Murder Takes a Break (32 page)

"You've got to find Percy," he said.
 
"We can't go on without him."

"Percy?" I said.

"That's the parrot's real name," Gober informed me.
 
"Cap'n Bob is just a stage name."

"I get it," I said.
 
"The bird has an alias."

"So does my cockatoo," Cal Franks said.
 
"His real name's Diogenes, but his stage name's -- "

"No cockatoos!
 
No cockatoos!
 
No -- "

"Shut up!" Gober bellowed.
 
They shut.
 
Gober turned to me.
 
"Goddammit, Ferrel, you can see what I have to contend with around here.
 
But it's all up to you now.
 
You do what you have to do, and find that goddamn bird."

He turned on his heel and left.
 
The "KICK ME" sign fluttered as he passed through the doorway, and then he was gone.

The room was suddenly completely silent.
 
No one was looking at me, though no one seemed to be doing any work, either.
 
One guy lounged against the wall reading a racing form.
 
One, who was wearing a sword that looked like it might have belonged to Basil Rathbone at one time, rested his hand on the hilt and stared at the ceiling.

Then, very low, so that I almost couldn't hear it at first, a low murmuring of voices began.

"Sam Spade."

"Philip Marlowe."

"Mike Shayne."

"Sherlock Holmes."

"Boston Blackie."

The voices came from all over the room, and every one was different.
 
I wondered if everyone there had studied ventriloquism.

"All right," I said.
 
"Let's get something straight.
 
You guys may all be geniuses, but I think you're nuts."
 
I opened my coat so they could see the butt of the little .38 I wore in a shoulder holster.
 
"And if anybody puts a 'KICK ME' sign on my back, I'm going to shoot his hand off."

"We wouldn't dream of doing a thing like that," Voucher said.
 
"We want you to find Percy."

"That's what I plan to do," I said, without having a single idea about how I'd accomplish it or even if I could.
 
"Who's in charge here?"

Lyman Birch smiled.
 
"Did you say
charge
?"

The guy with the sword whipped it out of the scabbard and stiff-armed it in front of him at about a 45-degree angle.

"Charge!" he screamed, and ran straight at us.

Herm Voucher pulled me aside while Birch opened the door.
 
The swordsman ran right on out and down the steps.
 
I could see him heading in the direction of the Studio A as Birch closed the door.

"I still don't see why you have to find that stupid parrot," Franks said.
 
He was standing right beside me.
 
I'd moved around a little, but he was on me like a stick-tight.
 
"Diogenes is much better.
 
He's better trained, he's -- "

"No cockatoos!
 
No cockatoos!
 
No -- "

"Shut up," I bellowed.
 
I wasn't as good as Gober, but I was good enough.
 
"I've had enough of this crap.
 
Now tell me who's in charge of this menagerie.
 
Is there a producer here?"

From the expressions on their faces, you would have thought I'd asked if Typhoid Mary was in the room.
 
Then there was a lot of histrionic gagging, with people hanging their heads over wastebaskets and out the windows.
 
I knew I must be on the right track.
 
Everybody hates producers.

"You must mean Barry Partin," Birch said.

"He'll do.
 
Where's his office?"

"Back there."
 
Birch pointed to a hallway at the back of the long room where we were standing.

"Good.
 
I'll talk to him first, and then I'll want to talk to some of the rest of you.
 
Don't wander off."

I didn't wait for an answer.
 
I crossed the room, avoiding the drawing tables and the men who didn't move out of the way, which was all of them.
 
Hard to believe that I'd thought Gober was a lunatic.
 
He couldn't hold a candle to these guys.

It was only when I neared the doorway that I noticed the cage on the floor.
 
It was a wire cube about four feet on a side.
 
A gray tabby cat slept on a mat inside.
 
He was huge.
 
Curled up like that, he looked like a black basketball.
 
There was something greenish peeping out from under one of his paws, but I couldn't tell for sure what it was.

On the left side of the door, there was another cage.
 
This one was on a stand, and there was a cockatoo in it.
 
The cage was very clean except for a few dark splotches that had landed on the newspaper covering the bottom.

"Is this Diogenes?" I asked no one in particular.

"Yes," Cal Franks said.
 
He'd followed me across the room, though I hadn't noticed him.
 
I couldn't shake him.
 
"He's quite a handsome bird, don't you think?"

"No cockatoos!
 
No cockatoos!
 
No -- "

I wheeled around, digging under my coat for the pistol, but no one was even looking in my direction.
 
In fact, everyone was bent over his drawing board, working busily.
 
Those guys were good.

I turned back, but I didn't comment on the handsomeness of Diogenes.
 
I left Franks there, or hoped I did, and went through the door to look for Partin.

I walked down a short hall, past a couple of rooms that were devoted to storyboards featuring rough drawings of Cap'n Bob and Gus, and down to an office that had a closed door.
 
The nameplate on the door read "Barry Partin."

I knocked, and a man's unhappy voice told me to come in.
 
I opened the door and saw a sad little man in a baggy coat sitting behind a desk that was a mere shadow of the one in Gober's office.
 
The carpet matched the desk; it was mashed flat and worn almost through in spots.
 
The only thing I liked in the office was the two pictures on the wall.
 
One was of Gus and Cap'n Bob decked out as Holmes and Watson in "Catch as Cat's Can."
 
The other showed Gus, his eyes bugged out and his hair ridged down his back as he confronted Cap'n Bob in "Who Ghost There?"

I looked away from the pictures to the man at the desk.
 
"Mr. Partin?" I said.

His face was as baggy as his coat.
 
"Yes," he said.
  
"Who are you?"

"I'm Bill Ferrel.
 
Mr. Gober wants me to look into the disappearance of the parrot."

"Thank God," Partin said.
 
There was a look of genuine relief on his face.
 
"I thought maybe you were a new animator."

I didn't blame him for looking relieved.
 
If I'd been in charge of that passel of bozos, I wouldn't have wanted another one dumped on me, either.

 
"No," I said.
 
"I'm not an animator.
 
I'm just a detective.

Partin smiled and some of the bags in his face disappeared. He asked me to have a seat.
 
"You think you can find that bird?"

I folded myself into an uncomfortable chair by his desk and told him that I didn't have any idea.
 
"I don't even know what's going on.
 
When did the parrot disappear?
 
Who would have wanted him?
 
Have you gotten a ransom note or a call?"

I'd left the door open when I entered the office; Partin got up and walked over to close it.
 
He stuck his head out, looked down the hall, and then swung the door shut.

"Surely you can see it," he said, as he crossed the frayed carpet back to his desk.

I couldn't.
 
I didn't even know what he was talking about.
 
"See what?"

He looked at me as if he thought I was a pretty poor example of a detective.
 
"It was Cal Franks," he said.

"Oh.
 
The cockatoo."

"That's right.
 
He's been trying to get me to hire that cockatoo for the past year.
 
He says he's not insisting on a leading role for it, not yet.
 
A supporting role would be fine to start, he says."

"But you don't believe him."

"Of course not.
 
But what I believe doesn't matter.
 
The whole crew's against him.
 
They don't like him, and they don't like his bird."

The part about the bird I knew already.
 
"Are they really that serious about Cap'n Bob and the cat?" I asked.
 
"I didn't know cartoonists used models."

Partin sighed.
 
The bags came back into his face.
 
"They don't, not usually.
 
But you saw those people.
 
They're all crazy.
 
One of them actually put a 'KICK ME' sign on my back just yesterday."

I wasn't exactly shocked.
 
I said, "You're kidding."

"No."
 
He shook his head sadly.
 
"Someone actually did it.
 
I would never have known except that Rick Torrance kicked the hell out of me in the commissary.
 
He thought it was a riot."

I almost hated to change the subject, but I did.
 
I said, "Tell me what happened on the day the bird disappeared.
 
What were the circumstances?"

"I don't really know.
 
When we left on Monday afternoon, the parrot was in his cage.
 
When we got here yesterday, he was gone."

Today was Wednesday, which meant that Gober had waited a day to call me.
 
Maybe everyone had thought the parrot would come back on his own.

"What about the cockatoo?"

"Franks brought him in this morning.
 
He said they needed a replacement for Cap'n Bob and they needed it now.
 
They're supposed to be working on a new cartoon.
 
'The Maltese Parrot.'
 
Gus as Bogart, Cap'n Bob as Sidney Greenstreet.
 
Maybe you saw the storyboards."

I had, but I hadn't noticed the subject matter.
 
"I guess 'The Maltese Cockatoo' just wouldn't work."

Partin shook his head.
 
"It would work fine.
 
I think.
 
But I don't know for sure what's funny and what's not anymore, not after being around this place.
 
I'd rather work with Rick Torrance and the elephants than those maniacs out there."

"Who was the last person to leave the building on Monday?
 
It wouldn't have been Franks, by any chance?"

"I don't know.
 
I went home early.
 
I had a headache.
 
I seem to be having a lot of them lately."

He looked like he might be having another one, not that I blamed him.
 
I felt like having one myself.

"I want to talk to Voucher and Birch.
 
Franks, too.
 
Is there someplace private?"

He waved a hand to indicate his shabby office.
 
"Nowhere but here."

"Would you mind stepping out while I talked to them?"

There was a look akin to fear on his face.
 
"Go out there with . . . them?"

"Maybe you could walk over to the commissary, get a cup of coffee.
 
Take an aspirin."

"Aspirin.
 
Yes.
 
A fine idea."
 
He practically jumped out of his chair.
 
"I'll just go out the back way.
 
You can call in whoever you want."

He was out the door and gone before I had a chance to say anything else.

I
went out and called Lyman Birch.
 
When he got there, I was behind the desk, so he had to sit in the chair.
 
He ran nervous fingers through his thin brown hair and asked me what I wanted.

"Just a little background.
 
How much does the studio pay you for the use of your cat?"