Unnatural Selection td-131

by Warren Murphy

  If it had only stopped there, things would have been fine for Jude Weiss. But soon after that mess, another agency approached for help with one of its clients, a sports announcer who volunteered weekends at a home for troubled teens. Apparently the announcer did much of his charity work in a tutu and high heels. He also, it was learned, had a habit of taking it all the way to the end zones of both boys and girls.

  This case presented a far tougher challenge than the first, given the nature of the criminal charges and the multiple lawsuits that were filed. But in the end, the announcer had not only kept his television job, he was awarded a seven-figure multiyear contract with a major cable sports station.

  And thus was born St. Jude, patron saint of every desperate celebrity client that came along. Jude Weiss got them all. Every bed-wetting sicko and toe-sucking loser. There were only a few normal clients left. One of which was lounging nude on the patio beside his three-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar Key West pool.

  As Bobby Bugget smeared tanning lotion on his belly, he didn't even glance at Jude Weiss. He was staring out at the sea. The land on which Bugget's pool was built had been expanded out into the Gulf of Mexico in order to accommodate its great size. "You need a cause," Jude Weiss repeated.

  "I've already got something," Bobby said. Finished with his lotion, he settled cucumber slices firmly atop each eye. "I'm spokesman for the Save the Bottlenose Fund." Feeling blind for a glass, he took a sip of margarita.

  "Even if that thing exists, the legends say it's ugly as the sales of your last three albums," Weiss said.

  "My albums all go gold."

  "Your fan base is aging rapidly. Yeah, you bring in college kids with your summer tours, but you lose them as soon as they grow up. Right now, you're a pirate pushing sixty. Your last hit was 'Daiquiri Dingy,' and you've been coasting on that since 1974."

  The cucumbers came off. Bugget had to squint in the white-hot Florida sun. "What are you saying?"

  "I'm saying, according to your accountants, your finances could be on the verge of a major reversal. Maybe even a meltdown."

  Bugget's deeply suntanned face blanched. "I might have to give up all this?" he gasped, horrified.

  "Not all of it. But you might have to start being more careful with how you spend your money. Sell off a few of your islands. Maybe unload a couple dozen sailboats. You crashed seven seaplanes last year alone, Bobby. Now, that's an expense you won't be able to afford if your finances keep trending like they have."

  The prospect of even having to think about living within his means was too terrifying for Bobby Bugget. He downed the remainder of his drink, immediately summoning the nearest of three hovering topless waitresses to bring him another.

  "Keep them coming," he snapped through his bristly gray mustache.

  "You need something that will get you attention above the Panhandle," Jude Weiss insisted. "Something that will keep you in people's minds during the winter months when you're hibernating down here."

  "Like what?" Bugget slurred, sucking down another drink.

  Jude Weiss smiled. "Ever hear of Green Earth?"

  "The big environmental group? Of course I have. Everybody has."

  "Well, what everybody hasn't heard is that Green Earth has got a new cause it's supporting. There's a species that's being threatened with extinction. Right now it's only gotten some local support-a few protests, some write-ups in the regional weekly paper. But with Green Earth's involvement, it's going to go national. Maybe international. And they're offering the plum celebrity spokesman spots to clients of the Jude Weiss and Associates Agency."

  "Wait, wasn't Green Earth in trouble a month or two back? Something about a stolen Russian submarine in South America?"

  "Of course not," St. Jude promised. "That was a rogue organization member acting entirely on his own. He did not have the approval of the Green Earth hierarchy in San Francisco. Now, what do you say, Bobby? I'm offering you a chance to be out front on an issue of vital importance. The extinction of a species. Face time like that'll buy a whole fleet of seaplanes."

  Bobby Bugget wanted to say no. He didn't like to change latitudes until the rest of the contiguous states shook off every last vestige of winter. But he had a mental image of an endless line of little dollar bills marching off a gangplank into a rising tide of red ink.

  Swallowing the last of his margarita, the singer had reluctantly agreed. To jump-start his flagging career and preserve his fifty-million-dollar-a-year empire, he would have made a deal with the devil. Unfortunately, he'd done worse than make a pact with Satan. He had signed on the dotted line with a double-crossing Jewish-Buddhist-possibly-Hindu- Catholic saint.

  "This is not what I agreed to," Bugget groused to Jude Weiss.

  It was two weeks since their poolside conversation. They were in a package store in rural Maine. "What are you talking?" Jude said. "This is exactly what I told you it would be. You're saving a species."

  Bugget almost dropped the second case of beer he was pushing up on the checkout counter.

  "Worms," Bobby Bugget snarled.

  "Leeches," Jude Weiss corrected. "Specifically, the Reticulated New England Speckled Leech. They've become very rare in these parts."

  "Who gives a Havana hang? No one cares if an insect gets squooshed."

  "Leeches aren't insects," Jude said knowingly. "At least I don't think they are. Anyway, who says an animal needs to be cuddly to merit saving? Ever hear of the kangaroo rat? Of the snail darter?"

  "No," Bugget said glumly.

  "Well, neither did I till I read this." Weiss slapped a shiny pamphlet on top of a case of beer.

  On the cover were pictures of insects and animals only a Mother Earth could love. In the corner above the recycling stamp was the familiar Green Earth logo, a green-and-blue planet Earth. In a semicircle around the top-from equator to equator-was the legend It's Your Planet, People!

  "Everything you need to know is in there, so read up," St. Jude said. He waved to the beer. "I'll pay for this. Lemme have your credit card."

  Two minutes later they were back out in the street, each lugging a case of beer.

  Some men were waiting curbside near a rusty old school bus. One of them opened the rear emergency door as Bugget and Weiss approached.

  "And this is another thing I didn't sign on for," Bugget complained as they dumped the cases into the rear of the beat-up old bus. "You've got me touring with a freak show."

  "Hey, they're clients, too," Jude Weiss said defensively.

  Bugget glowered at Weiss as he tore open one of the cases and helped himself to a can. The two men went around to the front and climbed up inside the bus. As the door closed, dozens of faces looked up.

  Only three were Weiss and Associates clients. The rest were rank-and-file members of Green Earth.

  As the bus pulled away from the curb and Bobby Bugget popped the top on the first beer of what he hoped would become a short and forgettable bender, he scanned the three familiar faces.

  The first was a famous movie actress who, though in her early thirties, looked all of thirteen. Erratic behavior off-screen had culminated in her most widely viewed performance-that of videotaped Rodeo Drive shoplifter.

  Beside her was a hulking, potbellied brute with an angry, dead-eyed stare. The former heavyweight champion's career had been troubled by teensy little problems such as rape charges, prison stays and his tendency to bite off the body parts of opponents whenever a fight was not going his way. With Weiss and Associates' crisis management, he hoped to have a second career in film and TV.

  Finally there was the home-decorating and housekeeping guru, a soft-spoken woman who on her TV show and in her magazine told America to iron its underwear, build a Japanese garden out back near the trash cans and to always trim the toilet paper into decorative shapes just in case another country dropped by unexpectedly for brunch. What she didn't suggest was that America engage in insider trading with a resulting scandal that would rock its media empire and send it scra
mbling to the one agency that might be able to revive its tarnished wholesome image. That would be a bad thing.

  The decorating expert sat in the corner behind the driver, trimming artificial roses from red felt. When she offered one to the boxer, he ate it. When she went back to her felt, she found her scissors had been stolen. The waifish actress had a guilty expression on her pale face and a scissor-shaped bulge in her Dockers khakis.

  "Two cases ain't gonna be enough," Bobby Bugget said morosely, going back to get more beer. The run-of-the-mill members of Green Earth were already delighted to be among such glitterati. They began to grow even more giddy as they approached their destination.

  Bleary-eyed and slightly more than three sheets to the wind, Bugget was supremely indifferent. "Aren't you excited?" enthused a young man.

  "Sure thing, son," Bugget said. "Gotta save them worms. Some of my best friends-and agents-are worms."

  "It's not just the leeches," a college-age girl insisted. "It's the water. The reason they're dying out is because they've tapped the water source."

  "Honey, I'm all for preserving water, too," Bugget said. "People can do great things just stirrin' some hops and barley in a little cold Rockies springwater."

  "We're not saving the water for people," the girl said. "Man treats the freshwater supply as his alone. He cages it up in reservoirs, harnesses its power to create dangerous electricity and drains streams, killing off beautiful, docile, harmless indigenous leeches."

  "I agree wit you, little girl," the boxer interjected, his voice surprisingly high and feminine. "The man has done many bad and terrible things. Like prosecute and imprison innocent men who would never had done the lugubrious and ripricious malfeasance that they were unrightly accused of in court of doing by lying bitches who was only asking for it in the first place." He nodded deep understanding.

  "Thank you, Mr. Armour."

  "You're very welcome, young lady," the boxer said.

  "Could you please stop squeezing my thigh now?" the girl asked, wincing.

  A distracting shout from the front of the bus kept the boxer from once more becoming a guest of the state prison system.

  "Hey, get a load of this!" the driver called.

  They had gone from small town to partially wooded farmland. To the right, the trees broke away into a wide field. A dead cow lay just inside a barbedwire fence at the side of the road. A bloated tongue gave them a silent raspberry as they sped past.

  "Was that a victim of ecosystem destruction?" the girl from Green Earth asked.

  "Maybe," said the boy. "The poor animal could have died of thirst."

  "It looked like it was eaten by wild animals," Bobby Bugget pointed out.

  "Still," said the girl, "maybe it died of thirst, then was eaten. Maybe we should mention concern for cows, as well as the speckled leech."

  "Don't get sidetracked," Jude Weiss warned. "Stay focused. Focus brings in TV crews and national coverage."

  "I guess," the girl said. "But that poor cow. It looked like something tore it open and ate all its insides."

  Everyone agreed that this was a terrible thing. All but the boxer. He was thinking of the half-chewed COW.

  "Gawd, I miss the taste of boxing," he said, wiping back a sniffle. He found comfort by sticking his hand inside the girl's blouse.

  Signs along the roadside every half mile took them from downtown Lubec deep into the woods.

  The exit to the Lubec Springs bottling plant eventually appeared amid a small patch of landscaped trees. The bus drove onto the strip of tidy asphalt that cut through the thick pine forest.

  A dozen yards in they came to a fork in the road. To the left was a gated, deeply rutted dirt path. The lane to the Lubec Springs plant was on the right. Glimpsed through the woods was a silvery stream that tied into the network of springs throughout the Lubec Springs property.

  They parked the bus and climbed down to the road. Placards were passed out to the group.

  Jude Weiss stepped down, accompanied by the waifish actress and former boxer.

  "This is going to be perfect," St. Jude said. "The press should be here in about a half hour."

  He tried to check his watch, but it had mysteriously disappeared from his wrist. That sort of thing seemed to happen a lot whenever his young, innocent moviestar client was around. Gold pens and brass bathroom fixtures vanished every time she showed up at his Beverly Hills offices. He made a mental note to check the poor maligned girl's backpack for his missing watch the first chance he got.

  "Let's get a move on, people," Weiss warned the crowd. "Spontaneous protests don't just happen on their own."

  On the road, Bobby Bugget couldn't find anyone to lug his beer. Hauling the cases himself, Bugget fell in behind the rest as they marched up the paved road to the bottling plant.

  The aging singer's legs were nearly buckling by the time they reached the plant. When the low buildings finally appeared, he dropped his cases to the road and popped open a fresh beer.

  "Okay, what's the drill?" Bugget panted.

  "We wait for the reporters," Jude Weiss said. "No sense starting until they get here."

  The TV homemaker was braiding pine needles into a decorative star-shaped ornament, perfect for Christmas or just everyday. "Maybe this is them now," she suggested.

  Weiss glanced up.

  They had come from around the building. So stealthy were they, none from the bus had heard them approach.

  There were eight men in all, fanned out in a line across the parking lot. They moved quickly toward the band of protesters, heads down, chins parallel to the ground.

  "Do you work here?" Jude Weiss demanded. The men didn't answer. They continued to come. Faster now.

  "Because if you do work here, I'd appreciate it if you hold off on any counterprotests until Rough Print and Newsfotainment Now! show up."

  Jude Weiss heard something that sounded like a growl. For an instant he thought it was one of his clients. The boxer had a tendency to make animal sounds like that at mealtime or around the occasional unlucky female. Weiss was turning for the boxer, expecting the worst, when a strange thing happened.

  The men running toward them from the bottling plant started flying.

  It all happened so fast. One moment they were running across the parking lot; the next they had launched themselves in the air. Jude Weiss saw one flash toward him. The sun disappeared in the shadow of the lunging man.

  Jude Weiss felt a sudden pressure on his chest. And then he didn't feel anything at all because one needed an intact spinal cord to carry nerve impulses to a functioning brain. The force of the attack against St. Jude Weiss had cracked the Hollywood superagent's spine and knocked his head clean off his shoulders.

  As Weiss's head rolled, panic gripped the crowd. Men and women dropped protest signs and ran into the woods. More growls rose from others who had been lying in wait.

  Screams filled the Maine woods.

  Throats split, stomachs surrendered pulsing contents. Blood splattered like spring rain to the cold parking lot.

  The boxer tried to take a swing. He was cuffed unconscious by a man half his size.

  Bobby Bugget couldn't believe his eyes. When the attack began, the singer had been guarding his beer near some bushes. His booze was forgotten. The urge to flee registered in Bugger's beer-soaked brain.

  He turned to run...

  ... and promptly flopped over his last full case of beer.

  Sprawled on the ground, he heard a low growl behind him. Slowly, heart pounding, he rolled over onto his back.

  Some of the Green Earth membership were being devoured. Two of the attackers had separated from the rest. They were coming toward Bugget.

  "The press is on its way," Bugget screamed.

  If they heard, it didn't show. The men kept coming. Slowly stalking. Malevolent eyes focused hungrily on Bobby Bugget's throat.

  "Grrr... "

  Bugget heard the sound. Soft. Just above the range of human perception. It tickled his ear
drums, made his heart rate quicken. The sound of ancient hunger. The sound of his own mortality.

  He was up on his rear end. Scurrying back on palms and soles, he backed against the trunk of a tree. "I ain't kiddin', son," Bugget said. "We're talkin' national exposure. They'll be here any minute. Now, I don't know who you work for, but if you're the people what wants to kill them worms, well, you can be my guest. Kill 'em all for all I care. Shoot, only good worm's the one at the bottom of a tequila bottle anyways."

  His words seemed to have an effect. The two men stopped abruptly.

  Bobby Bugget was beginning to think he'd survive this massacre. That he would get the exposure the late Jude Weiss had promised before his head came off, that he'd be able to hightail it back to Florida where he could spin this terrible day into TV appearances, songs and record sales.

  All of this did Bobby Bugget think in the time it took to draw one terrified breath.

  And then one of the two men before him disappeared.

  He moved too fast. One moment he was standing three yards away; the next he was landing on Bobby's chest.

  Bugget toppled over. He felt a rough tongue lick the side of his throat. He heard that terrible low growl and knew with sick certainty that the end for this old, washed-up pirate would not come at sea, but in a land-locked parking lot in the boondocks of Maine.

  The slathering fangs of his attacker were a hair away from shredding Bobby Bugget's throat when the singer, saw a sudden blur from the corner of his eye.

  The woman had come out of nowhere. With an open palm, she cuffed the man on top of Bugget on the side of the head.

  Although it didn't seem possible, the blow launched the man halfway across the lot.

  "Down!" Judith White growled.

  Their feast interrupted, the rest froze. Blood dribbled down chins. Shoulders rose in a parody of angry felines.

  "Now!" she roared.

  Hissing, the pack backed dutifully away.

  On the ground, Bobby Bugget blinked. The near fatal assault proved to have an elucidating effect. For the first time in a long time, he almost felt sober. Under the circumstances, it wasn't a pleasant feeling.