The Copycat Caper

by John V. Madormo

  The man shook his head. “You don’t understand the acting business, little girl. When the show fell out of favor with the audience . . . and it did . . . my grandfather was cut loose, and that was the end of his acting career.”

  “But he was famous,” Henry said.

  “Yeah,” Wentworth shouted, “so famous that no one would hire him. After playing the same role for five years, he was stereotyped. Don’t you see? The public wouldn’t accept him in any other role.” He began to breathe heavily. “But if he had been able to take on other jobs while playing Sam Solomon, he could have shown people how versatile an actor he really was. He could have been a superstar. Instead, he died penniless.”

  I could see that Wentworth had reached a boiling point. I was almost afraid to say anything. But I had to.

  “You got it all wrong,” I said. “Your gripe isn’t with Sam Solomon . . . it’s with those producers.”

  He spun around, cocked his arm, and put his fist right through the plaster wall.

  “Wake up, kid. They’re all dead. And that’s just how you’re gonna end up.”

  I needed to defuse this situation and fast. In Wentworth’s current state of mind, he was capable of anything. I wasn’t sure what to say to calm him down. How would Sam have handled a situation like this? In all of the cases that he had investigated, he had to have dealt with a character who was emotionally unstable. And suddenly I remembered. It was in Episode #59—The Fur Real Caper.

  This was the story of Jacob Altman, an aging furrier from the Bronx, long past retirement age, who was swindled by a fur wholesaler. Realizing that the furrier was not as sharp as he once had been, the wholesaler managed to sell him a truck full of fake furs. When Jacob’s sons realized that the new shipment was filled with phonies, they chided their father and insisted that he retire. The sons then hired Sam to track down the scoundrel who had cheated them. Halfway through the investigation, however, Sam received a call from the sons informing him that their father was missing. He immediately began to search for the old man. Sam eventually found him clinging to a railing on the George Washington Bridge and threatening to leap to his death in the cold waters of the Hudson River. Jacob was apparently disgraced and embarrassed about what had happened. After hours of trying to coax him to safety, Sam soon realized that he needed a new tactic. Instead of minimizing the mistake the old man had made, he reminded Jacob of the successful business he had created, and how much more he would still be able to accomplish, if he would only step back off that ledge. Sam continued to pump up the furrier until the old man finally abandoned his desperate act.

  So that would be my new strategy. Instead of reminding Wentworth of what would happen to him when he was eventually caught, I would compliment him on his ingenious scheme and hope that he would start to look at us as allies. I wasn’t sure if it would work. But it was the only chance we had. And if it failed, I couldn’t bear to think about the consequences.

  CHAPTER 23

  The Shore Thing Caper

  I continued to watch our captor. He seemed agitated, nervous, upset. He ran his fingers through his hair. He stared at us and then at the open vents. I still wasn’t sure why he had removed the covers from them. Whatever it was, it couldn’t be good. I decided it was time to try out my new strategy.

  “Mr. Wentworth, if you don’t mind, I have a question for you,” I said.

  “A dying man’s last request. Is that it, kid?”

  I ignored his comment and tried to stay positive.

  “I was just wondering about the wordplay and double meanings you used to pick each business you burglarized. It was really clever. Why’d you do it?”

  He grinned. “Have you ever read a Sam Solomon novel?”

  Henry and Scarlett looked at me. They knew the answer to that one.

  “Yeah,” I said. “A couple of times.”

  “Well, did you ever notice that the title of each book is a play on words? That’s why. I just wanted to keep it consistent with the Sam Solomon theme. And I didn’t want to make it too easy for the cops to figure out my next move. I wanted them to work for it.”

  “If you’re so smart,” Scarlett said, “then how come we figured out how to find you?”

  Please, Scarlett, don’t make him mad, I thought. It’ll mess up my plan.

  “You just got lucky, sweetie,” he said. “I listened to the show tonight.” He paused and seemed to reflect momentarily. “Grandpa’s voice sounded a little different.” He shrugged. “Must have had a cold or something. Anyway, since it was about a bookie, I decided to lay my hands a few books. But not just any books. I wanted the ones about my dear friend, Sam Solomon. That’s where I was when you so rudely interrupted me.”

  “What did you intend to do with those books?” Scarlett asked.

  “I was about to throw a little party—a book-burning party.” He chuckled. “I suppose I could just shred them, but this’ll be so much more satisfying.”

  “I notice that you always manage to rifle through the cash register. Is that part of your little word game?” Henry asked.

  “A man’s gotta eat, doesn’t he? Although when that runs out, I rely on my training as an HVAC guy to pay the bills,” he said.

  “HVAC?” Henry said.

  “Heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning,” Wentworth answered. “And boy, are those skills gonna come in handy tonight.” He winked. “You’ll see.”

  Right at that moment, I decided to make a bold move. I walked up to the table that Wentworth was standing next to. I pulled out a chair and sat down.

  “There’s just one thing that still confuses me,” I said. “How will all of this kill Sam Solomon?”

  “Well, you look like pretty smart kids,” he said. “You tell me.”

  I tried to figure out where he was going with this. I wasn’t certain. But I was pretty sure that after this last burglary, the police would put some stock in our Sam Solomon theory. I found myself thinking out loud.

  “When the police finally buy into the connection between the Sam Solomon dramas and the burglaries,” I said, “they’ll probably decide to . . .” I was still stuck.

  “Wait a minute,” Scarlett said. “If they’re smart, they’ll just cut off the food supply.”

  “Yeah,” Henry said. “That’s it. They’ll make the radio station take the program off the air to stop the burglaries.”

  “Bingo!” Wentworth clapped. “And good-bye, Sam Solomon. When word gets around that someone is out there committing crimes based on the series, not a radio station in the country will risk putting it on the air. Because if they did, then they’re asking for a crime spree. And knowing that, there wouldn’t be a police department around that’d let them run it.”

  “I have to hand it to you, Mr. Wentworth. Your plan is ingenious.”

  Henry and Scarlett both glared at me. They obviously thought that I was cozying up with the enemy.

  “And once the radio series is buried,” Wentworth said, “then we go after the books. Imagine a crime spree across the country all inspired by the book series. It’ll be great. And how do you stop it? You simply pull every Sam Solomon book off of every shelf in every bookstore and library. You cut off the food source, as the little lady suggested. And then Sam Solomon will officially be dead. No one’ll ever hear about him or read about him again. It’ll be as if he never existed. And my grandfather will have his revenge.”

  Wentworth reached into his pocket for his tools. He walked over to the door and began to disassemble the lock.

  “What are you doing?” Scarlett said.

  “Just making sure that no one can get in or out of here,” he said. He turned to us. “Listen, kids, I’m sorry about this. No one was supposed to get hurt. But I can’t have you telling the cops about me, and especially being able to identify me.” He grabbed the knob, opened the door, and stared at us. “Don’t look at me
like that. It’ll be quick and painless. I can promise you that. Now I need to go find the furnace in this place so I can do my magic. Then in a few minutes, it’ll all be over. Don’t worry, I’ll check back in with you in a little while just to see how you’re doing. But by that time I’m sure you’ll be fast asleep . . . or worse. Sweet dreams, kids.” He picked up the vent covers, tucked them under his arm, and pulled the door closed behind him.

  Henry ran over and tried the door. It wouldn’t budge. Even though the lock was on our side of the door, Wentworth had done something that made it impossible for us to open it. Screaming for help wasn’t an option. There were no windows in this place, and no one else, other than our captor, was in the building. And the worst part of this whole thing? No one would be looking for us.

  “Well, you’ve done it again, Charlie,” Scarlett said.

  “Me? You were the one who sneezed.”

  “No thanks to you. When you squeezed my nose, you made it ten times louder.”

  Henry was kneeling in front of one of the air vents. “What do you suppose he has in mind for us anyway? Is he gonna try to poison us or something?”

  I knew exactly was Wentworth’s intentions were. A fire drill at school a few days earlier had provided the answer.

  “He plans to get the furnace to leak carbon monoxide into the vents,” I said. “Don’t you remember when Mrs. Jansen told us about it . . . about how it’s a colorless, odorless gas that can kill you? And that it can come from a furnace.”

  “Are you sure?” Scarlett said.

  “What else could it be?” I said. “It all makes sense. And if anyone would know how to rig a furnace to leak this stuff, it’d be him. Didn’t you hear him say he was a heating/air-conditioning guy?”

  Henry grabbed a chair and pushed it up against one of the vents. “We gotta block these things.”

  “That’s too loose,” I said. “Why don’t we jam as many of these books as we can into both vents?”

  “But it’s a gas,” Scarlett said. “It’ll get right through the books.”

  “I know that,” I said. “But it might slow it down and buy us a little more time to find a way outa here.” We immediately began stuffing as many books as we could into the vents. “Try to fit them in as tightly as possible. We don’t want to leave any holes where the gas might seep through.”

  We spent the next ten minutes jamming books, many of them rare first editions, into the vents and trying to keep them flush against the sides of the air ducts and each other. When it was clear that no more books would fit, we stopped and stared at one another.

  “Now we need a real escape plan,” Scarlett said. She pointed at me. “And I’m counting on you to figure one out. You got us into this. You get us out. And to think that if I had stayed home tonight, I wouldn’t be here fighting for my life.”

  “Charlie,” Henry said, “we gotta get that noodle of yours working. And I know just how to do that.” He thought for a minute. “Okay, got it. A mother has seven children and six potatoes. How can she feed an equal amount of potatoes to each child?”

  “A brainteaser? You’ve got to be kidding,” Scarlett said. “A poisonous gas is about to come through those vents any minute, and you want him to answer a brainteaser. You’re crazy.”

  I knew what Henry was trying to do. He wanted to get the juices bubbling in my noggin. And I knew that to a normal person, it seemed nuts. But it had worked in the past. And it just might work again.

  “Give it to me one more time,” I said.

  Scarlett threw her arms up. “You’re both crazy.”

  “A mother has seven children and six potatoes. How can she feed an equal amount of potatoes to each child? And I should mention that the answer can’t include fractions.”

  I assumed it had to be a trick question of some kind. That was Henry’s style. I didn’t think this was a math problem. Therefore the answer had to lie within the wording of the question. I repeated it to myself. A mother has seven children and six potatoes. Nothing tricky there. How can she feed an equal amount of potatoes to each child? Wait a minute now. There was something funny about the way that last part was worded. It didn’t say how many potatoes—it said an equal amount of potatoes. Since we couldn’t use fractions, then we couldn’t slice them up and give each kid an equal number of pieces. But what if we . . . ? And then it hit me.

  “Give up?” Henry said.

  “I think I smell something,” Scarlett said nervously.

  Henry glanced at her nonchalantly. “It’s odorless.” He turned to me. “Well?”

  “There’s only one solution,” I said. “You make mashed potatoes and give each kid an equal portion.”

  “Oooooh,” Henry groaned.

  I walked to the center of the room and looked around. I had hoped that the brainteaser would have jarred something somewhere. I made a mental inventory of everything in the room . . . books . . . bookcases . . . shelves . . . step stool . . . wall clock . . . rugs . . . table . . . chairs . . . sprinkler head . . . light fixtures . . . Wait a minute. I stared at the sprinkler head on the ceiling. I thought back to the conversation I had with my dad a week ago.

  “I got it,” I said. “I figured a way out.”

  “What? How?” Scarlett said.

  “Do you see that sprinkler head on the ceiling? That’s our ticket to freedom.”

  “I don’t get it,” Henry said.

  I began to push the table to the center of the room and positioned it directly under the sprinkler. I climbed onto the table and motioned for Henry to hand me a chair, which I placed on top. The sprinkler head was nearly within my reach.

  “Hand me one of those books,” I said. “A light one that I can throw.”

  “What are you doing?” Henry asked.

  “If I can tamper with that sprinkler head just enough, it’ll go off. And when it does, it’ll send a signal to the alarm company, the fire department, and the police. And they’ll be able to tell exactly what room it’s in. And we’ll be saved.”

  “If we don’t drown first,” Scarlett said.

  Henry handed me a pile of books. I took the lightest one, cocked my arm, and was just about to toss it at the sprinkler head when I thought about what Scarlett had just said. The water. I had forgotten about the water. I began shaking my head.

  “What’s wrong?” Henry said. “Throw the book.”

  “I can’t. I just can’t do it.”

  “Let me do it, then,” he said.

  I climbed down from the chair and hopped off the table. “I don’t mean I can’t do it, I mean I won’t do it.”

  “Why?” Scarlett said. “What are you talking about?”

  “Look around you,” I said. “What do you see? Hundreds and hundreds of volumes of first-edition books. Some of them more than a hundred years old. They’re irreplaceable. Imagine what will happen to them when the water comes pouring out.”

  “We’ll cover them up or something,” Henry said. “We can protect them.”

  “Not when a hundred gallons of water come rushing out every minute. There’s no way to save them. That’s why we have to think of another idea.”

  “Let me get this straight,” Scarlett said. “We’re probably gonna die, but at least the books will survive. Is that it?”

  Henry cocked his head to the side. “I hate to say it, but she has a point, partner.”

  I handed a book to each of them. When it actually came down to it, I wanted to see which one of them would really pull the trigger.

  “Go ahead,” I said. “The blood will be on your hands.”

  After a minute or so, they both set the books on the table.

  “All right,” Scarlett said. “You’d just better figure out another way to get us out of here.”

  I knew that my decision to save the books was a noble one. But it also meant that I’d have to come up
with another escape plan. And to be perfectly honest, I couldn’t think of a single thing. We had reached the point of desperation, and that always meant it was time to call upon my mentor—Sam Solomon. I tried to think of a time when Sam had to abandon a great idea and then come up with an alternative plan. After a minute or two, I had it. It was in Episode #58—The Shore Thing Caper.

  Sam had been hired to investigate an international smuggling ring that was moving shipments of Mexican rifles from Tijuana into a port in San Diego. The yacht of a wealthy US businessman was the suspected mode of transportation. At one point in the investigation, Sam managed to get himself captured and thrown into a storage room—a makeshift jail in the hull of the yacht. While a prisoner, he searched for a way to free himself. With boxes of ammunition that he discovered in the compartment, he ingeniously fashioned a crude homemade explosive. With it, he planned to blow a hole in the side of the yacht, and since it was only about a mile offshore, he would easily be able to swim to safety.

  But when Sam thought through his plan, he realized that he might not have considered the big picture. The veteran detective was a fine swimmer who was more than capable of saving himself. But what would be the consequences of his actions? With a hole in its hull, the yacht would certainly sink. And the plight of everyone on board was in jeopardy. Some might survive, but others would surely drown. Granted, they were all criminals, but Sam was uncomfortable playing the role of judge, jury, and executioner. The plan would surely have guaranteed his escape, but he opted to dismiss it. Instead, he constructed a fortress with the boxes of ammo, and the rest is history. If it worked for Sam, it could work for us.

  CHAPTER 24

  The Santa Claws Caper

  It was time to put the next, and hopefully final, plan into action. I began grabbing as many books as I could carry and started piling them on the table. Then I pulled the table over to the doorway.

  “What’s going on?” Henry said. “A new escape plan?”

  I nodded.

  “What can I do?” he said.

  “I need books, books, and more books . . . the bigger the better.”