Ben Soul

Room. “These.”

  Noah picked one up. It was the statue whose head inclined right. “Quite the ‘objays-dart,’” he said. “What are they worth?”

  “At least thirty dollars. That’s what the Thrift Shop priced them at.”

  “Tell you what. Give me the twenty you’ve got, and one of these glorious statues. I’ll hold the statue for ten days, give you time to raise the cash to redeem it. You don’t redeem it, I’ll sell it. Understand?”

  “Yes,” the Swami said. His eyes followed the statue into Noah’s coat pocket.

  “Here,” Noah said, tossing a small bag of dried green leaves on the Swami’s altar. “Worship yourself into oblivion. Some god should tell me why I take a chance on the likes of you. Ten days, remember?”

  “Yes,” the Swami said. “Ten days.”

  Noah left the mission, the statue dragging down his pocket. It made him feel lopsided. He contemplated tossing the stupid thing into the bushes, but he had promised to hold it for collateral. Besides, it might be worth more than the Swami knew. Treasures sometimes wound up in thrift shops, and the old monks didn’t always know what they had for sale.

  Shu could tell him. Shu and his brother Way ran a shop that sold crap like this. Shu knew the genuine stuff from the knockoffs and cheap stuff. Besides, Shu might be about ready for re-supply; that would be a little more cash in Noah’s pocket. He turned his steps toward Wong’s Import/Export Emporium.

  Fortunately, Shu’s brother, Way, was out of the way. Noah showed Shu the statue, which Shu immediately pronounced a genuine antique of no great value. “Maybe twenty-five, thirty dollars,” he said.

  “I don’t have any place to keep something like this,” Noah said. “I’ll give you a discount on a baggie, if you’ll stash it on your shelves for ten days, or so. It’s collateral from another customer, don’t you know.” Shu agreed, put a price sticker on the statue, and set it at the back of the shelf. There it reposed until Quigley Drye spotted it on the day of the Big Temblor, and bought it from Way Wong.

  The Swami walked along the zoo’s gravel path toward his favorite place, a bench in the shade between the llamas and the kangaroos. The long emerald tassels on the cord he wore as a belt swayed against his saffron robe as he walked. His skin was no longer elastic or soft; it was leathery from long exposure to the elements. Many hot suns had faded his blue eyes to a pale ghost of color. His arthritic right knee popped at odd moments when he walked.

  The Meandering Mandarin

  The Swami often sought the zoo when trouble disturbed his spirit. He was troubled today because he had pledged one of his Kuanyins as security to Noah. The Swami sat down on a bench in the shade and began to drone a soft mantra to himself and any listening deities. He sought serenity, and a plan to find money for Noah.

  He found distraction. A man and woman were holding hands at the llama pen. The man was young, with golden hair. His every muscle rippled with power under the tight blue polyester leisure suit he wore. The woman was older, by at least a decade, perhaps more. Her hair hinted at gray under its brown, and her figure had softened and filled with maturity. She wore an apricot linen suit with an ivory blouse. The Swami guessed the woman was a librarian or secretary from the suburbs. He guessed the young man was an escort for hire.

  The young man turned to the woman and touched her lips with his. She did not respond until he tenderly took her chin in his hand and softly turned her face toward him. She began to weep. Several kangaroos joined her. The joeys yawned and stretched in their mothers’ pouches. Joeys prefer comedies or action thrillers to romances.

  The young man said something else the Swami could not hear, and reached out to the woman. He undid the pins and ivory comb that held her hair in place and shook it loose. Her hair fell about her shoulders in thick waves. The gray shone like silver in the afternoon sun. The kangaroos wept openly. The joeys dozed.

  The Swami smiled his most beatific smile. The young man offered the woman a handkerchief. She dabbled at her nose with it. She smiled a watery smile at him. He smiled at her, radiant with youth and flushed with desirability. The woman took a brush and compact from her purse. Then she handed purse and compact to the young man. He tucked the purse under his arm and held the mirror for her to look in while she brushed her hair. Her hair glistened brighter and brighter as she brushed it. The Swami began chanting again. He watched the woman’s aura brighten until it glossed the kangaroos’ pelts and the llamas’ fleeces with lustrous light. He timed his chant with the woman’s brush strokes. Fragments of the universe coalesced.

  One of the llamas went into the shelter and shed its fleece. It took from behind a loose board, a gold and silver horn, the two metals spiraled around each other. Using its left foot, it took the horn between its toes and screwed the horn into a socket in its brow. Then it stood on its hind legs and began to dance. Only the Swami saw this. The young man was losing himself in the woman’s eyes. The woman concentrated on her brush and her hair. The kangaroos saw only the misty tears in their own eyes. The llamas, for politeness’ sake, bent their heads to graze and did not watch the unicorn with the unique horn.

  As the woman finished brushing her hair, the Swami softened his murmured chant to a whisper, and then stopped. The unicorn with the unique horn whirled one last pirouette and went into the shelter. There it unscrewed and stored its horn, and pulled on its llama suit. The young man gave the woman the mirror and her purse. She flipped her hair behind her and looked in the mirror. She smiled, and put the brush and mirror into her purse. The young man took her arm and led her toward the distant elephant pens.

  The Swami watched them go. He took up his mantra again, waiting for enlightenment. A disturbance in the astral plane interrupted his meditation. A man in a red dressing gown with gold and silver dragons embroidered on it hurried past the llama pen. Some part of the man’s appearance was out of the ordinary. Not the red Mandarin dressing gown, that was common enough, though seldom used for street wear. Nor was it the glued on goatee and mustache.

  The Swami sat up and craned his neck to watch the man hurry toward the elephant pens. Ah! That was it. The man carried a pistol in his right hand. That was definitely uncommon, even in the City Zoo. The Swami got up and hurried after the man. Perhaps he could prevent some disaster. The llamas went on grazing. The kangaroos crowded into one corner of their pen to watch the disappearing stranger and Swami.

  An elderly guard slept on a bench across from the camel yard. He didn’t notice the man in the Mandarin dressing gown or his pistol, or the rotund Swami in pursuit.

  One camel spat at the Mandarin as he passed. It was nothing personal; camels spit for the sake of perversity, or to relieve a dry mouth. The Mandarin forbore to spit back. The Swami nodded to greet the camel as he passed it.

  The Mandarin took a bus headed downtown. The Swami caught the same bus and sat where he could watch the Mandarin unobserved. The Mandarin had tucked the gun into his sleeve, where it bulged heavily at the elbow. None of the other passengers seemed to notice.

  The Mandarin pulled the cord and got off in the lower downtown. He swiftly walked into a bar, the Wounded Cherub, notorious for the plaster cast of a cherub over the door that had lost its perky little genitalia one night to an armed fundamentalist who thought it obscene. The Swami waited outside until the Mandarin re-appeared, a cloth jacket draped over his dragon-bedecked gown. The man now had a satchel made of carpet. The Swami followed him as he walked quickly down the street toward the bus station. In the bus station, the Swami watched the man put the pistol in the satchel and the satchel into a locker. The man closed the locker and put the key in his jacket pocket, unaware it had a hole in it. The key fell out at the Swami’s feet.

  Beau Delivers

  Beau rubbed sleep from his eyes. Noah had a disconcerting habit of showing up in the morning, well before Beau’s favored rising time of 2:00 pm.

  “Get your pants
on, Beau,” Noah said.

  “Will you buy me a cup of coffee, or something?” Beau asked.

  “Later, Beau, later.” Noah looked thoughtful. “Right now I need to collect on the favor you owe me.” Beau sighed. Noah’s favors often involved real work, something Beau did not like very well.

  Beau stepped into his white linen trousers and drew them up, and began buttoning the white plastic buttons through the frayed buttonholes.

  “What favor?” he asked.

  “Tuck in your shirt. And, Beau, put on some shoes. The sidewalks are pretty hot in the sunshine.”

  “What do you want me to do for y’all today, Noah?”

  “I want you to recover an item I loaned a friend,” Noah said. Beau rolled over and snored.

  “Wake up, Beau. This is important.”

  “Yes sir!” Beau said, and snapped to attention and saluted.

  “I want you to go to Shu’s store and get a plaster statue.”

  “Why don’t you go?”

  “I want to cash this check before the banks close. Also, I don’t think Shu’s brother will let me in the store again, don’t you know. He thinks I’m trying to seduce Shu.”

  “Are you?” Beau sat up, shoving his sheets aside.

  “No”

  “Why? He’s cute enough.”

  “He isn’t interested, don’t you know.” Noah gestured at Beau