We’ll Always Have Parrots

Chapter 39

I was looking around for Steele, or someone else to watch the booth, when I felt someone tugging at my elbow.

“Excuse me?”

I turned to see the pudgy figure of the producer who’d been talking to Steele about doing the armor and weapons for his movie.

“Alaric’s stepped away for a few minutes,” I said. “Can I—”

“Yes, I know,” the man said, looking around furtively. “That’s why I came over. I’ve been discussing a project with Mr. Steele—”

“I noticed,” I said. Maybe it was rude, cutting him short like that, but quite apart from the fact that I didn’t see what I had to do with his deal with Steele, I saw Detective Foley and his partner step into the dealers’ room.

“I’d be interested in your perspective on the project,” the man said

“My perspective?” I said.

“Frankly, we’re looking for something a little less expensive,” the man said. “Perhaps if you could look these numbers over. Give us your thoughts.”

He held out a piece of paper. Something Steele had given him as part of their discussions, I surmised. I could see rough sketches of a helmet and an ornate sword hilt. And numbers. Impressively large numbers, but then he wanted quite a lot of custom iron work.

My perspective? He wanted a lower bid. Someone to do the work more cheaply, or maybe just competition to help him push Steele’s price down.

“I don’t think—” I began.

“Just look it over,” the man said. “Here’s my card; I already picked up yours yesterday. I’d like to talk to you.”

With that, he disappeared into the crowd.

What a little weasel! Was this how TV producers really worked? Not the top drawer ones, I’d bet. I slipped the card and the paper into my pocket. When Steele got back, I’d warn him what the producer was up to.

In the meantime, the cops had gone from one end of the dealers’ room to the other, looking around. Looking for someone in particular, or just looking?

It didn’t matter. They were about to leave the room, and I wanted to talk to them. I glanced around and spotted a familiar face.

“Dad!” I said, running out into the aisle and catching his sleeve. “Can you watch my booth for a few minutes?”

“Well,” he said, “is it important?” I could see that he had his eye on a bright green parrot fluttering overhead.

“It could be,” I said, in the mysterious and conspiratorial tone I knew would catch his interest. “It could be what cracks the case. I’ll come and tell you as soon as I see what the police say.”

“Right!” he said, and scrambled behind the counter.

I followed the police into the wide hallway outside the dealers’ room.

Detective Foley and his partner were talking to several uniformed officers when I reached them.

“When I give the word,” I heard Foley say, and then he turned to me, frowning. “What can I do for you?”

“This may sound crazy,” I began.

“Why not?” he said. “Everything else today has.”

But he listened while I explained my theory. Listened intently, but I wasn’t sure whether he found my theory fascinating and plausible or just had trouble following it.

I confess, at the last minute, I waffled, and didn’t indict Nate as definitively as I’d originally intended. After all, if I was wrong, Michael still had to work with him. Probably a mistake. It weakened my argument, so all you had left was an impassioned but confusing plea that Foley look a lot more deeply into Ichabod Dilley’s death, his relationship with the other members of the cast of Acid Vision, and the real identity of every fifty-something person in the hotel.

“That’s very interesting,” Detective Foley, said, glancing at his silent partner.

“You don’t believe me,” I said. He could probably tell from my voice that I wasn’t pleased.

“Oh, actually we believe you,” he said. “We’ll be talking to Ms. West and others to develop the information you’ve given us. It dovetails very nicely with our theory of the case.”

“Your theory?” I said.

The other detective gave him a baleful look, as if to suggest that he was talking a little too much to a civilian, but Detective Foley was on a roll.

“Yes,” he said, tucking his thumbs in his pants pockets and rocking back on his heels. “We happen to agree with your basic assumption. We think Ichabod Dilley is very much alive. And we can’t find any trace of our mild-mannered suspect over there before around 1970.”

He was pointing across the lobby, to where Nate was standing, talking to Francis and Walker.

My brain reeled. Okay, I had pointed the finger at Nate. But maybe I wanted to be wrong. I liked Nate, and I certainly hadn’t expected the police to confirm my suspicions quite this readily. As I watched, Walker clapped Nate on the shoulder and strolled off.

“If you’re finished showing off, maybe we can arrest the guy now?” Foley’s partner suggested.

Foley nodded, and the two of them headed across the lobby with a firm, purposeful air.

Nate and Francis looked up. Nate looked alarmed. Of course, so did Francis, but that was his normal expression.

Detective Foley reached into his inside jacket pocket for something. His badge, maybe.

Nate and Francis could see it, too. Nate looked anxious.

Francis turned and ran.

Francis? Wait a minute. I thought they were after Nate—but he just stood there with a puzzled look on his face. Francis was the one running away.

The detectives followed. Because he was the one they were after, or just because he was running?

No matter. They followed him. So did I. At a safe distance. My Renaissance wench costume slowed me down, but then I didn’t want to overtake the police, just see what happened when they caught Francis.

Glancing up, I saw a growing number of monkeys, always curious about new human antics, swinging along above us, chattering eagerly. The half-dozen parrots currently infesting the hallway merely squawked as the monkeys shoved them aside.

The crowd grew thinner, and I could see that Francis’s flight was destined to end shortly. The detectives were gaining on him, and the path ahead was blocked by an unexpected obstacle. Apparently Brad, Salome’s keeper, had gotten permission to pack up and bring her home. Under his direction, several nervous bellhops were pulling her cage along the hall toward the open double doors leading to the parking lot.

Francis crashed into the cage. Salome roared and began flinging herself from side to side. The bellhops fled, knocking Brad down on their way.

Francis looked startled for a moment, and then he reached out and jerked aside the latch holding the cage door closed.

“Stand back or I’ll turn her loose!” he yelled.

People started leaving. Fast.

“Power to the people!” Francis shrieked. “Free the Pasadena Pair!”

Just then, Salome hit the cage door, which popped open, sending her sprawling ten feet out into the middle of the hallway floor.

She lay there for a few moments, as if stunned—or perhaps feeling the same sense of acute embarrassment domestic housecats suffer when they do something clumsy.

I flattened myself against a wall, convinced that I’d be trampled by the panic-stricken mob. But I had to hand it to this crowd. For a panic-stricken mob, they did an astonishingly efficient job of emptying the hallway. By the time Salome shook her head and bounded to her feet with a roar, only a dozen people remained.

I decided it was stupid to be one of them and began backing slowly down the hall, feeling behind me for a doorway.

Salome lashed her tail and looked around.

I saw Brad, the keeper, slipping out through a doorway.

I felt a doorframe behind me. I backed up, hard, pushing the door open. I could see tile floor. I was in a bathroom. Okay. I kept on backing, staring at the door, until I hit something hard, and grabbed onto it. I kept expecting Salome to burst in. As seconds passed and nothing happened, I could feel my heart slow and my brain start working again.

I glanced back and decided to let go of the urinal.