by John Godey
Everyone smelled of coffee except the DI, who smelled of anger and frustration.
They had driven from East Side Hospital to the precinct in the DI’s car. The DI had spoken only once: “Haven’t you got anything else to wear but that stupid shirt?”
“Sorry,” Converse said, “my tails are at the cleaners.”
Eastman gave him a warning look. The DI curled his upper lip in an expressive sneer. Later, while they were waiting for the press to assemble, the DI, in a voice resonant with passion, had declared that he despised newsmen, that they were “parasites living off the carrion of tragedy.” The unexpectedly dramatic turn of phrase made Converse aware, for the first time, that the DI, with his hollow, attenuated face and the dark, brooding intensity of his eyes, presented the classic image, bordering on travesty, of an old-fashioned Shakespearian actor.
The DI had opened the press conference with a flat announcement to the effect that the perpetrator had been identified, and that Whatsisname would provide background information and answer questions.
Holly Markham was sitting halfway back in the row of chairs. She looked up from her notebook and smiled. Converse frowned and said, “The black mamba is not actually black at all, but dark olive on top and whitish underneath. But in bright sunlight it has the appearance of being black, hence the name.”
He was surprised to see how many reporters had shown up; after all, there were only three daily papers in the city. But, besides the radio and TV people, there was representation from the wire services, New Jersey, Connecticut, and suburban New York papers, and a few stringers from metropolitan newspapers as far away as California.
Someone asked, “What part of Africa does this mamba come from?”
“It’s distributed throughout most of Africa, coast to coast, except for the northernmost parts. Incidentally, it’s misleading to call it just ‘mamba.’ There are three different kinds of mambas—the black; green, which is found in savannah country and riverine forests and is exclusively arboreal; and Jameson’s, which is a rain forest snake. All three are slender, with a small, coffin-sided head and a prehensile tail.”
“From the picture, how big do you judge our snake to be?”
“At least ten feet, maybe as much as eleven. It’s a superb specimen.”
The DI muttered impatiently. Converse looked at him questioningly, then went on.
“The black mamba has a legendary reputation in Africa. It’s feared, respected, in fact it’s held in awe, much as a tiger or lion might be. Some of the stories you hear about it are exaggerations, especially its speed on the ground. For example, there’s a persistent claim that it can overtake a galloping horse.”
“Can it?”
“It’s unlikely. Estimates of its speed vary between seven and twenty miles per hour. My guess would be about ten miles an hour.”
One of the reporters sounded disappointed. “That’s all?”
“It’s a hell of lot if you’re crawling on your belly. It’s undoubtedly the swiftest snake in the world. I saw a few black mambas in Africa when I was a student. I can tell you that it’s a genuinely intimidating sight to see an irritated black mamba racing across the ground with its head a foot and a half in the air and its mouth gaped wide open. A rabbit doing ten miles an hour is one thing. Being chased by an extremely venomous and aggressive snake at that speed is the stuff nightmares are made of.”
The man who had made the joke about mamba being a dance made derisive sounds. Converse recognized the professional skeptic. Every audience he had ever addressed had one, varying only in degree of belligerency. Except for kids, of course. This one didn’t look like a fire-eater—a thin gray-blond man wearing gold-rimmed eyeglasses.
The man spoke up. “Whether I could outrun your snake or not is beside the point. It’s pure myth that snakes chase people.”
“For the most part that’s true,” Converse said equably. “But some snakes—the king cobra or hamadryad, the black mamba, some others—will sometimes take out after somebody, usually on their breeding grounds during the mating season, but often on other occasions when they’re highly irritated. And if a black mamba was chasing you, sir, I’d bet on the snake.”
The DI gave him a black look. Eastman cleared his throat, a sound of warning.
“You’d probably cheer the slimy thing on, too.” The man’s nondescript face had a capability for scowling.
“As most educated people know by now,” Converse said mildly, “snakes aren’t the least bit slimy, they’re dry and rather pleasant to the touch.”
The man screwed his features into an exaggerated expression of disgust. “Slitheriness to one side, how do you feel about the fact that they poison people, sometimes fatally?”
“A great many more snakes are poisoned by man than the other way around. Smokestacks, auto emissions, industrial wastes, insect control poisons—”
“Fine,” the man said. “Exterminate them. They’re not good for anything, anyway.”
“Then how come man eats them, turns them into leather goods, exhibits them in zoos, exploits them in various forms of entertainment? If you’re looking for a villain, blame the man who turned that black mamba loose in the park. He’s the one to hate, not the snake.”
The man waved his hand in a gesture of dismissal. Holly Markham stood up. “Will it help you to find the snake now that you’ve identified it?”
Her question was to the point, and the assemblage, which had been tense during the exchange with the previous speaker, relaxed. Converse said, “It defines the problem without simplifying it. So far as its habits go, the black mamba is an all-purpose snake. It’s arboreal part of the time—it likes to lie in the low branches of trees or even in bushes to take birds, and it may bask on a treetop, too, though, like most snakes, it likes a rock better. But most of the time it’s terrestrial. It hides in bushes, in thickets, under rocks, in hollow trees, and very often in a well-concealed burrow.”
After an interlude of note-taking, a TV reporter asked if the black mamba was as dangerous as a cobra.
“In my opinion, much more so. It’s a lot more aggressive, and it doesn’t have to go into a set striking posture before it bites. In fact, it can strike with extreme effectiveness in any direction while it’s running at top speed. The cobra strikes inaccurately in daylight. The black mamba is equally deadly by day or night. Taking everything into account, I’m inclined to think it’s the most dangerous snake in the world.”
“You mean the most poisonous?”
“It’s not the most poisonous, although two tiny drops are sufficient to kill a man in as little as twenty minutes.” He paused. The DI was examining his fingernails with undisguised boredom. Eastman’s expression was studiedly neutral. The rest of the audience seemed impressed. “There are three elements that make a snake dangerous: the potency of its venom, the position of its fangs, and its aggressiveness or disposition to bite. The black mamba rates high on all counts.”
Someone called out, “What do you mean by the position of the fangs?”
“Some species have fangs that are situated at the rear of the mouth. So it’s harder for them to bite accurately and efficiently. The venom of the boom-slang of Africa, for example, is terrifically potent, but because it’s rear-fanged it doesn’t deliver its venom as effectively as the black mamba, whose fangs are in the front, practically under the animal’s nose.”
A small man with a wisp of white hair asked what the most poisonous snake known was.
“The king cobra, the largest of all poisonous snakes, can kill in fifteen minutes. The Australian death adder and taipan, the Asiatic saw-scaled viper, the South American cascabel—they’re all about equal, and probably slightly more potent than the black mamba. But after a while, in highly venomous snakes, the exact degree of potency doesn’t make much difference. They all kill, and kill very quickly if antivenin isn’t administered in a short time after the bite. Incidentally, the cobra and the black mamba are both of the family Elapidae, and are related.
The black mamba also spreads a hood when it’s irritated, but vertically rather than laterally as the cobra does, and nothing like as showy.”
Holly spoke up, asking him to define aggressiveness more fully.
“In simplest terms, willingness to bite when threatened or irritated. There are some deadly snakes which just won’t bite at all, except for food. The green mamba, for example. In Africa, boys shinny up palm trees for coconuts even though the trees are swarming with green mambas. The greens just get out of the way. Sea snakes are among the most poisonous known to man, but when fishermen bring them in in their nets, they just pick them up and throw them back into the water, and rarely seem to get bitten….”
The DI was stirring restlessly. Converse, warming to his subject, ignored him.
“There’s a very poisonous snake called the blue-banded krait. It’s absolutely deadly at night, but simply can’t be made to bite during the daylight hours. Children play with them, manhandle them, in the villages. People have been known to beat them with a stick, nail them to a board, subject them to torture—even to the point of death—without being bitten.”
He paused for a flurry of note-taking, and observed that even the DI seemed mildly interested. Holly Markham was wearing a yellow silk blouse that went beautifully with her black hair. Big deal, black goes with yellow—so what?
Someone called out, asking what the black mamba ate, and with what frequency.
“Small mammals,” Converse said. “Mainly rodents. As to frequency, snakes are erratic eaters. They can go for long periods, months, without eating. It’s largely a matter of opportunity, if food is around they’ll eat fairly often.”
The joker in the gold-rimmed eyeglasses said, “What was this snake in the menagerie for—to eat an elephant?”
Converse said, “It’s possible it chased a rodent into the area.”
“Doesn’t that mean that its lair, or whatever you call it, is somewhere in the neighborhood of the menagerie?”
“Not necessarily. Black mambas range over a very wide area. They cover ground at a tremendous speed, don’t forget.”
A hand rose in the rear of the room. “Why is this snake biting all these people? Why doesn’t it just run away and hide, the way snakes are supposed to do?”
“In the first two deaths, I can only make a guess. Somehow, whether they knew it or not, these people posed a threat to the snake. Maybe, in the dark, they stepped on it. Step on a snake and it will bite.” He shrugged. “In the latest case, the provocation is obvious. The guy was trying to catch it. A black mamba that’s cornered will attack without hesitation.”
A television reporter specializing in violent city news, a semi-famous face, said, “What about the old wives’ tale about snakes not dying until sundown?”
“There’s a fair amount of truth to it. Chop a snake’s head off, and the body will continue to writhe for several hours. And a poisonous snake can inflict a fatal bite up to forty minutes after its head has been severed from the body.”
There were exclamations all around the room, ranging from horror to wonderment, and a good deal of note-taking. That’s what they want, Converse thought, the exotic, sensational details. They don’t give a damn about what makes snakes tick.
“Young man?” The speaker was a middle-aged man with a white moustache. “How many more people is this snake of yours going to bite before you kill it?”
“Why kill it? Why not capture it and put it in a zoo?”
The DI was on his feet. Unmindful of the microphones, he shouted, “Zoo, my ass. We’re going to kill the shit out of that fucking snake. Okay, Whatsyername, move over.”
The DI motioned imperiously. Converse changed seats with him. Eastman hitched his chair closer to the DI’s. Together, they began to grapple with questions about the police search of the menagerie area (no luck, task force withdrawn), whether another sweep of the park in force was contemplated (not at this time), what additional steps would be taken to protect the public (the Commissioner’s office is working on the problem), whether or not these steps might include closing the park (we’re just working cops, we don’t make that kind of decision)….
Converse sat erect in his chair so that he could see Holly. He caught her eye and she gave him a quick smile before she turned her attention back to the DI and Eastman. He continued to stare at her, compelling her to look at him. She did. She stared back. Their eyes locked and held. Liberated woman, giving back as good as she got from male chauvinist? But there was no defiance in her gaze. Eyes uplooking. He felt lightheaded, giddy. Their eyes remained locked. An indefinable (but familiar) sensation began in his legs, paused at his groin, swept upward to his head, and made him giddier than before.
Suddenly, he remembered a movie he had seen at the Museum of Modern Art a few months before. It was about Catherine the Great, a very old flick, made about two hundred years ago. Elisabeth Bergner was Catherine, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. was some kind of duke or other. Their eyes met across a large candlelit room filled with courtiers. They stared at each other. No expression on their faces, but presently the flame on the candle in front of each of them began to waver slightly as their breathing became shallower and quicker. They kept staring. The candle flames began to waver with increased speed, more strongly, then faster still, more intensely, orgasmically….
Groaning, he forced his eyes away from Holly. Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Godssake, he must be as old as the picture, two hundred give or take a decade. His gaze, out of control, turned back to her and coupled. He listened to his breathing. Fast and shallow, would make a candle flame dance with passion. And he was getting lighter headed all the time. Rest of the room blurring, voices fading. Knowing his weakness, he knew himself to be in serious trouble.
Captain Eastman’s voice, coming as from a great distance, tugged at his attention. “…unless Mr. Converse has anything else to add?”
He looked at Eastman. Thank God for Eastman, the evil spell broken. He shook his head. Eastman adjourned the press conference. Get out of the room fast, Converse told himself, eyes to the front, full speed ahead.
He threaded his way between the rows of chairs with swaying hips, like a broken field runner, making for the door. From the corner of his eye he saw Holly getting to her feet. He stopped abruptly. “Can I buy you a cup of coffee?”
***
Each time the frown appeared on the woman’s face she would read on another sentence or two before raising her eyes from her paperback book. Then she would say, “Peggy, remember what I said about staying on the pavement,” or “That’s far enough, come back here now.”
The child ignored her within the permissible limits she had established in her twenty-two-month-old mind. She was sitting on the pavement and crooning softly and pleasurably to herself. She was plump, with long silky brown hair and violet eyes.
The woman would continue to watch the child for a brief time, then return to her book, the frown erased except for a barely perceptible remnant, some external tic of anxiety. In another minute or two the frown would reappear and she would look at the child again.
She was sitting on a bench in the shade, a short distance inside the park from the Boys Gate at Central Park West and 100th Street. The snake in the park was not the proximate cause of her frown, although it did contribute to her alertness. Her more immediate, and ongoing, concern was the large number of Hispanics who frequented the park in this area (but what was she to do, if she lived at 96th Street?). The snake was an exotic peril, distanced by its prominence in the media; the Hispanics—with their boisterous voices and passions throbbing just below the surface—were a familiar threat that existed right under one’s nose.
“Peggy, I don’t want you lying on the dirty pavement and getting yourself all filthy. Get up at once.”
The child paid no attention to her. Her cheek brushed the pavement as she bent forward from her sitting position in that miraculous boneless way of small children. She was following the progress of a tiny ant that was climbing over her
tanned leg. It tickled her skin and made her laugh.
The mother said, “Peggy,” and, sighing, turned back to her book.
The ant descended from the child’s leg. Effortlessly, the child rocked up onto her knees, and crawled after the ant. She found it, and cupped her hand over it. The ant crept out from under her hand and ran off. The child chased after it, crawling rapidly on her hands and knees. Near the edge of the pavement she lost it. She stopped, her eyes close to the ground. When she lifted her head she saw the snake. It was on the far side of the railing that edged the pavement, its head visible through a tangle of brush. The child clapped her hands together in surprise and delight.
***
The snake watched the child, hissing softly. Its tongue probed the air. The child was not moving, it was not an imminent threat, but the snake was wary. The child clapped her hands again, and crawled closer to the railing. The snake tensed. Its hissing became harsher, it opened its mouth wide.
The mother looked up. “Peggy, what are you doing there? Get back here at once!”
The child paused, looked at her mother, then crawled forward again.
“Peggy! Damn that child.”
She put her book down on the bench and got up and started down the walkway toward the child, her mouth thinned with annoyance, her frown settled deeply between her eyes.
The snake’s length was concealed by the brush. Only its head and the erect portion of its anterior were visible. When the child stood up and moved forward, its eyes were almost on exactly the same level as the snake’s. The snake hissed harshly, its mouth gaped widely.
