“Where do you put all that?” she marveled. “If I ate that much I’d be as big as a horse.”
Sitting back in his seat, he gave a contented sigh as he patted his flat stomach. “I don’t know. I’ve always had a healthy appetite. Thanks for a great dinner, by the way. This was a wonderful surprise.”
Their server, Russell, discreetly placed a leather-bound check on the edge of the table between them. Kimberly shook her head as Lance reached for it. Signing her name, she handed it back to the server. Expecting a credit card, Russell was going to say something, but glanced at the name on the bill. Not having served her before he hadn’t recognized the face, but he certainly recognized the name. A knowing smile crossed his face. “A pleasure having you here, Ms. Waldron. Come back any time.”
“Thank you, Russell. The Lobster Bisque was wonderful. Would you please give our compliments to the chef?”
“I’d be happy to. Anything else I can get for you? After-dinner aperitif? Another cocktail?”
“No, no, that’s fine.” Kimberly was going to let him go, but had him wait a moment. “Russell, how long have you been working here?”
Wondering if he did something wrong, the server hesitated, quickly thinking back on the dinner he had just served. “Umm, five, six years.”
Not seeing his discomfort, Kimberly continued. “We were wondering if you knew much about the history of the Park. I know you’re well-versed in the history of Club 33,” as Russell nodded, “but what about Main Street, for instance. Was there a store that used a wizard as a decoration, or in the name?”
Once he realized he wasn’t in trouble, Russell relaxed, leaning against the chair at the empty table next to theirs. “A wizard, you say? No, I can’t think of anything except the Magic Shoppe, but I don’t think they had a wizard in there…. You know who might know?” he said with a snap of his fingers, “Robert, the maître d’. I think he and God went to school together. He’s been here forever. Want me to ask?”
“Would you, please?” Kimberly turned on her brightest smile. She hadn’t been hanging around Lance so long and not learned anything. “Is Robert still here?”
“Yeah, yeah, you stay here and enjoy the view. I’ll go ask. He’s back in the lobby.” Russell reached into his pocket. “Here, have a pen!” As he rushed off, Russell dropped one of the popular souvenirs from the exclusive restaurant on the table. It was a black pen with the famous gold crest and 33 on it.
With a grin, Lance pocketed the pen. “Good thinking,” he remarked. “I was going to ask him, too, but he seemed too young.”
Before Kimberly could reply, the server was back. “The Wonderful Wizard of Bras,” he declared with a wide smile.
“Excuse me?”
With a quick laugh, Russell explained what he meant. “Yeah, that’s what I said at first, too. But Robert said there used to be a store on Main Street called The Wonderful Wizard of Bras. It was only open for about five or six months. It actually was an intimate apparel store that featured, of all things, bras; hence the name.” With a self-conscious grin, he didn’t look at Kimberly at the mention of bras. “Once that store closed, it was never used for anything else. He says that if you want to see the storefront, look for the porch and chairs. That’s where it was.”
Russell assumed the silence meant the couple was mulling over the information. In actuality, they were both stunned when they realized they had indeed solved Walt’s clue.
Lance recovered first. “Nothing is there anymore?”
“Nope. In fact, the area behind the window now is a small break area with lockers for the cast members.”
This information was a disappointment for Lance and Kimberly. If a break area had been built behind the façade of that storefront, then there was a chance whatever may have been hidden there had been long since removed.
Russell sensed some bit of dissatisfaction with his answer. “Is anything wrong, Miss Waldron?” He was confused by their sudden change in expressions.
“Oh, no, Russell.” Kimberly became aware that she and Lance must appear ungrateful for the information he had so helpfully provided.
The server was more than a little pleased when the lovely blond got up from her chair to give him a hug. “Thank you so much for a lovely dinner and the interesting information about the store”
“Uh, you’re welcome.” Russell was a little unsure whether he should hug her back…especially with her date sitting right there. He did the next best thing and gave Kimberly a one-arm hug, then added with a big grin, “Anything else I can do? Really?”
She smiled sweetly back, noting the slight pink color in his face. “No, thank you so much. We really need to get going, though.”
Lance now stood to shake Russell’s hand. “You’ve been a big help. Thanks.” Offering his arm to Kimberly, they walked through the elegant restaurant and headed for the elevator to take them to the ground level.
Russell stood in the same place, watching her retreating steps, the grin still on his face.
“Lance, I think I have an idea.” They exited the private door and emerged onto the busy Royal Street in New Orleans Square. “But, it might take some time to wait out. Would you be able to sit in one place for a long time?”
Obviously, she didn’t know everything there was to know about her partner. Lance gave her a little grin. “I think I can sit for a while. What’s your plan?”
As they continued walking together back to Main Street, they crossed over the pedestrian bridge that spanned the entryway to the Pirate ride and dropped down next to the Treehouse.
“Hey, do you want to ride Indy first?” Lance was hopeful as they walked past the popular ride.
He was answered with a groan. “On a full stomach? Oh, please, no! Maybe later?”
“Ok, what’s your plan?”
“Well, we can’t just walk up to the door and use our key. There are way too many people going by. Especially in broad daylight. I was thinking that we needed the cover of darkness.”
“So far, so good.”
They could hear two shots from the gun of a Jungle Cruise skipper as they walked around the popular line. “What if,” she continued, “we wait it out on the porch? It gets really dark for the fireworks show. They turn off all the lights on Main Street.”
“But the fireworks themselves are pretty bright.”
“True, but they aren’t constant. There are lulls in the blasts. You know, for the music and the narrator.”
Lance gave her arm a squeeze. “Like I said, that’s why you make the big bucks!”
Their porch now occupied by a different couple. Settled in, they seemed to be people-watchers who gave Lance and Kimberly a friendly nod as they approached.
“Well, we can’t sit and wait like I thought. Do you think it would be all right if we just went up and looked in through the windows to see if we can see anything?” The door was off-center on the porch with windows in the upper half of it, and two windows behind the chairs where the couple was sitting and relaxing.
“Sure. People do it all the time. I remember on the Haunted Mansion, while waiting in the queue area that went around the house, everyone would try to look into the windows through any opening in the shades to see what might be behind there. I think its natural curiosity to want to know what secrets are hidden behind various walls, doors and windows here.”
Lance walked up to the porch and greeted the couple with a friendly, “Hello. Say, can you see anything behind these windows?”
“Nah,” the man replied. “We tried that, too,” he added as Lance peered along the edges of the glass. The windows were blocked with see-through lace curtains. The only problem was that all the windows also had a dark green window covering that was pulled down behind the lace and completely blocked the view.
However, along the right hand edge of the window nearest the door, he could just make out a bank of lockers along the wall on the right, just like Russell had said. But then it dawned on Lance: the wall the lockers were up agai
nst ended on the left side of the door frame. From the small opening Lance was peeking in through, he could tell that the wall didn’t leave room for the door. There had to be something on the other side of the wall that was behind the door.
Giving a friendly nod to the people sitting on the porch, Lance walked down the steps to rejoin Kimberly.
“There’s a wall on this side of the door with lockers on it, like we were told.” He pointed at the door. “What I’m interested in is the depth of the wall on the other side from the Silhouette Studio.” Eyeballing a line between himself and the left hand side of the door, he stepped off a few paces along the sidewalk parallel to the front of the two shops. Stopping when he was even with the left edge of the window of the Studio next door, he mumbled to himself, “Six steps, eighteen feet, give or take a foot.”
Turning back to the puzzled Kimberly, he motioned for her. “Wait here, I’ll be right back.” Lance jogged to the entrance of the Silhouette Studio. Watching through the store window, Kimberly could see Lance walk to the edge of the window then repeat the same pacing he had done on the sidewalk until he moved out of her view.
When he jogged back to her side, he had a wide grin. “The plot thickens.”
“What? Tell me what you were doing.”
“Well, from where I estimated the locker wall was, there should be approximately eighteen feet from the window edge to the interior wall inside the Studio.”
“And?”
“And, unless my hanging around Adam the General Contractor for years was completely wasted, there was only thirteen feet from the window to the inside wall of the Silhouette place.”
“Which means,” Kimberly said as Lance’s revelation sunk in, “there are about five feet unaccounted for between the two walls.”
He nodded. “Assuming there are four to six inches of insulation, studs and plaster or drywall on each wall, there should be a corridor of three to four feet between the two walls…and,” Lance turned back toward the porch and pointed at the innocuous door, “those three or four feet must lie directly behind that door.”
Biding their time, Lance and Kimberly had to wait over an hour before the couple on the porch finally moved on to continue their day at the Park. Darkness was settling in and Main Street became a dazzling sight of white lights that illuminated the storefronts and twinkled in all the trees. As they glanced toward Sleeping Beauty Castle, it now glowed in spotlights of pink and white. It was a lovely, magical time of the night.
With a look of triumph, Kimberly settled into one of the wooden chairs. “Now we can put our plan into action.” She glanced over at Lance took another chair. “Do you think you can sit it out and wait for the firework show in a couple of hours?”
Kimberly needn’t have worried about Lance’s ability to remain still. He settled into his chair, stretched out his long legs, rested his chin on his chest, and immediately fell asleep.
Looking at him, she made a disgusted little sound. “Now what am I supposed to do for the next few hours all by myself?”
Perhaps she should have come up with a more mutually beneficial plan….
After watching Lance sleep for forty-five minutes, Kimberly awakened him with a kick to his foot. “I’m bored! Tell me what you were like growing up”
Stretching, he came out of the nap in his usual good humor. “I was very handsome,” he told her without the trace of a smile.
“And modest, I can tell.”
“Oh, extremely. I was proud of my humility.”
She gave a light laugh. “Don’t make me sorry I woke you up. Tell me a story. What did you like to do with your friends?”
“When I was a teenager in Boston, Kip Baker and I used to hang out at the Atrium Mall.” Lance crossed his ankles, settling his hands on his stomach. Looking out across Main Street, he watched the constant flow of people. “We would watch people walk by, just like this.”
“Girls, you mean!” she smiled, enjoying the sound of his voice.
“Not just girls,” was his honest reply. “We had a game we played…while we waited for girls to come by.” A light grin played over his face. “We’d pick out a person or a couple, and make up their life-story. The more unbelievable the story, the more points we gave each other.” He chuckled as he thought back. “There was one guy who walked by and Kip made up his story saying he had murdered his family with an ax in Missouri. As the guy got past us, we looked at the back of his tee shirt and it said something like, ‘Fastest Ax in the Ozarks.’ We just about freaked out.”
Kimberly grinned, picturing the two teenagers coming up with wild stories about people. She looked out over the sea of guests and immediately could see how easy it could be. Turning to Lance, she asked, “What would you say about me?”
“What, you mean if we had seen you walking across the Mall?”
“Yes. What story would you have made up if you had seen me walking by?”
Lance thought about it. “Well, get up and walk down the sidewalk.”
Good sport that she was, Kimberly got right up. “Okay. Save my chair.” She moved down the steps and walked toward Tomorrowland. Turning, she started walking slowly back down the sidewalk. As she got in front of Lance, she tossed her hair in a flirty way, adding a little extra bounce in her step.
Lance leaned forward and whistled low as she passed.
A few people around Kimberly heard the whistle and gave Lance an offended frown.
She continued past the porch, and then bounded back up the steps. “Well?” she asked, leaning over the arm of his chair, batting her eyelashes.
“Easy: Librarian, working six nights a week. Never been on a date. Still reads Nancy Drew mysteries. Likes the Partridge Family and secretly wishes she was Marsha Brady from the Brady Bunch.”
“Oh, you are so bad!” She moved back over to her chair. Lance tried to take her hand, but she pretended to be disgusted.
“You see, that would have been what Kip would have said,” Lance smoothly amended his story. “I guess you don’t want to hear what my evaluation would have been?”
Kimberly eyed him with a look of mock contempt. “Sure. Try to bail yourself out.”
“I would have said that you were a secret spy working as a double agent for the KGB and the CIA. You can pick any lock faster than Houdini and are fluent in seven languages… including the language of love.”
She couldn’t help but laugh. “Wow. That’s spooky! It’s just like you know me.”
“Yeah, I’m that good.”
Kimberly leaned toward Lance and gave him a light kiss. She slowly pulled away and whispered, “Yes you are. And modest, too!”
Main Street was packed from the train station all the way to the front of the Castle. The nightly fireworks show was extremely popular. Even more people poured in once the Fantasmic! show on the Frontierland River ended at 9:25.
Still secure in their chairs on the porch, the couple found out why the seats had been empty so close to show time—they wouldn’t be able to see the fireworks because of the overhanging balcony above their heads.
The lights all along Main Street dimmed as an announcer told everyone the Fireworks Spectacular would begin in just five minutes. An excited buzz traveled down the length of the street as people tried to move into a more promising position. Elbow-to-elbow, the guests finally discovered it was easier to stand where they were and look up. It was fireworks, after all.
Once the show started, an appreciative murmur of “Ooh” and “Aah” began. The brilliant colors flashed overhead and a deep BOOM! could be felt deep in their chests. Lasers cut through the smoke of the fireworks, turning it green and blue and red. A skull was seen projected on the Matterhorn.
Standing next to their target door, Lance whispered into Kimberly’s ear. “You ready?”
After trying to lean out to see the next cascading waterfall of sparkles, she gave a short, “Oh, yeah,” and turned her attention to their task at hand. “Sorry. They’re just so beautiful.”
“
Get ready.”
The lasers crossed high over their heads and pinwheels of sparklers began to turn on the spires of the Castle which was now a brilliant yellow. The music came to a crescendo as thirty geysers of sparkling fire erupted behind the Castle. When the geysers died down, the music slowed and the lasers went out. It was suddenly pitch black.
When the next overlapping rockets lit the sky, there were so many of them that it was as bright as if it were midday. The colors all blended into one another as the sparkles descended toward the now blue Castle.
Had anyone thought to look, they would have seen that the porch was empty.
As soon as the door clicked shut, it automatically locked behind them. Lance felt Kimberly’s hand rest uneasily on his back when complete darkness enveloped them. Occasional brilliant flashes of fireworks were barely visible through a small crack that Lance had missed a couple of hours earlier. The boom of the fireworks and the following oohs and aahs from the crowd were overloud in the small space.
Not knowing exactly what—or who—might be around, Kimberly kept her voice to a whisper. “Where are the lockers? I thought we’d be in the locker area.”
Pulling his Mag flashlight from his pocket, Lance clicked it on, shielding the majority of the small beam with his hands. His hand glowed an eerie red as he aimed the light toward the area they thought the lockers should occupy. The light met only a blank dark wall.
“Perfect. They’re on the other side of this wall.” Kimberly could barely hear Lance’s mutter as she saw the feeble light creep upward. “Follow me.”
As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she could see Lance was moving away from her. Putting her hand on his shoulder, she was surprised when he started walking up what had to be stairs. “What’s that smell?” The urge to sneeze was almost overpowering.
The light she saw rising up the stairs in front of her now dipped downward toward her feet after Lance stopped. There was a thick coat of dust on the narrow stairwell, its perfect layer now marred by footprints. As the light returned to the path in front of them, she saw how narrow this section truly was. If she had moved her elbows slightly to the side, she would have been able to touch both walls at once.
It All Started... Page 28