The Vanishing Act Read online

  An hour later Nancy pulled up in front of the three-story limestone building whose address Dan had given her. “Here we are,” she said, climbing out and audibly sighing. “Boy, if that’s how crowded it gets on the freeways, what’s it like to drive on regular roads around here? Well, I guess we’ll find out.”

  She pushed the glass door open into a lobby that was nothing like any other lobby she’d ever seen. It was painted hot pink, and filled with giant plastic palms. In back of the receptionist’s desk was a huge screen showing a constant stream of rock videos without the sound. And next to her desk was parked a gleaming silver Porsche with a sign on it that said “Drive Me.”

  Even the receptionist looked perfectly suited to this place. No older than Nancy, she was wearing a hot pink rubberized dress, lime green stockings printed with tiny neon yellow polka dots, and electric blue high-top leather sneakers. On the black steel desk next to her typewriter was a tiny forest of palm trees just like the ones looming above her. She looked up expectantly as Nancy and her friends approached.

  “What’s the story with that car?” George asked before Nancy could say a word.

  The receptionist smiled. “It belonged to the lead singer of the Slickboys. He gave it to us as a thank-you present when one of their videos went to number one. We didn’t know what to do with it, so we just left it out here. Anyway, can I help you?”

  “I’m Nancy Drew, and these are my friends Bess Marvin and George Fayne,” Nancy told her. “We have an appointment to see Dan Kennedy.”

  “Have a seat,” the receptionist said, gesturing toward a waiting area a few feet away. “I’ll give him a call.”

  She picked up the phone and punched a few numbers. “They’re here, Dan,” she said. “Oh. Oh, really? Well, okay. I’ll send her down.”

  She hung up and turned back to Nancy. “Dan says you’re to see our president, Mr. Thomas, right away,” she said. “Your friends can wait here. Dan will be along in a minute to pick them up, and when you’re done with Mr. Thomas you can come and meet them.”

  Uh-oh, Nancy thought. Why do I suddenly feel as if I’m being sent to see the principal? Aloud, though, she just asked, “Which way is Mr. Thomas’s office?”

  “It’s down at the end of the hall. The office with the double doors,” said the receptionist.

  “See you in a little while,” Nancy said, and headed down the hall.

  The secretary’s desk in front of the office was empty. I guess I’ll have to announce myself, Nancy thought.

  “Mr. Thomas?” she asked softly, peeking inside the double doors at the man speaking on the phone.

  He didn’t seem to notice her at first. “Okay. Book them for Friday. I don’t care how, and I don’t care what it costs—I just want it done!” he said into the receiver. “Now I have to go.” Without saying goodbye, he hung up and turned to Nancy. “Yes, I’m Winslow Thomas,” he said, “and you must be Nancy Drew.” He jumped to his feet to shake her hand. “Please, have a seat.”

  Except for a huge, bushy ginger-colored beard, Winslow Thomas was the most correct-looking man Nancy had ever seen. He was wearing a navy pinstriped suit, a white shirt, and a navy checked tie. His wingtip oxfords had the burnished shine that could only have come from a professional polishing, and his short, wavy hair looked as though it had been trimmed five minutes ago.

  What’s he doing at a place like TV Rock? Nancy wondered as she sat down. He should be the head of a bank!

  Before she could speculate further, Winslow Thomas cleared his throat. “I’ll come right to the point, Nancy,” he said. “Dan Kennedy told me this morning that you were coming to investigate the Jesse Slade disappearance.” He had a slight southern accent, and his diction was so perfect that it almost sounded affected. “I have to say that I don’t think it’s a great idea,” he continued. “And, frankly, I’m a little irritated at Dan for giving you the go-ahead without checking with me first. If he had, he’d have found out that I think a thing like this is definitely not in TVR’s best interests.”

  “Why not?” Nancy asked, startled.

  “A couple of reasons.” Winslow Thomas leaned back in his chair. “First of all, the police have officially declared the case closed. It makes us look foolish to open it again with no more substantial evidence than a few seconds of film. Jesse Slade going over a cliff? How farfetched can you get?”

  “I’ll be honest with you, Mr. Thomas,” Nancy said. “At first I thought it was a little farfetched myself. But don’t you think we should explore any possibility if it could lead us to the right answer?”

  “Not in this case,” Winslow Thomas said. “I’ll be honest with you, Nancy. The police don’t think anything violent happened to Jesse. They suspect that he had reasons for dropping out of sight—reasons that wouldn’t look too good if they became known. I’m afraid I agree with them. From the rumors I’ve heard—and I hear quite a lot in this business—Jesse Slade wasn’t as perfect as his fans believed. But, what’s the point of trashing his image now? What’s the point of bringing the past to life if all it does is disappoint people?”

  “I see your point,” Nancy said slowly, “but I don’t think that’s a good reason for abandoning this case. What if those rumors you’ve heard aren’t true? What if there was some kind of violence involved? I think it’s more important to find out what really happened.”

  Winslow Thomas paused for a second. “Okay, I’ll tell you what,” he said briskly. “If you agree to work undercover in the record business—and to work as fast as you can—I’ll agree to bankroll you for a reasonable amount of time. But I don’t want any publicity. If the answer to this mystery turns out to be unpleasant, I don’t want TVR getting a tainted reputation. We’re a music station, not a muckraking business. And I don’t want you getting my staff all fired up about this. They have jobs to do—and they don’t include playing amateur detective.”

  Was that a dig? Nancy wasn’t sure. “You mentioned my going undercover,” she said. “Do you have any suggestions what cover I could use so I could ask lots of questions.”

  “We use a lot of guest veejays at TVR. A contest-winner who was supposed to be our next guest veejay had to back out at the last minute. Maybe I could tell people that you’re here to fill that slot. You could go undercover right here at the station. You’d have access to just about anyone you’d need to talk to.”

  “That sounds great,” Nancy said.

  “As long as you really pull your weight,” Winslow Thomas added warningly. “As I said, I don’t want my staff suspecting anything.”

  “Don’t worry, Mr. Thomas,” Nancy said. “I’ll work hard. I promise.”

  “That’s settled, then,” said Winslow Thomas. “You can start tomorrow. I’ll have my secretary call Dan, and he can start showing you the ropes. I’ve already told him not to let anyone know who you are, by the way. You can go up to his office now. It’s one flight up—Room Two Twenty-four.”

  • • •

  “Well, I will say one thing, Dan,” Nancy said dryly a few minutes later. “Your boss is very efficient. Obviously he had decided to let me work here, but he made me convince him to reopen the case. Even with all of that, he had me in and out of there in five minutes flat.”

  “You don’t have to tell me what he’s like,” Dan said, wincing a little. “We’ve had our share of run-ins. I’m not too efficient. I’m kind of relaxed, myself.”

  “Yes, we’d noticed that,” George said with a smile.

  Nancy had arrived at Dan’s office—a tiny cubbyhole of a place filled with wind-up toys, heaps of cassette tapes, and leftover pizza boxes—to find Bess and George chatting with him as if he were an old friend. She could see why. Dan was as easygoing and relaxed as Winslow Thomas had been brisk and formal. He had a mop of curly blond hair and laughing blue eyes, and he was dressed in black jeans, black running shoes, and a Bent Fender T-shirt—“put on in your honor,” he’d told her. He was just as funny in person as he was on the air.

  “I�
��ve got to do a taping before the end of the afternoon,” Dan said, “so maybe I’ll show you around tomorrow. But are there any questions you have now? I feel kind of responsible for you, since I brought you all the way out here.”

  “Well, I’d like to take a look at the site of the concert,” Nancy said. “And I want to talk to someone on the crew that taped Jesse’s last performance.”

  “Well, you’re in luck. I’ve got a friend who worked on that tape,” Dan said. “I’ll give you her number.”

  “Great!” Nancy said. “And maybe you can help me make a list of the people I should talk to. People who worked with Jesse, I mean. His manager, for instance. I don’t even know who that was—”

  “Tommy Road.” Dan’s voice was suddenly clipped and urgent. “Funny you should mention him. You know, since Bess’s call I’ve been thinking a lot about Tommy Road. Did you know he vanished at the same time Jesse did?”

  “That’s strange,” Nancy said.

  “Very strange.” Dan leaned closer. “I’d look into Tommy Road’s disappearance closely if I were you,” he said in a low voice. “If you want my opinion, Tommy murdered Jesse and hid the body before he disappeared!”

  Chapter

  Three

  YOU SEE, NANCY? I told you Jesse Slade was murdered!” Bess said triumphantly.

  “Wait a minute,” Nancy said. She turned to Dan. “That’s quite an accusation, Dan. Where did it come from?”

  “Shhh! Don’t talk too loudly,” Dan murmured. “After my conversation with Mr. Thomas this morning, I don’t want him to think I’m taking time away from my job to work on this. Anyway, I don’t have any hard evidence or even evidence of any kind.

  “But I know that there were bad feelings between Jesse and Tommy Road before they disappeared,” he continued. “I was a radio deejay then, and I interviewed Jesse a couple of times. I asked him something about Tommy once, and suddenly Jesse got really angry. I guess that’s why I can still remember his exact words. He said, ‘Tommy’s done nothing to help me—in fact, it’s the opposite. Off the record, I’m looking for another manager.’ I asked him what he meant, but he wouldn’t tell me anything more. Said it was nothing he could prove, and he’d appreciate my forgetting what he said. I did—until now.”

  “And Tommy Road vanished at the same time Jesse did?” George said slowly, thinking out loud. “I wonder why I never heard about it.”

  “It got some coverage, but Jesse was such a big star, Tommy’s disappearance got buried.”

  “What was Tommy Road like?” Nancy asked.

  “Kind of obnoxious,” Dan answered. “I met him at a couple of parties. He was British, and he was always going on about how weak the American music scene was compared to that in England. I always wanted to ask him how he could complain when he was making so much money off an American like Jesse.”

  “What did he look like?” asked George.

  “Extremely weird,” Dan replied. “He shaved his head way before anyone else did, and he had tattoos on his face.”

  “Ugh! That sounds a little too weird.” Bess shuddered.

  “Yeah,” Dan continued. “Two lizards, one on each cheek. And he wore a long cape all the time.” Dan shot a quick glance at his watch. “Look, I’ve got to go back to work. You’ll be here tomorrow, won’t you?”

  “I sure will,” Nancy answered. “I start work for you guys tomorrow!”

  “Well, we can talk more then,” Dan said. “Oh! Before I forget—that friend I was telling you about, the one who worked on the concert tape, works near here. She’s over on Hollywood Boulevard.” He picked up his phone book and handed it to Nancy. “Her name’s Cari Levine. Here’s her number.”

  Nancy jotted it down. “Can I use your phone to call her?” she asked.

  “Be my guest. Okay, I’m out of here. See you tomorrow,” Dan said and vanished out the door.

  Nancy picked up the phone and began dialing the number Dan had given her. Bess sighed. “What a great guy.”

  “Really,” George agreed. “Nan, can’t you figure out some way to get us a job here, too?”

  “Oh, I’ll be keeping you busy enough. Hello, is this Cari Levine? My name is Nancy Drew. Dan Kennedy gave me your name. I’m doing some research on Jesse Slade.” Nancy couldn’t mention the fact that she was a private investigator. She didn’t want to blow her cover. “I know this is short notice,” she went on, “but I was wondering if you could spare a moment to talk to me and my friends about the night of his last concert.”

  “No problem,” Cari said warmly. “Come right over.”

  • • •

  “Hey! There’s Melrose Avenue,” Bess said as they drove toward Cari’s office. “There are supposed to be incredible shops all along there. You know, I’ve been needing a little bit of L.A. to take back home with me. Like that stuff there.” She pointed at a store window filled with peach-colored leather clothes being worn by mannequins turned upside-down. “Nancy, don’t you think we could—”

  “Not now,” Nancy said firmly. “You’ll get a chance to shop, I promise. But not now.”

  Cari Levine’s office, which was on the ninth floor of a black glass skyscraper, was even messier than Dan’s. Cans of film were everywhere, and snipped-off bits of tape littered the floor. The posters taped to the walls had all come unstuck on at least one corner.

  Cari herself looked bright and energetic. She was wearing a scarlet jumpsuit with matching ankle boots, and from elbow to wrist her arms were lined with a mass of jangling silver bracelets.

  “Sorry about the mess,” Cari said. “I keep meaning to clean it up, but somehow every day goes by without my touching a thing. So, enough of my apologies. What can I do for you?”

  Nancy explained. “We were wondering if you’d noticed anything out of the ordinary that night,” she said, finishing up.

  “I was just a lowly assistant back then,” Cari said. “I never actually talked to Jesse, but even I couldn’t help but notice that he was kind of edgy. He kept yelling at people while we were setting up—and that was the kind of thing that never happened with Jesse. Normally he went out of his way to be nice to camera crews and roadies and people like that.”

  “Did he say anything that seemed strange to you?” Nancy pressed.

  “Well, it was three years ago. . . .” Cari thought for a minute. “And the main thing we were all paying attention to was the weather.”

  “The weather?” George repeated.

  “Yes. We were all afraid it was going to rain. The sky looked incredibly dark and threatening, and you could hear thunder in the distance. As a matter of fact, there was a big storm right after the concert ended. Perfect timing! If the concert had been the next day, the whole stage would have had to have been rebuilt—the rain made half the cliff collapse.”

  Nancy looked up, suddenly alert. “Does that happen often?” she asked.

  “Well, we do have a big problem with the coast eroding out here,” Cari answered. “I’m sure you’ve heard about all the big beach houses on Malibu that have wound up in the ocean because the shoreline erodes so badly.”

  Nancy didn’t answer for a second. “The timing . . .” she finally said. Bess, George, and Cari all stared at her, but Nancy didn’t notice. “It’s another case of the timing being too good,” she said slowly. “Jesse disappears . . . the cliff he was performing on crumbles . . . and a body that may have fallen off the cliff is never found.”

  “You’re not saying someone made the cliff collapse, are you?” George asked. “Nancy, that was obviously just—just nature! It can’t have anything to do with Jesse’s disappearance!”

  “Oh, I’m not saying anyone engineered the collapse,” Nancy said quickly. “All I mean is that the body might have been buried under the cliff when it collapsed. That might account for no one’s discovering it!”

  Nancy jumped to her feet. “Well, I wanted to see the site of the concert anyway,” she said. “And there’s no time like the present. Let’s head out to the
beach and take a look. It’s not much of a lead, but it might tell us something. Can you give me directions to the site, Cari?”

  “Sure,” Cari said. “It’s about an hour north of here. Now, if I can just find a map in all this mess . . . Forget it; I’ll just tag along and show you.

  • • •

  “I can’t believe how beautiful this is,” Bess said half an hour later. “It looks like something from a movie!”

  “From many movies,” Cari answered. “This shot must be in hundreds of them.”

  The four girls were standing at the edge of a cliff that jutted out into the churning, white-capped ocean. Below them waves pounded relentlessly against glistening black rocks, and the air was filled with the cry of sea gulls.

  “Where are the surfers?” Bess asked. She sounded disappointed. “This place is totally deserted.”

  “Well, look at the water!” George said. “No one could surf or swim here. It’s much too wild, and those rocks would be horrible to crash into.” Suddenly she shivered. “I feel sorry for Jesse if he did fall off this cliff. I don’t see any way he could have survived.”

  “You’re right,” Nancy said. “It would have been almost impossible to investigate, too, especially once the cliff had collapsed.

  “Let’s see. The band must have been over there.” Nancy gestured to a point about thirty feet away. “Right?” Cari nodded.

  “And the taping crew was right where we’re standing now,” Cari added. “That means that the body I saw falling had to have been standing over there.”

  There was a spot at the edge of the cliff that overhung a huge boulder. Bess eyed it nervously.

  “You’re not planning to investigate that, I hope,” she said. “Because if you are, I have to tell you I’d rather be shopping.”

  “Well, it would be nice to get a closer look,” Nancy said. “I wonder what’s the best way to get down to the beach.”

  Cari shrugged. “That, I don’t know.”