Gone Wild (Thorn Series Book 4)

by James W. Hall

  Pongo climbed down his leg and shuffled over to the gym set. He climbed the bars and went hand over hand across the top rail, then slid down the rope and pulled himself inside the Goodyear radial hanging there. He made noises to himself as he swung wider and wider arcs. Broom walked out to the edge of his cage to watch the young ape play.

  Sean reached out a hand toward Thorn, as if she was going to caress his cheek. Then she stopped, seemed suddenly not to know what to do with her hand. It floated there, her fingers coming close to his face, but halting and drifting down, hanging.

  Finally she crossed the three inches of air, touched him lightly on the front of his shirt, his chest. She patted him with her fingertips. Patted him on the sternum. A weak smile.

  "I'm sorry."

  "It's okay," he said. "Forget it."

  "I'm upset, is all. I guess I'm just looking for someone to be mad at. Somebody to blame."

  "You have a right."

  She smiled halfheartedly, then turned away.

  He watched her walk away up the stone steps past the macaws, the Asian parrots, the hornbills, into the purple shade of the bougainvillea.

  CHAPTER 12

  "Yeah, we got an albino Burmese python. It goes for eleven." Orlon listened into the phone for a second and gave Ray a frazzled glance. He said, "No, eleven hundred. That's right, eleven hundred dollars. Jesus, I thought you knew snakes."

  Shooting Ray a peeved look. See what the hell he had to put up with for the financial enrichment of the White brothers.

  "Okay, now we got that straight," Orlon said. "Then you want two blond Burmese pythons, which it just so happens we also got in stock, at three hundred and fifty apiece.

  Yeah, yeah, that's right, Python bivittatus. Yeah, yeah. And a tangerine Honduran milk snake, Lampropeltis hondrensis. Yeah, we can get you that one too."

  Orlon rolled his eyes, listening to Trakas talk. "Yeah, yeah, I remember you very well. Yeah, uh-huh. You know we carry good product. Yeah, yeah." Repeating all this for Ray's benefit. Putting on a display to show Ray he was carrying his own weight around there.

  Ray sat down behind his desk. It was Tuesday afternoon, two-ish. He was just back from the warehouse, two thousand square feet of cages, the big room connected to their office by a narrow hallway. Ray closed his eyes and listened to his little brother taking the semi-big snake order. He rubbed his thumbs in hard circles against his temples. Ray White was seriously depressed.

  Three of the five goddamn orangutans were dead. Dehydration, shock, froze to death in the plane, shit, who could say for sure? But three were dead, and the siamang gibbon didn't look too good either; wouldn't eat, lying on its side, some yellow foamy drool coming from his mouth.

  All three that died were the ones they'd packed upside down. Back in Singapore it seemed like the logical thing to do, just in case the moron luggage handlers ignored the message stenciled on the outside, THIS SIDE UP, and set it in the plane upside down. Three crammed in one way, three the other, at least there was a fifty-fifty chance half of them would be shipped right side up.

  But they lost the three upside-down ones, plus one packed the other way didn't look so good, breathing hard, panting. Sure, they could chalk it up to the cost of doing business, but it was a hell of a cost, a hundred and twenty large.

  Across the room Orlon was gripping his throat with a one-handed stranglehold. Apparently the guy he was talking to was another dick-brain who thought 'cause he'd been bit once or twice it made him some kind of bona fide snake connoisseur.

  A lot of herpers were that way. Guys bragged about their bites like Vietnam vets about war wounds. "See that thumb. That was '72, a spectacled cobra. And that first knuckle missing on the left hand, that was a green eyelash viper, '84. See this zipper on my cheek, shit. That was one mean canebrake rattler, June of last year. Took such a goddamn hold, I had to pour kerosene on it, light it up to get that sucker off."

  Like for some reason it made them heroes, being so dumb as to let a snake sink its fangs in their face.

  Finally Orlon hung up the phone and came over to Ray's desk near the front window and dropped into the chair beside it. He took his time lighting up a Hava-Tampa. Then the two of them looked out the tinted window at the view across the parking lot/cul-de-sac of their small industrial park, looking at a Mazda repair shop across the way, and a rattan store owned by some Pakistani guy.

  Next to the rattan store was another place without a name. All the windows were blackened and no mailbox outside. Either a drug drop, or an FBI field office. Bad guys, good guys, who could tell the difference anymore? They dressed alike, the talk was the same, same cars, women, their offices had escape hatches, six or seven phone lines, not much action going on during daylight hours.

  It was comforting, though, that's how Ray thought of it. Whether it was FBI or some drug lord's cousin over there, what it meant was, the White brothers weren't the ones going to draw the gunfire in this neighborhood.

  Miami was good that way. You didn't have to worry about getting busted for trivial shit. From running red lights to holding up a 7-Eleven, hey, the cops didn't have time for the dinky stuff, man, they're too busy bulldozing the bodies off Biscayne Boulevard, unloading the freighters full of heroin.

  With all the heavy-duty crime going on around this town, nobody cared if the White brothers were trafficking in a few of the lower life forms. Scaly creatures with lidless eyes and forked tongues, or animals with their heads below their shoulders — who gave a shit if they were endangered or not? The only ones who got in an uproar about it were a bunch of lonely old ladies like Allison Farleigh and her gang of ape-kissers. Too much time on their hands, bored housewives who'd taken to trying to trip up good working people like the White boys.

  "I gotta ride up there to Hialeah, deliver the guy his snakes. You wanna come?"

  "No," Ray said. "First thing we gotta do is finish with Allison. Clean up that mess."

  "Yeah, yeah," Orlon said. "Only now it's gonna be a lot harder. The lady's probably got full-time police protection."

  "The cops didn't believe her," Ray said. " 'Robbery at Parrot Jungle' is how the paper called it. If anybody bought her story, it would've been item number one. Ape lady target of botched murder attempt. But they don't take her seriously after what she did, going after Bond like that. No, the door's wide open for what we gotta do."

  "Pretty Miss Allison Farleigh's gonna be on the wrong side of the lawn before the day's over," Orlon said. "Then afterward you'll help me with this Hialeah delivery, right?"

  "You didn't need to kill that old guy last night, Orlon. There was no call for that. Absolutely unjustified."

  "Here we go."

  "I'm going to have to take your gun away again."

  "Fuck you."

  "There's no call for all this goddamn violence, Orlon. None at all. True, we got to do Allison. But that's self-protection. Pure and simple. Like if somebody draws on you, you got to shoot. But those other times, that was bad, Orlon. That was gratuitous."

  "After you kill one person," Orlon said, "I don't see how it matters after that. One, two, three. They can only strap you in the chair one time."

  "I'm not going to argue philosophy with you, Orlon. You know it matters. Two is worse than one. Three is worse than two. You gotta get a handle on this, Orlon. I'm worried about you, man."

  Orlon blew out a lungful of smoke and tapped some cigar ash onto the floor.

  "All right, you stated your case. But after we do Allison, you'll come along, help me deliver

  these snakes, right?"

  "What? You're afraid of handling a couple of goddamn pythons?"

  "Hell, no."

  "Well? So what is it?"

  "It's that goddamn motorcycle club again." He shifted his eyes out the window. "That guy in Hialeah. Trakas, that's who wants the snakes."

  "The Hell's Vipers?"

  Orlon nodded his head sadly.

  "I mean, hey, I'm not nervous about Trakas himself. I could handle him fi
ne. It's that whole fucking scene I don't like."

  "Another chopper guy getting inducted?"

  Orlon nodded again, a case of heebie-jeebies in his eyes.

  The last time his little brother took an order up there, the Harley guys were in the middle of some kind of initiation rites. A couple of new greasy-haired fat slobs learning all the secret handshakes. In the middle of things, the group got a little rough with some of their snakes, killed five or six of them, using them like whips, giving lashes to the new members. And suddenly they needed replacements. Called the White brothers and said if they could make it up there pronto, there was a bonus in it. So Orlon went. And he walked into the middle of some kind of demented party: drugs, rattlers, branding irons. Thing made a Santeria goat sacrifice seem tame. Beyond that, Orlon wouldn't say anything, which was unusual because Orlon loved to tell tales.

  But these cycle guys were a few notches too bad for him. Orlon stumbled back into the warehouse later on that afternoon, the tip of his nose hanging halfway off, blood pumping across his lips, down his chin, Orlon blowing blood-bubbles as he talked. Ray had to rush him to Larkin Hospital, have his nose stitched back on. He looked fine now, just a little seam down his nostril, but the whole adventure had shaken him up. He'd never admit it straight out to Ray, but those guys had tweaked him down in his gut strength.

  "How much is the order for?"

  Orlon looked down at the slip in his hand and said, "All added up, ninety-eight hundred, thirty-seven bucks."

  "Screw 'em. We don't need their fucking money, a little order like that. You're still thinking like it's the old days, scratching for every penny. Man, you gotta start adjusting to our new condition. Start thinking like a winner, Orlon. I'm surprised you'd even talk to those people again."

  "So am I," Orlon said. "Guy just took me by surprise."

  "You should've hung up on the son of a bitch."

  "But I didn't. I took his order like nothing'd ever happened. Don't ask me why."

  "Maybe we should go up there," Ray said, smiling to himself. "Take a sack of mambas, a couple of Mojave rattlers, pitch them through the window. See what these cowboys are made of."

  "You just come along, Ray, that'll be enough. They wouldn't do anything, the both of us there."

  Ray looked out the front window, watched the Mazda mechanic coming back from lunch. Pants all greasy, carrying a bag from McDonald's. His wife worked over there, too, running the cash register. Jesus, it was pathetic what some people had to do for their money, stick their heads into gasoline engines all day. Man, oh, man. Least Ray's job had an excitement element, no two days the same. Plus a major ecological component, too, in tune with the natural world. Not to mention the fact that his reflexes stayed razor quick from nabbing venomous snakes on a daily basis.

  "Another one of those apes died," Ray said. "The last of the upside-down ones."

  "Shit."

  "And you just watch, any minute now that phone's going to ring, it'll be our esteemed colleague wanting his money. He's not going to believe three out of the five died."

  Orlon was leaning forward, elbows on his knees, staring down at the floor. Still worried about those guys in Hialeah.

  "Screw our esteemed colleague."

  "He'll be pissed we don't get him the full amount. He's a stickler about money."

  "Let him be pissed. He starts giving us any shit, we'll just mention that girl he shot."

  Ray pointed a finger at his brother.

  "We agreed we're not bringing that up with him unless it's absolutely necessary. I don't trust this guy one bit, but we gotta stay on good terms with him. That girl he shot, that's our backup plan — something goes sour with our business relationship, we're keeping that information as a last resort. Right?"

  "Yeah, yeah."

  Ray watched a car pull up to the rattan place. Young guy gets out. Short pants, tennis shirt, cute blond wife gets out in her matching outfit. Auditioning for the Newlywed Game.

  Watching the two, Ray said, "I been thinking about that Borneo trip. Him calling us like that, we gotta run over, take him on a safari. I thought, yeah, okay, the guy's got a wild hair to go hunt, wants us to show him how. But then we get there, and it's all his show. Go here, go there, jerking us around. I mean, yeah, he's paying the light bills these days, putting us in a positive cash flow situation, but that doesn't mean he can just call up like that, make us jump over every little thing."

  "Maybe he's having one of those mid-life crises. All of a sudden he's gotta do something to substantiate his manliness. So he wants to go hunting in the woods. Shoot things."

  "Substantiate his manliness?" Ray said. "Jesus Christ, Orlon, whatta you been watching, the Mind Expansion Channel again?"

  "Hey, now, don't patronize me."

  "Oh, yeah, and by the way," Ray said, "I called that vet guy. Kurt Franklin. Asked him to come by, look at the last two orangs. See what he can do, nurse them back to health."

  Orlon stubbed out the remains of his cigar in the green saucer he kept there for an ashtray.

  Ray said, "We lose those two, we don't have a fucking thing to show for a fifteen-thousand-dollar vacation to the Far East."

  He watched as the rattan salesman started hawking one of his big throne chairs to the young marrieds. The guy tried out the throne, then his bride tried it. You could look at them, tell which one was going to use it more. The lady boss. Her personal chair, gonna run her kingdom from right there.

  "Well," Orlon said. "Let's go terminate a woman."

  He stood up, stretched his arms above his head, yawned.

  "But this is the last time," Ray said. "We gotta make a solemn oath, Orlon. This is the last act of extreme violence we do. I don't like how this is going. The pretty girl in Borneo, the old guy at Parrot Jungle. I mean, yeah, we'll do the dance on Allison, but after that we put the guns away. Right? Put 'em away for good like mother would've wanted."

  "Man, you been seeing that shrink too long, Ray. Everything's about our mother."

  "Everything is always about your mother. Whether you think it is or not. It is. Always."

  "Right, right. Whatever you say, big brother."

  "We put the guns in the closet, lock the door. That's the end of it."

  "You're the boss."

  "Goddamn right I am."

  Ray looked at the photo he kept on his desk. His mom in a frilly yellow dress, big horn-rimmed sunglasses, lipstick a mile wide. Outside in their shabby front yard, looking around the trunk of that jacaranda tree they had, mugging for one of her boyfriends, Ray couldn't remember which. It was a smile that would break your heart if you knew what was gonna happen to the woman a year or two down the road.

  Orlon said, "Let's go get it over with. And this time I'm doing it. No more shooting at trees."

  ***

  Harry at work, Allison in her nightgown sitting at her bedroom desk with a pile of wildlife newsletters in front of her. All morning she'd been setting them on fire, tossing the burning sheets into the metal trash can beside her desk, where they smoldered. Using the silver Zippo lighter her father, Julius, had used to light his huge Cuban cigars. That Zippo, one of the few things of her father's she still possessed.

  Allison was burning the newsletters, years and years of them, a decade of work. Editing, proofing, cutting and pasting, printing, bundling, mailing. Briefly, she glanced through each one, then touched the flame to a corner of the page. Hundreds of smugglers, shady animal dealers, corrupt zoo officials. Articles, photos, photocopies of evidence, editorials.

  Allison burned them, destroying that life, every trace of those years of compulsive work. Seven years of making enemies. Burning the photos of all the people she'd helped expose, dozens she'd testified against in court, some who'd even been sentenced and spent time in jail.

  She stopped for a moment and studied the black-and-white photo of a tall, wolf-faced man in a tight white T-shirt. Seven years ago she'd printed the blurry snapshot on the front page of her newsletter. Crotch Meriweth
er. A hunting buddy of her father's, a swamp rat, moonshiner, hell-raiser, who was born and raised around the Ten Thousand Islands, lived there all his life, and made his dirt-poor living by killing gators, ibis, flamingos, selling plumes, skins, skulls, whatever. It was men like Meriwether who'd wiped out entire species of bright-crested birds from the Everglades. Men like him who'd passed on their skills and lore to the next generation of low-life poachers.

  Allison skimmed through the article about Meriwether, feeling an old pang of guilt for her betrayal of one of her father's cronies. Meriwether had been her very first target, easy prey. She'd used his friendship with her family to set up a purchase of a dozen gator hides. She'd worn a wire, gotten Crotch to speak clearly into the mike, establishing his knowledge of wildlife laws and his clear intent to break them. "You know we could get ten years for this, Crotch, trading in endangered species."

  "And is that just now dawning on you, girl?"

  That was all it took for Fish and Wildlife to make a case. Fifteen-hundred-dollar fine, sixteen-month jail term, eleven of which he served. She'd received dozens of vicious postcards from Raiford. Meriwether bragging to Allison in his crippled, twisted script that there wasn't a living thing that walked God's earth, white or black, two-legged or four, male or female, that he hadn't already skinned or was planning on skinning real soon.

  Despite that one victory, prison time for men like Crotch was extremely rare. One of the worst frustrations of her work had always been that judges and juries had such a goddamn hard time sending men to prison for dealing in protected animals. The defense attorneys invariably played the same tune. With all the things wrong in the world, thirteen-year-olds murdering for basketball shoes, how could anyone see fit to send a hardworking businessman to jail for making a little technical slipup about which species of animal he'd trapped, or killed, or imported.

  And, of course, the reptile cases were the hardest to make. Try to find a jury anywhere who had any sympathy for a diamondback rattler, gator, or iguana. The less snakes in the world, the better, she'd heard one attorney say. My client should be congratulated for bringing this snake to the brink of extinction. Never mind that the snake population was a cornerstone of the ecosystem. Try to explain the crucial biological importance of water moccasins, and the jury would be snickering at you.