“Don’t worry, Lance,” Adam bit at him. “We aren’t going to try anything. You’re the one holding the gun.” Adam held up his empty hand while keeping Beth slightly behind him with his other hand. “What’s on the plate?”
Keeping the gun on Adam, Lance lowered the lighter once again. He ran his other hand over the letters, his fingers feeling the indentations formed by the letters, probably punched out one by one using some sort of chisel and hammer. The letters were not evenly spaced and some not as deeply punched as others. But, the letters formed four unmistakable words:
Sunnee holds the key
Adam looked at Beth who barely moved her head back and forth. She was still shaking, but she motioned for Adam to keep quiet. She had an idea and desperately hoped it would work.
“What the heck does that mean?” The gun now dangled in Lance’s hand as he looked at the door and the carving, seemingly transfixed by the words. At that moment, he had forgotten Beth and Adam were even in the cavern with him.
Giving Adam another warning glance, Beth took a step towards the door. Getting no opposition from Lance, she knelt down next to the door and ran her fingers over the words. Hoping she sounded mesmerized, she whispered, “This is Indian. It has to be.” She then spoke louder as she turned to look at Adam. “Remember, Adam? Lillian was raised in Nez Perce country. It must be a chief or someone like that.”
Lance spun to her, the gun pointed downward as if he didn’t realize he still held it. “You sure?”
Not lying completely, Beth answered, “Yes, I’m sure. She was born in Idaho. There’s a reservation there. I can’t remember what it’s called, but we can find out.” Beth slowly backed toward Adam.
As he stared unseeing at her, Lance came to a decision and snapped to life. “Okay, we’re going to get out of here. Beth, you go first. Go back up through the passage and get behind the bed and stay there. There has to be a latch on the inside to open the panel. Feel around for it. Once through, after the second boat passes, go through the little cave and wait in the passage out of sight. If you try anything, Adam will find out if he’s allergic to lead administered in small doses at a high rate of speed.”
“You’re breaking my heart, Lance.” Beth wasn’t aware of the tears running down her face.
“I’m sure you’ll get over it. And probably a lot sooner than you should, if I remember your quote correctly, Runt.”
The use of one of her old nicknames only made her tears fall faster. Adam watched helplessly as she disappeared into the darkness of the tunnel, followed closely by Lance. He could hear her fumbling to find some kind of latch that would open the secret door. When Lance moved forward, Adam knew she had found it and he silently followed them out of the quiet cavern. He hated the feeling of helplessness that hung over him.
At the fork where they had come in, Lance had them turn the opposite direction and took them backstage into the employee-only area under Pirates and New Orleans Square. Lance had ordered them to carry their jackets and leave on the fake nametags. He wanted them to look like cast members going through the tunnel so there would be less questions at this point. He transferred his real nametag and I.D. to the outside of his jacket, keeping his pirate shirt covered. The gun hidden inside his jacket pocket, he had Adam and Beth walk in front of him through the sterile white passage that snaked through the underground and served as maintenance and service corridors.
“How are we going to get back up to the surface?”
Adam’s question seemed to confuse Lance, whose mind was already in turmoil. “What do you mean?”
Adam wanted to keep Lance talking, hoping something would jar him back to normalcy. “The waterfalls dropped us what—forty feet underground? I just wondered how we get back up to the surface.”
“Seems you don’t know as much about Disneyland as you thought you did,” Lance jibed. “No wonder you couldn’t figure out the simple fact that the rides in Fantasyland had moved.”
Don’t provoke him, Adam’s mind warned. Let him talk. “You couldn’t figure it out either.” Rats.
Lance didn’t seem to mind the retort. “We aren’t underground, genius. If you’d remember the hundreds of times we had to go to New Orleans Square, you would remember we had to walk uphill to get there. The Square is thirty feet above the level of the main entrance. Once we went down the two waterfalls, we were back at street level.”
They walked silently through the empty corridor. Signs posted on occasional doors told which attraction or shop or restaurant was on the other side. Beth used this time to remember the corridors she hadn’t been in for five years. She formulated an idea and hoped it was a good one. First she needed to know where Lance was taking them.
“What are you holding?” Beth looked back over her shoulder to see Lance’s position.
“A little souvenir I caught the two of you stealing after I saw you jump off the boat. I’m going to turn you in to Security.” He chuckled at his own cleverness. “That ought to keep you ‘tied up’ for quite some time. I can probably convince them to hand you over to the local police. By that time I’ll be well on my way.” Lance tossed the book he had grabbed in the air and caught it. It had been one of the dusty props on the dresser in the Captain’s Quarters. His mood had lightened considerably. Beth had stupidly told him where to find the key to the treasure. And now he was about to rid himself of two partners he no longer needed.
“No fingerprints,” Beth mumbled as if she were trying to tell Adam something.
“What did you say?” Lance demanded.
“Security won’t hold us. There are only your fingerprints on that book.”
“That won’t matter. It’ll just take them longer to figure out who did what.” At her negative shake of the head, Lance wondered if he might be mistaken. After all, she had already had dealings with Security. Perhaps he did need some more definite proof. Nobody else had seen them jump. He smiled as he came up with a brilliant solution.
Lance suddenly gave a yell. “Look out!” As Adam and Beth spun around to see what happened, Lance hurled the book at her face. Beth caught it automatically before it smacked into her. Lance smirked. “Now it has your fingerprints.”
“When did you become so devious?”
“About two minutes after I became desperate.”
Soon they emerged into a larger tunnel, one that appeared to be used for large trucks. Around a corner where the large corridor opened up into the back-lot area of the Park came three girls dressed for the Haunted Mansion, heading for their evening shift. When they saw Lance, they all squealed and clustered around him, forcing him to stop. They seemed delighted to have him all to themselves. His hand dropped into his gun pocket, but he smiled at them and called them each by name. Calling for his friends to hold up and wait, he frowned when he realized Adam and Beth weren’t obeying. But the three girls weren’t that easy to dissuade. The tallest got in front of him, smiling as she asked when he got off work.
Using the distraction, Adam and Beth kept walking slowly ahead. They looked as if they had just finished their shift and were heading back to their lockers to change. Only Beth was frantically whispering the whole time. “Adam, we have to get away. We can’t let him take us to Security. They’ll remember me and it won’t be pretty. Listen. We’re near the end of the Jungle Cruise, near the African Veldt. Up ahead the road branches off in three directions. You take the left branch. Look for a sign that says Emporium, the store closest to the entrance of the Park. You’ll find the door into the back of the store. Just put on your jacket and walk normally, like you know where you’re going. I’ll go to the right. It comes out between the tour guide garden and City Hall. We have to get to your truck and get out of here.”
“Can’t he have Security stop us?”
“No. He isn’t going by the book.”
“I don’t think he cares at this point.”
The girls were going to be late to their shift and were saying good-bye to Lance. They seemed intent on getting him to p
romise to call. Beth and Adam were about out of time. They could see the corridor branching ahead of them and Lance was starting to catch up.
“Take the book, Adam. Throw it down that middle corridor as far as you can. Then start running and look for that door. He’ll have to go get the book. He has to have some proof, and I probably can’t outrun him without the head start.”
Taking another couple of steps, Adam heaved the book. It hit the pavement and skidded away from them. They took off running as fast as they could, hearing Lance curse as he went after the book. He had to retrieve it. Lance knew that much. But her tactic didn’t gain them much time as she would have liked. They also didn’t know who Lance would go after once he got the prop. Knowing Adam’s weakness, Lance went after Beth. However, he had to slow up when two Jungle Cruise skippers walked past saying hello.
Not looking back and expecting Lance to grab her at any second, a breathless Beth flung herself through the Cast Member Only door. It banged open and she excused herself as she bumped into one of the tour guides. “Sorry, I’m late again!” She ran toward the souvenir stand. The guide, startled for a moment, finished her last-minute instructions to her group of guests and led them away to start their tour. Still not daring to look back, Beth hurried through the people under the entry arch and sprinted for the exit.
Lance burst through the door moments later only to find an empty courtyard. The guide who had taken her last group into the Park was gone. Beth was out of sight. He ran out into the Town Square and looked all around for Beth among the hundreds of people milling about the area. He went through the arch and ran toward the main entrance, looking out past the exit turnstiles. But Lance didn’t see her anywhere. Drawing a deep breath, he cursed loudly. He then took the book still grasped in his hand and, with an angry yell, threw it like a discus over the Newsstand souvenir booth into the trees beyond. One startled mother passing by took notice of his nametag and turned toward City Hall. Language like that had to be reported.
Red-faced, sweating, and uncaring of the sight he was presenting, Lance ran back through the entry and began a hectic search in the Town Square for Adam.
But, by this time, Adam had already crossed from the Emporium to the Disney Clothiers, Ltd. shop on the opposite side of Main Street. Walking quickly through its side door, he made his way through a large crowd getting their pictures taken with Mickey and Minnie in front of the Mad Hatter Shop. Following the general movement of people, he stayed in the middle of them past the Opera House and the Bank of Main Street. Blending in with a huge family heading for the exit, he bypassed the hand stamp and headed toward the parking lot tram—and more importantly, to find Beth.
Now the race was really on. Not only did they have to find the meaning of the clue, they also had to outwit a frustrated and dangerous Lance.
Adam sprinted for the Mickey and Friends Tram hoping to find Beth waiting for him. Not seeing her and not waiting to let Lance catch up, he managed to jump on the tram just as it pulled away from the loading area. Ignoring the angry look from the cast member who was supposed to prevent things like that from happening, he half-stood to see if she was one of the other passengers. Not knowing if she had ducked down for safety, he had to resign himself to wait as they headed north to the parking structure.
At the structure, Adam rode the escalator to the second level, apprehensively looking at the faces of people below him for any sign of either Lance or Beth. Seeing neither, Adam stepped off the escalator and jogged down the aisle to his truck. As he approached, his step slowed. Looking anxiously around, he gave a sigh of relief when Beth softly called his name from a few cars away.
Coming out from between two cars, she, too, looked around before running to Adam. Her heart pounded against his chest as he pulled her in for a quick hug.
“We need to get out of here.” Even though he didn’t want the hug to end, he took Beth’s arms off his neck. “Since we all came together, Lance won’t have a car. We might gain a little time while he calls a cab.”
“What are we going to do, Adam?” Beth sounded miserable. Her affection for Lance, his betrayal and the fact that all this was killing her was evident in her voice. She had never felt so conflicted.
Adam wasn’t unaffected by all this, either. To have who he thought was his best friend pull a gun on him—and Beth—was far beyond anything he had ever had to deal with before. “Don’t know, sweetie, I just don’t know.” Adam unlocked the passenger door and helped Beth in. “All I know is we need to get out of here as fast as we can.” He climbed into the truck and started the engine. Neither said a word as Adam concentrated on exiting the parking structure. There were always cars coming and going and excited kids darting away from their parents so they could get to Mickey faster. Upset kids were being pulled kicking and screaming back to their cars to go home and other people could be seen wandering down the center of the aisle trying to locate their car, hoping they were on the right level.
Adam drove straight to Beth’s condo and pulled up to the curb. “I think you need to pack a few things.”
Beth stayed in the car for a moment, deep in thought. Turning to Adam, she touched his hand. “Adam, the information I gave Lance wasn’t real. We don’t actually need to go to Idaho. I mean, Lillian was born in Idaho, but I have no idea what ‘Sunnee’ refers to. I don’t think the clue has anything to do with the Nez Perce.”
“I know. I wasn’t planning on jumping on a plane.” Adam relinquished her hand and opened his door. Walking around the truck, he held her door open. “I just feel you shouldn’t stay here alone. Lance is, well, unpredictable right now, to say the least. It might not be safe.”
It crushed him to see her eyes fill with tears. She didn’t argue but went straight to her bedroom and pulled out a carry-on. Adam followed, advising her not to take anything that Lance would notice was missing. Then he changed his mind. “You know what? Make it look like you really did leave on a trip. If Lance comes here, I think we need to make him believe that we are headed to Idaho.”
“You think he’ll break into my house!?” She sounded shocked. Lance was pretty nonchalant about personal boundaries, but go through her stuff? Her mind in a whirl, another thought hit her. “What about my car? Do you think he’ll take my Bird? He said his dad was going to repo the Benz.”
Adam stopped her from running out to her garage. “Listen, I’ll padlock the garage so he can’t get in or drive out. He doesn’t want your car. All he wants is whatever treasure he thinks Walt left. Considering what’s been left behind so far, I personally doubt there’ll be anything of any value like Lance is thinking. But, I won’t take any chances.” Adam looked toward her garage. “I have a lock in my toolbox.” Before he left, he took the miserable Beth by her arms. “Look at me, Beth. I know you’re upset. I am too. But, you’re more important than that car and more important than any treasure we might find.… I want you safe. All right?”
She could see his feelings for her in his eyes. He hadn’t looked at her that way in a long time. Beth felt something inside her, an emotion she hadn’t felt in a long, long time. Not able to trust her voice, she just nodded.
While Adam secured her garage, Beth finished throwing some clothes into the bag. Glancing in the extra bedroom, she decided she didn’t need any of her books. Adam had a better collection of research books. There wasn’t anything of any value on her computer to worry about. The kitchen and all her food? Well, there was nothing she could do about that.
When Adam came back, she pointed at the pirate shirt she was wearing. “What about this? Should I leave it?”
Adam thought about it for a minute. “No, we might need them again once we figure out the key clue. Just grab another jacket and a hat.”
Within ten minutes they were back in Adam’s truck. Beth took a last look at her place and hoped it would be fine whenever she got back. Sighing, she turned to Adam. “Adam? I’m confused about one point.”
He managed a smile. “Only one?”
“Well,
” she admitted, “a lot of points, but I’ll get to Lance later.”
“What’s your one point?”
Beth frowned as she sorted out her thoughts. They were so jumbled she had a difficult time focusing. “It’s about Walt and his diary. We know he was on Tobago in 1960, right? But the point that keeps bothering me is that the Pirate ride wasn’t talked about until, what? 1961 or 1962? How could he possibly have left that clue with Jeremy B. in 1960?”
Adam had been constantly checking his rearview mirror but remembered he didn’t know what Lance would be driving. He stopped, not wanting Beth more nervous than she already was. “I thought about that, too. But, think about Disneyland for a minute.”
“Which part?” Beth gave a little laugh.
“Back in the early planning stages. I read that Walt had been thinking about his family park sometime in the early 1940’s when he would take his daughters to a merry-go-round. He would sit and watch them having fun while he would just eat popcorn. The idea was just in his head, growing as the years went by. He mentioned it later on, but was either busy with other projects or was met with criticism. It might have been the same with the Pirate ride. He could have been thinking about it for years before he told any of his Imagineers about it.”
Beth was silent, thinking about what he said. “That’s possible. But the clue pointed directly to Marc Davis and Xavier Atencio. There wasn’t any team for Pirates. How would he know who would work on it?”
Stopped at a red light, Adam turned to face her. “Marc had already been with Walt a long time. Walt knew what he was capable of doing. Once Walt did announce he wanted to build a Pirate attraction, he could have given Marc a drawing of the coin and told him to work it into the design. Same with Xavier. He was an artist with the studio for almost thirty years. Walt could easily have told him the exact words he wanted to use on the ride. Walt was the boss. You know he would’ve made sure what he wanted was there in the final product.” Adam paused for a moment as he checked the traffic. “It wouldn’t surprise me if Walt left specific instructions that either have been destroyed or lost—instructions that would have been clearly followed by Davis, X., or anyone else Walt may have trusted.”
Sometimes Dead Men DO Tell Tales! Page 35