Salty and Cara – Silent Waters I
Love and crime in a world of fruits and vegetables – A delicious fable.
Here comes a new adventure of our smart and tasty couple (Second Story – First Episode)
The Trip
He wasn’t sure whether he should be in his office today. In fact, he wasn’t sure about almost anything after what he’d been through the last few days. Of course, there was Cara. And the thought of her made him smile, and for a moment he forgot the deadly poison, the huge wave of Swirlers that had filled a room with him in it, the barely escaping, the narrow survival of Cara’s colleague Beta. And most of all: the wicked grin of Gio as he slipped through the side door, all of him clad in a long, dark, hooded coat.
“Is that you, Quentin? Are you okay, dear?”
She was the rock. Salty loved his old secretary like a member of the family. Courgette had been there all his life, and she had been a good friend to his parents for a long time before that. And her last day had been only slightly less exciting than his. Still, she was here, no matter what.
“Hello Courgette. How are you doing? You still seem to be shaking it pretty easy.”
“I’ll let you in on a secret: it’s 40 percent makeup and 50 percent attitude. Well, and heritage might help with up to 10 percent. Are you ready to work, boss?”
“Sure am,” pep talks were one of her specialties-along with a very strong nutritional mix that was already sitting on his desk, “what’s up today?”
“You probably didn’t get to meet that financial fruit from Old Valley yesterday, did you? It’s a good thing you went straight home, it obviously wasn’t that urgent after all. A messenger bug brought this just a few moments ago.” And she handed him a packet.
He took the parcel and checked the markings on the side. It had been sent late last night from an exclusive hotel in Ant Hill. No clues as to who the sender might have been. Then the receptionist must have had it delivered first thing in the morning. But he had a feeling that the package was from Angur Cucumis, the cucumber who had insisted on meeting him the day before.
Just as he carefully opened the message on his desk, the phone rang. Courgette was already on it: “Cumberman & Cumberman Investigations. What can I do for you?” Then there was silence until she said a quick “Thank you” and hung up.
He could sense something was wrong, so instead of waiting for her to come into his office to report, he paid her a visit at the reception desk where she was sitting.
“What was that about?”
“It was really a matter of life and death. I thought he was being overdramatic, so I just wrote down his call and that he wanted to meet urgently… .” She was really shaken.
“It’s okay, Courgette. When you get involved with people like that, you always have to expect a negative outcome. How bad is it?”
“Someone threw him off the balcony on the top floor of the Ant Hill Plaza.”
“That’s pretty drastic. He must have gotten in the way of some very heavy fruit. Did Maxwell say anything else?”
“Just that the New Valley police still have no idea what I’m up to, but that’s…”
“…normal.” He finished her sentence, because this sad truth was common knowledge. The crooks in his city worked their way around law enforcement. That had been one of the reasons his father had quit his job and opened the investigator’s office. Better money, less politics, more facts.
“I guess that makes our little parcel here even more interesting.”
She sighed, “It certainly does. Oh, by the way, you got another Express Mail Bug this morning.”
He had not noticed the second packet before. No, he opened it and found another surprise, this time a pleasant one: “This is a new case. Emerald Insurance hired me to clean up a scam involving a fake project that someone insured and cashed in on. They are sending me to Big Valley. And they told me to bring my wife with me.”
“You know, in Big Valley it will not matter that you come from different backgrounds. That is normal there. The two of you could finally take that vacation you have been talking about for so long.”
“Well, what are you waiting for?” he beamed, “Call her and tell her to bring some loose protective clothing and a sun hat. It gets hot up there.”
“Already on it,” she laughed as she picked up her phone.
He returned to his office and grabbed the first envelope again. This was all too mysterious.
When he had sorted the contents on his desk, he let out a surprised cry: “What a coincidence! Now she will want to come even more”.
“It’s okay, Courgette. When you get involved with people like that, you always have to expect a negative outcome. How bad is it?”
“Someone threw him off the balcony on the top floor of the Ant Hill Plaza.”
Side Notes:
- About the ‘swirlers’: These are small metal discs launched from small catapults with a specially designed aiming device that can be held with one hand. Another specialty of the Outer Rim regions in the mountains around New Valley. Naturally, Don Tomatoni equips his employees with these instruments. “For back insurance,” he says, “because not all the fruits out there are nice.” The police of New Valley do not have the swirlers because they can inflict horrible wounds and cause the most agonizing deaths. They only carry protective clothing and long sticks. Officially.
- You may have noticed that the new ‘Salty & Cara’ episodes are regularly released on the last Friday of the month, or at least the last post of the month (if that last Friday falls on Easter or Christmas).
Missed the last episode? Here it is [ I< ] And what happens next? Find out [ >I ]
You have no clue, what is going on at all? Here is how it all started: [‘Salty and Cara. The Crime Story‘]
Needless to say, the stories about Salty and Cara are pure figments of my imagination. No resemblance to any person or place – present or past – is intended. But I am sure you have already figured that out 😉