Boardwalk Bust (12 page)

“Get away from my brother, screwball!”

Joe was back in the fight!

My hands were now tied too tightly for me to help. The two other assailants quickly ganged up on Joe. I heard a loud
crack
, and then Joe yelling, “Ow! My eye!”

He has the worst luck sometimes.

Another minute or two and Joe was lying beside me on the ground, getting his hands tied in the same style as mine.

“Should I bash their heads in?” one of them asked the other.

“Nah,” one of his companions answered. “No marks, remember? Now go over behind that piling and get the shovel.”

I tried to place their voices, but they weren't familiar. As for their faces, there was no way to make them out in the pitch darkness. Not without our night scope, and who knew where that had fallen?

“Shovel?” the first guy repeated. He didn't sound too bright. “We gonna bury something?”

“Yeah, lamebrain. We're gonna bury these two—alive.”

I could see now where things were heading, and it wasn't anyplace good. From the sound of the waves hitting, we were right near the waterline. And it was low tide. If they buried us here—and they were already digging the hole—all traces of digging would be wiped out by the rising tide before the sun came up. No one would ever find us until the day—years from now, maybe—when a hurricane or nor' easter rearranged the beach and made the dead rise.

Once the hole was deep enough, we were both thrown in alive, and they started to shovel the sand back in. When they were done, only our heads were above the sand.

Whoever was doing this wanted us to suffer before we died. Hmmm … we must have been annoying somebody pretty badly. To me it meant that our investigation was coming close. Too close for a bad guy's comfort.

And mine, too, actually. The water didn't look too great from this vantage point.

“Who are you?” I asked the men who'd accosted us. “Why are you doing this?”

I didn't think I'd get an answer, but it was worth a try—especially since at least one of them didn't seem too bright.

“None of your business,” the answer came back from the darkness.

“Who hired you?”

“What makes you think somebody hired us?” the voice said. “Maybe we're just doing this for fun.”

“Fun? You think this is fun?” Joe raged.

“Sure! I can just picture you two as the tide comes up. You'll drown real slow … if the dogs and vultures don't get you first! Hahahaha!”

“Hahahaha!” came the echoing laugh of one of his companions. They sounded like hyenas.

“Wait,” I said calmly. “Whatever you're being paid, we can double it.”

“Oh, I doubt it. I doubt it very much. We're going to make a killing on this one! Hahahaha!”

“Hahahaha!”

“Come on, guys—let's leave these two alone. They've got a lot of thinking to do … about how curiosity killed the cat! Hahahaha!”

“Hahahaha!”

The laughter was driving me nuts.

Within seconds they were gone, taking their shovel—our only hope of escape—with them.

For a few moments there was dead silence. Then Joe spoke up. “My nose itches.”

There was no sense in telling him to scratch it. This sand was hard packed. We weren't going to just slip out like we would from dry sand.

And did I mention we were tied, hands and feet?

Not good.

“How's the rest of you?” I asked.

“I got punched in the eye again.”

“Oh, no.”

“Same one the cow kicked.”

“Ouch.”

“Oh, well. At least now I won't have to worry about how it looks.”

There was another long silence. Then:

“Does this remind you of anything?” Joe asked.

“Yeah. Farmer Pressman's grain bin.”

“Ding-ding-ding! Yes, that's right, for one hundred dollars!”

“Only now we're buried much deeper,” I added helpfully.

“And we have no gizmos to help us.”

“And our hands aren't free, let alone our legs.”

“So, we're history, right?”

“Wrong!” I said. “Don't give up, Joe. I'll think of something.”

I think he believed me. Joe has a lot of faith in my mental powers. But right at that moment, I myself didn't have much faith in them. In fact, I didn't have a clue.

15.
Miracles from on High

We were buried up to our necks, about six feet from the waterline, and the waves kept breaking closer and closer to our heads. I was having flashbacks to our grain bin rendezvous. I hadn't really wanted a repeat performance so soon.

“I just want to say, Frank, that it's been awesome having you for a brother.”

I don't know what made me say that. Of course we were going to get out of this. Frank was going to think of something at the last minute, and it would all be okay.

But Frank didn't look too happy. He was busy spitting out the salt water he'd just swallowed. High tide was fast approaching.

And so was something else.

“Frank, look!”

The way we were buried, I could see the light easier than Frank could. But we could both hear the sound of the engine. It was coming straight for us.

“What is it?” I asked.

He squinted his eyes to protect them from the glare of the light. “Can't see what kind of vehicle it is … but it must be one of those machines that rake up the garbage at night.”

Frank and I both screamed as loudly as we could, hoping to get the attention of the driver. The light seemed to turn our way and get brighter. The machine kept coming, and the engine was now drowning out both the surf and our screams.

“We're saved!” Frank kept shouting like an idiot. “We're saved!”

I wasn't so sure. It was pitch dark out here, and in spite of the headlights, the driver might not see our heads poking out of the sand. He might just mistake our heads for plastic garbage bags or something, and rake them up into the jaws of his machine.

Our cries for help became screams of terror as the “grim reaper” descended on us. There was no way the driver could possibly hear us over the roar of the vehicle's engine.

Then, at the last second, there was a shriek of
brakes. The metal monster came to a stop about three feet from our heads.

As if that weren't enough, a big wave chose that very moment to crash over us. When it retreated, we were left gasping and coughing.

Help came in the form of a beautiful dark angel's face, bending over mine. “Whoa!” the angel said. “What the … What are you two doing here?”

Good question.

“It's a long story,” Frank said. “But we haven't got much time. Could you please just dig us out first?”

“Um, yeah, sure,” the angel said. “You're lucky I've got a shovel in there.”

She went over to her tractor and came back with one. She started digging Frank out while I had to chill, holding my breath whenever the waves came crashing over me.

Pretty soon Frank was able to use his arms to haul himself out. Then the two of them came over to dig me up.

Her name was Naomi, she told us—Naomi Thompson. She was wearing sweats, and her hair was done in cornrows. She was the one who embossed the advertisements in the sand, using her tractor and its nifty rear attachment to make those amazing drawings.

“You're lucky I spotted you,” she said. “I just happened to be circling back around, or I wouldn't have had my lights pointed so close to the water.”

“Well, thanks for saving us,” Frank said.

“No problem. Are you gonna tell me how you wound up like that?”

“Sure,” I said. “How about we tell you all about it over lunch tomorrow?”

She gave me a look. “I've heard that line before. How 'bout you tell me first, and
then
we decide about lunch?”

So we told her everything we knew. She's been out on the beach every night; if anybody'd been out there, scattering jewelry in the sand for tourists to find, Naomi might have seen him—or her.

But no. Apparently, it had been pretty quiet. “I've seen a lot of weird stuff poking out of the sand since I started working here,” she said. “That's why I bring the shovel with me. But I've never seen anything as weird as two guys' heads.”

We borrowed her shovel and filled the two holes back up. That way, in case anyone came by the next day to check on us, they wouldn't know we'd escaped.

“Well now,” I said to Naomi when we were done. “What about our lunch date?”

“Um, Joe,” Frank said quickly. “Let me remind you about something.”

“Huh?”

“Whoever tried to kill us—at this point, they think we're dead.”

“Yeah? So?”

“If we want them to keep thinking that, we can't go around in broad daylight, taking girls out to lunch in restaurants.”

“Sorry, Naomi,” I said, realizing he was right.

“That's okay. Maybe after your eyes heal up.”

Ouch. Forgot about those.

She got back into the driver's seat. “Gotta get back to work.”

“Where can we find you?” I asked.

“Me? I'm out here every night, from 3
A.M
. to 5
A.M
. Princess of Darkness, that's me.”

She revved up the engine and put the tractor in gear. Soon she was just a spot of light retreating up the beach.

“So,” I said. “We're ghosts, huh? Cool.”

“Yeah,” Frank said with a smile. “You know, for a ghost, I feel pretty alive.”

“Me too. Thanks to Naomi.”

Frank looked up at the stars. “Yeah, good thing she came by, or we'd probably be sunk.” He paused for a moment. “Great night, huh?”

I looked up at the sky. And suddenly, something hit me.

Hard.

Smack in the forehead.

“What the—?”

16.
A Bump on the Head

I heard something smack Joe on the head, and an instant later, his cry of pain.

“Ow!”

I turned around, ready to drop-kick whoever was attacking us.

But there was no one there at all!

Something had knocked Joe in the head. There was no doubt about that. He was on his knees, holding his forehead.

“Are you all right?” I asked him.

“Dang, that hurts!”

“Are you bleeding?”

He checked. “I don't think so—but I'm gonna have a lump the size of a—”

He broke off and reached down for something that was lying in the sand. “Hey, Frank—check this out. This must be what hit me!”

He held it up, and I took it from him. It was a heavy gold bracelet—the kind that locks together and looks like you could attach a heavy chain to it.

But where had it come from?

We were down by the water—too far from the boardwalk or the pier for someone to have thrown it. And there was no one near us on the beach, at least as far as we could see in this darkness just before dawn. Besides, to make such an impact, that bracelet had to have come from a really far distance….

Then we heard it—the drone of an engine high above us. I looked up, and there it was: the red blinking lights of an airplane.

Suddenly, all the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle began to come together in my mind.

So
that
was how the pieces of jewelry were finding their way onto the beach!

“Joe,” I said, “who do we know around here that has a plane?”

“Bump,” he said, feeling the one on his forehead. “Bump Rankowski.”

“Exactly. He's got a whole fleet of planes, he
said. He employs pilots to fly them up and down the beach during the day. But what if he paid those pilots
extra
, in
cash
, to do a little night work—say at 3 or 4
A.M
., digging a couple of holes on the beach?”

“Could be,” Joe agreed. “And he's got motive, too, Frank—more tourists on the beach means more advertising business, right?”