Authors: Tim Davys
The whole procedure took no more than a minute.
Bloodhound sat on the couch, leaned his head back, and closed his eyes. He collected himself while the cocaine raced around in his system like runaway helium balloons in a clear blue sky. Cordelia sang. She had never sung so beautifully, he thought. Then he remembered that he’d had that thought before.
T
he gates slowly parted and Igor Panda put the car gently in gear. His wide, new Volga Deluxe purred like a mature cat under the hood, and Igor enjoyed the feel of the car’s power through the clutch and gears. The black finish glistened in the sun, and the tinted black glass he ordered for all the windows gave the car an ominous appearance. Now he carefully maneuvered between the gate posts. He had never been here before, but the dozen or so mansions down by Swarwick Park all looked the same, a long driveway ending in a yard that some landscape architect had planned down to the smallest detail.
Panda whistled as he came over a small rise and saw where he was heading. The white house with columns and balconies outdid the others in ostentation.
The Morning Weather had just swept in over the city, the sun was shining from a clear blue sky, and the Volga’s wide tires crunched along the gravel drive. In the middle of the yard a fountain had been set up, a rearing bronze horse that sprayed water from its ears.
Igor Panda was dressed like a gangster, in a narrow, double-breasted striped suit, shiny shoes, and big, black sunglasses. He had on a white shirt and black tie. For a moment he considered retrieving the package from the trunk but decided to leave it.
The old lady would have to show the money first.
He got out of the car and walked up toward the house. Just before he got there, the outside door opened and a zebra looked out. The animal had red and green stripes, and Igor Panda knew it was the buyer herself who stood in the doorway, Zebra von den Schenken-Hanken.
“Do you have it with you?” she asked before Panda was even across the threshold.
He did not answer but instead entered von den Schenken-Hanken’s hallway with dignity. There was a shining marble floor, tall white plaster statues on pedestals in the background, and behind them rectangular, barred windows facing the courtyard.
“Do you?” asked the zebra.
“Do you have the money, do you?” asked Igor Panda, childishly imitating the zebra’s tone of voice.
Von den Schenken-Hanken stared at the panda in surprise and nodded.
“I have the money,” she answered awkwardly.
“Show me.”
“Now? But I don’t usually—” she started.
“We’ve never done business together before,” said Panda brusquely. “And Esperanza-Santiago is not like other artists.”
“No, no, I just . . .” said the zebra without finishing the sentence.
She was an elderly stuffed animal with threadbare cloth around her nose. Panda didn’t care about that.
“Come along into the dining room,” she said, leading the way.
On the dining room table, a piece of furniture worthy of a knight’s hall, was a brand-new, black attaché case, exactly as Igor Panda had instructed.
“Two and a half million,” said the zebra as she opened the case’s combination lock.
“And another half million after delivery,” said Panda.
“What?”
The good-natured zebra seriously believed she had heard wrong. They had already agreed on the price. Two and a half million. Zebra von den Schenken-Hanken had never paid that much for a painting, although she had been collecting art most of her adult life.
“The price has recently gone up on Esperanza-Santiago’s smaller oils,” Panda explained.
“But—but—didn’t we have an agreement?”
“The market rules,” said Igor Panda indifferently. “It’s not something either of us can do anything about.”
Dismayed, the little zebra sat down on one of the dining room chairs and threw out her hooves.
“But,” she repeated, “didn’t we have an agreement?”
Panda looked coldly at the colorful zebra and shrugged his shoulders.
“Then I think we have nothing more to say to each other.”
He turned around and started to leave.
This was not the first time he had played this scene. Based on what the collector seemed able to pay, he often raised the price at the last moment. When a passionate art lover was so close to getting something as valuable as a genuine Hummingbird Esperanza-Santiago, they seldom backed out. Judging by von den Schenken-Hanken’s house, it ought to be possible to squeeze out another half million.
But when she didn’t call him back, even though he was almost to the hallway, he started to doubt. Perhaps he’d overdone it?
Well, there were others to turn to.
“Mr. Panda, wait, Mr. Panda! I was just so . . . surprised.”
Igor took a few more ominous steps before he stopped. Slowly he turned around, hesitantly coming back toward the dining room.
“I don’t need the additional payment before . . . the day after tomorrow,” he said thoughtfully.
“No. I mean, yes, that sounds . . . okay,” said Zebra von den Schenken-Hanken. “And you have the painting with you?”
“I’ll get it if we’re agreed on the extra half million,” he said.
Zebra nodded. In her eyes there was the desire that Panda often saw in these rich animals, a kind of veiled glow, a mixture of self-satisfaction and emptiness.
“So we’re in agreement?” Igor repeated. “Half a million, the day after tomorrow? I’ll pick up the money here the same way as today, and at the same time?”
“If it has to be that way,” the zebra conceded. “Would you be so kind as to get the painting now?”
Igor turned and with rapid steps went out to the car.
Fifteen minutes later Igor
Panda left von den Schenken-Hanken’s stately property in Swarwick Park. The sun was still shining, and now it was easy for him to appreciate it. The attaché case with the money was on the seat beside him, ten years’ salary for an ordinary working animal in Mollisan Town, and when Panda reached South Avenue he pressed the gas pedal to the floor. The black car accelerated, and the panda was pushed back into the seat.
He could not hold back a wry smile.
Of all the artists currently active in the city, none could compare with Hummingbird Esperanza-Santiago. It was not obvious that Esperanza-Santiago was superior to her colleagues in genius, feeling, and technique—but the price of her paintings was sky-high above everyone else. The reason was that she hardly painted anymore. While building up her reputation and gaining recognition, she had produced up to four or five canvases per year. Then self-criticism put a stop to her creative flow. Nowadays Igor Panda had to be happy if Esperanza-Santiago completed even a single painting a year. And, he asserted, neither she nor he could live like that.
Igor sneaked a glance at the attaché case.
He smiled again.
“I don’t give a damn how you live,” he said out loud. “It worked out for me anyway.”
A little farther on he caught sight of a police car and reduced his speed.
A
nna Lynx woke up with a pounding headache. She didn’t open her eyes, she didn’t budge. Red wine. She could feel the taste of it on her tongue, and she realized that was why it felt like a tiny chimpanzee had crawled in through her ear and was now hammering right against her temple. Cow Hellwig. Anna squinted carefully, as she slowly twisted her head. The bedroom was still blessedly dark, and there, beside her in the bed, was her friend Cow Hellwig, sleeping.
Her anger returned. Cow must not return home. Must not be allowed to return home! Then Anna felt the impotence come creeping back. She was a police officer. But she could do nothing. She had spent half the night trying to get Cow to agree to divorce her husband. The very thought that she would go back to that . . . Anna didn’t even want to think his name. No, it was not abuse. But it was everything but. The position of females in Mollisan Town had not changed in the last hundred years, she thought. Not really. Even if the oppression had become more sophisticated.
There was a knock at the bedroom door. Hard, angry knocks.
Anna Lynx got up out of bed.
“Coming!”
“Mama, we’ve overslept!” Todd howled.
He stormed into the room, ignoring the stench of red wine and the sleeping cow on the bed. He was her crocodile cub, her darling, her green cuddle toy. Todd’s dad was another story. Being a single mother was Anna’s own decision, and she had never regretted it.
“We’re going to be late,” Todd cried.
“C’mon, no, it—”
“
Again
,” he whined. “We’re going to be late
again
.”
Anna staggered over to the bedroom window and pulled up the shade. Outside it was already starting to get cloudy.
“Have you brushed your teeth?”
“No.”
“Off you go and do that,” she ordered. “Now!”
Todd left the bedroom in tears, just as the cow woke up.
“What’s going on? Oy. My head.”
Anna ran around the bed, looking for her clothes. She found her slacks and tried to jump into them while shaking the rolled-up bedspread to see if her blouse was inside.
“Simon!” Cow Hellwig exclaimed. “Lord Magnus, he must be beside himself. I’ve been away all night.”
“Don’t call him,” said Anna Lynx, just as she discovered her blouse under the nightstand.
“You’re out of your mind. Of course I have to call. Immediately.”
“Don’t call him. He’s completely—”
“I’m hungry!” Todd called, again standing in the bedroom, tooth-brushing finished. “I won’t get any food. You won’t have time to make breakfast!”
“I’ll have time!” Anna shouted, to drown out the cub’s crying.
A moment later Cow Hellwig lifted the telephone receiver on the nightstand. Anna threw herself to the floor and yanked the phone jack from the wall.
It was then that she thought of it. In the midst of this chaos she was struck by an insight. Since yesterday the thought had been gliding around in the unfathomable passages of her brain, and now it let itself be put into words. It was a particularly poorly chosen occasion. The cow was yelling, Todd was crying, and she was lying half-dressed on the floor, with a hangover, and with a telephone cord in her paw.
The tipster.
If Vulture was still in possession of his head when Oleg Earwig left the office, and if Falcon and Bloodhound arrived half an hour later, how and when had the tipster been able to phone in the tip? If the tipster was not the secretary herself, then it must have been the murderer. Who else could have known? But why would the murderer alert the police?
“What are you doing?” shrieked Cow.
“I want porridge!” shrieked Todd.
“Anna, now you’re being childish. Plug in the phone.”
“C’mon, we were in agreement,” Anna shouted. “Your husband is a dictator. A repressor. A fascist pimp.”
“Fascist pimp?” Cow repeated and could not keep from giggling. “You’re out of your mind, Anna.”
“You can stay here, until you find something else.”
Todd increased the volume a few notches, and it became impossible to drown him out. Anna took the phone with her under her arm and scooted the cub out to the kitchen to make breakfast.
But Todd continued to be willful. He didn’t want to wear his blue shirt and he wept large tears when there was no more of his papaya-and-mango-flavored cereal. Anna fought on. Cow came into the kitchen about the same time as Anna capitulated, ironed a yellow shirt instead, and let Todd have chocolate milk, even though it was against her principles. It was impossible to talk about equality and patriarchal structures at this time. To get Todd’s jacket on, Anna had to promise to take him to Circus Balthazar. There were posters up all over the city, and she had said no for a whole week.
“Stay here awhile, girlfriend,” Anna called to Cow from out in the hall. “You can crash with us as long as you want, no problemo.”
“Anna, my friend,” Cow called back, “I’ll call you this evening.”
Of course it would be possible to find out exactly when the tipster called, Anna thought, seriously late, as she ran with her crocodile cub in paw down the stairs to the entryway. All incoming calls were logged.
Despite a dubious parking location yesterday evening she hadn’t got a ticket, and, relieved, she pressed Todd into the backseat. On the way to the day care she called Charlie at the Technical Department at rue de Cadix. He was the best at tracing ones and zeros through copper and fiber cables. She gave him the approximate time. She theorized that the same subscriber called twice on Bloodhound’s extension and once on Falcon’s. She wasn’t sure of that, but that was what Falcon had told her. With such a tight target range it was easier to get results. She knew how they worked. First the district was established, then the block was narrowed down, and finally, possibly, the specific telephone could be determined. If it were possible to uncover someone’s direct line at Nova Park, the inspectors’ work would be considerably simpler. Anna was certain that the tipster was at the office. Anything else seemed impossible, considering the tight time frame.
Charlie promised to get back to her as soon as he had something.
With screeching tires a few minutes later Anna stopped outside Todd’s day care. The rain was already falling from the dark sky, and she would be forced to run across the street into the entry with Todd in her arms. The teachers abhorred wet cubs in the morning, but what could she do? It was not the first time she had brought him late, and it wouldn’t be the last.