Entry 9: Ice Dreamery

Louis was feeling glum. His many-months long investigation into Kookie Banjo Jr. had been a disaster, with no clear pathway forward. He paced back and forth in his office in front of the cork board with all the key evidence pinned up and pieces of colourful string zigzagging between them to highlight patterns or open questions. Like how did Kookie manage to be sighted in Geelong, Australia and Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia on the same day in 1910?

But it was all beside the point as there was no way to litigate against the crazy kookaburra and so seek justice in legitimate fashion for his white collar crimes. The other option was vigilante justice, which Louis hadn’t ruled out, of course, but he didn’t have the right connections. There was the Duck, but that was an impossible route to pursue – the Duck’s interests had now diverged from Louis’ since the case had turned hopeless, and his main priority would be chasing Louis himself for the considerable debt he owed of nearly $15,000 (see: Entry 5).

Louis wondered whether the Duck had yet learnt all hope had been lost in his investigation, and so Pay Day had arrived. It was an anxiety-inducing topic but still far preferable to think about than the creeping realisation he was an incompetent detective who needed to re-evaluate his career choices. Louis decided he must focus on the Duck first. Given his limited personal funds, repayment was impossible. He was kicking himself he hadn’t discussed a payment plan with the Duck when he had the chance. Now there was no way the Duck would offer concessions.

Louis continued to obsess over his options as he headed out to The Café for his regular weekly lunch with Kookie and Samson. Only he had decided he must disappear to escape payment to the Duck, and so this would be his last meeting with his bird ‘friends’. He had no intention of informing them either to provide a farewell opportunity. It may be uncourteous but making his exit known could make Kookie suspicious (though unlikely given his shocking levels of self-absorption and, more importantly, obliviousness to reality). Besides, Louis had never been good with goodbyes, even if he felt less emotion towards his companions than a tree being hugged by pandas.

After the meal was finished, Kookie excused himself to “see about a carwash service”. He said he would be back soon and made Louis and Samson promise to wait for a complimentary cheese platter gifted to him by The Café for being their number-one paying customer for three years running. Ordinarily Louis would have refused but relented since it was their last meeting. Samson just nodded and chuckled to himself.

The table was strewn with used napkins and Louis began to scribble in boredom. His thoughts drifted back to the Duck and quickly snowballed into paranoia about being caught. Surely, the genius duck would somehow realise Louis’ betrayal through trigonometry or some other mathematical wizardry?

Samson interrupted his thoughts by muttering, “I fear many things too, like the colour of red ice cream staining my feathers or flying to Mars in a bucket caught up in a helium balloon…”

Louis looked up, startled. Samson simply stared back with his eyes magnified behind his cheap glasses. Louis glanced at what he had been mindlessly scribbling on a napkin. It read: ‘All hope is lost! Duck genius will get me with mathematical voodoo.’ What a ridiculous thing to scribble!

“Excuse me but I must go,” Louis said hastily to Samson and raced out of The Café.

Louis hid himself in a tree near The Café and waited with baited breath for Samson to exit. It had just occurred to him he had stupidly overlooked Samson as a possible undercover operative himself who may be acting on behalf of a third party, such as the Duck. And of course it made perfect sense given Samson’s particular eccentricities, likely assumed and exaggerated for the role. Louis couldn’t believe his own gullibility. He decided he must secretly follow Samson to find out if he was, in fact, the Duck’s informant and therefore rushing to divulge the updated status of Louis’ investigation (i.e., cancelled or dead-in-the-water).

Frustratingly, Kookie took 45 minutes to return to The Café, dawdling down the footpath and carrying what looked like a crane fashioned out of newspaper under one wing. Louis had hoped Samson would give up and leave before Kookie’s return, but the stupid pigeon just sat around and stared at a wall. Then, the cheese platter arrived: a tray with a diameter extending well beyond the width of the table, and Kookie and Samson spent another hour eating smelly cheeses. Louis was secretly a bit hurt they didn’t mind his absence.

Finally the two birds left The Café and wandered off in different directions. Samson flew up and over some buildings and Louis followed him at a safe distance. He felt his heart thud loudly as Samson neared the local park, but to his relief, Samson continued past it. Still, Louis needed to be sure Samson wasn’t rendezvousing with the Duck elsewhere, so he continued following. After another 15 minutes, Samson descended besides what looked like a humungous circus tent with red-and-white striped canvas. Just ridiculous enough to be a plausible meeting location, Louis thought to himself. He settled in a nearby tree to spy on Samson’s next moves.

There was an ice cream truck parked outside the tent and a huge crowd of excited families and running kids wandered about, some lined up at the truck and others opting for fairy floss or some other sweet snack that doubled for lethal injections of sugar.

To Louis’ surprise, Samson disappeared inside the truck and reappeared at the window serving ice cream. He had put on a pink apron emblazoned with the company name, ‘ICE DREAMERY’ and a traditional chef cap. He started taking orders. To Louis’ immense confusion, Samson was serving the ice cream terribly (accidentally flicking second scoops on to the customers’ clothes or handing them $50 in change instead of $5), but when the manager finally told him off, it was because he had failed to follow the company’s uniform policy: putting on a bow tie. By this point Louis was pretty sure Samson was not an undercover operative acting for the Duck, but he continued watching out of sheer fascination. It was hard to hear from a distance but he caught the manager saying to Samson, “That’s the 16th bow tie you’ve lost this month. If you lose another, you’re out on the street, you hear?” Samson muttered something in response and the manager handed him a new bow tie, rolling his eyes.

Louis stayed until the end of Samson’s shift, which was about an hour. As Samson exited the truck, he was out of the cap and apron but the bow tie was still on. He pulled it up with a wing on to his head so it looked like he was wearing a headband and then flew off at unusually high speed. Naturally the bow tie fell off and drifted down into some thorny bushes within seconds. Samson flew on, unaware or indifferent, it was hard to tell.

“What the heck was that about?” Louis exclaimed after a pause. He went down and retrieved the bow tie from the bushes, deciding to keep it as a souvenir of this wacky period in his life that he was leaving behind – assuming he escaped successfully.

POSTSCRIPT

Elsewhere, some hours later, high up in an obscured treehouse in a local suburban park, the Duck called to one of the duck skaters and they fast approached.

“Quack,” he said.

“Fatty Bearscaglia?” the duck skater replied, “So all hope is lost in the detective lorikeet’s investigation?”

“Quack.”

“I see, I’ll ask Fatty to come over straight away.”

The Duck nodded, satisfied, and returned to his calculus textbook.