Parrot Blues Read Online Free

isn’t considered a fit subject for conversation in Albuquerque—unless you’re meeting at UNM.
    â€œDid you leave the message for Brown?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œCall back the Relationships number this afternoon; there’ll be an answer.”
    â€œCan he change the message on the Relationships tapes?”
    â€œIf you have a little sniffer, you can change the message on any tape.”
    â€œI suppose you can listen to the messages on any tape, too.” Deborah wouldn’t have had any privacy on her answering machine either.
    â€œYup.”
    â€œWhere do you get all this electronic surveillance stuff anyway?”
    â€œI get mine through a catalog. I don’t know where Wes Brown gets his. There are places right here in Albuquerque where you can buy it if you want to.”
    â€œIs it expensive?”
    â€œThe Marantz cost me, but you can pick up a little sniffer for a hundred and fifty bucks. You can buy a Punch KRM-2 for as little as nine dollars.”
    â€œWhat’s that?”
    â€œRed pepper spray. It’ll immobilize any aggressor—two-legged or four-legged—for thirty minutes. Every woman ought to carry one. If Deborah had, we wouldn’t be standing here right now.” He snapped open his briefcase and took out a red spray can about six inches long and another smaller one with a holster for attaching it to a key ring. “Here,” he said. “They’re on me.”
    â€œThanks,” I replied. My attitude has always been nobody’s going to protect me if I can help it, but I took the Punch anyway and put it in my purse. It had to be less noxious than some forms of self- protect ion I’ve used.
    Terrance folded up his Journal and put it in the briefcase. “Well,” he growled, “let’s get on with it. Now I’m not going to reveal any more than I have to to Deborah’s students. I don’t want them trying to be heroes, looking for Wes Brown and screwing things up.”
    He knew I wouldn’t be revealing anything about this case to anybody. There was, as always, the matter of client confidentiality.
    â€œIf my allergies start acting up—and they probably will—I’ll have to leave the lab,” Terrance said. “I want you to be another set of eyes, look around, talk to the students, see if they’re concealing anything. All right?”
    â€œAll right.”
    We were walking down the same sidewalk Deborah had, but to our own beat. Terrance clunked along in his boot heels. I followed as silent as a scout in my running shoes. Running shoes are the preferred footgear for some crimes: stalking crimes, silent crimes. In daylight, this was an ordinary cement sidewalk, but high-heeled shoes heard walking alone on a sidewalk at night have a resonance. The faster the footsteps, the deeper the resonance.
    When we reached the door with the sign that read PSITTACINE RESEARCH FACILITY , Terrance stopped and said, “You’ve got to take off your shoes the minute we get inside so you’re not bringing in any germs. You’ll see a pile of plastic booties to put on.”
    We went inside. I followed his instructions, slipped out of my running shoes, put on the plastic booties and took a look around while he struggled to get his cowboy boots off. “Goddamn,” he said, “I wish they’d bring in a bootjack or a chair to sit on.”
    The Psittacine Research Facility was as noisy and hyper as a day care center. Next to the door we’d entered was an office with a window that faced onto the lab. Two students sat at a table in the middle of the lab talking to a parrot. The parrot was about a foot tall, bright green with a yellow head and red epaulets on its wings.
    â€œKey,” said one student, holding up that object and speaking slowly and distinctly, as if to a two-year-old.
    â€œAwrk,” said the parrot.
    â€œKey,” the other student said.