Part 9 (1/2)
”I just wanted a glide around the Big s.p.a.ce.”
”Who can blame you? I myself have a yen for the open road.”
”What is a road?”
”A . . Big s.p.a.ce, only low, flat and narrow.”
”That does not make sense.” He wrinkles the down on his pale forehead.
I notice he has a yap on him that is h.o.r.n.y and curved like a lobster claw. One would not wish to be this guy's chew toy. And the claws on his unnatural two feet look pretty ragged too. Though he is small, he is no pushover.
”What is your name?” Louise is asking, grimacing to show her sharp front teeth.
He hides his head under his navy-blue vest again. ”Blues Brother, tweetheart, and I do not want to hear any t.i.tters about that. My owner is a big film fan.”
”So how did you get out here in the Big s.p.a.ce, BB?” she asks.
”Broke out. Thought I'd tool around the neighborhood. Only it is bigger than I thought, and I can't find a thing to eat except some crumbs the people leave. Also it is hard ducking below that bright, glowing ceiling.”
”So how did you end up on an upper floor of the Goliath in the first place?” I ask. The seasoned operative likes to start at the beginning.
”I was imported.”
”Obviously,” Miss Louise notes. ”Your kind of bird is not native to the US. You are an exotic pet.”
BB fluffs his feathers modestly. ”I like to think so too. It is the usual story: raised in captivity, sold to the first bidder, caged and asked to do stupid pet tricks, not even on Letterman, which might be worth it.”
”No mystery why you flew the coop, but I still would like to know why the Goliath? Why not take a spin around the home neighborhood?”
”And why this floor,” Louise puts in, getting my drift at last.
He c.o.c.ks his small, cagy head. For such a little thing he is a pretty good stool pigeon. ”I thought everybody knew. Floor twenty is reserved for pet owners, and therefore pets. The place is crawling with cats, dogs, iguanas, and exotic birds.”
”So how long have you been freewheeling?” I ask casually.
”Couple of days, as far as I can tell by the unnatural light in this place. I haven't seen an outside window since I took off.”
Louise and I exchange glances that play the same unspoken melody, ”Blue Bird of Happiness.”
”Where were you when the dame took a dive?”
”Minding my own business,” BB says indignantly. ”Sleeping on the twenty-fourth-floor railing.”
”So you did not see a thing,” Louise finishes sourly. ”I did not say that. I heard something.”
My ears perk up. This is the perfect witness of the animal sort. It can hear and talk. If Dr. Dolittle talked to the animals, _this bird listens to the humans.
Miss Louise cannot wait to finesse a confession from the blue bird. ”What did you hear?”
”Someone chattering away near the circular perch.”
”You mean this railing we are all hanging onto with our best s.h.i.+vs?”
He gives me the half-shut eye. ”I can sleep up here. What is your problem?”
I try not to teeter, but it is difficult. ”What floor were they on?”
”The free air has no number.”
Oh, Mother Macaw! The fellow has a New Age streak.
”The ascending cages have numbers written above them on every level,” I point out. ”Surely you can read numbers. Or maybe you cannot.”
”Hey! I know my numbers. My ABCs too.” By now his tiny wings are flapping and rustling up quite the breeze. ”It was floor twenty and four.”
I swallow a grin. Some types would send their own mothers up the Amazon to cages in Kalamazoo just to prove they knew what they were talking about.
”Which door?” I press.
”They are all alike.”
”No, they are not. They have numbers too, but no doubt your eyes are not good enough to read them at such a distance.”
”My eyes are as good as my ABCs.” Feathers much ruffled, he takes off from the ”perch,” leaving Louise and me clinging for dear life with no witness to interrogate.
”You did it,” she charges with a snarl. ”You annoyed one of the few species of talking birds into shutting up. This must be a record even for you.”
Before I can talk myself into defending myself, I note that our source has landed.
On the ”perch” in front of the door to room 2488.
Louise and I bound down to the carpeted hall in sync and hasten around the endless circling hall to the elevators. Once again I bound up to call an ”Up” car. (You notice that it is the senior partner of the firm who has to do all the repet.i.tive bounding to call an elevator.) It is empty and we dash in before the doors decide to do any truncating of our fifth (in my case, sixth) member.
Again I leap up, even higher this time, almost elbow-height on the Mystifying Max by my reckoning, to punch the b.u.t.ton to the twenty-fourth floor. At least the b.u.t.tons respond to punching which does not require that pesky opposable thumb common to monkeys and other higher forms of lowlife to operate.
Finally we race down the hall to vault up beside Blues Brother, who has puffed up his chest feathers in a futile attempt at approximating pecs and hair.
Down we look . . . 0000h, a long, long way. We spot the tiny yellow-and-black signage of crime-scene tape, sittinglike a bee on the huge, elaborate flower of pulsing neon below.
”Think the cops have figured this out yet?” Miss Louise asks me.
I shrug, a mistake. I almost lose it. My balance. I decide to fall backward onto the hall carpet and throw another question up at Blues Brother.
”You said you heard something before you saw the dame fall. What was it you heard?”
”Something odd.”