Hidden Mickey 5: Chasing New Frontiers

by David Smith

  Suddenly, Nathan felt a strange vibration in his feet. The heavy concrete track trembled with a subtle tremor.

  Nathan didn’t stop to see what he knew was coming. He now sprinted along the track and got just past the Park perimeter fence. His first thought was he made it! That sudden thrill of success he felt every time he got away with something was back! That was until he looked back behind him and saw the big red monorail coming around a bend in the track a few hundred yards away. It wasn’t moving very fast, but the image of the pointed, conical-shaped nose-section was as menacing to Nathan as being in the ocean and facing an attacking shark. He saw he was clear of the Park fence but the jump down to the sidewalk below that ran along Harbor Boulevard at this point was more than twenty-five feet below, further than he had anticipated; the equivalent of jumping from a two-and-a-half story building. Nathan looked down at the side of the concrete span he was on and saw two metal bars that ran along the inside of the entire monorail track. He felt he had time to get on his knees, grab what he figured were guide bars for the side wheels of each monorail, and then swing down from the track from a much lower height, almost as if he were dropping from a high chin-up bar.

  Without a second thought, Nathan got on his knees and reached down to the first metal bar. Less than a hundred feet away, the monorail banked around the last turn and was bearing down on Nathan. In the glass bubble atop the monorail where the driver sat looking out over the front of the vehicle, the ride operator suddenly saw what was in front of him. First blowing the loud air-horn, the driver then pulled back on the T-Bar with both hands, leaning back with all his might. The T-Bar was not only the forward control lever for the monorail, but by pulling back it engaged the air brakes on the cars. The harder the driver pulled, the sooner the monorail would come to a stop. Unfortunately, stopping the imposing five-car monorail was not like stopping a car…the breaks engaged but the momentum of the monorail overrode the breaking ability of the vehicle.

  “No, don’t!” The chasing voice screamed from well behind and below Nathan, the voice coming from the man standing just inside the Park perimeter fence.

  Wolf shouted loudly, cupping his hands over his mouth, but either Nathan couldn’t hear him from the noise of the on-coming monorail, or he was ignoring his warning.

  Paying no heed to the man and seeing that he only had a moment longer before the monorail would be on top of him, Nathan reached down and grasped the top bar that was attached to the concrete track and began to swing his legs over the side as if getting ready to do a dismount off of a set of parallel bars in a gymnastics’ competition..

  Just as he grabbed the bar and swung his legs over the concrete, he saw the warning sign posted below the bars that alerted people on the ground of the monorail track overhead. However, the sign didn’t read, “Keep out,” it said, ‘Caution: High Voltage.’

  Nathan’s last thought as he swung down and just before his body came in contact the other bar, was that of his father, being electrocuted four years earlier. In a flash, Nathan saw the dream he had about his father, and the compromising discovery of his own body as the victim. He knew in a heartbeat, in fact his last heartbeat, that the dream was indeed reality…HIS reality.

  A shower of sparks flew between the two metallic bars that Nathan had used hoping to drop down from. Instead, six hundred volts of direct current passed through his hands and exited his side that had first contacted the bottom rail; his body completing the electrical circuit by short-circuiting the voltage through his body. Burning flesh and smoldering cotton from his landscaping outfit filled the air with a rancid odor. The initial electrical jolt caused Nathan’s muscles in his hands to clench, to the point that he couldn’t let go. Finally, just before the red monorail was about to strike his body, his dead hands came free of the bar.

  Gravity took hold of Nathan’s lifeless body as it fell to the ground, landing along the curb of the street below just outside the tall, perimeter fence; like a rag doll, his body hit the ground with a dead thud, bounce awkwardly once and then came to rest just as the decelerating monorail passed overhead.

  Wolf stood over the body, the area on the sidewalk now sealed off with cones that were brought out by the Anaheim Police and Coroner’s Department upon receiving the call from Wolf. The few tourists who had been walking along down the sidewalk were now standing around the perimeter of the area, gawking at the sight of a dead man lying on the ground. Few saw the irony of a dead man lying just outside the Happiest Place on Earth.

  Nathan’s body lay prone, face up. His eyes were still open. Wolf placed an orange towel he had been given by one of the police officers over the dead man’s face as soon as they had arrived. Looking at Nathan’s right hand, Wolf saw it was charred black from the arcing voltage that went through it before passing through his body. Looking at his side, Wolf could see where the electricity passed through his rib cage and exited his body through a burned hole in his landscaping shirt. Wolf turned and looked up at the point on the monorail track where Nathan had touched the electrical rails, a slight brownish area on the white concrete span was the only point of reference Wolf had to pinpoint where Nathan had fallen from. The monorail that had been bearing down on Nathan had finally come to a stop just past the point Nathan had been. The short-circuit created by Nathan’s hand and body shut the monorail’s electrical system down, helping the monorail come to a halt overhead.

  All a little too late for Nathan.

  CHAPTER 18

  Nameless—Clueless

  Thursday, December 15th, 1966

  1:20pm

  “Okay, what is his name?” Wolf asked as the investigator walked around the body within the cordoned off area and came back up beside Wolf. Next to Wolf were two other men in Disney suits, and two police officers. The police officers had moved the spectators away.

  “Don’t know, yet. Haven’t examined the victim yet,” the inspector said, flipping over a small note pad. He wrote some notes on a page, then closed it, slipping it into his back pocket. “Let’s see what we can find out,” the investigator said. “By the way, I’m Dan Gregory with the APD, Coroner’s Office,” Dan said. “I’d shake your hand, but…” Gregory held up his gloved hands and Wolf nodded, understanding.

  “I’m Mani Wolford, special security services for Walt Disney Enterprises,” Wolf said.

  The inspector took a long look at Wolf. Wolf looked as ragged from the chase as the dead man on the ground appeared; the only difference to Dan was that Wolf was vertical. Wolf’s shirt tail was out, his front pocket was torn, and his pants were filled with thorns and twigs.

  “Geez, this has been just a horrible day for you guys,” Dan said, talking about the news of Walt’s death and now this new development.

  “Don’t know if it could get much worse,” Wolf said. He was also still sweaty; beads of sweat continued to build up on his forehead even after he used his sleeve to wipe it away several times.

  Little did Wolf know that, indeed, it would get worse.

  Wolf watched closely as Dan, wearing rubber gloves, knelt down next to the body and began searching it. He patted down the front pockets and then pulled one inside out. “Nothing here,” he said. “Let’s check on the other side.”

  Dan reached into the pocket and said, “I think we have something here.”

  Wolf looked on with increasing anticipation as Dan reached in and pulled out a crumpled black velvet bag. That’s it!! Wolf immediately thought. “May I see that?” Wolf asked, kneeling down and holding out his hand.

  “Don’t get too excited,” Dan said. “It feels empty to me.” As soon as Dan put the bag in Wolf’s hand, Wolf felt his excitement melt and disappointment mount. The bag was indeed empty; the draw string around the top of the bag hung loose, the top wide open.

  “Are you sure the pocket is empty?” Wolf asked, moving his eyes back to Dan, feeling his sense of panic elevate another notch.

  Like the other pocket, Dan pulled the inside lining out. Only some dirt trickled ou
t of the bottom of the pocket. Dan looked up at Wolf and saw the disappointment in his face. “Let’s check the back pockets,” Dan said with a little optimism in his voice.

  Dan rolled Nathan’s body onto its side. They could see the charred burn marks along the ribcage of the body, the part that had touched the bottom rail, making the circuit compete. Six hundred volts of direct current passed directly through his hand and through the vital organs and back out through the skin at the second point of contact.

  Immediately, Wolf could see from the shape of the dead man’s pants, there was nothing in the back pockets either. He could feel his anger and frustration grow. Things suddenly seemed to be slipping away from Wolf, even faster than what he felt earlier when he first realized someone was stealing the pendant. First Walt, now his pendant, and now it looked like this guy not only didn’t have the pendant on him, but very likely the guy didn’t have any form of ID on him. The only clue, luckily, Wolf thought, was the fact that the guy had a Disneyland Landscaping uniform on. Although, at the moment, Wolf was suspecting that perhaps the costume was stolen and maybe the guy used it to get back stage. Then Wolf thought of the landscaping cart and the fact that the guy, during the chase, seemed to know the backstage area very well…to the point that he was able to elude Wolf enough to get this far.

  “Well, he may have had a wallet at some point,” Dan said, interrupting Wolf’s thoughts.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Look,” Dan said as he slid his finger along Nathan’s back pocket. The piece of material that usually held the pocket closed, that hooked around the back pocket button—holding whatever was in it—was ripped off, uneven threads showing at the top of the pocket. The corner of the pocket was also torn making the opening at the top that much wider.

  “There is nothing anywhere on him?” Wolf asked incredulous that there didn’t seem to be anything on the man laying dead before him.

  “Like what? A wallet? ID? Nametag? You looking for something in particular?” Dan asked.

  “Anything,” Wolf said, not wanting to mention the pendant in the company of anyone but the Blond Haired Man and Walt. And one of those men was no longer available to discuss the unique item.

  “There wasn’t a nametag on him, was there?” Wolf asked, thinking he didn’t notice one on him when the body was on its back.

  “No,” Dan said, letting the body roll onto its back. Dan adjusted the towel over Nathan’s face again so it completely the eyes and face of the dead man. “Look here, though.”

  Dan pointed to the material of Nathan’s shirt on the opposite side of the “Disneyland Landscaping” patch. There was a ripped hole where a nametag would normally be pinned.

  “Looks like he had a nametag, right here,” the inspector said, pulling the shirt up away from the body with his fingers.

  “Okay,” Wolf said, with mild resignation. “The guy probably was an employee and most likely did work landscaping. I can start there.” Wolf turned from the body, and looked up at the concrete monorail track overhead then back down at the man on the ground. Just who are you and what have you done? Wolf thought to himself. He turned away and started to walk over to the electric Disneyland Security cart that he had parked along the sidewalk next to the Park’s perimeter fence. After he watched the body fall on the other side of the perimeter fence from the monorail track, Wolf had called the security dispatch office in the Park. Two carts with two guards each were sent outside the Park as quickly as possible to cordon off the area around the body.

  Just as he sat down in the cart, a news van with big, block letters “KABC” on the side pulled up to the side of the curb.

  “Great, that’s all we need,” Wolf said out loud shaking his head as he pushed the accelerator down and the cart took off back towards the cast member’s entrance of Disneyland.

  It wouldn’t take long before Wolf discovered that the corpse was one Nathan Duncan, indeed a landscaper for Disneyland who, presumably, was the man he saw on the television monitor in his office. Wolf was certain he was the man who had broken into Walt’s apartment, and stole the pendant, and whom he had seen in the cart, driving away from the apartment.

  As soon as he had gotten back to his security office, Wolf called the landscaping office and talked to Willie Riggio. The man was already upset about hearing the news about Walt. When Wolf described the dead man to him, Riggio immediately knew whom Wolf was describing.

  “Duncan. Nathan Duncan,” Riggio said with certainly.

  “You’re positive?” Wolf asked.

  “Well, it may not be a surprise but we don’t have that many Caucasian landscapers. Duncan was one of our main tree-trimmers, but he did a little of everything,” Riggio said over the phone.

  “Did he have a locker or personal cubby at the office or somewhere else?”

  “Sure, we all have a locker here at the landscaping office, for personal stuff since we are so far from the costume department and the regular lockers,” Riggio explained. “Of course, he would also have a regular cast member’s locker over by administration,” Riggio offered.

  “Okay,” Wolf said with a hint of optimism. Maybe this Nathan Duncan put something in one of his lockers. “Don’t touch anything. I’ll be down there as fast as I can.”

  Before going over to the landscaping office, Wolf first went up to Walt’s apartment, using his master key to open the door at the top of the steps. He double checked to see if the pendant may have been left behind in the apartment, something he could not have been sure of in his hurry to leave the television monitors in his office to stop the man from getting away.

  Wolf opened the secret door in the gramophone and cursed when he found the drawer inside empty. He had hoped that maybe Nathan had second thoughts. Wolf looked all around the apartment, on the floor, the counters and the patio outside the sliding French doors. He looked everywhere he could think of, including the small bathroom off the kitchenette. The pendant was not in the apartment.

  Wolf exited the apartment, locked the door and went down the steps, walking around the back of the Fire Station, looking for anything on the ground.

  He tried to replay the chase in his mind. Unfortunately, there were places in the chase that Wolf had no idea where Nathan had run. It would take weeks, or months… or forever, to go over every single place that Nathan could have run through. While there might be some hint or clue left behind in Nathan’s lockers, Wolf knew that there was no way Duncan had time to go to either locker between the time Wolf saw on the television monitor the pendant being taken from Walt’s apartment, and the time Wolf started after the man.

  Where could Nathan have hidden that pendant? Wolf thought to himself.

  Wandering the back service road alone, Wolf located the ladder he had seen fall off the cart when he first started chasing Nathan. The ladder, now banged up, was lying on the embankment of the berm that separated the service road from the Park. Wolf had picked up one end and saw the handwritten letters, “D.L. Landscaping.”

  Exhausted, Wolf dropped the end of the ladder letting it bang against the asphalt, leaving it on the side of the road. Wolf used his foot to push the bottom of the ladder over so it didn’t stick out into the service road. He would let Riggio, the landscaping supervisor he had talked to earlier, know where he could find his ladder.

  He found a rock, lying on the side of the road by the end of the ladder. Wolf picked it up, looking over the round, smooth rock, probably a rock that was brought in with a load for the expansion of the New Orleans area. Wolf felt the weight of the rock, its round shape against his skin in his palm. He felt anger replace sorrow. With all his might, Wolf threw the rock over the trees into the vacant storage field area beyond.

  Staring after the thrown rock, Wolf then gathered his resolve.

  “I will find it, Walt. I swear I will find it,” Wolf said out loud to no one.

  On a hunch, Wolf drove his cart around to where he had found Nathan’s crashed landscaping cart among trees and shrubs. He loca
ted the maintenance trail over the berm, following it with unspoken determination. Wolf crossed the railroad tracks glancing in both directions before heading down the other side where the trail came out near the north bend of the Rivers of America that circled Tom Sawyer Island. He slowly walked the narrow trail that he had previously ran along when he was chasing after Nathan, again careful not to trip on the large rocks hidden among the overgrowth. The mix of fertile soil and humidity, created by the large amount of water within the river, made for an earthy odor. Wiping perspiration from his eyes, Wolf struggled to avoid twisting an ankle or knee, twice catching himself as he caught the front of his shoe on a protruding root and nearly turning his ankle on a half-buried rock the size of a bowling ball. He wondered how he was able to follow Nathan before, running half blind and unaware of the dangers that existed in the shadows that were cast all around him from the thick maze of overgrowth.

  His keen eyes caught sight of a few dark blue threads caught on the barbs of some of the wild brush. Wolf plucked the strands and compared them to his torn pants immediately seeing that the blue threads matching his security guard costume. Further up, Wolf spotted a few white threads too, remnants, he was sure, of Nathan Duncan’s all-white landscaping costume.

  He followed the trail to the Indian Village and emerged at the idle commune where the four teepees stood in a half circle near the rear of the clearing. Wolf’s ageless face looked with stern, shifting eyes, at the scene around him. A dozen leather-clad mannequins depicted Indian life in the village; the chief with his straight arm mechanically rising to form a robotic “How” greeting to those who traversed the river. Other Indians mannequins were working on a dug-out canoe; a female mannequin behind a pot with a stick being manipulated making her look to be stirring something within. Wolf silently wished the mannequins around him could talk. He was sure they witnessed something he missed, something important that he could use to locate the pendant.