They moved through the vast, dim, silent room of parked cars. Finally they stood near the caged shaft of an automobile elevator. Its platform was somewhere above in the gloom. They listened for any sound, but heard nothing. No sounds, and no Jaguar.
“It’s not here!” Kelly said, her voice rising.
“Shhhhh!” Bob hissed.
There was a sudden slamming noise, a rattle of wooden slats, and the car elevator began to descend!
“Quick!” Bob whispered.
He grabbed Kelly and dragged her behind the nearest row of cars. They crouched out of sight as the elevator reached the ground floor. Joe Torres stepped off alone and walked through the enormous room and out the front door.
Bob and Kelly stepped out to the elevator.
“My dad’s car has to be somewhere up there,” Kelly said, looking up the elevator shaft.
“Jupiter said he’s sure the chop-shop is hidden in the building,” Bob agreed. “Only where is it?” A voice spoke from behind them.
“It’s a real shame you know about the chop-shop, Andrews. You should have stuck to music.”
Jake Hatch stood behind them, an ugly pistol in his thick hand. The burly man who stood on the other side of Bob and Kelly held an even bigger gun.
15
Walled In!
In the Jaguar trunk Jupiter listened. He heard nothing. He had heard nothing for some time.
The Jaguar had seemed to drive straight through the wall at the rear of the elevator shaft. Then it had rolled to the right in an enclosed area, and stopped. Torres and the other man had walked away. After that there had been another faint rumbling noise, then silence.
Now, suddenly, clanging and hammering sounds sounded outside. Jupiter tapped on the trunk wall.
“Ty?”
Ty’s voice came faintly through the wall. “You okay?”
“Yes. Where are we?”
“Let me look around.”
Inside the trunk Jupiter waited.
“We’re in what looks like another garage floor,” Jupe finally heard Ty say. “It’s not as big as the other floors. We’re parked way off in a corner, but three guys are working on a Maserati across the room. One of them looks like Pete!”
“Get me out of here,” Jupiter said.
He heard the faint sound of Ty moving, and then the key in the trunk lock. The lid lifted. Jupiter quickly rolled out, then crouched behind the sleek car with Ty.
Across the long, narrow room he saw three men working on what had once been a dark red Maserati. They were clearly taking it apart. They had almost everything off and spread around them. The chassis of the car sat like a skeleton with a bare engine block.
One of them was Pete.
“They put him to work pretty fast,” Ty said in a low voice.
“Tiburon said he was okay, and they probably needed an extra man quickly,” Jupiter said. “Look! He’s still wearing his bolo tie. His walkie-talkie is in the clip. We can signal him. I don’t think he’s too close to the others.”
The other two mechanics were working some distance from Pete. They talked low to each other and ignored their new co-worker. Both of them were short and skinny, with mean faces and sullen movements. Jupiter and Ty saw the butt of a pistol sticking out of the pocket of one of them.
“They’re not paying any attention to Pete anyway,” Ty said.
They were wrong. Jupiter activated the signal on his mini walkie-talkie. A small sound on Pete’s device would alert him that they were nearby. Pete showed no reaction. He went on working. But one of the other mechanics looked up. “What was that?”
Pete raised his head. “My digital watch alarm. There’s a late-night show I like. I forgot to turn it off.”
“What time is it anyway, kid?”
“Almost twelve thirty,” Pete told them.
“Hey, let’s speed this up, then. We got that Jag over there now, and Tiburon’s gonna show with a bunch more anytime.”
“Gosh,” Pete said, “isn’t it late to bring in cars?” The other two laughed.
“Hey, the boss got to buy these lemon rejects when he got the chance, right?”
The two mechanics laughed harder. It was obvious to Jupiter and Ty that Pete had been told some big lie about what he was doing.
“Well,” Pete said across the distance, “we’re almost finished here. Maybe I should go and get the Jag.”
“Sure, kid, go ahead.”
Pete laid down his tools and wiped his hands on a rag. Then he walked to the Jaguar in the dark corner. He glanced back once to make sure that the other two were at work.
“Who’s here?” he said, leaning into the Jaguar as if testing something. “Where’s Kelly?”
He’d recognized the Jaguar, heard the signal, and put two and two together.
“Me and Ty,” Jupiter said. “Kelly’s with Bob. They should be outside waiting. They were supposed to follow us. What’s happening here?”
“It’s a chop-shop, all right,” Pete said. “They gave me a phony story about the cars all having something really wrong with them. That makes them cheap buys and worth more as parts. But Tiburon made it pretty clear what’s going on.”
“Are both those guys armed?” Ty asked.
“Only one of them, I think.”
“How come there’s only two working, and you?” Ty asked.
Pete pretended to work on the Jag’s front door. “Tiburon told me they were short because three mechanics were out sick. He laughed, so I think they’re really in jail. I figure the rest of the gang, the real car thieves, are out stealing the cars. We got lucky, guys.”
“Then let’s get them now and call the police before anyone else shows up,” Jupiter said.
Pete nodded and got into the front seat to drive the car. Jupiter and Ty slipped into the back and laid low. Pete started the car, driving it at a snail’s pace toward the two mechanics at the Maserati.
Suddenly there was a rumbling nose. The left wall of the long room opened as if the bricks were all sliding sideways!
“It’s a door!” Jupiter exclaimed softly. “In the rear wall of the elevator shaft! That’s how they get the cars into the shop!”
The guys saw that the large section of wall was made of fake bricks on a sliding door. It pushed in from the elevator side on steel hinges, then slid open sideways.
“We’re in the building on the next street,” Ty said. “And only half of it. It’s a whole secret room hidden from both sides! The cars drive in as hot wheels and go out as parts.”
“Guys!” Pete said, staring.
Jake Hatch and Max the gunman walked through the open wall out of the elevator. Bob and Kelly marched in front of them at gunpoint.
“He’s got Kelly,” Pete moaned. “We’ve got to rescue them, guys!”
Ty said, “We better jump them now, before any of the rest of the gang, or Tiburon and the Piranhas, show up.”
“But they’ve got guns,” Jupiter said in dismay.
Pete stopped the Jaguar, confused. What should they do? Jake Hatch and Max prodded Kelly and Bob toward the mechanics. Jake Hatch wore a grim expression.
“Caught them downstairs in the other building looking for a chop-shop,” he growled. “I guess they found one. Too bad they won’t get to tell anyone about it.”
“The other guys know where we are,” Bob said, bluffing. “Ty’ll bring the cops.”
“That’s the guy Tiburon got to drive that red Mercedes down from Oxnard,” Max the gunman said.
“The one who brought the cops around to Torres.”
“I told the bands not to steal cars on their own, the idiots,” Hatch snarled.
“Tiburon only done it three times, Boss,” Max said.
“That’s three times too many.” Jake Hatch shook his head. “Now we got to get rid of these two.” He looked around. “Where’s the new guy?”
“Over there getting the Jag,” a mechanic said. Pete said in a low voice, “They’re going to spot us, guys. Hang on.”
He drove the Jaguar slowly forward. Hatch glanced toward the car. “Jag?”
“Yeah,” the mechanic said. “Torres brought it half an hour ago. It’s a ‘present’ from Tiburon.”