One Of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing (21 page)

Billie looked at the pile of bones that now represented a fortune to him and his partner.

“Whatcha looking like that for?”

“Nothing,” replied Billie. “Just thinking.”

“Thinking about the money?”

“Sort of.”

“Whatcha mean, sort of? Now you’re looking at me real funny. Like you just seen me for the first time.”

“I was never so close to 10,000 dollars before. And I just looked and decided what a scabby hobo you really are. I don’t even know if I can trust you to watch the bones while I’m away at the museum.”

“You’ve trusted me for twenty years.”

“Yeah, but not with my money,” said Billie. “You’ll have your share in your pocket about three weeks and then you’ll be round at my penthouse, bumming from me.” He glowered at Herman.

“I know what it’ll be like. You’ll fritter it away like a foolish virgin--high livin’; drinks on Herman; gold collars for your snake. How else d’you expect me to look at you?”

Billie Big Canoe stared at the pile of bones, now twenty-four carat gold in the candlelight.

“These bones is our Klondike, and we don’t want any other bums muscling in, so we gotta keep guard. And we don’t want the cops finding them, either.” He blinked, suddenly. “God, Herman. Blow out that light. Fast.”

Herman blew. The light died. “Hey, Billie,” said his voice from the darkness. “How am I going to stay awake all night?”

“Keep guard--like we was in the army.”

“But, Billie, when we was in the army, we used to sleep on guard. Remember?”

“Dry up, bud,” commanded Billie. “And stay awake.” His mind was already working on a sensible investment system.

They woke simultaneously at midday.

“You cheated on me,” Billie scowled. “I told you to stay awake and you slept.” He looked round, hastily, to make sure the bones were all there. The pile looked dusty and worthless in the misty light that filtered through the old windows.

“I never slept,” lied Herman. “You slept. I watched you.”

“Like you watched my ass,” said Billie. “Okay, anyway, they’re here. And so are we. Lemme look at that paper again.”

“How we going to tell the museum?” asked Herman.

“I’ll walk over. And you stay here. You guard the bones.” Billie’s voice became threatening. “You move an inch outa this place, you let one hobo in here and I’ll gut ya. It’s going to take me a good while to hike over there.”

“They won’t believe you,” said Herman. “They’ll think you’re on the bum. How’ll you make them believe you got the bones here?”

“I’ll take one with me.” Billie looked round and selected the smallest vertebrae. He wrapped it in the newspaper and tucked it into his shoulder bag.

“Don’t let them cheat you,” warned Herman, suddenly frightened. “You remember them twenty years? Okay? You remember we been equal partners for a long time?”

“Sure--equal partners of nothing,” sail Billie. “Now we got something, I guess it don’t make any difference.” He kicked open the door and looked cautiously outside, as though expecting an ambush. “Don’t forget. You move outa here and I’ll fillet yuh. I’ll be back.” He pulled the door closed behind him, and began the long trudge across town.

The museum official was signing mail. He was tired. It had been a long and tedious day. His secretary knocked and stuck her head round his office door.

“There’s a strange man down in the hall who says he wants to talk to you.”

“It’s too late to see anyone now,” said the official.

“I told him you wouldn’t, but he said you’d want this parcel.” She held out an untidy package of newspaper.

“What is it?”

The girl shrugged.

“Better open it. Probably something he wants identified.”

The girl unwrapped the package. The official continued signing his mail. He glanced up. The girl was standing, her mouth open, staring down at the pile of paper.

“Well, what is it?”

“You’d better look,”

He looked.

“My dinosaur!” He picked up the bone and fondled it lovingly. “Get that man up here, fast.”

Billie was shown into the office.

“Cigarette? Cigar?” The official held a box towards him.

“Thanks,” said Billie. He took one of each. He lit the cigar, and put the cigarette in his pocket for Herman.

“Well?”

“Your dinosaur,” began Billie. “The paper yesterday wrote there was a reward.”

“Yes, yes, of course. There’s a reward, but first we’ve got to get the dinosaur back.”

Billie wasn’t taking chances. “Put it in writing that you’ll give me a reward if I show you where it is.”

“It’s already in writing.”

“Put it in writing that Billie Big Canoe gets 10,000 dollars. Then I’ll show you where it is.”

“I can’t do that,” said the official. “Don’t worry, you won’t be . . . er . . . chiseled if you really show us where the brontosaurus is.”

Billie got up. “Good-bye,” he said, and started to walk toward the door.

“Come back,” called the official. “Okay. I’ll give you a letter, saying you were the first to bring me the information.”

“No dice,” said Billie. “You just write an I.O.U. for 10,000 dollars from the museum. That’ll do me. I don’t want no fancy stuff. I’ll show you the bones, you give me the cash.”

The official sighed and pressed a buzzer on the desk. His secretary reappeared.

“Type me a letter, promising to pay Mr. Billie,” he looked over at the hobo. “Mr. Billie who?”

“Big Canoe.”

“Just saying that we promise to pay him the 10,000 dollar reward AFTER he takes us to the dinosaur.”

He looked across at Billie. “Okay?”

“Okay,” said Billie. “You got a truck? We need a truck.”

“Yes. Excuse me a moment.” The official picked up his internal phone and dialled the Department of Vertebrate Palaeontology. He was excited. “I’ve found your dinosaur,” he shouted into the instrument. “Meet me at the car park, with a truck and a couple of men, in five minutes.”

“It’s five o’clock. Time we were away,” said Hettie. She stood like a sergeant major in front of the other nannies. “Everybody here? Everybody ready?” she asked.

“Everyone,” replied Susanne.

“How many children?”

“Just three babies,” said Una. “Dear Mr. Porcello’s looking after the others.”

“Och, you HAVEN’T left them with HIM?” asked Hettie, incredulously.

“Why not,” said Una, peevishly. “He’s very responsible. And kind.
And
he’s a policeman. Policemen often look after children.”

“Exactly! He is a policeman; what on earth does he think YOU’RE doing, lassie?”

“I told him I had to go hospital-visiting,” said Una. “He’s quaite happy, watching television. Anyway ...” she smiled smugly ... “I think it’s quaite a good thing that he’s learning about children.”

“Una, you’re behaving like a thirty-eight-year-old teenager. We wish we were as confident of him as you are.” Hettie stiffened. “Right, let’s get on with the job. How many carriages?”

“Two,” said Melissa.

“Then load them into the lorry. Tie them to the sides, so they don’t rock about.”

“I’ve brought some more pretty wrapping paper,” said Emily, wedging a small package behind the wheels of one of the carriages.

“Got plenty.” Hettie pointed to a large roll already inside the track. “Everything we’ll need. Paper, string, glue, sealing wax, adhesive tape, marking pens, scissors, torches and lamps. All we have to do now is to wrap the bones, then load the parcels into the truck. Tomorrow morning, we’ll take them to the post office.”

Emily closed the truck doors, walked round the side and climbed into the driver’s seat. She waited until Hettie had settled herself. The Scots nanny looked across at her.

“Clean your spectacles first, Nanny Biddle.”

Emily polished her pince-nez on her skirt, then clamped them back on her nose.

“You may commence driving,” said Hettie. “And keep an eye open in case we’re followed by the police.”

Lui Ho held the metal rail in front of him. His face and hands were blurred and his voice warbled with the vibration of the Tse Eih Aei’s latest transport.

“R-r-r-remember-r-r-r,” he strained to get the words out coherently. “Th-a-a-t if-f we loo-oo-se the-e-e na- ah-ahny-lay-ay-dies this-s time, you-oo wi-ill be il-il- um-ilim-alo ... execu-uted,” he panted.

Sam Ling muttered and pressed his toe even harder on the gas pedal. The Tse Eih Aei garbage truck swung out of the side road, fifty yards behind the nannies’ vehicle.

“Such realism,” sighed Nicky Po, standing on the bouncing footboard at the rear, and sniffing at his reeking overalls.

Pi Wun Tun pulled his cloth cap down over his eyes, and pushed aside one of the dustbins hanging on the track, before he answered. “For such realism, there should be a reward,” he muttered. “Perhaps the award of a thousand long-horned beetles.”

“A thousand long-horned beetles? I haven’t heard of that,” said Chou-Tan. “Is it a new honour?”

“Very,” said the barely reindoctrinated Pi Wun Tun. “I just invented it. The thousand long-horned beetles should be stuffed up Lui Ho’s rearmost orifice.”

Nicky Po rolled his eyes upward. “Without doubt, our Comrade Leader has excelled himself today. To think that I studied in a People’s University for five years in order to qualify for a place on the footboard of a capitalist garbage truck!”

It was dusk by the time Emily drove her truck on to Welfare Island. It bounced over the rough ground, lurching and swaying. Inside, the nannies held each other for support.

“Take care, woman. Good God! stop,” Hettie shouted as the truck rumbled towards the river. Emily swung the wheel, wildly.

“Sorry, my spectacles fell off.” She steered the truck toward the derelict building and parked beneath the trees. “It’ll be safe and sound and out of sight here,” she said.

Hettie turned to the nannies in the back. “Troops, outside. We’ve arrived.”

They climbed down into the long grass at the side of the track.

“The children?” asked Emily.

“Asleep,” replied Una. “The bouncing quaite exhausted them.”

“It made me sick,” said Melissa. “I don’t think I’ve ever been in such a nasty lorry as this one. I felt sick the first time as well.”

“I liked it.” Susanne rubbed her hand over the dirty glass of the building’s windows, and peered through. “My goodneth, Nanny Hettie, I think there’s thomeone inside here.”

“Where? Let us see.” Hettie pushed Susanne aside. “Good God. A man. Looks like a tramp. And he’s asleep on the bones.” She squared her shoulders. “Let us go in first. We’ll soon settle him.” She stamped into the building. The other nannies waited.

“Geroughhh ...” There was an odd sort of explosion inside. The nannies waited. A small cloud of dust drifted out of the doorway. They heard Hettie’s strident voice haranguing the man. Seconds later, he stumbled on to the path. He saw the other nurses, gulped, raised his cap and scurried off into the undergrowth. Hettie appeared at the door, brushing dust off her skirt.

“All clear now,” she called, gaily.

Susanne turned to Melissa and whispered. “What d’you think she did to him?”

“Don’t ask,” warned Melissa. “At your tender age, it’s best you don’t learn about such things.” She looked at Susanne’s puzzled face. “For heaven’s sake, girl ... what d’you think she did? Disembowel him?”

“Inside, lassies,” order Hettie. “There’s a lot of work to be done. Susanne, you bring in the paper and things.”

The Tse Eih Aei garbage truck lurched on to Welfare Island with a clattering jerk that snapped Lui Ho’s teeth together like an old-fashioned mousetrap. He rubbed his jaw and pointed toward the parking space in front of the new hospital buildings. “The nanny- ladies went down the other way. We’ll stop here and follow them on foot.”

Sam Ling eased off the accelerator until the truck was trickling forward at only a couple of miles an hour. Out of the comer of his eye he watched Lui Ho open the door and prepare to climb out. Then, when he’d calculated Lui Ho’s head was in a suitable position, he stamped on the brakes.

Lui Ho’s forehead ricocheted off the cab roof and slammed against the windscreen. He slumped on to the seat, his eyes watering, his wire-rimmed spectacles crazed like old ice on a skating pond.

Sam Ling smiled the sort of Oriental smile that Westerners mistake for a blank look. “So sorry, Comrade Leader,” he apologized. “But let me congratulate you on almost perfect self-control, spoilt only by a slight intake of breath towards the end of the calamity. Forgive my ineptitude at stopping capitalist waste disposal vehicles.”

“What’s going on?” came Pi Wun Tun’s voice from the rear footboard. “You stopped too quickly, and Comrade Chou-Tan’s fallen in the garbage.”

Sam Ling climbed down and strolled round to the tailboard. Chou-Tan was brushing small particles of rubbish off his shoulders. Sam Ling wrinkled his nose.

“This is the downwind side. Come over here,” Pi Wun Tun said cheerfully.

Lui Ho, his eyes straining behind his cracked glasses, clambered out of the passenger seat and felt his way along the length of the truck to the back, where he could hear his men talking.

“Silence,” he growled. “And you’d all better listen carefully. If there’s any slip-up tonight, then the person responsible gets special correction.” He tried to ignore the pain from his swelling forehead. “You will carry out my orders at once, and without comment. You, Fat Choy, in the truck you will find two anti-tank rifles and a flamethrower. Bring them here. We will then hide ourselves in the bushes till the time is right. When I blow my whistle, we will ATTACK in the manner advised by Chairman Mao--in two waves. We three, without guns,” he indicated Sam Ling and Fat Choy, “will follow in the second wave, and will pick up the weapons of you who have fallen in the cause of true Communism. The Imperialist nanny-ladies will be eliminated. We will then radio the submarine, which will cruise up the river and collect the bones. By tomorrow morning, they will be well on the way to our glorious homeland.”

“And we will be conveyed, just as speedily, to Sing- Sing Penitentiary,” said Sam Ling, flatly. “I have no doubt whatever, Comrade Leader, that our superior fire-power and military audacity would achieve victory over these nanny-ladies. However, the danger would also be present that such a confrontation would attract unwanted attention to us before we could load the fake dragon bones on to our submarine. There is, in addition, one further complication. It is well known that the American coastal radar system is totally inadequate, and that foreign submarines can sail, unhindered, up to the East River. But I am sure, Comrade Leader, you will admit that not even a People’s Republic submarine, manned by the world’s most enthusiastic and best-trained submariners, armed with the Thoughts of Chairman Mao, can sail up a river which is devoid of water--and full of fire engine. Unfortunately, you see, the tide is out.” Nicky Po and Pi Wun Tun sniggered. Sam Ling continued. “Humbly, I submit that now is an excellent opportunity to apply the old American proverb ‘softly, softly catchee monkey,’ and your previous and most brilliant plan suits the circumstances admirably.”