Once everyone was safely
out of the subway, Frank didn’t waste any time radioing Zach their
location. “Get over here on the double,”
he told his friend. “Then, we’re off to
the police station.”
In a town with few
streetlights, Zach showed up in a minute, and in the same amount of time, the
seven showed up at the police station.
There, they burst in and told the bewildered officers their story. Anadarko’s police force seemed skeptical at
first, but a call to their Oklahoma City counterparts quickly confirmed the
kids’ story. One of the older officers,
whose nameplate identified him as Duensing, grew quite excited upon hearing the
news.
“I used to work for Boeing
in the ‘70s,” he explained. “I know
those tunnels like the back of my hand,” and he quickly wrote out a list of all
the exits. In additions to the ones at
the stations, the ones at the yard, and the crash simulation exit, there were a
few others the Andersons hadn’t heard about.
Anadarko didn’t have a lot of crime problems, and Chief Bryant soon had
every traffic cop in town on the case—as well as the Caddo County Sheriff’s
Office and whatever Oklahoma State Highway Patrolmen happened to be in the
area.
Once the group was
assembled, Duensing helped the officers map out a plan, which was promptly put
into effect. Each entrance to the base
was covered. Then, no effort was made to
go in after the men. Instead, the tunnels
were filled with tear gas—not a deadly amount, but enough to make anyone down
below mighty uncomfortable.
Struggling to see,
desperate to escape, most of the criminals surrendered right away. The lone holdout was Garrett, and after
several minutes of waiting, a few of the officers donned gas masks and went in
after him. They found him lying on the
platform of the Broadway and 1st Street station, gasping for
breath. The gas was only part of his
problem—he was choking with rage at his helplessness.
“What happened?” he finally
barked, after the officers had dragged him out of the tunnel. “Where did I make a mistake?”
“When you stole your first
car,” Frank replied. “From then on, the
law was against you—and they weren’t going to stop searching until they’d had
you trapped, like they do now.”
Garrett’s only response was
a glare as he was unceremoniously dumped in the back of one of the Anadarko cop
cars.
“No air conditioning,”
laughed the officer, as he got inside, “but we’ll have that fixed next
week. Maybe when they take you to
McAlester, it’ll be a little more comfortable, Garrett!”
Naturally, the Andersons
and their friends had to stick around and answer a lot of questions for the
police. By the time they got back to
Norman, it was very late, and all any of them wanted to do was sleep. The next day, though, they all met for lunch
at the Braum’s on Porter Avenue, where Frank succeeded in snagging the corner
booth. Everyone showed up, including
Brittany and Auburn, who weren’t going back to Blackwell until later.
“Dad called from work this
morning,” Frank said, as he gleefully licked his cookies and cream ice cream
cone. “He said they’ve recovered most of
the cars. They all look a little
different now, but only a few have actually been sold, and they’ve got a record
of each. The police also have found all
the other car dealerships the stolen automobiles were taken to.”
“I’m just glad you got
Stephanie back,” Ashley said, giving her older sister a hug. “I missed you terribly,” she told her.
“I still can’t believe you
didn’t realize Brittany had been kidnapped when you went and checked out the
subway stop!” Nancy told the older girl.
Stephanie laughed. “Well, I learned it soon enough—but it didn’t
do me any good at the time. Thank you
all so much for rescuing me.”
“What are they going to do
with that subway, now that the car thieves have been rooted out?” Auburn asked.
Frank shrugged. “I don’t suppose they know yet. What they should do, though, is turn it into
a trolley/subway museum. It would be perfect
for that.”
“You mean like they have in
El Reno?” Nancy asked.
“Sort of,” her brother
responded, “except that one’s not underground.
This one’s already got its own route, its own stations—even six
vehicles—”
“Five of which are in
running order,” pointed out Ashley.
“That sixth one got a little smashed up—”
“At least it passed its
crash test, though,” Nancy said. “When
it mattered.”
“Actually, it didn’t,” said
Frank. “I overheard Duensing talking
about it to one of the other cops. He
said the front of the cab caved in a little too much—”
“Who cares how much it
caved in?!” Nancy exclaimed. “Once
Ashley and I got untied, we moved deep enough into the coach that we came out
of it with just a couple scratches. As
far as we’re concerned, it passed!”
“Your support is
heartwarming but not convincing enough for the Department of Transportation,”
said Frank. “I’m glad you enjoyed your
ride, though.”
“Enjoyed it?!” Nancy was
indignant. “That was one of the scariest
moments of my life!”
“The scariest?” Auburn
asked.
Nancy shrugged. “I don’t know—I’ve had a lot of them ever
since I started solving cases. If I
didn’t have God protecting me, I’d have had a nervous breakdown long ago.”
“You still might,” said
Frank, mischievously. He ducked a napkin
thrown his way.
Auburn changed the
subject. “You know what else they should
make a museum?” she said. “Rudolph’s
Auto Shop. Well, maybe not make it a museum,
but that guy’s art deserves to be displayed—”
“I’m way ahead of you on
that,” Frank told her. “One of the
reporters for Fox 25 goes to our church—Nancy and I are pretty good friends
with her—”
“Oh, Mrs. Saunders,” said
Stephanie. “Yes, I know who you’re
talking about!”
“Yes, well this morning,
before we came over here, I gave her a call and told her about Krause. She’s planning to go visit him and do a
special interest story on his art. I don’t
know exactly what will happen after that, but that should drum up demand for
his creations at least.”
“Oh, I’m so happy for him,”
Ashley said. “Those were pretty
good. He deserves a reward. Oh, and speaking of rewards, Ashley and I got
you all some little somethings…”
“Aw, you shouldn’t have,”
said Frank.
Ashley gave a wave of her
hand. “You guys saved our lives—it’s the
least we could do. Once we have more
time, we’ll probably have something bigger for you all, but for now…” She passed three envelopes around—one for
Frank, one for Nancy, and one for Auburn.
Each of the recipients opened theirs at once, but Nancy was the first to
see what was inside—
“A Subway gift card?”
“Good for twenty dollars,”
laughed Ashley. “It seemed appropriate,
after this case.”
“Very appropriate,” said
Frank. “With all the confusion we had
over that clue…it’s just like one of those old radio detective shows—”
“The Shadow knows!” boomed
a voice, followed by a creepy laugh.
Grinning, Auburn held up her recorder.
“You know,” she said, “I
think I’m really turning into a Shadow fan.
The stories are really neat, and often, they’re funny—especially people
hear the Shadow’s voice, and they think it’s coming from a statue, or
something—”
“Yes, those are some of the
best!” agreed Frank. “You know, for
another funny one, you ought to listen to Boston
Blackie.”
“What’s that about?” Auburn
asked.
“Blackie’s an
ex-safecracker who’s on the right side of the law now,” Frank told her. “However, Inspector Faraday of the local
police department always makes him his number one suspect—despite the fact that
Blackie never does anything illegal in the shows. There’s always some funny remark on the show—usually
when he’s talking to Faraday. I remember
one where he walked into a hotel room and said ‘I’d like to speak to—well,
Inspector Faraday! I would not like to
speak to you!’
“Then, there’s another one
where he called Inspector Faraday and said, ‘I have the case you’re working on
solved for you already.’
“‘Oh, you have, have you?’
Faraday replied. ‘Well, what makes you
think you’ve solved it, and how did you even know I was working on a case?’
“‘Oh, I didn’t say you were
working, pal—I don’t expect miracles.’”
“Ooh, that’s rough!”
laughed Auburn. “What wordplay!”
“I’ll say!” said
Frank. “One of the best ones was this
Christmas episode where these thugs wanted this really tough guy dressed up as
Santa Claus to take Blackie to an alley and bump him off. To make it look more realistic, they told
Blackie to sing ‘Jingle Bells’ on his way there. However, the thug didn’t speak any English,
so Blackie just changed the words—without him realizing it!”
“Oh, how funny!” Auburn
laughed. “How did the new version go?”
“Let’s see,” Frank thought
a moment. “‘Give me help, I can’t yelp,
but I’m on a spot. Where we’ll go, I
don’t know, but I know I’ll be sho—ot!
When I pass, jump him fast, oh listen to my squawk. I have to sing this silly thing ‘cause he’ll
kill me if I talk. What you speak to him
is Greek; he doesn’t know a thing. So
that’s why I must pass you by and let you hear me speak.’”
“And he thought that was Jingle
Bells?” Ashley couldn’t stop
laughing. “That sounds nothing like it!”
“I should definitely check
that out!” agreed Auburn. “Are there any
other good ones?”
“Oh, there’s tons of them!”
said Frank. “There’s Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar—about ‘the
man with the action-packed expense account, America’s fabulous, free-lance
insurance investigator!’ The show’s
narrated by him going through his expense account, then elaborating on all the
different things he has to buy over the course of the case. It’s actually really, really good! He’s pretty clever, and he solves some
difficult cases.”
“Dollar spelled D-O-L-L-
“-A-R,” finished
Frank. “Then there’s Sam Spade—”
“Oh, that’s who The Maltese Falcon was about, right?”
said Brittany. “Humphrey Bogart?”
“Yes, but the shows are
more light-hearted than the movie,” Frank said.
“Spade’s a really fast talker on the shows, and he has this ironic,
sarcastic way of narrating the episodes—yet always upbeat. One of the shows was actually called the
‘Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail Caper’—you should hear how much he confused his
poor secretary when he was narrating the adventures to her.”
“With names like that, I’d
have trouble taking him seriously,” Auburn responded.
“Philip Marlowe also has
good sarcasm,” said Frank. “He’s
grumpier than a lot of the others, but the writers to that show were really
good. There was one episode where he was
describing a fat suspect—‘He was five-foot-eight, whichever way you measured.’”
“Ouch!” said
Stephanie. “I don’t want to ever be
described like that!”
Ashley stared at her older
sister. “You’re that only one way, and
you’re invisible in the other direction!” she told her. “You’ve got nothing to worry about!”
“Oh, and then there’s Nick
Carter, Master Detective!” said Frank.
“He’s not witty, really, but his mysteries will keep you guessing, and
they always have a lot of action. I remember
one where he posed as a prisoner, then made a daring prison break with a
suspect he wanted to keep tabs on. It
involved them jumping off a bridge onto a train—”
“Kind of like what we did
that time in West Virginia,”[1]
Nancy said. Noticing puzzled looks from
the rest, she said, “Remind me to tell you about that sometime.”
“And, of course, let’s not
forget the Sherlock Holmes radio show,” Frank said. “Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce—the guys that
really personified the role in the movies—also did it on radio for a
while. They were both really good,
obviously.”
“So many to try,” Auburn
said, writing the names down on a napkin.
“These’ll keep me busy for hours.”
“Speaking of hours,” said
Brittany, “it’ll take us at least two to get back to Blackwell. We probably ought to get going. Remember, our parents haven’t seen us in
days.”
“Have a safe trip!” Nancy
told them. “We’ll have to keep in
touch!”
“Brittany’s really good at
writing letters—” Stephanie began.
“Yes, we’ve noticed,” said
Frank. “While we were investigating your
disappearance.” He smiled at the
Blackwellers. “Do come and visit
sometime, though. It’s not every day we
get to meet the Purple Porcupine!”
THE END
[1] As
detailed in First Adventure, Book 1
in this series.
What's next, I wonder?
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