The Mystery of the Rogues' Reunion - Marc Brandel [5]
“Jones, Jupiter.” The guard looked at his clipboard. “45 Sunrise Road, Rocky Beach. Right?”
“Right,” Jupiter agreed. The guard nodded. Then the other two Investigators had to announce themselves.
“Pete Crenshaw.”
“Bob Andrews.”
The guard found their names and addresses and nodded again. He stuck a small white card that Jupe recognized as a studio pass under the windscreen wiper of the car.
“Stage Nine,” he said, waving them on.
The chauffeur of the limousine drove slowly down a long street. Past the New York Public Library. The old San Francisco Opera House. The Leaning Tower of Pisa.
It was all weirdly familiar to Jupe, like a remembered dream. Bob and Pete kept craning forwards in their seats to stare at the famous buildings as they passed them. But Jupe knew they weren’t really buildings at all. They were only false fronts made of canvas and plaster. If you opened the door of any one of them, there would be nothing behind it.
Jupe sat back in the long black vehicle and didn’t even bother to look out of the window.
Milton Glass, the publicity man, had sent the limousine to pick Jupe up at The Jones Salvage Yard. The car and chauffeur would be at Jupe’s disposal for the two days of the quiz shows, which they were going to start taping the next day at a television station in Hollywood.
Uncle Titus and Aunt Mathilda had been invited to the preliminary “get together” lunch at the studio. But neither of them had felt like coming.
“Movies are all right,” Aunt Mathilda apologized. “I enjoy some of them a lot. But it’s like sausages, Jupe. I just don’t care to see where they come from or how they’re made.”
Uncle Titus agreed with her.
Bob and Pete didn’t. They jumped at the chance to see what goes on behind the scenes at a movie studio. And Jupe was glad to have them along. It made the First Investigator feel more like himself, his real self, having the other two Investigators with him.
The limousine, which had been crawling along at five miles per hour in obedience to the speed limit signs, suddenly came to a dead stop. Jupe leaned forwards thinking they had
reached the sound stage where the lunch was going to take place. The car had stopped in front of a cluster of wigwams. Two Roman soldiers, carrying spears and shields, were strolling past the tents.
The chauffeur, who had told the boys that his name was Gordon Harker, rolled down his window.
“Could you please tell me how to get to Stage Nine?” he asked one of the soldiers.
Jupe could have told him. Stage Nine was where all the Wee Rogues shows had been shot. But for once he didn’t feel like displaying his knowledge. He was in no hurry to get to Stage Nine and his reunion with Bonehead and Footsie and the others.
“It’s just down the street,” the Roman soldier explained, pointing the way with a hand-rolled cigarette.
“Yeah, you can’t miss it,” the other soldier added. The chauffeur thanked them and drove on. The Romans had been right. A huge white building like an aeroplane hangar soon loomed up in front of them. A large figure nine was painted on the side of it. The chauffeur jumped out and opened the back door for the Three Investigators. Jupe thanked him, looking at the tall, well-built young man in his smart uniform and cap. As usual, Jupe’s trained investigator’s eyes were taking in everything about Gordon Harker, from his well-polished shoes to his intelligent, even-featured black face and straight dark hair.
The entrance to Stage Nine was a small, heavily-padded door. There was a metal clasp at one side of it with a big, open padlock hanging from a heavy ring. Without thinking about what he was doing, Jupe glanced at the two lights above him. Never open the door when the red light is on, he remembered. It means they’re shooting, the cameras rolling on the set. It was all coming back to him, all the studio rules and customs from his days as a child actor. He wished it wasn’t coming back quite so vividly.
The green light came on. Jupe pushed open the door and stepped inside, followed by Pete and Bob.
It all came back to him even more vividly