Tourquai Page 8

  “Idiotic!” he growled again, leaving her in the beautiful office.

  The superintendent was so upset by the interview with Emanuelle Cobra that he stormed out of Nova Park, sat in the car, and ate up the spun-sugar chocolate sticks he had intended to save for the afternoon, even before he started the engine. Quickly and aggressively he then drove the short way home, ran up the stairs, and, once inside the apartment, went straight to the refrigerator, where he ate up all there was to eat. Cordelia gave him a friendly chirp from her golden cage, and after a few minutes the superintendent relaxed.

  “Ah,” he growled, “I’m sorry, little one, but I was so upset. I’ll have to have a good day tomorrow instead.”

  Cordelia looked out through the window. Or so it appeared to Larry. It was tricky to know with a budgie.

  “Have I told you my theory?” he asked, sitting down on the couch with a package of alphabet cookies on his lap.

  There was never a risk of being interrupted by a caged bird.

  “We have to hope that this involves a perpetrator who did not find his destiny right there, in Vulture’s office,” Bloodhound said pensively. “Because I always say that chance, Cordelia, chance is like an automatic weapon. Chance is a machine gun that loads the chamber with bullets of fate. Chance doesn’t care about us stuffed animals, at least about us as individuals, because for chance the whole is more important than the component parts. Chance is just and blind. It doesn’t care who’s standing in the way when it shoots.”

  Bloodhound took a “g” and an “h” and put them in his mouth. The cookies were sweet but dry.

  “Chance fires its weapon when it has the desire, Cordelia, and we stuffed animals have no protection against these bullets of fate. There’s nothing we can do to avoid them. That’s the way it goes. If chance was waiting like a sniper up at Nova Park yesterday and hit the murderer with one of his bullets, then this could be . . . a little hell . . .”

  He ate up an “r” and a “k,” and then got up to get a beer.

  “Do you understand what I’m saying?” Bloodhound growled softly. “It’s not so difficult. We’re delivered. It’s our fate. To be delivered. To a certain address, a certain family, and there’s nothing we can do about it. Reincarnation is nonsense. We can talk about the soul another time.”

  He took a swig from the bottle as he was returning to the couch.

  “We’re delivered, Cordelia, and fate puts our lives in motion. Whether we want it or not. There’s nothing we can do about it. The limits are set from the first moment. Do you call that freedom? Or justice? Bullshit. Fate has staked out your life even before life has managed to begin. It’s about how we look. Who we are. Dog or bumblebee. If we’re smart or dumb. What neighborhood we grow up in, and whether we’re rich or poor. What age we live in, and the values of the age. Can our particular kind of talent be used in Mollisan Town at this point in time? It’s about what school we go to, who else is in the same grade, who our parents’ friends are, and what values they have. You get stuck in a social network before you even grasp what that means. Do you understand, Cordelia? There’s not much you can do about it. You become what you become.”

  Superintendent Larry Bloodhound had repeated this monologue—with minor variations—to all the police officers at rue de Cadix over the years.

  He poured the rest of the cookies straight from the carton into his mouth, washing them down with beer.

  “Fate puts you in motion, Cordelia, like a stone rolling down a slope. Cause and effect. It’s about cause and effect. You do something good and get rewarded. You get to know someone who knows someone else who knows a third person who tells a story that you then always carry with you. That marks you. One of your father’s friends that you admired was a policeman, and you become a policeman yourself. A teacher in school pats you on the head because you stayed within the lines the first time you used crayons and you always want to be praised because you did something someone else decided was good. Or else you’re punished. Because you talked too loud, or dressed too carelessly. Logic rules your life. Fate puts it in motion, but then you roll down that slope in a rut that is the most reasonable. It can be predicted. It can be calculated. And that’s what police work is about. We can trace anyone whosoever back in time, back to the time when they were delivered, by seeing how cause and effect have led the criminal, step by step, up to the criminal deed. We think we’re free in this life, Cordelia, but who the hell is free? We live with the conditions that the Deliverymen gave us when they placed us in a certain home at a certain time. No bastard is free. And through careful detective work, we can put away anyone.”

  A long belch gave him an opportunity to catch his breath before he continued.

  “We can put away anyone whosoever, if chance hasn’t loaded its machine gun and put a bullet in the murderer yesterday morning. Because sometimes it happens that stuffed animals are struck by something outside themselves, something they have no control over, something that causes their lives to depart from the course fate set out. And if that happens, everything that led up to that point when the deed is committed becomes irrelevant. Then no police work in the world will help. Then this case with Vulture is going to be a fine mess . . .”

  2.5

  They were in a red, black, and yellow police car. Anna was driving in tense silence. The Afternoon Rain had ended a few minutes earlier and Field Mouse Pedersen refused to give up his attempts to carry on a lighthearted conversation.

  “I know why you didn’t ask Falcon,” Field Mouse chuckled to himself. “In nine cases out of ten you ask your partner. But in the tenth case—you ask me.”

  “Very nice of you to volunteer,” Anna replied, but her tone was neutral and she didn’t look at him.

  “I’m guessing, of course,” Field Mouse corrected himself. “But I think I know. Why you didn’t ask Falcon.”

  Field Mouse Pedersen did not know where they were going or what was expected of him, and his nature was such that he was not one to ask straight out. He was loyal, and he was proud of that. His colleagues should know that they could always count on him.

  “You’re easier to convince,” said Anna.

  They were driving along bright yellow North Avenue. A full-grown lane of willows divided the northbound and southbound traffic, but there weren’t many cars at the moment. The memory of the recently fallen rain had left the avenue in a pleasant fog, and Anna was driving with the lights on.

  “Easier to convince, huh? That sounds ominous.”

  The spiked wall around Les Trois Maggots showed up in front of them to the left, and Anna put on her turn signal.

  “Are we going shopping?” Pedersen commented.

  They turned left and drove up onto the massive asphalt meadow that was the shopping center’s parking lot. Even though it was a late Tuesday afternoon in early June, she couldn’t find a parking place. Finally she parked the police car on the sidewalk outside one of the smaller entrances, turned off the engine, and turned with a serious and worried expression toward Pedersen.

  “Inside here there is someone,” she explained, “that I want you to arrest. Take him out to the car, drive over to the station. There you can let him go.”

  Pedersen looked like a living question mark.

  “Arrest and then release? But . . . has he done anything or not?”

  “He’s done something,” Anna maintained.

  “So why do I let him go?”

  “He hasn’t done anything we can arrest him for.”

  Pedersen stared at her.

  “Now I understand why you didn’t ask Falcon,” he said at last. “Falcon wouldn’t do it, would he?”

  “And you?” she asked, looking him in the eyes. “Can you do it? For my sake? I promise he doesn’t deserve better.”

  Field Mouse Pedersen nodded curtly and opened the car door. Anna did the same. With determined steps they walked beside each other across the sidewalk toward the entrance.

  The theme for Les Trois Maggots was
fertility. The dimensions of the shopping center were enormous, as expected, and along the hundreds of escalators, across the entire glass ceiling, and up along the monumental pillars grapevines and clematis were growing. In built-in planters on the main floor stood rows of oaks, whose magnificent crowns reached all the way up to the fifth-floor level. And everywhere on the floors, rose petals were strewn; Anna had read somewhere that five thousand roses a day went on to the floors in Les Trois Maggots. She didn’t know if that was true.

  “Where is he?” Field Mouse asked.

  “Don’t know.”

  “You’re joking? If we’re going to search at random this is going to take hours.”

  “I know what stores she likes,” said Anna.

  “She?”

  “We’re doing this for her sake. And I promise, she’s worth it. We’ll start with Missonno.”

  Missonno’s flagship boutique was on the second-floor level, across from a restaurant that boasted Yokian specialties in the window. The police giggled at this—nothing good had ever come from Yok. The Missonno boutique was furnished in mauve from floor to ceiling, and behind the registers a waterfall rumbled and foamed. The whole thing was very theatrical.

  Anna saw Cow Hellwig at a distance. She was trying on a knee-length skirt that caused her hips to look unusually wide. Across from Cow sat her husband on a stool, acting as her adviser.

  “That’s him,” said Anna, pointing. “Can you manage it?”

  “Won’t you be along?”

  “Fool,” she said. “I know him.”

  Field Mouse Pedersen pondered this, then shrugged his shoulders. Without further ado he went over to the couple Anna had pointed out, as Anna fled the boutique, positioning herself to watch from inside the Yokian restaurant. It took a few minutes, and then Pedersen came out with Cow’s worse half. He had even succeeded in getting Cow to remain behind in the boutique.

  “You!”

  “Wait, let me say—” said Anna Lynx.

  “Of course it was you,” Cow Hellwig shouted. “But this is crazy!”

  They were standing inside Missonno, shouting at each other, partly to be heard over the waterfall.

  “Cow,” said Anna, “you must come to your senses. I’ve seen what he’s done to you. I’ve heard what he says. That . . . no female can accept.”

  “Anna, I accept it,” said Cow.

  “But think of all the others. Think of all those who, through the years, have been oppressed, set aside, and treated like, well, cattle. If not for your own sake, then do it for the sake of others. For the sake of all females.”

  “Do what?”

  “Leave him. Now. Come along with me. There’s a secure apartment where you can—”

  “Secure apartment?”

  “He’s never going to find you there. You can be safe.”

  Cow stared at her friend. She was furious. At the same time she felt laughter bubbling up in her throat.

  “What have you done with him?” she asked.

  “Nothing,” Anna answered. “Don’t worry about him. The only thing I’ve done is give you a chance. Now.”

  “You’re out of your mind,” said Cow, as the laughter reached up to her eyes. “You’re out of your mind. But there’s something sweet about the whole thing anyway.”

  Anna didn’t know how to interpret this laughter.

  “Cow, I—”

  “Anna, listen now. Don’t ever do this again. Or I’ll report you.”

  “Me? Me? C’mon, I’m not the one who—”

  But Cow Hellwig was on her way out of the shop, and she did not intend to let Lynx stop her.

  Igor Panda 2

  Jake Golden Retriever put out the cigarette and summoned the waiter. He was always impatient after he’d finished his coffee; he hated sitting, waiting for the check. There was something degrading about asking to pay so you could leave the restaurant.

  The outdoor café at Trois Étoiles in Bois de Dalida was in pleasant shade, and the mild breeze nudged the heat away under the artfully suspended sails that served as a roof, which shone in all the colors of the rainbow. Somehow this eccentric appendix fit in with the café’s old-fashioned elegance.

  As usual, the restaurant was packed. Since Chef Pig Laînotre returned to Trois Étoiles last year, it was almost impossible to get a table. No reservations were taken for the outdoor café, however, and Jake had been lucky.

  He waved a bill in the air as the waitress went past, but she didn’t see him. He was used to that. He was a dog who was easy to ignore. He was not one to make a fuss, and his appearance had a tendency to slip past an observer’s awareness. His fur was almost white with streaks of beige, his eyes were brown and imploring. His manner was accommodating and pleasant, and he had learned many years ago to dress discreetly.

  Jake lit a cigarette and made a new attempt to get the waitress to see him.

  Bois de Dalida, the park that came to form the northwest boundary of Tourquai and Mollisan Town toward the great forests, came into existence during the first decade of the twentieth century. In the beginning, the park was no more than a few pen strokes on a map, a simple act of clearing an existing forest; a small gravel path was constructed that enclosed an area of a few square miles. Then a competition was announced. Entries were submitted by the foremost architects of the day. They surpassed one another with lavish oak avenues and dramatic waterfalls, elaborate boxwood labyrinths and romantic water-lily ponds. After a drawn-out, heated jury process, a winner was announced and the work begun.

  When the great depression struck Mollisan Town, the park was almost halfway completed, and the Yokian pavilion was on its way to completion. The winning entry had included four buildings representing the four districts of the city, but the Yokian pavilion was the only one actually erected. With the depression, all activity in the city came to a standstill overnight. The workers refused to return to work because they would not get paid, and the employers were secretly relieved at the interruption of work because they couldn’t pay.

  It would be five years before the Yokian pavilion, with its arched glass veranda, its three towers, and its integrated greenhouse, would be completed. It would take another ten years before the garden in front of the pavilion was put in order, with its delta of small rivers between the ponds and twenty or so artificial islands with equally high but short bridges between them.

  With that, however, the Bois de Dalida was finished; just a little more than half of the original project had been realized. Even today, the northern part of the park consists of wild forest that differentiates itself from the surrounding forests only by the fact that it is located inside the gravel path.

  The Trois Étoiles restaurant opened in the Yokian pavilion during the late fifties. From the very first moment it became a particularly popular destination for the well-to-do in the city, but the cuisine had varied in quality over the years. Pig Laînotre created his reputation as a master chef at Trois Étoiles, and after several years at restaurants in town he finally returned. And with him a large following.

  Jake Retriever put out his cigarette.

  He figured out himself how much he owed and left the money—with a tip—on the saucer under the coffee cup. Then he got up and left the restaurant.

  Golden Retriever chose to take the route across the islands. He was not in a hurry, and he liked the high, small bridges. Out on the walking path he continued northward at a pleasant pace. Even though it was the middle of the week, and the middle of the day, there were many out walking.

  A little more than halfway between the Yokian pavilion and the northernmost point of the gravel path, Jake Golden Retriever unexpectedly climbed over the low hedge and continued into the forest. He did this with a self-assurance that would have convinced any observer that the dog knew exactly what he was doing and thereby even had the right to do so.

  Deviating from the gravel path and wandering in among the trees was not forbidden. Berries and mushrooms grew in the forest; there was a stillness that a
stressed modern animal might well need, and an isolation that couples in love sometimes appreciated.

  But Jake Golden Retriever was no philosopher or berry picker, and he had always lived alone.

  He continued deeper and deeper in among the trees, and after a few minutes the growth thinned out and Jake approached the hill that many in Tourquai called a mountain. Through the hill ran a ravine, which in certain places was only wide enough for one animal at a time to pass, and when Jake had gone halfway he could see Igor Panda standing and waiting at the northernmost end.

  “Finally!” Panda groaned, obviously irritated.

  Jake did not reply.

  “Well, say it, then!” said Panda.

  Panda was aggressive, and he seemed nervous besides. He stamped his foot and had a hard time standing still.

  “Say it!” he repeated.

  “What do you want me to say?” Jake asked, when he was close enough to use a normal conversational tone.

  “Say that you want the money,” said Panda. “Say that you want your share.”

  Jake Golden Retriever’s expression did not reveal what he thought about the contentious Panda.

  “I would gladly take my share of the money,” he said obediently.

  “Never,” Panda replied and laughed. He took a few steps backward, changed his mind, and went up to Golden Retriever again.

  “Never,” he repeated. “You’re only a bungler. An artistic bungler. I know your type. It’s a joke that you should have half.”

  “Without me you have nothing to sell,” Jake Golden Retriever pointed out quietly.

  This caused Igor Panda to explode.

  “Sell?” he screamed. “I’m a prerequisite for you to have anything to sell! Without me your Esperanza-Santiagos would be worthless! However damned cleverly you may make them! Without me you’re not even a forger, you’re only an epigone. Everyone knows that she lets only me sell her things! Everyone knows that, everyone who might conceivably have the means to buy. Without me . . . if you tried to go to any other dealer . . . whoever . . . even the cursed Janzon . . . you wouldn’t have a chance!”