"Only In The Movies"
Chapter Three
Meanwhile, over in Rampart General Hospital's Emergency Receiving…
"Are your ears still ringing?" Dr. Kelly Brackett asked, upon completion of his very thorough re-examination of the pouting patient in Room 202.
The frowning fireman shook his heavily bandaged head 'no'.
"Good. You can hear me. How do you feel?"
There followed a long silence.
Kel winked at the nurse, who was standing at his side. "Interesting…his ears seem to be working...but now he can't talk."
His pouting patient's pursed lips finally opened. "I was always told, if I couldn't say anything nice, I shouldn't say anything at all."
Brackett turned back to the paramedic and cracked a smile. "Well, I'm glad to see that little bump on the head hasn't caused you to lose your sense of humor."
"If I only got a 'little bump on the head', then why does my whole body hurt?" Gage complained, sounding every bit as grumpy as he looked.
"Your whole body hurts because it's covered with black and blue bruises."
"Did somebody beat me up?"
"Judging by the location of your contusions, I'd venture to say you fell down some stairs..." Brackett paused, to study his patient's reaction to his little disclosure.
At the mentioning of the word 'stairs', a picture of a dark staircase flashed through John Gage's groggy brain.
Then another fleeting mental image appeared. That of a motionless figure sprawled out on the floor at the foot of those dark steps.
"Although Chet swears that's not possible..." the doctor paused again. "What is it Johnny? You remember something?"
"I'm not sure. When you said stairs, I suddenly saw—" the paramedic stopped speaking and stiffened. "Doc, are any of the guys still here?"
"Roy and Chet are right outside. Why?"
"I gotta talk to 'em! Hurry! It's important! Life and death important!"
"All right," Brackett allowed, and began heading for the door. "But you have to promise to behave yourself!" he called back over his shoulder.
Johnny nodded.
His doctor disappeared out into the hall.
"How is he?" Chet Kelly anxiously inquired.
Brackett folded his arms and frowned. "Right now, he's all worked up. Claims he has something extremely important to tell the two of you. Gentlemen, it's essential that he remain as calm and as quiet as possible."
Johnny's visitors nodded their understanding.
So Kel' pushed the portal to 202 back open and waved them inside. "Five minutes," he allotted and let the door swing shut.
Gage spotted his guests and sprang bolt upright in his hospital bed. "You guys have got to get back to that house!" he shouted.
"Hey, Johnny…take it easy!" his partner pleaded, and pressed his agitated amigo back into a horizontal position. "Did you notice? I put the IV in your 'left' wrist, this ti—"
"—You gotta get back to that house, Roy!" Johnny interrupted. "There's somebody hurt!"
"Who's hurt?"
"I don't know. It was kind a' dark. But it looked like a man."
DeSoto and Kelly exchanged knowing glances, and decided to humor him.
"Okay, Johnny. We'll go back to the house and rescue the man. You just lie still…and don't worry. He'll be just fine..."
Gage gazed into his friends' faces. He could tell they didn't really believe him. "You don't believe me!" he exclaimed and tried to sit up again. "Please? You gotta believe me! He's layin' at the bottom of a hidden stairway!"
DeSoto kept his antsy, and all-riled-up, partner pressed down on his bed, while the duty nurse injected something into his IV's meds' port.
Johnny spotted the empty hypodermic syringe and gave the RN an annoyed glare. "I wish you hadn't a' done that! I have to tell them how to get to the secret passage!" He turned back to his disbelieving friends. "It's behind the bookcase!" he frantically informed them. His muscles were rapidly, and involuntarily, beginning to relax. "Mystery on Dobbin's Moor!" He swallowed hard and fought to keep his eyes open. His head dropped back onto his hospital bed. "Be…careful," he warned, now speaking in slow motion. "The…bookcase…is…deadly," his whispered words trailed off, as his mouth stopped working. Try as he might, he couldn't make a single muscle move. So John just lay there, fuming—silently.
The RN smiled smugly down at her perfectly peaceful patient. "See what happens when you break your promise?"
Gage gave the gloating woman one last highly annoyed glare…before finally losing his battle to keep his ridiculously heavy eyelids raised.
Speaking of promises…
"We'll come back tomorrow," Roy vowed.
Then he, and his fellow visitor, beat a hasty retreat from the room.
Kel Brackett was standing in front of one of the second floor's Nurses' Stations. He glanced up from the medical chart he'd been studying and gave Gage's rapidly retreating guests an accusing glare. "That visit went over well," he sarcastically commented. "What was all the shouting about?"
"That bump on the head must've scrambled his brains," Roy replied. "He saw a Late Late Show a few days ago, and now he's hallucinating about houses with hidden staircases."
The right corner of Brackett's mouth twitched twice. "What did he tell you?"
"Why?"
"I don't think he was hallucinating. What exactly did he say?"
Gage's visitors glanced at each other again.
Chet went first. "Well, he said there was somebody hurt—back at that house."
"Yeah," Roy chimed in. "He said it looked like a man."
"Then he said something about a secret stairway and a secret passage," Kelly concluded.
"I think you guys should check it out," the fireman's physician advised, speaking in dead earnest. "I examined Johnny—just before you two went in there. He was completely lucid and alert. And," he paused, "he's covered with bruises—the type of bruises one would get from falling down a flight of stairs. Now, Chet claims he didn't fall down the stairs he was watching. So-o, maybe he fell down a hidden stairway?"
DeSoto remained dubious.
But Kelly was beginning to come around. "It would certainly explain a lot of things," he had to admit.
"What things?" Roy wondered.
"Well, the call for instance. Remember? It came in 'man down...unknown type rescue'. And Johnny had to get to the first floor somehow. And somebody had to phone the call in."
"That call has been bugging me all night," Roy remarked and crossed over to the phone. He picked the phone up from the countertop, and then dialed a number from memory.
"Los Angeles County Fire Department Central Dispatch," someone answered. "How may I help you?"
"Dispatch, this is Squad 51. I need to speak to the person who answered an emergency call at around eleven. The call was to 213 East Morrow Drive."
"Standby, 51," the dispatcher acknowledged and placed the call on hold.
Two minutes later, a woman came back on the line. "Hello?"
"Hi. This is Squad 51. Did you receive the call from 213 East Morrow Drive last night?"
"Yes. Why? Did it turn out to be a hoax?"
DeSoto stiffened. "Why'd you ask that?"
"Some hysterical woman called, screaming something about her husband finding a secret passage in their house. Can you imagine? A secret passage?"
Roy slammed the phone down and turned to his partner's doctor. "Tell Johnny I'm sorry I ever doubted him!" he requested, before tearing off down the hospital corridor—with Chet hot on his heels.
The fleeing firemen skidded to a stop in front of the elevators, and DeSoto hit the DOWN button. "L.A., Squad 51," he spoke into his HT.
"Go ahead, 51..."
"L.A., we have a silent alarm at 213 East Morrow Drive. Request an ambulance—and Engine 51's assistance…"
"10-4, Squad 51...213 East Morrow Drive...Ambulance and Engine 51 responding...Time Out...2:13"
Kelly caught the 'Time Out' time and turned to his fellow firefighter, wearing the oddest expression on his moustached face. "2:13? How weird is that?"
The elevator arrived and swallowed both men up, before Kel could catch the paramedic's reply. The physician managed an amused snort and decided to go deliver DeSoto's message.
The claxons suddenly sounded in Station 51's half-empty garage, and the lights in the dorm came on.
"Engine 51…with Squad 51..."
Stanley and his crew of two tossed their covers off and began climbing out of their bunks and into the bottom half's of their turnouts.
"Unknown type rescue...213 East Morrow Drive...Ambulance responding...Two-One-Three East Morrow Drive...Time out…2:13"
The three sleep-deprived firemen exchanged mystified glances, before stumbling out into the garage.
Stoker and Lopez scrambled up into their truck, still sliding their jackets and helmets on.
"Engine 51. KMG-365," the Captain acknowledged the dispatcher. He crossed the bay and shot his engineer a completely baffled look, before climbing up beside him.
"Talk about 'deja` vu'..." Mike Stoker solemnly stated.
Stanley shot his astute engineer an anxious glance and clipped their copy of the call slip to the Big Red's dash. "This had better be good…"
Stoker pulled Engine 51 out onto the dimly lit street in front of the Station, lights flashing and siren blaring.
Roy pulled up to 213 East Morrow Drive—for the third time that shift. He cut the Squad's siren and engine, and he and Chet piled out.
The two men took some equipment cases from the truck's side compartments, and then hurried into the house.
The pair flew up the stairs and went racing through the first doorway on the right.
The rescuers set their medical equipment down on the Oriental rug, and began pulling and prying on the library's many 'wall to wall' bookcases.
None of them budged.
"He set his helmet down on the desk," Roy suddenly recalled, and crossed quickly over to the large oak object. That is when he saw the funny, curved scratch marks on the hardwood floor.
Chet followed his fellow firefighter's gaze. "How come nobody noticed these before?"
"We weren't looking for them," Roy glumly replied.
"And Johnny found them—"
"—Because he was looking for them," Roy finished, softly and stared up at shelves of books, directly behind the scratch marks. "What did he say about the bookcase?"
"I can't remember," Kelly gloomily confessed. "Something about 'goblins'?"
"No. No-o. It wasn't 'goblins'. It sounded like a book title." DeSoto stared up at the hundreds of books on the case's shelves, and noticed that some of the tomes had been removed from a certain section. "Here it is! Dobbin's! Mystery on Dobbin's Moor!" the paramedic proclaimed and tried to pull the book from the shelf.
But the book didn't budge, either.
The two men jerked, startled, as the entire bookcase began to move, instead. They glanced—wide-eyed—at one another, as the case slowly swung out into the library, revealing a secret passageway.
"How 'bout that!" Kelly exclaimed, and stepped toward the opening in the library wall. "Just like in the movies!"
"Hold it!" DeSoto grabbed him by the back of his turnout coat's collar and pulled him to a stop. "Remember the last thing he said?"
Chet did, and rapidly threw it into reverse.
The rescuers watched and waited.
The bookcase swung a few more feet out into the room…and then stopped. Its opening mechanism reached the end of its guide rail, and slipped off. The powerful spring pulled the case back up against the wall, with a terrific force—and an unbelievably loud 'ba-ang!'
Kelly swallowed hard. "He's right. It is deadly. Hey! That must a' been the 'bang' I heard!"
DeSoto nodded, rather solemnly. "And I'll bet there's a staircase behind there."
The sound of distant sirens grew louder and louder, and finally ceased.
A few moments later, they heard their Captain calling up the stairs.
Roy crossed over to the room's 'visible' doorway. "We're in the library, Cap!" he called back down. "We're gonna need the Ajax tool, a Stokes, and some more lights!"
It only took Stanley about two seconds to reach the room. "This had better be good!" he informed the pair, repeating his earlier warning.
Their Captain certainly could get cranky—when he was sleep-deprived.
Roy gave 'Mystery on Dobbin's Moor' a jerk.
The Fire Officer's jaw fell open—as the bookcase suddenly swung open. "Well, I'll be…"
The bookcase finally stopped moving and then slammed shut again, with a loud 'ba-ang!'
"How did you ever find it?" their still somewhat stunned Captain inquired.
Roy frowned. "Johnny found it first, Cap…the hard way. He says there's an injured man behind this bookcase."
Stoker and Lopez came racing into the room, carrying the Ajax, the Stokes, and some more flashlights.
Mike looked around the library, and couldn't see anyone in need of a Stokes. "What's goin' on, Cap?"
"Get the Ajax primed and ready," Stanley advised. Then he turned back to DeSoto. "Do your thing, pal…"
Mike got the Ajax ready, and Roy jerked 'the' book.
Stoker and Lopez stared in complete and utter amazement, as the bookcase slowly began to swing open.
DeSoto pulled a flashlight from his coat pocket and flicked it on. He picked up the Bio-phone and the drugbox and started heading for the opening. "Chet, grab the rest of the gear and come with me," he requested.
Kelly did.
The pair disappeared into the secret passage…and headed down the hidden staircase.
"Stick the Ajax between the bookcase and the passageway's frame," Stanley ordered.
Stoker did as directed, and just in time!
The bookcase slammed shut, pinching the tool and startling the two new arrivals.
"I see you found our potential killer," Mike told his Captain.
"How on earth—?" Marco began.
"—John told them about it," the Captain quietly cut in.
John Gage's trio of friends stood there, trading grave glances.
TBC