“What about me?” says Frieda.
Libby puts away his telephone. He looks almost naked without it. “What about you, Miss Miller?” I’m the boy. She’s Miss Miller.
“Why can’t I go?”
“Do you want to go, um, dear?” asks Frieda’s mother. The last word sounds odd on her tongue, as though she isn’t used to it.
“If Alan goes, I should go too. Two witnesses are better than one. I’m older than Alan, and I have a better memory.”
Go instead of me, I think to myself. But I don’t say it.
“But, Miss Miller, you’re … well, you’re …”
“A girl?”
“No. I mean, you are a girl, of course. But …” The agent is having trouble saying what he means.
“Maybe you’d better let the man decide,” says Mrs. Miller.
“He’s saying I can’t go because I’m a girl,” says Frieda.
“No, no, that’s not it at all,” he hastens to say. “It’s … oh, dear.”
She swivels her chair to face me. “Alan, what kind of car does the skinny guy drive?” she asks.
I think back. “It’s medium-sized,” I say. “Not too big. And not … what’s the word?”
“Small?” says Bird.
“No no. Not all one color.”
“Two-toned, yes,” says Frieda. “How many doors?”
I open my mouth. “Doors?”
She smiles sympathetically. She doesn’t want to make me look like an idiot. “Doors,” she says. “The things with hinges and handles that people use to get in and out of cars.”
Maybe she doesn’t care what I look like, at that.
“I don’t know,” I say. “I only saw one.”
Norbert snickers. I know it’s Norbert. So does Frieda. She puts her hand on the dog’s muzzle. “Shhh,” she whispers.
The special agent is staring at me. I know that look. He’s disappointed. My math teacher looks that way all the time. “Sorry,” I say.
“It’s a late-model Buick Regal hardtop,” she says crisply. “Two-toned in blue. Light blue body, dark blue top.”
“I didn’t know you were interested in automobiles, dear,” says her mother.
“Four doors,” she goes on. “And one of those pathetic tassels tied to the aerial.”
Libby is still staring at me. “I remember the tassel,” I say.
So Frieda gets to come to the airport too. With her is her mom, hesitant but determined. And Sally. The special agent doesn’t want to take the dog, but Frieda insists. “You’ll see,” she says. “There’s more to this dog than you think there is.”
“That’s true,” says Mrs. Miller.
“That’s true,” I say.
– That is true, says Norbert.
We’re all in the Millers’ front hall. Libby frowns, shakes his head, opens the door.
“What about my dad?” I say. “He’s going to call here.” If he remembers. But I don’t say that. “I don’t want to miss his call. I’ve missed him all day.”
“Beatrice will tell him where you are,” says Frieda.
Beatrice is standing next to me, holding the front door open. She pats my arm.
“He was supposed to meet me at the airport this morning,” I say.
“But the plane was early,” says Beatrice. “Don’t worry, little one. I will wait for your call. A boy should be with his padre.”
We’re cramped in the unmarked C & E car. I’m in the front, between Special Agent Libby and Officer Culverhouse. Frieda and her mom and Sally are in the back. The storm is over, and the pavements are steaming in the misty sunshine. Everyone but me and Sally is wearing sunglasses. Frieda’s new pair look like her old ones. Mrs. Miller’s have pale yellow rims, to match her topcoat.
Bird is in the back too. Driving past Central Park, the special agent asks him where he thinks he’s going.
“Airport,” says Bird.
“Why?”
“Don’t know yet,” says Bird.
“Where’s your wagon?” Frieda asks.
“Got what I need from it,” he says. He reaches into a capacious pocket and brings out a woven leather leash. “For you and your talkin’ dog. Happy Wishday.”
“Oh, Bird. I can’t take it.”
“You got to – it’s the law.”
Frieda weighs it in her hand. “Then, thank you,” she says. “Thank you very much.”
“Shew-ah.”
“But how do you know that this is all you need?”
“I just know.”
There’s a hands-free phone in the car. A female voice on the other end of the phone wonders where we are and how long it will take us to get to La Guardia. Lieutenant Aylmer’s voice. “Ten minutes,” Libby tells her.
The East River is behind us now. We’re in Queens. Culverhouse drives fast, headlights flashing. Cars ahead of us pull out of the way.
“I’ll meet you at the west entrance,” says Lieutenant Aylmer. “They’ve blocked off a large section of the east side for a movie they’re shooting.”
“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.”
“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.