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SUNDAY, 25 JUNE, 2000, PHILADELPHIA |
[Click for Chapter 1, Chapter 2] CHAPTER 3 A Hectic Car Chase! Nancy Drew and Oscar were just in time to see Hugo and the mysterious woman driving out of the parking lot in a convertible in a squeal of rubber and a puff of blue smoke. “Quick!” barked Nancy shoving Oscar into the blue roadster face first, “they shan’t get away that easily!” Nancy jammed the automobile into gear with a painful grind and squealed out of the parking lot after them. “Wherever can they be going in such a hurry Nancy? What’s at the bottom of this confusing event?” “I haven’t got to the bottom of this mystery yet, Oscar, but by gum I will! One place I’m sure they’re not going, is to church!” Oscar decided to stop her conversation with Nancy because Nancy had assumed a face that Oscar recognized and respected. The set of Nancy’s jaw, the squint of her eyes, and the way she hunched over the steering wheel, peering down the road like a watchful eagle, said to Oscar, “Don’t dicker with Nancy Drew; she’s busy.” “Why should they be in such a hurry? Are they running from the law? Or is it some other unexplained mysterious reason that compels them to drive pell-mell down the lane?” muttered Nancy through gritted, grinding teeth. “I’m sure I don’t…” “Mustn’t speak when I’m thinking Oscar you sweet dear!” yelled Nancy over the roar of her engine. Oscar bit her tongue to silence it and blushed. “I wish I had your pep, Nancy.” “They’re turning to take the road into Winchester, Oscar!” said Nancy at a fork in the road. “We’ll follow them!” “Nancy, I really must go pick up my mother from the hospital very soon,” said Oscar, concerned for the time. “Hmm, that is a problem,” said Nancy, furrowing her brow but not slowing the roadster’s hectic speed. “I can’t afford to let these two culprits get away. I promised Betty Benson I’d do everything I could to solve the mystery. Yet I don’t want to detain you from your duties.” Oscar sat silently while Nancy Drew got to the bottom of this baffling conundrum. “I’ve got it!” said Nancy pressing hard on the brakes. Oscar was jolted forward, bruising her chest against the dashboard. Once pulled over to the side of the road amidst great clouds of dust, Nancy leaned over and opened the passenger door. “Go on! Get out Oscar!” she said, pushing her friend out of the car. “There is sure to be someone along this road within the hour.” Oscar tumbled out of the car into the dirt on the side of the road and coughed. Nancy slammed the door shut in a hurry and shot on down the road. Oscar watched her go with a smile and a look of fondness for her friend, so hot on the trail of a fresh mystery. Nancy drove on alone, following Hugo and the unknown woman at a discreet distance as they drove into the inner city of Winchester. She noticed the woman pointing to the left, and Hugo maneuvered the car appropriately. Then the woman would point right, and Hugo would make that turn as well. Nancy looked around and took note of the part of town through which they were driving. The high-class shopping district of Winchester! Nancy’s eye was distracted by a charming new pleated frock in a store window. “I have got to get my hands on one of those,” she thought, “if only they have one in puce.” She nearly ran into a constable, so distracted was she by the lovely garb in the window. The policeman raised an angry fist, then recognized Nancy Drew and waved her on cheerfully. Nancy Drew waved back smiling and laughing, blinding pedestrians with the glints of sun off her immaculate teeth. Hugo’s car slowly wended its way out of the shopping district and into a decidedly shadier part of town. “Where in the dickens can they be going?” the thought baffled Nancy Drew. “They’re missing all the good stores and sallying into a part of town I’ve never even seen!” Nancy took in the surroundings: boarded up row houses with multitudinous and disheveled black children playing loudly on the steps. “Those little darlings are going to cut their feet on the broken glass of this wretched block. Their mothers really ought buy them some shoes,” assessed Nancy sternly. Women in daring and suggestive outfits posed on street corners, wolf-whistling at passers-by. “There’s a fine how-do-you-do,” thought Nancy with distaste as she continued to follow Hugo’s car. Eventually, Hugo pulled into an empty space near a fire hydrant that was shooting its spray high, high into the air. Children were playing in the spray and laughing gaily. He got out of the car, walked around to the passenger door and opened it for the woman in black whose already ratted hair had become quite unmanageable after blowing in the wind for so long. Hugo seemed in a daze — doe-eyed and hypnotized almost, yet there was something else in his countenance … Nancy couldn’t put her finger on it. “I can’t put my finger on it!” thought Nancy, frustrated. Hugo and the woman walked across the street, ignoring the pleas of black children asking for change. They entered a very dilapidated building containing glass 40 ounze beer bottles on the steps and even some boarded up windows. A faded sign over the door read, “Motel No-Tell.” Nancy was perplexed. She said aloud to no one, “This is certainly a queer time to take a nap, right in the middle of the afternoon. What can those two rascals be getting up to … in there?” A small black boy was standing next to Nancy Drew and said, “Dey be all goin’ ta do da nasty n’ sit. Girlfriend be mighty skank-a-ho, but she can work that body down de bullvard, uh-huh! Gets ta pimpin’, no tellin’ when da squeaky-squeak be stoppin’, mmm! Motel No-Tell, sheeeet…” Nancy looked at the little boy by her side with fondness and patted his head. “If only I could understand what you were saying,” she smiled with warmth at the boy. The boy smiled back innocently, removing a bit of fuzz from Nancy’s jacket for her. Nancy looked again at the façade of the building and assumed a concentration that became her chiseled jaw and keen, almond-shaped eyes and luxurious lashes. “We’ll just see what goes on in there,” said Nancy to no one and marched herself across the street into the building. …because you asked… 
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