See No Evil (12 page)

The shot was a barely audible thumping sound.

The only loud noise was the sound of Sam screaming as the bullet tore past his ear.

Joe got the picture in a flash. Lisa had pocketed the first gun Mac had pulled on them, the one Joe had knocked out of his hand — the gun with the silencer on it. She must have done it when he and Frank were hauling the two knocked-out crooks back to the truck.

This time she didn't bother picking up the two guns that Sam had dropped. She merely kicked them to one side as she motioned with her gun for Sam to stand beside the desk.

Then she pointed her gun at the boss. "Don't even think about reaching into your drawer," she said. "I missed Sam because I wanted to. But I can just as easily get you—right between the eyes."

"You'd better believe it." Joe backed her up.

Lisa ignored him. Her attention was still focused on the boss and Sam. "You two stand right there against the wall," she said to them.

"Yeah, you can take our places." Joe grinned.

"Right, be our guests," said Frank, sighing with relief. This was one tight spot he hadn't been able to see a way out of.

Both Hardys couldn't believe their eyes when they saw Lisa's gun swivel toward them.

Just as they couldn't believe their ears when she said in an icy voice, "Who said you two could move? Freeze."

Joe gasped.

She had to be joking.

But she wasn't.

The gun she had trained on them told him that.

JOE STOOD WITH his hands held high over his head and his back against the wall. On his left was Frank, in the same posture. And on his right stood the Acme boss and his goon, Sam.

Joe looked at Lisa as she faced them with a gun in her hand, but he could barely recognize her. She no longer looked like a young woman in her early twenties, much less like the teenager she had disguised herself as the day before. There was nothing sunny and fresh about her face now. Her expression was ice cold, and her face was etched with sharp lines and edges. Joe could see that she was about thirty, if not older. She might have a lot of faces, but he was sure that this one was her real one, whoever she might actually be.

The Acme boss knew who she was.

"It's y - y - you," he gasped. "Gina."

"Fast thinking," Lisa said in a voice as hard as her face "Gina?" asked Joe.

"It's what you might call my professional name," she said.

"A v - v - very well-known name in her profession," said the Acme boss.

"By the way, not that it matters, but what's your name?" asked Gina. "I've been curious about you since you hired me—and even more curious lately."

"E - E - Elliot. Elliot S - S - Saunders, the Third," the tall man said. "But how did you find me?"

"You can thank these two kids here," Gina said. "They're really good at hunting down people. I would have had a tough time doing it without them. Of course, you helped me, too - just by opening your mouth. All I had to do was hear that stutter of yours to know that you were the guy who'd hired me over the phone."

She sneered. "You thought you were being so smart not to give me your name. You should have been smart enough to have somebody else do your talking." She permitted herself a thin, tight smile. "Elliot Saunders, the Third, huh? Got any kids?"

"No," said Saunders. Sweat was streaming down his aristocratic forehead.

"Too bad," said Gina. "Then you're going to be Elliot Saunders, the Last."

Elliot started to lower one hand to wipe his brow but a jerk of Gina's gun was all it took for him to raise his hand high again. He had to stand there, blinking away the sweat as it dripped into his eyes. It looked like he was trying not to cry.

"B - b - but why on earth do you want to k - k - kill me?" Saunders pleaded. "We're both on the same side."

"The only side I'm on is my own," said Gina, her voice growing harder. "I'm not a pro for nothing. I haven't survived in this business by trusting people. As soon as I heard that the cops were on to the killing, I knew I had to cover my tracks. And I had to do it fast—before they got any further in their investigation of Morrison's funny business. You have to die because you're the one who hired me. You're the only one who knows my name."

"Y - y - you don't actually think I'd squeal on you," said Saunders, trying to sound indignant. He sounded more like a squeaking mouse.

"You'd do anything to have them shave a few years off your sentence," said Gina contemptuously. "You would have sold me down the river without thinking twice about it."

"I - I - I tell you you're wrong," said Saunders. "Look, if it's more money you want — "

"If I'm wrong, it's too bad—for you," said Gina with a shrug. "As for money, I'll be satisfied with the down payment you deposited in my account. I'll take the loss on the rest. I'll just have to pull a few more hits next year to make up for it."

She gave him another nasty smile. "It really hurts me right now, though, doing all these freebies. Let's see, there'll be you and your goon, these two kids, the three guys tied up in the truck, then their friend Callie, and last but not least, the couple of guys locked up at their house. It's like a going-out-of-business sale. Except, of course, for me it means staying in business and out of the pen. So I guess it has to be worth it."

Joe shook his head, stunned. He felt like somebody was using his brain as a punching bag. There was a hollow feeling in his gut, too. Nice going, Joe, he said to himself. You really picked a winner this time.

Next to him, Frank wore an intense expression as his mind worked on this puzzle as if it were the last thing he would ever do. He nodded as it all came together for him.

"I get it now," he said.

Gina looked at him. "Well, well, Sherlock here has figured it all out," she said, sneering. "Why don't you clue your brother in. I owe you both that much for helping me out."

"Saunders hired you to kill Morrison, make it look like a suicide, and steal the black book containing his list of payoffs before it could be used as evidence in the investigation of corruption," said Joe. "Right?"

"Almost," said Gina. "Except that Saunders didn't know about the black book. I found it in Morrison's desk after I knocked him off. I saw how much it would be worth and pocketed it. Figured I could sell it for a bundle. Then Callie crashed into me at City Hall, and she got her hands on it."

Gina's lips thinned again. "I figured out what had happened too late, so I had to hang around the high school until I spotted her. Then I trailed her until I got the chance to grab it back. I followed her to her house and then to yours, but it wasn't until she left to go back home alone that I could make my move."

"But she didn't have it on her," said Frank, almost forgetting the spot he was in as he eagerly put together the pieces. "So you ransacked her house and weren't able to find it there. You didn't find it until you spotted us with it from outside Callie's window. That's when you turned out the lights and grabbed it."

"Hey, you get a gold star," said Gina. "You're going to be the biggest brain in the cemetery."

"But one thing I don't understand," said Frank, still immersed in unraveling the puzzle. "Once you had the black book, why did you go through the bit about being a reporter attacked by a mugger?"

"I'm sure if you thought a bit, you'd figure it out," said Gina. "But seeing that you're not going to have the time for that, I'll fill you in. I wanted to know how much you kids had found out from the black book. If it turned out to be anything at all, I was going to ask for a bonus for making three extra hits."

"Right. It all makes sense now," Frank muttered.

Joe looked at Frank. "Yeah. Too bad it didn't come clear a little sooner." His face set like a stone as he looked at Gina. "You really had me fooled. Clever—those do-it-yourself bruises on your neck convinced me that someone tried to strangle you. But why didn't you leave us alone after that, when we found out Callie's notes had been destroyed? Why team up with us to find out who was involved in the payoffs?"

Gina looked at Frank. "Should I tell him or do you want to? You don't have to answer that — I can see you're dying to. Just make it fast. Time's a - wasting, and I've got a lot of work to do tonight."

Her reminder made Frank gulp. But he still went on, caught up in the rush of his logic. "It's simple. As soon as Gina learned that the fake suicide she'd staged to mask Morrison's murder hadn't worked, she knew the cops would start hunting for a killer. So she had to cover her tracks. That meant wiping out the one person who could name her: the person who hired her. But she didn't know who he was. She only knew him by his voice. She had to find him, and to do that she had to find out who had been making the payoffs, and we offered the help she needed."

"I've got it now," said Joe, caught up in Frank's flow of ideas despite his pending fate. "And when Karnovsky at Eat-Right turned out not to be the one she was looking for, she made sure that we got the black book back so we could decode it for her and help her check out the other suspects."

"Hey, Joe, you're not as dumb as I thought you were," said Gina. "Of course, nobody could be that dumb and still breathe. Which, I'm real sad to say, you and your bright brother are about to stop doing."

"Hey," said Joe desperately. "Don't we get any last requests?"

"Sure," said Gina. "You can tell me who wants to get it first. You or your brother. After I get rid of Saunders and Sam here, of course."

"A - a - any k - k - kind of m - m - money you w - w - want," pleaded Saunders pitifully.

Gina responded with a cold stare.

"I'm just a working guy, like you," Sam said, his voice hoarse with fear.

Gina shrugged.

"Hey, you'd better look out behind you!" Frank said suddenly.

At this, Gina began to smile. "I'd have expected a better trick from you, smart boy." Her pistol flicked over to Frank. "Did you really think I would turn around? Dumb, dumb, dumb. That just earned you the number-one spot in my hit parade."

GINA WAS STILL laughing as her finger tightened on the trigger. "The oldest, corniest trick in the b — "

"Ugh," she grunted as Callie brought the baseball bat down across the back of her head. Gina tumbled to the floor.

Joe let Saunders get a head start in the race for the gun that dropped from Gina's hand. Then he stuck out his foot to send Saunders sprawling to the floor. Joe was on top of him in a flash. His arm snaked around Saunders's windpipe, and he tightened his hold until Saunders gasped, "Enough. You w - w - win."

Meanwhile Frank grabbed one of Sam's arms as the big thug dashed for the gun. Using Sam's forward momentum, Frank flipped him forward, to send him crashing headfirst into a wall. Sam staggered groggily to his feet, then, as his eyes rolled backward, he collapsed in a heap.

Joe yanked Saunders to his feet and pushed him toward the wall, next to Sam. "What we need now," Joe said, "is something to tie them all up with."

"We can use the telephone wire, for a start," Frank said, quickly unclipping it. Saunders protested, but he was soon bound hand and foot.

"And I know just the thing for Gina and Sam," Callie said. "It'll be my pleasure to go get it." Handing the baseball bat to Joe, she dashed out of the room but soon returned with a spool of electrical wire.

Once Sam and Gina were safely trussed and a phone call made to police headquarters, the Hardys and Callie were finally able to talk about what had happened.

"I couldn't believe it when I saw you sneaking through the door with that bat in your hand," Frank told her.

"And I couldn't believe it when I heard you tell Gina to look out behind her," said Callie, shaking her head.

"I did that to keep her from looking around, in case you made a noise or one of us gave you away," Frank explained. "I knew Gina would never believe a corny line like that."

Callie gave him a long stare. "I know you're smart, Frank—but sometimes you're too smart for comfort." She broke into a grin. "I almost died when I heard you shout."

"I'll never tell you that you're too smart for our comfort," Frank grinned back. "If you hadn't been, we would have been killed."

"Hey, Callie," Joe said. "Great wrist action with my bat! I never thought I'd be this happy to see you!"

Callie answered sharply. "No, I'm sure you didn't. Please—save your applause," she cut both Hardys off as they tried to speak. "You had your perfect team here—with old Callie sitting home by the phone. Of course, one of the team turned out to be the bad guy. I'm kind of glad I didn't join up."

Joe's face darkened. He opened his mouth to make an angry reply, then shut it, turning to his brother. "What can I say?" he asked, shrugging. "She's right."

"She sure is," Frank agreed. "Callie, how did you know we were going to be in trouble? I mean, what made you trail us here tonight?"

"Well, I had a feeling that Lisa — I mean Gina— was a little too good to be true," Callie answered him. "It was just too much of a coincidence, the same person attacking both of us."

Callie frowned. "See, there was no real reason for him to go after her. When she said the guy only tried to snatch her purse, the first time you met her, I began to wonder. All the attacks on me were so much more elaborate. It didn't add up. And another thing: On the night when we were 'mugged' together on the way home, I could have sworn there was no one near us."

"The idea of mugging is to take the victim by surprise," Joe said dryly.

"Yes, but I wasn't exactly daydreaming. I was on the lookout for something like that, and I had trouble believing anyone could sneak up on both of us that completely."

"Great thinking!" Frank said. He put his arms around Callie. "You really saved our lives," he said, looking into her eyes. "I don't know how to thank you."

"Don't worry. I'll help you think of something," Callie said, her eyes twinkling.

Joe cleared his throat. "Uh, Callie, I want to thank you, too. And I'd like to, um, apologize for underestimating you. For a girl," — he stopped as Callie glared at him — "I mean, for a beginner — for anyone—you did a great job. We'd be in a lot of trouble without you."