it. I pulled on a drawer handle in the desk, but it was locked. Of course, he couldn't fit a full-length sword into a desk drawer. Maybe Uncle Farrell was right, and we should look for a secret hiding place somewhere. Maybe a safe behind that big watercolor over the sofa. You saw that all the time in the movies. Uncle Farrell stood by the door leading to the reception area, his cool completely gone.

“Why are you just standing there?” Uncle Farrell snapped at me.

“I don't know where to look,” I admitted. “Maybe Mr. Myers was wrong. Maybe it isn't here.”

“It's here,” he insisted.

“How do you know?”

“I don't know. I just know.”

“You don't know but you just know?”

“Shut up, Alfred. I'm trying to think.”

I sat down in Mr. Samson's leather chair. I had never sat in a more comfortable chair in my whole life. It felt like the chair was hugging me. I wondered how much a chair like this cost.

“What are you doing now?”

“I'm thinking,” I said.

“Alfred, we don't got that kinda time.”

Bernard Samson kept a clean desk. His blotter was bare. On one corner sat a framed photograph of a man with a big white dog that looked like a cross between a wolf and a Saint Bernard. I wondered if the man was Mr. Samson—maybe he got that kind of dog because his name was Bernard too. Other than the picture, there was a penholder and a nameplate, in case somebody forgot when they walked in who was sitting in the big fat hugging chair. I looked at the picture again. The man was broad-shouldered, with a large head and a mass of golden brown hair that he wore swept back from his high forehead, like a lion's mane.

I lifted the blotter an inch or two, which isn't an easy thing to do when you're wearing Playtex rubber gloves; sometimes guys hid things under their blotters.

“Uncle Farrell, if you had a priceless sword, where would you hide it?”

“In my priceless patooty.” He peeked into the other office, as if he was waiting for the cops to storm in any second. Uncle Farrell had gone twitchy all over.

“Maybe it's behind that picture over the sofa,” I said.

“ ‘Maybe it's behind that picture over the sofa,' ” he mocked me, but he kneeled on the center cushion and gingerly lifted the bottom of the frame. I knew the answer before he said it.

“Nothing.” He flopped onto the sofa and rubbed his forehead.

I pulled the chair closer to the desk and rested my elbows on the blotter.

“I don't think it's here,” I said.

“Shut up. I'm trying to think, Al.”

“Or maybe it was here and Mr. Samson moved it.”

“Why would he move it?”

“Maybe somebody told him what Mr. Myers was up to.”

“Maybe, maybe, maybe,” Uncle Farrell said. “If maybes were pickles we could have a picnic.”

“Maybe he's too smart for us,” I said, meaning Mr. Samson.

“Smart?” Uncle Farrell raised his head and glared at me from across the room.

“What did I tell you about that?” he asked. “Being smart doesn't matter as much as people think. You want to know what matters more than smarts? Stubbornness. Stubbornness and
energy
, Alfred.
That's
what gets you ahead in this world.”

He dropped to his knees and shone his flashlight under the sofa. I looked at my watch. The terminal window had passed.

“Uncle Farrell, we have to go.”

“I'm not going.”

“We're going to get caught.”

“I'm not walking out on half a million dollars!”

I pushed myself up, and somehow my belt buckle caught under the edge of the desk. It got stuck there, so when I stood, it pulled up, and the top of the desk hitched about half an inch. My buckle slipped free and the desktop smacked back down.

From across the room, Uncle Farrell was still on his knees, staring at me. “Well, I'll be jiggered,” he whispered.

6

“It's heavy,” I told him. “Take that side.” I had cleared everything off, putting it all on the bookshelves behind me.

“Jeez Louise, I guess it is heavy.” He puffed out his cheeks as we lifted. “Quick now, Alfred. I got to get downstairs to meet the cops. You stay up here till they're gone.”

That made me nervous. I didn't want to be alone in the dark, but I couldn't think of any way around it.

The desktop was hinged on the front side, like the lid to the biggest music box ever made. Uncle Farrell took a deep breath as we both leaned over to peer inside.

“Holy nut-buckets!” he breathed. “Wouldn't you know?”

Inside the hidden cavity was a silver keyboard, like the pad of an ATM or calculator, built into the desk itself.

“There's a code,” I said. “You punch in a code and that opens something.”

“What's the code?” he asked. He looked like he was about to cry.

“I don't know,” I answered.

“Well, of course you don't know, Alfred! I wasn't asking the question because I thought you knew!” He looked at his watch and chewed on his big bottom lip.

“Okay, Al, this is okay,” he said in that false-positive tone adults sometimes take with kids. “I'll get on downstairs to meet the cops and you stay up here.”

“Stay up here and what?”

“Break the code.”

He gave me an encouraging pat on the back and headed for the door.

“Uncle Farrell!” I called after him, but he ignored me. I heard the elevator bell go
ding,
and then there was the loudest silence I had ever heard.

I stared at the pad. The PIN was probably Mr. Samson's birthday, or the year he founded the company, or maybe just some random number that had nothing to do with anything. Since I didn't know any of those numbers, I just started punching digits at random. Nothing happened, and it occurred to me I could punch numbers from now until doomsday and nothing might work.

I gave up, lowered myself back into the chair, and looked at my watch. What if the cops demanded to see the suite and he was leading them up here right now? Part of the plan should have included walkie-talkies.

Being nervous and bored at the same time is an odd combination; I couldn't sit still, so I leaned forward and peered into the interior of the secret compartment. A little voice inside my head whispered “
telephone
,” then whispered it again, “
telephone
,” and I wondered why my little voice was whispering “
telephone
” like that.

Then it hit me. “Letters,” I whispered.

Mr. Samson's phone sat on the floor beside the desk. I picked it up and set it on my lap. Like most phones, each key had three letters that corresponded to each number, like ABC was the number 2.

So I started punching in some numbers.

7-2-6-7-6-6 = SAMSON. Nothing. 2-3-7-6-2-7-3 = BERNARD. Nothing. What was the name of the dog in the picture? I punched in 9-6-5-3 (WOLF) on a hunch.

Nothing happened.

I sighed and looked at my watch. Uncle Farrell had been gone for five minutes. He had said being smart didn't matter so much, but right then it sure would have helped. More out of desperation than anything else, I punched in the first thing that popped into my head: 2-5-3-7-3-3.

From beneath my feet came a whining sound, like a motor revving up, and the floor began to shake. I pushed back from the desk with a little yelp as the desk itself began to rise, like an invisible magician was levitating it.

A huge silver metal pole rose slowly from the carpeting, until the top of the desk was about two inches from the ceiling.

The pole had an opening on the side facing me, and inside the hollow space, hung on two silver spikes, blade facing down, was the sword.

I had brought the picture, just to make sure I got the right sword, but I didn't need the picture to know this was the one. In the bluish glow from the city lights outside the window, it seemed to shimmer, like the surface of a lake on a cloudy day.

I took a deep breath and grasped the sword handle. It practically flew out of the column; I didn't expect it to feel so light. I thought it would weigh a ton, but it felt no heavier than a ballpoint pen. It sounds funny, but right away it felt like a part of me, a five-foot extension of my right arm. Grinning like a kid playing pirate, I swung it around a few times. It hissed as it cut the empty air. I held it up to the streetlights, turning it so the ambient light glittered off the edges.

I ran my left thumb along the blade. Immediately, a thin line of blood began to seep out of the wound. I hadn't even felt it. The blood brought me to my senses, though. I stuffed the sword into the duffel bag. Then I stuck my thumb in my mouth: I didn't want to drip my DNA all over Mr. Samson's office during my getaway.

I trotted to the door and stopped—what if the cops demanded to see Mr. Samson's office for some reason? Should I hide somewhere till Uncle Farrell came back up? I hesitated in the doorway, hugging the duffel against my chest while I sucked nervously on my thumb, the taste of blood in my mouth. I didn't know how to lower the desk, so I left it and stepped out into the hallway.