The Fourth Bear

“This is good, ” he said at last in a deep voice, making a few lip-smacky noises. “How much you got?”

“Forty keys for now,” said Tarquin, his voice also a low baritone, “plus as much as you can shift in the future. It’s nine-fifty a key, Algy—no

The bear named Algy laughed and scratched his head. “Hey, Tarq, it’s good but not that good. I can get this from Safeway for half that price.”

“And who’s going to march up to the checkout and buy it? You?”

“Sure. It’s easy to pass for human. Just act like you own the place.”

“You wish it were that easy. Listen, you pay me nine-fifty for this and everything I can get in the future and I’ll give you six pounds of honey just for you and the missus. Call it a sweetener.”

The second bear thought for a moment. “Comb or jar?”

Tarquin opened his arms wide and smiled, displaying a mouthful of sharp white teeth. “Algy! Who do you think I am? Comb of course. ”

Algy licked his lips and rapidly came to a decision. “Then you’ve got a deal. Ninety-five pence times forty is—let me think—thirty-eight pounds.” He pulled a wallet from his back pocket. “Have you got change for two twenties?”

Jack told Mary to stay put and then stepped out from behind the concrete pillar. The two bears stared shortsightedly in his direction, flicked their ears down flat on their heads and growled until they recognized who it was, then looked around i

“Hello, Tarquin,” said Jack as he approached. “Up to your old tricks again?”

Tarquin winced and nodded a polite greeting. “Private sale, Inspector. Nothing for you here.”

“Oh, yes?” replied Jack, taking a handful from the opened bag. “Pla

“For private consumption only,” replied Tarquin unconvincingly.

“Not even you could eat this much porridge,” said Jack as he let the rolled oats spill through his fingers onto the ground.

“Where did you get all this? Porridge dot com?”

“It’s not for porridge,” a

“We’re going to use it to make… flapjacks. ”

Jack looked into the van. Forty kilos of rolled oats was a reasonable-size pile. Not huge, but enough. “That’s a lot of flapjacks.”

“I like flapjacks.”

Jack paused for thought. This was a new approach. Porridge was a restricted-quota foodstuff for bears, along with honey, marmalade and buns, but rolled oats weren’t classified at all. They were merely something the NCD called “porridge paraphernalia,” along with bowls, spoons, brown sugar and so forth. Legal to buy and sell, but generally used for only one purpose.

“Flapjacks, eh?”

“Yes, Inspector,” replied Tarquin i

“Well, okay then,” said Jack cheerfully, “let’s make flapjacks. How much honey you got?”

“What?” asked Tarquin, suddenly wary.

“Honey,” replied Jack as he opened the front door of the van and found half a dozen jars and six honeycombs. “We’re going to make flapjacks. Rolled oats and honey. Let’s mix it all up here and now.”

Algy and Tarquin looked at each other in horror.

“Mix it… up?”

“Yeah. Come on, guys, you said it was for flapjacks!”

The bears watched with mounting horror as Jack picked up a two-kilo bag of oats and made to open it over Algy’s wheelbarrow.

Algy muttered, “Oh, lawks!” and put a paw over his eyes.

“WAIT!” shouted Tarquin. Jack stopped. “Okay,” he said with a sigh, “you’ve got me. Bloody NCD. You’d never try this if I was an Ursa Major.”

“If you were a major, you’d know better than to peddle porridge. So… where did you get this? Safeway? Somerfields? Waitrose? ”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Have it your own way,” said Jack as he begun to tear open the bag of oats over the wheelbarrow.

Tarquin put up a paw to stop him. “Okay, okay. I buy it wholesale from this person I’ve never met over in Shiplake.”

“How can you have never met him in Shiplake?”

“I’m sorry,” said Tarquin with a confused look. Like many bears he could be dense at times. “You’re going to have to ask me that question again.”

“What’s their name?”

“I don’t know. I pick the stuff up from a warehouse and leave the money in a cookie tin.”

“I get it. How do they contact you?”

“By phone. About eight months ago. Said they needed to shift some merchandise and could I help them out. I’ve never met them.”

“Ursine?”

“No. Human.”

“Old, young, male, female? What?”

“I don’t know,” said Tarquin with a shrug. “You all sound pretty squeaky to me.”

“If you’re lying to me…”

“On my cub’s life,” said Tarquin earnestly, crossing his chest, stamping one foot and then clicking a claw on one of his canines.

“I can give you the address and the code to get in.”

“Okay,” said Jack as he handed him his notepad. Tarquin jotted down an address and handed it back. “Good. Now you—what’s your name?”

“Algernon. Algy.”

“Okay, bear-named-Algy, Tarquin here is going to sell you these oats for sixty pence a kilo. Give him the money.”

Tarquin threw his arms in the air, opened his eyes wide and growled dangerously. Blabbing to the cops was one thing, but taking a loss on an oat deal was quite another. He took a pace toward Jack and stared at him in the sort of way he’d stare at a leaping salmon, if he’d ever done such a thing, which he hadn’t. Jack stood his ground.

“You are so out of order!” yelled Tarquin.

“No,” said Jack, “you are out of order. This is what happens to bears who smuggle over quota. I’ve got nothing against moderate porridge use, but I don’t take to bears like you seeking to capitalize on ursine weaknesses. I’ll ignore the forty kilos this time, but if I catch you with so much as an ounce in the future, you’ll be making license plates as a career.”

“License plates?”

“It’s a euphemism for prison. Take the money.”

“No,” said Tarquin, as he moved closer. “What if I tell you to go take a ru

Jack stared at him and didn’t waver for a moment.

“Listen here, Boo-Boo,” he said slowly, “you’ve been busted good and proper. Take it like a bear or I’ll spread it around that you’ve been cutting the oats with Maltex.”

“They’d never believe you,” he growled.

“Wouldn’t they? Take a step closer and my associate hiding over there will tranq your fuzzy butt, and then we can talk it over at the station. Me with a cup of tea and an Oreo, and you with a splitting headache and a numb ass. Your choice.”

Tarquin thought for a moment, sighed and then relaxed. “Okay, Inspector,” he said with a forced smile, “we’ll play it your way.”

Greatly relieved at this, Algy gave Tarquin the reduced price and started to load the bags of oats into his wheelbarrow. He paused for thought and then asked, “Do you really cut it with Maltex?”

“Of course not.”

“But I still get the honey, right?”

“NO!”

“Here’s to the day when they repeal Porribition,” said Jack as they walked out of the garage and into the sunshine. “The associated criminal element of supply far outweighs the harm that it does to the bear population.”

“What’s the alternative?” said Mary. “Unregulated porridge use? We’d have trippy, spaced-out bears wandering around the town, hallucinating who-knows-what in the Oracle Center.”

“If I made the laws, I’d let them,” said Jack. “Porridge is a great deal less harmful than alcohol—and we seem to embrace and promote the sale of that almost everywhere. ”

“I agree it doesn’t make much sense,” replied Mary, adding, “I thought calling Tarquin ‘Boo-Boo’ was a bit daring. You know how sensitive they can get on the whole Yogi issue.”

“Bears are big on dominance—I had to insult him. Besides, you had a tranquilizer aimed on Tarquin’s ass the whole time, right?”

“The dart gun?” said Mary with surprise as she started the engine. “Not me. I thought you had it. Where now?”

“Next time we’re tackling bears,” pleaded Jack, who had suddenly turned a little pale, “please make sure you’ve got the tranquilizer gun. And we’re off to Charvil. I need to buy a new car.”