by Predators
“No, wait, you’re sure about the lion thing?”
Superintendent Mwambe backed out of the room. “If there is nothing for me to see…your dust bin is empty and…well, good day to you.” He scurried down the walkway toward the lodge. Bobby kicked the door shut. He went over to the trash can and peered in as if to be sure his eyes were not playing tricks on him. Still empty.
He sat down heavily on the bed and contemplated his reflection in the mirror. Leo was killed by a lion. What was he to do now? He’d inherit all that stock and would be in a position to have an important position in the company for sure, but the divorce was out. Brenda would get half of everything if he did it, and she wouldn’t cut him any slack. He’d have to stay married. Maybe later he could…could what?
He pounded his fist onto the mattress. It was so perfect. How could a lion do that to him? Still, there was the spear point. They had to find that. And the scarf he’d left in the path. Once they did their autopsy thing and saw he’d been stabbed, they’d figure it out. He didn’t need the glove. Just a matter of time.
But suppose the lion, like, ate Leo. They wouldn’t be able to see the stab wound, would they? He needed a back-up plan. Somehow he had to make them think murder with a capital M.
Killing Leo had been the hardest thing he’d ever done. Harder than leaving the accident where that kid got himself killed two years ago. They were still looking for the car, his car, his BMW. But he didn’t have it anymore. Stolen and stripped, chopped into a million pieces. But that was then, this is now. He’d need to get his plan moving again. People thought he was stupid. He’d show them stupid. He hadn’t gotten this far just to see the whole thing go down the drain in flames.
Bobby’s existence, his life as an adult, you could say, consisted of an endless string of mixed metaphors.
He went to the door where he’d dropped her shoes and purse. The shoes he left, but he carried the purse back to the bed. Who to call? Desiree. Brenda always told her everything. And Desiree was never far from her phone. Unless she was unconscious or seducing a pole at the club, Desiree was on line. He found her address and hit text.
HEY BFF…I DID IT, WE’RE IN THE $$…B.
He waited and sure enough the phone’s ringtone sounded. He switched to vibrate and answered.
DID WAT?…D2
He thought a minute and then responded.
DID LEO N HE SED HD TELL BBY SO I TK HM OUT!
WTF!!!
HAD 2…2 MCH $ DOWN THE CRAPPER IF I DNT—OOPS GOT A GO…B
He closed the phone. He was about to turn it off but thought it would be better if it looked like she had lost it while it was on. More messages behind this one would make it seem more authentic. Later he’d slip out and drop it where the cops could find it. It buzzed madly in his hand. He stepped out on the deck and slid the phone under the step where he’d hidden the spear and scarf the night before. He had just closed and locked the slider when Brenda began rapping on the door.
Left her key in her purse. Dingbat.
***
The gray monkey had positioned himself in the trees watching and waiting. He knew that sooner or later one of the doors would be left ajar and he could affect a raid. There was almost always fruit, and lately he’d solved the problem of opening the cold box. It had food, too. And he’d grown partial to the taste of lipstick. He watched the man put something shiny under the step. He waited, then swung from branch to branch to the ground, scuttled across the lawn, retrieved the phone, romped back to the tree, and climbed back to his perch. This was something new.
CHAPTER 39
Leo’s headache had not improved with coffee, and his stomach was acting like it had joined the Teamsters and was on strike. He liked to think of himself as plain speaker, blunt. When his body refused to accede to his will, he became noticeably rude. His acquaintances would say ruder, that Leo was characteristically rude. That was not true. On occasion he could be positively charming. That’s when he was most dangerous. The pounding on the door seemed almost in sync with that in his head. It stopped all conversation between the men. Modise had shifted their focus. What else would push in to screw up his day?
“Get that, will you, Travis?” Leo felt annoyed. He had things to do, and he couldn’t get a minute’s peace without some jackass beating on his door. Travis opened it. The hotel manager stood on the threshold once again.
“I am sorry to bother you again, but we have found Mr. Farrah.”
“Swell, now we can all celebrate. Where did he turn up?” Leo was past politeness.
“I am sorry, but you see, he has met with an accident.” The manager had that look. The one you see on the face of someone who’s afraid there will be trouble, yelling, or maybe a lawsuit.
“Is he hurt?” Leo mentally calculated the cost to the company of flying Farrah back to the States and then on to the Mayo Clinic. He winced at the number that popped up.
“I am afraid it is worse than that. Your friend is dead.” The poor man reflexively took a step backward as if he expected a blow. Leo relaxed a bit.
“Dead? What do you mean, he’s dead. What happened? Did he fall? Heart attack? What?”
“It appears the lion about which we were speaking before, the one we warned you about, often if you remember, has taken him.”
“Holy shit. Did you hear that, Yuri? There really is a lion, and he ate Farrah. Farrah was toxic. Probably killed the beast, too.”
The manager did not share the joke. “Indeed, the lion is dead also, but I do not think your Mr. Farrah had anything to do with that.”
“This is awkward. Is he in pieces or what?”
“No, he is quite whole. As I said, the lion was dead beside him. We have removed Mr. Farrah’s body to the police station for examination and will release it to you in a day or two. It is routine, the police say.”
“No rush. Farrah isn’t in one, why should they be?”
Inspector Modise stepped into the room behind the manager, who turned and left, shocked at the American’s callousness.
“Your friend is dead, and we don’t know what happened.”
Travis had remained silent until now, but this was something new, even exciting. “I thought that guy said the lion got him somehow.”
Modise ignored him and spoke to Leo. “Do you know anyone who would like to have seen him dead?”
“His ex-wife certainly, in a New York minute, but she’s in Winnetka at the moment, and I don’t see her slipping over here forming an alliance with your local beasts to knock him off, and leaving without someone knowing, so you can rule her out. She probably gets the life insurance, though. I wonder, does double indemnity cover a lion attack?”
“The lion was only a peripheral player in his death, we think. The game ranger believes he must have been stabbed somehow, and the lion found him later.”
“Could he have fallen on something sharp and then…I don’t know, run into the lion, which finished him off?”
“Anything is possible. Mr. Farrah may have encountered the lion, become so frightened that he ran into a broken tree limb and then fell and the lion carried him a ways and—”
“And then dropped dead?”
“It would seem so.”
“Sounds very odd to me. I mean, what are the chances? Anyway, I can’t help you inspector. He left here at about ten o’clock last night and was on his way to the bar. I told them that. Henry was not a likeable man but not one you’d hate either. It has to be an accident.”
“Yes. Well, we shall see what the autopsy shows.”
“We should go see this,” Travis said.
The men stood and single-filed out the door. Modise turned toward the hotel; the three others headed to the Sedudu bar. They passed Brenda on her way back. She chose to ignore them. She could be rude, too.
At the edge of the campground, a clot of people watched as a group of men supervised by a woman who, they were told, was the gamekeeper, lifted the carcass of the lion onto a tarpaulin and then into a truck be
d. By the expressions on their faces, the lion must have been very heavy.
“Ow.” Travis hopped on one foot, and stared at the ground. “What the hell was that?”
“What was what?” the two men pivoted back to see what had caused Travis to yell out. He pointed at the ground, then reached down and held up the spear point, now covered with grit from the dozens of feet that had walked by or on it in the last hour.
Greshenko held out his hand and took the point from Travis. “It is a replica of an assagai, a Zulu warrior weapon. It would be on the end of a spear shaft. They sell these in the gift shops. They are made in South Africa by the thousands. Tourists buy them for souvenirs. Some camper must have lost this one.”
“It’s not authentic?”
“Not hardly. Listen, if all the diassagai in circulation today had been once on spear shafts in 1879, the Brits would have lost the Zulu War. He stepped to a green-painted oil drum marked waste, and dropped the point in. It hit the bottom with a series of clangs. That drew the attention of the woman gamekeeper. She left the men and the lion and approached them.
“Excuse me, sirs, but could you tell me what that was that you disposed of in the dust bin?”
“A spear point they sell at the gift shop,” Travis said. “I nearly bought one, but until Greshenko’s little speech I’d forgotten all about that. Brenda Griswold purchased one, though.”
“I am Sanderson. I work for the park, you see. There are questions about this death I cannot answer. I think I should have that, if you don’t mind.”
“Help yourself. Do you think Henry stabbed the lion, or did the lion stab Henry?” Leo had not mellowed much since he’d left the room. Sanderson retrieved the point from the bottom of the barrel and wrapped it in her neckerchief.
“I do not think either of those interesting possibilities are the case, sir. I do not know if this lerumo has anything to do with this killing. But the man you called Henry had a wound in his stomach that could have been made by such a thing. I will hold it for the police.”
“Then you think Henry was murdered? I know there is a feeling among the populace in my country that the only good lawyer is a dead lawyer. I didn’t know it was true here as well.”
“I do not know the ways of America. In my country we respect the men and women who devote their lives to justice. It is a noble calling, I think.”
“Wait another sixty years, and then you’ll see it differently.”
Sanderson’s puzzled look suggested she did not understand or appreciate this man’s cynicism. She scowled at them as if to say those Americans, they have so much and they value so little.
CHAPTER 40
Brenda’s feet hurt. She hadn’t realized that the concrete walkway turned into gravel before she would reach the scene of the late Henry Farrah’s demise. She limped back to her room, making a point to snub Leo, Travis, and the Russian guy. And she was in no mood to put up with any more of Bobby’s evasion. He’d been into something and she needed to know what it was. Like the time he ran from the accident. The jerk was drunk, the paper said so, so it wasn’t really Bobby’s fault. She wasn’t about to lose her regular paycheck, so Frankie had fixed it with a garage and the car disappeared and the new one showed up. She didn’t see any problem there, and it did give her a hammer to bonk him with when he started to stray.
She hurried along the path and stewed over his behavior, past and present. First he screws them both over by selling out to Leo and now something else was on his pea brain. He knew about Travis, for sure, but he musta let it go. No surprise there. She had a way, things she could do, like, in bed and stuff, which would keep anyone except a eunuch in place. So what?
Since she’d dropped her purse with her key, she had to knock to get in the room. She thought she heard the slider slam, but she couldn’t be sure. Bobby let her in. Why was he grinning? She saw the series of beer cans lined up on the dresser and thought she had her answer.
“You shoulda seen it. Cops and animal people and everything.”
“Did you see Leo?”
“Just for a second when he went by. Travis and the Russian guy were there, but I didn’t say anything to them either, you know.”
“What did he look like?”
“Okay, I guess. I don’t know, Leo’s Leo. The lion was, like, huge. I mean it was like a half a ton or something.”
“Not a half of a ton. Lions don’t weigh a thousand pounds. Maybe five hundred, though.”
“Yeah, well, this dude was humongous. They had him on this tarp and were getting ready to put him in the back of this truck when I left. Where’s my purse? I want to call Desiree and tell her. She’ll flip.” She found the bag and began rooting around in it. “What happened to my cell? I always keep it in here.”
Bobby busied himself with reading the label on his beer can. “Hey, did you know they brew this stuff right here? It’s called, like, Saint Louis beer and has a steamboat on the label, but they make it here.”
“What did you expect, they call Mr. Budweiser to ship them their beer? You seen my phone? I’m sure I had it this morning.”
“There isn’t a Mr. Budweiser, you’re thinking about that Coors guy, and you were yakking with your slutty friend Desiree at breakfast. Maybe you left you phone on the table.”
“Desiree is not a slut. On the table? I don’t think so. Shit, where is it? Give me your phone. I’ll call my number and follow the ring if it’s, like, in the room. If it isn’t and someone found it, maybe they’ll answer.”
Bobby passed her the phone. “So the lion didn’t, like eat Leo?”
“Leo? Why would he eat Leo? Leo wasn’t the dead guy.”
“What? I thought they said Leo was killed. That fat police guy said he was killed. Then he said the lion got him.”
“No, dummy, you said it was Leo. The police said ‘one of our party’ and you said Leo. Why did you jump on Leo being the dead guy, anyway?”
“It wasn’t Leo? Who was it?”
“That stuffed shirt, Henry Farrah. What’s the difference? And again, why’d you go for Leo.”
“It couldn’t be Farrah. I saw…”
“Saw what, Bobby. You saw what?”
“Nothing. I just remembered something, like…maybe I thought I saw him at breakfast or something.”
Brenda knew men, and Brenda knew Bobby. He was lying like a rug. She’d need to press this. Maybe after a matinee or in the shower later, she’d get him to talk. She punched in her cell phone number and listened for it to ring. Nothing. No ring, no answer.
“This is definitely not a Kodak moment. This is a WTF moment.”
She tossed the phone back to Bobby. It hit him on the forehead. He didn’t even see it coming. He was in, like, a daze. Weird.
***
The gray monkey had managed to flip the phone open. Someone once suggested that if you put an infinite number of monkeys working at typewriters and waited long enough, eventually they’d recreate all of the world’s classics. Whether that would include advertising copy and genre fiction was not specified. This monkey acted alone. The beeping sound the buttons made when he pushed them delighted him so that he kept up a steady stream of notes. Would the same infinite number of monkeys playing keyboards recreate all of the world’s great music?
A single monkey with a cell phone?
Unlikely.
He spent the better part of an hour admiring his reflection in the phone’s shiny surface. He poked and scratched and managed to initiate the phone’s picture memory. Brenda had saved stills and some short videos. The latter were not the sharpest pictures possible, but they did move. A sequence of images showing a family of lions popped up on the phone’s tiny screen. They were moving but he didn’t hear any sound. When they stopped he poked at the screen again hoping to prod them back into action. They didn’t move. He had yet to acquire the concept of replay.
He was busy chittering his low opinion of predators in general and lions in particular when the phone vibrated. Startled, he leaped b
ack on the branch and the phone slipped from his grasp. It fell, bounced off a tree limb, hit the riverbank, and plopped into the Chobe. A nearby crocodile who’d been watching the monkey, in hopes he would soon be thirsty and visit the river, watched disinterestedly as the bright silver object splashed into the river and settled in to mud.
It would remain visible for less than five minutes.
CHAPTER 41
The sun had already set when Sanderson dropped Rra Kaleke off at his home and she pulled up in front of hers. Exhausted, all she wanted for was a bite of dinner and a bed. She would not be so lucky. The lights were on and music poured through the windows and doors.
She opened the door. “What is this noise?” David Mmusi, had his MP3 player attached to speakers and he and Mpitle were dancing in the main room. Michael sat slightly askew and propped up in a chair in the corner, smiling, and nodding his head to the music’s beat.
“Mpitle, David Mmusi, how is this?” The young couple jumped apart as if they’d been prodded with a sharp stick like the men use to move their cattle.
“Mma, I have dinner for you,” the young girl said and hurried to the stove.
“Good evening Mrs. Sanderson.” This from David.
“How was your day?” She could hardly hear Michael over the din.
“Turn that music off, please. It is harming my ears. So, you are here again, David? Does your mother know you are here?”
“I was just going, Missus.”
“Sit down, sit down, David. You can stay. I am only worrying about your parents. If they are okay with this situation, then I am also.”
She flopped down in the best chair and kicked off her shoes. “What a day. We have a dead man, a dead lion, and a very thick policeman.”
Mpitle carried a bowl of stew to her. She placed it on the small table and returned to the cooking area for utensils and tea. When she returned, Sanderson noticed her scarf.
“Where did you come by that scarf? I am thinking it cost some pula.”
Mpitle’s complexion darkened. “It is a gift from David.”
