One Of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing (13 page)

“Down here, I thought,” said Emily, pointing over the side of the bridge. “Down on Welfare Island, near the hospital. There are plenty of disused buildings around there. No one’ll ever think of searching them. And we won’t be given a second look if we go in our uniforms.”

“Good thinking,” complimented Hettie. “Oops, look out.”

Emily swerved the truck as a fire engine, led by a siren-screeching speedcop, passed them. “We go down here,” she said, as they reached the large elevator that lowers traffic down to the level of the island. She edged the vehicle off the busy highway and on to the platform. It clattered to life, and dropped slowly down through the steel girdering. It stopped at island level. The roadway split, the best surface turning towards the modem hospital blocks, the cracked path disappearing in the direction of the old, now unused buildings. Emily followed the old road.

There was a rough parking space near the tree- camouflaged derelict buildings. She stopped the truck in the shadows, and the nannies climbed down.

They explored the buildings. Those nearest the bridge showed signs of occasional occupation. It was also clear that hobos had slept there. The corridors were bare, and dust was thick everywhere. Cracked plaster gaped on the walls and paint leaned away from the woodwork.

Hettie found a building which still had the main door closed. She pushed it. It gave a little. She kicked it open. Inside, it smelt of rotting lumber, damp, and the river. “Here,” she called. “It’s the ideal place.”

The cop braked his motorcycle to a skidding halt in front of the United Nations Building. A crowd blocked Roosevelt Drive, watching smoke billowing, in noxious spurts, from the window of a second floor office. The patrolman jerked his machine on to its stand and ran back to the fire engine as it rattled to a stop behind him.

“Okay, Chief, it’s all yours,” he yelled.

“Sit tight,” hissed Lui Ho to his men. “With a small amount of discreet obstruction the whole corrupt edifice will be destroyed.”

“Hey, come on,” called the cop. “What’s keeping ya?”

“We can’t go in there, we’re not members,” replied Fat Choy, eyeing the smoking building.

Sam Ling punched him in the ribs. “That sort of stupid remark could get us all arrested,” he snarled. He turned to Lui Ho. “Comrade Leader, much as I, too, would enjoy the destruction of the United Nations’ headquarters, this is neither the time nor the manner.” He looked towards the crowd. “And these people seem to be expecting us to do something--fast. I don’t suppose you got any instructions with this fire-quencher when you hired it?”

Lui Ho scrutinized the spectators. Sam Ling was right. They were losing their patience. He shook his head. “No instructions. Has anyone seen New York firemen working?”

Pi Wun Tun leaned over from the back seat. “I saw a fire ship working once, when some big liner came into New York Harbour. It just squirted streams of water up into the air, and everyone there cheered and clapped.”

“The very answer!” exclaimed Fat Choy. “Perhaps we should entertain this audience by climbing on to the cab roof and pissing like an ornamental fountain.”

Sam Ling snorted. “We’d better get out. At once,” he said. “I suggest we unroll the hoses, for a start. Nicky Po, you’d better see if you can find some water, just in case our tank is empty.”

They scrambled out. Nicky Po jammed his helmet on to his head and ran straight into the open door of the vehicle. He sat down, heavily stunned. Sam Ling hauled him back to his feet and tore off the hat. Nicky Po’s crossed eyes blinked. Sam Ling reversed the headgear so that the long brim covered Nicky Po’s neck, then he thumped it back on. “Toad’s spawn,” he shouted. “Hurry up and find that water.” Nicky Po staggered away.

“Look busy,” Sam Ling ordered the remaining spies. Pi Wun Tun rushed off and reappeared with an oxygen breathing mask. He tied it over his face and mumbled something. “What’s wrong?” demanded Sam Ling.

“Can’t breathe in it,” puffed Pi Wun Tun. Sam Ling reached into the fire engine and dragged out a narrow pipe attached to a pressure-cylinder.

“Couple this on,” he suggested hopefully. Pi Wun Tun stuffed the end of the pipe into the hose of the breathing mask, then nodded. Sam Ling opened the tap on the pressure-cylinder. There was a gurgling sound behind him. He turned back towards Pi Wun Tun. The glass face-piece slowly filled with fire extinguisher foam ... white bubbles streamed from the valves at the sides. Pi Wun Tun struggled and snatched off the mask, retching and spluttering like an asthmatic Oriental Santa Claus.

Fat Choy ignored his friend’s plight and grabbed the two-inch diameter brass nozzle of a hose, coiled round a reel at the back of the fire engine.

He ran, for two hundred feet, drawing the hose in a straight line behind him.

“Good man,” shouted Sam Ling. “That’ll be enough. Now bring it back.”

Fat Choy returned, panting, the sweep of hose following him like a tired snake. He stopped thirty feet short of the engine.

“Don’t fart about,” bellowed Sam Ling. “I said bring it here.”

“I can’t,” protested Fat Choy. “It doesn’t reach.” “Of course it reaches--it started here.” Sam Ling hit himself on his forehead with the palm of his hand. Fat Choy tugged at the hose again. “Overgrown mealworm,” roared Sam Ling. “Go and unwind it from round that lamp post, then bring it back.”

Fat Choy rushed off again, following the route of the hose.

A stout figure, in overlarge fireman’s boots, clumped in front of Sam Ling and saluted. Its helmet, also too large, rocked from side to side. “You know that round canvas thing rolled up in the back of the truck? It says on it that it’s a jump sheet,” said Chou-Tan, his hat nodding as he spoke. “I have unrolled it and laid it neatly on the ground below the smoking window.” “Splendid originality of thought,” replied Sam Ling, his moustache smiling.

“Shall I now go and tell the occupants of the building to jump?”

“By all means tell them,” said Sam Ling, glancing at the sheet laid on the concrete sidewalk. “But I doubt if you’ll be able to persuade anyone.”

Chou-Tan hurried away.

“I’ve got some,” puffed a familiar voice. Sam Ling recognized Nicky Po’s legs, buckled beneath the weight of a brimming drinking-water dispenser, complete with plastic cups. “There’s plenty of it. Enough for everyone to fill their bladders.”

“Put it down, lunatic,” screamed Sam Ling. “Go and help Fat Choy with the hose.” He turned to Lui Ho. “Perhaps, Comrade Leader, when our delinquent colleagues are ready, you will be so kind as to turn the switch marked ‘pump’ which I saw on the dashboard?” Lui Ho nodded.

A loud thud, and a jeer from the crowd, attracted Sam Ling’s attention. He looked towards the building. Chou-Tan lay face-down on the jump sheet, in a disturbed cloud of dust. Sam Ling hurried over and prodded the still figure. It raised itself on its elbows and shook its head vaguely.

“You tripped?” asked Sam Ling.

“No, I jumped,” replied Chou-Tan, with a wan smile. “There was no one up on the second floor to persuade, and it seemed the quickest way down. I don’t think much of it as a lifesaving idea, the padding’s not thick enough.”

“Chairman Mao protect me,” groaned Sam Ling.

“We are prepared,” called Fat Choy. He and Nicky Po held the nozzle between them and pointed it towards the smoking window. The watching crowd went silent with anticipation.

“Switch on,” shouted Sam Ling. Fat Choy and Nicky Po braced themselves against the expected pressure of water. The pump engine started with a mechanical screech and a series of rattles. The hose, where it joined the engine, began to swell. Sam Ling watched the bulge begin to move along the pipe. “Stand by,” he shouted. The swelling approached the nozzle of the pipe, then hesitated. The crowd murmured.

A rat poked its head out of the nozzle, its whiskers quivering. It looked right, then left, then sprang out and ran into the building. It was followed by a second rat, then a third, fourth and fifth.

The crowd roared.

“You guys having trouble?” asked a voice. Sam Ling turned. It was the speedcop. Sam Ling decided to take the initiative. He unbuttoned the holster holding his fireman’s axe and passed the tool to the policeman.

“You go,” he said, authoritatively. “Go break window.”

“Who, me?” protested the cop.

“Yes,” said Sam Ling. He pointed, carelessly. “That window.” The policeman looked at him strangely, then shrugged and walked purposefully towards the building. “And when you’ve finished,” Sam Ling called after him, “break all the others you can.” He turned back to Lui Ho. “That’ll keep him busy for a while.”

Lui Ho stuck his head farther out of the driving cab. “I’ve found two more switches,” he said. “One says in American, ‘ladder up.’ The other, ‘ladder down.’ “

“Most excellent, Comrade Leader. Perhaps you should turn the fire engine to face the building, then try the ‘up’ switch,” suggested Sam Ling, politely.

Lui Ho maneuvered the vehicle until the cab pointed towards the U.N. skyscraper. Sam Ling gave him the thumbs-up sigh.

There was a whirring sound. The ladder on the roof of the engine extended itself at an angle of forty-five degrees.

“Marvellous, Comrade Leader,” called Sam Ling.

“Just a foot more and it will reach the window. Push again.”

The machinery buzzed for a second time. The ladder jammed itself under the window ledge. The smile set on Sam Ling’s face as the ladder continued to extend, pushing the fire engine backwards. “Comrade Lead ..he began.

The vehicle rolled on, quickly gaining momentum. “The brakes,” shouted Sam Ling wildly, as the reversing fire truck built up speed towards the parapet at the far side of the road.

“Comrade Leader,” groaned Sam Ling. There was a minor explosion as seven tons of red fire engine smashed through the low wall. With a blank face, Sam Ling watched it teeter for a moment--and disappear over the edge. Then there was a splash and a huge tower of water rose into view as the vehicle hit the East River.

The spies, with the crowd at their heels, rushed across the roadway and stood, awed, in the gap left by the runaway engine. Below them, only the erect ladder protruded above the muddy waters. They watched as the half-drowned figure of Lui Ho rose, choking, to the surface, and climbed painfully up the ladder to the top rung, where it perched itself, shivering. The five members of the New York Branch of the Tse Eih Aei drew themselves to attention, facing him, and saluted.

The 20th Precinct Station House in West 68th Street is one of the oldest in the city. Four and a bit storeys high, it’s a brownstone building, grubby and unexciting.

Inside, it’s little better. It wasn’t designed. It’s grown into what it is--a home for hard-working policemen.

It has no cells, but it has an automat which supplies cigarettes, iced Coke, and candy bars. Next to the automat stands the boot-polishing machine which the policemen clubbed together to buy. And alongside that, the Kleenex tissue dispenser. Now they are the calmest, coolest, best-fed, most highly-polished cops in New York City--and they keep their noses clean.

The desk sergeant sits behind a wooden partition to the right of the entrance. He’s kept busy answering calls from motorists reporting thefts from their parked vehicles. There is seldom a big crime in the 20th.

The desk sergeant was answering his telephone.

“20th Precinct. Yeah ... yeah ... you lost a brontosaurus? What’s ... ? A sort of animal? That’s a lot of help. Did it have a name on its collar? Well, I ain’t seen it brought in here. Try the dog pound ... It’s a reptile? Look, bud, we got enough work on our hands without looking for lizards. It’s not ... ? Bud, kindly make up your mind. Is it dangerous? DEAD ... ? Well, what you want it back for? You’re the museum. Okay, okay, you lost a reptile ... Stuffed? Not stuffed, just bones? HOW MANY?” He dropped the phone. It clattered on his desk. He retrieved it and wedged it between his ear and a roll of fat that swelled above his collar. “How many tons? You’re kidding ... sixty-six feet long? We’ll get a car down there right now ... Okay, two cars.”

He hung up the telephone, scribbled on a pad, and turned to the policeman sitting next to him.

“I got some furlough due to me, ain’t I?” he asked.

“Yeah, thinking of going hunting again?”

“Thinking of going anywhere--maybe huntin’, maybe fishin’. I just got a funny sort of feeling that suddenly I want to go on vacation. I think I’ll go see the boss.” He stood up and wandered over to his Chiefs office. He knocked, waited for the sound of the Inspector’s voice, then entered. A few minutes later he returned.

“Chief says I can take my leave starting tomorrow. I told him I needed a break. Haven’t had one since last year.”

“How come you want one so urgently?”

“I just got a feeling that anywhere except this station house is going to be the best place for the next coupla weeks.”

He wandered over to the Despatched desk. “Here, Mike, better get two cars along to the Natural History Museum. They say they’ve been robbed.”

The two prowl cars sirened their way back down 68th and slid to a halt in front of the 20th Precinct Station House. The car doors slammed open and four policemen raced each other up the steps and through the narrow entrance. They collided outside the Chiefs office.

“Hold it, boys,” called the desk sergeant. “What’s the rush.”

“Tell you later, Sarge, gotta see the Chief,” one of them answered. He didn’t knock, he just pushed open the door. “Chief, the museum--they’re going crazy down there. Say a gang heisted their dinosaur ...” The man paused for breath. “It’s worth a million bucks ...”

The boss of the precinct, a tough Deputy Inspector, was a man with a sense of humour. He had to be, to be a successful New York cop.

“Slow down, slow down. Suppose you tell me from the front.” He listened, carefully, while the men gave him the details.

“What time you boys get the orders to go along?” He looked at his watch, then grinned. “Cunning old sonofabitch ... shoulda known something was cooking when he asked for furlough.”

“When who asked for what?”

“Nothing,” said the Chief. “Okay, I’ll pass it on to the detectives upstairs. I’ll tell old Dick Tracy myself--like to see his face when he hears about this one.”