WINSTON MACALLISTER
Mate. Is that gunpowder? Fifties, weathered, friendly, and never wrong about fireworks, because Lucy is sitting right there.
Winston Macallister has worked the arrivals hall in Sydney for longer than most of the airlines have flown there, and he has the tan and the stubble to show for it. He is friendly. He is genuinely friendly, hands on hips, head tilted, the half-smile of a man who already knows the answer to the question he is about to ask. "Mate. Is that gunpowder?"
It usually is. Sydney bans fireworks outright and takes it seriously, Sydney's line is as strict as Dubai's, and Macallister's own subject is fireworks, which every second traveler from London or Paris has a box of. He does not need to search for them. He has Lucy.
Lucy is the beagle at his feet. She is not his dog, exactly; she is the sniffer dog and he works the desk, but they have been a pair for years and neither pretends otherwise. When Lucy sits down next to a bag, Macallister stops smiling, which is the only time he does. There is no bluffing past that.
He will still hear an offer afterwards. Sydney's odds on that are not good, and he will let you find out for yourself.