Chapter 6
The next morning Jack’s handwritten sign remained taped to the front door of the bookstore and the boys arrived at the Natural History Museum before it opened. They waited for the doors to open at the secondary entrance to the museum, which was along one of Washington’s wide Federal boulevards. Traffic sped along the street and the food and souvenir vendors dragged their wares onto the sidewalks beneath the elm trees. Between the street and the oversized metal doors that led to the museum, a narrow strip of grass was fussily landscaped to suggest more green space than it really was. On one side of the entrance a Triceratops skull cast in bronze served as a both statuary and jungle gym. A wooden bench and some artfully placed boulders were placed between the sidewalk and the building’s plain façade, sharing the shade of the elm trees with the vendors. On the other side of the entrance, temporary wooden walls had been constructed, blocking off the grassy area entirely. A construction trailer was planted on the sidewalk and four pickup trucks with Franklin & Rogers Contractors logo magnets on their doors were parked on the mangled grass.
When the security guard opened the doors at nine o’clock, the boys were the first visitors in. They passed through the metal detector and were admitted into the museum. The secondary entrance didn’t open into a grand hall like the entrance on the Mall side. Instead they were met with a small Visitor’s Information desk and two small display cases with maps and feathery artifacts behind glass. Restrooms, coatrooms, and closed doors with Employees Only signs fanned out in both directions. A low-ceilinged hallway in the center of the building led past an Easter Island statue to the gift shop and an escalator leading up to the main hall of the museum. The boys were riding the narrow escalator up when they were hailed by a familiar voice that was approaching them riding the down escalator. It was their old friend Max.
“Jackson! C-dog. Q,” he said. “Right on time, as usual.”
The up escalator and the down escalator crossed at the middle, forming a giant X as they carried people from the main halls to the basement. At the point where the two moving staircases passed, Max vaulted over the railing on his side and landed beside Jack.
“So you decided you wanted to get involved after all,” said Jack.
“Wouldn’t miss it,” said Max. “I didn’t think that running an employee search at the Smithsonian would be my way into a Bonney Boys Adventure, but I’ll take what I can get.”
The escalator deposited the four of them at the back of the grand central room of the Natural History museum. The famous elephant towered over the room, its trunk raised in a perpetual territorial trumpet. The tourists who had come in from the Mall stood and looked around them at the balconies in all directions and the domed ceiling. The marble floor and columns turned the squeaks of sneakered feet and the wafting snippets of conversations into a pleasant and airy white noise.
“What did you find out?” asked Jack of his old schoolmate.
“Antonio Souvlakis,” said Max. He pulled a folded note card out of his back pocket. “He’s worked here as a contractor for 5 or 6 years in the eighties, and then he’s been full time for 18 years. Nothing to speak of in his employee records. No reprimands or suspensions. No bonuses either, though. There are only a handful of people who have been at the museum as long as he has. There’s always work for a taxidermist. I found out that there are literally thousands of specimens in the warehouses here. Some of them haven’t been touched since they were first collected over a century ago. Did you know that more new species have been discovered in museum archives than in wild in the lat ten years?”
“Try to stay on topic,” said Jack.
“Think about it,” continued Max, “thousands of scientists and explorers in the field. GPS and water ionizers and deep sea submarines. Everyone beating the bushes in search of a new species of lemming. All the while, in the drawers in the basement of this building there are animals that were shot by our grandparents with bows and arrows that don’t even have names.”
“Wasn’t your grandfather a literature professor at the college?” asked Cable.
“Yeah, what does that have to do with anything? So’s yours.”
“You just said that they were hunting with bows and arrows,” said Cable.
“Can you see Big Daddy with a bow and arrow?” grinned Quinn.
“I can picture that old BB gun he gets out at Thanksgiving,” said Cable.
“I guarantee you there’s nothing here that Big Daddy—“
“Fellows,” interrupted Jack, “we’re wasting time.”
“They’re wasting time,” said Max, “I was just reporting on an interesting—“
“Souvlakis,” insisted Jack, “get on with it.”
“OK,” said Max, checking his index card again. “He was the number two guy during the renovation of the Hall of Mammals the last couple years. And now supposedly he’s going to be switching over to birds, but the renovation of the Gem Hall is way past deadline and way over budget so everything’s getting put on hold for the time being. That’s it. That’s all I’ve got.”
“Did you ever meet him?” asked Jack. “Did you find out anything else? Is he still drawing a paycheck? Has anyone noticed if he’s been around recently?”
“Jack, I’m an intern in the publications department, not the head of Human Resources. It’s not like this guy plays on the softball team with me. I thought I did pretty well.”
The crowd in the entrance hall of the museum grew while they talked. Visitors with kids inevitably headed straight past the elephant to the dinosaur hall. The Hall of Mammals had bright new banners pointing the way to the newly renovated space and it drew large crowds as well. The other first floor exhibits, the Oceans and the Anthropology Wing seemed nearly vacant. Both of those exhibits were still old fashioned glass display cases and dioramas, while the newer halls had computer screens and interactive displays. On the second floor of the museum, their entrances visible over the interior balconies in the central room, were Birds and Gems and Insects and Planet in Crisis. Faded banners hung between the soaring marble columns to show the way to each of the exhibits.
“Is Franklin and Rogers doing the renovation in the Gem exhibit?” asked Cable.
“Who’s that?” asked Max.
“Franklin and Rogers,” repeated Cable, “the contractors with the trucks parked outside. They did the Mammal Hall. I was asking if they’re doing the renovation of the Gem exhibit too.”
“I have no idea,” said Max.
“It’s their name on the blueprints, right?” asked Quinn.
Cable nodded.
“Why do you ask?” asked Max.
“Just curious,” said Cable. “Did you say the Gem hall was behind schedule?”
“Way behind schedule,” said Max. “It was supposed to open at the same time as the Hall of Mammals, months ago.”
“What happened?”
“Cable,” said Jack, “what does this have to do with anything?”
“You said to work on my theory,” answered Cable.
“And?”
“I’m working on it,” said Cable, “I’ll let you know; don’t worry.”
Quinn grinned and even Jack couldn’t conceal his smile. When Cable became dogged, there was nothing anyone could do to deter him from his mission.
“Fair enough,” said Jack, “so back to Souvlakis. We wanted to see the Hall of Mammals. There were some curious drawings in with the books we got yesterday.”
“Sure,” said Max, “it’s right over here.
He led the way around the huge brown elephant towards the Hall of Mammals. The first thing that struck the boys was how bright it was inside. The stolid, stony, dullness of the main hall was gone. Inside the new hall everything was white or tawny tan. Natural light streamed in from invisible skylights and hidden windows high overhead. There were no glass walls and no painted backdrops with the African savannah in miniature. The new hall simply put the mammals on display. A giraffe and wildebeest stood side by side over a mirrored watering hole without so much as a barrier between them and the tourists. The sheer size of the animals kept people from strolling too close. A jaguar sat on a ledge halfway up the wall with a dead antelope draped beside it. All the animals were beautiful and colorful and somehow pristine. And everything else in the hall was hardly there at all. The walls were white, as were the nooks and pedestals on which the animals were displayed. Here and there the subtlest hint of color was dabbled on the floor or up a wall to suggest a change of continent or altitude, but gone were the fake trees with their fake leaves. Gone also were the cobwebs and stasis of the old exhibit. Despite the utter incongruity of African mammals and North American ones sharing the same watering hole, these animals seemed to be just passing through, much like the tourists and visitors walking amongst them. And despite the absence of railings or barriers, the animals were kept apart from the people. From across the room, it looked as though you would walk right up and touch anything, but up close there was always some unseen obstacle that put the displays just out of reach.
“There’s the armadillo pedestal,” pointed Quinn, “that’s the one, right?”
Jack nodded. The armadillo was frozen in place, eyeing something up high on the other side of the room. When the boys turned to follow its gaze, they found a large wildcat of some sort with tufts of hair on its ears staring back down at them. Though the cat was physically located much nearer to a couple other animals, its attention was entirely taken up by its staring contest with the armadillo.
“This is cool,” said Quinn.
Jack wasn’t looking at the animals, though. He was studying the pedestals. They were still so clean, and their design so clever, that at first he couldn’t even make out how they were constructed or where the seams were. But it didn’t take him long to see that the wood construction had been coated with sculpted foam and then all of it textured and painted the same color to hide the structure. The spot on the side of the armadillo pedestal where the secret compartment should have been was within reach from the bench beneath the armadillo. Jack sorely wanted to stand on the bench and reach for it, but he knew that would draw attention to him. And what would he do if he succeeded in finding a moving panel?
“Isn’t it great?” said Max. “I love what they’ve done in here.”
“Is it ever empty?” asked Jack.
Max shook his head. “It’s like this all day. Higher numbers in here than even the dinosaurs all spring and summer. Your Souvlakis guy does good work.”
Cable tapped Jack on the back. “Don’t turn around now,” he said.
“What is it?” whispered Jack.
“Over by the entrance to the exhibit. Just came in. It’s the guy from the store yesterday. The one with the goatee.”
It was all Jack could do not to whirl and look.
“He’s just looking around,” said Cable. “Coming this way.”
Jack casually turned away. Then he sat on the bench by the armadillo with his back to the entrance. He could see out of the corner of his eye. The goatee man was carrying a clipboard and heading over to a display with a porcupine and a raccoon. He stopped and consulted his clipboard. Then he looked at the pedestal that the porcupine was crawling up. He reached up, as though to touch the tail of the porcupine, then pulled his hand back down quickly. He looked around the room. Then, with his lips clenched, he turned and left the way he’d come in.
“Max,” whispered Jack, “who was that guy?”
“Who?” asked Max loudly.
“Quietly,” said Jack, “the one who just left, with the clipboard.”
Max looked out towards the main hall. He shrugged, “I don’t know. One of the contractors, I guess. They all wear those denim shirts.”
“One of the Franklin and Rogers contractors?” asked Cable.
“Yeah,” said Max, “Why?”
“He was in the bookstore yesterday,” said Cable, “looking for Souvlakis.”
“Really?” exclaimed Max. “That’s weird.”
“I want to follow him,” said Cable.
“Go then,” said Jack.
Cable nodded and started off after the man.
“He won’t get far,” said Max to Jack.
“Why not?” asked Jack.
“You need ID to get anywhere except the main halls,” said Max. “Once that guy gets off the ground floor, Cable won’t be able to follow him. Especially not up into the Gem hall, if he is one of the contractors, like you said.”
“You’ve got ID,” said Jack, “quick, give it to me.”
Max shook his head. “Mine won’t get you anywhere. Intern, remember? Publications department. The ID badges are all computer coded for access up there.”
“I’ve got this,” said Quinn. He pulled an ID badge out from under his shirt. It was the Souvlakis ID from the book boxes. “I brought it along just in case. It’s got a bar code strip on it. Will this work?”
“You said he was the number two guy on the renovation here,” said Jack, “he must have had access.”
“I don’t know if it’ll work upstairs through,” said Max.
“Just one way to find out,” said Quinn. He hurried off after Cable with the ID badge in his hand.
Jack remained seated, with Max standing over him.
“Are you just going to let them go off like that?” asked Max.
Jack shrugged. “Sure.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to try to find some way to open a secret compartment on the side of this pedestal without anyone noticing,” said Jack. “If only there were someone around who could help me by creating a distraction.”
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