Stuffed

by Brian M. Wiprud

  Arrived home, no messages from the Elks. Hoped they hadn’t found another source.

  As I walked down Washington Street, I wondered how this latest development in my life bode for my burgeoning midlife crisis. I felt like I was against the ropes. At least before the sacking of Garth’s Castle, things were fine. Not great, but fine. Now things were crappy, which isn’t great and isn’t even fine. A setback or a sign of things to come?

  Pete is not your strapping lion tamer of lore, the one with the black handlebar mustache, but a small, hairy sinewy guy with a red handlebar mustache, small wire specs, and thin, frizzy hair. You can see he’s one of those guys who has to try to figure out where his chest hair and beard begin and end. Pete chose to shave to the edge of his T-shirt collar. In keeping with his character, it was always a little dangerous visiting with Pete. Ever since he roped me into that chop-shop sting operation, he’d somehow gotten the impression I was a fellow thrill-seeker. He specializes in going undercover for the feds, often as a redneck but on occasion as a Dutch trader, a befezzed Turk, or an Australian magnate. And no matter how preposterous the ruse, he always manages to keep a straight face and avoid getting drilled by the humorless folk on the other side of the law. Well, so far.

  We sat in a booth in the back that had pictures of Ernest Borgnine covering the walls. Why, you ask? Because it was the Ernest Borgnine Memorial Booth at my local Mexican restaurant. That’s New York for you.

  “Y’gotta try this, Garth.” Pete held out the animal perched on his arm. I tried to make my recoil look like I was hailing the waitress.

  “Better box that critter before someone freaks out.” I glanced at Borgnine as the lead in Marty, and he looked disapproving. The waitress approached, and Pete put the arm with the critter under the table.

  “W-we’re ready to order,” I stammered.

  “Black beans and rice for me.” Pete beamed. “And a shot of tequila, a can of Blue Ribbon, and a slice of peach pie with whipped cream.”

  “Beef burrito and a Corona. No fruit.”

  “He’ll have a tequila too, won’t you?”

  “Well . . .” I looked at Borgnine as McHale, and he seemed to be urging me to have one.

  “Give him a tequila.” Pete gave her a wink. “He needs one.”

  As the waitress retreated, Pete brought his arm back up onto the table and said, “Uh-oh.” His arm was empty, his pet gone. Did I mention Pete collects venomous animals?

  My reaction to the escaped pet was immediate and much to Pete’s amusement. Several other diners came to help me off the floor and right the chair I’d tripped over in my haste to exit the booth.

  “Don’t worry, Maddy’s back in the box.” Pete giggled like someone who’d just fooled me with a joy-buzzer handshake. Once I was seated again, he insisted on giving me a last look at his humongous emperor scorpion. “Don’t like the bugs much, do yuh, Garth?”

  Too large to hold in one hand, the damn thing looked like an ill-shaven patent-leather lobster. Can a big, black, hairy, shiny, and bumpy animal that waves pincers and a stinger be anything but evil? You could hear the creak of its segmented tail as it flexed like a gunfighter’s nervous trigger finger.

  “Lordy, Pete, that’s not your everyday mantis or cicada or anything. I collected beetles as a kid, my dad was a butterfly collector, and I can take cockroaches, giant walking sticks, and the occasional tarantula even. But that thing looks like a freakin’ alien being. Too big to stomp on is just too much bug.” If I hadn’t known better, those rats covering Borgnine in the still from Willard could have been emperor scorpions.

  “Awright, I’ll put Maddy away. But she’s a pussycat, really. Scorpions like this with big pincers look mean, but it’s the ones with itty-bitty pincers that’ll zap you but good.” Pete shoveled the evil bug back into its box and slid the lid shut. “Thought Maddy might distract you from your recent woes.”

  “I appreciate the thought, but . . .”

  “You got smacked around a bit, that’s for sure. Sonsabitches.” Pete waved a pinky finger at the stitches on my head. “You find them, you let me know. We’ll kick their ass. I’ve got a Malay cone snail that is absolutely vicious. This tetrodotoxic bandito boy is like a gun and can shoot its radula—pffft, pffft, pffft! Those bastards’ll be in such incredible pain . . . they’ll wish they were never born. Ha!”

  Patrons seated in our vicinity did their best to ignore Pete’s bravado.

  “Cone snails? Let’s not break out the big guns right away,” I jibed.

  “Why not?”

  “Pete? I was kidding.” The idea of us kicking anybody’s ass with or without snails was ludicrous, yet the notion of Pete on my team in a revenge plot was oddly reassuring.

  Our drinks arrived and I wrapped my bubblegum in a paper napkin. “Anyway, I’ve got other problems, like Agent Renard, your replacement.” There was a lime in the top of my beer and I removed the offending fruit. As though under the power of suggestion, the words no fruit never fail to sail right over a bartender’s sphere of consciousness. “He’s starting to bust my chops already.”

  “Thought Detective Walker was your number-one porcupine?”

  “He was there too, adding color commentary.”

  “Never met this hombre Renard. But I took a glance at his resumé before leaving the DEC. Worked out of the Albany office tracking export of domestic fauna. More the office type, a bean counter who issued figures on the black market. West Indian, from Guyana, originally. Used to work for Guyanese Customs, and then for some Asian shipping outfit that moved tropical fish, I think. Don’t understand the transfer south from Albany, tell you the truth. Some guys just itch to get out in the field, get some action. Garth, y’gotta figure on him giving you the business at first. He’s gotta let you know who’s the bear, that kinda hoo-ha.”

  “As a victim, I could do without police harassment just now. I mean, it might actually be nice if the DEC was circulating a flier on my stolen property.”

  “Leave it up to Pete.” He downed his shot of tequila and gave me a wink. “I’ll get the list from Renard and pigeon it out to every police bulletin board in the country. U.S. Fish and Wildlife is better connected than the state outfits. Hey, muchacho? You okay?”

  “Gee, I dunno.” I rolled my eyes, and gestured at my cut scalp. “Do I look okay?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  I squinted, and he continued.

  “I can see it in your eyes. The green meanies have got you, am I right?”

  “Green meanies? Green meanies?”

  “Don’t kid a kidder. I know that look ’cause you had it two years ago. You were in a funk about your life. About your career. And now this.”

  “Yeah, well . . .”

  He pulled a folded paper from his pocket. “I know we talked before about looking into a job at U.S. Fish and Wildlife.”

  “I don’t want a job. I have a job.”

  “You don’t sound so sure, amigo. Here.” He handed over the paper and I unfolded a copy of an e-mail.

  I scanned the paper. “What is this?”

  “That, muchacho, is a job interview with USFW.”

  My bruises suddenly felt warm. “An interview? For a job?”

  Pete looked exasperated. “That’s what I’m talking about. You keep thinking that you need to get out of taxidermy brokering. Well . . .” He pointed at the paper and folded his arms.

  I concentrated and managed to read the e-mail. He’d set up an interview for me the day after next, at 8:00 A.M., at their offices downtown.

  “What made you think I’d be available at this time?” I waved the paper.

  “Are you?”

  “Well . . .”

  “Look, Garth, these openings don’t come up often. You’re exactly the kind of guy they need to help their department crack down on the trade of endangered species. You’d do very much what you do now: travel around to all these little stores, and to some big ones, and report the violators.”

  I groaned. />
  “This is a job with the U.S. government, Garth. Can you say pension? Health plan? 401K? Angie could be on your insurance plan. Just go, and if you decide it’s not for you, then turn it down. But once you make your choice, you’re going to have to stick with it and be happy.”

  “I’ll go,” I moaned. “I’m sorry, Pete, and I’m grateful to you for your efforts. But mostly I’m conflicted, you know that.”

  Pete punched me in the shoulder. “Okay, Señor Carson. But if you ask me, you take all this way too seriously. Do whatever you feel is right and no regrets. Life is too short. Hey—” He fished through a pocket and handed me a slip of paper. “Maybe this will cheer you up. When you said over the phone you had a white crow in the lot that was stolen, it rang a bell.”

  The document he’d given me was from some sort of Internet search vehicle and read: MOOSE HEAD 4 SALE: MUST GO. U HAUL. NORTHEAST U.S. (888) 901–4123.

  I smiled. “Hey, a cheap moose head!”

  “Not that. Below that.”

  I read on: WANT MY WHITE CROW BACK. No questions asked, finder’s fee. P.O. Box 34, Wells ME 04090.

  “Egads. Another white crow. That is quite a coincidence. But this moose head . . . if they say U HAUL it sounds big. And MUST GO means cheap.”

  “Still hooked on cheap moose heads, eh?”

  “I’m not without my vices.” A cheap—but good—moose head is like a dream. A fantasy, perhaps—my criteria are pretty demanding.

  Antlers: Perhaps the most important part of a moose. They should be large, more than sixty inches, with expansive palms and well-curved tines, no bullet holes. The antlers should be masterful, imposing, threatening.

  Pelt: Egads, do I see a lot of baked moose heads that have been mounted over the fireplace. Stick your finger between the hair on the neck and press. It should give without cracking. Pet the moose. No crunching, no falling hair. As if taxidermy isn’t transient enough as it is, a dried-out mount of any kind is ruined and effectively worthless.

  Ears & Dewlap: Whole, free of cracks, glue, or bug shucks. Ears are one of the first things to get damaged on any mount, and next to noses and maybe cat lips they’re the most prone to drying and crumbling.

  Eyes, Nose, Lips: I can live with small cracks. Patch them up with plastic wood, paint them black. But shriveled facial derma is a distortion nobody can repair well.

  Pose: Chin up, snout slightly turned, ears forward, and by all appearances alert to the hunter’s approach. Or, if I could find it, a grunting moose, mouth open, tongue partially extended. That would approach moose-head quintessence.

  Of course, if I really wanted the damn thing, I could find it. I could go to a world-class taxidermist and buy a museum-quality mount. I could do that, and pay full price. But I’m a dealer. It’s more than an occupation. It’s a creed. I live for deals. And to me, moose heads have come to represent the ultimate deal, though perhaps an unattainable one. You see, over the last fifteen years, people claim to have seen—at a garage sale, a thrift store, an estate sale, the Salvation Army—a moose head selling for fifty dollars. The result is that I can’t bring myself to buy a moose for more than that because I’m deluded, foolishly convinced that any day I might just stumble upon the mythical cheap head. Or better still: Where is the estranged wife of the great white hunter who thinks her dear departed’s giant moose is a worthless monstrosity and will pay me fifty bucks to haul it away?

  Silly? Well, I prefer to think of it as a natural part of the human condition. Everybody seems to be searching for something—a lottery jackpot, consensual sex, a great lawn, true love—that is so improbable it crosses over from seething aspiration into apotheosis.

  “Garth? Hello?”

  “Sorry, Pete, I was just—”

  “Yup, I know, dreaming about the perfect moose head. I thought the white-crow ad would interest you.”

  “It does, it does. Where’d you find it?”

  “We have a special Web program that searches eBay and online classifieds nationwide. It looks for animals on sale that might be protected. The only reason I saw the crow was because it was next to an African pelt ad. And white crows are rare enough that I didn’t forget it.”

  “That is weird. This crow ad was dated three weeks ago. Think someone is out to corner the white-crow market?” Of course, I was talking crow but still thinking about the moose.

  “Hard to say, hombre.” Pete twirled his mustache thoughtfully. “Seems like the thieves who took the crow, this clipping, the college kid in Vermont—albino crows are suddenly downright popular. Funny they’d take all your other critters if they went to the trouble to send that Korean fellah to tip you off. Brainteaser. Let me know what you dig up in your investigation.”

  “Investigation? No, sir.” I showed him my palms, pushing the notion away. “That gallbladder stuff I did for you guys was the end of it. I’ve got no love of danger.”

  He smiled. “C’mon, don’t kid. Admit it. You were pumped after we busted those bladder guys.”

  “If you recall, I ended up gun-whipping you.”

  “By accident.” He crinkled his nose and waved it off like I’d merely nailed him with a spitball. “That was nothing. I mean, if you shot me, I’d have been a little peeved, especially if I died. A gun-whipping? Could happen to anybody. Anybody who’s pumped, that is.”

  “You got me all wrong, Pete. I leave the cops-and-robbers stuff to you, Renard, and Walker. Let me guess. Even now you’re probably into something that’s liable to seriously jeopardize your health. Other than scorpions, that is?”

  “All very hush-hush.” Pete leaned in. “Something’s going down in Chinatown. Something big.”

  “Yeah? What’s it this time?”

  He winced. “All I can tell you is that there’s some guys from Korea coming to town with alligator briefcases so full of money it looks like a Brinks truck crashed into the Everglades.”

  “Could be almost anything. Ivory? Rhino horn?”

  “Yeah, could be.” Pete shifted gears and raised his can. “Anyway, here’s to recovering your varmints.”

  I raised my bottle and glanced up at Ernie bullying Spencer Tracy.

  “Here’s to staying out of trouble.”

  Chapter 6

  Two days later, I returned to my apartment after my interview with U.S. Fish and Wildlife and found my phone ringing.

  No, it wasn’t the Elks. I’d finally reached them and toted my giant bugler over to the Sheraton where their convention was being held.

  No, it wasn’t the penguin wrangler telling me my birds were pecked to ruination. As far as I knew, his beasts were being kept at bay and my two-tone dwarfs were still A-OK.

  No, it wasn’t the cheap-moose people. I’d left a message as soon as I got home from my lunch with Pete—not a peep. Probably snatched up already, dag nabbit.

  It was the Massachusetts State Police. They’d found my stolen taxidermy in the safety net at a bridge rehabilitation project over the Connecticut River. I thought that pretty odd, and so did the Massachusetts State Police. But as you can imagine, my puzzlement was secondary to joyous relief at recovering my prime pelts. I didn’t waste any time pondering the whys or wherefores. After dancing around the apartment, whooping and kissing Fred on his cracked nose, I was out the door and headed north.

  The weather was convertible-friendly, so Angie came along for the breather. She got a kiss too. I was in a kissing mood and gave her a few extras.

  We had to swing by a TV studio farther up the West Side to drop off Aunt Jilly. She’s a standing bear Angie affectionately named after an aunt of hers. I never met the woman, but Angie claims she had thick black fur on her arms and beady yellow eyes. So up to the Network Theater we went. While Angie waited in the double-parked Lincoln, I wheeled Aunt Jilly into the stage entrance. I found the guy who writes the checks; he signed the rental agreement and handed over the deposit. By the time I got downstairs, Angie had circled the block twice to avoid a ticket.

  Then we hit Peter Van Putin�
��s town house on the Upper East Side, where Angie ran inside and delivered her portfolio. I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel for half an hour before she came trotting down the steps.

  “Sorry it took so long. But Peter was right there, and we got to talking. . . . Garth, it went really well, it was almost like the interview. We flipped through the portfolio together. . . .” She crossed fingers on both hands.

  Angie had been trying to break into the high-end art jewelry scene for a long time, first on her own and then on the coattails of someone like this Van Putin character.

  “Tremendous. You’ll probably get it, but don’t get your hopes up too high, okay? You’ve had disappointments before, so just take it easy.”

  “You’re right.” She pinched her eyes tight like she was making a wish, an affectation that looks like something she picked up from Bewitched. She can be Samantha anytime she wants, but don’t expect me to be Darrin. “Whatever happens, happens.”

  We charged across the 97th Street Transverse through Central Park, back to the West Side Highway, up the Henry Hudson Parkway, and got our butts outta town before noon. We were approaching the Henry Hudson Bridge before we said much of anything.

  “Where did you go so early this morning?”

  “Hmm? Oh, I had to go down to the DEC about permits. Get there early, avoid lines.”

  “You wore a tie.”

  “Hmm?”

  “I said, you wore a tie.”

  “Yeah, well . . . they treat you better if you wear a tie.”