Bestiary

by Robert Masello

  “No,” Florio said, sticking it into the back pocket of his jeans. “What do you need it for anyway?”

  Florio sauntered out, and Tate, unfazed, ran some cold water on his hands, then slicked his own thinning brown hair straight back on his skull. Greer felt the toilet seat he was perched on starting to tilt, and he prayed it wouldn’t fall. Tate opened his mouth and put his face closer to the mirror, looking, it appeared, for something stuck in his teeth. The tremor in Greer’s left leg was fast becoming a full-blown shake. Tate put a finger in his mouth and pulled a cheek to one side, inspecting something within. Greer’s hand, sweating, started to slip on the tiles, and his left knee felt like somebody had just lighted a match inside it. The seat creaked, softly.

  But Tate must have heard it because he glanced backward in the mirror.

  “Somebody there?”

  Greer let his legs slip down to the floor.

  “Yeah,” he grunted.

  “Shit, I didn’t know anybody was in here.”

  Tate bent down to look under the stall door. He could see Greer’s feet facing the wrong way.

  “Got a prostate the size of a softball,” Greer muttered in mock frustration.

  “That so?” Tate said, a tinge of suspicion still in his voice.

  Greer knew he had to say something to allay it. “Tell Burt I’ll be there when this fuckin’ dam breaks.”

  The mention of Burt seemed to do it. “Yeah, well, don’t take all night,” Tate said, taking hold of the door handle, “we’ve still gotta get our final instructions.”

  And then he was gone—and Greer could lean forward with his head against the wall and let out a low moan of agony. His hands went to his leg and squeezed it tight, trying to block the pain signals from making it up to his brain.

  He could still hear some commotion in the hall outside, and he waited till it died down. Then he fumbled in his pocket, found some Vicodin, and left the stall. He listened again for any noise in the hall—there was none now—then ran some cold water into his cupped hand and swallowed the pills. He opened the door slowly, poked his head out. The classroom door was shut, and he could hear muffled voices inside.

  He walked past and back to the merchandise and display cases. The old man at the counter was collecting the lone shooter’s safety gear and settling up the bill. As Greer moved past them toward the exit, the old man said, “Looking for something special?”

  “Nah, just looking,” Greer said. He went out the door and into the still hot night air. He limped down the boulevard, praying that the painkillers would kick in soon, and got into his battered Mustang. The only thing sparkling about it was the new window on the driver’s side, the one he’d had to replace after Tate had taken it out with the baseball bat.

  Tate. And his Hummer 3.

  In that same instant, his hand reached under the seat and found the Weight Watchers box with the Beretta inside.

  He put the car into gear and drove up slowly along the curb until he was just short of the Liberty Firing Range parking lot. Then, leaving it in gear, the door half-open, he walked casually into the lot. Stopping at the Hummer, he looked around, saw no one, and then, with the butt of the gun, tapped, hard, on the driver’s-side window.

  The horn started bleating, the headlights flashing.

  Even though there was no way the glass in this Hummer would be the same bulletproof and shock-resistant consistency of the ones in Iraq, it had still withstood that first tap. Greer stepped back, and this time took a harder swing. The glass splintered, but held again. Shit. He bent his elbow back and really whacked it this time, right on the fracture, and the window dissolved into a thousand tiny blue pebbles, some spilling into the leather interior, some raining onto the concrete.

  But now that he had the right method, he strolled around to the other side and took that window out, too. That blaring horn was deafening.

  Then he stuck the gun back in his belt, ducked back into his idling Mustang, and—after carefully checking in his side mirror for passing traffic—pulled away.

  As he sailed through the green light at the corner, he could hear angry voices spilling into the Liberty parking lot, and whether it was from the pills or the sheer joy, his leg already felt better.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CARTER HATED SECRETS, and right now his house felt like it was filled with them. Beth was in the shower, and he was putting Joey back in his crib. But his thoughts kept returning to the same secret things—the bizarre job that he had undertaken on the al-Kalli estate, the astonishing bestiary that he now supervised there, the bones that had gone missing from his basement lab at the museum. Normally, Beth would be the first person he’d turn to; she’d be the first—and possibly the only—one in whom he’d confide. There was nobody he relied on more, nobody whose judgment he valued more highly, nobody to whom he poured out his doubts and fears and quandaries more trustingly. But now he couldn’t. Al-Kalli had sworn him to secrecy—and Carter even had the feeling that to tell Beth anything might be to endanger her somehow. As for the stolen bones, well, he felt as though he had made some colossal blunder, and that it was his responsibility to figure out what to do next. That, plus he was embarrassed. He couldn’t imagine anything under Beth’s supervision—especially something so irreplaceable—ever getting lost or damaged.

  Joey looked up at him with those clear gray-blue eyes, his feet kicking merrily in the air, and Carter couldn’t help but think of all the secrets and mysteries that would always attend him, too. The doctors had told Carter, in no uncertain terms, that he would not be able to father a child, but here was Joey. And though Carter and Beth had thought that by leaving New York, they could also leave behind the terrible ordeal with Arius, who had stalked them for months, he now suspected (or knew? did he know and was he just denying it to himself?) that he had been wrong about that, too. He wondered if that was what life was like—that everything you ever did, everything that ever happened to you, every decision you ever made haunted you the rest of your days? Los Angeles was supposed to be a fresh start, but were fresh starts even possible?

  Joey burbled something that sounded suspiciously like “Dada,” and Carter laughed. “You talkin’ to me?” he said, in his best De Niro. “You talkin’ to me?”

  Joey laughed and batted his arms against the mattress. But he didn’t repeat the experiment.

  Carter leaned down into the crib and, with his eyes closed, kissed him on his smooth, untroubled brow. The skin was cool and dry and fragrant, and for a few seconds Carter just stayed as he was, bent down like a crane fishing in a pool of water, feeling Joey’s little mitts pull at his hair and his earlobes. This, he told himself, is all that matters. This . . . and Beth. He focused entirely on the moment, banishing all other thoughts. This . . . and Beth. This . . . and Beth, until, for one split second, he suddenly flashed on a green forest, fragrant with rain.

  “Did you have to change him?” Beth asked from the doorway.

  Carter opened his eyes and turned around. Beth was in her blue robe, toweling her hair dry. “Change him?” Carter said, the image of the forest fading fast. “No. He’s fine.”

  Beth came to his side and gazed down into the crib. “He is, isn’t he?” she said.

  But something in her tone didn’t sound right. “You say that like you’re not completely sure.”

  Beth shook her head—was she just shaking her hair dry?—and said, “Of course I’m sure. What a thing to say!”

  Carter, chastised, remained silent. But he still thought he’d heard a discordant note. And neither he nor Beth moved for a few seconds, as if by standing there they could dispel any doubt.

  Finally, Carter said, “Where’s Champ?” Outside, the long summer day was finally drawing to a close and it was nearly dark.

  “I think he’s in the yard,” Beth said. “Maybe you should bring him in.” She didn’t have to say anything about the coyotes for Carter to know what was in her mind.

  He nodded and left the room. He went down the
stairs of the house where he felt, despite the many months that they’d been there, a bit like an intruder. Everything was nice—well appointed, freshly painted, plushly carpeted—but it wasn’t his, and it wasn’t even decorated with his stuff. His old rocking chair, his scarred coffee table, his cinder-block bookcases—they’d all, quite reasonably, been left behind. It was hardly worth the cost of shipping them, much less to a fully furnished place. And that, too, had been part of their plan for a fresh start. Get rid of the old stuff, with all its scratches and dents and memories, and begin again with new and foreign and unencumbered belongings.

  A hot, dry wind was blowing again, and the short grass in the yard crackled under Carter’s feet. The canyon below was bathed in moonlight, the far slope of the Santa Monica Mountains outlined against a starry sky. New York has nothing like this, Carter reflected, though that didn’t mean he missed his view of the Washington Square Arch any less. He sometimes wondered if it had something to do with his work—spending so much of his time in the study and contemplation of long-dead things, did he need the fix of human activity at the end of the day? Did he need to rub elbows with the crowd, to feel the pulse of life around him? To exchange the dry bones (the question of what he was going to do about the missing bones of La Brea Woman coursed through his mind for the zillionth time) for warm flesh?

  Off in the distance, he could hear the sudden burst of backyard fireworks, one day early. He knew that the police and fire departments were on high alert; there had been nothing but warnings all week about the drought-dry tinder, and the dangers of setting off a wildfire. Carter had never been anywhere near such a blaze, but he’d seen the news footage of previous blazes on CNN. And the sad interviews afterward, with people who had struggled to save whatever they could—their pets, their photo albums, their family silver—from the devouring flames. One guy had narrowly escaped on a bicycle, clutching, of all things, a massive bowling trophy.

  He looked around the small, fenced yard, and heard Champ before he spotted him. Most of his body was under a bush, apparently trying to root something out. All Carter could see was his bushy blond tail.

  “Champ!”

  The dog’s tail wagged, but he was still intent on what he was doing.

  “Come on, Champ. Time to go inside.”

  Carter went closer, but all he could see was the dog’s arched back and wagging tail. “What are you doing?”

  Carter put his hands on Champ’s haunches and gently dragged the dog out of the brush. Champ didn’t resist, but he didn’t cooperate, either. He just allowed himself to be pulled, like a statue, backward on the patchy grass. In his jaws, Carter could now see his prize—it looked like the bones and carcass of a recently deceased squirrel—and Champ was clearly not planning to let go.

  “Oh, man, what do you want that for?” Carter said. “Don’t we feed you better than that?”

  Champ glanced at him, but appeared to be utterly unpersuaded.

  “Come on, boy, let go,” Carter said, squatting down and trying to dislodge the remains. But Champ growled, and Carter let go, wiping his fingers in the dirt.

  What was the best way to win this war? Carter wondered. Should he go inside, get something the dog liked—maybe a big wad of peanut butter?—and get him to drop this treat for an even more appealing one?

  Champ shook the desiccated carcass, as if making sure there wasn’t any life left in it, and that’s when it suddenly occurred to Carter—Champ might be the answer to at least one of his problems. Why didn’t he think of it sooner?

  He jumped to his feet, ran into the kitchen, got the peanut butter—he just brought the whole jar outside—and let Champ bury his face in it. With the toe of his sneaker, Carter kicked the now neglected squirrel over the edge of the yard and down into the ravine below.

  “You want to go for a ride?” Carter said to Champ, who was too busy with the Skippy to pay any attention. When the dog took a break, Carter put the leash on him and went back inside. He bounded up the stairs to the bedroom, where he found Beth propped up against a stack of pillows, with her nose in a sheaf of papers. “I’m going to go out for a little while,” he said.

  “Out?” she said. “Now?”

  “There’s something I forgot at work.”

  “At the Page? Why can’t it wait till tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow it’s closed, for the Fourth.”

  “It’ll be closed now, for the night.”

  “I know the guard; he’ll let me in.”

  “This really can’t wait?” Beth said, though she knew her husband well enough to know that whatever it was, it couldn’t.

  “Be back in no time,” he said, before adding, “and, by the way, I’m taking Champ with me.”

  He was thumping back down the stairs before she could even think to ask why he’d want the dog along.

  Fortunately, Champ loved going for a ride; Carter had only to open the side door of his Jeep and Champ leapt up onto the front seat, ready for anything.

  And would he be ready for what Carter wanted him to do? Carter put the car into gear, backed out of the driveway, and hoped that this wasn’t the craziest idea he’d had yet.

  At the museum, the parking lots were closed, so he had to leave the car on Wilshire. He had a plastic passkey to the employee entrance, and he led Champ inside. He knew Hector would be on duty somewhere, and he didn’t want to give the poor guy a heart attack by coming upon him unexpectedly.

  “Hector?” he called out. “It’s Carter. Carter Cox.”

  There was no answer.

  “Hector? You here?”

  Champ was fascinated by all the smells from all the feet that had trampled over the museum floor that day, and Carter was encouraged to see his head down, nose fixed. Maybe this would work, after all.

  He led the dog toward the rear elevators, past the lighted display of the dire wolf skulls, past the open lab, past the entrance to the lush atrium garden where Geronimo used to like to wander, and tried calling out again. “Hector? You around?”

  He heard the jangling of a key ring, and a tentative voice saying “Who’s there? Don’t move!”

  “Hector, it’s me—Carter. Don’t freak out.”

  Hector, breathing a sigh of relief, emerged from behind the life-size replica of the giant sloth being attacked by a saber-toothed cat.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Hector said. “The museum’s closed. And Mr. Gunderson, he gave me special instructions about you.” Then he noticed the dog. “And are you crazy? You can’t bring a dog in here.”

  “I had to,” Carter said.

  “Why? Why you need to bring a dog into the museum, at night?”

  Carter recognized that he was going to have to do some fast, and persuasive, talking, if he hoped to get Hector’s cooperation. “I need him to help me find something.”

  Hector waited, unimpressed. “Find what?”

  Carter knew that this was an important moment—if he let Hector know what was missing, and Hector shared his secret with Gunderson, all hell would break loose. But if he didn’t tell him, it would be impossible to do what he had to do.

  “Some bones are missing, from the collection downstairs. Some very important bones.”

  Now Hector started to look concerned. Anything that went missing, especially if it could be tracked to his watch, potentially spelled trouble. “You report this?” he asked, hitching his belt back up over his belly.

  “Not yet,” Carter confessed. “I was hoping I could find them first. Or at least figure out what happened.” And then, in a low blow that he regretted giving, he said, “You’ve been so helpful about granting me access downstairs, even after hours, that I was hoping we could solve the problem before either one of us had to answer any questions from Gunderson, or the police.”

  Hector wasn’t stupid, and he immediately surmised where Carter was going with this. Cooperate, and maybe the problem could be made to go away, or stick to the rules and risk all kinds of shit coming down. Why, he wondered, ha
d he ever let Carter, and that friend of his with the long white hair, slide? He didn’t even like Big Macs that much.

  “What do you need to do?” he said, and Carter inwardly exulted.

  “Not much. I just need you to take us downstairs again, to the lower level, for a few minutes.”

  Hector hesitated, wondering if this was in fact a way of getting himself into even deeper trouble, then turned toward the elevators with his keys in hand. He would stick right by this guy—and his dog—and make damn sure nothing else went wrong.

  Carter and Champ followed him into the elevator, and Carter, afraid of saying the wrong thing, kept his mouth shut all the way down. When the doors opened, he said, “You can just wait here, if you want,” but Hector wasn’t going to chance anything else going wrong.

  “I’m coming with you,” he said. “And that dog better not do anything—and you know what I’m talking about—down here.”

  “He’s completely museum-trained,” Carter said, though the small joke got no response at all.

  Hector turned on the overhead lights, which flickered to life, row after row, like waves receding into the distance. The light they threw off was pale and ghostly and caught a million dust motes drifting through the air. Even Champ, normally an avid adventurer, waited sheepishly by the elevator.

  “Come on, boy,” Carter said. “We’ve got work to do.”

  Carter set off down the center aisle, with Champ staying close by his side. Hector followed right behind them. They walked past seemingly endless rows of identical cabinets with shallow drawers, all containing countless artifacts and fossilized remains gathered over the decades that the La Brea Tar Pits had been excavated and explored. The bones gave off a dry and arid aroma, and Hector coughed once or twice as they passed them by.

  As they approached the makeshift lab that Carter and Del had set up at the farthest reach of the floor, Champ tried to trot ahead. Clearly, he smelled something different here—maybe the scent of Del, or the tarry bones of the La Brea Man that had, until just a short time before, lain exposed on the worktable. Now those remains were secretly stashed on another floor, in a locked closet used for chemicals and solvents.