See No Evil (11 page)

"Leak? What you mean?" Mac said with mock indignation. "These are good barrels. Guaranteed not to leak—not for four or five years. By that time Acme Waste Disposal will be long gone."

"But the fish and the swimmers won't be," muttered Joe.

"Not immediately, anyway." Mac chuckled. Then he looked suspiciously at Joe, who was staring at the lake and shaking his head. "Hey, what's the matter, kid? Got cold feet? Don't want to get your pretty white hands dirty with nasty work?"

"Ain't that," Joe said casually. "The thing is, though, with what I know now, I gotta figure my work should be worth more. I'm running an extra risk, getting mixed up with the law."

"Don't worry about the law," said Mac. "We got our ways of handling that."

"You mean the city manager?" asked Frank. "Yeah, I heard about him being on the take. But he's dead now."

Mac shrugged. "So we'll find somebody else."

"Know what?" Lisa said. "I heard that the guy didn't do himself in. I heard somebody rubbed him out. You guys mixed up in that? 'Cause if you're into heavy stuff like that, I'm with Joe. I want more money."

Mac grinned at her. But it wasn't a pleasant grin. It was more like the grin of a shark. "You're real curious. Not to mention greedy. But I'll show you the kind of guy I am. I was going to wait until later, when you finished helping us dump this stuff, before I settled up with you. But since you're so eager, I'll give you what's coming to you now, just so you don't walk out on me."

Suddenly Joe, Frank, and Lisa were staring at a gun in Mac's hand. A long-barreled gun, with a bulging silencer fitted over the barrel.

"Hey, man, just because we shot off our mouths a little, there's no reason to get upset," Joe said.

"Yeah," said Lisa. "I was just feeling you out for a little more money, but I wasn't serious. You can't blame a girl for trying."

"We're sorry," Frank added. "You know how it is with kids like us. Sometimes we step out of line."

"Sure, I know how it is with kids like you," said Mac, keeping his gun leveled at them. Without turning his head away from them, he shouted, "Mike! Fred! Come on over here! It's payoff time!"

In an instant Fred and Mike were at his side. Their faces were blank, even bored, as if this were just another routine job, as easy and unexciting as rolling barrels.

Mac, however, was positively gloating. "You kids thought you were smart, huh, smarter than the boss. You thought he was some kind of patsy."

"Us?" said Joe.

"Not on your life," said Frank.

"We don't even know who the boss is," said Lisa.

"You bet you don't," said Mac, enjoying it more and more. "Let me tell you what kind of guy the boss is. If he hears that a company he partially owns—like Eat-Right—has a missing manager, he checks it out right away. He hears from a receptionist that a couple of snoopy high school kids visited it yesterday afternoon, right out of the blue. So he has that receptionist with him when some high school kids come to his offices tonight. And when that receptionist identifies one of them right away, he figures out what to do right away, too."

Mac paused to let his words sink in. Then he went on, "And here's the beautiful part. Not only does he get a free night's work out of the kids, and not only does he find a perfect place to get rid of them — he even has them unload their own coffins."

Mac smacked his gun against the barrel he had rolled down the wharf. It gave off a hollow gong.

"Of course, the barrels will be a tight fit," said Mac. "But we'll be able to stuff you in them while you're still limp, before you start to stiffen up."

While Mac was talking, Joe let his eyes flick in Frank's direction, careful not to change the scared expression on his face. His gaze met Frank's.

It wasn't the first time the Hardys had faced guns. But this time they had only one weapon with which to defend themselves.

Surprise.

The Hardys knew that no one holding a gun would anticipate an unarmed person charging him.

Joe went for him right then, and out of the corner of his eye saw Frank doing the same.

In fact, on his other side, he sensed that was Lisa going for him, too.

The gun spat fire, but there wasn't a deafening bang—just a sound like hands clapping. Joe tensed, but he knew the shot had missed him. He prayed it had missed Lisa and Frank, too. Joe hit Mac knee-high, and in the same movement reached up to grab the gun in Mac's hand. Before Joe could twist it up and away, another shot went off.

Mac went down moaning as Joe's fist connected with his chin. The gun flew into the air. A few feet from it, Frank was delivering a beautiful karate chop to Fred's neck. Fred was already holding his forearm as if it had been smashed, and now he toppled forward, out like a light.

Mike, too, was doubled up in pain, lying on the ground and groaning from a kick from Lisa's shoe. "Good work, Lisa," Joe said. "That guy is out."

Joe was about to bend over to pick up Mac's gun when he heard Mac's voice. "You've had it, punk!"

Joe whirled around. Mac was lying on his stomach with another gun in his hand.

A gun that was pointed straight at Joe.

A gun that was going to go off before Joe or Frank or Lisa had a chance of stopping him.

"Die!" Mac bellowed with rage.

JOE TENSED FOR the sound of a shot and the impact of a bullet slamming into him.

But all he heard was Mac's bellow of rage turn into a scream.

A scream of pain.

Mac's face was a mask of agony. His gun hand was clenched in a fist. The gun itself had dropped to the wharf.

Before he could recover, Joe, Frank, and Lisa had reached him. Frank and Joe each grabbed him by an arm, while Lisa scooped up the gun.

Mac whimpered and said in a small, babyish voice, "It hurts!"

Joe looked down at Mac's hand and saw what Mac meant. The skin on the back of the hand was an unsightly mess of red and blistered flesh.

Frank whistled. "Look at that."

In the barrel behind Mac a stream of liquid was gushing out from a bullet hole. Joe glanced down at the wooden planking where the liquid was falling. Already the wood had been eaten away. Somehow, when he raised his gun to fire, that liquid had spattered onto Mac's hand. "You're lucky," Joe said to Mac. "Think what it'd be like to swim in that stuff."

"Yeah, now all you're in is hot water," said Lisa. While Joe and Frank held Mac tightly by the arms, Lisa pressed the gun firmly against his forehead, right between the eyes. "I suggest you cooperate with us—if you don't want to get in any deeper."

"Hey, whatever you say," said Mac, his pain forgotten in his sudden panic. "Be careful of that thing, okay? The trigger is sensitive. The least little thing will set it off."

"And the least little thing will set me off," said Lisa. "So tell me what I want to know, and don't even think of lying."

"You've got my word," Mac said, looking wide-eyed and panicky.

"Did you or your boss engineer Morrison's murder?" she asked. "Talk, and talk fast."

"Honest, I don't know nothing about it!" said Mac, his face twitching. "I'm just small-fry at Acme. The boss don't let me in on stuff like that." "And where can we find your boss right now?" Lisa persisted.

"Back in the office," said Mac. "He said he was gonna wait for me to make sure the job tonight went off without a hitch."

"Your boss does all his dirty work that way?" said Lisa. "Hires other people to do it for him?"

"Yeah, that's his style," said Mac.

"If you're not telling the truth—" Lisa said threateningly as she tapped the end of the gun against Mac's forehead.

"Honest! I swear!" Mac managed to choke out.

"I guess we've gotten all we can out of him," Lisa said to Joe and Frank.

"Hey, you really know how to give the third-degree," whispered Joe. "You were making me nervous—and I'm on your side!"

"Part of a reporter's training," Lisa said coolly. "But now the one we have to interview is Mac's boss. I've got a hunch he's the one with the answers."

"First we have to figure out what to do with Mac. Not to mention Fred and Mike here," said Frank, indicating the two thugs who were still lying unconscious.

"We can haul them to the truck and tie them up with the ropes that were holding down the tarp," said Lisa. "We can do the same thing with Mac."

"Good idea," said Joe. He stooped and grabbed Fred underneath his arms and started to drag him toward the truck. Frank did the same with Mike. Lisa took up the rear, herding Mac in front of her at gunpoint.

With the three crooks tied up and gagged under the tarp in the back of the flatbed, they drove back to the Acme offices. They parked a couple of blocks away.

"We can leave these guys here," said Lisa. "I don't think they're going anywhere, not the way you tied them up. You sure know your knots. What were you, Boy Scouts?"

"We were—until we got too busy with other activities," said Frank.

"Yeah," said Joe. "Too bad the Boy Scouts didn't give merit badges for busting bad guys. Frank and I would have been super Eagle Scouts."

"I bet you would have," said Lisa. "Well, here's your chance to add a nifty prize to your collection. The Acme boss sounds like he's real big-time."

"I just hope he's the one who did the killing," said Frank. "Otherwise my dad's file room is going to get pretty crowded."

"Yeah. We'll have to buy another case of cat food," said Joe.

There wasn't a sign of life inside as they approached the Acme building.

"Now we'll find out if Mac was telling the truth and his boss is still waiting here," said Frank as he began to work on picking the lock on the door. Lisa pulled out the gun that she had taken from Mac and held it at the ready.

"We're in," whispered Frank as the lock tumblers clicked. He turned the handle, and the door swung open. They moved inside the dark building.

"Here's the room where we were interviewed," Frank said softly. "If the boss was looking at us through a peephole, this next room could be the one he's in."

"There's only one way to find out," Joe whispered back.

"Right," Lisa replied with a sudden decisive-ness that startled both Frank and Joe.

She grabbed the doorknob, swung open the door, and stepped inside with her gun pointed into the room.

"Freeze," she commanded in a voice as hard as nails.

"D - d - don't shoot," called a voice from within.

Lisa stepped into the brightly lit room and Frank and Joe followed.

"Shut the door quickly," she said, without turning her head. "We don't want to be interrupted."

Frank did so, careful not to make any noise, then turned around to look at the man sitting behind a big mahogany desk.

"Stand up, so we can get a good look at you," Lisa said, her voice edged with menace.

His face pale with fear, the man followed the order instantly. When he snapped to his feet, it was as if he were riding an elevator upward. He was tall, very tall — almost seven feet—and im-peccably dressed in a gray suit. His shirt was silk, with wide pale blue stripes, and his tie was a conservative navy blue. Gold cuff links gleamed at the edge of his sleeves.

This well-dressed man would have looked right at home in the office of a corporate executive or, for that matter, in an English country manor house.

But his voice didn't match his polished appearance. Although he spoke with a distinguished accent, his speech was marred by a persistent stutter.

"W - w - what are you doing here?" he asked. "Are you thieves? If so, you are out of l - l - luck. There's no c - c - cash in this office, and I carry only c - c - credit cards."

"What we want is information," said Lisa. "About the killing of Jack Morrison. You did it, right? Or I should say, ordered it—since we've heard you don't like to get your hands dirty."

"You're r - r - right," said the Acme boss. Then he smiled. "F - f - fortunately, I have very g - g - good hired h - h - hands."

"Aghhh," Lisa cried as an arm from behind suddenly snaked around her neck and wrestled the gun from her hand.

Before Joe and Frank could move to help her, she was flung to the center of the room, and the Hardys found themselves facing a huge man in a black suit. He had Lisa's gun in one hand and his own gun in the other.

"G - g - good work, Sam." The boss sat down again behind the desk. Then he sneered. "Did you k - k - kids really think it was th - th - that easy to break in here? D - d - didn't you ever hear about s - s - silent alarms? I j - j - just let you get this far to find out wh - wh - what was on your t - t - tiny minds. Now that I know, it is t - t - terribly simple to d - d - decide what to do with you."

Sam expressed himself more directly. "Line up against the wall," he commanded. After the Hardys and Lisa had followed his order, he turned to his boss, "You want me to knock them off here or someplace else?"

"It w - w - would be m - m - messy here — stain the carpet and all," the boss replied, putting a cigarette in a holder and lighting it with a slender gold lighter. "On the other h - h - hand, I'm planning to red - d - decorate, and I do want to see for myself that these intruders are d - d - disposed of once and for all. So you have my p - p - permission to do the nasty d - d - deed here, Sam."

"My pleasure." Sam grinned.

Joe and Frank exchanged hopeless glances. Sam was too far away to charge. And too close to miss them with whichever gun he chose to use.

It was all over—unless Lisa had a way to get them out of the mess.

She did her best.

"Look, can't we make a deal?" she asked.

"What kind of d - d - deal?" said the boss. His voice indicated that he knew perfectly well she was playing for time, and he was enjoying the attempt the same way he might enjoy watching a fish wiggling on a hook.

"I've got something you want — something you want very much," said Lisa.

"And wh - wh - what's that, my d - d - dear?" asked the boss in an even more sardonic tone.

"I'll show you," said Lisa, her voice quivering with terror as she reached into the deep pocket of her workpants.

Joe and Frank's mouths dropped open. Lisa whipped out a gun, and in the same motion let off a shot.