Undercover Agent 2

“It’s a parrot with perfect recall,” Denton told his boss. “Word for word.”

“How does that help. We’ can’t use a parrot in court, we’d look ridiculous. We need recordings, something physical we can use in evidence.”

“But we can’t get evidence on these people. They sweep for bugs before they so much as say hello. That’s if we can get a bug in there, most of the hard-core gangs we’re looking into have contacts and we can never get a warrant.”

“A parrot’s not going to convict anyone.”

“It still gets us information. Names, dates, locations.”

“Even so, how are you going to use it? Break into a gangsters house, leave a parrot in their front room and hope they don’t notice.”

“I have a plan.”

He had a plan. He explained it to me while feeding me seedcake.

“The mark is Bradley Standfast, Polly. A notorious local villain, every sin known to man he’s involved, every pocket picked he has his hand in it, drugs, theft, blackmail, ever rotten crook in every rotten borough has Standfast behind him.”

“Polly like seedcake,” I said.

“Like some more would you? Well, you’re going to earn it. This is a long-haul job, I need you there in his house, listening to everything he says. Recording, if you like, ready to speak it all back to me.”

“The first task is getting you inside. It just so happens that my brother-in-law runs a pet shop frequented by Standfast’s wife.  Just last week they bought a rabbit from the shop for their son.  The next time they go into the shop for a pet we’ll be waiting. Well, you’ll be waiting.”

I had questions, of course. Rabbits live for years, how could Denton be so confident that they would be using the pet shop any time soon. But mine wasn’t to reason why, I was just a parrot after all, there to listen and repeat, écoute et répèteoute as they used to say on the Teach Yourself French course Linton was listening to shortly before his arrest. He had dreams of retiring to the south of France. 

But for whatever reason, Denton proved correct. No sooner had I taken my perch in the pet shop than Standfast’s wife entered. 

“Our rabbit died,” she tells the shopkeeper.  “We’d like a replacement.”

“Is it the boy’s first loss?” the salesman asked.

“No,” the woman sighed. “We’ve been unfortunate in that respect.”

“All the same, if boy is in mourning, it won’t help to foist a strange rabbit on him. He needs a different pet entirely, one who talks back.”

“A talking rabbit?”

“No, not a talking rabbit. A parrot.”

It took some convincing, but Denton’s brother in law could sell. Never mind selling oil to the Arabs, he could sell parrots to a rabbit lover. Standfast’s wife relented and exited the pet shop with a cage containing the cutest, squawkiest undercover agent in the history of true crime.

This was it. I was now in place. An undercover agent. If found out, of course, I’d be yesterday’s feathers.  But who could possibly suspect a harmless parrot?