From the red glow of my brake lights, in my rearview mirror, I saw the silhouette of something on the trunk lid, a lump of some kind. I swerved onto the shoulder and stopped. Please tell me the giant thumb didn’t jump onto the back of my car.
It was a rock. Or maybe a boulder. Anyway, this one was the size of a microwave. The impact had destroyed the trunk lid, but otherwise the Lincoln seemed unfazed. Two points for the old battleship. Fixing that was going to cost me plenty.
Then I noticed the pygmy arrows sticking out of my upholstery.
I put my shaking hands back on the steering wheel and made tracks away from Brattleboro. I’d be damned if I was going back that way. It took me a half hour to loop around and find my way back to town. I didn’t even want to take the time to try to remove the boulder.
Clam rats and pygmies—eat my dust.
Chapter 16
Pygmies.” Phil eyed the Lincoln hesitantly. “In Vermont.”
Clearly, he was mulling over ways to explain it to a jury and make them believe it. I could tell by the way he’d bitten a pencil in half that the boulder on my trunk didn’t bolster my case, though the small crowd gathered in the spring twilight on the courthouse steps seemed impressed by the spectacle. The Lincoln’s backseat was stuck like a pincushion with little arrows.
“Well, they were little, and dark, with bows and arrows. What would you call them?”
“And the pygmies . . . did they throw this rock at you?”
“C’mon, how could pygmies lift a big rock like that?” I felt myself redden as the crowd’s attention turned from the Boulder Mobile to me. “This came from atop the cleft. The pygmies were charging up the hill behind me.”
After I told my absurd story, Phil led me inside, where I was compelled to repeat this yarn to Danny DA. When I got to the end, I summarized:
“So there’s these three: one who I think is a funeral director named MacTeague from Oregon, Bret, and then this cowboy and—” I quickly decided to leave Jimmy out of the picture—he didn’t fit. “Bret worked carnivals, and then there’s this sideshow in the woods where they shot little arrows at me. . . . Look, I may be going out on a limb here, but I think these carnies grabbed a dead gorilla from an Oregon zoo, maybe to make a gaff, I dunno.”
Danny squinted at the floor, a paper cup dangling from one hand and his tie undone.
“Pygmies. In Vermont.”
Phil was standing at the window, staring at the meager city lights of Brattleboro.
Then Danny asked, “What’s a gaff?”
“Yeah, you know, a carnival attraction, like a saber-toothed bass, alien fetus, mummified mermaid . . . or a clam rat. They don’t make them anymore because the traveling freak shows are extinct. Not PC.”
“Clam rat?” Danny shook his head in bewilderment. “So you’re saying that Fletcher and some carnies and a tribe of pygmy warriors and a giant thumb have stolen a dead gorilla for a sideshow attraction. For a gaff. Even though freak shows no longer exist.”
“Maybe they were going to make a yeti or something.” I shrugged. “They usually make them out of bears, but . . . anyway, that’s the way I figure it.”
Phil didn’t flinch. “Yeti?”
“Abominable Snowman.”
“Ah.” Danny pursed his lips. “So now we have Big Foot. Does Bat Boy enter into this anywhere?”
I reiterated: “It’s about the white crow.”
Phil sighed before I did.
I continued: “What this has to do with the crow is anybody’s guess, but they wanted it enough to come all the way to Manhattan to steal it and dump a lot of very valuable taxidermy in the river.”
Danny stood next to the blue cigarette-burned table, shaking his head at the floor. “I don’t see any connection. But at the same time, I can’t see why you would make up such a load of crap. Why would you drop a rock on your trunk and shoot arrows into your upholstery? The sheriff did go out there. They found that abandoned sideshow in the woods. Too dark to see much else, nobody around. No pygmies.”
“Yeah, but there was a banner for a sideshow featuring pygmy warriors,” I retorted.
He looked up at Phil, took his turn at a sigh, and left the room. Detectives and DAs always do that, just walk out. Which almost always means they’re going to talk to the people behind the big mirror to see what they think.
I cleared my throat. “So, Phil, am I getting anywhere near being able to go home?”
“Are you sure you’re telling us everything?” He didn’t turn. “You didn’t forget anything?”
“All the news that’s fit to print.”
“You didn’t see who rolled the rock down on you?”
“Is it a rock or a boulder?”
Phil almost turned to look at me. “What?”
“I mean, is the rock on my trunk big enough to be considered a boulder?”
Phil scratched his head but didn’t say anything. You didn’t really expect me to tell them a giant thumb threw that boulder, did you?
Danny came back in.
“We’ll be willing to bargain on the manslaughter charge if Mr. Carson agrees to cooperate with an ongoing investigation.”
Phil came to life. “Manslaughter? You’ll be lucky if you get reckless endangerment, Danny. Frankly, I think my client has a very good—”
The door opened again, and Special Agent Renard of the NYSDEC strolled into the room, a little more awake than the last time I saw him. But just a little.
“We meet again, Mr. Carson.” He dipped his head at the others before coming back to me. “Your white crow seems to be causing a bit of a ruckus.”
“What’s this?” I pointed at Renard.
“We’re interested in your gorilla story.” Renard suppressed a yawn. “And want your help in getting to the bottom of all this. About who dumped that boulder on your car.”
I snorted at him. “Are you sure it’s not a rock?”
“Hmm?”
“I mean, Phil thinks it’s a rock, and you say it’s a boulder. Anybody know when a rock becomes a boulder? How big does it have to be?”
I can get pretty trivial when I’m reaching the end of my rope.
Danny groaned. “Boulder, rock, what’s the difference?”
“Exactly!” I added.
“A boulder”—Renard raised an eyebrow at me—“is too big to lift without aid of a machine. Look here, Mr. Carson, we’re trying to help you, but you’ll have to help us.”
“I think I’ve done quite a lot already. Don’t you think it’s about time you people did something about all this? I’m a taxpayer, for God’s sake. And a victim.”
Renard exchanged glances with Danny, who opened a folder and dropped a photo in front of me.
“Your cowboy look like this?”
It was a black-and-white 8x10 of a man with a black eye, new stitches on his forehead, holding a mug-shot placard that said TAYLOR COUNTY CORRECTIONS, NC. The date was ten years earlier, and Slim looked like he’d been in one heck of a bar fight.
“That’s him! He’s older and wears a cowboy hat. How’d you find this?”
“We do this kind of thing for a living, Carson. What taxpayers pay us for. That’s Tex Filbert, an independent showman who did travel with a carnival run by Faldo Amusements. He has a record, bar fights, check kiting, spent some time in county here and there, but nothing serious.”
“Was he a showman?”
“He was a carny, if that’s what you mean.”
“What I meant was, did he operate a concession on the sideshow that featured gaffs?”
Danny took the picture back. “Yes.”
I folded my arms, grinning. “See there, I was right.”
“He’s not a cowboy.”
“Well, he’s got the hat, and he’s bowlegged.”
Danny ignored me. “So, Renard, you want to take it from here?”
“It’s that snipe of yours.” Renard flashed a smile, but it wasn’t friendly. “It’s actually a Limnodromus scolopaceus.”
“Scolopaceus is a long-billed dowitcher.”
My grin wearied. “It’s a snipe, Renard. LBDs don’t have the ruddy breast feathers.”
He cleared his throat and folded his arms. “The males do when they’re in breeding colors, Carson. And, as you’re aware, long-billed dowitchers are a protected species.”
“Fine, let’s do a DNA test. What’s this got to do with—”
“We’re willing to overlook this irregularity, and Brattleboro County is willing to drop any charges—”
“Rescind the charge,” Danny corrected.
“—your reckless endangerment—”
“Manslaughter,” Danny corrected again.
“—if you assist the New York DEC with an investigation into—”
“Egad, fellahs, you don’t have to beat me over the head with my snipe, or dowitcher, or whatever. If you look right outside you’ll see a boulder on my trunk. Pygmy arrows in my backseat. Know what that means? It means that between you and them I can’t stay out of this mess. So what’s it going to be? Going to wire me up, night scopes in a van parked across the street, or what?”
Agent Renard was stroking his chin. “There’s something amiss here, and the NYSDEC and the State of Vermont have agreed to cooperate in getting to the bottom of it. We have some jurisdictional complications, some technical problems. Because your pelts were stolen in New York and found in Massachusetts, we can’t convince a Vermont judge that there’s compelling evidence for the NYSDEC to conduct an investigation in this jurisdiction.”
“Then what are you doing here, Renard? What is this?”
“And the Vermont State Fish and Game have neither the facilities, nor the manpower, nor the impetus from the FBI to conduct an investigation into what amounts to the interstate theft and transport of a dead crow. However, under a codicil in Vermont State law, another state’s police force can conduct a limited investigation if approved by the district attorney’s office—”
I stood as Detective Walker ambled into the room, looking decidedly unrural in his new plaid flannel jacket and mad-bomber cap. An airline ticket folder protruded from his jacket pocket. He smirked at me, and it felt like a poke to the sternum. His smirks are like dares, like drawing a line for me to cross. Walker would like nothing better than for me to take a swing at him. Or him at me.
“Detective Walker is going to work with you undercover. He’s going to pose as your partner. You’ll wait in your motel for MacTeague and his friends to contact you again. We figure if they tried to kill you once, they’ll probably try again.”
“Walker? I’ve got a tribe of angry pygmies after me, and I get Walker?” Jungle Jim he’s not.
The subject of my disdain sneered. “You got a problem with that, Mr. Dead Things?”
Chapter 17
Well, the good news is that I finally got my Looney Bread and pizza. The bad news was that I had Walker for a roomie.
I managed to sleep fitfully for two hours, but by ten o’clock that evening, I was pacing the floor in what I’d packed for pajamas: red sweats and a white T-shirt. Where was Angie? Why hadn’t she called? Walker’s snoring was a growing annoyance. I was worried sick.
I picked up the phone and called my birdman, Dudley, back in Manhattan. He does bird taxidermy for me on occasion.
“Gawth, you ragpicker!”
“Dudley, I’m in a pickle. But I don’t have time to explain. I’m in Vermont.”
“Let me guess.” He cleared his voice. “The Deathmobile finally passed this mortal vale of tears.”
“Nothing like that. . . . It’s complicated and I can’t stay on the phone long.”
“Anything I can do?”
“You remember that guy Waldo?”
“Waldo . . .”
“The King of Gaff.”
“Indeed! I do recall that I referred him to you.”
“I need his number.”
“At this hour? I can only imagine what kind of jam you might have found yourself in where—”
“The number? Do you have his number?”
“Hold the line.” I heard him groan as he got up from his chair. He had the accent and build of Boss Hogg.
He was back within thirty seconds with the number.
“Gawth, do remember that Waldo is rather an odd fish, so handle him with kid gloves if you want any cooperation. Now, are you sure there’s nothing else I can do? This effort was a trifle. The timbre of your voice suggests grave circumstance.”
“Thanks, pal, I appreciate it, and if there’s anything else—”
“You call Dudley, y’hear?” He hung up.
I dialed somewhere in Florida. A long series of scratchy rings followed. They sounded like they might be coming from a phone at the bottom of a dry well in Timbuktu. The ringing stopped, and I thought I was going to get a recording telling me the phone was out of service. Or that the well was full of water.
I didn’t hear anything.
“Hello?” I looked at the receiver.
“Who is this?” shot back. The southern accent wasn’t buttery like Dudley’s, but deep and gravelly. And slurpy, like some kind of seething Klingon.
“Waldo? Garth Carson.”
“Who?”
“Carson, Garth Carson, from New York. I sold you some taxidermy a while back.”
There was a pause. “And?”
He was doing a very good job of making me feel uncomfortable. I didn’t know whether he remembered me or not.
“Dudley gave me your number.”
“If, as you say, you sold Waldo taxidermy, how come you don’t have Waldo’s number?”
“I lost it.”
I heard a click on the other end. He’d hung up.
I tried redialing, but the line was busy. My mind’s eye was picturing this Klingon as a mad scientist surrounded by bubbling vials, half-made mummies, little yellow fuzzy two-headed duckies in a freeze-dry chamber, and a Bimini mermaid on the operating table. Or maybe a bivalve and a rodent, strapped on gurneys, with little metal helmets and interconnecting wires, the intertranferencebifulminator shooting off sparks as it created yet another clam rat. He was a nut. And he probably wouldn’t have been any help anyway. I was grabbing at straws, waiting for Angie to call.
I turned on the TV and started pacing again, chewing and popping bubblegum like a metronome. The cops, the DEC—I had them believing my story now, but I almost wished I didn’t. Agent Renard had hatched a pretty loose plan. (Was this the kind of brain trust I could expect to join if I took a job at NYSDEC? Would every day on the job be like this one?)
I couldn’t figure Renard out. He was so dry and nonchalant, while trying to bust my chops over a snipe. I guessed he wasn’t too bright. Either that or he was trying to get me killed. Sure, there were two cops sleeping in an unmarked car across the road. Not much protection from a grease gun drive-by or a wad of dynamite. Of course, more than likely, Tex Filbert and MacTeague had left the state, figuring the heat would be on. How many days would I have to be imprisoned in this room with Walker before Renard figured this was a cockamamie plan?
Or was this the work of Jimmy Kim? I was off the hook, more or less, but I was also tucked safely out of the way, my nose against the back wall of a blind alley.
Anyway, at that moment I was more worried about Angie than my predicament, so I paced in front of the phone, watching the Late Nite Show with Buddy Fetterman and loathing bunky Walker, who, despite the flannel getup, still reeked of cop. I guessed he needed the undercover work to make detective sergeant.
And out came Aunt Jilly onto the stage of the Network Theater. Seems the writers had a gag whereby every time one of Buddy’s jokes bombed, Aunt Jilly was wheeled across the stage holding a Buttergut turkey. It was funnier than it sounds.
The phone rang and I pounced on it.
“Angie?”
“Waldo is calling.”
“Waldo? Is
that you?”
“Waldo checked you out with Dudley. He asked Waldo to talk to you. What do you want?”
“Let me start by saying, Waldo, that I’ve admired your work for many years. Really top notch. Your artistry is first rate.”
Silence.
“Yes, well . . . look, I’m in Vermont. And I’ve got a situation here involving gaffs. I think.”
Silence.
I hadn’t heard a click, so I kept talking but tried to elicit a response. “Are you familiar with any of the showmen who traveled with the Faldo carnival?”
He paused so long I thought he had hung up. “What kind of showmen would they be if Waldo didn’t know of them?”
“Exactly, right, right . . . so, there’s a guy named Tex Filbert. Have you heard of him?”
“Waldo knows.”
“Can you, I mean, tell me anything about him, what he may have bought recently?”
He let another long pause sink in. “Why?”
I wondered if Waldo might be mixed up in this somehow. But if he were, what would he be doing down in Florida when the rest of the gang was here?
“I think he may have been planning to steal a gorilla carcass and make a Sasquatch gaff.”
“Swamp Demon.”
“Eh?”
“Swamp Demon. Waldo creates a Swamp Demon, not a Sasquatch.”
“Well, I wasn’t suggesting he bought this from you. He was trying to make it himself.”
He loosed a protracted growl. “And if someone had a gorilla carcass, why would he bother to make a gaff? It’s worth much more just for the hands and organs than a gaff could make in two years.”
“I know, that’s what’s so strange about it. Tex Filbert is working with a man named MacTeague.”
“MacTeague? Ha!” He came back fast that time, and with force. I’d obviously hit a nerve.
“You know MacTeague?”
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