The Key--Chapter 1

approximately 1933 words

"The Key" 

Chapter One
Tuesday Morning

         
Justin Hisakawa hunkered over his coffee in the lobby of the airport Hilton and peered at his dog-eared copy of Unpacking Social Space.  The elevator music oozing from invisible speakers shifted to a 1001 Strings version of "The Devil Went Down to Georgia," and he rolled his eyes.  It was too early in the morning for tamed-down rockabilly. 
 
         He turned his attention back to his book. He’d bought it because he identified with the blurb on the cover that described urban explorers as social deviants who uncovered disconnected parts of metropolitan landscapes. This morning, though, obscure references to Foucault and heterotopia were too much.  He shrugged and returned the book to his backpack.  It didn’t really have anything to do with this morning’s project, finding the rumored tunnel that was supposed to have connected J.P. Getty’s 1943 bungalow with the factory where his company manufactured airplanes for the US Navy.

         Today was all about unpacking that long-ago and disconnected part of the Tulsa metro.

         A man wearing a three-piece suit, probably a hotel guest, settled into a nearby chair.  The guy fussed with his coffee and donut and then his face split in a craggy smile as he nodded to Justin. 

         Justin squirmed and averted his eyes.  Surely the guy wasn’t hitting on him?  It wasn’t like he was bad-looking or anytihng—maybe mid-thirties, so at least ten years older than Justin.  Fit, too, judging from his broad shoulders and trim waist.  Just the kind of guy to make Justin feel like a stick figure, complete with ears that stuck out and a thatch of every-which-way hair. 

         The lobby clock ticked to eight-thirty. Morning rush-hour traffic should be clear by now.  He slurped the last of his coffee, heaved his backpack onto his shoulder, and escaped to the parking lot.

         He checked his car one more time to be sure he’d locked it.  It’d be safe here while he explored.  A Southwest Airlines jet screamed into the air a half mile away on the east runway of Tulsa International Airport.  He squinted at the morning sky and headed west on Virgin Street.  A hundred feet later, he passed under the Gilcrease Expressway and its buzzing traffic. Down there, in the shadowy underworld, he was all alone.  Just like an outcast social deviant.  He grinned. 

         The cracked asphalt curved to his right and westward, toward a wasteland of grass-covered vacant warehouse sites.  On his left, a twisted fence bordered a long-ago abandoned area that had grown into an urban forest.  A weathered “no trespassing” sign hung on a real estate agent’s faded placard. 

         The backpack bit into his shoulders, and sweat already burned his eyes. By noon, it would be unbearable, but he didn’t expect to be on the surface for long.  He checked to be sure no one was watching, and then hopped over the fence and sprinted into the woods.

         He pushed through a thick stand of blackjack oaks, buckthorn, and sawgrass.  Amazing how quickly nature reclaims its own.  Eighty years ago, this had been bustling with factories manufacturing aircraft for WWII.  Now, it had reverted to a forest, the primeval Cross Timbers revived in the middle of the city. 

         A squirrel chittered at him from overhead.  The shade was a relief, and he heaved a sigh, but the humidity turned the air to molasses.  He stopped and checked the GPS on his phone, rotating to orient himself.  The opening he sought should be that way, maybe fifty feet through the bramble.

         Sure enough, there it was, just as he remembered it after finding it last week.  A half-buried, four-foot square block of concrete.  One side rose about a foot above the ground while earth heaped over the other side.  In the middle, a rusted manhole promised an opening to the unknown.

         Justin slipped off his backpack and pulled out a crowbar.  He inserted it in a pry-bar hole on the manhole cover, bit his lip, and pushed. 

        It wouldn’t budge.

         Justin scowled.  So much for Archimedes.

         He knelt and brushed his hands over the cover.  He scowled at his rust-stained fingers.  Maybe hammering at it would loosen things up. 

         It gave a satisfying clang when he struck it with the crowbar.  Loud. Too loud.  He stopped and looked around. Stupid.  No one could hear him, not out here with jets zooming overhead and trucks whining on the turnpike.  He clanged on it a dozen more times, sending dirt and rust skittering across the surface. 

         That should do it.  He hoped.  He wedged the crowbar back into the cover and heaved with all his weight.  It gave with a sudden screech and Justin fell on his butt, whooping in triumph. 

         He bounced to his feet, slid the heavy cover to one side, and peered down the hole.  Metal rungs sprouted from the inner wall and descended into darkness. 

         His hands shook with excitement as he pulled out his spelunking helmet.  He strapped it on, turned on the camera and the 900 lumen lamp, and repacked the crowbar. With a tremulous breath, he clambered into the opening.  Twenty feet down and, he  stood in a shaft of golden light in a grimy tunnel leading east and west. 

         East led toward where Spartan Aviation had manufactured airplanes and parts for the Navy in WWII. 

         The west leg of the tunnel must lead to the bungalow J. Paul Getty had built back when he ran the company.  The bungalow was still there, a dusty art deco structure with three-foot, bomb-proof concrete walls.  Justin had even managed to get a tour of the place.  The owner had laughed at him when he’d asked about the posibility of a tunnel.  “That’s just an urban legend, boy.  You been smokin’ funny stuff?”

         Funny stuff, indeed.  Justin knew even then it had to be there.  Waite Phillips had brought miners from Nevada to dig his tunnels under downtown Tulsa, tunnels still in use.  The same miners had been back in Tulsa in 1942, exactly when Getty took over personal management of Spartan Aeronautics and built his bungalow.  All the oil millionaires were terrified of being kidnapped or worse, and built tunnels out of an excess of caution.  Why else would those miners be back in Tulsa in 1942?

         Now Justin was standing in the not-urban-legend tunnel Getty had built.  From the dank, stale scent, he was probably the first person to be there in decades.  Social deviants triumph!

         As he headed west, his sneakers puffed with red Oklahoma dust that covered the worn red brick flooring.  The same bricks formed walls that curved to an overhead arch, perhaps eight feet tall. Electrical conduit hung in low loops from the arch, along with intermittent broken light fixtures.  The tunnel itself was narrow, just four feet wide.  It stretched, straight as an arrow, as far as his light shined.

         Justin caught his breath as he trudged to the west. The air was cool and dry, musky with earthy smells, Dust puffed up with each step.  It must have been decades since anyone had breathed this air or walked this path.  Maybe Getty himself was the last person here. The west end, near the bungalow, must have been closed off.  But the east leg of the tunnel might lead…anywhere.

         Jason started counting paces.  At 2000 paces, he paused.  A bit less than a mile.  He must be somewhere under airport parking.  The tunnel made a sharp angle to the southeast in about another hundred feet.  That made sense, if the tunnel was supposed to be safe passage to the aircraft factory which at the time was about another mile east and south of Getty's bungalow. 

         The silence pressed on him.  Darkness, dust, and dead air oppressed him.  For a moment, he wished he had someone with whom he could share this adventure.  Even just having someone to tell about it would be good, but he had no one.  There used to be his buddy Joe.  He always appreciated the mystery of urban spelunking.  But seeing Joe meant also seeing Toby.  Justin’s lips twisted in a sneer. What did Joe see in that self-centered jerk-face?

         Justin gave a bitter snort.  Toby’s dimples, movie-star good looks, and trim swimmer’s body were what Joe saw in Toby.  Hard to believe Joe could be so shallow. Justin hadn’t talked to his friend in months and realized he missed him.

         Being a social deviant somehow wasn’t as appealing as it had seemed earlier.

         He trudged on, counting paces.  Some adventure.  A dusty tunnel to nowhere and no one.  Alone.

         Two thousand paces, another mile, No change.  At three thousand, he stopped and peered down the tunnel.  Was that a light glimmering in the distance?  Maybe there was another opening in the tunnel, like the manhole where he’d entered.

         He increased his pace.  The distant light seemed to be bobbing, like someone was carrying it.  Impossible, of course.

         Unless someone else had beaten him to discovering this tunnel.  But why keep it quiet?

         A rattle echoed down the corridor, like a chain clattering against the brick.  A squeak reached his ears, and a door slammed closed.  The distant light vanished. 

         Justin launched into a sprint.  Three hundred paces, maybe seven or eight hundred feet, and he skidded to a halt.  A short side-tunnel ended in a heavy steel door.  Three bars, two feet apart, ran horizontally across the door and held it shut.  A latch mechanism in the middle held a lever.  He’d seen this before, at Waite Phillips' hidden downtown tunnel.  Depressing the latch rotated the bars and opened the door.  He pressed the bar.

         It didn't move.

         He put his full weight on it.  Still nothing. 

         He thought about banging on it with his crowbar, but decided it was hopeless. What had to be a wierd-looking lock, big and clunky, was welded to the surface of the door. It had a dull, mottled surface and rounded edges.. It looked old, older even than the tunnel, and nothing like a conventional Yale lock. He snapped a picture with his phone.  He'd Google it later. Might even learn how to pick it.

         He shined his light further down the tunnel and revealed a brick wall.  This was the end of the line.  A brick wall and a locked door.

         Unlike the rest of the tunnel, the dusty floor underneath him held footprints.  Fresh footprints.  He knelt and inspected them. 

         High heels?  Why would someone be in this abandoned tunnel wearing high heels?

         The footprints led to the door, so she must have gone through it and locked it after her.  But where did she come from?  He followed the footprints back to where they started near the dead-end, about five feet in front of the brick wall. How did she get in? Assuming it was a woman and not a drag queen.  His mouth twisted at the thought .  A drag queen in J. Paul Getty’s tunnel would be even more bizarre than a woman in high heels.

         Who was this interloper? Maybe he could share the joy of discovery with them. A drag queen might at least be gay. Still, sharing would be good, even if they were a woman.

         Justin chewed his lip, then got out a map.  He was maybe two or three miles from where he’d entered. That put him on the far side of the turnpike, under a housing development built in the sixties.  Could the door open to a basement in one of those homes?

         It didn’t make sense.  But Justin was determined to expose the mysteries of the tunnel.