Tourquai by Tim Davys Read Free Book Online Page B

matter of meeting his future clients’ expectations. If you went to a private detective to get help, you didn’t want to find a security guard in a homemade uniform. While Mouse was waiting, he took the opportunity to exchange a few words with the animals from GL who were standing at the bar. Mouse knew everyone.
    Larry looked out the window. The light brown street was empty. The sky was still blue, but the sun was on its way down. He suddenly felt that he missed Cordelia, the budgie waiting for him in her large, gilded cage. One more, he decided, then he would go home.
    “And you?” he asked when Philip returned. “Are you getting anywhere?”
    “Not yet,” Philip replied, unconsciously lowering his voice.
    “Got stuck?”
    “The walrus is still paying,” said Mouse, shrugging his shoulders. “I’ve been at it long enough to know that success is only about the bank balance.”
    “How was it, you were supposed to get hold of some joker who . . . ?”
    “I’m not going to find him,” Mouse maintained. “But my very well-known client, unfortunately I can’t utter his name, still believes in me. And so I’m going to send the next invoice, too.”
    They drank in silence.
    “I was thinking of making it an early one this evening,” said Larry.
    “Me, too,” Philip agreed. “Daisy gets furious otherwise.”
    Daisy Hippopotamus was Philip’s patient assistant, his secretary, and partner in one. The reason that she put up with inconvenient work hours, a fluctuating monthly salary, and not always pleasant treatment was a mystery.
    “By the way, did you hear that Surayid, that pile of shit, was arrested tonight?” said Larry, changing the subject.
    Philip nodded.
    “Caught red-handed, if I understand correctly?”
    “With his claws in the jelly jar. In front of witnesses. A fool.”
    “A pro disguised as an amateur?”
    “So chock-full of shit and pills, it was a marvel he could even move.”
    “What the hell . . .”
    “They should have brought him in months ago.”
    “There’s no prosecutor in Mollisan Town who would—”
    “I know, I know,” Larry growled. “That’s just shit. They tiptoe around a hundred rotten stuffed animals up here in Tourquai that they really ought to just pound the shit out of—”
    “Maybe not a hundred ,” Philip objected.
    “Up yours!” Larry barked. “At least a hundred! And instead of picking them up and driving them right out to King’s Cross, they set traps for them. Gather evidence. It’s pathetic.”
    “I know you think that,” said Philip diplomatically.
    “What the hell,” Larry repeated.
    He raised the mug and emptied it. Set it down on the table with a thud and got up. Took his jacket, used it to dry his mouth before he put it on, and raised his paw in farewell.
    “Now I’m leaving,” he said. “Otherwise I’ll stay too long.”
    The superintendent left Chez Jacques well before the Evening Storm and decided to walk home. He didn’t live very far away, on licorice black Impasse Laisse. He knew he shouldn’t, but couldn’t restrain himself, and urinated against the entryway to the abandoned building on turquoise rue de Gobelins. If a patrol car came past, they would stop him. But maybe, thought Larry, it was no catastrophe anyway. Maybe pissing on the sidewalk was just what his colleagues expected of him?
    “Yoohoo, I’m home!” he called as he stepped inside the door.
    It was ridiculous. Cordelia was a budgie who could neither talk nor think. Although she ate, slept, and sang for him, she was not a stuffed animal; she used her wings to fly. She shared his solitude and his anxiety, and she was his best friend. That was without a doubt worth a few friendly words.
    The superintendent wriggled out of his jacket, which fell down on the pile of old mail and foul-smelling shoes and socks, and with a few long strides he was in the living room and up at her golden cage. On her perch sat the very small, green bird. She was chirping