by Jenn Bennett
“Exotic-pet shops?” Lon suggested.
“Maybe that’s a good place to start looking.”
Studying a map, we pinpointed cities in the area of the Mojave Desert bordering Los Angeles, “Inland Empire” cities such as San Bernardino and Riverside and other places such as Lancaster and Palm Springs. If Rooke said my mother made day trips to the serpent temple from Pasadena, we felt fairly confident gauging how far away was too far.
But when we drilled down for information on the exotic-pet stores that made the cut, only two in our targeted area seemed to carry more than a few chameleons and a python or two. One was a fish-and-reptile wholesaler, and the other was a company that provided trained exotic animals to movie sets. That one mentioned that special requests were “negotiable.” Since it opened earliest, we decided to try it first and the next morning drove an hour in rush-hour traffic to Riverside.
No place I’ve ever been matches the endless urban sprawl stretching over the L.A. Basin, where the sun washes over miles of fast-food drive-thrus, malls, and auto-repair shops, one city bleeds into the next, and everything is connected by a web of busy highways and too-short on-ramps. There’s something achingly familiar about the angle of sunlight and the mountains and palm trees, and then you realize it’s because you’ve seen it a thousand times before, in every TV show and movie filmed in this area.
But the farther inland you go, the more you feel a sense of disconnect. And it was in this domesticated borderland between the heart of L.A. and the desert where we spent two hours being bounced around the Hollyweird Animal Ranch. The property was a maze of outdoor enclosures and buildings, and it felt nice to be strolling and breathing fresh air. We saw some brightly colored, beautiful snakes. But when we questioned management about special requests to arrange purchase of exotic snakes, they insisted it wasn’t something they’d ever do. “We partner with the L.A. Zoo,” the reptile trainer informed us testily. “All of our exotics are brought in by special license, and we’re regularly inspected by the state.”
Lon confirmed that the man was telling the truth once we were back in the SUV.
“Strike one,” I said wearily.
It was almost nine in the morning. Past my bedtime—again. I was tired and cranky, and whatever weight I’d lost in the hospital must have been creeping back on, because the waistband of my skinny jeans was starting to dig into my stomach.
“The other one’s in Ontario,” Lon said. “It’s not far.”
We had a better feeling about R&N Reptiles and Aquatics. For one, they’d taken a lot of flak from animal-rights groups who’d found their facilities wanting. Second, they were near the Ontario airport, and as Lon pointed out, most illegal exotic-animal imports were shipped via air.
None of this had me enthused to check the place out. And when I saw the dreary strip-mall building that housed the shop and the dusty unmarked delivery truck being loaded from a dock on the side, my internal creep-o-meter started beeping.
It didn’t help that the man loading the delivery truck—who was an Earthbound, the first one I’d seen since yesterday—was shouting profanities at the guy driving it, gesticulating wildly. Looked as if any second they might break into a fistfight.
“We’re not here to make friends,” Lon reminded me as we drove past the uncomfortable scene and made our way to the front. He parked next to custom aquarium installer, who headed inside through an unmarked door. Seemed he knew where he was going, so we followed his lead.
Row after row of metal shelving stretched over a long room with unfinished cement floors and dim warehouse lighting. Mismatched sizes of glass tanks and metal cages crowded the shelves, most with laminated signs on which were scribbled breed, age, and cost. Hundreds of snakes and lizards, stacked like cargo.
Snakes don’t bother me. Never have. But what bothered me now was the sad, shoddy state of the store and the wretched stench. Most reptiles don’t have a scent. But their urine and feces do, and that’s what I smelled now. Soiled cages that weren’t properly kept. It wasn’t simply noticeable, it was overwhelming. Two steps inside the door, and I was coughing, covering my mouth with my arm.
“Hey,” Lon said quietly, bending his head near mine. “You okay?”
“The smell,” I choked out, eyes watering from the sharp ammonia in the air.
“It’s a little rough,” he agreed. But he didn’t seem to be as affected.
Meanwhile, I was seriously wondering if I was going to be sick. “Jesus,” I murmured, catching another scent mixed in with all the dirty cages. “Death. Dead snakes in here.”
“An operation this big, I’d imagine so.”
“This is terrible, Lon.”
“I’m starting to understand why the animal-rights groups were up in arms over this.” He discreetly pulled up the hem of his shirt to wipe my face. “Can you do this? You could wait in the car.”
I shook my head, pushing away nausea. “I can do it.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. Wait, don’t turn around.” My stinging eyes followed the aquarium installer from the parking lot. He was chatting with a man who unlocked a door behind the front counter. It swung open into a brightly lit room lined with chicken-wire cages, big white plastic buckets, and tied-up burlap bags.
Neon-yellow and green scales flashed from behind the chicken wire. The door shut behind them. A sign on the door read, OFF LIMITS: EMPLOYEES ONLY.
“They’re definitely keeping tropical stuff back there,” I whispered.
“That’s a good sign, but don’t get your hopes up. Let’s find a manager.”
Breathing through my mouth, I surveyed the cavernous layout with Lon. We spotted someone stocking grungy freezers with vacuum-packed bags of frozen mice. He suggested we wait for one of the owners, Ned, who was apparently the guy who’d led the aquarium installer into the back room.
Five minutes later, Ned approached us at an uneven glass counter that displayed bottles of reptile supplements and medicines. Dressed in a gray polo shirt with the R&N logo on the front pocket, Ned was short and muscular, with a receding blond hairline. Even without Lon’s empathic ability, I could tell right away that the man didn’t trust us.
Guess that was fair, because I didn’t trust him, either. He reeked of lizard piss and cheap, chalky laundry detergent. Something else, too, the death I’d smelled when we walked in. It was clinging to his clothes and trailed from the door in back.
“Are you the couple asking for me?” he said in a guarded voice.
“We are.” I forced myself to smile. “You must be the ‘N’ in ‘R&N.’ ”
“That’s right. How can I help?”
Lon gave a fake name and said, “We’re looking for something a little different and heard you could help us.”
“Maybe, maybe not.” He leaned over the counter with his arms spread, hands gripping the edge for support. “What are you looking for?”
This guy didn’t seem like someone we could sweet-talk, so I got right to the point. “We’ve been told there’s a Pentecostal church in the desert that handles snakes. We don’t care about what they do there, but we’re looking for someone in that church—for personal reasons. And we were hoping someone here might’ve heard of it.”
Ned blinked several times and tightened his grip on the edge of the counter. “A church? Can’t say that I’ve heard of anything like that. What kind of snakes do they handle?”
“Exotic,” Lon said. “Big and bright. Possibly venomous.”
“Sounds like something they’d have to buy out of state.”
“Look, we don’t give a damn about state laws,” I said, struggling not to breathe in when Ned was exhaling. “We’re not cops or reporters. We’re just looking for that church. You don’t have to tell us if you supply them or not. We couldn’t care less.”
Ned got a little peeved with my gruff manner. “That may be, but I’m not sure anyone here could help you. We don’t deal directly to clients. If the church wanted snakes, they’d probably go
through a pet store, who’d buy them from us. We get dozens of orders every day, and we don’t ask them for the names of their buyers.”
“Seems like you might remember orders for exotic snakes.”
“Like I said, they’d need to go out of state for that.”
“Are you sure? It sort of looked like you had the special orders back there,” I said, nodding toward the chicken-wire room.
Wrong thing to say. Ned narrowed his eyes at me. “I’m fully licensed and have passed every state inspection. So if you’re one of those Save the Reptiles nutjobs, you can save something else—your own breath.”
“No affiliation with any of those groups,” Lon assured him. “What about another reptile wholesaler in the area who might have an . . . interstate business?”
“There isn’t anyone else. I service accounts from Covina to Palm Springs to Bakersfield. So maybe you should try L.A.,” he said defensively. “And as far as this snake-handling church, I haven’t heard of anything like that out here, so I’m afraid I can’t help you.”
“What about someone else here?” I asked quickly. “Someone in sales, maybe?”
“He’s working with a paying client.”
“We can wait.”
“Maybe I didn’t make myself clear. He’s working with a client who doesn’t pay us to air his laundry. And he’s working for a boss who’d fire him if he did. Now, unless I can place an order for you, I’ve got work to do.”
He pushed away from the counter and gave us one last semithreatening look before storming away. Fine by me. He wasn’t going to tell us anything freely, and the stench inside the shop was making me want to hack up all the goat-cheese crêpes I’d eaten back at the fancy hotel. So I told Lon to meet me at the car and then marched back out the front door and took a nice big breath of smoggy air. Give me dusty asphalt over dead reptiles any day.
Dusty asphalt and valrivia smoke, to be exact.
I glanced across the covered entry and saw the Earthbound who’d been loading the truck around the side, the guy who’d been screaming obscenities like they were going out of style. He was leaning against the building with one foot up, the sides of his black industrial lifting brace undone and flapping around his ribs.
Maybe my sense of smell was all screwy from Reptile Hell, but the first thing I thought after the smoke blew away was that this guy smelled . . . approachable.
“Bad day?” I asked.
He glanced at me without moving his head, lazily looking me over until he spotted my silver halo and did a double take. “Very bad day,” he said, offering me valrivia.
I waved it away. “It smells wonderful, but I’m too nauseated right now. It’s a little overripe inside,” I said, motioning at the door.
“Hmph. You’re telling me.” He pushed his dark hair back with one hand while flicking ash with the other. He wasn’t a bad-looking guy, maybe a few years older than me. “The owners are cheap bastards who haven’t cleaned a cage in years. They hired the secretary’s son to do it a couple weeks back, but he’s terrified of snakes. Best I can tell, all he does is sweep and take naps in his mom’s office.”
“Kids,” I said conspiratorially.
“The whole place is a toilet. Management, clients, buyers, drivers—all of ’em.”
“Well, they certainly didn’t help me.”
He lifted his chin. “You a new customer? Haven’t seen you around.”
“Not a customer. Definitely not a customer. I’m Cady.”
“I’m Ralph.” He flicked a look to my halo. “Nice to meet another nonsavage, Katy.”
I gave him a nod of solidarity and didn’t bother correcting him about my name; I got Katy-ed a lot in the bar after patrons had one too many. “Yeah, I’m just trying to find out if anyone around here knows where I could find a church in the desert, one of those wacko groups that handles snakes.”
“Like Parson Payne?”
“Pain?” Dear God. That sounded like some bad BDSM alias.
“Payne,” he said, spelling it out. “He’s a religious dude who handles snakes out in Joshua Tree.”
Halle-freaking-lujah. I could have kissed Ralph right on the mouth. “That’s got to be the one. He buys his snakes from you guys?”
“Every month, like clockwork. He shows up here in his ratty-ass shit-brown Jeep and throws a tantrum if the snakes he’s buying aren’t just perfect.”
“Monthly, huh?”
“Rain or shine. The owners love him because he drops a grand every time, and they don’t have to deliver anything. But he never tips for loading, and he’s a dick, and he’s a straight-up freak. His teeth are all fucked up, and he smells like a hippie. Ugh.” Ralph shuddered. “Hate that old man.”
I tried to hide my excitement, but I was practically busting at the seams with joy. “Wow. He sounds like a real winner. But maybe we’re not talking about the same guy. The man I’m looking for buys unusual snakes,” I said, giving him my best if-you-know-what-I-mean look.
Ralph glanced around as if his boss might be listening. “Endangered Eden boas.”
“As in boa constrictor?”
He nodded. “Classified as critically endangered on the Red List. Illegal to remove from Brazil. Illegal to import to the States. One bite from an adult Eden can take down an elephant. And he doesn’t want babies. He wants the suckers ten feet long, minimum. The guys in the warehouse say he switches up buying different herps—”
“Herps?”
“Reptiles. They’re almost always exotic and venomous. Three months ago, when I started working here, he bought a hundred pit vipers. What he needs with all those snakes . . . ?” He shook his head in quiet disapproval. “I don’t even wanna know.”
“Well, shit,” I said brightly. “That’s got to be the guy. You know where his chapel is?”
“Don’t know if he’s got a chapel or not. He pays in cash, no address on file. Only know he’s from Joshua Tree because he keeps an annual park pass on the dash of his car.”
Crap!
“But if you want to chat with him, all you gotta do is be at the delivery dock between seven forty-five and eight a.m. tomorrow, before we open. Like I said, the dude never misses a pickup. But don’t tell him I was the one who told you. And definitely don’t tell the owners.” He dropped his cigarette butt and ground it out with the heel of his boot. “On second thought, what the hell do I care? If I get fired, at least I won’t have to deal with Parson Payne anymore.”
* * *
I told Lon everything once we drove away. We made a plan to return the next morning, and after that, I fell asleep in the car. Not gradually, either. One second he was asking if I wanted to head back into L.A., and the next thing I knew, he was standing in the open passenger doorway, unbuckling my seatbelt. I had no idea why I was so tired. It wasn’t as if I’d run a marathon or anything. But it was all I could do to carry my bag into the hotel—which wasn’t the L.A. hotel. Lon said we could get the same sleep somewhere local.
I agreed wholeheartedly. Especially when he took us to a grand Mission Revival hotel in downtown Riverside that was on the National Landmark list. And I liked it even more when a whiff of clean linen called my name. I managed to stay awake long enough to shower dead snake and dust out of my hair, then collapsed into one of the beds while Lon called Jupe to tell him where we were. Everything smelled so good: the shampoo, my minty-clean teeth, and something else. Something wholly familiar and wonderful. Something nice, nice, nice. It took my fatigue-addled brain a few seconds to recognize that scent as Lon.
He was clearly planning on sleeping in the other bed. And that was . . . normal?
Of course it was. It would be silly to expect him to start sleeping with me after one kiss. One really good kiss. Phenomenal. I wanted another one.
But it wasn’t even that. I just wanted him closer for comfort. How weird was that? I watched him for a minute as he slipped off his shoes and socks—no other pieces of clothing, so I supposed that whole casual naked thing was off the menu�
��and propped up pillows on the other bed. He lounged there on top of the covers and opened his laptop on his stomach.
I flipped over onto my side and, in my mind, willed him to come over to me. That didn’t work. I tested the crazy telekinetic power I’d used in the botanical gardens, to see if maybe I could lift his computer. Nope. Not even my phone sitting on the nightstand.
Feeling a little loopy and weary, I picked up the phone and opened my text messages. Odd. I’d never texted Lon? Of course I had. I remembered texting him on multiple occasions. I certainly texted Jupe all the time. And yep, there. All my texts back and forth to Jupe before I went into the hospital. A couple of months’ worth. But no texts to Lon. Maybe I’d erased them by mistake? Oh, well. It didn’t matter, I supposed. I’d just start fresh now.
Sent 11:30 a.m.: What you doing over there?
MSG from Lon, 11:30 a.m.: Researching.
Me: You could do that over here.
Lon: You need to sleep.
Me: Don’t worry. I’m too tired to jump you.
Lon: A shame. But I don’t trust myself.
Me: Come to think of it, I don’t trust myself, either. Let’s not trust ourselves together. P.S. You smell really good. I mean that in a creepy way. Come over here and let me sniff your skin like some crazy stalker.
Lon: Are you feeling okay?
Me: Be feeling better if you’d just come over here.
Lon: Don’t make me call management to restrain you.
Me: I’d much rather you do it yourself.
Lon: Go. To. Sleep.
I sighed loudly enough for him to hear me and turned off my phone. But in the midst of making a new seduction plan, I did exactly what he asked and fell asleep. For how long, I didn’t know. But I woke up again in the middle of a crazy dream—I was telling Kar Yee that my body was filled with cocktail shrimp, and she didn’t believe me—and the curtains over the window were blocking all but a tiny sliver of sunlight. I smelled something nice. And for a moment, I could have sworn I felt a warm hand on my stomach. Which was bananas, because when I put my own hand there . . . nothing.
