In the background were six single-occupancy cages, five of them with doors open and night-covers rolled back. A cover with the embroidered name CHICO stood alone.
“Who’s Chico?” Qwilleran asked. “Is he in the doghouse?”
“Our dear Chico died three years ago,” Thelma said. “We keep his cage as a memorial to a very remarkable bird.”
Qwilleran said, “I must say they’re an engaging crew!” He could imagine how tormented Thelma must have been when they were stolen.
They sat in the wicker chairs with their coffee, and Qwilleran said, “In Friday’s paper you were quoted as saying that Amazons are unusually intelligent and talkative, and that yours hold conversations in English and Portuguese. How do birds, no matter how intelligent, learn human speech?”
“They mimic the people they live with, including babies, cats, dogs, and voices on television,” Thelma said. “Pedro used to live with a professor in Ohio and has a working vocabulary of two hundred words. He also likes to talk politics. That’s Pedro, chewing on a tree branch.”
“Powerful beak,” Qwilleran said. “I wouldn’t want to meet him in a dark alley.”
“He’s called a Blue Front. Others are: Yellow Nape and Red Lore—all are wonderfully colorful when they fan their tails and fluff their nape feathers.”
Qwilleran said, “The one with a white circle around the eye seems especially alert and listening to everything we say.”
“That’s Esmeralda. She lived with a musical family and has a large repertory of patriotic songs, popular tunes, and operatic arias. Unfortunately she doesn’t know anything all the way through. Carlotta can recite the Greek alphabet but only as far as kappa. . . . Navarro does a perfect wolf-whistle. . . . They pick up whatever they hear. . . . The two sitting with beaks together like a couple of gossips are Lolita and Carlotta. They keep looking at your moustache, Qwill—trying to figure out how to steal it. Amazons are very mischievous, you know.”
Qwilleran stood up. “The situation is getting dangerous! In the interests of sartorial safety, I must leave.”
She responded with her soft little laugh—a musical “hmmm hmmm hmmm.”
Then soberly he said as they walked to the door, “Have you ever seen the grave of your father, Thelma?”
“I don’t even know its location!”
“I do. It’s a beautiful site. I’d like to drive you there Sunday afternoon. And we could have dinner at the Boulder House Inn overlooking the lake.”
“Bless you!” she cried.
As he was leaving, he asked casually, “Okay to write a ‘Qwill Pen’ column on the Amazons? If so, I’ll have to come back and take notes.”
He was aware of Janice’s petrified stare, but he concentrated on Thelma’s reaction. She caught her breath and paused slightly before saying, with equal nonchalance, “The cocky little devils have had all the publicity they deserve. Thanks, but no thanks.”
“Too bad,” Qwilleran said, “1 was looking forward to having some dialogue with Pedro on politics.”
“Yes, he has some opinions,” Thelma said, “but they’re not always printable.”
On the way home he pulled off the road and phoned Bushy, leaving a message on his answering device: “Go ahead and invite Janice for a boat ride. I’m taking Thelma sightseeing Sunday afternoon.”
It was not long before Thelma called the barn:
“Qwill, that photographer who took pictures of the parrots has invited Janice for a boat ride Sunday, with a picnic lunch on an island. The reporter who was here and her husband are invited, too. I’d like Janice to meet some people of her own age, but I’m wondering if it’s entirely—safe.”
Was she worried about a seaworthy craft? A competent pilot? Decent weather? Or what?
He said, “John Bushland comes from a long line of lake navigators and grew up at the pilot wheel. And Jill Handley’s husband owns the health food store downtown, so you know the lunch will be safe, too.”
That evening, when Qwilleran and Polly had their usual phone-chat, he said, “Would you mind if I took another woman to dinner on Sunday?” He waited for her to splutter a question and then explained. “Thelma has never seen her father’s grave at Hilltop Cemetery and I thought it would be a kind gesture if I took her there and then to the Boulder House for Sunday dinner.”
“Why Boulder House?” she asked more or less curtly.
“It’s picturesque and historic.” Actually, he saw it as a chance to tease the potato chip heiress.
Toward the end of the evening, when it was still too early for lights-out, he sprawled in his lounge chair with his feet on the ottoman and thought about the next “Qwill Pen” column—and the next—and the next. A columnist’s job, he liked to say, is 95 percent “think” and 5 percent “ink.” Koko was staring at him. One could never tell whether he was beaming a message about food or a lofty idea for the “Qwill Pen.” Qwilleran agreed with Christopher Smart, the poet who maintained that staring at one’s cat will fertilize the mind.
What transpired on this occasion may have been the cat’s idea or his own; no one was keeping score. The fact was that Qwilleran’s mind drifted to Tony, the Bixby tomcat . . . and the two vans . . . and the large boxes thought to contain stolen TV sets. . . . Could they have been parrot cages, shrouded with custom-tailored night covers? If so, the person who drove away from the scene fast could have been Dick, the hero of the abduction incident. In that case, it was Dick who killed the kidnapper. And if so, did he recover the ransom from the dead man’s possession?
But then he thought: The rescuer of the parrots could have been a go-between, an unscrupulous lout, paid for his services. That being the case, did the go-between pocket the ransom after delivering the birds and killing the poor clod behind the steering wheel? How many of the devils collaborated on the plot?
And then he thought: Was Dick one of the collaborators?
The idea was abhorrent, although—as Shakespeare observed—one can smile and smile and be a villain.
“Yow!” was Koko’s strident announcement. After all, it was five minutes after the time for their bedtime snack.
The days that followed were unusually busy for Qwilleran, and there was no time for frivolous conjectures about the kidnapping. Indeed, he had to admit that the large, square objects mentioned in the Bixby Bugle might have been stolen television sets, as the police said.
12
When Qwilleran handed in his copy for Friday’s paper, Junior scanned it and said, “We’d better alert the bank to get some hundred-dollar bills out of the vault. People around here think that nothing over a twenty is negotiable.”
Qwilleran commented, “That was a nice piece on the Kit Kat Agenda in yesterday’s paper.”
“Yeah, Mavis Adams makes a good interview. She has all the facts, and she’s articulate. She’s an attorney, you know, although she doesn’t look like one.”
“What is a woman attorney supposed to look like, Junior? After all, you don’t look like a managing editor.”
Ignoring the barb, Junior said, “Wait till you see the big ad on page five—”
He was interrupted by the breezy arrival of Hixie Rice. “Hi, you guys! What’s new and exciting?”
“Old proverbs,” Qwilleran replied. “Just to test your cultural literacy, see if you can finish this one. Three comforts of old age are . . .”
Neither she nor the managing editor could fill in the blanks.
“I’m ending my column with a quiz. Readers will be given the three or four opening words of several proverbs. If they can’t complete them, the answers will be in my Tuesday column.”
“So what are the three comforts of old age?” they wanted to know.
“You’ll have to wait until Tuesday.”
Hixie objected. “That’s too long a wait. Readers will lose interest. I have a better idea. Bury the answers in today’s paper—in the want ads, real estate listings, or wherever.”
Junior, always under Hixie’s spell, seconded the mo
tion, and Qwilleran was outvoted. Reluctantly he handed over the answers, and Junior rushed them off to the production department.
Qwilleran asked Hixie, “And how are the plans progressing for the Sesquicentennial?”
With her usual enthusiasm she said, “The committee has tons of ideas! And we have a whole year to work on it! It’s going to be the biggest little Sesquicentennial in North America!”
“More power to you!” he said.
Qwilleran’s next chore was to take Polly’s long shopping list to Toodle’s Market, and in the paper goods aisle his loaded cart collided with that of a Pleasant Street resident. “Sorry,” he said. “I have insurance, in case I’ve broken your eggs, or curdled your coffee cream.”
It was Jeffa, the new wife of Whannell MacWhannell. “Qwill! Isn’t that a large load of groceries for a bachelor and two cats?”
“They’re Polly’s,” he explained. “I do her shopping while she’s at work, and then I get invited to dinner.”
“Smooth! I never had an arrangement like that when I was in the workplace. . . . By the way, that was an excellent feature on the Kit Kat Agenda in your paper.”
“Are you involved?”
“Mac has okayed a kitten colony as long as they have their own room and don’t run all over the house getting in his shoes and pants legs. There’s a meeting Tuesday night to plan the Kit Kat Revue. I hope you’ll be there.”
When Qwilleran returned to the barn, Yum Yum greeted him with affectionate ankle-rubbing, but Koko was sitting stiffly and defiantly on one of the bookshelves.
Qwilleran thought, That rascal! He’s knocked it down again, just to be funny.
The book on the floor was not Poor Richard’s Almanac but another old book from the late Eddington Smith’s store: a historical novel by Winston Churchill. And that raised a question:
Eddington had named his cat Winston Churchill—a dignified gray longhair with plumed tail and an impressive intellect. The bookseller attributed the latter to the cat’s literary environment. Now it occurred to Qwilleran that Winston had been named for an American author—not a British statesman! The book on the floor was a historical novel about the American Revolution published in the late nineteenth century. Titled Richard Carvel, it was by the most popular author of historical novels of his time.
At two o’clock, Qwilleran walked down the lane to pick up his newspaper. Eager to read the ad on page five, he sat on the bench at the front door of the Art Center.
The ad announced the opening of Thelma’s Film Club in the old opera house featuring old movies from the Golden Age of Hollywood . . . for members only . . . cabaret style. Beer and wine at the evening show and a full bar at the late-night show. There was a phone number to call for further information. It was a Lockmaster exchange.
As Qwilleran was marshaling the questions he wanted to ask, the front door of the Art Center was flung open, and Thornton Haggis shouted, “Hey, Qwill! What kind of tricks are you playing on your long-suffering readers?” He was waving a copy of the Something. “I’ve been through this whole paper, line by line, and I can’t find a single reference for your readers about old sayings!”
“Oh-oh! Let me use your phone,” Qwilleran said.
In the office he got Junior on the phone. “What happened!”
The managing editor groaned. “It was all set up for the business page! And it disappeared! Don’t ask me how. Our phone has been ringing nonstop. Hixie’s doing a recorded message: If you wish the answers to the ‘Qwill Pen’ quiz, please press one. Then the nine sayings are read. . . . There’s always something, isn’t there, Qwill?”
Another of Hixie’s ideas had gone awry. Qwilleran began to fear for the Sesquicentennial.
When he arrived at the barn, Qwilleran phoned the Moose County Something and “pressed one” as instructed. A voice said, “We apologize for the computer error that omitted the answers to the proverb quiz in the ‘Qwill Pen’ column. The correct answers are . . .”
Three comforts of old age are an old wife, an old dog, and ready money.
A cat in gloves catches no mice.
An empty bag can never stand upright.
Eat to live and not live to eat.
A used key is always bright.
He that lives on hope dies of starvation.
There never was a good war or a bad peace.
Blame-all and praise-all are two blockheads.
Keep your eyes wide open before marriage and half shut afterward.
When Qwilleran arrived at Polly’s condo for dinner, he used his own key to let himself in and was met by Brutus with a challenging stare.
He said to the cat, “Do you want to see my driver’s license or Social Security card? Or will my press card do?”
“Come in! Come in!” Polly called from the kitchen, “and tell me what went wrong at the Something today? The library was swamped with calls!”
“What did they want?”
“The answers to your quiz—that should have been in the paper and weren’t. We looked up the sayings in Bartlett, and the clerks have been reading them off to callers.”
He said, “You always have everything under control, Polly. Shall we have dinner on the deck? The temperature is perfect; there’s no wind.”
“Any bugs?”
“Too early.”
The first course was a grapefruit compote with blueberries and he said, “I don’t remember any grapefruit on your shopping list today.”
“Wait till you hear the story! . . . One of our volunteers received a shipment of grapefruit from an orchard in Florida—with birthday greetings from someone called Miranda. She doesn’t know anyone by that name, and her birthday is in November. She phoned the orchard. They didn’t seem concerned—just blamed computer error and told her to enjoy them. . . . Well, she’s a widow, living alone, so she brought them to the library.”
“It seems to me,” Qwilleran said, “that the computers make more errors than humans ever did.”
“And human errors seemed more understandable and forgivable.”
“I must say it’s the best grapefruit I ever tasted. Welcome to the Brave New World of Computer Errors.”
The main course was a casserole combining several recent leftovers, and Qwilleran congratulated her on creating a flavor hitherto unknown to the human palate, even though it looked like a dog dinner. “It beggars description,” he said. “I hope there are seconds.” They consumed it in a silence of rapture or stoicism.
“And now are you ready for the salad, dear?”
“As ready as I’ll ever be!”
Talking to take his mind off the spinach, endive, kale, and arugula, he asked, “Did you see the ad for Thelma’s Film Club? I phoned the number and got a recorded message, of course. Memberships are fifty dollars for the evening show; a hundred for the late-night show—good for a year. Admission tickets are five dollars. Members may buy tickets for guests. The speaker identified himself as Dick Thackeray, manager, but he added that Thelma Thackeray will host the evening shows.”
Polly wondered if the idea would go over in Moose County.
“It’ll draw from Lockmaster and Bixby Counties chiefly, I’d guess. But there’s no doubt it will benefit Pickax restaurants.”
Dessert was frozen yogurt with a choice of three toppings. Qwilleran had all three.
“Any news in your exciting life, Qwill?”
He had to consider awhile. “Yum Yum threw up her breakfast. . . . Koko staged a three-alarm yowling fit to let me know one of the faucets was dripping. . . .”
“How were Thelma’s waffles?”
“Good, but rich. You wouldn’t have approved. . . . The parrots were amusing and strikingly beautiful.”
“What was Thelma wearing?”
“A long yellow garment and two armfuls of bracelets—just gold hoops as thin as wire, but lots of them.”
“They’re called bangle bracelets,” Polly said. “Incidentally, I ran into Fran Brodie at the hair salon today, and she said tha
t Thelma has decided jeweled pins and necklaces and bracelets are too flashy for Moose County. She’s put them in her bank vault. She’ll just wear her tiny diamond ear-studs and diamond-studded sunglasses and bangle bracelets.”
Qwilleran huffed into his moustache and wondered, Are they in her bank vault? . . . or on the way to California with the kidnappers?
He was thinking of his theory—that the ransom demand had been for jewels, not cash. Did the kidnappers follow her here from California? Did she give them everything except diamond ear-studs and bangle bracelets? What jewelry would she wear to visit Pop’s grave and have dinner at the Boulder House Inn?
He helped Polly remove the dinner appurtenances from the deck, and then they made plans for the following evening: Dinner at Tipsy’s Tavern and then an opera on stereo at home. Polly suggested La Traviata.
“Are you going to Homer’s birthday celebration in the morning, Qwill?”
“Just as an observer,” he said.
Qwilleran described the birthday celebration in his personal journal.
Saturday, April 19—The lobby of the Ittibittiwassee Estates was trimmed with colorful balloons and crowded with city and county officials, local and state media, and Derek Cuttlebrink with his guitar. Residents were restrained behind roping. Everyone was facing the elevator door.
When it opened, out rolled Homer in a wheelchair pushed by his young wife. He was wearing a gold paper crown tilted at a rakish angle. One could tell by the expression on his furrowed face that neither the crown nor the cameras nor the balloons were his own idea. Sorry, Homer; when you become a civic treasure, you give up certain individual rights. When the prolonged applause began to subside, Derek strummed a few chords and sang in a nasal voice to the tune of George M. Cohan’s “You’re a Grand Old Flag”:
He’s a grand old guy with a spark in his eye
Cat Who Brought Down the House, the Unabridged Audio Page 10
