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Albert Manni had been a warehouse worker at Copper's Warehouse since August. Our paths had crossed then when I was visiting
the Philadelphia suburbs. Al enjoyed his job in Fairview Hills and continued to live with his parents in Feasterville. His
social life revolved around the Bensalem area, and his tall, dark, and handsome looks led him into an encounter with a few
females who worked in the Book Warehouse in Bristol.
Walt Anderson and Al met through these females. Unlike Al, Walt was average height, yet ruggedly dark. Although the Warehouse
management had laid Walt off in December, they recalled him in February. From thence Walt found the warehouse somewhat different.
At first, Walt thought that it was because he had been gone for two months, but the next two months proved even more intriguing.
Walt worked in Returns upstairs. Often he would sneak into a corner in the back for a quick glance in a sports section. His
favorite place lay near the stairs. On Friday, 3 April, he overheard voices at the bottom of the stairs.
"Remember, we do it tonight."
"Are you sure we can get past the guard?"
"Are you kidding? That old goat wouldn't recognized a concealed book if it stuck out in a bulge under your clothes."
Walt's jaw dropped agape. Had he inadvertently discovered book theft? However, one doubt made his curly hair stand up. --
Why would two people even discuss a book theft with the risk of being overheard? No, something bigger looms here. Walt pressed
his ear against the wall.
"I don't know about outright sneaking. Wouldn't it be better if we simply slipped it out a window?"
"And risk that someone would see it or find it? This is no ordinary book! We have only this month to get these books through!"
Walt heard someone approach, thus diverting his attention. He tossed the paper aside and went along the aisle alee to the
footsteps. Walt's conscience bothered him that day. he could not allow this peculation to succeed. Yet he didn't recognize
the voices, nor could he identify the caper. Worse, nothing unusual happened that next week. Given the multitude of books
which passed through the warehouse a few books were within the margin of error.
He casually mentioned the affair to Al in the bar they customarily met on Saturday night. On Thursday night, Walt called Al
to tell him that nothing had happened. Al suggest that Walt purposely drift around the area on Friday to find out if these
villains met there regularly.
It was nearly quitting time when Walt stumbled upon the voices. Emboldened by his first encounter and curious by his nature,
Walt sneaked into the stairwell both the eavesdrop better and to glance casually.
"Here's the book," one of the voices said. Walt could see an ordinary paperback change hands, but he had to see the owners
of the voices. He leaned forward over the railing as his heart responded to a rush of adrenaline. His brown eyes could almost
grab the profile. Then blackness grabbed his consciousness!
When Walt did not meet Al in the bar Saturday night, he became worried. Al cruised to Walt's apartment in Bristol, and a darkened
structure stared at them. The dark man rang the doorbell several times without response. Mail lay exposed in Walt's mailbox.
Al scratched his dark hair. What had happened?
On break, Al called the Book Warehouse Services Monday morning. Walt had not come to work that morning, nor had he called
in sick. Ramona, the secretary, reported that he had punched out Friday,. Once again, there was no answer from the telephone.
By Friday, Al had found out that Walt hadn't been in his apartment since the Friday before. Fortunately, he then decided to
call me that afternoon.
It was Good Friday. I was packing to meet my mother and brother in Andalusia at her sister's for Easter.
"George, this's Al Manni. I need your services in Bristol."
I sat down on my bed as Al told me what had happened over the week. Fortunately, I didn't need much persuasion to go a few
kilometers out of my way for a friend.
We agreed to meet the next morning. My tall and blond brother insisted upon joining us.
"Why should you have all the fun?" Tim queried solemnly.
Given that I rarely refuse help, I accepted. Al had contacted both Walt's landlord and boss. Because it was Saturday, we started
in Walt's apartment. We spent the entire afternoon there with only the knowledge that we couldn't find any clues there.
"Did we miss anything?" I asked rhetorically as we were about to leave.
Al scratched his head. "I don't see anything unusual or different since I was last here two weeks ago."
"What does the management at Book Warehouse say about Walt's disappearance?" Tim wondered.
"They naturally assumed that he quit. It wasn't until Friday when he didn't pick up his check that I convinced Ken Gorgon
that something was wrong. He agreed to allow you to work there in Walt's place"
"It surely is a cute undercover idea, but I'll probably need help. Do they expect me to play solo in that entire warehouse?"
I cried incredulously.
"Relax, George," Al assuaged my concern. "I have arranged for the Warehouse to take on you and four others strategically placed
to monitor the situation. I've already informed Angelo in Pittston, and your four comrades should be here tomorrow."
I felt my jaw drop. "If you're as good at deduction as you're at organizing, we'll have this mess cleaned up in no time."
"What about me?" Tim protested.
"I'm afraid that I didn't expect you," Al confessed. "I might have another use for you anyway."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"Confidentially, we've been having trouble at Copper's. I was going to call for you anyway, until this incident proved more
important. Perhaps it's just a petty crime, but it's jeopardizing my job.
Right at the beginning of this year, someone started breaking into the warehouse. The Copper management stopped considering
it petty when one day in February, I found one of the sofas slashed."
"What else is in the warehouse?" Tim asked.
"all in all, I'd say furniture and electrical appliances. We sort them for the trucks to take them to the retail stores. Recently,
the break-ins have ceased, but we keep finding some of the merchandise damaged."
"Intriguing," I commented. "Perhaps we can work on it after we find out what had happened to Walt."
My buddies arrived, as Al had said, on Sunday, and we spent a rather happy Easter together. Al even rerented a temporary apartment
in Bensalem with an option to lease it in May. Then we began our serious task of unravelling Walt's disappearance.
The Book Warehouse management scattered us well. I worked upstairs, near the personnel office, in Returns. Keith went the
farthest back in Mass Marketing downstairs. Angelo labored in the adjacent Special Projects. Joe found himself in Trade while
Jim landed in the Pub. We spent the day familiarizing ourselves with the areas. I enjoyed meeting my foreign coworkers, Washim
and Mansir. They revealed a little about the warehouse, but I could get no information about Walt's disappearance. The seven
of us convened every night in the Bensalem apartment, but none of us saw anything unusual. In the back of my mind. I had hoped
to garner some allies who actually worked there, but Ken Gorgon told us it would likely alert the kidnappers, thus endangering
Walt's life, should he still be alive.
On Tuesday afternoon my overtime came at Mass Marketing, so I prepared a confabulation with Keith. Even better, I joined Keith
in going back to the girders to fetch boxes of books.
"I'll show you how to do it," Keith blared as we walked toward the steel frames with handtrucks accompanying us. Once we were
back there, Keith's hazel eyes presaged that he had found something. We scanned for others nearby. Then Keith turned to me.
"I found something."
We furtively took the handtrucks around the far end, and we advanced two aisles.
"Here," Keith pointed to an empty pallet. I gave a quizzical stare at the floor under the girder. Keith leaned over and lifted
the wooden pallet. In the dust, I could see an irregular, figure drawn in the concrete with lines into and out of the figure.
Suddenly I caught Keith's indication. I noticed that a leg of the girder stood by the scattered dust. I pulled out a magnifying
glass from my pants pocket. Close examination of the girder leg revealed rope fibers! I plucked a few off and signaled that
we should go. Trying to follow the trail was too dangerous to our cover. Furthermore, we had only a tenuous clue to which
way they had taken Walt. By the wall, I saw a continuation of the path to the left. Had we been down here yesterday, maybe
we could have done more.
At our tryst, Keith and I had a surprise. After my diminutive crony reported our findings, Jim and Joe announced their findings.
I grinned at Angelo as he displayed incongruity!
"Before overtime began, we sneaked up the stairs looking for clues," Jim explained. George searched only the front area where
Walt worked. Al told us where we might find traces of what happened to Walt.
"We found Friday's newspaper rolled into one of the pigeonholes near the staircase. With a magnifying glass, I found traces
of blood and a few brown curls."
"Does this mean he's probably dead?" Al gasped.
"No, but it's certain he's been kidnaped, else someone'd found him now," Joe controverted.
"Yes, but he's been missing a week already," Keith asserted. "Why would anyone want to keep him alive ten days?"
"Good point, pal," I encomiated. "However, the answer to that question come from what you told us, Al. Remember the item Walt
overheard that the thieves mentioned that they only had a month to get the book through?"
"Right, George!" Al exclaimed. "And today's --"
"-- the twentyfirst," I finished.
"So we have ten days to find Walt," Jim concluded.
"Unfortunately, we're overlooking one thing," I interrupted. "Walt heard this caper only on Friday the Third and disappeared
On Friday the Tenth. We know that Walt heard nothing at that spot all the week in between, which means --"
"-- the capers are only on the weekends!" Keith ended my sentence.
"Remember those fresh marks Keith mentioned earlier?" I asked. "I checked with the cleaning crew. They dust every day, yet
the area showed only one dusting since disturbance."
"Which means that Walt was tied there over the last weekend!" Tim concluded.
"Right on, Bro," I lauded. "So we can concluded that they are keeping Walt alive and they they work on weekends. Hence, this
case will reach the critical point in three days because we are approaching the last weekend in April!"
Albert Manni had been a warehouse worker at Copper's Warehouse since August. Our paths had crossed then when I was visiting
the Philadelphia suburbs. Al enjoyed his job in Fairview Hills and continued to live with his parents in Feasterville. His
social life revolved around the Bensalem area, and his tall, dark, and handsome looks led him into an encounter with a few
females who worked in the Book Warehouse in Bristol.
Walt Anderson and Al met through these females. Unlike Al, Walt was average height, yet ruggedly dark. Although the Warehouse
management had laid Walt off in December, they recalled him in February. From thence Walt found the warehouse somewhat different.
At first, Walt thought that it was because he had been gone for two months, but the next two months proved even more intriguing.
Walt worked in Returns upstairs. Often he would sneak into a corner in the back for a quick glance in a sports section. His
favorite place lay near the stairs. On Friday, 3 April, he overheard voices at the bottom of the stairs.
"Remember, we do it tonight."
"Are you sure we can get past the guard?"
"Are you kidding? That old goat wouldn't recognized a concealed book if it stuck out in a bulge under your clothes."
Walt's jaw dropped agape. Had he inadvertently discovered book theft? However, one doubt made his curly hair stand up. --
Why would two people even discuss a book theft with the risk of being overheard? No, something bigger looms here. Walt pressed
his ear against the wall.
"I don't know about outright sneaking. Wouldn't it be better if we simply slipped it out a window?"
"And risk that someone would see it or find it? This is no ordinary book! We have only this month to get these books through!"
Walt heard someone approach, thus diverting his attention. He tossed the paper aside and went along the aisle alee to the
footsteps. Walt's conscience bothered him that day. he could not allow this peculation to succeed. Yet he didn't recognize
the voices, nor could he identify the caper. Worse, nothing unusual happened that next week. Given the multitude of books
which passed through the warehouse a few books were within the margin of error.
He casually mentioned the affair to Al in the bar they customarily met on Saturday night. On Thursday night, Walt called Al
to tell him that nothing had happened. Al suggest that Walt purposely drift around the area on Friday to find out if these
villains met there regularly.
It was nearly quitting time when Walt stumbled upon the voices. Emboldened by his first encounter and curious by his nature,
Walt sneaked into the stairwell both the eavesdrop better and to glance casually.
"Here's the book," one of the voices said. Walt could see an ordinary paperback change hands, but he had to see the owners
of the voices. He leaned forward over the railing as his heart responded to a rush of adrenaline. His brown eyes could almost
grab the profile. Then blackness grabbed his consciousness!
When Walt did not meet Al in the bar Saturday night, he became worried. Al cruised to Walt's apartment in Bristol, and a darkened
structure stared at them. The dark man rang the doorbell several times without response. Mail lay exposed in Walt's mailbox.
Al scratched his dark hair. What had happened?
On break, Al called the Book Warehouse Services Monday morning. Walt had not come to work that morning, nor had he called
in sick. Ramona, the secretary, reported that he had punched out Friday,. Once again, there was no answer from the telephone.
By Friday, Al had found out that Walt hadn't been in his apartment since the Friday before. Fortunately, he then decided to
call me that afternoon.
It was Good Friday. I was packing to meet my mother and brother in Andalusia at her sister's for Easter.
"George, this's Al Manni. I need your services in Bristol."
I sat down on my bed as Al told me what had happened over the week. Fortunately, I didn't need much persuasion to go a few
kilometers out of my way for a friend.
We agreed to meet the next morning. My tall and blond brother insisted upon joining us.
"Why should you have all the fun?" Tim queried solemnly.
Given that I rarely refuse help, I accepted. Al had contacted both Walt's landlord and boss. Because it was Saturday, we started
in Walt's apartment. We spent the entire afternoon there with only the knowledge that we couldn't find any clues there.
"Did we miss anything?" I asked rhetorically as we were about to leave.
Al scratched his head. "I don't see anything unusual or different since I was last here two weeks ago."
"What does the management at Book Warehouse say about Walt's disappearance?" Tim wondered.
"They naturally assumed that he quit. It wasn't until Friday when he didn't pick up his check that I convinced Ken Gorgon
that something was wrong. He agreed to allow you to work there in Walt's place"
"It surely is a cute undercover idea, but I'll probably need help. Do they expect me to play solo in that entire warehouse?"
I cried incredulously.
"Relax, George," Al assuaged my concern. "I have arranged for the Warehouse to take on you and four others strategically placed
to monitor the situation. I've already informed Angelo in Pittston, and your four comrades should be here tomorrow."
I felt my jaw drop. "If you're as good at deduction as you're at organizing, we'll have this mess cleaned up in no time."
"What about me?" Tim protested.
"I'm afraid that I didn't expect you," Al confessed. "I might have another use for you anyway."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"Confidentially, we've been having trouble at Copper's. I was going to call for you anyway, until this incident proved more
important. Perhaps it's just a petty crime, but it's jeopardizing my job.
Right at the beginning of this year, someone started breaking into the warehouse. The Copper management stopped considering
it petty when one day in February, I found one of the sofas slashed."
"What else is in the warehouse?" Tim asked.
"all in all, I'd say furniture and electrical appliances. We sort them for the trucks to take them to the retail stores. Recently,
the break-ins have ceased, but we keep finding some of the merchandise damaged."
"Intriguing," I commented. "Perhaps we can work on it after we find out what had happened to Walt."
My buddies arrived, as Al had said, on Sunday, and we spent a rather happy Easter together. Al even rerented a temporary apartment
in Bensalem with an option to lease it in May. Then we began our serious task of unravelling Walt's disappearance.
The Book Warehouse management scattered us well. I worked upstairs, near the personnel office, in Returns. Keith went the
farthest back in Mass Marketing downstairs. Angelo labored in the adjacent Special Projects. Joe found himself in Trade while
Jim landed in the Pub. We spent the day familiarizing ourselves with the areas. I enjoyed meeting my foreign coworkers, Washim
and Mansir. They revealed a little about the warehouse, but I could get no information about Walt's disappearance. The seven
of us convened every night in the Bensalem apartment, but none of us saw anything unusual. In the back of my mind. I had hoped
to garner some allies who actually worked there, but Ken Gorgon told us it would likely alert the kidnappers, thus endangering
Walt's life, should he still be alive.
On Tuesday afternoon my overtime came at Mass Marketing, so I prepared a confabulation with Keith. Even better, I joined Keith
in going back to the girders to fetch boxes of books.
"I'll show you how to do it," Keith blared as we walked toward the steel frames with handtrucks accompanying us. Once we were
back there, Keith's hazel eyes presaged that he had found something. We scanned for others nearby. Then Keith turned to me.
"I found something."
We furtively took the handtrucks around the far end, and we advanced two aisles.
"Here," Keith pointed to an empty pallet. I gave a quizzical stare at the floor under the girder. Keith leaned over and lifted
the wooden pallet. In the dust, I could see an irregular, figure drawn in the concrete with lines into and out of the figure.
Suddenly I caught Keith's indication. I noticed that a leg of the girder stood by the scattered dust. I pulled out a magnifying
glass from my pants pocket. Close examination of the girder leg revealed rope fibers! I plucked a few off and signaled that
we should go. Trying to follow the trail was too dangerous to our cover. Furthermore, we had only a tenuous clue to which
way they had taken Walt. By the wall, I saw a continuation of the path to the left. Had we been down here yesterday, maybe
we could have done more.
At our tryst, Keith and I had a surprise. After my diminutive crony reported our findings, Jim and Joe announced their findings.
I grinned at Angelo as he displayed incongruity!
"Before overtime began, we sneaked up the stairs looking for clues," Jim explained. George searched only the front area where
Walt worked. Al told us where we might find traces of what happened to Walt.
"We found Friday's newspaper rolled into one of the pigeonholes near the staircase. With a magnifying glass, I found traces
of blood and a few brown curls."
"Does this mean he's probably dead?" Al gasped.
"No, but it's certain he's been kidnaped, else someone'd found him now," Joe controverted.
"Yes, but he's been missing a week already," Keith asserted. "Why would anyone want to keep him alive ten days?"
"Good point, pal," I encomiated. "However, the answer to that question come from what you told us, Al. Remember the item Walt
overheard that the thieves mentioned that they only had a month to get the book through?"
"Right, George!" Al exclaimed. "And today's --"
"-- the twentyfirst," I finished.
"So we have ten days to find Walt," Jim concluded.
"Unfortunately, we're overlooking one thing," I interrupted. "Walt heard this caper only on Friday the Third and disappeared
On Friday the Tenth. We know that Walt heard nothing at that spot all the week in between, which means --"
"-- the capers are only on the weekends!" Keith ended my sentence.
"Remember those fresh marks Keith mentioned earlier?" I asked. "I checked with the cleaning crew. They dust every day, yet
the area showed only one dusting since disturbance."
"Which means that Walt was tied there over the last weekend!" Tim concluded.
"Right on, Bro," I lauded. "So we can concluded that they are keeping Walt alive and they they work on weekends. Hence, this
case will reach the critical point in three days because we are approaching the last weekend in April!"
With only three days to find out where they were keeping Walt, we began asking coworkers questions about the operations of
the warehouse. My chief source was a short, African-American woman, Nancy Wildes , who had been there nearly five years.
"Sure, George, we've been wondering what's been going on since Walt disappeared. The union's been pressuring management to
take more precautions. What irritated me was that the management hushed this until Thursday. Finally, I marched right up to
Bob Buffy, the manager of this department, and I demanded what happened to Walt. I suspected that the had laid him off again."
"Then they told you what had happened."
"Yes, and Buffy asked me to keep this quiet while management investigated the case. I would conclude that that's why you're
here."
"I would like to know what kind of books would be worth smuggling?" I whispered.
"None that I know," Nancy confessed. "All the books here are of Simple and Shover. Distribution reigns here, not manufacturing."
"I'm afraid we're at a dead-end," I announced that Wednesday night.
"Does that mean that we have to give up?" Angelo inquired. "Is it time to go back to admitting defeat?"
"I'm afraid that unless we get a clue soon, we would have to hand the case back to the authorities" I concluded sadly. "All
we have is some evidence that abductors took Walt. We have no idea why, where, or how. I'm telling Gorgon so tomorrow. I supposed
some of you would be leaving us."
Joe showed askance. "You know I must get back to the university to serve my graduate assistantship."
"No, my biochemical buddy," I admonished. "I was not referring to just you. I meant everyone here intended to return on Monday.
Given our predicament, I see no reason for our continuing to jeopardize our jobs."
"I say we agree to George's assessment," proposed Keith.
"Aren't you going to investigate my problem?" Al asked me sotto voce.
"I'm afraid the same applies there. Haven't you and Tim come up with anything?"
"Are you kidding?" Tim answered. "I'm so bored moving furniture around all day for $4.50 an hour!"
I grinned, so did Al.
Thursday looked the same I was at the height of my frustration that evening. Al looked dejected when Joe suggested we pack
our bags for the weekend trips. I was willing to wait until Friday night.
Friday, 24 April went along normally into the late afternoon. I went once again to Mass Marketing for overtime. Just a few
hours more, I thought., then this case is history. To my chagrin, Keith was nowhere in the department! I asked around to find
out that no one had seen him since the end of regular time. Nonplussed, I wandered to where Keith had found the clue earlier
in that week. Lying in the dust was an integrated circuit. When I reached for it, I noticed a paper on top of the boxes in
an adjacent stall. I snatched it and brought it to the light. Under the spotlight glare, I gasped as I read the audaciously
scrawled note:
"We have Keith.
Do not interfere with our plans tonight."
I took a panoramic view of my surroundings. Then I folded the paper and placed it in my pocket. I had an hour to plan that
night. Obviously, someone had been watching Keith and me three days earlier. I decided to risk that our adversaries did not
know the extent of our group.
I decided that more than one could play the game of passing notes. I had a plan which may have had Keith's life dependent
upon its succeeding. I knew I couldn't risk their watching me write a note, so I procured a piece of paper about ten minutes
later used for stock searches and casually went into the men's room.
The stalls were doorless, but no one else was in the room. Using the bench as a desk, I wrote a note urging that Jim and Joe
stay until 9:30 with the partimers to keep a watch on the place. I intended to regain entrance to the warehouse after they
hid inside until the guard left. I told Jim and Joe to leave only if I came back to the employees' entrance; otherwise, I
suspected that we had a search that night.
I wondered what I was going to do with my time until then. I pulled both the circuit and the other piece of paper out of my
pocket. On the bottom of the other side of the leaf, I saw that it had been a letterhead. "Bradt" in black letters stared
at me. Could our foes have taken Keith there?
I heard approaching footsteps, so I garnered my paraphernalia, stuffed it in one pocket, and nonchalantly sauntered out of
the powder room. One thing was for sure; I had something to do with my time!
At 5:30, I walked up to Angelo and dropped the note in his pocket. Angelo knew that we weren't supposed to come close to each
other unless there were an emergency. Perhaps he noticed that Keith was conspicuously absent.
I made it to Jefferson Avenue when Al and Tim pulled up. Tacitly I slid into the backseat. Angelo sat next to me.
"What happened to Keith?" he asked.
Gloomily, I pulled out the note. Angelo frowned as he read it. "He's been kidnaped to prevent us from interfering with their
plans," he told our frontseat companions.
"Al," I broke in. "Where's Bradt?"
"It's a currency division plant for assembly and inspection near Andalusia. It involves computer and parts such as ---"
"-- integrated circuits?" I finished while showing the part to those present.
"Apparently only the Copper Warehouse case closes tonight," Tim mused.
Thanks to the change to daylight time, we had to wait two hours to approach the plant under the cover of darkness. Meanwhile,
Tim notified the Bensalem police of the latest developments. Given that we wanted to nail the culprits, we awaited for probably
cause before the police could come in. Until then, we were on our own and knew it.
As we lay in the parking lot, each of us observed a different entrance. At about nine o'clock, I decided to force some action.
I surveyed the foundation looking for an entrance. From the outside structure, I surmised that the building had one floor
with lofts.
The place seemed deserted. I soon found a backdoor worthy of my skeleton key. Once quick turn, and I stumbled into the interior.
My flashlight beam revealed no ceiling in a foyer. With door on either side, I chose the one on the right. When that one wouldn't
budge, I tried the one on the left. The knob turned easily, and I found myself in the receiving area.
I walked to the far left about eleven meters to a door to offices. A three-minute search garnered nothing. After I returned
to the receiving area, I followed the double doors to an inspection area. An open stockroom nearby revealed no one in the
loft. I began to search rooms and open offices. Ten minutes later, I walked into the operations room. It was wide open with
the roof six meters from the floor. Quickly, I realized that Keith could not be there. I began a retreat to the backside of
the building.
I was near the cage of the front stockroom when I sensed something was wrong. I pricked my ears for police cars, for I could
have set off a silent burglar alarm. No, I heard a movement. Self-preservation demanded I leave. I loped about thirtyfive
meters down the corridor. I burst open the double doors to traverse the final twentyfive meters to the exit. I had taken two
steps when I heard a piercing scream. I shook off the startle fast enough to duck a flying obstacle. As the thing crashed
into the wall on the left, a figure hurtled itself at me!
This time my timing was off. The phantom grabbed my shoulders and rode me. Two sharp kicks at my thighs made me yelp and ram
the intruder into a niche on the wall. Once again free, I accelerated down the path of the inspection area.
As I passed the fourth bench, someone jumped at me, this time knocking me to the floor. My flashlight flew away and a plastic
cover swallowed my head. Now I was savagely fending off two adversaries. I felt a prick in my left forearm. As I lost consciousness,
my mind screamed. "It's a trap!"
Past 9:30, Al and Tim decided to check the place out. They knew the situation in both cases: Book Warehouse would soon be
ripe for searching with Joe and Jim, and it had been a half hour since I had gone into Bradt's. When they furtively reached
the backdoor from whence I had entered, they found this note:
"We now have George, too.
Stay out of our business for one night!"
Tim wasn't my brother by accident. "We'd better get back to the Book Warehouse."
"But suppose George is in there!" Al protested.
A distant roar answered Al's protest. Tim looked with his cerulean eyes at his dark buddy.
"They sneaked him out the blind side of the building until they could drive him away. Our only hope now is to search the warehouse!"
The threesome left Cornwells Heights for the rendezvous undeterred by the latest setback. Little did anyone know that the
entire climax awaited us at Book Warehouse! Jim and Joe had hidden out while the guard put the alarm on.
Jim looked at his watch. "It's nearly ten o'clock, Joe. We'd better sneak back to the lunchroom."
They began a fairly long trek through the main anteroom of the warehouse. Crawling over rollers seemed silly, but they didn't
want to risk being seen from the outside. Joe trailed Jim while keeping a rear view of from where they had come.
Suddenly, a rustling noise attracted Joe's attention. Instinctively, Joe pushed Jim out of the path of the bullet. Simultaneously
with their fall to the concrete floor, a pistol blast whizzed the lead pellet at the head level of both Joe and Jim. The point
struck the top row but one of a pallet of tote boxes. The impact displaced the three-box set farthest to the left upward.
This collision caused a chain reaction as the boxes acted as though they had exploded upon impact.
Jim and Joe rolled behind another pallet of boxes under the shower of boxes. Fortunately for them, our adversaries stopped
at one shot, which alerted Angelo, Al, and Tim by the lunchroom window.
"We need the cops here now!" Tim whispered. "Boost me up!"
Tim produced his pocketknife to unlock the window. As Angelo and Al shook beneath him, Tim could not have known that the crooks
had disconnected the alarms. In essence, those three were joining the rest of us in the lion's den!
Jim and Joe almost collided with Tim, Al, and Angelo as the first two were fleeing while the last three were investigating
the area of the shot.
"Get back!" Jim commanded as he and Joe pushed into the lunchroom. The five split behind the wall on either side of the doorway,
a three-two spread.
"What'll we do?" Joe moaned.
Al, who had been thinking how handsome and how vulnerable he looked in his yellow teshirt, indicated with his brown eyes the
other doorway out of the lunchroom. Al was not vain, but dangerous times caused him to take his mind off the peril to clear
his mind. The five spread out so that four watched as each one dashed across the doorway.
An open area of the warehouse greeted the five. "We'd better stay together,' Angelo advised," until we split up in the back
to search."
They were in the girder section of the warehouse where pallets of books lined brick walls. There was little possibility that
either of us were there. That was why our five rangers stayed together. When they reached the back of the building, they split
in two for each of the directions left.
Our enemies were in the front of the building at the time; some pursued the five. Of course, neither Keith nor I knew what
was happening at the time. Obviously, they did not expect anyone to stay behind in the building, and the reinforcements to
arrive. So, I guess we were even at 10 PM on a Friday night.
Actually, I wasn't sure of the time I regained consciousness. I felt as if I hadn't enough sleep the night before -- my head
ached, my limbs numbed, and my body hypokinesized. The reason I didn't know the exact time was because my right arm, like
the other arm, had my watch out of my sight. Someone had trussed me to a chair in the receiving office! Nearby, Keith lay,
bound limbs, supinely.
"Keith," I called. "Little buddy, are you alright?"
He didn't respond. In fact, his hazel eyes glazed at me. He looked drugged, perhaps with a barbiturate. I saw immediately
that I was alone on this one. I felt relieved that they had brought me back to Book Warehouse; however, I was not going to
wait for my chums to help me.
I stretched my fingers toward my back pockets. Like an accordion, I squeezed my lumbar area to bring my left pocket into reach
of my fingers. My left-hand fingers are longer, so I kept my pocketknife there in such cases as this one, when I needed to
fish it out of a back pocket with bound wrists.
My index and ring fingers vised the handle. Feverishly, I winched it out of my pocket high enough to catch it with my right
hand. The tail of my denim jacket kept interfering with my efforts, although I realized it also kept some cover to conceal
the knife in the first place.
Finally, I had the knife out. Using my left long
finger and thumb first to get the blade out, I used my right hand to support the butt end as I sawed the bonds. It took nearly
five minutes to loosen my wrists. I used my more lithesome left arm to cut upwards to release my trunk from the back of the
chair. As I whipped my arms around to undo my ankles, Keith blurted, "Please free me," in a drunken voice.
It startled me so that I paused. Directly in front of me, a hypodermic needle lay. After I freed my legs, I walked up to it
and gave it a good sniff. Sure enough, the crooks had injected Keith with ethanol! My little buddy was going to be a liability,
but I was even more determined to get us out of there and the mystery solved.
I tried the telephone for help, but all the lines were open. In a flash, I realized that I did not know where the switchboard
was, put there was a pay phone nearby -- if I could get to it.
I couldn't just leave Keith there on the floor, so I freed him. I stood him up. "Can you walk?" I inquired.
Keith nodded and pleaded, "Please help me."
Because of his stature and mine, I had difficulty wrapping his arm around my shoulders. I did have an easy time wrapping my
arm around his waist. The situation called for muscular biceps instead of broad shoulders. After a quick check of the outside,
we left the office.
Meanwhile the five had made it to the corridor leading to Mass Marketing and Special Projects. Angelo led the way into the
corridor when they heard a rumbling noise. A large forklift was approaching them from the front of the building at full throttle!
"Let's split up!" Al yelled. He and Tim accelerated down the corridor. Angelo followed Joe and Jim down the aisle, then he
veered off when he saw the forklift operator was continuing in their direction.
Jim and Joe had only five meters' space when they reached the back wall. They turned right, and Joe broke off from Jim by
going back down the next aisle. Joe nearly panicked when he saw another forklift headed toward him. Almost suicidally, he
hurtled toward it instead of backtracking into a possible trap. Sweat built upon his mustache as his mind calculated that
he had just five seconds to turn left at the intersection where both he and the forklift were approaching. His adrenaline
peaked when he reached the intersection first, only to see another forklift approach on his right! Joe made a sharp turn leftward,
almost skidding along the floor. He wished he had stayed with Jim a little longer.
Jim's golden blond hair flapped off the part on the right side of his head as he sprinted toward the front. Some burly men
began to run toward him from that direction, enough to chill his spine. His rugged physiognomy winced was he turned right
at an intersection. Angelo, coming from behind in the same row, hailed him.
When Angelo passed that aisle, he gained an aperçu of the stampede. His body language pointed to the corridor. Angelo knew
that to stay together would provide their best hope of survival. Joe, who had shaken the forklifts, saw his friends' scramble
in that direction, but before he could follow, he heard their chasers. As he ducked back in the aisle, he saw them follow
his pals down the corridor.
Tim and Al scurried down the first aisle on their right toward the loading docks until yet another forklift appeared in their
path. Tim noticed that the aisles had numbers, so he led Al to the one farthest up, #36. Then they ran away from the docks,
because neither was familiar with the warehouse.
Meanwhile, Keith and I struggled along the loading dock. To my chagrin, the pay phone there was out of order! I knew that
there was one in the back lunchroom. I decided to hide Keith in a truck while I sneaked down the hundred meters to the phone.
A strange odor greeted us at the opening of the trailer. Peering through the darkness at the aperture, I looked in horror
at the source of the smell. Lying a few meters inside was a corpse. My eyes confirmed my suspicion; it was Walt! I estimated
he'd been dead about a day. Someone had broken his neck. -- His face showed the terror. I knew that I couldn't leave Keith
alone. It was better we die together, than for me to condemn him to a possible death just as ghastly.
"He's dead, isn't he, George?" Keith cried in his drunken stupor.
"I'm afraid so," I answered truthfully. "Come on, let's get to that phone!"
Together we staggered down an aisle. I figured that a straight path was the easiest for my intoxicated friend. Keith showed
his thanks by walking with more energy and more celerity. I could not discount the macabre sight as a factor, either.
By the time we reached the main artery from the corridor, the mob had passed, still chasing Jim, Angelo, and Joe. Fortunately,
I had time to duck into an empty stall, so no one saw us in the aisle as the mob crossed the intersection. My memory proved
me right. -- There was the phone. However, one of the mob saw us!
"Hey, Król and Cahill escaped!"
Thinking on my feet was difficult, but with Keith, it was improbable. Keith, for all of his staggering condition, bolted away
from me for two stalls. I caught up with him quickly and steadied him for a second. Keith plummeted as we turned to run. I
struggled to help my inebriated crony.
"Please, George, I can run!" he insisted.
I could not help but admire the courage of a man whom I loved as a little brother.
"Okay, let's do it together."
There were twentyeight more stalls to pass. We turned right at the wall and ran for cover behind the assembly section. I knew
there was too open an area to get to the phone. Given the ruckus, I thought I had a chance if I could hide Keith. While I
was contemplating the move, a voice ripped my ponderance.
"We got you, Król!" a ruffian at one end of the section growled as he pulled out a poniard. "This time, you and Cahill will
going to join Andrewson!"
At the other end, another mobster holding a rope blocked that path of escape. "Take your choice," a voice along the side yelled.
"How do you want to die?"
I hugged Keith to keep him upright. The last voice transmogrified into a gun-toting figure from the side some ten meters away.
My survival instincts pushed me toward the pistol while I still embraced Keith. I was about to shout defiantly, "of old age",
when an explosion rock the area from about thirty meters away. The explosion threw my opponent off guard, and the pistol flew
at me. I had to drop Keith to catch the flying weapon, but I succeeded. Quickly our adversaries fled the section. Keith wearily
picked himself up and joined me.
"I have to urinate," he slurred.
"I know where the place is. Come on."
When we reached the end of the section, I saw that the warehouse was on fire! The crooks were fleeing to the front of the
building. Angelo, Jim, and Joe were trying to prevent those trying to escape out the loading dock. I would have joined in
the fun, but Keith was jaundiced. in the very same room I had written a note making all this possible, I guided Keith to the
long urinal. He was still under the influence that I had to pull down his pants and hold his arms while he steered.
"Let it out," I commended. One half liter later, Keith was done. "Hold me over the urinal, George," He entreated. I held him
while he expulsed the poison. He vomited five times in one minute.
"Oh, my intestines hurt," he complained.
"Are you done?"
"Yes, thanks, George. Someday, I'll reciprocate."
"Oh, I hope not," I replied whimsically.
Keith's dimples appeared, and we laughed. "I'm feeling better now. Let's get that fire out."
We were leaving the room when I heard my brother scream, "Someone help me!"
In progress from 1986-7
Keith and I ran the irregular course toward Special Projects. With a growing fire behind them, I saw Tim was carrying Al.
As Tim laboriously raced from the danger, he kept hearing the moan, "God, it hurts." Tim realized his buddy was dying despite
his efforts!
Tim was in hysterics, but we managed to get him to lay Al down on a table covered with plastic sheets. Al was bleeding badly
from his dorsal side. We laid him pronely. I took off his denim jacket while Keith ran for first aid in a nearby kit.
When Keith returned, he asked, "What about the fire?" by this time the entire row appeared afire. As if to answer, the sprinkler
system went on. We were only ten meters too far away!
"What happened?" I requested.
Almost incoherently, Tim said, "He's dying because he saved my life."
"You mean he pushed you from the blast?"
"he saw the pipebomb's flying at us, so we ran away, but it exploded just as he pushed me away. [I couldn't leave him there,
so I picked him up."
Eighteen years ago, I saw our dog get hit while chasing cars. I knew that it wasn't the same, but I could commiserate with
my brother. I had carried the beagle home while I was in hysterics. It threw up on the back porch. Finally a neighbor took
it into the woods and shot it. Still, I felt guilty to make such a comparison.
"Jesus, please take me," Al mumbled.
Just then I noticed a policeman enter the area.
"Office," I yelled. "We had a wounded man here!"
"What's going on," he asked in a trot toward us.
"Call an ambulance. We're going to need a trauma unit. An explosion caught him from behind."
"Take me home," Al pleaded. "Please, God."
"No," I rebuked. "Hold on. We're getting help."
"It hurts so badly."
"Hold his hand," I demanded to Tim and Keith. "Make him want to live."
By then I had stanched the bleeding, but i knew that Al had threatening internal injuries. The officer returned. "Are you
George Król?"
"Yes, and this is my brother Tim and Keith Cahill," I replied. "How do you know my name?"
"It's simple. The Bensalem police asked us to patrol the area. When we saw the open lunchroom window, we decided to investigate.
In fact, we caught a gang trying to escape out front. Just what happened?"
"Congratulations, you just caught a gang of book smugglers, or should I say smugglers using books."
"I don't follow, Mister Król."
"It's easy, Officer. This gang has been smuggling drugs out of the country in books. Open the binding of one of the books
in the cargo. I'll bet they've even used vials for ethanol."
Just then the paramedics arrived. We stepped aside for them to have room to work. The cop and I began to walk away when one
paramedic said, "This man is dead!" Tim let out a cry and fainted. Keith tried to catch him, but his size and condition did
not permit it. Both crashed on the floor.
"I guess we have at least a murder charge here," the office concluded.
"No, you have two. In the trailer closest to the offices, you'll find a corpse of the kidnaped victim, which brought us here
in the first place. Here's another case for the death penalty," I opined.
By this time, the fire was out. The paramedics were taking the body to the ambulance to the coroner. I was finally clam. A
clock nearby proclaimed it half past ten. I knew it was the beginning of a long night, but it was now predictable.
We stayed for the Monday funerals. In a way, I felt culpable for bringing my brother such grief. Ah, but perhaps some good
will come out of all of this. I had been right. This gang had been smuggling drugs , using book warehouse a month. Eventually,
enough turned state's evidence to convict the top echelon and to shut down the whole operation. Once again, I left a case
with the taste of ashes in my mouth.
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