Page 165 - Labelle Gramercy, Detective

Slow Burn

“Great.”
“He had read about the dogs used by Customs to sniff out
contraband at airports. He realized that the canine sense of smell was
too acute not to detect the tiniest residue of cocaine on a well-sealed
hiding place. The solution, therefore, was not to try to fool the dog,
but to attract it to something its handlers would dismiss as a false
scent. Since the dogs were trained to respond only to the odors of
illicit substances, Quantrill saw that the only alternative was a smell
the dog was already attracted to instinctively. He accordingly arranged
for a dog to be sent by air from San Caridad to the United States in a
cage; the animal was a female about to come into estrous, and the
cage bars were filled with cocaine. As predicted, the government dog
went crazy and had to be pulled away from the cage. After the
quarantine period, Quantrill collected the animal and, we must
assume, his profits.”
“Cripes! That was nasty: a bitch in heat! Uh, sorry.”
Labelle merely shrugged; most minor manifestations of sexism
didn’t raise her hackles. I’m sure she could have written me up a
dozen times for the stupid things I said. Maybe she thought so little
of me that I couldn’t be a source of insult.
“Too clever by half. He and his associates in San Caridad tried the
same trick again two months later—at the same airport. Anyway,
Quantrill kicked the habit in prison. After drifting around the States
for a while, he settled down here and hasn’t caused any problems. He
does have a business license, renewed once already. Ah, there it is,
Duncan. And a space right behind his car.”
I was about to ask how she knew, but remembered the DMV
printout she had taken along. It was a nondescript Honda Civic, early
eighties model, grey, two-door. I parked, and Labelle hopped out and
gave the Civic the once-over. I was itching to take it apart, vacuum
the carpets, pull out the seats, analyze the mud in the tire wells. But
we had no search warrant. Yet.
So we went into the building, a seedy old apartment house reeking
of mildew and onions. Labelle knocked on the door of number 2-C.
It opened after a minute, revealing an untidy bedroom doubling as an
office.
“Quantrill Carbone?”

164