One Of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing (12 page)

“There you are,” said Emily, in a hushed voice. “It’s almost the same as when we started.”

The others nodded, wearily.

Back inside, it seemed quite light in the glare of the lantern. They looked at each other. Their faces were streaked and grubby, their hands, in their gloves, felt gritty and rough.

“It’s done!” announced Una. “And everything went to plan. Let’s have a celebration cup of tea.”

“No. I’ve got something better suited to the occasion,” said Emily. She reached over and pulled a suitcase towards her. She dug inside. “Here’s how confident I was we’d succeed.” She held up a bottle that glinted green in the light. “Champagne.”

The cork popped and a splutter of foam sprayed a vague winebow in the beam of the lantern. Emily wiped her mouth with the back of her sleeve.

“Pass up the cups.” She measured the champagne into the plastic containers. “Here’s to Her Majesty the Queen, Great Britain, world peace--and us,” she toasted. The others murmured tired agreement.

“I still don’t see why we all have to stay here. Why can’t we go now?” asked Melissa, thinking about Randy in his warm bed.

“We dinnae all have to stay here,” said Hettie. “But at least three of us should, to clear up. And so we might as well all stay. Och, it’s only for a couple of hours.”

Sam Ling stood in the centre of his intersection, directing traffic away from the museum building. So far, no one had queried his reasons, but if he were asked, he had rehearsed what he would say in his Peking University English: “To pursue your present course could incorporate you among the vehicular conglomeration of high density ahead.”

In his less busy moments, Sam Ling tried to find fault with his plan for hijacking the dinosaur from the nanny-ladies. He couldn’t. The plan seemed perfect. The bugging devices in the nanny-ladies’ rooms, and attached to their telephones, had given him--despite their guarded conversations--everything he needed to know, except the location of the proposed hiding place for the bones. This didn’t worry him. His team had only to follow them. And the nanny-ladies weren’t going to make any fast getaway in their old truck. Sam Ling smirked.

At the intersection at the other end of the museum, Lui Ho groaned. He urgently wanted to urinate. He looked for a suitable place. The entrance to a basement apartment looked inviting. He’d only managed to get halfway to the steps when a taxi appeared. He ran back to the centre of the road and turned the vehicle down the side street. He made for the basement again. This time, he’d just reached the sidewalk when a stream of traffic headed by an articulated truck came into sight. With one hand in his pocket, clutching himself in an effort to subdue the increasing ache, he walked, with difficulty, back to the centre of the road junction.

“Heh, Frank,” chuckled the truck driver to his mate, as they obeyed Lui Ho’s weird signal. “You see that cop, signaling us with one hand. He had his legs crossed. Bet he’s got a tight bladder.”

Frank laughed.

The truck driver made a quick circuit of the block until he reached the tail of the traffic he’d led into the intersection. Lui Ho still stood there, in the same position, looking like a ballet dancer frozen in the middle of a two-footed pirouette.

The lorry driver chuckled again. He obeyed Lui Ho’s signal for the second time. Then, as he passed him, he jerked the air-brakes into a hissing roar. His mate pressed down on the motorway klaxon. The shrieking blast screamed into Lui Ho’s unsuspecting ear.

Inside the truck cab, the driver and his mate laughed.

Lui Ho stood, unmoving, with Oriental stoicism, until the truck was out of sight. Then he grimly raised one damp leg, and shook it.

The museum opened. Emily leaned over and nudged Hettie. “Pssst. Wake the others. We’ll have to start cleaning up now. Tell them to work quietly. The painters are back.” Emily scrambled out of her sleeping bag, crept across the plinth and carefully lifted Tarzan’s duffel bag nest off the empty dinosaur frame. She peeped inside, careful not to disturb the dozing bird. She knew how Tarzan liked to welcome each new dawn. She pulled an elastic band from her pocket. “Sorry, dear,” she whispered, clipping it gently over Tarzan’s beak. He looked at her, affronted and cross-eyed. “Not for long,” she reassured him. He blinked, balefully.

“Just look at my face.” Melissa was examining herself in a small mirror. “My makeup’s going on like concrete.”

“At leatht Mith Hettie lets you wear thome,” said Susanne.

Emily shone her torch around for the last time. She could see no signs that might give them away. The plinth, apart from the little piles of nuts and bolts removed from the bones, was exactly as it had been before--minus its showpiece, of course.

When they heard the chatter of visitors, Hettie looked out. She watched a party of schoolchildren being led down the passage at the entrance to the hall. After they had passed, she crawled out of the canvas tunnel and studied the painters putting the finishing touches to the paintwork at the other end of the room. Then, on hands and knees, she scuttled over to the corridor. There, she stood, took off her once-white gloves and poked them into her bag. She loitered nonchalantly, and waited until the others joined her.

“Split up, now,” she said. “Go out through the main entrance, one at a time. Dinnae hurry. Just stroll.” She paused and scrutinized Susanne.

“Lassie, you didnae wash very well--your neck’s filthy. No time now. Off you go. Meet you all by the lorry in ten minutes.”

She left the museum by the tall doorway, overlooking the steps where the 25th Earl had died. For a moment, she stood at the top, and gazed at them, sadly. Poor wee Maister Quincey, she thought

“Cooeee,” called a voice. Hettie looked down toward the road. Una stood, waving at her. Hettie hurried down.

“Look,” said Una, her nose wrinkling as she stifled a sneeze. She pointed at a man picketing the front of the museum. He carried a large sign declaring--”Bring Back Prohibition.”

“I think I recognize him,” she told Hettie. “The guard. You know, the one Tarzan frightened. But I suppose I could be quaite mistaken.”

“Wheesht! Come away, lassie,” grunted Hettie. But she had a second look, and she wasn’t so sure Una was wrong. She led the way round to the planetarium car park, where the others were waiting. “My God,” she exclaimed, looking at the wheels with their weight-flattened tires. “All we need now is a puncture.”

The nannies climbed into the lorry and squeezed themselves on top of the packed bones.

“Hurrah, hurrah,” said Emily, triumphantly, and with a rumble and a smash of the straining transmission, she drove them away toward the entrance to Central Park.

“What about the pelvis?” Hettie asked her.

“You and I will get it this afternoon,” replied Emily. “Is there room in here?”

“It’ll just fit.”

Considering it was autumn, the end of a particularly fine summer, the British nannies sitting in Central Park that afternoon looked pale. Una stretched. There was little contrast between her face and her neat white uniform.

“I’m quaite shattered, dearies,” she yawned. “And quaite glad that it’s nearly all over.”

“Jutht the dinosaur pel ..began Susanne. The words were cut short by Hettie putting her finger to her lips. “Oh, yeth. Thorry, I forgot.”

“If you and Miss Emily want to go and get the, er, Sassenach thing, we’ll look after the children,” said Una.

“Do they need anything special?” asked Melissa. “Give mine the ‘Old Soldier’ treatment if it squalls,”

said Hettie. “Sing ‘Old Soldiers Never Die,’ and whop its behind in time to the music. Dinnae spoil it. And dinnae give it anything to eat.” She looked at Susanne. “Especially ice cream.”

“Just treat mine like any baby,” said Emily. “We’ll be back as soon as we can.”

They collected the truck from the parking lot near Emily’s apartment, and drove it back to the museum. On the way, Emily stopped, reached under the dashboard and produced a brown paper bag.

“Disguise,” she smiled at Hettie. “Dust coats. Put one on. And these.”

“Why do we need all this rubbish?” asked Hettie, eyeing the black wig, and the over-large sunglasses.

“YOU’RE going in to ask them for the package. And I’M driving the getaway vehicle. If something goes wrong, just rush out and jump in. I’ll keep the engine running.”

“Right,” said Hettie, but she wasn’t really assured.

They drove on to the museum. Emily backed the Chewy, cautiously, down the sloping pathway to the loading ramp.

“Good luck,” she told Hettie.

The stout Scots nanny straightened her blue nylon coat, pulled her stomach in and squared her shoulders. The fluffy black wig embarrassed her. She was glad she could hide behind the sunglasses. Tightening her lips, she marched imperiously inside.

“My good man,” she snapped at the gateman. “We believe you have a parcel for us. Smithsonian Institute.”

“Got any credentials, lady?” asked the gateman.

“Credentials, dinnae be impertinent.” She scowled at him. “Have you, or have you not, got our package?” Her broad Scots accent made him nervous.

“I, er,” he stammered.

“Come along, come along. We dinnae have all day to waste.”

“It’s here,” surrendered the man. He pointed to the pelvis in its sacking overcoat, resting by the entrance.

“Help us get it in the van, then,” snarled Hettie. “Don’t expect us to carry it ourselves, do you?”

“Er, no lady.” The man poked his head through a hatch in an internal door. “Hey, Chuck, Wilbur. Give me a lift, will you? Got a heavy package.”

With a great heaving and grunting, the final part of the dinosaur was loaded onto the sacks covering the bones in the back of the Chevrolet, and then driven out of the museum grounds.

Upstairs in the Early Dinosaur Hall, the painting gang chief climbed down off the scaffolding and surveyed his men’s work. He wiped his hands on a piece of rag, then reported to the museum director’s office.

“You can have your hall back, boss. We’ve finished. Maybe you’d give the okay before we clean up?”

Together they made their way back to the hall. The director stood at the entrance and admired the work.

“Fine,” he said. “Looks good. You can take off the sheets.”

The gang chief waved to his men. They grabbed hold of one side of the canvas sheet and pulled it, folding up the surplus as it slid towards them over the tops of the exhibits.

The head of the small stegosaurus dinosaur became visible. The sheet dropped free and began to rise over the familiar hump of the brontosaurus in the middle of the plinth. The canvas fell to the ground, revealing the naked iron framework.

The gang chiefs mouth opened.

“Fine paint job, Harry,” said the director. “Makes the place look roomier.” He swiveled around to get a fuller view of the blue-wash ceiling.

“Er . . . boss . . .” the gang chief began, glancing at the bare frame.

“Just dandy,” interrupted the museum director. “Right, get the place tidied up.” He turned and strolled thoughtfully back to his office.

He sat at his desk, drumming his fingers on the polished ammonite fossil he used as a paperweight. The drumming fingers grew slower, until finally they stopped. He stared at them. Then he buzzed his secretary. She stuck her head round the edge of his office door.

“Ring through to Palaeontology,” he said. “Ask Bill if he’s got the bront down for renovation . . . I’m going back down to the hall. Come and tell me what he says.”

The director paced, nervously, back to the Early Dinosaur Hall. The painters were carrying out their ladders. The director stood by the door and stared at the empty space in the centre of the plinth.

His secretary padded up to him. “They said they haven’t got the brontosaurus for renovation, sir.” Then she followed his gaze.

“Oh, gee ...” exclaimed the secretary.

“Precisely!” said the museum director.

Fat Choy sniffed gently through his blue and swollen nose, and pulled on the wide steering wheel. “When I was a boy,” he said, “I used to ride as high as this on a farm bullock cart.” He released the wheel with one hand and fingered his sore face. “Tell me, Comrade Leader, why does every other espionage group in America have their own fast car, except us?”

“Cunning planning of mine,” replied Lui Ho. “A different type of vehicle for every tailing job. It is better for disguise.”

Sam Ling looked up towards the roof of the driving cab. “Very original thinking on your part, Comrade Leader.” For once, he was glad he had nothing to do with the idea. “To think of using an obsolete fire engine is devious to the extreme.”

Lui Ho smiled. “This way we get priority on the roads. All give way to us.” He sighed at the thought of his own genius. “Keep close to the nanny-ladies, Fat Choy,” he ordered. “Unwittingly they are leading us to the secret hiding place they have prepared for the fake dragon. It will be a simple matter for us to appropriate it later.”

Fat Choy grunted. The nannies’ truck was several vehicles ahead, wedged in the lines of home-going traffic heading down East 59th Street and towards the Queensboro Bridge. Fat Choy ignored a red traffic light, forced two elderly nuns to scamper for sanctuary on a road island, and played chicken with other traffic in his anxiety to close in on his quarry. There was the sharp yowl of a police siren behind them.

Fat Choy glanced nervously into his rear-view mirror. “Comrade Leader, I do not question your superior knowledge when you say I have priority on the road. But I hasten to point out that there is a motorcycle policeman following us ... overtaking us.”

The speedcop pulled alongside the window and signalled, frantically. They could hear his voice, high- pitched above the engine noise. “Follow me,” he screamed. “Quick--it’s this way. A bad one.”

“A fire,” groaned Fat Choy. “Just what we need. What do I do now, Comrade Leader?”

Lui Ho looked sideways at Sam Ling. His deputy’s face was bland. “Pull out, oh leech-brain,” Lui Ho sighed. “Pull out and follow him.” He reached behind the seat and pulled out a fire chief’s helmet.