Barry Longyear: The Purloined Labradoodle

I had originally intended these narratives to address the more significant inquiries Guy Shad and I worked in our time together in the Exeter office of Artificial Beings Crimes. An incautious comment I made in my chronicle of Shad’s death in “The Hangingstone Rat,” however, touched upon my suspicion Shad might have his rescued engrams imprinted temporarily on a celebrity look-alike bio of British actor Nigel Bruce while his mallard duck replacement meat suit matured. Nigel Bruce, of course, was known primarily for his role as the bumbling Dr. Watson in the grayscale Sherlock Holmes vids of the mid twentieth century. I deduced this attire would amuse Shad to no end due to my police replacement bio strongly resembling Basil Rathbone, the actor who played Sherlock Holmes in the same series.

Since Shad regarded me as something of a foil for his humor, due to his former career as the American comic advert insurance duck on the telly, he could not possibly resist the opportunities for silly situations with us thus configured. This aside in one of my accounts, however, produced a rash of queries about the cases we worked thus resembling Holmes and Watson, neé Rathbone and Bruce. Not just the facts, mind you. These inquiring minds wanted to know down-to-the-last-flipping-detail, please and thank you very much.

Shortly after he moved into his new feathers, I discussed it with Shad. As always he had little interest in anything not involving movies, acting, his feline friend Nadine, or solving the current case. When I pointed out to him that the original Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Aurhur Conan Doyle were narrated by Dr. Watson, hence rightfully Shad should author our adventures so made up, he looked up from his case file and said, “You know, Jaggs, despite my many quills, I’ve never been much of one for writing.”

We were on three matters together with Shad in his Watson meat suit. The first of these inquiries I have titled “The Purloined Labradoodle.” This inquiry initially had nothing to do with Watson or a Labradoodle. It initiated actually in relation to improperly imprinted puppies, an imprisoned parakeet, and a parrot profoundly perturbed.

“Limp stone,” muttered the parrot darkly.

I finished stocking the shelves in back of the small shop counter with boxes of birdseed, tins of dog food, and little packets of catnip. The counter and display case were festooned with colorful leashes of assorted sizes; plastic bones; rubber mice; squeaky toys; scratching posts; king-, queen-, and knave-sized pet beds and such. The walls were hung with posters concerning the various hideous diseases cats and dogs could contract, complete with expensive preventative treatments that could be purchased right here, should the shipments ever arrive. Shad and I, you see, were undercover operating a pet shop in The Strand, Village of Lympstone, east bank of the River Exe south of Exeter, Devon. I was the pet shop owner and DS Shad had traded his cherished Nigel Bruce meat suit in on what budget-strapped ABCD had left over in the way of undercover pet bios: a rather timeworn parrot.

We were, as it happened, an insignificant part of a rather large task force attempting to crack down on a UK ring of swindlers who were representing real household pets as amdroid bios capable of taking full human imprints with rather appalling consequences for bargain seekers who would lose a good bit of their savings, all of their natural bodies, and most of their minds in the process. The main thrusts of the task force effort were in London, Manchester, and Bristol. Shad was being cranky on two accounts: first, because he felt we had been left out of the big show; and second, because he wasn’t getting to do his Dr. Watson, which he really wanted to do.

Nevertheless, the pets used by the perpetrators came from somewhere and covering pet stores was a logical investigative consequence. From what we could observe from our post in Lympstone, though, it didn’t appear to be a well coordinated operation—something Shad was beginning to refer to as a “clusterbugger.” In any event, we were on our third day of operations and our shipments of kittens, puppies, and much of our equipment and supplies had yet to arrive. No bait, no customers, no suspects. I looked from the window at the quaint village street, and it was raining. There went our chance for someone blind drunk mistaking us for a tube station and wandering in.

“Limp stone,” Shad muttered again from his perch at the end of the counter. He was getting quite tiresome. I turned from the window.

“Actually, Shad, the m is silent and the stone is pronounced stin . Lipstin.”

“Brits pronounce a whole lot better than they spell.”

“I don’t recall that American insurance company you did the telly adverts for being such great spellers. Why wasn’t your duck quacking ‘Aflass, Aflass?’”

“You mean besides how close it sounds to ‘half-assed’? Jaggs, you really think ‘The Petting Place’ is a good name for a pet store?”

“Superintendent Matheson chose the name, not I, as you well know.”

“It sounds like a bordello or lap-dancing salon. Why don’t we just call it ‘The Cat House’ and be done with it?” The parrot held out his wings, began bumping and grinding his hips as he danced on the perch, and sang out in something of a Jamaican accent, ‘Hey dere, sailor boy, you come to Mama Bimbo’s Cat House for all you pettin’ needs, mon.” The dance stopped. “Jaggs, if you were a self-respecting crook would you go into a pet store called The Petting Place?” He sidestepped grumpily from one end of his perch to the other. “Can’t believe the names around this neck of the woods: Ex mouth. Nut well. Glebe lands. Cock wood. Under Wear—”

“That’s Lower Wear and—”

“Key off, Jaggs,” cautioned Shad, nodding toward the window. “Live one approaching. This may be the kitten pickin’ kingpin herself.”

The bell rang as the door opened revealing a short, stocky woman in a green anorak and yellow plastic rain scarf, her feet in a pair of bright yellow wellies. In her right hand she had by the handle a small gray metal case. She walked up to the counter.

“Good morning, love,” I said. “How may I be of assistance?”

“I want me parakeet fixed,” she stated.

“Indeed. I regret to say we don’t neuter birds at Petting Place.” I glanced at Shad and he was returning my look down his beak, as it were. I looked back at the woman. “You’ll have to take your bird to a veterinary surgeon.”

“I means repair. This one’s a robbie,” she said. “All ‘is nuts’s got bolts in ‘em, if you gets me drift.”

“I see.” I smiled brightly. “If I might take a look at your bird?”

“Nothin’ much works on it.” She lifted the case and dropped it rather heavily on the counter. “Salt in the air, I expect. Too close to the bleedin’ ocean.”

I opened the case on the counter next to Shad’s perch. Inside the case was a musty-smelling robotic parakeet. There was something white and crusty dried between its toes. Shad moved on his perch until he could look down into the case.

“Ain’t that cute, your parrot there looking at me bird. He’s in love!”

Midway through her rising belly laugh, Shad said to her, “Sod off, you old cow.”

“Here, now!” she responded, her color rising.

“I apologize for the parrot, love,” I said. “I’m afraid we rescued the poor thing from a rather tragic situation.”

“Aw,” she responded empathetically, reaching out a hand to pet Shad’s head. “Chick abuse, was it?”