Love: the Spies of Life
part 1

TaleSpin and its characters are property of Disney. All other characters are mine and cannot be used without permission.

Pearee
Saturday, June 11, 1938
7:00 P.M.

Stained with muted yellows, oranges, and violets, the sky suspended over Pearee intensified the beauty of the historical city by hiding dingy corners and softening harsh outlines in fleeting twilight. Normally, Mother Nature’s pre-nocturnal handiwork was available for brief admiration, forgotten as soon as the stars emerged. This particular sunset, however, was to be forever immortalized due to the efforts of a sidewalk artist.

She, seated on a high stool before her easel, her smock splattered with paint, deftly swirled colors on her pallet together to achieve precisely the right shades. Beneath her brush, the sunset emerged in all its transient glory. Then, interposed upon the sunset was a shadowy skyline consisting of buildings that had seen many years’ worth of sunsets. In the foreground were a row of old-fashioned iron lampposts just beginning to blaze forth with light, illuminating a boulevard lined with pear trees. In the far distance, above the trees and century-old buildings, the lace-like top of the Eyeful Tower stretched towards the sky.

“What do you think of it, Marcel?” the artist asked the mime who had paused on his way into the Jardin de Lucksembourger, one of the city’s major parks, to peek over her shoulder.

Marcel cocked his head to one side, considering the painting. Then, with a broad smile on his white painted face, he applauded enthusiastically.

“Merci. I hope the customers will agree with you,” the artist murmured, darkening a shadow on the canvas.

On the other side of the park, a few blocks from the artist’s perch was a six-story building. Like many buildings in Pearee, the exterior had been preserved exactly as it had been when it was built over a century before. However, the inside had been remodeled to house one of the most modern physics labs in the world - Le Laboratorie d’Atomique.

At this late hour on a Saturday, the building was deserted save for a few scientists and the janitor, who was doing his customary scheduled mopping.

Dr. Bonet, one of the world’s most eminent nuclear physicists, paused in writing in his laboratory notebook when he heard the squeak of the mop bucket entering the room. He peered over his half-moon spectacles, across the room at the janitor, who was stacking stools on top of the lab benches to clear the floor space.

The rhino scientist chuckled good-naturedly. “All right, Georges, I can take a hint.” He closed the notebook, slipped his fountain pen into his lab coat pocket, and rose from his stool.

The heavy-set janitor grunted and started to mop one corner of the room industriously.

After exchanging his lab coat for his jacket, Dr. Bonet said a cheerful, “Bonsoir. See you on Monday,“ and left.

When the scientist’s plodding footfalls had faded away, the janitor plunged the mop into the mop bucket, causing a sudsy spray to hit the tile floor. He made a beeline over to the lab notebooks and started to rummage through them. Every so often, he glanced over his shoulder at the door.

Dr. Bonet popped his head into the room and snagged his fedora from a hook just inside the door. “Me again, Georges. I forgot my...” Dropping his hat, he exclaimed, “Sacre bleu! What are you doing?”

The janitor was tearing a handful of pages out of a notebook.

The physicist was so stunned that he didn’t have time to react before he was knocked out by a single, well-placed blow to the face.

Georges vaulted over Dr. Bonet’s prone body, the notebook pages crumpled in his meaty fist.

At that moment, another scientist entered the room, asking, “Is everything all right in here? I heard a...whoa!” the small rabbit squeaked, crashing to the floor as the janitor tripped him with the mop handle. “Help! Help! Police!”

“Shut up, big mouth,” Georges growled, shoving the mop head in the scientist’s face.

The janitor sprinted down the stairs and out into the street, hastily shoving the papers in his overalls pocket.

When he was halfway down the block, the rabbit scientist emerged from Le Laboratorie d’Atomique, face and hair dripping with soapy water. “Help! Police! Thief!” he yelled, running over to two policemen standing on the street corner. Breathlessly, the scientist squeaked out, “Thief! Stole Dr. Bonet! Knocked down papers! I mean, stole papers. Knocked down Dr. Bonet! Help! Help!”

Officer Marin bent his long giraffe’s neck towards the small scientist, who was bouncing up and down in agitation. “The thief is still inside?”

“Non! There he goes!” he said, pointing at the swiftly, yet calmly, retreating janitor. “Please, catch him!”

Officer Larousse, a poodle with closely-cropped hair, put a whistle to his mouth and blew a loud, shrill note.

Tweeeeeeeet!

Noticing that he was being pursued by the police, Georges the janitor put on a surprising burst of speed despite his hefty bulk and short legs. He tore across the busy park with the cops just behind.

Tweet! Tweet!

Georges roughly pushed his way through a small crowd watching Marcel the mime pretending to climb a mountain near the fountain in the middle of the park. Grabbing Marcel by his arm, the janitor swung him into the path of the oncoming policemen, causing both the mime and Larousse to splash into the fountain.

“Twee...cough, cough!Twee...!” Officer Larousse spluttered as Marcel mimed the motions of a fish for the audience’s amusement.

“Don’t see anything like that in Attlanta, right, Lester?” a hippo tourist drawled.

“No, Elmira dear,” Lester, her crane husband, replied absently, rapidly snapping a succession of photographs.

“Why, even the Pearee police promote the arts,” Elmira said, clasping her pudgy hands in delight as she watched Larousse assist Marcel out of the fountain.

With one policeman still on his tail, George slipped into a crowded stamp fair, dodging and weaving around booths and stamp collectors.

“Pardonez-moi. Excusez-moi. Official police business. Everybody move!” Officer Marin said impatiently, nearly tripping over a little boy holding a bagful of stamps.

When he emerged from the stamp fair, Officer Marin plucked a stamp from his nose. “Zut! Worthless things, stamps.” Standing head and shoulders above most of the park patrons, the giraffe’s sharp eyes scanned the bustling park, which was filled with people of all ages. Finally, he spotted the pea green overalls on the broad back of the janitor bouncing towards the park’s perimeter. Breaking into a run, he shouted, “Stop, thief!”

Seeing that he was still being pursued by the persistent policeman, the janitor emitted a low, menacing growl. He had planned and plotted too long to be caught now. As he ran by the artist putting the final touches on her painting, he snatched the canvas right from under her brush.

“Monsieur, I am not finished with that!” Seeing the policeman approaching, she waved her paint brush. “Officer! Officer!”

Officer Marin hurried over to her. “Oui, mademoiselle?” he said hastily, jogging in place.

“A man ran by and stole my painting and my...”

“A big man? In green overalls?”

“Oui.”

Marin’s black eyes gleamed with excitement. “Which way did he go?”

The artist pointed to her right. Before she had a chance to file a complaint, he was gone. “No one appreciates fine art,” she sighed sadly, gathering up her paints and brushes. “Oh, well. Another day, another sunset.”

Officer Marin sprinted down the sidewalk, past apartment building after apartment building. To his left, he was screened from the street by a row of pear trees.

When he rounded the corner, something hard and wet and smelling of oil paint unexpectedly slammed into his face, stopping him in his tracks. It was the artist’s stolen painting.

Marin batted it aside in time to see the janitor disappear behind a short wall. The officer, his face streaked with every color of the rainbow, scrambled over the wall. Dropping to the ground on the other side, he found himself in a narrow alleyway between two apartment buildings, which was crisscrossed with clotheslines. Between the towels, linens, and unmentionables, he could catch glimpses of the janitor, running towards the other end of the alley.

Drawing his gun, Marin started after him, but found it difficult going. The tall giraffe had to bend nearly over double to duck under the clotheslines.

At the opposite end of the alley, there was another wall. As the janitor was about to scale it, Marin shouted, “Stop! You’re under arrest!”

Georges froze in his tracks with his hands on top of the wall.

Marin approached the thief slowly, cocking his gun. “Now turn around.”

Chuckling sinisterly, Georges said, “As you wish.” He quickly spun around, simultaneously squirting two tubes of paint at the officer’s face.

“Aaaah!” Marin cried out in pain. He furiously clawed at his burning eyes.

“You asked for it,” the janitor muttered with smug complacence. As he ran past the cop, he knocked him into a clothesline.

Marin was still wrestling with the clothesline when he heard the familiar voice of his partner, Larousse, ask, “What happened? What are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing?” Marin snapped.

Larousse unfastened the clothesline from the wall, causing Marin to topple to the ground.

“Did you see the thief? Which way did he go?”

“Je ne sais pas,” Larousse shrugged, stifling a laugh at his partner’s appearance. Marin, his eyes watering, his face smeared with paint, was a frightful sight. “No one is here but us.” He picked up an empty tube of red paint. “Ingénieux.”

“Unfortunately...” Marin muttered morosely, swiping the tube of paint from Larousse. “First criminal I’ve ever lost. Bah!”

“Can you see to walk?”