and Hardy Boys Rendezvous Presents:
hardy boys fan fiction
CONTRACT FOR A DEAD MAN
3rd Place - McFarlane Location Contest
- 2004
hardy boys nancy drew fan fiction
by
CQB
Chapter
6
hardy boys fan fiction
THE CHAPTERS
By late afternoon, he was getting angry. Where was Walsh? Who was with him? He grabbed some crackers from one of the packs and a bottle of water. He decided to check out the two vehicles parked near the mill. ‘Perhaps,’ the man pondered, ‘it will tell me who is with Mr. Walsh.’
Finding both the car and van locked, Poole again produced his lock pick kit, this time producing a smaller attachment. He quickly unlocked the small car and rummaged through it. He found the owner’s and insurance cards in the glove compartment.
"Mr. Philip Cohen of Pine Avenue in Bayport," Poole read aloud. He pulled out his cell-phone and dialed information, obtaining the Cohen’s telephone number.
"Hello? I’d like to speak with Philip, please," Poole said sweetly to Mrs. Cohen, who had answered the phone.
"I’m sorry," Mrs. Cohen replied, "My son left early this morning to help a friend. May I take a message?"
"Tell me, dear lady," Poole crooned, "is your son an adult?"
"He likes to think so," Mrs. Cohen laughed, "but at 18, I still think of him as a boy."
"I’m terribly sorry to have troubled you," Poole responded. "I must have the wrong Philip Cohen." He hung up and a perplexed frown creased his brow.
Unable to figure out if the Cohen boy could be connected to Walsh, Poole pocketed the owner’s card and moved on to the van, unlocking it briskly and climbing inside.
* * *
After several minutes, Mike calmed down and sat on the floor of the cave. He began to tell his story, looking carefully to Joe as if the younger Hardy was his best friend in the world. Joe, Frank and their friends listened with rapt attention as Mike spoke.
"I’m supposed to be dead," the young man started, "Six months ago, I was diagnosed with stage-4 lung cancer. I was informed that it was inoperable and that it was too advanced for conventional treatments.
"For several weeks, I was in shock. I’m not a smoker. I’m not around a lot of people who smoke. I work at home and I live alone in my apartment in New York City. How could I have lung cancer? I began reading everything I could on cancer, lung cancer in particular. What I discovered was that I was going to die a slow, painful death."
Mike paused, closing his eyes briefly before continuing.
"I’m not afraid of death. My parents are both dead. It’s natural. But, I’m very afraid of dying, especially of dying alone," he said. "I have no family. I really don’t have many friends. There’s no one who would sit by my bedside and offer me comfort or encouragement.
"I decided I was not going to let cancer take my life at its whim. I decided that I would determine how and when I would die," Mike continued. "I contacted a man in a bar one night. I’d heard rumors that he was tied in to the Mafia somehow."
Joe and Frank exchanged a knowing glance. They had both come to the same conclusion and knew what was coming.
Mike stopped talking. He buried his face in his hands. "I know it was stupid," he said, "but I hired that man to put out a hit contract on me."
"Whoa!" Biff Hooper exclaimed. "You hired a mobster to kill you?"
"I thought I was dying!" Mike justified. "I didn’t tell him it was me. I gave him my name and told him where I live. Then I paid him with everything I had in my bank account. He said he’d take care of it."
"So now you’re hiding from this gangster," Tony Prito reasoned.
"No," Mike said, shaking his head. "Yes, I mean, there’s someone after me, but not the guy I talked to at the bar."
"That’s how it works," Frank offered, "The hired killer is contacted through a network of ‘go-betweens’."
"That’s why big-time mobsters are hard to catch," Joe interjected. "They keep their trails covered. You’ve got to bust a lot of underlings before you can touch the Mafia leaders."
"Truth be told," Frank continued, "a lot of those ‘underlings’ disappear or are murdered before the police can ever get any information from them."
"I’m curious Mike," Phil Cohen spoke up, "what made you go into hiding if you hired someone to kill you?" The other teenagers sounded in agreement with Phil’s question and looked expectantly towards Mike.
"Two weeks ago," Mike answered, "the doctor called me into his office. He told me that there had been a terrible mistake. Somehow, my test results and x-rays had been mixed up with those of another man. See, my name is Michael Allen Walsh. The other man’s name was Michael Allen Welsh."
"Did you say his name was…" queried Joe.
"He died of stage-4 lung cancer," Mike replied with a nod. "Apparently, I have some kind of mold growing in my lungs. It leaves me more susceptible to colds and things of that nature, and I’ll be on medication for the rest of my life but the mold won’t kill me."
"But you still
have the contract put out to kill you," Frank said slowly, "and
that kind of contract can’t just be called off."
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The Hardy Boys belong to Simon and Schuster and the Stratemeyer Foundation. The Hardy Boys Fan Fiction authors of the Hardy Detective Agency have just borrowed them for an adventure or two. The authors promise to put the boys back when they are done with them. The authors do claim copyright to the original characters in this story. Please do not borrow original characters without express permission of the authors.