Floors: (11 page)

“Better get back to the basement,” Clarence Fillmore said. “There’s something weird down here I need to talk with you about.”

Uh-oh.
Leo was sure his father had found Remi and the boxes, and his amazing adventure in the secret rooms of the hotel would be over for good. He tried calling Remi a bunch of times but he got no answer. When he reached the door to the basement, he listened carefully, hoping not to hear the siren or flowing water.

“Hey, Dad,” he said, entering the room. The boiler was in the darkest corner of the basement, set on a huge slab of concrete. There was a drain valve that let water flow out under the garden and into the sewer system, and Mr. Fillmore was crouched down over the hole, watching water flow out.

There was no sign of the blue box. Only the purple one was there. Maybe his father hadn’t found them after all.

“Come here,” Leo’s dad said. “You’ve gotta see this.”

Leo slowly moved across the room, leaning down when he passed his cot in order to look underneath. It
was too dark in the basement to tell for sure, but if he had to guess, he’d have said the blue box was gone.

“What is it, Dad?”

Mr. Fillmore pointed a flashlight toward the flowing water, steam rising up from the heat. He pulled a foot-long magnetic tube out of his tool belt, which he used for picking up nuts and bolts that had fallen into out-of-the-way places, and held it down in the water.

“Are those …?” asked Leo, but he didn’t finish.

“Yup, paper clips. Tons of ‘em.”

The magnet was filling up with globs of metal paper clips as they poured out of the boiler.

“I bet there’s ten thousand,” said Mr. Fillmore as they both listened to the paper clips grinding their way through the giant boiler.

“But how?” asked Leo.

Neither of them spoke for a long moment, because they both knew the truth. There was only one reason something like this would happen. And there was plenty of other evidence to support what they were both pretty sure of.

Someone was trying to sabotage the Whippet Hotel.

“That was our contact,” said Milton, hanging up his phone. “They’ve set things in motion.”

“And the competition? What of them?” asked Bernard. He seemed troubled. He’d been so sure of his control over the Whippet, but he was less sure with each passing day. His plans were moving along precisely as he’d hoped, and yet he doubted.

Milton looked gravely through the gate into the Whippet’s sprawling grounds.

“We’ll have to choose carefully if we hope to best our enemies.”

“True,” said Bernard Frescobaldi. “Take me back to the park. I want to take one last look around.”

“Yes, sir.”

Bernard had just read another highly confidential diary entry by Merganzer D. Whippet, this one about Central Park, and he thought it best to go there at once to search for something he might have missed. So many clues, so much to remember. And so much at stake. He couldn’t let the slightest clue slip through his fingers.

“Isn’t the Central Park Room at the Whippet a wonder?” he asked, scanning the words once more. “Magnificent.”

“Agreed,” Milton said.

When they pulled to a stop on Central Park West, Bernard got out of the black town car and began walking alone. He brought the diary entry with him, and, after a while, sat down on a bench and read it once more.

A
fter Remi put the blue box in the duck elevator, he returned to the lobby just in time to open the door for Ms. Sparks.

“PHIPPS!” she screamed, and Mr. Phipps, a slow mover at best, began walking toward the lobby. He had a wobbly gait, which Blop began talking about in cryptic medical terms only a back surgeon could understand.

Ms. Sparks gave the little robot an icy stare, though she knew it was hopeless. Shy of throwing Blop across the lawn, there wasn’t much she could do to shut him up.

“… and so you see, walking is far more complex than one might imagine at first glance. Wouldn’t you agree?” asked Blop, looking at Ms. Sparks hopefully, as
if his only wish in the world were that she would answer him.

Instead she turned to the gardener as he arrived at the step.

“I need you to watch the front desk until I return,” she demanded. “Something’s come up.”

It was a hot day, and Mr. Phipps pulled out a handkerchief, mopping his brow. “If you insist.”

Ms. Sparks was not fond of sweat and made a sour face, but she needed to go and Pilar wouldn’t be available until two o’clock. She looked at her wristwatch — noon — and scurried down the path toward the gate.

“I’ll be back before the dinner bell at six. Pray the building doesn’t fall over before I return!”

Remi and Mr. Phipps watched her disappear down the winding path without a word. As soon as she was out of earshot, Mr. Phipps turned to Remi.

“I’ll be working on the puzzle. Don’t get into any trouble.”

“I can’t get into trouble here at the door,” said Remi. “Unless you count DYING of BOREDOM.”

“Who said anything about standing by the door?” said Mr. Phipps. He was already inside, heading for the Puzzle Room without the slightest care about who might enter the building in the absence of a boy at the door or a gardener at the front desk.

Remi looked at Blop, who was staring up at him hopefully, and broke into a wide grin.

“Let’s go see what’s in the blue box.”

“What do you mean, you’re on the fifth floor? I thought you were glued to the front door?”

Leo was standing before a jumble of wires at the electrical panel on six. The pipes were all painted different colors and they twisted and turned around one another, creating a spaghetti rainbow effect that made Leo’s head spin. Add to that what looked like a thousand miles of wires dangling from the ceiling and it was a miracle the whole place didn’t self-destruct from an overload of chaos. It was one of the more confusing places in the maintenance tunnel, and it required Leo’s full attention to get anything done.

His concentration blown, Leo stepped back from the electrical panel and listened as Remi told him about Ms. Sparks’s early departure and his exploration of the blue box. When Leo understood what Remi had done, he felt angry. It was
his
box, not Remi’s, and now Remi had opened it without him.

“I checked the registry and no one has stayed in the Central Park Room since Mr. Whippet disappeared,” Remi reported. “What’s in there?”

Leo didn’t want to talk about the Central Park Room.

“It’s not your box. You shouldn’t have opened it.”

“But you told me to go get it,” Remi pleaded, all the excitement gone out of his voice at the thought of upsetting Leo.

“I didn’t tell you to open it. You shouldn’t have done that.”

“I was only trying to help.”

Leo looked at the mess of wires and blown fuses before him and knew he couldn’t possibly fix the air-conditioning in less than half an hour. After that, he’d have a little time — maybe an hour — in which to disappear in the labyrinth of the hotel.

“It’s okay,” he said, trying to let go of something he really did think was his and his alone. “Just ask next time.”

“Next time?” said Remi, his old zing returning. “You mean there are
more
boxes in this place? Awesome!”

“We’re supposed to bring a duck,” said Leo, thinking it would be the perfect errand for Remi and Blop while he finished the electrical work. “Go to the roof and get Betty — she’s the smartest of the bunch. Then meet me at the door to the Central Park Room. We’re going in.”

“Yes!” cried Remi. “You hear that, Blop? We’re going in!”

Leo went back to work on the wiring, pulling crystal fuses and electrical tape out of his maintenance bag. While Remi went up the duck elevator, he told Leo what was inside the blue box.

“Trains and tracks, mostly,” said Remi.

“Trains?”

“I know, weird, right? There’s not a train in Central Park, but it says right on the inside of the lid: ‘Enter through Central Park on five, under the arrow.’”

“Have you been to Central Park before?” asked Leo. He had set the two-way radio on a ledge, pushing the button when he needed to while his hands worked quickly at the wires and fuses.

“Sure, I’ve been to the park. Who hasn’t?” said Remi. He asked Leo why Blop was being so quiet.

“If he blows through ten thousand words in under an hour, it usually shuts his voice chip down for a little while. You must have had quite a chat this morning.”

“Oh yeah, we talked about every thing. He’s my travel buddy.”

Leo could imagine Remi in the small elevator, sitting on the floor with Blop on his lap in the cardboard box. The two boys were like secret spies making their way
through a hidden world, not knowing what they’d find around the next corner.

“‘Under the arrow,’” said Leo, running electrical tape around a bunch of red and yellow wires. “I don’t know about any arrows in the park. We might have to do some searching to find the entrance.”

“I’m at the roof,” said Remi. “But Betty won’t get in. She’s in a bad mood. Should I bring a different duck?”

Leo thought about wandering through Central Park with a robot, a duck, and a buddy, and he thought better of the idea.

“I think we can manage without Betty this time,” said Leo, screwing in the last fuse and throwing the electrical switch. A whirling noise ensued, and Leo knew the air-conditioning was back up again. He was a free man, at least until his dad found out he’d finished fixing the AC in record time. “Head back down and knock on the door. I’ll open it from the inside.”