Jack Daniels and Associates: Snake Wine

by Bernard Schaffer

  Frank wilted a bit and said, "You know what I meant. Die in the, whatever, the figurative sense."

  "I get it now. You're like the white knight riding in to save the damsel in distress and shit?" Phin said. "Here's a newsflash, buddy. Jack Daniels don't need it."

  "Probably not," Frank said. "Maybe I'm the one that needs it."

  10.

  It seems like every big city in America has a Chinatown and they all have gates adorned with dragons and brilliant primary colors. I wonder who thought of that one first. "We're gonna build a big gate over the street right here and put a bunch of shops and restaurants for Asians behind it. Trust me. This is gonna catch on. You don't know how important this gate thing is going to be for our brand recognition."

  In the movies, every time a cop goes to Chinatown, there's a parade. The moment the cop sets foot through the gate there's fireworks and little dancing girls in bright blue satin pajamas and huge Chinese dragon parade floats rippling through the crowd. It's almost like the Triad members are posted on every rooftop watching for the cops, and when they see one, they pull the alarm and the whole block breaks out in a spontaneous New Year's celebration.

  I've lived in Chicago my whole life and never saw one parade.

  Either the movies are lying or the Triad in my area is asleep at the wheel.

  The reality of Chinatown is that you've got a lot of restaurants and specialty food supply stores and a suspicious lack of any stray cat population. I dated a guy once who liked to come down here for Dim Sum in the early morning. We'd eat tiny pieces of spicy rolls and sweet rolls and drink black tea and everything seemed like it might finally be going right. Turns out, he liked more than Chinese food. Last I heard, he met someone through the "Marry Your Very Own Vietnamese Girl" website and was flying out with a briefcase of cash to give to her parents.

  I hoped, in my heart of hearts, they'd kidnapped him and stuck him in a tiger cage with all the other stupid, horny, round-eye bastards.

  Delivery men carrying thick cardboard boxes weaved through the streets ahead of me, lugging them out of white vans into restaurants, lugging them out of supply shops and into the vans again. The boxes were all marked with a mixture of red Chinese characters and American shipping labels. There were fish mongers in ice trucks and men racing down the street with hand trucks loaded with heavy barrels of cooking oil.

  I passed a shop that had nothing but dead ducks in the window. Dozens of them all strung by the neck, all their skins roasted to a crisp, light-brown. They still looked exactly like ducks though, complete with beaks and eyes, and it freaked me out a little. I wondered if people bought a duck to go and walked down the street eating it like a big piece of fried chicken. I actually like duck, and it probably tasted wonderful, I just didn't want to eat anything that was looking back at me.

  The address Phin had written down for me was an empty-looking, plain white building with a few cheap-looking trinkets dangling in the storefront window. A small cardboard sign read Tan's Fortune Cookie Wholesale in the lower right hand corner. I pulled on the front door handle. It was locked. I pressed the buzzer and tried to look into the shop through the smoked glass windows. There was a glass counter and little else.

  I guess it didn't take much to run a fortune cookie operation. Ever since I was a kid, I played this game when we ordered Chinese food. There's always a bunch of fortune cookies in the bag and everyone has to pick theirs. That way, whatever fortune you get was meant to be yours. It makes it a little more personal. Everybody always opens their cookies and reads the little slip of paper and adds the words "in bed" to the end of whatever it says. Then they laugh and toss it away. But the good ones? The really good ones that kind of say something meaningful depending on whatever's going on in my life at the moment? I secretly fold them up and put them in my purse, just in case they were really meant to be mine.

  Yeah, yeah, I'm sentimental and shit. Kiss my butt.

  If you think about it, there's really no better way for a deity to communicate with a lesser being. They don't really do the burning bush routine anymore and people who hear voices get locked away in the basement of loony bins, so what better way to slide a little divine insight to somebody without raising suspicion? Hang in there, Jack, things will get better. Or, take your time getting to know this guy, Jack. And maybe even the occasional, make sure you keep your gun nearby next weekend, Jack.

  Herb is out there, and you've almost found him, so don't give up, Jack.

  That last one would be nice.

  I laid on the buzzer again. Whoever was inside the store was either going to answer the door or go deaf from the noise. I was good either way.

  A man's voice called out, "I'm coming, I'm coming, you white devil, stop before you break the button!"

  I bent down as he came to the door and stepped back as he started turning the latches. Even now, after all these years, my academy instructors words rang out in my ears, yelling at us to avoid the "fatal funnel." Any doorway, hallway, alleyway…all right, basically anything with the word "way" attached to it, is a fatal funnel where the good guy gets corralled through a confined space while the bad guys just have to point their guns at it and shoot. Every time I'm standing in a doorway I instinctively step back, backing out of the way to give myself room to maneuver. Even when the person opening the door is a seventy-year old Chinese man wearing the ugliest silk robe I've ever seen, and he only stands about five feet tall. He looks like Yoda.

  "What are you ringing the door so much for…hey, gorgeous, look at you," he says, smiling suddenly, wide enough to show me his gnarled yellow teeth caked with decades of tobacco use. "You looking for Tan? Tan right here for you, hot stuff."

  I nodded slowly and said, "Yes, I am, Mr. Tan. Can I come in?"

  "You come in, come in now," he said, stepping back to wave me in. "Who you work for? Aramark? How many fortune cookie you need? Tan do all the big events for corporate function. All best quality cookie, no shit."

  "No shit," I said.

  "No shit, Sherlock," he said, snapping his fingers for emphasis. "Come right from China factory, not cheap imitation. Tan fortune cookie number one, number one all over the world."

  "I'm sure," I said, looking around. The store was empty except for the Formica counter with a cash register and laptop computer.

  "So," Tan said, "How many fortune cookie you need?"

  "I don't need fortune cookies," I said.

  He looked at me in confusion, "You didn't come for cookie?"

  "No."

  "You come for nookie?"

  "No."

  "Quickie?"

  "No!" I said. "I came for a snake."

  He flinched when I said it, then his face twisted up into the ugliest rendition of a smile I'd ever seen, and he said, "Oh…I get it. You came for special snake."

  "Yes. Exactly."

  Tan shrugged and reached between his legs to begin fumbling with his pants, "You came for trouser snake."

  I clenched my fists and said, "I swear to God, you pull that little thing out and I'm going to rip it off and throw it into traffic."

  "Hey, easy, hot baby," he said. "Tan just want to help you."

  "You can help me if you stop screwing around and tell me how much for a cobra."

  "Cobra? You think Tan sell cobras? Tan sell fortune cookie, not snakes."

  "Look, Mr. Tan," I said, putting my hands on the counter. "My husband is very, very sick. His kidneys are failing. We've been importing freeze-dried cobra venom from India for six months but now we're out of time! I can't wait for another shipment from overseas, see? I need a real, actual, venomous cobra so we can milk the damn thing and try to save Dave's life. I don't care what it costs. I have money."

  His eyes narrowed on me, then he made a point of looking past me to check the front door and sidewalk below. "Are you a cop?" he said.

  "No," I said.

  "Are you a cop?"

  "No," I said again.

  "Are you a cop?"

  "Are you
an idiot?"

  "You answer three times that you aren't cop so I believe you. It's in the Constitution."

  I nodded slightly and said, "Oh, right. The Second Amendment. I always forget that part. No, I'm not a cop." I reached into my pocket and pulled out a thick roll of cash that made Tan's eyes widen. It was actually just two hundred bucks, with the first hundred made up of single dollar bills all rolled around one another and the last bill, a Benjamin, wrapped around the top for show. I palmed the roll as I showed it to Tan and said, "So what do you say? Can we do business?"

  Tan hurried around the counter and went for the front door, fumbling for his keys in his pocket. He locked the door quickly and shut off the lights to the store. He waved for me to follow him to the back of the store, back toward a door that led to the cellar. "I hope you like animals," he said quietly.

  "You mean, like, dogs and cats?" I said.

  He opened the basement door and held out his hand for me to go down first, "Not exactly."

  The stench wafting up from the basement hit me instantly, sending my senses reeling. It stank like nothing I've ever smelled before, and I've worked violent crime scenes that would make a maggot's eyes water. It was absolutely horrific, but not unfamiliar. Somewhere, deep in the recesses of my memory, I recognized the smell.

  I'm a little girl again, holding my mother's hand. We're going into the Regenstein small reptile house at Lincoln Park zoo. It's a hot day and the ice cream I whined my way into getting is running down my hand and saturating the wrist of my long-sleeve T-shirt. I'm no more than seven years old.

  There's a zoo worker at the entrance who says, "The air conditioning is broke inside the reptile house today, girls. You probably don't want to go in there."

  My mom looks at me and says, "We'll be fine, won't we, honey? You wanna see the snakes, right?"

  I lick my ice cream and say, "Mmm hmm."

  "Suit yourself," he says, turning to open the door for us.

  I make the mistake of taking a lick of ice cream just as the smell comes flooding through the doors. It fills my mouth and nose and boils my insides until I can't stomach the taste of chocolate ice cream even to this day.

  Mom grabs my hand firmly and pulls me in behind her, saying, "Come on, Jack. No turning back now."

  I hear her voice as I reach out and take the hand rail, going down the rickety stairs into the darkness. Something hisses at my approach. Not something, I realize. A dozen things.

  Tan flicks on the lights as I reach the bottom of the stairs, stopping me cold. Lights come on inside at least twenty cages that line the walls of the basement. Directly in front of me was a ten foot aquarium holding five baby alligators that were fighting over the remains of a chicken carcass. Another tank of almost the same size holding an anaconda that was thicker than my forearm, wrapped in thick coils with its face pressed against the glass, watching our every move. There were strange insects with massive wing spans and ferocious-looking reptiles I recognized from late-night shows on the Discovery Channel. Tan held up his hands toward the last cage and said, "Here you go, the one you look for. Isn't it beautiful?"

  He tapped the cage with his knuckle and the speckled snake sat straight up in the air, a four-foot reticulated length of venomous death. The snake fanned its hood and Tan smiled, saying, "This a beautiful monocled kaouthia from Bangladesh." He tapped the opposite end of the glass and the snake chased after his hand, tightening up its coil to strike. "Very aggressive, with very potent venom. You can see the distinctive O-pattern on the back of the hood. It takes some time for people to get used to the milking process, so lucky for you, I have anti-venom for sale. I make a good price for hot baby. Lucky you."

  I folded my arms and said, "I'm not looking for a monogrammed chupaloopa cobra, Tan. I'm looking for the real thing. A king cobra."

  He let out a short laugh and said, "Don't be stupid. Nobody has king cobra for sale. Nobody want one. Nobody crazy enough to capture one. King cobra live twenty years and never forget who capture it. They escape captivity and come back long time after you forgot them, and they kill you out of revenge."

  "I don't have time for legends and wives tales, Tan. I need a king cobra and I know you can find one for me." I flashed the wad of bills at him and nodded eagerly, "Sell me a King Cobra, Tan my man."

  He looked at me with growing concern. I'd definitely touched a nerve. He waved his hands in my face and pushed me back toward the steps, "No sale for you, crazy baby. You don't know what you're talking about."

  I reached into my back pocket and brought out my gold badge and held it up for Tan to see. "So I guess this means we're making this an official conversation, Tan. I really didn't want to go this route."

  "No fair," he shouted. "No fair, I ask three time, you say no three time, this is big-time bullshit!"

  "You should be more careful what you read on the internet, Tan. It was probably a cop who invented that ask-three-times crap anyway." I wrapped my hand around his neck, pushing him back toward the cobra cage, "Now, one last time before I get on the phone with code enforcement and wildlife control and put us both in the newspaper. Where do I get a king cobra?"

  His eyes were flicking back and forth like he was inventing a story, like he was getting ready to sell me a line of garbage that it would take too long to verify. I didn't have time for a wild goose chase. I called an audible and shouted, "Tell me about the woman, Tan!"

  "What woman?" he said meekly.

  I shook him by his scrawny throat as hard as I could and yelled, "The goddamn Asian chick who makes the king cobra venom! I swear to God, I will shoot holes in all these cages and lock you down here. They'll find chunks of you inside chunks of the other reptiles the biggest reptile ate last!"

  He grabbed my wrists and cried, "Li Xiao! Li Xiao!"

  I stopped shaking him and said, "What?"

  "Not what, who. Li Xiao, off of Hanley Harbor. She keep king cobra there. Knows more about them than anybody."

  "Does she milk the snakes?"

  Tan's lips curled up into a sneer and he started to laugh.

  I shook him by the neck again and said, "So help me God, if one more of you idiot men makes a joke about milking the snake, I'm going to crush your nuts into snake powder."

  "Yes," he quickly said. "She make very potent venom powder. People all over the world pay her big, big money. Her product is famous."

  I thought for a moment and said, "What is her product famous for?"

  Tan's hands pulled at my fingers around his neck, trying to loosen them, "Everything from healing to killing. It all depend on the mixture. Doctors in Africa use her venom to knock out patients because it put them to sleep better than anesthesia."

  "Describe her," I said.

  "Young, like you," he said. "And kind of hot baby, for monkey-faced Vietnamese girl."

  I let go of Tan and straightened out my blazer and skirt, making sure the buttons were all fastened and watching him like a hawk to make sure he didn't make any sudden moves. The words flashed across my mind like teletype. Hanley Harbor. Asian woman named Li Xiao. Powdered snake venom that can knock someone out cold. I let go of Tan and wiped off my hand on the side of my leg and said, "Calling someone a monkey face is an extremely racially insensitive thing to say, Tan."

  He shrugged, "My English a little bit off. Maybe something get lost in translation?"

  "I doubt it," I said. I started for the stairs and felt his eyes fix on my rear end. I waved him up ahead of me and said, "All right, lover boy. You first. Let's go."

  11.

  The blindfold fell off hours ago, or was it days? He isn't sure. It is laying at his feet, floating in the sickly-yellow swamp that has now risen up to his knees.

  Herb sees something moving in the darkness, and thinks his keeper has returned. His eyes are almost swollen shut now, ballooning painfully like every other part of his face and chest. He is dying. He knows that. He accepted that long ago, but now, the only question is when.

  Horribly, the only answer t
hat he can manage is, not soon enough.

  He takes little sips of air through his nose and mouth, but can never fill his lungs. He no longer feels his arms or shoulders. They are dead things attached to his trunk like brittle branches, ready to break off without warning or concern.

  There is a deep, boiling pain in his lower back that runs down the length of his thighs all the way out to the balls of his feet. His feet burn so badly he wonders if the keeper has not been pouring acid on top of him all this time.

  He knows that it is not acid though. The same wine the keeper pours over him burns his eyes and throat, but it also numbs the physical pain just enough so that whenever his captor appears overhead with the jug, Herb raises his head and begs for more. But now, after days of soaking in the wine, his skin is pickled. The wine seeps into his cracked feet like parasitic bugs, making them itch to the point of madness, turning the skin into brittle scales. The wine comes up to his knees now and Herb sometimes manages to lift one leg out of the brine long enough to give it air and press it against the warm, dry glass all around him.

  He sees movement in the darkness, something that reflects in the dim light and sparkles like colored glass or polished stones. It moves up and down smoothly, as if gliding through the air in movements no human could make.

  Herb has learned the aspect and form of his cage. He is being held inside a large glass tank that is round and tall, with perfectly polished surfaces that his wet feet cannot gain purchase on and is both too high to climb and too far beneath his feet to allow him to stand firmly. He has cried and screamed and begged and cursed as violently and mournfully as he could, but his words bounced around the glass like an echo chamber, ringing hollow in his ears. For all he knows, the keeper is not even in the same building.

  There is a bright and cruel spotlight directly over his head, hoisted high above the rack that he dangles from. He can see a catwalk that leads up to the edge of the glass where the keeper stands to pour the wine down from. He can see that it is made of wooden planks and built along iron scaffolds, but he does not know where they go, except into the darkness.