Ned was by her side in seconds, but Nancy was already on her feet, running down the street as the limo pulled around a corner. “It stopped for a moment,” she said, “as if they were waiting to see what would happen.”
The limo was too far ahead to catch, but she did see the license plate. The numbers were caked with mud, but the decoration on the right side was clearly visible: a dragon with its tail curved into an L! Then it turned the corner and sped off into the night.
“Did you see the dragon?” Nancy asked breathlessly.
“Yeah, I saw it. Nancy, are you all right?”
“I guess so.” She trembled at the thought of her near brush with death. “The fall didn’t hurt much, but that knife came pretty close. Come on, let’s get it. Someone has finally given us our first real clue!”
Cautiously they ran to the pile of crates where Nancy had fallen. “The police might be able to lift some—” She came to a sudden stop and stared in amazement at the crate. “It’s gone! The knife is gone!”
Chapter
Ten
THEN WE FLAGGED a cab and tried to follow him, but he was too far ahead of us. We couldn’t find him,” Nancy told George, spearing a french fry and popping it into her mouth.
“So first thing this morning we called the manager of the Emerson Record World.” Ned picked up where Nancy had left off. “It turns out that Dave Peck was fired for buying cheap pirated records. He charged the store the regular price, then deposited the extra money in his personal account! They got wise to what he was doing when one of the stockroom clerks discovered that the codes on the records were missing.”
“You’re kidding!” George put down her coffee cup with a chink. “Wow! That sleazy guy could play a really important part in this mystery, huh?”
“You know it.” Nancy finally felt she was on the trail that would crack this case. “I bet anything Dave’s ring has a dragon on it,” she went on, “and his ring and license plate match the wallet I found at the Music Hall. If the wallet belongs to Dave, maybe Ann Nordquist is in the clear.”
“A good thing, since she and your dad are spending the day together,” Ned remarked. “I think he really likes her.”
“Hmm, I can’t say I’m entirely comfortable with that,” Nancy admitted. “And I won’t be until I know what’s going on.”
George nodded. “Well, one way or the other, the truth will come out, as they say. So, anyhow, what’d you do next?”
“Well, the record store didn’t know where to get in touch with him, so Ned called up the Emerson College registrar’s office. His roommate works there a few hours a day, and Ned talked him into looking up Dave’s mother’s telephone number. The problem is she doesn’t answer. We’re going to try her again after breakfast.”
George nodded. “Well, if there’s anything I can do . . .”
“Thanks. I’ll definitely let you know,” Nancy said. “So, now that we’ve told you about the rest of our night, how was yours?”
“Pretty good. They played some really hot dancing music. But we didn’t stay all that long after you guys left. Everyone was kind of keyed up about Barton. Roger especially.”
“I can understand that,” Nancy said. “What are he and the rest of the band going to do about tonight’s performance if Barton’s still a no show by concert time?”
“Alan,” George said simply.
Nancy groaned. “I was afraid of that. You know, if Alan keeps getting to fill in on these gigs, he’s never going to come clean with what he knows about Barton. I mean, why should he? As long as Barton’s not around, Alan’s a star.”
“And is he playing the part,” George added. “He took Bess over to the Hard Rock Cafe for a midnight supper after we left the club. He said all the biggest names in the music world hang out there. I think he was counting himself as one of them.”
Nancy’s expression grew dark. “I can’t believe Bess. She’s buying in to Alan’s fantasy without stopping to consider how much harm he might be doing.”
“So you really think Alan’s hiding something? I mean, I know he’s on another planet these days, but do you really think he’d put Barton’s life in danger?”
“The only way to answer that question is to get to the bottom of whatever’s going on,” Nancy said. “Speaking of which, we’d better start calling Dave’s mother again.” She finished up her eggs and pushed her plate away. “Ready?” She stood up.
“Reporting for duty, Detective Drew,” Ned replied, and the three friends stood up.
Several hours later, in the Drews’ suite, they still were having no luck. Ned dialed Mrs. Peck’s number for what seemed to Nancy like the thousandth time, and Nancy and George held their breath. “One ring,” Ned announced. “Two. Three.”
Nancy rolled her eyes in frustration.
“Hello? Is this Mrs. Peck?”
Ned began talking, and Nancy sat up straight and hung on to his every word.
“Mrs. Peck, my name is Ned Nickerson. I’m a—a friend of Dave’s,” Ned fibbed, looking slightly sheepish.
“We went to school together, Mrs. Peck,” Ned went on. “Yes, as a matter of fact, I saw him just last night.” Ned seemed relieved to be saying something truthful. “But he forgot to give me his address. That’s why I’m calling, actually.” Ned paused, his brow furrowed. “You don’t?” He rolled his eyes. “If you’ll excuse my saying so, that’s—well, that’s a little surprising to me.”
“George,” Nancy exclaimed. “How can a man’s own mother not have his address? There is definitely something weird going on.”
“Yes, I see,” Ned said, signaling for quiet. “Then, do you know who his partner is? Oh, his boss—okay. His name is Lee? But you don’t know how to contact him either?” Nancy’s heart sank.
“Whew!” Ned sighed when he finally hung up the phone. “If I hadn’t said I had to go, she would have gone on all day.”
“So tell,” Nancy demanded, a touch impatiently.
“Oh, sorry, Nan. Well, Dave’s mother obviously thinks Dave’s the greatest thing since sliced bread, even though she’s disappointed he left school.”
“But she doesn’t know where he is half the time,” Nancy put in.
“She told me his work takes him to so many places he can’t have a permanent address. But she sure was quick to add that he calls her every week.”
“To keep up the image of the perfect son,” George observed.
“Except that he lives out of a suitcase,” Nancy said. “All set to pick up and move if anyone’s on his tail.”
Ned agreed. “That business Dave’s involved in can’t be aboveboard. Anyway, his mother said his boss is a guy named Lee. James Lee. She started telling me how this Lee took her and ‘her Davey’ out to some restaurant in New York that Lee’s brother owns. She would have told me what they had eaten, too, if I’d let her.” He shook his head. “You know, I felt bad misleading her about Dave and me. She seemed kind of lonely.”
“Poor woman. She probably deserves a lot better than Dave,” Nancy said sympathetically. “When I get my hands on him . . .”
“But Nan, he doesn’t have an address,” George reminded her friend. “How are you going to find him?”
Nancy was silent for several minutes, contemplating. “Listen, Dave said he likes to keep up with the music scene, right?”
“Right,” Ned affirmed.
“Well, isn’t tonight’s concert the most talked about show around? Bent Fender plays ‘Rock for Relief’ at the Rotunda,” Nancy said, paraphrasing a radio advertisement, “the chic nightspot everyone wants to be seen at.”
“Yeah, Roger was telling us last night that there will be huge crowds of people outside the Rotunda begging the doormen to let them pay their twenty-dollar admission charge and come inside,” George injected. “Doesn’t that sound nuts?”
“When you’re hot, you’re hot,” Ned said, grinning. “But I see what you’re getting at, Nancy. This is just the kind of scene a guy like Dave wouldn’t miss.”
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“Exactly. So all we have to do is show up—and keep our fingers crossed that Dave will too.”
• • •
“Wow! Look at all those people,” Nancy exclaimed as she, Ned, and George arrived at the Rotunda later that evening. “How’re they all going to fit inside?”
“A lot of them aren’t,” Ned replied. “That’s part of the gimmick. If you keep a huge crowd of people standing outside your club, dying to get in, everyone will think it’s popular, the place to be. And everyone who gets in will feel extra special about being there—you know, a member of the elite.”
“Yuck. I’d have too much pride to stand out here praying the doormen would pick me out of the crowd.” George wrinkled her nose in disgust.
“I’m with you,” agreed Nancy. “It’s a good thing we’re on the guest list.” They walked around to a lane cordoned off for guests of the club and people with free passes.
“You’re on my list too,” Ned whispered in Nancy’s ear, his lips grazing her cheek.
Nancy almost melted. “And you’re on mine,” she said. Ned looked so handsome in his jeans and black pullover sweater. But despite her confident manner, Nancy still wondered about their relationship. The two of them needed time to relax together, time to really laugh and let loose and put their problems in the past, where they belonged. Until the mystery was solved, that would be impossible.
Once they were inside the club, Nancy’s thoughts turned to Dave Peck. Determined to hunt him down, she and Ned split up and swept through the rooms of each of the three levels of the elegant club, searching every corner. Nancy was impressed by the vastness and extravagance.
The people were varied, from elegant to bizarre, exotic to all-American. Nancy looked at each one, her search for Dave dead-ending in an upstairs room that was lined with televisions all tuned to MTV. Ned was waiting for her there, and it was plain from his expression that he’d had no more luck than she had.
“No sign of him?” Nancy said.
Ned shook his head no.
“I saw a few people I knew, but not Dave. Vivian, Mr. Marshall’s secretary, was down by the stage. And I saw Bess with Alan, not that she would talk to me.” Nancy slumped down in an armchair and stared blankly at the checkerboard of television screens.
Ned sat down next to her. A heavy bass beat filled the room as a wild music video came to life on all the screens simultaneously.
The song faded, and a familiar Bent Fender tune came on. Nancy watched the screen a bit more attentively. The video cut from one scene to another, a collage of different shots. As Barton launched into the chorus of the song, a crowd scene came on, men and women emerging from a subway station. In the crowd were the members of Bent Fender themselves and several other people Nancy recognized. Linda Ferrare’s cousin was there—the boy George had been dancing with the night before—and a woman who was the female lookalike of Mark Bailey, the guitarist. His sister, Nancy surmised.
Fender had chosen to use people they knew, rather than using actors to fill out the crowd. Nancy spotted Ann Nordquist, and her stomach did a nervous flip-flop. Her father and Ann were out again this evening.
But she forgot about them, her eyes suddenly glued to a television screen. Coming up the staircase on screen was a couple, kissing. The man was short. He had longish wavy brown hair and a familiar-looking, stocky, muscular physique. In amazement Nancy stepped up to the television screens.
“Ned, you won’t believe this,” she said slowly.
“What?”
“In a way . . . we did find Dave.” Nancy pointed at the screen and at the same time tried to figure out who Dave was with. The girl’s face was mostly hidden, but when the twosome reached the top of the staircase and pulled apart, Nancy let out a gasp. “I can’t believe it! Ned, look! It’s Vivian! What if she and Dave are a number off the screen as well as on!”
Instantly, Nancy was running. “Come on, Ned. Vivian was just downstairs. We have to find her.”
Down the two flights of stairs Nancy flew, around the side of the dance floor and toward the stage where she had last seen Vivian. Ned was right behind her.
She scanned the mass of people, picking out the back of Vivian’s jet-black coif. Marshall’s secretary was in the wings to one side of the stage, talking to someone. The person leaned forward, into the light, and Nancy saw his scowling face. Alan. He moved his hands wildly, saying something Nancy couldn’t hear.
Moving in closer, Nancy motioned to Ned to stay down below stage level where they wouldn’t be seen. The dance music stopped. Linda Ferrare was tuning her bass. Mark Bailey was adjusting one of his guitar strings. A surge of excitement raced through the crowd as they waited for the band.
But Alan and Vivian continued to face off. “No!” Alan said furiously. Nancy and Ned were close enough now to make out what he was saying. “It’s gotten totally out of control! I had no idea—”
“Save it, pest,” Vivian interrupted. “You’ll come around. I’m going to make absolutely sure of it.”
“No way, Vivian. As soon as the concert is over, I’m going to tell Nancy everything.
“And what’s more, I’m going to tell Bess too.” Alan looked behind him. Nancy couldn’t see through the dark curtain at the edge of the stage, but it was clear that Bess was back there, probably standing just out of earshot.
“But Alan,” Vivian singsonged nastily, “if you tell Bess what you know, you’ll have to admit that you lied about seeing Barton.”
“I knew it!” Nancy exclaimed under her breath.
“Your precious angel won’t like that one little bit,” Vivian mocked.
“I can only hope she’ll understand,” Alan said. “I never should have believed your stories in the first place.”
Nancy and Ned exchanged glances.
“The second I finish my last note, Vivian, you’re through.” Nancy could hear Alan’s footsteps as he stormed away and took his place on stage.
“Don’t count on it!” Vivian called out, her voice following him, and she let out a frightening laugh.
“What do you suppose she means by that?” Ned asked.
“I don’t know, but I don’t like the sound of it.”
Nancy and Ned made their way to a table when they were out of Vivian’s field of vision. By then the band had assembled on stage, their instruments fully tuned, their sound levels set.
Alan was watching Jim Parker, seated behind his keyboard console. Jim gave an almost imperceptible nod, and the band let their first chords wail.
They were halfway into their second number when Alan’s amp began crackling with ear-piercing static. He stopped playing immediately and fiddled with some dials on the equipment. Suddenly, sparks spewed from one of the wires. Someone in the audience screamed. Then the equipment went dead—and the club was plunged into total darkness!
Chapter
Eleven
WHAT’S HAPPENING?” A girl shrieked. “Is it a hold-up or something?”
“No,” someone else shouted. “It’s a fire!”
“Fire?” a man yelled fearfully.
Mass confusion broke loose.
Separated from Ned, Nancy was jostled from two sides as she inched in what she hoped was the direction of the closest wall. She waved her arms in front of her until her hands found the smooth, solid plaster. Turning, she pressed her back to it, squeezing out of the way of the hordes of people making blind, panicked dashes in every direction.
“Simon? Simon, where are you?” a woman near Nancy was screaming, her voice filled with terror. “Simon, are you all right?”
“Stay calm!” Nancy called out to her. “The lights will be back on in a few minutes.”
“Simon!” the woman kept shrieking.
“Ladies and gentlemen, please do not panic.” A new voice filled the air, loud and hollow. Someone was speaking through a megaphone. “The electrical short on stage caused a temporary power outage, but the electricity should be restored in a matter of minutes. Please stay where yo
u are. I repeat, stay where you are.”
Nancy eased herself into a sitting position on the floor to wait. She could hear others do the same. But as the panic subsided, her own fears began to blossom in the overwhelming blackness. Had the power outage been an accident? Or was it perhaps a little too convenient, coming as it did on the heels of Vivian’s threat to Alan?
The minutes ticked away. Nancy prayed to herself that this would be no rerun of the night Barton disappeared. Then, suddenly, the power came flooding back on. Nancy blinked, needing to adjust her eyes even to the subdued lighting of the club. The band stood on stage, checking their instruments and amplifiers now that the electricity was working again. But one person was missing. Where was Alan?
Nancy felt panic rising in her throat. Then she noticed that the curtain shielding the backstage area from the audience had been pulled down, a casualty of the frenzied rush of people immediately following the blackout. She let out a noisy sigh of relief as she saw Alan standing off to one side, staring at a sheet of paper.
Ned was still more or less where he had been before the power had blown. As he looked around, Nancy waved to him. He caught sight of her, his face softening with relief, and made his way across the room. Nancy kissed him quickly.
“Listen, Ned,” she said. “I’m going to go talk to Alan and see what he wanted to tell me. Maybe you should go look for George and make sure she’s okay.”
“What about Bess?” Ned wanted to know. “I don’t see her back there.” He looked behind the stage.
“I’ll ask Alan about her.”
“Meet you back here?” Ned asked.
“In ten minutes.” Nancy hoisted herself onto the stage and headed straight for Alan. She wasn’t bothered by any guards. They were trying to restore order in the club. The concert evening was over.