The DigiSpy was essentially a little robot with a camera. By using their computer keys, they could direct the robot to go anywhere, even tiny places behind the wall. They practiced and soon could get clear images on the computer screen of any nook the DigiSpy pod visited in their apartment.
The third part of Operation Mortar called for Pat to go back up in the dumbwaiter with the DigiSpy. He had to stop the dumbwaiter in just the right spot under the silver room wall and make certain that the Torrio and Williamson apartments were empty before launching the pod into the spaces too small for him to crawl into. CJ would stay in the driver’s seat—Mr. Smithfork’s home office—with the computer. Pat would stay still in the dumbwaiter and wait to retrieve the DigiSpy pod. Once the robot had recorded the images, they would have a clear picture of the symbols Pat had seen behind the walls. CJ was increasingly sure that what they would see was a map of Manhattan, marked with symbols to push.
Project Mortar was going to be launched on Saturday. Brid had worked out a schedule:
9:00 AM: Eloise arrives to babysit.
9:15 AM: Mom leaves for baby yoga with Carron.
9:30 AM: Ray will be sitting outside the building in his car, looking as if he is awaiting his usual Saturday drive with Eloise. From that position, he can confirm that Mr. Torrio has left for his Saturday-morning walk. When the coast is clear, Patrick, Brid, and Eloise go down to storage area.
9:45 AM: Patrick enters the dumbwaiter with DigiSpy pod in front pocket of his hoodie. He must wear his headlight and carry his walkie-talkie.
9:45 AM: CJ launches DigiSpy program on Dad’s computer. Brid will radio to him that Patrick is heading into the walls.
9:50 AM: Patrick activates DigiSpy pod. He and CJ communicate by walkie-talkie so CJ knows exactly when the DigiSpy is in the right spot.
10:00 AM: Using the arrow keys on his computer, CJ directs the movement of the DigiSpy. This will allow him to see the hidden wall on his computer screen.
10:05 AM: CJ prints photo of wall behind wall.
10:30 AM: Patrick retrieves DigiSpy and uses walkie-talkie to tell Brid that he is coming down in the dumbwaiter.
10:40 AM: All return to Dad’s office to see photos of the hidden wall behind the wall.
That had been Brid’s master plan, but this was what really happened:
When Mrs. Smithfork woke up that Saturday morning, she didn’t feel well. She decided to stay home from baby yoga. She picked up the phone and, while Brid, Pat, and CJ watched helplessly, called Eloise to tell her not to come. Next, Anne proceeded to labor through the motions of making a big breakfast. Something was making her nurturing side come out, and worse, she seemed to want to talk in that heavy way.
“I miss your dad so much,” she said, to nobody in particular, while making omelets for the kids. “I sometimes wonder if this China project is worth it.”
Brid wished she could pour herself some cold cereal, but she didn’t want to upset her mom.
“Oh, it will be worth it,” CJ said.
“It makes me wonder if more really means more. Does a bigger company with bigger profits make for a happier life?” Anne Smithfork continued wistfully.
“Mom, don’t get all heavy with us. He’ll be home soon, and everything will be normal again,” CJ answered.
“That’s good, because I miss normal,” their mom said. She cracked some pepper over the eggs, and the knob on top of the pepper grinder fell off and into the eggy mess. As she grabbed the top of the grinder, she upset the egg bowl, sending drippy egg whites across the counter and down the front of the cabinets.
“Darn it!” she said, in a meek, defeated voice.
“Mom,” Brid said soothingly, “I think you need to go back to bed. We’ll watch Carron while you take a nap.”
Anne stabbed at the mess with paper towels. “You kids are so sweet. I feel like I have the flu or something.”
“Really, Mom, take a nap. We’ll be quiet.”
As if she was sleepwalking, Anne drifted out of the room and back to bed.
“She must be really sick,” said Brid. “She didn’t even try to resist the offer.”
An hour later, everyone except Eloise was in place. Carron was downstairs with Brid and Patrick. Pat climbed into position, DigiSpy in hand, while Carron tried to get into the dumbwaiter with him.
“Me come. Me come. Kawan come, too,” Carron pleaded.
“No Kawan wit Paddy,” Patrick said, imitating her. “Next time.” He turned to Brid. “Let’s get going,” he said matter-of-factly, adjusting his headlamp.
“Pat, we haven’t checked with Ray whether Mr. Torrio is in his apartment,” said Brid. “We’re getting a late start, so he might be back from his walk soon.”
“It’s not a problem,” Patrick insisted. “I’ll be really quiet.”
“It’s the DigiSpy I’m worried about. It makes a little whirring sound,” Brid said.
“He’s not going to hear anything behind the wall. Let’s just start already.”
Brid radioed up to CJ. “Rafael is ready for action,” she said, using Guastavino’s first name, their secret code name for the DigiSpy pod.
“Got it,” CJ answered solemnly, double-clicking on the DigiSpy icon. The computer screen turned an undulating black color, and CJ worried that the DigiSpy wasn’t working. He played with the lighting on the screen, but nothing helped. He radioed Brid. “Rafael’s fuzzy,” he reported.
“Because he’s in the hoodie,” Brid answered shortly.
Of course, thought CJ to himself. Of course the DigiSpy was fuzzy and dark. It was sending CJ footage of the inside of Pat’s pocket.
About one minute later, CJ’s screen got brighter as it became obvious that Patrick was in the right place and had taken the pod out of his pocket. When Patrick turned his headlamp toward a dark, narrow opening, CJ’s screen lit up perfectly. Next, Pat turned the pod on himself. This was CJ’s signal to indicate whether he could see clearly enough. He spoke into his radio. “Thumbs up, Rafael.”
Patrick placed the DigiSpy on the ground. CJ touched his arrow keys, and the pod moved deeper into the space between the walls. The screen turned downright spooky, with wisps of thick cobwebs, balls of gray dust, and pipes everywhere. CJ saw some writing on the wall, and he held the DigiSpy in place to read the inscription: a heart with initials that meant nothing to him: BS + MB. Probably one of the original construction workers, grabbing a piece of Fifth Avenue history for himself and his love, CJ thought. Ugh.
Then CJ stopped pushing the arrow keys as something new came on the screen, something with intricate lines and pictures. He could plainly see an image of a star, a general’s star like the one he had seen on Grant’s Tomb! Clearly, this was one of the symbols that Mr. Post was saying needed to be pushed. The back of the wall was full of them. He realized he was looking at a huge map studded with symbols.
With his heart pounding, CJ hit his print button over and over, printing out sections of the map. The images formed a familiar shape: a map of a long, skinny island with symbols all over it. CJ felt certain that on the real map behind the wall, the symbols could be pushed. He laughed out loud. This was the missing piece: with the poems as their guide, they would be able to figure out the right seven symbols to push and solve the mystery. Once they knew the right symbols, the rest should be simple.
CJ’s radio crackled and interrupted his thoughts.
“Gotta go,” Pat said, not bothering to speak in code. On the screen, CJ could see what appeared to be Pat’s arms reaching for the pod, but not getting close enough to grab it. Before CJ could do anything to help him, the screen went totally black. Pat seemed to have turned off his light, and it was impossible for CJ to get an idea of which way he needed to steer the pod. He tried hitting the down key, hoping the device would simply retract back to wherever Pat was at that moment. He radioed Brid, knowing he had to say as little as possible.
“Where’s Rafael?”
“Returning to earth,” she said. CJ could hear C
arron wailing in the background.
At that moment, Anne Smithfork shuffled into her husband’s office. She sneezed. “CJ, I know Daddy doesn’t want you on that computer, dear. Please don’t mess anything up. Are the kids all right?”
CJ jumped up to grab the pages he’d printed. “Yeah, they’re great. Brid and Pat and Carron just went down to get their scooters out of storage. They’ll be right back.” It felt strange to lie so easily to his mother.
“Well, please leave Daddy’s stuff alone, okay? I’m going back to bed, but I called Eloise to ask her to come after all. I’m afraid I’m useless today.”
“Yeah, okay,” mumbled CJ, relieved that Eloise was coming and worried that they were getting in over their heads.
“CJ,” Anne said exhaustedly, “I need to thank you for taking this babysitting idea so well. I know you don’t need a caregiver all the time, but for now, we really need another adult around to help supervise. Thank you for being so gracious about it.”
Great, CJ thought, not only do I lie to my mother, but then she thanks me for it. Ugh.
He stood and shut the door behind his mother before radioing Brid. “Any news?”
“Patrick is back.” Brid paused, then said, “But Rafael has gone missing.”
CHAPTER 32
One hour later, everyone was sitting in Mr. Smithfork’s office. The printed-out map lay, pieced together, in the middle of the floor. It was enormous: about fifteen feet long and seven feet wide. Instead of street names, there were symbols that marked the many sights and secret places of Manhattan.
“I do remember seeing this in our apartment,” said Eloise. “But it was on the wall in the service part of the apartment, back by the silver room. I bet it was mistakenly covered by the walls after we moved out.”
“And now we have a way to get to it. But the thing is,” Brid said hopefully, “Torrio didn’t actually see Pat, and it’s impossible that he got the pod.”
“How is it impossible?” CJ asked.
“It’s behind the upper half of his wall, so it’d be hard for him to reach up there. Even if he did find it, it’s so small it wouldn’t look meaningful to him.”
“How do you know he heard anything?” CJ asked.
“I’m not sure what he heard, but his head showed up in the vent after Pat spoke on the walkie-talkie.”
“What! He heard Pat speaking?” CJ said.
“How did I not think of that?” Brid said. “Of course he would hear those radios. Do you think he saw the headlamp light?” asked Brid.
“Nope. By the time he had his head up, I was able to get my light switched off,” Patrick said.
“Pat, why aren’t you worried?”
“Why should I be worried? Mr. Torrio heard something in the wall; so what? It could have been a mouse.”
“A mouse on the thirteenth floor?”
“Yes, and a mouse that can say Rafael!” Pat giggled.
“What are you talking about?”
“Well, after I saw his head, Brid’s voice came over the walkie-talkie asking if Rafael was okay.”
“Great. I’m such a dope,” said Brid.
“There was no way he knew who was in there, so who cares?” Pat answered.
“This keeps getting worse,” said CJ.
“You know, he visited my room a few times, so the least I could do was go visit him, too.” Pat grinned.
“Just like a friendly neighbor,” Brid said skeptically.
“The thing is,” Patrick said, “I had to get out of there, and I couldn’t reach poor Rafael, so I left him.”
“Calm down,” said Brid. “Even if Torrio got back into his wall, even if he found the pod, he would think it’s a toy, or something that fell behind the wall from the Williamsons’ apartment. It’s no big deal.”
“Still,” said CJ, “the faster we solve this, the better, because Rafael has to be back on Dad’s desk when he comes home from China.”
“Or we are so busted,” said Brid.
“And how long is that?” asked Eloise.
“One week,” said CJ.
“Seven days.” Brid shuddered.
“Plenty of time,” said Pat.
“Children, do you realize what is so mysterious?” Eloise interrupted. “Since this incredible artwork, which certainly looks like a map of Manhattan, has been located behind Mr. Torrio’s walls all these years, I’d be surprised if he hasn’t seen it. He has done so much investigating; how could he not have found this?”
“Oh, he probably knows it’s there,” said Brid. “He just has no clue what it means, since he didn’t get the poetry book from the library. Even if he had gone back there and pushed some of those wooden pieces, he wouldn’t know the order to push them in. Remember, we have to ‘push the symbols in their order to get the flow of golden water.’ Whatever golden water is.”
“Well, we’ve got two of the symbols identified already,” said Eloise.
“We do?” the kids chorused.
Eloise pointed to the map. “Look at this: the first poem is Langston Hughes’s ‘The Weary Blues,’ where he talks about Harlem and Lenox Avenue. When I look up to Lenox Avenue on this map, I see two symbols there. One is the sun, and the other is a musical note. Even though one of the Guastavino buildings in Harlem has been demolished and we never identified a symbol that relates directly to another building in the area, that poem is about music, so clearly the right symbol to push is the musical note.”
“But why couldn’t the note be Carnegie Hall?” asked CJ. “You know Guastavino built that concert hall’s dome.”
“Well, the first poem describes Harlem, so the first symbol on the map to push must be in Harlem,” said Eloise. “The poem is about music, so the symbol is the musical note. Here is what I believe my father is telling us:
“One. Find the Guastavino structure that corresponds to each poem.
“Two. Find a symbol on the map behind the wall that relates to each structure.
“Three. Push the symbols in the order of the poems in the book.
“It’s that simple,” Eloise finished.
“Simple?” CJ chortled. “Your father was anything but simple!”
“Well, it would have been simple if I had returned the library book when I should have and solved the mystery before the walls were closed.”
“How would we ever know these things without you?” Brid said.
Eloise continued, “The next poem is ‘Ulysses.’ There is the general’s star, over by Grant’s Tomb. Clearly, that is the second symbol to push.”
“And maybe he liked General Grant?” CJ asked.
“He loved General Grant and that social wife of his,” Eloise answered. “We used to eat off of Grant dinner plates on patriotic holidays.”
“It’s so funny to hear these characters spoken of like they’re still alive!” Brid said dreamily. “The third poem is about a train,” she added. “It’s called ‘Faint Heart in a Rail Way Train.’ But trains are everywhere in New York. Is this a dead end?”
The room seemed heavy in thought, and nobody spoke. Carron had lain down under her father’s desk and fallen asleep.
“Great babysitter I am,” Eloise said. “I forgot to put her down for a nap.”
“May as well let her sleep there,” CJ said practically. “Let’s read this one again.”
“It’s not just about a train; it’s more about longing for love,” Eloise said. “A theme with which I used to be familiar.”
“Huh?”
“I thought this was the one about the train station?” said Brid.
“Well, in theory, yes, but read it slowly, my children. It was one of my father’s favorites, a Thomas Hardy poem. It’s just so beautiful.” Eloise had a wistful, dreamy look.
Brid decided to read the poem aloud. She cleared her throat and announced, “‘Faint Heart in a Rail Way Train.’ What does faint heart mean?”
“He just means getting faint of heart, losing the courage to do something,” explained CJ.
>
Brid read:
“At nine in the morning there passed a church,
At ten there passed me by the sea,
At twelve a town of smoke and smirch,
At two a forest of oak and birch,
And then, on a platform, she:
“A radiant stranger, who saw not me,
I queried, ‘Get out to her do I dare?’
But I kept my seat in search for a plea,
And the wheels moved on. O, could it be
That I had alighted there!”
The room was quiet, the only sounds Carron’s soft snores.
“It makes me think about a big trip, like how you notice people more in a strange place,” Brid began.
“Or maybe it describes the way we see things from a train?” CJ added.
“It’s more a story of taking a chance, of the man wondering what would have happened if he got off the train to meet the lady,” Eloise said.
“Oh,” said Brid.
“Ugh,” said Patrick.
“But it could mean taking a chance with anything, of being brave, not faint of heart,” Eloise continued.
“Which symbol could that possibly be?” Brid said, looking at the dozens of choices on the map.
“Depends. If we think of it superficially, we look for a Guastavino property that has something to do with trains.”
“So easy!” CJ cried out. “Guastavino built the Custom House downtown, right near the Bowling Green subway station. Look, there’s a bowling ball symbol to show it!”
“Ha! Papa was so funny,” Eloise said, her eyes sparkling. “But I don’t think he cared particularly about that building. And Guastavino built many other buildings near train stations.”
“So the other choices?” asked Brid.
“Didn’t Guastavino also build some of the soaring ceilings of Grand Central Station?” Eloise asked.
Walls within Walls Page 15