A Nose for Adventure (12 page)

“What the hell are you guys doing?” asks Aylmer. She glares at a fat sweaty woman and a thin dry man in zippered jumpsuits and plastic gloves and masks. The forensics team.

“We’re doing what we’re told,” says the fat woman. The name stitched on her jumpsuit is
MARIA
. “Like always.”

“Always,” says the thin man, echoing his partner, nodding his head like a puppet. I can’t read the name on his jumpsuit.

“Who told you to work on
that
car?” asks Aylmer in exasperation. The black luxury sedan is now covered in white powder and masking tape. “It’s the wrong one, dammit!”

“You told us to start on the black car,” says Maria. “Didn’t you? Sounded like you.”

“Like you,” says the man.

“So Wolfgang and I got out our baggies and magic dust, and went to work.”

“To work,” says the thin dry man. He’s got a reedy voice to match his body. He doesn’t look or act like someone named Wolfgang. I wonder if his parents are disappointed. Call a baby Wolfgang and you’re aiming high.

“Get away from the black car!” shouts Aylmer. “This blue one is the one we’re interested in. I told you that an hour ago!”

“Okay,” says Maria. She mops her streaming forehead with a handkerchief. “Whatever you say. This one, that one. Go here, go there. You’re the boss.”

“The boss,” repeats Wolfgang.

“Pretty good fingerprints here on the black one,” she says. “This driver’s side door handle’s got a couple of beauts. Full thumb and forefinger. Perfect. Eh, Wolfgang? You got pictures, right?”

“Pictures, right,” says Wolfgang.

“Fingerprints always take well in this stuff. Funny, you don’t notice the smell ’til you get close to it. Strong smelling stuff, this creosote.”

“Creosote,” says Wolfgang.

“Hold it,” says Aylmer.

Police dogs are trained to sniff out contraband, and to ignore everything that isn’t contraband. And creosote isn’t contraband. The three police officers on K-9 detail shake their heads over the assignment. Their dogs will not follow a creosote trail.

“What am I supposed to do?” Agent Libby is back from
the command post. His forehead is ridged with frown wrinkles. His voice echoes around the underground parking lot. “I want a dog who can follow a scent. Do I have to fly in a bloodhound?” Then he catches sight of Sally.

Ten minutes and several phone calls later, we leave lot P-3 under police escort. Sally leads the way in her new leash, tracking confidently into the elevator and up three floors to the arrivals level. “I told you there was more to her than you’d think,” says Frieda proudly. She’s holding the other end of the leash. Sally won’t follow a scent for anyone else.

Over the loudspeaker comes a voice speaking English. That’s all I can tell. I have no idea what it’s saying. Bird looks up, shakes his head, and keeps walking.

Earless – if it is Earless we’re following, and not some poor guy with creosote on his hands from waterproofing his back fence – believes in exercise. He didn’t take any of the moving sidewalks. The escort is spread out around us. Libby and Aylmer are beside us in a golf cart, the kind they usually use for pulling baggage wagons. Bird and I take turns pushing Frieda. She can’t push herself and hang on to the leash. Mrs. Miller tried to keep up with us for a while, but she’s on the back of the golf cart now, holding her side. Agent Libby is on the phone.

Signs are up, with arrows pointing.
CLOSED TO PUBLIC. MOVIE EXTRAS THIS WAY
. There’s a policeman on guard. He’s a fat guy, with a gut full of pretzels. He’s eating one now. His mouth is open. Yuck. He waves us in without
looking at anyone’s credentials. Maybe he thinks we’re part of the movie.

We come to a row of trailers. Sally is at the end of her leash, sniffing strongly. Taped to the door of the nearest trailer is a piece of paper.
WARDROBE
, it says.

The door opens suddenly and a cloud of smoke billows out. A woman follows the cloud. She’s smoking a cigarette and carrying a garment bag.

She stops at the sight of us. “Police?” she asks. “If it’s about that missing uniform, I don’t know anything. They were all here this morning. Geez, does that dumb assistant director have the police running his errands now?” The cigarette in her mouth bobs around as she speaks. The rest of her stays still.

“Have you seen anyone who didn’t belong here?” asks Libby.

The woman laughs, but she’s not amused. Ash drops off her cigarette. “This project is ten days behind schedule and twenty million over budget,” she says. “No one belongs here.”

There’s an announcement over the loudspeaker. I haven’t been able to understand any of the other announcements at all, but this one comes through clear as a bell. “Passenger named Bird, report to
TICKET INFORMATION
. Passenger named Bird.”

Bird is pushing the wheelchair now. He nods to himself. He’s not surprised. It’s like he’s been waiting for his name to be called.

“Got to go,” he says. “Bye, Frieda. Bye, Talkin’ Dog. Bye, Alan.”

He hands the wheelchair over to me. Then he takes off his wraparound sunglasses, folds them up, and hooks them onto the top of my soccer shirt. The dark glasses dangle, partially obscuring the donut picture. Do I feel not uncool? Actually, I feel more self-conscious than anything else. I turn to say thank you, but at that moment a crowd of people descends, smelling of gunpowder and cigarettes and talking at the top of their voices. They seem happy despite what look like dreadful wounds. Most of their costumes have bloodstains on the front. And bullet holes. They cluster around the front of the wardrobe trailer. The smoking lady asks them to let her past. They pay no attention to her. A man with a wispy beard pushes a trio of huge lights on a stand. He asks the crowd to let him through. They pay no attention to him.

Sally, who has been casting around for the true scent, lifts her head. Next thing I know, she’s off in a new direction. I call over my shoulder to the police escort. Frieda hangs on to the leash. I push. After a moment the noise of the crowd recedes. The dog quests confidently – left turn, straight, right turn. We come to a set of glass doors that close and lock behind us. Now we’re back in the public part of the airport. Moving sidewalks, passengers in a hurry. Sally urges us on. I look over my shoulder. I can’t see the escort.

Sally hurries forward, tongue out, straining hard against the leash. Frieda hangs on grimly. I practically have to run to keep up. The scene could be out of a Northern wilderness adventure story by Jack London or Farley Mowat, only our sled team is not in a blinding snowstorm in the middle of a six-month night. We are, in fact, in a crowded airport on a pleasant afternoon in early summer, and the dogsled is a wheelchair. Unlike the arctic travelers, I don’t trust the dog. I’m afraid that Sally will pull us into real trouble. The very last thing we want is to meet Earless without our police escort.

“Stop, Sally!” I call. No use. I try to slow down the wheelchair with my body weight by grabbing the handles, but our gallant sled dog is more than a match for my weight. The sled
slips out of my hands, and I stumble. I straighten up and trot after it. “Can you get her to slow down, Frieda?” I shout.

“Where’s my mom?” she calls back. “Is she still here?”

“Or you could just let go!”

She doesn’t hear me. “I won’t let go!” she says.

Great.

Now, don’t get the impression that we’re tearing through the terminal at warp speed. Sally’s pulling a chair and a kid – two kids, when I succeed in hanging on. But we are covering ground. Some of the people we pass tell us to watch where we’re going.

There’s an announcement about a plane arriving from Maui … or Malawi … or maybe the announcer is calling Howie. I can’t tell. No one seems to care.

“Hey, Norbert!” I cry. He hasn’t said much since we got to the airport. “Help! What is Sally doing?”

–
She’s following her nose. Very strong impulse for dogs and humans. Remember the five cheese pizza last year?

Sally is panting, but still full of energy. We turn down a corridor, away from the crowds of people.

–
Oh, dear. The smell is getting stronger. I may have to open another cocoa air freshener packet in here. I hate those things. They don’t even smell like real cocoa
.

“Come on, Norbert,” Frieda asks. “Can’t you help at all?”

–
Too late. Good luck now, you two.

“But….”

Sally drags us away from the stream of people, down a narrow corridor. She stops in front of a dark blue door marked
EMPLOYEES ONLY
. It looks familiar.

“Wait a minute,” says Frieda. Sally is whining and jumping up, and scratching at the woodwork. The door opens inwards.

“Earless? Is that you? It’s me, Andrews.”

A voice from a nightmare, but even before the words are out, I know we’re in trouble. The smell of Slouchy’s cologne travels faster than sound.

Slouchy grabs Sally by the collar, pulling her inside. Frieda follows on the other end of the leash, and I follow Frieda. And there we all are, in a small blue room with a table in the middle. The searching room beside baggage claims. No wonder it looks familiar.

Slouchy is not alone in the blue room. Skinny is there too, in his uniform, and so is Veronica, in hers. If Special Agent Libby were there, I’d point to Veronica and say, “See, I told you about her.”

Veronica looks honestly worried when she sees us. “You two!” she says. “And alone! What are you doing here?”

I don’t know what to do. I point to Sally. “It’s her fault,” I say.

Sally has her head cocked to one side. My friend Victor’s dog does this when it brings a dead chipmunk into the house. Sally is proud of herself.

“Stupid animal,” says Slouchy. “Bit me this morning. I don’t know where I’d ever see a stupider animal.”

–
You could look in a mirror
, says Norbert.

He frowns. His red hair comes down over his black eyebrows. “Who said that?” He stares at the dog, and
then Frieda. “You say that, girlie?” Frieda shakes her head.

I’m so scared. This is exactly what I was hoping wouldn’t happen.

“It was the dog’s voice,” says Skinny in his raspy way. “The dog there.”

“Shut up!” snaps Slouchy. You know, I can see a family resemblance. Both men have close-set eyes, and short eyebrows. I can believe they’re cousins. “That’s crazy talk.”

“Earless was telling me about a human dog before you got here,” says Skinny. “It had a squeaky voice – just like this one.”

“Well, Earless is crazy,” says Slouchy. “Him and his pyramids! That’s all he ever talks about. He cares more about those stupid mounds than anything else in the world.”

When Skinny swallows, his big Adam’s apple bobs up and down in his thin neck.

“Now, getting back to you two kids,” says Slouchy.

Am I crying? I’m pretty close. Don’t want to think about crying. Crying is not going to make things better.

Slouchy bends down between Frieda and me. He’s got one hand on Frieda’s wheelchair, and the other arm on my shoulder. He talks quietly. Gosh, is he scary. “We have to know how you got here. Did you talk? Did you talk to the police?” he asks.

I don’t move. I’m too scared.

“Come on. Did you say anything? Did you tell anyone? What did you talk about?”

Frieda starts to stutter. “Tut – tut – tut …” she says.

“What was that?” His voice is smooth and warm, like a silk blanket. So why do I feel like shivering? “Come on, now, just tell me what you talked about.”

“Tut – tut – tut …”

He turns to me. “What’s she trying to say?”

I search my mind for inspiration. Like searching the fridge on Wednesday, the day before Mom goes shopping. I don’t find anything useful at all.

“Tutankhamen,” says Frieda at last.

“Tutankhamen?” Slouchy spits it out like a swear word. Then he says a whole bunch of swear words – including some I’ve never heard before. He straightens up. “That proves it!” he says. “They know. Earless was at the Tutankhamen Society this afternoon, eh, Jones?”

“That’s where he saw the talking dog,” says Skinny.

“These snotty kids must know about the whatchamacallit. The Ushabti. You know, don’t you?” Slouchy says to Frieda. “You know, don’t you, you crippled brat!”

He’s strong. With one freckled hairy hand he picks Frieda out of the chair by the shirt collar. She swings an arm at him, trying to slap him again, maybe, but he pushes her against the wall. Her jeans ride up, exposing bulbous bumpy ankles. Her feet twist inwards.

I’m shocked. Not at Frieda’s feet. I’m shocked that this should be happening to her.

Veronica frowns, but doesn’t do anything to stop Slouchy. She reaches into the outside pocket of her blue flight attendant jacket, and keeps her hand there.

Slouchy keeps one hand on Frieda’s shoulder, holding her up. “You know about the Horus statue, don’t you? Bringing it into Canada from Europe, and then smuggling it across the American border inside your wheelchair. About my cousin here, the tame government man.”

“Tame?” says Skinny. “Who’s tame? It was my idea. And Earless put the gallery in my name.”

“Yeah, well, he hired me first.”

They’re telling us all about it. I don’t want to know, but they’re telling us.

“You know about Amphora Jones, and the other places in Cairo and Antwerp. You know about Earless’ father in Mexico City, don’t you? Don’t you?” His face is inches from Frieda’s.

This isn’t what I was afraid of. I was afraid he’d hurt me, not Frieda. But, you know, this version is worse. I try to look away, but I can’t.

Frieda doesn’t say anything. Her arms and legs are shaking.

I can’t take it anymore. She’s not the annoying rich kid I met on the plane. She’s become a friend – at least a friend. And, dammit all, she has a disability. A large part of her life is tougher than most people’s. I can feel my fear draining out of me, flushed away by another, stronger emotion. I’m not scared anymore. I’m mad. “Hey!” I say. “Put her down!”

Keeping hold of Frieda, Slouchy turns around to glare at me. “You’re next,” he says. Even now I’m not frightened.
Anger is an elephant in your bedroom. There’s no room for other emotions.

“She didn’t tell – I did,” I say. My voice cracks. I hate it when that happens. “Customs and Excise are on their way. They’ll be here soon. Now leave her alone, you bully!”

I can’t make him put her down. But Sally can. She jumps up and bites him on the seat of the pants. He yells and drops Frieda. She falls like a sack, her legs splayed out in front of her. Sally and I run over together. I kneel down. Sally licks her face.

Slouchy stands over us, growling like a bear. He lifts his hand – and freezes.

There’s a gun right against his ear. A big black pistol. On TV, they don’t look so big. Veronica uses two hands to hold the gun. “Police,” she says. “Step away from the kids, now, or I’ll blow your head off.”