Free Get Smart 1 - Get Smart! by William Johnston Page B

Blossom. “That explains everything. Know what we’ve blundered into? A tourist trap!”
    “What I’d like to have explained is how we’re going to get out of here,” she said.
    “Don’t panic,” Max said. “If there’s a way in, there’s a way out. That’s elementary logic.”
    “Don’t tell me about logic, tell me how!” Blossom said testily.
    Max turned the beam of the flashlight upward toward the trap door. “Simple,” he said. “We stand on each other’s shoulders.”
    “Rorff!”
    “Or, yes, I suppose we could try that,” Max said.
    “What did he say?”
    “He suggested that I use my shoe to call outside for help.”
    “Of course!” Blossom enthused. “Call the Chief!”
    “Frankly, I’d rather rely on my individual initiative,” Max said. “I’m going to feel like a silly fool telling the Chief I’ve fallen into a tourist trap. It isn’t the kind of thing a native New Yorker likes to admit.”
    “Then just tell him it’s a hole,” Blossom said. “You don’t have to be any more specific than that.”
    “I don’t think it will be necessary to tell him anything,” Boris said. “We will all be dead by then.”
    “Would you mind elaborating on that?” Max said.
    “We will be drowned,” Boris said.
    “Drowned? In a hole? What makes you think so?”
    “My feet are wet.”
    Max pointed the flashlight downward. He saw that his own feet were wet, too—as were Blossom’s and Fang’s. The hole was filling with water.
    “Some butterhead left a faucet running somewhere,” Max grumbled.
    Blossom panicked again. “Do something!”
    “I wonder if this hole has a stopper,” Max said. “If we pull it . . .”
    “Rorff!”
    “Right again!” Max said. To the others he explained, “Actually, this flooding is our salvation. A flooded hole is one emergency for which I’m prepared. It slipped my mind for a second. This is the first time the situation has ever come up.”
    “Then do something!” Blossom shrieked.
    Max got out his cigarette lighter. “I just flick the top open—” he said.
    A rubber life raft suddenly popped from the cigarette lighter and began inflating. The timing was fortunate, for by then the water had reached their waists.
    The four climbed aboard the raft and began rising toward the top of the hole.
    “That cigarette lighter—it’s wonderful!” Blossom said.
    “It has its drawbacks,” Max said. “There are times when I forget that it’s a life raft and try to light somebody’s cigarette with it.”
    When they reached the trap door, Max pushed it open. He and Boris helped Blossom out, then followed her. Fang was the last to exit. The slot machine players had disappeared.
    “Now then,” Max said, “another hour or so and we’ll be on our way.”
    “An hour?” Blossom said. “Why so long?”
    “Ever try to put a life raft back into a cigarette lighter?”
    “If you will excuse me,” Boris said, backing away, “I will look for my tour.”
    “Sure . . . maybe we’ll see you around.”
    Boris hurried away.
    “How long is this going to take?” Blossom muttered as Max began trying to stuff the raft into the lighter.
    “As I said, sometimes an hour or so. But, then, sometimes I get lucky.”
    “Rorff!”
    Max looked thoughtful for a second, then said, “That might help.”
    “All right . . . what did he say?”
    “He suggested that I try letting the air out of it.”
    “Good heavens! Any idiot would know that!”
    “Careful! Fang is very sensitive!”
    Max released the air from the life raft, and, seconds later, had it replaced in the cigarette lighter. He patted Fang on the head. “Now I know why they call you man’s best friend,” he said.
    “Now, can we go?” Blossom asked.
    “Right. Clear sailing from here on out. We’ll pick up Fred’s trail, and, by nightfall, have him locked up and safe from himself. Forward!”

6.
    T HEY RETURNED to the main room of the Idyll Hour and made their way between the tables of beatniks