Read Tourquai for Free Online Page A

office. Six partners and six assistants. Vulture’s second meeting was with Oleg Earwig. Earwig is an inventor that Nova Park invested in many years ago, but evidently he didn’t measure up. That’s how it goes. You make five investments, and if one of them works out, then you’re successful.”
    “Okay odds,” commented Anna. “Don’t think we can work with the same—”
    “Oleg Earwig was the last one who saw Vulture alive. At least we assume so. Earwig was in Vulture’s office for half an hour, maybe forty minutes. Half an hour after that, the superintendent and I opened the door and found Vulture headless.”
    “Did your little cutie talk with Vulture after the meeting with the inventor?” Anna asked.
    “Cobra is a little vague on that point . . .” Falcon replied hesitantly, finishing the last of the sports drink. “Maybe, but she’s not sure.”
    “Hm. Do you want the ham sandwich?”
    Falcon looked with disgust at the prepackaged sandwich and shook his head. Anna picked it up and unwrapped the plastic. When she got in the car to drive up to the Tennis Stadium the breeze had not yet reached the city, but now twilight was falling quickly over Mollisan Town and she was hungry.
    “Sorry,” she said, “but I didn’t have time to eat anything.”
    “We talked our way through the whole office,” Falcon continued, “but I don’t think anything leaped out that . . . here comes Field Mouse.”
    Falcon pointed with the tip of his wing.
    Field Mouse Pedersen had played another match but was now changed and on his way home. Anna Lynx called to him, and he joined the two partners.
    “Do you agree, Field Mouse?” Anna asked after Falcon had summarized what he had told to that point. “Nothing interesting to report?”
    “They work extremely independently and are isolated up there,” said Field Mouse. “Everyone seems to sit in their offices, reading papers and making a call or two . . . No one heard or saw anything.”
    “It could possibly be that electrician,” said Falcon.
    “What electrician?” asked Anna.
    “It was the goat in reception who said there’d been an electrician who came and went several times during the morning,” Falcon clarified. “But I don’t know . . . we have to question the goat again. He didn’t seem exactly reliable.”
    “No, he didn’t,” agreed Field Mouse. “Someone has to talk with the goat in reception again.”
    “And the head?” asked Anna.
    “Don’t know,” Field Mouse Pedersen replied. “But both Hare’s and Tapir’s teams were still there when Falcon and I came here. And one more thing. Everyone described Vulture the same way. As a hard and merciless business executive.”
    “That’s right,” Falcon sighed. “I don’t recall who said it, but when I asked who would want to kill Oswald Vulture, someone answered, ‘Who wouldn’t want to kill Oswald Vulture?’ There will be no lack of stuffed animals with a motive.”

1.5
    T he yellowish glow of the lanterns revealed salmon pink Avenue Michelle Duboir. The street lay broad and shameless before Emanuelle Cobra. She got off the bus one stop early, simply to have the satisfaction of personally slithering the final blocks. She loved this part of Michelle Duboir, between orange-colored rue Leblanc and yellow North Avenue. Along the sidewalks the city had planted small but proudly blossoming cherry trees. They cast long shadows across cars that had finally found their places for the night. The occasional stuffed animal was en route home after yet another day of seeming significance or obvious meaninglessness; for Emanuelle Cobra, Monday, the third of June, had been bewildering. And it was not over yet. But what remained was the high point of the month, and not even the decapitated Vulture or the embarrassed police inspector who had questioned her that morning could cause Cobra to despair today.
    For those who remain, life goes on, she thought. Life goes on, but in new clothes.
    She had on