Parrot Blues Read Online Free Page A

“Key.”
    A female student stood at a counter feeding a baby parrot with a large dropper. The parrot was pink-skinned and speckled with gray feathers. It had a huge beak and feet. It was so ugly it was almost appealing. The student was tall and lovely. She wore washed-out jeans and a pale T-shirt, but even in that casual uniform her body attracted attention. She was slender, but voluptuous and strong. Her hair hung down her back, long, blond and silky.
    â€œ Alice Ashburn,” Terrance sighed her name with that longing in his voice middle-aged men reserve for beautiful young women.
    A male student, who was balancing a green and yellow parrot on his shoulder, hovered around Alice inhaling her pheromones. He was as tall as she was but as awkward as the baby parrot. The parrot was all beak and feet; he was all elbows. He wore wire-rimmed glasses and had the overeager manner of the first student to raise his hand in class, the last one to get a date. His hair was light brown and pulled back in a long, limp, sixties-style ponytail. He wore jeans and a T-shirt like Alice’s, but he looked scrawny in his. If Alice had noticed that he was enamored of her, she wasn’t letting on. She continued squeezing food into the baby parrot’s beak.
    â€œThat’s Rick Olney,” Terrance said. “Ph.D. He’s Deborah’s assistant.”
    â€œWhat does he have his Ph.D. in?” I asked.
    â€œOrnithology. He’ll never let you forget it, either.”
    There are three ways to have power: body, brains and bucks. Alice had the body, Rick had the brains, Terrance had the bucks. I was segueing from body to brains myself, knowing full well I’d never have the bucks.
    Rick noticed our presence, adjusted his glasses and did not seem at all pleased to see that Terrance Lewellen had entered the lab. He tucked in his elbows and walked our way, balancing the parrot on his shoulder. Dispensing with any preliminaries, he said in a tight voice, “Have you heard anything at all from Deborah?”
    â€œNot a word, and you?” Terrance responded, telling the truth the way he saw it.
    â€œNothing. Deborah would not go off without telling us, and she would not take Perigee and leave Colloquy alone. Something is very, very wrong.”
    The pupils of the parrot’s eyes dilated and contracted. Standing on Rick’s shoulder put it high above the rest of us, and it seemed to like being there. “Hello-o,” it called.
    â€œHi,” I replied.
    â€œBe quiet, Maxamilian,” Rick said.
    â€œThat’s Max,” Terrance said to me. “He’s a double-yellow-headed Amazon, and Deborah’s prize pupil. He has a vocabulary of over two thousand words.”
    â€œTwenty-five hundred,” Rick corrected him.
    â€œRight,” Terrance replied. “This is Neil Hamel, my lawyer.”
    â€œCall my lawyer,” Max cackled.
    â€œYour lawyer?” asked Rick in the deep-freeze voice people reserve for members of my profession and the IRS.
    â€œMy lawyer,” said Terrance with no further explanation. In his world a lawyer (and probably a woman, too) was as necessary a part of the baggage as the briefcase he held in his hand. “How’s Colloquy doing?”
    â€œNot well; she misses her mate,” Rick replied. “I don’t like this, Terrance. Deborah’s been gone two days now. It’s time to call the police.”
    â€œCall the police,” screamed Max, flapping his wings and doing a quick two-step on Rick’s shoulder to keep his balance.
    â€œNo police,” Terrance said.
    â€œDeborah and Perigee could be in danger,” Rick replied.
    â€œThey’ll be in more danger if you call the police.”
    â€œI disagree.”
    Rick was towering over Terrance, who didn’t get any taller but seemed to expand circumferentially as he went into intimidation mode, wielding the briefcase like a battering ram and moving right up