Chapter 23
It was the last evening at Yiala’s Arch.
Tomorrow the Chauffeurs would pick up Teddy Bear and Nicholas Dove.
Tomorrow it would be over, if Eric didn’t succeed in the impossible.
Sam Gazelle stood at the stove, frying sausage. He poked at the sausages with a certain distaste and with a Teflon-coated spatula, causing them to roll back and forth in the pan without getting burned. The kitchen fan emitted a dull buzz and at regular intervals the fatty sausage casings burst with little pops. Tom-Tom Crow had just set the kitchen table, and all that remained was folding the napkins. Now it was Saturday evening and all; he thought about folding them like peacocks. It was a self-assigned task which the crow, mumbling, swore over; there was a big difference between folding linen—like he’d done at Grand Divino—and folding paper napkins.
Eric Bear was standing by the balcony door, looking out over the gloomy inner courtyard. Snake Marek’s absence filled the apartment. Where the bear’s gaze fell, he was reminded of how the little green reptile had crawled in just that place.
Tom-Tom and Sam hadn’t said anything. Had not accused him with a word, not with a glance.
After Tom-Tom had been hoisted out of the ravine and lightly embraced Eric and Sam, he’d gone back to the edge to be watching when the dangling armchair would be lowered for Marek. But the crane stood still. And without saying anything, Eric Bear started walking in the opposite direction, back toward Lanceheim. A few seconds of confusion ensued. Sam and Tom-Tom looked at each other, and between them a grim mutual understanding arose. They followed the bear. A few minutes later all three of them could hear Snake’s cries, but the sound was so distant that it was possible to dismiss it as the wind blowing across the treacherous expanses of the dump. The bear, the crow, and the gazelle continued toward the city in a silence that remained unbroken, for the most part, the entire day.
“You can eat now,” declared Sam, taking the frying pan with the evenly browned, although split open, sausages from the stove. “If anyone wants it.”
They hadn’t eaten the entire day, because no one had felt hungry. But finally Sam got tired of Tom-Tom’s growling belly and found a few long-forgotten sausages in the freezer. The gazelle seldom ate dinner. If his vanity didn’t forbid it, his pills caused him to lose his appetite.
Eric didn’t feel especially hungry for the fat sausages either, but didn’t want to risk an out-of-balance crow and therefore pretended to be hungry. They sat down at the table, unfolded the peacock napkins that had just been finished, and served up the sausages. The crow ate three, Eric and Sam shared the one that was left.
“It’s Penguin Odenrick,” said Eric at the same time as Tom-Tom was spraying ketchup over his sausages as if he intended to drown them. “Only Odenrick can remove Nicholas Dove from the list.”
Sam stared at the bear. The crow stuffed a substantial piece of sausage into his beak, trying to look interested at the same time.
“How long have you known?” asked the gazelle.
“Since yesterday morning,” said Eric.
Sam nodded. That fit together with the ravine, with the rat and the snake.
“And now?”
“I have to confront him,” said Eric. “I have to get him to admit what I already know, and then force him to remove the dove from the list.”
“You don’t have a lot of time.”
The gazelle looked out through the window.
“The sun is just going down. Tomorrow morning it will be too late.”
“This evening will do,” said Eric with certainty.
“What the hell are you thinking?” asked the crow while he carefully chewed what he had in his beak. “What the hell do we do?”
The bear didn’t respond to this. He stared ahead of him, as if the question had put him into a trance of some kind. Tom-Tom continued chewing and Sam looked down at his plate, where his half of the sausage sat, sad and untouched. By the time Eric finally had an answer, the crow had already forgotten what he’d asked.
“I want you to go to Owl Dorothy,” said the bear.
“Who?” asked Tom-Tom.
“Is she alive?” asked Sam.
“She’s alive. She’s been working for the archdeacon her entire life. I believe she was his governess when he was little. Then she became his secretary. Took care of his appointment calendar, his correspondence, all the daily chores that popped up.”
“And what the hell is a governess?” asked Tom-Tom, who wasn’t familiar with the concept.
“Dorothy lives in Amberville,” said Eric. “I’ll write down the address. On Fried Street. She’s lived there as long as I remember, she was living there when I was small. If you mention my name she’ll ask you to come in. She enjoys serving cakes.”
Eric smiled. The memory of the massive cake plate with its cakes sometimes too old for words put him in a better mood for a moment. Tom-Tom, whose hunger was stimulated by the sausages, waited with interest for the bear to say something more about the cakes, but that didn’t happen.
“Then,” Eric continued, “we’ll meet up at Sagrada Bastante. When the clouds disperse and you see the half-moon. You should take the back way; I’ll write down the address, too. And ‘when you see the half-moon’ means just that, not a minute before or later.”
“Finally there’s a plan?” said Sam.
It was a kind of statement, but his voice carried such clear hope that it even surprised Sam.
Eric got up.
“We have no time to go into details. But there are a few things before we go…. I’ll tell you what I want you to do at Dorothy’s….”