Split Code: Dolly and the Nanny Bird

by Dorothy Dunnett

  Nothing got out of hand, because Charlotte and I were there, moving into the accustomed routine with Kleenex and sick bags and damp sponges and towels and barley sugar. We sang the usual songs and played the usual games and, in the intervals of coping with the four little Mallards and Grover, listened to Bunty’s mesmerizing account of Comer’s plastic sprayed teeth and the Chow Chow’s flea collar, and the poodle’s doggy bootees, and Beverley’s Wig’n Lift, the hairpiece for hitching the chins up.

  Hygiene and after-care in the Eisenkopp household seemed to embrace just about everything except Bunty, who reeked of Balenciaga’s Ho Hang and wore platform shoes this time with her uniform gaberdine trench coat. Donovan was attired in a fairway cap with his Alaskan Timberwolf which made Charlie, sitting behind him, look like a gas inspector.

  She was the only one in Maggie Bee uniform, since I wasn’t on duty. I think she rather enjoyed it, even when we plunged in among the flags and the lights of the Wonderland and the parking attendants converged, dressed as animals. We bought a ticket from one, with Saggy Baggy Elephant written out under his trunk. Julia, the youngest Mallard, burst into tears. We all got out of the car and Charlotte opened her bag and began handing out little blue badges.

  There were a score in her bag. made of thin pale blue tin with a clip, and the letters M.M.A. printed on them. I said, ‘What’s the idea?’ as she started pinning them on coats and jerseys. Julia stopped crying and Grover got two.

  ‘Reconstruction,’ said Charlotte succinctly. She handed one to Bunty, who had unbuttoned Sukey’s pram apron to check that she was breathing, and was buttoning it up again. ‘Remember the kidnap note you found in your pocket? Shoot it out and Wear an M.M.A. badge? And an arrow next to The Great Shoot-Out?’

  ‘Vaguely,’ I said. I was incensed. I knew they knew all about it, but they needn’t have taken it over. I said, ‘I don’t really see the point. The kidnap failed. The note was never acted on. The kidnapper didn’t come back to the stall. Rudi Klapper. The man we saw in the Carl Shurz Park. The police told us that. After he tried the snatch, he didn’t come back to the Shoot-out.’

  ‘Then it won’t do any good,’ said Bunty cheerfully. She had fitted Sukey’s carrycot on to its wheels and was leaning on it. ‘But it can’t do any harm either. Come on. You’re at your auntie’s. God, who’d like a hot dog? I’m famished.’

  Johnson locked the car and we set off.

  Missy’s Golden American Wonderland is a large wooded park, set out as a pleasureland for kids of all sizes squired as needed by friends, parents and sometimes the Haitian help, down at heel on seventy dollars a week because behind every Haitian help is a Haitian lady on a percentage.

  It is not a place haunted by English nannies with toddlers. It gives that sense of illicit excitement one gets parking a pram outside Woolworth’s, when one is meant to be out for a health-giving bash through the Common.

  Not that we saw all that much to begin with. Flinging down dollar bills, we were sucked through the entrance and propelled past stalls, bandstands, pavilions, big wheel, roller coaster, arena and an assortment of aerial networks by Bunty’s sixth sense for hot dogs, which would be worth a fortune in Périgord. Then full of chipolata sausage and mustard the nine of us, pushing Sukey, proceeded to test our digestions.

  You’d expect an ice hockey buff to go for speed, but it wasn’t till I saw Johnson upside down on the Great Whirling Moon Ride or with his spectacles glued to his face in the Amazing Centrifugal Saucer that I remembered that yachtsmen have strong stomachs also. Bunty went on everything as well. Side by side, Charlotte and I pushed Sukey and carried Grover and led the four little Mallards through the train rides and into the House circus and in and out of the distorting mirrors while engines of death hurtled above us, full of Alaskan fur and Afro hair-do and spectacles.

  Neither of us, I suppose, really minded. I liked Charlie’s four little girls and so did Grover, who had a nice healthy scar where his hand had been cut but the same cough, along with incipient dandruff. He moved up while I was toting a Mallard and said, ‘You need to walk aside Jonah,’ meaning me, and stayed firmly attached until Charlie took over the Mallard and I acquired Sukey’s vehicle, whereupon he tried to climb in, kicking Sukey sharply.

  It had struck me he might. I whisked him out before his feet hit the blankets and jacked him instead on my shoulders. ‘And so,’ said Charlie, ‘they leave home and land at a head-shrinker’s. What should we advise Bunty to do?’

  ‘Shoot either or both of the parents,’ I said. We were half-way between the Kremlin and the Amsterdam waterfront in the Garden of Miniature Masterpieces. A bald head, stirring, rose like a harvest moon from behind the onion domes of the Cathedral of the Annunciation and the owner, stepping carefully, crossed the Red Square and stood, gazing through his long-lashed soft eyes, directly in front of us.

  Booted, dimpled and inconvenient, it was Hugo Panadek, Comer Eisenkopp’s Design Director. He had gold rings in both ears and a wolf-smile under the bush on his lip. Indeed, he looked quite different out of gorilla-skin. He said, ‘So. You would shoot either or both of the parents!’

  ‘To Hugo!’ screamed Grover. I set him down and he rushed straight off the path and into the Adriatic. It only came to his ankles and he was out of earshot, so I left him.

  ‘Of course,’ I said to Hugo. I kept my voice mild. ‘Don’t you know it’s every trained nurse’s dream, a world full of well-mannered kids and no adults? Do you know Charlotte Medleycott?’

  One soft eye turned to Charlie, who was grinning. ‘You have been to Data-Mate again,’ said Hugo Panadek accusingly. ‘Every time she comes to the Eisenkopps, it is to say that she has run through another eight boyfriends. Who is it this time?’

  I looked up in the air, in all directions. ‘Over there,’ I said. ‘Inside the Alaskan Timberwolf. I’ve got him second-hand, actually, at the moment. What is it that compels bachelors to jump into fur suits this season?’

  ‘The company,’ said Hugo. ‘Sometimes the company, alas, is too chilly. Nurse Joanna, what do you do in the evenings?’

  I said, ‘Lift bachelors out of their furry suits and unpin their diapers. Do you come here a lot?’ Grover was attempting to scale a papier mâché range of mountains. I rescued him. The castle on the top, of the Mad Ludwig variety, had its windows lit and a plastic dragon endlessly breasting the waterfilled ring of the moat.

  A discarded banana stick impeded its progress and Hugo, reaching over, removed it tenderly, and inspected its working parts. ‘The real dragon,’ he said, ‘is ten feet long.’

  ‘And fire,’ said Grover.

  ‘And has fire in its mouth. The real moat . . .’

  ‘Is a whimming place,’ Grover said. ‘Hugo whim there.’

  ‘In his fur monkey suit?’ I said. I could feel my bland slipping.

  ‘In my part of the world,’ said Hugo Panadek, ‘you don’t need a suit to go swimming in. Read the notice. It is a real castle. The fortress of Kalk, Yugoslavia. Owner, Hugo Panadek.’

  I wouldn’t have believed Hugo, but I believed Grover all right. Grover knew all about Hugo’s castle, and so I suppose did Bunty, corkscrewing presently round a sloping platform in Johnson’s arms. I said, ‘Well, congratulations. It must be famous, to appear in Missy’s Golden American Wonderland, yet. Did you have to supply the blueprints?’

  ‘This is no trouble,’ said Hugo. ‘I design for a living.’ He waved a hand. ‘I design the Wonderland.’

  Charlie scraped a couple of Mallards off the Acropolis. ‘You mean you’re Missy?’ She stood, her arms full of kids and her end- curls sticking out at the side like demented butterfly wings, showing him thirty-two perfect teeth in her ecstasy. ‘You’re Missy. Hugo?’

  ‘You want proof?’ Hugo said, his lashes descending. ‘Well, I have enough shares of Missy to be able to show friends a good time, let us say. Where is Bunty? What do you all wish to see?’

  That was when I remembered the time, and what we were all supposed to be there
for. ‘The Great Shoot-Out,’ I said. ‘We’re supposed to be doing a reconstruction of Benedict’s kidnapping, or at least of what the kidnapper planned to do afterwards. He’d been working beforehand at The Great Shoot-Out.’

  ‘Oh, I remember all that,’ said Hugo. ‘The Carl Schurz Park. The police came and grilled Bunty and did a conducted tour of the johns. It sounded like the worst-organized heist of all time. No wonder The Great Shoot-Out has been losing money. If you pardon my curiosity, what do you think you will find that the cops didn’t?’

  ‘Ask Bunty,’ said Charlie. ‘Here she comes. Bunty, what are we hoping to find that the cops couldn’t?’

  ‘I believe,’ said Bunty weakly, ‘in P.P.S. Holy Jesus, that was a bitch.’ She lurched, and the Data-Mate hitched her under the arm, without speaking.

  ‘E.S.P.,’ said Johnson kindly. ‘You shouldn’t go on these things if you haven’t a strong stomach. Ask the gentleman with the earrings where the powder room is.’

  ‘Johnson,’ I said, ‘let me introduce the designer of Missy’s Golden American Wonderland. His name’s Hugo Panadek. That’s his castle over there.’

  Johnson turned. The dragon droned round the moat. He watched it critically. ‘You can’t,’ he said, ‘do much entertaining?’

  ‘I get it,’ said Hugo. ‘You’re Charlie’s newest Data-Mate. Jeeze, that computer’s a bum.’

  They stared amiably at one another. With no change of tone Hugo added, ‘Glad to meetya. I hear Rosamund’s psyched out of her skull with the oil painting. What’s the slumming for?’

  ‘It seems to be a benefit for the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I’m not complaining,’ said Johnson. ‘We’ve finished, really, except for watching Bunty’s P.P.S. operate.’

  Hugo Panadek grinned. The flashing teeth, the lashes, the dimples all confirmed the first, magnetic impact he’d made at Bunty’s flat. He surveyed the kids and flung out his arms. ‘The Great Shoot-Out,’ he said. ‘And then steak’n French Fries and ice cream all round. Fudge ice cream. Maple walnut ice cream. Butter Brickie ice cream. Chocnut and Pineapple and Mint and Chocolate Chips . . .’

  The Mallard girls were all squealing with joy and I saw in Charlie’s eye a reflection of my own simple juvenile greed. It wasBunty who said, ‘Do you mind? My stomach’s still wrapped round my tonsils,’ and led the way, behind Hugo, to the shooting stall.

  Having no sons, my father taught me to shoot. I brought down my first pheasant at twelve, and parted from blood sports at fifteen, but I’ve always kept a soft spot for fun-fairs. You could say I’d shot all over the world, from target practice at a pound for two bullets in Russia, to flying monsters in Paris, to activated comedy popups in Tivoli. Lead me to Madame Tussaud’s and there I’ll be in the fun parlour, mowing down planes in an airfield.

  The Great Shoot-Out had none of that kid stuff. Four guns were trained on four cut-out Mid-Western town backdrops through which, on an endless belt, cattle rustlers appeared and vanished. You got a second to shoot and reload. Six out of six rustlers got you a free replay. Three free replays, if your loading arm hadn’t broken, got you a woolly bear to take back to mother. There was another twist. If you shot a rustler and missed, he shot back at you. With a bang and a little red light. I kid you not.

  Charlie tried first, and it shocked her at any rate. At the first burst of counterfeit counter-fire, she flung herself back on the pram and woke Sukey, who started to yell, in competition with the stallholder, a large Greek with black curly hair, who was explaining tetchily that all the explosions were totally harmless. But Charlie’s nerve had expired, and she fired her five other shots without winging a rustler; though they didn’t get her actually, either.

  The Data-Mate, stepping up casually, killed all the rustlers, got a free reload, killed them again, and then got over-confident and missed the one that dodged out through the bar-flaps.

  Johnson shot and made a hash of it.

  I had an unfair advantage, through standing there watching the sequences. I got the one on the jail roof, the one through the bar-flaps, the one through the hotel window and the one who jumped out the waterbutt. I waited, and got the one who peeked out of the stable door. The last one jumped from a Wells Fargo van and I got him right through the heart. Hugo kissed me with fervour and Grover said, ‘You bang the guns this time.’ I offered the rifle to Bunty, who turned it back.

  ‘Don’t be mad, you’ve got a free shot. Go on. Hell, we only shot policemen in Liverpool.’

  They all said go on, so I did it again.

  This time Donovan, Hugo and Grover all kissed me, while the stall-owner snatched back the gun and broke it as if he planned never to use it again. Then he handed me over my bear.

  It wasn’t quite as massive as Panadek in his gorilla suit, but it was a fairly near miss. I could see why takings might be low if they had to pass these things over too often. The cramp in my left arm explained why they didn’t run very much risk.

  Silence fell on the Mallards, Sukey and Grover as six pairs of eyes switched hopefully back and forth between my face and the bruin’s. Grover said, ‘The men died. Jonah died them.’

  ‘They were just pretend men,’ I said, and knelt. ‘Everyone is to hold Joanna’s bear for a little. Grover hold it first.’

  It was as big as Grover. He put it on its feet in the dirt, seized a ring on its chest and looking at us expectantly, tugged it.

  ‘My name,’ said a thick, oily voice next to Grover, ‘is dear old Brownbelly Bruin, your Lover Bear. Stroke your Lover Bear. Kiss your Lover Bear. Take your Lover Bear home to bed with you. And remember. Only Love beats Milk, baby.’

  There was an assorted silence. Grover looked smug. Charlie and Bunty both looked queasy, for different reasons. Donovan, Johnson and Hugo all looked at one another, after which Johnson turned to the Greek and broke the silence by saying, ‘I want to buy all your bears. What’ll you take for them?’

  For of course, that was how the absent Rudi Klapper had meant to arrange for his ransom for Benedict. By ensuring that the right talking bear and the guy with the M.M.A. badge got together.

  I said, ‘Why didn’t the police think of that, then?’

  ‘They didn’t have Grover with them,’ said Johnson. He was still looking at Alexei the Grecian.

  ‘No sale,’ said Alexei. ‘I need them bears to run the stall with. They’ve stopped making them.’

  ‘O.K.’ said Johnson agreeably. He took out his wallet and flipped twenty dollars on to the counter. ‘We won’t take them away. That’s just for letting us pull all their talk-strings.’

  ‘Are you a weirdo?’ asked Alexei. ‘What good will them bears do with their strings broke? You cats piss off. You’re violating my privacy.’

  In silence Johnson licked off another ten dollar bill. Alexei let it lie. He said, ‘The law says you win them bears by shooting. You win ‘em by shooting and you got the law on your side. You try to force me to sell them and I’ll get a patrolman down on your neck and I mean it, man.’

  There were twenty-four bears on that stall. I’d been counting them.

  ‘There is no call to argue,’ said Hugo. ‘We summon the police. It is their business.’

  It was, of course. But meanwhile the Mallard kids had set upon Grover, and Sukey was yelling for sustenance. I said, ‘Suppose you all take the kids off for a feed, and Donovan and I will shoot till you’re finished? It’s worth a try. The police’ll keep us for ever.’

  ‘You’re going to shoot?’ said Alexei. He looked flustered.

  ‘Two rifles, brother,’ said Donovan.

  ‘Three,’ said Hugo. ‘You two mommas go feed the family while Daddy goes hunting. There’s a card that says guest of the management.’

  Charlotte took it, and she and Bunty pushed off with the children.

  ‘Three rifles?’ said Alexei cautiously.

  ‘Four,’ said Johnson stoically. He picked up a bill from the heap and pushed it over the counter. ‘You won’t reconsider?’

  Alexei shook his
head, and he was probably right. This way he couldn’t lose, anyway.

  Although my back and left arm and elbows have never been quite the same since, I have sterling recollections of that competition.

  We settled down side by side, Donovan and I, and started to shoot. So did Johnson. After a chain of disasters that threatened to shiver his glasses, Johnson dropped regretfully out while Donovan and I, with the occasional black, began winning bears slowly.

  Hugo Panadek watched for two rounds, then took off his long leather tunic, revealing a silk jersey shirt with balloon sleeves over his fine shrink-wrapped gaberdine trousers. He picked up a gun, leaned over, sighted, and killed eighteen rustlers, pausing only to reload in a blur between corpses.

  He received a bear, pulled its cord, and left it to talk while he loaded and fired a fresh volley. ‘My name,’ began the bear, ‘is dear old Brownbelly Bruin. Stroke your Lover Bear. Kiss . . .’

  ‘Jesus,’ said Donovan. ‘You train under John Wayne?’

  Bald head gleaming, Hugo pooped the hood in the butt and dispatched the fifth and the sixth with a flourish. ‘At home,’ he said, ‘we shoot chamois on mountain tops. These are for children.’

  Half an hour from that moment he had ten Brownbelly Bruins beside him. I had four and Donovan five, and around us was the biggest crowd in the Park, with the uptight faces of all the other stallholders behind them. Johnson did a great job pulling the strings in a kind of canon effect. They all said the same thing: it was the best mass advertisement for love and milk since Cleopatra.

  It was not, however, serving any other purpose whatever. It began to seem depressingly clear that the four of us had outsmarted ourselves. The Shoot-Out, no doubt, was the rendezvous. But whatever the plan, Brownbelly Bruins could have played no part in it.

  My fractured right arm agreed. The spring in my rifle deserved to go into Mrs Eisenkopp’s Wig’n Lite hairpiece. At the end of the next round, I proposed to retire, lock, stock and barrel.

  I was still shooting when Hugo claimed his next bear. I saw Alexei stretch up to lift one, and heard Johnson walk up and stop him. ‘No. Not that one. Not the shelf this time.’