Boosting - Chapter 16
"Remind me of why we're doing this again?" Con asked Nancy as he coasted his car to a stop at the rear of the car dealership under cover of darkness.
"How many more times?"
Con turned in his seat. "Look, this sort of thing might come second nature to you, but I've spent the last quarter decade operating on the right side of law, this doesn't sit comfortably with me."
She laughed, he scowled.
"Your face!" Nancy exclaimed. "Con, you're only here because you insist on accompanying me everywhere!"
He tipped his head and carried on waiting.
"Okay! For the final time…we're doing this because I'm damned if I'm going to allow this tin-pot company to sell Frank's car out from under us, and I'm not prepared to part with any cash for it either – why should I line their pockets any more than they already have been?"
"And what about when they report the place was broken into tomorrow and one of their cars was boosted? It won't take the Chief long to work out who was responsible."
"That's the beauty of it, Con. Martin won't report the burglary, because that would mean admitting that he either stole Frank's convertible, or was in possession of stolen goods. But tomorrow, when we get confirmation back from the DMV as to how such a convincing car registration document was put together, it won't matter. And at the end of the day…hello…we can't steal something that already belongs to us!"
Con's mouth closed into a tight line and Nancy could see his brain whirring as he checked and double-checked the points she'd delivered. She made a big play of reaching for the door handle to force him into a decision and looked back expectantly.
Eventually, he threw himself back in his seat and capitulated. "What am I doing?" he groaned to himself. "I can't believe I'm actually goin' to do this."
"Good man!" Nancy said. "And besides, I needed a strong guy."
Con cast a suspicious look. "What for?"
"You'll find out!" she said mysteriously and left the car.
She was half way to the building before Con caught up with her, appearing at her side and going ahead to lead the way.
"Not that way, Con." Nancy said, gently veering him away from the main back doors. "Go to the side entrance."
Luckily for the both of them, the rear of the property consisted of an empty parking lot, overgrown grass and gnarly trees with no other properties directly overlooking. The showroom was at the edge of the industrial section of Bayport, and all the surrounding businesses were shut at that hour of the night. Although there must have been some security presence, it was concentrated towards the central, more affluent area of the complex. It was doubtful whether a used car garage would attract much need for security. Even so, Nancy and Con stuck to the shadows and had worn dark clothes.
They reached the side door and Con dipped to examine the lock. "If you can jimmy this, I'll be impressed," he remarked.
"I'm not even going to bother trying. I can't do anything with a deadbolt."
"Then why exactly are we at this door if we can't get in this way?"
"Because we're not actually getting in through the door. I wanted to come here so I could disable the building's alarm system." Nancy pointed up towards the top of the door. "See that junction box?"
Con nodded.
"That's the alarm."
"How can you possibly know that?"
"It's got the alarm manufacturer's name imprinted on the front – which you obviously can't see in this light."
"Then how do you know it's got the maker's name on it?"
"I went on a reconnaissance mission real early on this morning before I came into work to take a look-see at the place."
"You came here, without me?" Con was annoyed.
"Yes, before the dealership opened. I told you, I work alone usually and some habits are hard to break. Besides, it's easier to get away with things if you're a woman. People aren't usually as suspicious."
Con looked down at Nancy as Nancy looked at him, both mirroring each other's stances – hands on hips, eyes narrowed and challenging. Nancy couldn't make out Con's features with any clarity, but she was willing to bet it he was giving her a look of paternal consternation.
"Drew, you are proving to be a handful. I wish I'd gone with Fenton."
Nancy pulled her hair back and clipped it out of the way, stray strawberry blonde tendrils escaping and falling down about her face until she tucked them behind her ears. "No you don't. You'd have missed out on all the fun." She took the small backpack from her shoulders, took out a small ratchet set and clipped it to her belt.
Con snorted. "That's the most valid point you've made all evening."
"I knew you were a thrill seeker on the quiet. Now give me a boost so I can reach that junction box."
Con tittered. "C'mon then, kiddo, climb aboard." He went down into a crouch for Nancy to straddle his shoulders and stood up to draw her level with the conduit. "How's that?"
"Perfect, and a little higher than I was expecting to be, you're really tall, Con." She pulled out her penlight and held it in her mouth to illuminate the area and selected the most appropriate screw head for the job and started work on removing the outer plate, eventually working it loose of its casing. Handing it down to Con, she was able to free up one of her hands in order to take the flashlight out of her mouth to hold it instead. She went on to start working the wires loose.
"Not only is Martin cheap and basic, but his alarm system is as well," she remarked, grappling with her screwdriver. Eventually the wire came free and the red light to the right of the box went off. "So simple, a child could have done it. It didn't even have an anti-tampering, back-up system. Pass the cover back up, Con." She accepted it back and slotted it over the casement, leaving the screws on top of the box for later. "Done."
Con set her back on her feet
"We need to get up onto the roof," she said.
And Con's hands were back on his hips. "Nancy! Have you forgotten so quickly that the last time someone had to scale a roof, it all ended in tears? Phone Joe, he'll remind you. What's the obsession with you and the Hardy men when it comes to roofs?"
Nancy tutted and rolled her eyes. "The only way we're going to get in is through the skylight. I can't pick the locks, but I sure as heck can open a skylight. Once we're inside, we can open the main back door by remote."
Con spun on his heels and made a noise in the back of his throat. "Darn it all! You're asking me to climb, aren't you, Drew?"
She dropped her chin in confirmation; realising Con was looking a tad worried.
But despite his expression, Con said, "Jeepers-creepers…right…okay—" and rubbed his hands briskly. He turned to a down pipe and gave it a hard tug and then looked across at one of the windows. "Oh boy. I hate climbing, I'm too old for his!" He reached up high and gripped on before putting his toe against the first strut and slowly lifted himself up, using his biceps and shoulders every bit as much as his legs. He then reached and carefully planted his other foot onto the window ledge, before repeating the whole process again.
Although his movements were slow, careful and cumbersome, he was making steady progress and eventually his head was level with the edge of the roof, hands groping up to cling to the ledge. Then he froze for a good few long seconds, his face aimed upwards and stock-still.
With a sense of guilt, it was becoming evident to Nancy that Con wasn't great with heights and suspected he was only scaling the building so she wouldn't have to go first. Then, all at once, he made a mad kind of jumping movement and tried to pull himself over, but he slipped and scrapped the toes of his boots as his feet scrambled to try and gain some purchase.
Nancy gasped and stepped back out of the way as she thought he was going to fall – but he clumsily, and with a sense of panic, finally hauled and heaved his weight over the rest of the way, going face first over the low walled ledge, his legs folding up and following after in a jumble. There was a splash as Con, came into close association with a puddle of water on the other side.
"That was elegant!" Nancy called up to him when his head appeared a few seconds later over the edge.
"I'm built for strength, not style. Do you reckon you can get up here?"
"Just watch me," Nancy said and started making her way up the same way he had, but with much more finesse and dexterity. Once she was three quarters of the way there, Con's strong arms found her and near enough lifted and carried her the rest of the way.
"You okay?" he asked, setting her down.
"Yes thanks. Did you get wet?" she asked walking away towards the skylight, deciding not to embarrass him by remarking on his lack of climbing skills.
Con shrugged. "Only my hands."
Nancy dipped down next to the skylight and gave it a tug, unsurprised to find it firmly sealed shut. So she delved within the confines of her backpack again and extracted a thin metal bar. "Hold this and shine it there," she requested, passing across her flashlight.
Con illuminated the window catch on the other side of the glass and inspected the area closely. "Actually, Nancy, that won't work. Have you got a craft knife of some sort in that bag of goodies you've been carrying?"
"Yes I have." She rummaged within and pulled forth a sharp blade.
Con returned the light to Nancy and went about slicing through the rubber waterproof beading surrounding the window. Once that was done, he picked at the end until it came loose and pulled until he'd stripped the entire length away from the plastic reinforcing strip. "Now your trick will work."
Nancy slid the metal bar in through the small gap between the roof and the skylight and wiggled it until it came into contact with the catch. With a quick jerk, the lock slipped across and clicked open. Then without withdrawing the blade to stop the spring action catch from locking across again, she pulled open the glass cover. She was taken by surprise at how heavy it was and almost dropped it, but Con's hand was there to halt its fall and he swung it open the remainder of the way until it was leaning against the roof.
"I once said to Fen that Frank would make a great cat burglar, now I'm starting to think you could both join forces and bleed Bayport dry!"
Nancy laughed. "Frank and me, 'burglars extraordinaire'. No one would suspect us because we're such hotshot detectives, like a modern day Bonnie and Clyde – but without the guns and the killin', of course!"
Con joined in: "And me and Fen would be hired to look into the robberies with you two throwing obstacles in our way to put us off the scent. You'd be the last people we'd suspect – although Joe would have an idea, but due to his dogged loyalty, would be gagged. Eventually, we'd bust you both though…what the hell are we talking about, Drew?"
Nancy was regarding him sideways. "I can't help but feel we've become a tad distracted."
"Mm—"
Con turned to catch Nancy's eye and they both laughed at each other before peering down the open hatch into the darkness, unable to see the floor below until Nancy aimed her flashlight down.
Con audibly gulped. "That's a long drop, kiddo. There's no way I'm jumping that far."
"You won't need to. This is why I needed a strong guy. You're going to lower me as far as possible and I'll drop the rest of the way. Then I'll get the ladder that I saw in the back office and you can climb down that way.
Con started shaking his head vehemently. "No way Drew, you'll break your leg, or worse."
"No I won't, I'll do a break fall, it's not as far as it looks—"
Con continued his negative head shaking.
"Honestly, Con, I've got sponge bones, never broken one in my life. Trust me, I know what I'm doing."
Con stood up and stepped back, hands on his hips. "You might know what you're doing, but I don't trust myself. I'm not doing it. I'd never forgive myself if you got hurt."
Nancy pursed her lips. "I'm going in there one way or the other. So you can either helped me, or watch me jump. It's up to you."
"Does your father always let you have your own way?"
"Not always, but I know my own limitations and I'm single minded."
"Understatement—"
"C'mon Con!"
Con sighed loudly, the noise ending in a grunt. Nancy took this as an agreement and grinned at him as he made a small but significant movement with his index finger and came forward again. "I need my head examined," he decided, going down on his knees.
Giving her friend no time to change his mind, Nancy wordlessly turned her body around and dropped her legs over into the showroom. Con reached urgently to grab onto her collar to support her in case she slipped and she allowed her body to slide until she was leaning on her stomach. "Give me your hand," she said and held her right arm out.
They both held onto one another's wrists, which was a stronger hold than simply gripping hands and Nancy grabbed on to his sleeve with her other arm, letting go of the edge of the skylight. She locked onto his worried eyes and said: "It's okay Con, I trust you." And allowed her body to slide entirely over the edge and into thin air, the world opening up around her, Con taking the strain.
"Lower me down as far as you can, but don't let go until I tell you to."
"I hadn't planning on letting you go at all, remember!" Con said through gritted teeth, his voice sounding strained.
She began to feel a slow shift as Con started to move onto his belly, his head and shoulder leaning into the building, his other hand holding tightly on to the opposite edge of the skylight opening. "That's about as far as I can safely lower you, Drew, without falling through myself. You're gonna have to drop the rest of the way, but I don't think I can let you go."
"Bye Con," Nancy said in reply and released her own hold knowing there'd be little chance of him supporting her deadweight for long by one arm without her also gripping on – no matter how mighty he was.
"Nancy!" Con shouted in horror as her wrist, followed by the hand, and finally her fingers slipped through his fist. He instinctively made a swiping action to try and catch her, but she was gone and dropping away from him into the darkness. There was a thudding noise, a grunt, and seconds later a shuffling noise, followed by an ominous silence. "Nancy!" he hissed again. "Are you all right?…Nancy?"
*****
Joe was sitting out on the porch on the third step, watching Frank who was seated on the ground by his knee, fiddling with the component on his bike that had come loose. Joe wasn't only watching and passing tools across though, he was thinking hard about Frank's lack of sleep problem.
Joe had come so tantalizingly close on that first day to Frank opening up before his attack of cramps, which had obviously frightened his brother more than Joe had realised. Ever since, every tactic had been used to evade the subject – from turning it into an 'it's all about Joe' session, to simply saying 'I'm too tired/I don't want to talk about it'. The guilt evidently still hanging heavily about Frank's shoulders.
Joe retrospectively took himself back to his own experience when he was having nightmares about Iola's precipitous death. He'd had to explore the reasons why the dreams were happening in the first place, and had gotten right down to the crux of the matter before they'd started to stop, both in frequency and intensity. But talking about them had helped right from the go get. So unless Frank did the same, Joe expected that the dreams would simply continue.
The biggest problem was that Frank's mental exhaustion wasn't helping him want to share; he was too irritable and fatigued to want to even help himself. Frank simply didn't have the energy to kick up to the surface and was slowly drowning.
Of course, that wouldn't necessarily be too big a deal because the expression that 'time is a great healer' is actually true. But the overriding problem was that Frank didn't have that sort of time as he was in charge of a high-powered, kick-ass motorcycle, and one that he'd already taken a tumble off right in front of a truck! Frank had lucked out, big time, in avoiding being crushed, if the huge vehicle had been moving faster – if the driver had been distracted and his reactions hadn't been what they were…well, it didn't bear thinking about.
"Yep, this is a classic vicious cycle!" Joe concluded. "Only one thing for it—""Beer?" Joe asked his brother.
"Good call."
Joe went back into the cabin and lifted two bottles from the refrigerator and set them on the counter. He then went to his room and took the little vial of pills from his nightstand. It was the medication he'd been prescribed for his cramps, the medication that had knocked him out so effectively.
He knew he shouldn't be using prescribed drugs on another person, but Joe considered this an emergency and a measured risk he was willing to take. He didn't want to see his brother sliding bodily under the wheels of a truck again any time soon: that was a scary time! He shook two out of the container and screwed the cap down again before returning to the beers.
Joe snapped the lids off both bottles and – after checking Frank wasn't watching him through the door – separated the pills outer casing and tipped two tablets worth of powder into the amber colored liquid and gave it a gentle twirl with his thumb over the top. After, he took a quick sip of Frank's drink, satisfied that the concoction tasted of nothing more than beer.
Joe headed back outside again. "Here you go, dude."
Frank accepted the bottle, took a good mouthful, swirled it about his mouth and swallowed. Then he raised it to his lips again.
Despite trying to act nonchalant, Joe realised he'd balked as Frank had taken that first mouthful, but immediately he straightened his face and shifted his gaze towards the lake. He watched Frank in his peripheral vision as he froze and studied Joe for a few long seconds. But when Joe didn't move, Frank seemed to shake off whatever momentary frisson of unease he'd experienced and took that second drink before setting the bottle to one side.