Death Rattle

by Alex Gilly

  With his right hand, Butterfield slid open a hatch on the side of the terrarium and then thrust in the little green snake with his left. Finn saw the little snake slither into the terrarium and look around anxiously, tongue twitching.

  The White Queen began to uncoil. Soon, it had raised its top third, flared its hood. It was astonishingly big. Finn could see a white-on-white diamond shape on its back. Its belly was a faded pink. It stuck out a forked tongue and rose even taller. The smaller snake froze. Finn was fascinated and repelled at once.

  “You think Soto would be interested in this snake?” Finn’s voice had dropped to barely a whisper.

  Without looking away from the drama unfolding in the terrarium, Butterfield said, “There’s not a herper in the world who would not be interested in this snake.”

  The green snake started inching away toward the hatch. For several moments, the White Queen remained perfectly still, just flicking its tongue. And then it whipped itself down onto the smaller snake and struck it behind the head, lifted it off the ground, and flung it down. The green serpent was stunned. It curled up in a ball. Blood pearled on its neck. Finn could see its sides rising and falling with its rapid breath.

  “The venom is already taking effect,” said Butterfield quietly. “Working its way through the lymphatic system.”

  After about a minute, the White Queen started to draw near the dying snake. It darted its tongue in and out along the doomed snake’s head, testing it, checking for a reaction. The dying snake, paralyzed but still alive, couldn’t move away from the approaching cobra, which unhinged its jaws and, positioning itself in front of the now inanimate green snake, began enveloping its mouth around it, beginning with the snout.

  Finn told himself it was nature’s way of predator and prey. But he realized that he was trying to reassure himself. The lethal little drama that Butterfield had staged for him in the terrarium had left him strangely unsettled.

  He straightened and turned toward his host.

  “There’s a theory that we’re born with a fear of snakes,” said Butterfield in a cheerful, professorial tone. “A sort of behavioral adaptation. Our fear makes us avoid them, which means we don’t get envenomated as much as we might otherwise. That’s why they get such a bad rap in our culture, starting with the Bible.”

  Finn could only nod in agreement. It made sense to him.

  “What about you? You’re not frightened of them?” He looked around the room. There must have been twenty terrariums in there, not to mention dozens of incubators.

  “I prefer to say I have a healthy respect for them. I always treat them with respect. The most important thing, should you ever come across an angry snake, is not to move. Don’t make sudden gestures. Don’t shine a flashlight at it. A snake will only strike if it perceives you as a threat. Otherwise, it would prefer to slither away.”

  “Have you got a black mamba?” said Finn.

  “Those are impossible to get,” said Butterfield. Finn noticed that he hadn’t actually answered the question.

  “I’m curious—who would win in a fight between a black mamba and a king cobra?” asked Finn.

  “Oh, that’s easy,” said Butterfield. “Both are highly venomous. A bite from a black mamba can kill a human within twenty minutes. But evolution has endowed Ophiophagus with a secret weapon: because its diet consists primarily of other snakes, it has developed an immunity to snake venom. So if a black mamba bit a king cobra, the cobra would survive. But if a king cobra bit a black mamba, the mamba would die.”

  THIRTY

  AT the same time as Finn was leaving Butterfield’s house with the White Queen, Mona was sitting in the passenger seat of Joaquin’s Subaru Outback outside the U.S. District Courthouse in Paradise waiting for Natalie, who was in the back seat, to get out and hand her her crutches. Then she hauled herself up the stairs into the courtroom, while Joaquin and Natalie carried the document boxes.

  They had arrived thirty minutes early. This time, there were no jumpsuited migrants filling every available space in the courtroom. Mona sat down at what in a criminal case would’ve been the prosecutor’s table and rested her crutches against the bar. She got out her yellow legal pad. She set her pen neatly beside it. She made a tidy pile of the various documents she had brought for today’s proceedings. Joaquin asked if there was anything she needed. He was her boss, but this was her case. She was the lead.

  The public gallery started filling. Mona could pick out the journalists. She thought she recognized one from the LA Times.

  Five minutes before the trial was scheduled to start, the Wolfeson, White team arrived. Like Mona, Morrison Scott came through the bar empty-handed. His seconds were doing the heavy lifting, pulling trolleys loaded with document boxes. Scott greeted Mona and Joaquin with a friendly hello, then looked at the jury box. Mona had claimed the table closest to the jury. It meant she was in a slightly better position to read the jurors’ body language.

  “Well, this will be just fine,” said Scott with a big smile, pulling out a chair at the defense table. His seconds set things up around him. He turned to Mona. “Are you recovering well, my dear?”

  “My doctor has confined me to light duties only.”

  Scott smiled. “Well, I will do what I can to comply with your doctor’s orders. However, I suspect the judge will be more heavy going.”

  “Judge Estevez? She seems to me to be tough but fair.”

  Scott raised an eyebrow. “You don’t know? We have a new judge. Estevez wasn’t available for the rescheduled trial date.”

  Mona’s stomach turned. “Who’s the new judge?”

  Before Scott could answer, the room went quiet and everyone stood. Judge Ross entered the room. He sat down and barked that he expected the two sides to complete jury selection by the end of the day.

  “I will not tolerate any delaying tactics. Do I make myself clear?” he said. He looked displeased that the case was taking place at all.

  The jury selection process began. Paradise was a small town—the jury pool wasn’t large, and Mona and Joaquin had done their homework. The detention center was the town’s biggest employer, and they quickly rejected three potential jurors after figuring out that they had family members who worked there. By four in the afternoon, they had whittled down the jury pool to sixteen—twelve jurors and four alternates. They had worked quickly and cooperatively. Neither side had tried to slow things down. Judge Ross seemed, if not pleased, at least less irate. He announced that the court would adjourn for the rest of the day. He told the jury to go to another room, where they would receive instructions. After that, they could go home. The trial would continue tomorrow, when he would hear opening arguments.

  “Let me reiterate to you all that I will not tolerate overlong arguments. I’m sure the members of the jury want to get back to their lives as soon as possible,” he said. He looked at Mona when he said it.

  * * *

  While Mona interviewed potential jurors in Paradise, Finn took the White Queen with him to Torrance. Butterfield had given him a carrier box with a clear perforated PERSPEX lid and a bedding of wood shavings.

  “She’s had her weekly meal, of course, so I won’t give you any garden snakes to feed her,” Butterfield had said, before adding anxiously, “Unless you think you’ll keep her longer than a week?” Finn had said he hoped to have her home before then.

  At the Fish and Wildlife station, Finn put her carrier carefully on a desk, and everyone stopped their work and came to see. Even Zhao had never seen an albino king cobra before.

  “Wow. She’s so beautiful,” he said.

  After five minutes, the crowd dissipated. Wilkins invited Finn to sit down on an office chair in front of a computer monitor. Zhao sat in the middle. Wilkins sat on the other side.

  “All right, Ofis. Do your thing,” said Wilkins.

  Finn watched as Zhao logged into his Craigslist account, then went to the listing for snakes. Finn was astonished by how many snakes were for sale.

&
nbsp; “Is this really legal?”

  “This is America,” said Zhou.

  Wilkins had a more nuanced answer. “Some of these animals being traded here are being traded legally. Some aren’t. When a trafficker wants to sell something he shouldn’t be selling, he uses code words. Isn’t that right, Ofis?”

  “Code words?” said Finn.

  “Rare means endangered. WC means wild-caught, not bred. And so on,” said Wilkins.

  Finn saw that diamondbacks were selling for just fifty dollars. He thought of Mona, how close she came to being bitten by one.

  “We need photos,” said Zhao.

  Wilkins took out his phone and snapped a series of photos of the White Queen. He transferred them to the computer, and Zhao uploaded the best ones to the advertisement he was composing.

  “She’s so beautiful,” he said again, looking at the photos.

  “How much do you think we ask for? It has to be believable,” said Finn.

  Zhou made the smacking sound with his mouth. “A snake like this, so rare and so beautiful? Fifteen thousand. Plus shipping.”

  “No shipping. Pickup only. LA area,” said Finn.

  Zhao turned to him. “That will make him suspicious.”

  “Tell him the snake is pregnant,” said Wilkins. “She’s too fragile to go by mail.”

  “Okay. Then the price is twenty thousand,” said Zhou. “That price will weed out the time-wasters. Very few herpers have that kind of money.”

  He typed out the ad, then read it aloud.

  “RARE! Bona fide, WC albino Ophiophagus hannah,” said Zhao. “Gravid, so pickup only. LA area. Twenty thousand. Experienced elapidists only. No time-wasters.”

  “What’s an ‘elapidist’?” asked Finn.

  “Someone who likes cobras,” said Zhao.

  “As opposed to?” said Finn.

  “As opposed to crotalidists, who like rattlesnakes. Totally different type of person,” said Zhao.

  “I’d add ‘Check your state laws,’” said Wilkins.

  “Yes,” said Zhao, typing. “Makes it seem legit.”

  Zhao hit the Confirm button, and the three men stared at the screen.

  “Now what?” said Finn.

  “Now we wait,” said Zhao.

  They kept staring at the screen. Zhao refreshed the page. The view counter read 004. A minute later, he did it again—013. Another minute—033.

  A comment had already appeared. Someone called TheGreatElapidist had written, “Unicorn alert!” Followed by a unicorn and a coiled snake emoji.

  Donttreadonme63 commented on that comment: “Yeah seriously. Who believes this is even real.”

  “There are always lots of wise guys in the comments. The real guys will get in touch by private message,” said Zhao. He gazed lovingly at the pictures of the White Queen he had posted, then over at the carrier box.

  “She really is beautiful,” he said for the third time, in a tone that struck Finn as slightly unnatural.

  Finn, realizing it could take some time for Soto to appear, saw there was nothing more for him to do here. He went home, taking the White Queen with him. She’d had her weekly feed. Butterfield had explained that there was nothing he needed to do.

  * * *

  The next morning, Wednesday, Finn was sitting at the kitchen table, eating breakfast and looking warily at the albino Ophiophagus hannah on the counter when his phone pinged. It was Wilkins: We got a bite.

  Finn stopped eating and dialed his friend.

  “What have we got?” he said.

  “A guy says he wants the White Queen. Ofis here says it’s the same guy who ordered the black mamba.”

  “How does he know?”

  “Same herper handle. Once you have it, you can’t change it.”

  “Will he meet?”

  “He says yes, but he gets to choose the time and place.”

  Finn looked at the White Queen again. He could never be a herper, he decided.

  “Fine,” said Finn.

  “Okay. I’ll text you once I get a reply.”

  “What’s the guy’s handle?”

  “Cascabel.”

  Finn hung up. He looked up Cascabel on his phone.

  It meant rattlesnake in Spanish.

  * * *

  Later that morning, after locking the White Queen in the closet next to the gun safe, Finn drove out to Long Beach. In Klein’s office, he noticed some flat-packed cardboard boxes leaning against a wall.

  “It’s my birthday tomorrow,” explained Klein. Finn knew what that meant. Independence Day. Mandatory retirement.

  “That’s the bad news,” said Klein. “The good news is, I got my wish. The FBI found the guy.”

  “Really?”

  “Yep. Turns out it was a hacker, like Santos said, not a mole. They’ve tracked him to Mexico City, so they haven’t been able to arrest him yet. They’ve requested his extradition. Meanwhile, the shit’s about to hit the fan at Riverside. There’s going to be a big review of all their data security. The place has more holes than a slice of Swiss cheese, apparently. Heads are going to roll.”

  Klein nodded at Finn. “You’ll do well out of this, Finn. Your name is known to people in high places.”

  “It was Santos, not me.”

  Both men fell silent for a moment. Then Klein leaned back in his chair and looked wistfully around the office. “I fear that AMOC is the future, Finn. Sitting miles from the action, looking at video filmed from drones.”

  “Times have changed.”

  “Times have changed.”

  The two men shared a moment of silence.

  Then Klein said, “How’s Mona?”

  “Recovering.” Finn got up and closed the door. Sitting back down again, he said, “I’ve tracked down the guy. Soto.”

  Klein tilted forward in his chair. “Where?”

  “I’m setting up a meeting with him. Here in LA. Tomorrow.”

  “You need backup?”

  “Before you say anything, I want to be absolutely clear: I’m not planning on arresting him, Keith.”

  Klein nodded. “If I were in your shoes, I’d do the same.”

  “If you get involved and things go wrong, it could mean your pension.”

  Klein looked offended. “Jesus H. Christ, Finn. Twenty years, and this is how they treat me? You think I care about the pension?”

  Finn nodded. “Okay. Then I’ll tell you my plan.”

  THIRTY-ONE

  MEANWHILE, out in Paradise, the temperature was rising. By the time Mona got to court, it was in the nineties, and it wasn’t even nine. Judge Ross arrived late. He made no apology. The jury was sworn in at 9:15 A.M. When the judge invited her to make her opening statement, Mona was ready. She reached for her crutches.

  “You can make your statement sitting down, if you prefer,” said Judge Ross, nodding at the cast on her leg.

  Mona hauled herself up. “Thank you, Your Honor. I would rather stand.”

  She hobbled to a spot midway between the judge and the jury. “Ladies and gentlemen, this case is about a young woman who died because a billion-dollar company neglected her.”

  She paused and looked at each of the jurors one by one.

  “Her name was Carmen Vega, and she was just twenty years old when she died. She died on the twenty-second of April, in Paradise Detention Center, a few miles east of where we are now. No doubt you heard about the incident—it was all over the news at the time. Carmen was bitten by a snake.”

  Mona nodded to Joaquin, who put a picture up on the projector. A school photo of a fifteen-year-old Carmen, wearing pigtails and in the uniform of the middle school that Finn and Mona had visited in Ciudad Neza, appeared on the pull-down screen. She looked more like a child than an adult. Mona looked again at the jury. She was glad to see they were all looking up at Carmen, not her.

  “Paradise Detention Center is operated by the Border Security Corporation of America. The BSCA is the largest and most successful for-profit prison company in the w
orld. Last year, it made a pre-tax profit of $700 million—$700 million, ladies and gentlemen, from incarcerating migrants. Yet when Carmen Vega was bitten by a snake, budget cuts meant there was no antivenin in the infirmary.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, the BSCA exists for one purpose only: profit. The BSCA has no aim other than making money. It doesn’t care about the people that we, the taxpayers, pay it to incarcerate. And it’s banking on the fact that we won’t care, either.”

  “You all live out here in snake country. Maybe you know someone who’s been bitten. Maybe your dog has been bitten. Maybe you’ve been bitten by a snake yourself. No doubt about it, it’s horrible. But how many people do you know that have died from a snakebite?”

  Mona marked a long pause.

  “I would bet not a single one. Now, I’m going to show you some statistics during this trial. I’m going to ask you to consider the odds of something happening versus it not happening. There’s no way around it, I’m afraid, and I thank you in advance for bearing with me. But for the time being, let me give you just two pertinent numbers. Let me tell you what the odds are of getting bitten by a venomous snake. According to the literature, around 8,000 Americans are bitten by venomous snakes each year. Eight thousand people, out of a population of 325 million. Of those 8,000 people unlucky enough to get bitten, on average, 5 die. That means that, in this country, the odds of getting bitten by a venomous snake and dying from it are 65 million to 1. Do you know what the odds are of picking all five numbers in the state Powerball, ladies and gentlemen? About 11 and a half million to 1. In other words, you’re almost six times more likely to win the lotto than to die from a snakebite. That’s how unlucky Carmen Vega was.”

  Mona paused again and looked over the jury. They were hanging on her every word.

  “Five people a year, ladies and gentlemen. I’m on crutches because I was involved in a motor vehicle accident. Last year, almost forty thousand people died in motor vehicle accidents in this country alone. Your chances of dying in a car crash are much higher than of dying from a snakebite. So why did Carmen die? Not because she was bitten. She died because she was not properly treated. She did not receive basic first aid. It’s as simple as that.