CHAPTER TEN

CHASING THE TAXI

SUDDENLY THREE MESSENGERS CAME RUSHING OUT OF Trautenau Street, waving their arms.

“Let’s go!” shouted the Professor. And he, Emil, the Middleday brothers, and Crumbagel all sprinted to Emperor Avenue as if they were trying to break the world record for the hundred-yard dash. Then Gus signaled to them to slow down, and they took the last thirty feet before the newspaper stand at a walk, trying to be careful.

“Too late?” asked Emil, out of breath.

“Are you crazy, bud?” whispered Gus. “When I do a job, I do it right.”

The thief was standing on the other side of the street in front of Café Josty, looking around like a tourist in Switzerland. Then he bought the evening newspaper from a newspaper vendor and began to read.

“If he comes over here and sees us, it’ll be messy,” said Crumbagel.

They stood behind the kiosk, stuck their heads out around the side, and trembled with excitement. The thief didn’t notice them in the slightest. He was doggedly turning every page of the newspaper.

“I bet he’s looking out the corner of his eye to see if anyone’s on his trail,” was the elder Middleday’s assessment.

“Did he look over this way often?” asked the Professor.

“Not at all, bud! He kept chowing down like he hadn’t eaten in three days.”

“Hey, look!” exclaimed Emil.

The man in the bowler hat folded up his newspaper and eyed the people walking past him. Then out of the blue he waved down a vacant taxi driving by. The car stopped. The man got in. The car drove on.

But by then the boys were already sitting in another taxi, and Gus was telling the driver, “See that cab turning now onto Prague Place? You do? Then please follow it. But make sure he doesn’t notice you.”

The car sped up, crossed Emperor Avenue and followed the other taxi at a safe distance.

“What’s going on?” asked the driver.

“Man, this guy up there pulled a fast one, and we’re not letting him out of our sight,” Gus explained. “But keep it to yourself, all right?”

“As you wish,” replied the driver, then asked, “Do you even have money?”

“What do you think we are?” said the Professor reproachfully.

“Easy now,” grumbled the man.

“IA 3733 is the license plate number,” Emil announced.

“That’s important,” said the Professor and wrote down the number.

“Don’t get too close to them!” warned Crumbagel.

“Don’t worry about it,” murmured the driver.

So they drove down Motz Street, past Victoria Louisa Square, and then down more of Motz Street. A few people stopped on the sidewalk, stared after the car, and had a laugh over the strange company in it.

“Duck!” whispered Gus. The boys threw themselves to the floor and lay there like a heap of cabbages and turnips.

“What is it?” asked the Professor.

“There’s a red light at Luther Street, dude! We’ll have to stop there, and the other car won’t make it through either.”

Both cars did stop and wait, one behind the other, until the light turned green and they continued through the intersection. But no one could tell that the second taxi was occupied. It looked empty. The boys were crouching down like pros. The driver turned around, saw the lot of them back there, and had to laugh. Once the taxi started moving, they carefully crept back up onto the seat.

“Hopefully it won’t take much longer,” said the Professor, eyeing the taxi meter. “This little ride has already cost us eighty cents.”

But as it turned out the little ride was soon over. The first taxi stopped at Nollendorf Square, right in front of Hotel Kreid. The second taxi stopped just in time and waited, outside the danger zone, for whatever would happen next.

The man in the bowler hat got out of his cab, paid, and disappeared into the hotel.

“Follow him, Gus!” said the Professor anxiously. “If that place has a back door, we’ll lose him.” Gus took off.

The other boys piled out. Emil paid. It cost one mark. The Professor quickly led his group into the entryway of a building that led past a cinema and into a large courtyard stretching out behind both the cinema and the Nollendorf Square Theater. He sent Crumbagel ahead to catch up with Gus.

“We’ll be lucky if the guy stays in the hotel,” Emil determined. “This courtyard would make a great headquarters.”

“With all the modern conveniences,” agreed the Professor. “Subway across the street, bushes for hiding, cafés for making phone calls. It doesn’t get any better.”

“Hopefully Gus will be on the ball,” said Emil.

“You can depend on him,” said Middleday Senior. “He’s not as dumb as he looks.”

“If only he would get here soon,” said the Professor, sitting down on a chair that had been left out in the courtyard. He looked like Napoleon at the Battle of Leipzig.

Then Gus came back. “I think we got him,” he said, rubbing his hands. “He parked right in the hotel. I saw the bellboy taking him up to his room. And they don’t have a back door; I cased the joint from all sides. If he doesn’t get out over the roof, we’ve got him trapped.”

“Crumbagel’s standing guard?” asked the Professor.

“Of course!”

Then Middleday Senior got some change, ran into a café and called up little Tuesday.

“Hello, Tuesday?”

“Yep, I’m here!” little Tuesday crowed on the other end of the line.

“Code word Emil! Middleday Senior here. The man in the bowler is staying at Hotel Kreid on Nollendorf Square. Our headquarters is in the courtyard of Cinema West, left entrance.”

Little Tuesday wrote down all the details, repeated them back to him, and asked “Do you need any backups, Middleman?”

“Nope!”

“Has it been hard so far?”

“It’s been okay. The guy took a cab, and we trailed him the whole time in another one, see, and then he got out here. He got a room and is up there now. Probably checking to see if the monsters are playing solitaire under his bed.”

“What’s the room number?”

“We don’t know that yet. But we’ll find out soon.”

“Oh, I really wish I could be there! You know, after summer vacation is over and we have to write our first essays, I’m going to write about this.”

“Did anyone else call yet?”

“No, nobody. It stinks.”

“Well, so long, little Tuesday.”

“Good luck, gentlemen! Oh, I just remembered: Code word Emil!”

“Code word Emil!” replied Middleday and reported back at the courtyard of Cinema West. It was already eight o’clock. The Professor left to check on the look-outs.

“Well, we’re definitely not catching him tonight,” said an irritated Gus.

“We’re still better off if he goes to sleep right away,” Emil pointed out, “than if he races around all night in a taxi, going out to eat, or dancing, or to the theater, or all three. If he does that, we’ll have to apply for foreign aid just to keep up with him.”

The Professor came back, sent the two Middleday brothers off to Nollendorf Square as go-betweens, and seemed lost in thought. “We’ll have to figure out a better way to keep tabs on him,” he said. “Put your heads together and think.”

So they sat there for a while and brooded.

A bell rang in the courtyard, and in rolled a little nickel-plated bicycle. A little girl was sitting on it, and behind her, standing on the wheel, was their friend Bleuer. The two shouted, “Yippee!”

Emil jumped up, helped them off the bike, excitedly shook the little girl’s hand, and said to the others, “This is my cousin, Pony the Hat.”

The Professor politely offered the Hat his chair, and she sat down.

“Emil, you shark!” she said. “Comes to Berlin and starts shooting a movie! We were about to go back to Frederick Street Station for the New Town train, when your pal Bleuer came with your letter. Nice guy, by the way. Good work!”

Bleuer blushed and puffed out his chest.

“Anyway,” Pony continued, “Mom and Dad and Grandma are sitting at home knocking themselves out, trying to figure out what happened to you. We didn’t tell them anything, of course. I just took Bleuer out in front of the house and showed him what’s what. I have to go right back home, though. If I don’t, they’ll call the National Guard out. Two kids missing in one day, their nerves couldn’t handle it.”

“Here, we saved the ten cents for the ride back,” said Bleuer proudly. The Professor put the money away.

“Were they mad?” asked Emil.

“Not in the least,” said the Hat. “Grandma kept galopping around the room, saying, ‘My grandson Emil went to pay a visit to the president!’ until Mom and Dad calmed her down. But do you think you’ll get that guy tomorrow? Who’s your Sherlock Holmes?”

“Here,” said Emil. “This is the Professor.”

“Pleased to meet you, Professor,” said the Hat. “Finally—a real detective!”

The Professor laughed nervously and stuttered a few incomprehensible words.

“Well then,” said Pony, “here’s my allowance, twenty-five cents. Buy yourselves a few cigars.”

Emil took the money. Pony sat on the chair like a beauty queen, and the boys stood around her like the judges.

“And now I’ll make myself scarce,” said Pony the Hat. “I’ll be back tomorrow morning. Where will you all sleep? God, wouldn’t I love to stick around and make coffee for you. But what can I do? A good girl’s place is in her cage. Well, so long fellas! Good night, Emil!”

She gave Emil a jab on the shoulder, jumped up on her bike, cheerfully rang the bell, and rode off.

The boys stood for a long while without saying a word.

Then the Professor opened his mouth and said,

“Damn!”

And the others completely agreed.