Johnson-Johnson 06 – Dolly and the Nanny Bird by Dorothy Dunnett Page B

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 Lift 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.’
    I potted the rustler in the hotel window. Alexei said, ‘What?’
    Johnson said, ‘What about the bear on the ground over there? Let’s take that fellow next.’
    I potted the stooge through the bar-flaps.
    Donovan fired his last shot and craned, with Hugo, over the counter. He said, ‘I didn’t see any bears on the goddam…’
    I couldn’t help it. My eye followed theirs down to the floor instead of watching my target.
    Alexei, stooping, lifted a bear from the ground. It had a badge on its bosom. I shot, and missed the guy in the water-butt.
    Alexei straightened, holding the bear in both arms like a parcel. With a bang and a flash, the little tin guy in the water-butt shot back with a red light, and missed me.
    He got Alexei, though. Alexei bellowed.
    We all looked at him. There was blood all over his arm, and even more on the bear, which he had dropped on the counter in a blizzard of guaranteed sterilised kapok. Alexei had only been winged. But the Brownbellied Bruin would speak no more; for it had been drilled cleanly through the brown belly.
    We taught those rustlers a lesson. The waterbutt killer had gone. But the next little tin hoodlum got three pellets bang in the stomach and went offstage bent like a hairpin, while Hugo managed to hammer the Wells Fargo hatchetman twice. Then he said, ‘For Chrissakes, what are we doing!’ and flung the rifle down and dashed to where Johnson had already plunged through the scattering crowd, towards the distant form of a man whose black, curly hair I had seen retreating like this once before, just after he’d thrust Benedict into a trash bucket.
    The smoking tin cutouts were guiltless. It was Rudi Klapper, of the Carl Schurz Park, who had shot Alexei, and shot also the one bear which had been hidden from casual custom. Set aside with an M.M.A. badge in its fur to await another M.M.A. badge to claim it. Because recorded inside, of course, was the kidnap message.
    I scooped up the wreck of the bear and took to my heels after Johnson.
    I lost him. I couldn’t see Donovan. A red wooden buggy appeared flying a streamer saying ‘Missy’s Wonderland’ and with three familiar heads crammed into it. I took a flying leap and landed in Donovan’s lap just as it rocketed off at top speed through the Park, with Hugo’s bald head lowered over the wheel. I said, ‘It was Rudi Klapper. Where is he?’ One wheel ran up a tree root and down again.
    Donovan said, ‘Will you take your bloody bear out of… Thanks. He jumped on the Transcontinental Adventure Train.’
    ‘What?’ I said.
    ‘He’s crossed the pond on the train to the parking lot. We have to get round fast, if we’re to catch him,’ said Johnson. ‘
Christ
, watch the…’
    He didn’t bother to finish. Behind us, a twenty-foot cluster of balloons rose in the air, over a blaspheming and recumbent balloon man. An ice cream and pretzel stall rocked and there was a small crunch as we went over a set of low railings. There was a smell of fish, and a sound of squealing and splashing. Hugo turned abruptly left, missing two shining grey shapes lumbering out of a swimming pool, grinning.
    A rubber ring, descending, pinned our Missy flag to its mast, stinking of dolphin. Donovan uncovered his eyes and covered them again as a chain of antique cars approached, full of children. Hugo spun the wheel and the buggy plunged into a garden of sheep, angora rabbits and llamas, which spat before bolting.
    Hugo drove between trees in hysterical lunges. We