A Nose for Adventure

by Richard Scrimger

  “Those signs we saw this morning,” I say to Frieda. “Remember?”

  “Of course I remember,” she says. “We passed a crew setting up tracks for the camera.”

  “We did?”

  On an impulse, Mrs. Miller stretches her arm across her daughter’s body. “Can I?” she asks, and strokes Sally behind the ears.

  “I didn’t know you liked dogs,” says Frieda.

  Traffic jam. Libby swears, and reaches under his seat for a blue light that clips onto the roof of the car. When the siren starts to wail, it’s not quite like on TV. It’s louder, for one thing.

  Sally lets out a startled yelp and scrambles over Frieda’s lap and onto Bird’s. She’s on her feet, trembling, taking up most of the backseat.

  The car pulls left, across the double yellow line. Lights flashing, motor revving, we’re barreling along in the wrong lane. Oncoming cars are leaping out of our way.

  – Down! calls Norbert. I can’t help it, I duck. So does Culverhouse. Not you, Dingwall. Sally, down, girl!

  “Who’s that?” asks Libby. “That you, Frieda?”

  – Sit! says Norbert. I am sitting and, a moment later, so is Sally.

  By now we’re roaring into the airport. We park at the near end of the terminal, behind the cab rank. Before we can even get out of the car, Lieutenant Aylmer comes running over. She sticks her head in the window.

  “You made good time, sir. We’ve set up a command post inside.”

  “Personnel?”

  “The terminal is crawling with cops and C & E agents. We’re like fleas on a dog here.”

  – Hey! says a squeaky voice from the backseat.

  “Shh,” says Frieda.

  Libby asks about Earless. Lieutenant Aylmer shakes her head.

  We all get out of the car. Mrs. Miller helps Frieda into her chair, bending to swing her daughter’s legs into position. Sally licks Mrs. Miller’s hand. She gives a little shriek, then composes herself.

  “I’m trying,” she says. I don’t know who she’s talking to. “I am trying. I’m not afraid.”

  Aylmer steps back to let Libby out of the car. “You said you’d bring the boy, sir. Why’s everyone else here?”

  “Extra witnesses,” Libby says shortly. “The girl’s got a good memory. Boy’s is like a sieve.” He says this last bit in a low voice, but I hear it. Ah, well.

  “I understand the car is in lot P-3,” says Aylmer.

  “Isn’t that where it was parked this morning?” I ask.

  “No,” says Frieda. “It was across from the west taxi rank. Under the overhang.”

  “Oh, yeah,” I say.

  “See what I mean,” Libby whispers.

  Aylmer nods. “But the girl is….” She doesn’t finish.

  “Yes, I know,” he says.

  The smell of plane exhaust makes this underground parking lot a bit more exciting than usual, but it’s still a big gray grimy noisy low-ceilinged shed full of cars. P-3 is on the third level below ground. When we get there, the car is easy to spot. “There it is,” I say, pleased with myself for beating Frieda to the punch.

  “No,” she says. “It’s too small.”

  “But it’s got a tassel on the aerial.”

  “So does that one there,” she says, pointing to a red minivan. “And that one too.” She points to a sports car, whose all-black windows are covered in stencils of bull dogs and bikinis. The licence plate says BAD DUDE. I wonder why he needs a tassel. You’d think he’d know which car was his.

  Frieda wheels herself down one row of cars and up another one. Her mom walks beside us. Aylmer follows at a distance. She’s in charge of us now. Libby and Culverhouse are busy inside the airport.

  “There it is.” Frieda sounds sure of herself. Blue and blue, like she said. It’s parked carelessly between a Jeep with wooden siding and a black luxury sedan. Sally starts sniffing around the luxury car. I suppose it must have run over something especially smelly.

  “Could be the right car,” I say. “But there’s no tassel.”

  Aylmer ignores me. Her sharp eyes glint. “Good for you,” she tells Frieda. “You’ve tied the car to the kidnap scene. That’s another charge on the slate against Jones. We have a forensics team standing by.” She takes out a phone and gives some orders.

  “You mean you knew all along,” I say.

  “Our pipeline was in the car,” says Aylmer. “You guys are confirmation.”

  She punches a number into her cell phone and walks a short way off to talk.

  It’s 4:30 by my watch. I have a sudden clear picture of my dad, checking his watch as he makes a phone call. He always does that. The picture is so vivid, I can count the creases in Dad’s summer suit, smell the aftershave he wears.

  “What’s wrong, Alan?” asks Frieda. She rolls herself over to where I’m standing, and puts her hand on my arm.

  “Nothing,” I say.

  “For a second there you looked like you were going to burst into tears.”

  “Me?”

  When I was a toddler I used to like to shave with my dad, early in the mornings. He’d sit me on the bathroom vanity and put foam on my cheeks, and give me a razor of my own without a blade in it, and after we’d wiped our faces clean he’d splash his aftershave on us both. I felt as grown up as you can feel, when you’re still too young to go to school.

  “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 a
bout. 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.