by Regina Doman
Outside, Bear told Fish what Mrs. Foster had found.
“So we’ve got even more to tell the Briers when they come home,” Bear said with a deep sigh.
Fish looked at Mrs. Foster keenly. “You put two and two together faster than I did. How did you know to look?”
She nodded. “When you told me they’d found things in her bags, and then that this had happened to you, I looked around real careful. I figured that whoever was smart enough to get inside your place wasn’t going to have any trouble getting into this little brownstone and put stuff in her room.”
“In the bedposts, too. Clever. How’d you know to check there?” Fish asked her.
She shrugged her broad shoulders. “I guessed. Plus some of the women in my neighborhood have kids on drugs, so I know where some of the usual hiding places are, sorry to say.”
“Pretty sharp, Mrs. Foster.”
Bear mused, “It was the same kind of Adam drug that was in our apartment. The mark on it was even the same. They may have come from the same cache.”
“Yeah, I saw quite a few different kinds when we were doing our undercover work, but I’ve never seen an ‘M’ version.” Fish paused. “Well, it’s pretty clear that someone has been going to great lengths to set up Blanche. Someone must hate her pretty badly.”
“Or someone wants to get her out of the way, just like Father Raymond’s killer wanted us out of the way,” Bear said.
“So how did she acquire a vicious enemy in the space of what—six months?” Fish queried.
“It doesn’t take that long sometimes,” Bear said. “What’s puzzling is—what could Blanche do that would make her an enemy?”
“Beats me. I’m not a psychologist,” Fish said. He pulled his hat out of his pocket and dropped it on his head. “So now what?”
“We go to the airport to pick up the Briers.”
Fish shook his head with a sigh. “You just got bailed out of jail by the skin of your teeth, and one of the first things you do is run off to the nearest airport. This won’t look good to the DEA, Bear.”
“Too bad,” Bear said.
Chapter Nine
The girl had remained in the van at her post, looking up and down the streets a bit nervously. I wish I could calm down, she told herself. Brother Leon is right. I need to trust God more, and start…at least giving Him the benefit of the doubt.
She glanced at herself in the cracked rear-view mirror of the van, and felt the pall creeping over her mood. She fingered the blunt edges of her hair, feeling shaven of all her riches. Not a princess… Biting her lip, she pulled off the red kerchief she had been wearing, tightened its knot, and put it on again, trying again to feel less despondent.
Suddenly, the familiar feeling of being watched came over her, and she turned quickly. But it was only the little Jamaican girl, leaning against the door to the van with a winsome smile.
“Aay,” the child said, her black eyes crinkling into a smile. She couldn’t be older than three.
“Aay,” the girl repeated, unsure. Normally she felt shy around children.
“Yuh look suh nice,” the child said.
The girl couldn’t resist smiling back at the child’s unconscious frankness. “Thank you,” she said. “What’s your name?”
“Jacky. Mi waan sit wid yuh.” Jacky settled herself on the girl’s lap, looked at her with a half smile, and then cupped her small hands around the girl’s cheeks. “Yuh skin suh white.”
The girl guessed what she was saying. “So white?”
“Yeh,” Jacky smiled. “Yuh face pretty.”
The girl touched the child’s smooth dark brown cheek. “Yuh face pretty,” she said with deep sincerity.
Jacky giggled uncontrollably. “ Mi waan sit wid yuh when we go,” she said decisively.
Just then the girl’s attention was diverted by a streak of brown as a dog raced out of the door of the apartment building and down the street. The little boy ran after him, shouting. “Pouff-Pouff run weh! Pouff-Pouff, cum ya!”
“Is that your dog?” the girl asked.
Jacky nodded. “Is mi Granada daag.”
A few minutes later, the two novice friars came breathlessly down the stairs.
“Did you see a dog—?” Leon panted.
Both Jacky and the girl pointed. “That way.”
“Right. It’s coming with us to the airport,” Leon said. “Come on, Matt.”
Thinking she should help, Blanche took her new little friend’s hand and they followed them.
II
For the next twenty minutes, they searched up and down the streets and through alleys for the missing Rottweiler. “We are not making that two o’clock flight,” Matt warned. “And those dogs are never going in that box.”
“Hey,” Leon said, as they passed a string of stores. “Let’s check behind the grocery store. If we’re lucky, we might find some wood packing crates.”
“That sounds hopeful,” Nora said, pushing her kerchief back, and Matt murmured that they might as well try.
So the two friars took turns jumping into dumpsters, and managed, wonder of wonders, to find two large packing crates. One had loose boards, but Matt found a hammer in the back of the van and banged them back in place.
Dragging the crates behind them, they returned to the apartment to find Marisol barely holding the returned Pouff-Pouff by the collar. Together, she and Leon managed to force the frantic dog into the crate and Matt banged another board over the top to keep him in. Nora and Leon wrestled the other crate upstairs. The dog started barking again as they returned.
“Okay,” Leon said breathlessly, and called down behind him, “If you can give us a hand, Matt…”
But just at that moment, the cardboard box gave out and caved inwards, toppling the card table and the things on top of it and sending them crashing to the floor. The dog howled and emerged from the disaster, tore around the apartment frantically and swerved out the door and down to the street, knocking Matt over again.
The two friars and the women took off after the dog, but when they reached the street, there was no sign of him.
“Prince! My poor daag run weh!” the grandmother moaned in distress.
“Mek im move and gweh!” Marisol muttered blackly, and Leon was inclined to agree with her.
“Okay, let’s get everything in the van and maybe we can drive around and see if we can find him,” Leon attempted to be cheerful.
It was a good thing that the van happened to be mostly empty, because by the time they were done, it was packed full, what with the dog, the empty crate, and “luggage.” Neighbors came from every direction to say goodbye and to watch the fun. Finally Leon and Matt got the grandmother into the car. The kids insisted on coming too. “All right, you can,” Leon said wearily, and the little girl clambered happily onto Nora’s lap.
“Mi can sit wid Princess,” she said, and Nora blushed.
The little boy commandeered Matt’s lap, since there was no seating space left. To cries of “Goodbye! Ave a good trip!” they finally pulled out.
“What are we going to do about the other dog?” Matt asked from the back.
Suddenly the grandmother pointed. “See im deh!”
And there he was, trotting down a street, panting. Almost as though he had heard them, he looked in their direction, snarled, and took off down a street.
“Get him!” the kids yelled, and Brother Leon swerved the van around and followed him down the street.
“This is ridiculous! We’re going to get killed!” Matt shouted.
“I’m gaining on him!” Leon said, swerving around a double-parked car in his lane.
“Go! Go!” the kids were shrieking.
“Saint Francis, lover of all animals, get this stupid mongrel fi to stop!” Leon breathed a prayer.
Panting, his tongue lolling out of his mouth, the dog skidded to a stop beside a trash bin blocking an alley, and Leon, tires screeching, double-parked and tumbled out of the truck with Matt groaning behin
d him. Valiantly, they pelted after the dog, which had taken off again, but this time, they managed to grab him by the collar. At last he was brought back, whining and growling, and was settled in the crate as the kids cheered.
Matt was looking at his watch as they got onto the expressway. “It’s almost two o’clock now.”
“If we hurry we might make it,” Leon persisted as the dogs continued to bark themselves hoarse in the back.
Not ten minutes later, there was a shout from the boy in the back. “Brother Leon, get di daag a chrow up!”
“No,” prayed Leon, but distinctive croaking noises from the crate in the back confirmed that the boy was correct. Leon pulled over to the side of the road.
The friars opened the back, and surveyed the mess, Matt holding his nose. The human passengers all tumbled out of the van, unable to stand the smell.
“He must have eaten something really gross,” Matt said.
“Kiss mi neck back!” the boy said in awe.
“You got that right,” Leon said grimly, rolling up his habit’s sleeves. “Okay—guess we better unload, Matt.”
By the side of the expressway, the friars unloaded the two dog crates and some of the luggage that had gotten thrown up on. Nora and the grandmother rummaged through the front luggage and managed to find towels and newspapers to clean up the mess. Not surprisingly, no one on the road stopped to help them.
Eventually they were on the road again. Matt muttered something about the time, but Leon was just praying that there would be another flight to Jamaica.
When they reached the airport, there was the difficulty in unloading the luggage and the dogs and parking the van. They had to pay for parking, and find a spot in one of the massive cement spiral parking garages. After much trouble, they made it to Terminal Four, where the grandmother’s flight to Jamaica was departing.
They discovered that the grandmother was not alone in her luggage. Bundles of similarly-wrapped packages and garbage bags were piled around the terminal, and chickens squawked in crates. Even a billy goat was tethered to one side. Aroused by the new smells and sights, the two dogs rattled around in their rickety crates barking again.
Much to Leon’s relief, there was another flight leaving for Jamaica, and, miracle of miracles, there was one seat left. Grandmother had her ticket transferred, and Leon helped her through the process, translating where necessary. Meanwhile, Matt tried to calm the dogs down, and Nora kept watch on the kids.
An airport attendant walked around the melee, roaring, “Two undred pounds a di maximum luggage fuh dis flight!”
“Two hundred pounds luggage?” Leon said to Matt. “This is never going to work.”
When the grandmother’s turn came, her luggage weighed over five hundred pounds. “Let mi pack it again,” she urged.
“I don’t think repacking is going to help much,” Leon said, but obliged.
They ended up taking over half the luggage back to the van. “But at least the dogs are going,” Leon thought to himself, and was looking forward to a considerably quieter ride home.
But the attendant shook his head when the friars pushed the crates up in the luggage cart. “We cyaan tek di dog dem,” the man said decisively. “Win uh allow daag pan dis plane. Too small.”
“But they told her she could have the dogs on the plane before!” Leon objected, having checked this out with Marisol.
“That was for the last flight—this flight is a smaller plane. They won’t take the dogs. There’s just no room,” another attendant explained.
Leon and the grandmother argued fruitlessly, and Matt ran his fingers over his rosary beads imploringly, but the official was unmoved. “No dogs,” he said.
At last the grandmother turned, weeping, to the kids. “Unnu can keep dem as a present,” she said to them.
“I don’t think Marisol will appreciate that kind of present,” Leon said faintly, but was drowned out by the kids. “Yaaah!” they cheered. “We get fi keep di dog dem!”
“Right,” Leon said mechanically as the grandmother tearfully made her way onto the plane. “Matt, well, we’re loading the dogs back onto the van.”
Matt closed his eyes. “Of course,” he said. “I knew it. I knew it. I knew this was one of those days that was going to get me out of purgatory when I die.”
“And put me in there for ten times longer,” Leon said grimly. He knew he was never going to be able to explain this to Marisol adequately.
Glumly the friars pushed the luggage cart that had the dog crates on it back to the parking lot. This was a tricky business because if your hands were too close to the crate, the dogs would start snapping at them. Not wanting to lose a finger, Leon and Matt maneuvered the cart through the airport while Nora walked with the children, holding their hands.
They were trying to maneuver the luggage cart over the curbside. “Let’s not risk tipping it,” Matt urged. “Keep going until we find a ramp down.”
“Fine,” Leon said tonelessly. He was tired, and hungry, and not paying attention.
He glanced at Nora, who seemed to be a bit tense as well as tired. Suddenly he saw her startle and turn her head suddenly so that her hair and kerchief screened her face. Almost imperceptibly she moved to the far side of the baggage cart as though she were trying to hide. If he hadn’t seen her flinch, he might never have noticed it.
Leon looked in the direction she had turned away from to see what was amiss. His eyes roved over the passing waves of people being dropped off or picked up. A bevy of Asian children, three male tourists with cameras, a couple of teenage girls yelling to their friends, a tall burly man in a dark jacket striding across the parking lot—
The man. There was a sudden bump and Leon’s foot slipped and he stumbled off the side of the curb. Not wanting to fall, he unconsciously grabbed at the luggage cart and—
“No!” Matt yelled as the crates smashed to the ground. He pounced on one, and managed to hold it together, while its occupant yelped, but the other crate landed on its side, and two boards cracked. Leon grabbed for the dog’s red collar but it was too late—
A howling Rottweiler took off across the parking lot like a fired torpedo and sprinted into the parking garage across the street.
Forgetting the man, Leon dashed after the dog up the ramp. “Nora, help me!” he shouted, leaving Matt to hold the other dog down.
“Stay with Brother Matt!” Nora ordered the kids. “I’m coming!” she yelled back, hurrying after Leon.
“Holy Mother St. Clare, you got to get that dog to stop,” Leon moaned, trying to keep the dog in sight as he pounded up the cement ramp.
“What do you want me to do?” Nora panted, following him into the garage.
“I’ll try—to head him off—and he’ll run from me. How about—you take the elevator up—and see if you can—come down from the top and catch him?” Leon puffed.
“I’ll give it my best shot,” Nora called, and hurried into the elevator, which was providentially open.
The dog dove around the curve and vanished. There was a screech as an exiting car pulled to a stop. Leon pounded to a halt and let the car pass.
Gritting his teeth, Leon sprinted onwards to find the errant canine. He was not feeling the least bit of sympathy towards that creature at the moment. If I’m lucky, he’ll get run over and that’ll be the end of him, he thought to himself.
III
“Wretched mess,” Fish opined as they waited at the airport.
Bear was inclined to agree. His stomach was in knots.
“Can’t believe this is happening,” he murmured, staring out through the windows at the landscape of the airport terminal, a strange country inhabited by fleets of white planes on one side and miles of ramps and spiral parking garages on the other side. “It’s scarcely the way I’d hoped to see the Briers again. It’s still not real to me.”
“Well, I always told you not to get involved with the Briers, but you wouldn’t listen,” Fish said lightly.
“That’s no
t funny,” Bear said a bit sharply, and groaned.
But when the two familiar figures appeared at the gate, Bear found he could smile, despite the strain as he went up to meet Blanche’s mother and younger sister.
Rose flew to him like a multi-colored bird. “Bear!” she cried.
He embraced her, and she held onto him a little longer than normal. The pause brought his apprehension to the forefront, and he found himself tearing up quickly.
“It’s all right,” Rose said in his ear. “We’ll find her. I just know she’s okay.”
That was like Rose. She had faith. “Thanks,” he said, in a quieter voice than he meant to use.
When he released Rose, he saw that her mother, Jean, was scanning the airport, as though hoping her oldest daughter would appear out of the crowd. He had done the same thing.
“How was your trip?” he asked, taking Jean’s hand.
“Too long. Bear, I’m glad you’re back. We’ve missed you,” she said, hugging him. She was a tall woman with a tanned face, Blanche’s blue eyes, and long brown-and-gray hair pinned back in a long braid. Right now her eyes were cloudy with tension, and she looked older than he remembered. Her eyes fell on Fish, and his brother smiled in greeting.
“Good to see you again, Mrs. Brier—Jean,” he said.
“Thank you, Fish—it’s good to see you too,” she murmured. She didn’t know him as well as she knew Bear, and Bear had always thought she was a bit uncomfortable with him. Then again, his brother was a difficult person to get to know. For everyone, maybe, except for the youngest member of the Brier family.
Rose had brightened right up at the sight of Fish. She had worn her red hair in a silky ponytail, and was sporting a new blue, green, and violet tie-dyed dress worn with a fluttering purple chiffon scarf.
“Fishy!” she said exuberantly, giving him an enthusiastic hug. Fish winced as he accepted the embrace with politeness.
“It’s good to see you again, Rose,” he said, unconsciously straightening his trench coat. Retreating slightly, he said to Bear in a low tone, “‘Fishy?’”
“So—how are we going to find her?” Rose said, folding her arms in a suddenly business-like manner. She looked at the brothers expectantly, and Bear was touched by her confidence in them.