Part 7 (2/2)
”This is just idiotic,” Bloodhound growled. ”Idiotic! I don't believe you. I'm asking you again. Did you ever leave your desk?”
Emanuelle Cobra looked at him with her large walnut eyes. She had already answered the question. Finally he turned his gaze away and got up.
”Idiotic!” he growled again, leaving her in the beautiful office.
The superintendent was so upset by the interview with Emanuelle Cobra that he stormed out of Nova Park, sat in the car, and ate up the spun-sugar chocolate sticks he had intended to save for the afternoon, even before he started the engine. Quickly and aggressively he then drove the short way home, ran up the stairs, and, once inside the apartment, went straight to the refrigerator, where he ate up all there was to eat. Cordelia gave him a friendly chirp from her golden cage, and after a few minutes the superintendent relaxed. upset by the interview with Emanuelle Cobra that he stormed out of Nova Park, sat in the car, and ate up the spun-sugar chocolate sticks he had intended to save for the afternoon, even before he started the engine. Quickly and aggressively he then drove the short way home, ran up the stairs, and, once inside the apartment, went straight to the refrigerator, where he ate up all there was to eat. Cordelia gave him a friendly chirp from her golden cage, and after a few minutes the superintendent relaxed.
”Ah,” he growled, ”I'm sorry, little one, but I was so upset. I'll have to have a good day tomorrow instead.”
Cordelia looked out through the window. Or so it appeared to Larry. It was tricky to know with a budgie.
”Have I told you my theory?” he asked, sitting down on the couch with a package of alphabet cookies on his lap.
There was never a risk of being interrupted by a caged bird.
”We have to hope that this involves a perpetrator who did not find his destiny right there, in Vulture's office,” Bloodhound said pensively. ”Because I always say that chance, Cordelia, chance is like an automatic weapon. Chance is a machine gun that loads the chamber with bullets of fate. Chance doesn't care about us stuffed animals, at least about us as individuals, because for chance the whole is more important than the component parts. Chance is just and blind. It doesn't care who's standing in the way when it shoots.”
Bloodhound took a ”g” and an ”h” and put them in his mouth. The cookies were sweet but dry.
”Chance fires its weapon when it has the desire, Cordelia, and we stuffed animals have no protection against these bullets of fate. There's nothing we can do to avoid them. That's the way it goes. If chance was waiting like a sniper up at Nova Park yesterday and hit the murderer with one of his bullets, then this could be ... a little h.e.l.l ...”
He ate up an ”r” and a ”k,” and then got up to get a beer.
”Do you understand what I'm saying?” Bloodhound growled softly. ”It's not so difficult. We're delivered. It's our fate. To be delivered. To a certain address, a certain family, and there's nothing we can do about it. Reincarnation is nonsense. We can talk about the soul another time.”
He took a swig from the bottle as he was returning to the couch.
”We're delivered, Cordelia, and fate puts our lives in motion. Whether we want it or not. There's nothing we can do about it. The limits are set from the first moment. Do you call that freedom? Or justice? Bulls.h.i.+t. Fate has staked out your life even before life has managed to begin. It's about how we look. Who we are. Dog or b.u.mblebee. If we're smart or dumb. What neighborhood we grow up in, and whether we're rich or poor. What age we live in, and the values of the age. Can our particular kind of talent be used in Mollisan Town at this point in time? It's about what school we go to, who else is in the same grade, who our parents' friends are, and what values they have. You get stuck in a social network before you even grasp what that means. Do you understand, Cordelia? There's not much you can do about it. You become what you become.”
Superintendent Larry Bloodhound had repeated this monologue-with minor variations-to all the police officers at rue de Cadix over the years.
He poured the rest of the cookies straight from the carton into his mouth, was.h.i.+ng them down with beer.
”Fate puts you in motion, Cordelia, like a stone rolling down a slope. Cause and effect. It's about cause and effect. You do something good and get rewarded. You get to know someone who knows someone else who knows a third person who tells a story that you then always carry with you. That marks you. One of your father's friends that you admired was a policeman, and you become a policeman yourself. A teacher in school pats you on the head because you stayed within the lines the first time you used crayons and you always want to be praised because you did something someone else decided was good. Or else you're punished. Because you talked too loud, or dressed too carelessly. Logic rules your life. Fate puts it in motion, but then you roll down that slope in a rut that is the most reasonable. It can be predicted. It can be calculated. And that's what police work is about. We can trace anyone whosoever back in time, back to the time when they were delivered, by seeing how cause and effect have led the criminal, step by step, up to the criminal deed. We think we're free in this life, Cordelia, but who the h.e.l.l is free? We live with the conditions that the Deliverymen gave us when they placed us in a certain home at a certain time. No b.a.s.t.a.r.d is free. And through careful detective work, we can put away anyone.”
A long belch gave him an opportunity to catch his breath before he continued.
”We can put away anyone whosoever, if chance hasn't loaded its machine gun and put a bullet in the murderer yesterday morning. Because sometimes it happens that stuffed animals are struck by something outside themselves, something they have no control over, something that causes their lives to depart from the course fate set out. And if that happens, everything that led up to that point when the deed is committed becomes irrelevant. Then no police work in the world will help. Then this case with Vulture is going to be a fine mess ...”
2.5.
They were in a red, black, and yellow police car. Anna was driving in tense silence. The Afternoon Rain had ended a few minutes earlier and Field Mouse Pedersen refused to give up his attempts to carry on a lighthearted conversation.
”I know why you didn't ask Falcon,” Field Mouse chuckled to himself. ”In nine cases out of ten you ask your partner. But in the tenth case-you ask me.”
”Very nice of you to volunteer,” Anna replied, but her tone was neutral and she didn't look at him.
”I'm guessing, of course,” Field Mouse corrected himself. ”But I think I know. Why you didn't ask Falcon.”
Field Mouse Pedersen did not know where they were going or what was expected of him, and his nature was such that he was not one to ask straight out. He was loyal, and he was proud of that. His colleagues should know that they could always count on him.
”You're easier to convince,” said Anna.
They were driving along bright yellow North Avenue. A full-grown lane of willows divided the northbound and southbound traffic, but there weren't many cars at the moment. The memory of the recently fallen rain had left the avenue in a pleasant fog, and Anna was driving with the lights on.
”Easier to convince, huh? That sounds ominous.”
The spiked wall around Les Trois Maggots showed up in front of them to the left, and Anna put on her turn signal.
”Are we going shopping?” Pedersen commented.
They turned left and drove up onto the ma.s.sive asphalt meadow that was the shopping center's parking lot. Even though it was a late Tuesday afternoon in early June, she couldn't find a parking place. Finally she parked the police car on the sidewalk outside one of the smaller entrances, turned off the engine, and turned with a serious and worried expression toward Pedersen.
”Inside here there is someone,” she explained, ”that I want you to arrest. Take him out to the car, drive over to the station. There you can let him go.”
Pedersen looked like a living question mark.
”Arrest and then release? But ... has he done anything or not?”
”He's done something,” Anna maintained.
”So why do I let him go?”
”He hasn't done anything we can arrest him for.”
Pedersen stared at her.
”Now I understand why you didn't ask Falcon,” he said at last. ”Falcon wouldn't do it, would he?”
”And you?” she asked, looking him in the eyes. ”Can you do it? For my sake? I promise he doesn't deserve better.”
Field Mouse Pedersen nodded curtly and opened the car door. Anna did the same. With determined steps they walked beside each other across the sidewalk toward the entrance.
The theme for Les Trois Maggots was fertility. The dimensions of the shopping center were enormous, as expected, and along the hundreds of escalators, across the entire gla.s.s ceiling, and up along the monumental pillars grapevines and clematis were growing. In built-in planters on the main floor stood rows of oaks, whose magnificent crowns reached all the way up to the fifth-floor level. And everywhere on the floors, rose petals were strewn; Anna had read somewhere that five thousand roses a day went on to the floors in Les Trois Maggots. She didn't know if that was true. Trois Maggots was fertility. The dimensions of the shopping center were enormous, as expected, and along the hundreds of escalators, across the entire gla.s.s ceiling, and up along the monumental pillars grapevines and clematis were growing. In built-in planters on the main floor stood rows of oaks, whose magnificent crowns reached all the way up to the fifth-floor level. And everywhere on the floors, rose petals were strewn; Anna had read somewhere that five thousand roses a day went on to the floors in Les Trois Maggots. She didn't know if that was true.
”Where is he?” Field Mouse asked.
”Don't know.”
”You're joking? If we're going to search at random this is going to take hours.”
”I know what stores she likes,” said Anna.
”She?”
<script>