Native Tongue

  Definitely a score. In his entire professional burgling career, Bud Schwartz had never stolen anything worth ten thousand dollars. The one time he’d pinched a Rolex Oyster, it turned out to be fake. Another time he got three diamond rings from a hotel room on Key Biscayne—a big-time movie actress, too—and the fence informed him it was all zircon. Fucking paste. Or so said the fence.

  Who could blame him for saying yes to Molly McNamara, or at least checking it out? So when he gets out of jail, he rounds up Danny Pogue—Danny, who’s really nothing but a pair of hands; somebody you drag along to help carry the shit to the car. But reliable, as far as that goes. Not really smart enough to pull anything.

  So together they meet the old lady once, twice. Get directions, instructions. Go over the whole damn thing until they’re bored to tears, except for the part about what to do with the voles. Bud Schwartz had assumed the whole point was to free the damn things, the way Molly talked. “Liberate” was the word she’d used. Of course, if he’d known then what he knew now, he wouldn’t have chucked that one little rat into the red convertible. If he’d known there were only two of the damn things left on the whole entire planet, he wouldn’t ever have let Danny take a throw at the Winnebago.

  Now the voles were gone, and Bud Schwartz and Danny Pogue were nursing their respective gunshot wounds in the old lady’s apartment.

  Watching a slide show about endangered species.

  “This formidable fellow,” Molly McNamara was saying, “is the North American crocodile.”

  Danny Pogue said, “Looks like a gator.”

  “No, it’s a different animal entirely,” said Molly. “There’s only a few dozen left in the wild.”

  “So what?” said Danny Pogue. “You got tons of gators. So many they went and opened a hunting season. I can’t see gettin’ all worked up about crocodiles dyin off, not when they got a season on gators. It don’t make sense.”

  Molly said, “You’re missing the point.”

  “He can’t help it,” said Bud Schwartz. “Just go on to the next slide.”

  Molly clicked the remote. “This is the Schaus’ swallow-tail butterfly.”

  “Now that’s pretty,” said Danny Pogue. “I can see wanting to save somethin’ like that. Isn’t that a pretty butterfly, Bud?”

  “Beautiful,” said Bud Schwartz. “Really gorgeous. Next?”

  Molly asked why he was in such a hurry.

  “No reason,” he replied.

  Danny Pogue snickered. “Maybe ’cause there’s a movie he wants to see on cable.”

  “Really?” Molly said. “Bud, you should’ve told me. We can always continue the orientation tomorrow.”

  “That’s okay,” Bud Schwartz said. “Go on with the program.”

  “Amazon Cheerleaders,” said Danny Pogue. “We seen the ending the other night.”

  Molly said, “I don’t believe I’ve heard of that one.”

  “Get on with the slides,” said Bud Schwartz gloomily. Of all the partners he’d ever had, Danny Pogue was turning out to be the dumbest by a mile.

  A picture of something called a Key Largo wood rat appeared on the slide screen, and Danny exclaimed: “Hey, it looks just like one of them voles!”

  “Not really,” said Molly McNamara patiently. “This hardy little fellow is one of five endangered species native to the North Key Largo habitat.” She went on to explain the uniqueness of the island—hardwood hammocks, brackish lakes and acres of precious mangroves. And, only a few miles offshore, the only living coral reef in North America. “Truly a tropical paradise,” said Molly McNamara, “which is why it’s worth fighting for.”

  As she clicked through the rest of the slides, Bud Schwartz was thinking: How hard would it be to overpower the old bat and escape? Two grown men with six functional limbs, come on. Just grab the frigging purse, take the gun—what could she do?

  The trouble was, Bud Schwartz wasn’t fond of guns. He didn’t mind stealing them, but he’d never pointed one at anybody, never fired one, even at a tin can. Getting shot by Molly McNamara had only reinforced his view that guns were a tool for the deranged. He knew the law, and the law smiled on harmless unarmed house burglars. A burglar with a gun wasn’t a burglar anymore, he was a robber. Not only did robbers get harder time, but the accommodations were markedly inferior. Bud Schwartz had never been up to Raiford but he had a feeling he wouldn’t like it. He also had a hunch that if push came to shove, Danny Pogue would roll over like a big dumb puppy. Do whatever the cops wanted, including testify.

  Bud Schwartz decided he needed more time to think.

  A new slide came up on the screen and he told Molly McNamara to wait a second. “Is that an endangered species, too?” he asked.

  “Unfortunately not,” Molly said. “That’s Francis X. Kingsbury, the man who’s destroying the island.”

  Danny Pogue lifted his chin out of his hands and said, “Yeah? How?”

  “Mr. Kingsbury is the founder and chief executive officer of the Amazing Kingdom of Thrills—the so-called amusement park you boys raided the other day. It’s a tourist trap, plain and simple. It brings traffic, garbage, litter, air pollution, effluent—Kingsbury cares nothing about preserving the habitat. He’s a developer.”

  The word came out as an epithet.

  Bud Schwartz studied the jowly middle-aged face on the screen. Kingsbury was smiling, and you could tell it was killing him. His nose was so large that it seemed three-dimensional, a huge mottled tuber of some kind, looming out of the wall.

  “Public enemy number one,” said Molly. She glared at the picture on the screen. “Yes, indeed. The park is only a smokescreen. We’ve got reason to believe that Mr. Kingsbury holds the majority interest in a new golfing resort called Falcon Trace, which abuts the Amazing Kingdom. We have reason to believe that Kingsbury’s intention is to eventually bulldoze every square inch of ocean waterfront. You know what that means?”

  Danny Pogue pursed his lips. Bud Schwartz said nothing; he was trying to guess where the old coot was heading with this.

  Molly said, “It means no more crocodiles, no more wood rats, no more swallowtail butterflies.”

  “No more butterflies?” Danny Pogue looked at her with genuine alarm. “What kinda bastard would do something like that?”

  “This kind,” said Molly, aiming a stern papery finger at the screen.

  “But we can stop him, right?” Bud Schwartz was smiling.

  “You can help, yes.”

  “How?” Danny Pogue demanded. “What do we do?”

  Molly said, “I need to know the full extent of Mr. Kingsbury’s financial involvement—you see, there are legal avenues we could pursue, if only we knew.” She flicked off the slide projector and turned on a pair of brass table lamps. “Unfortunately,” she said, “Mr. Kingsbury is a very secretive man. Every document we’ve gotten, we’ve had to sue for. He is extremely wealthy and hires only the finest attorneys.”

  From his expression it was clear that Danny Pogue was struggling to keep up. “Go on,” he said.

  Bud Schwartz inhaled audibly, a reverse sigh. “Danny, we’re burglars, remember? What do burglars do?”

  Danny Pogue glanced at Molly McNamara, who said, “Your partner’s got the right idea.”

  “Wait a second,” Bud Schwartz said. “No more voles.”

  By now he was planning ahead again, feeling better about his prospects. He was wondering about Francis X. Kingsbury’s money, and thinking what a shame that a bunch of greedy lawyers should get so much of it, all for themselves.

  10

  Nina didn’t believe him, not for a second.

  “You were drinking. You opened your big fat mouth and somebody smacked you.”

  “No,” Joe Winder said. “That’s not what happened.”

  Well, the truth would only frighten her. He sat up and squinted brutally at the sunlight.

  “I’m so disappointed in you,” Nina said. She studied the bruises on his face, and not out of concern; she was l
ooking for clues.

  “I wasn’t drinking,” said Joe Winder. That much he had to assert, out of pride. “They were muggers, that’s all.”

  Nina pointed to his wallet, which was on the dresser. “Muggers, Joe? Some muggers.”

  “A car scared them off.”

  She rolled her eyes. “You’re only making it worse.”

  “What happened to trust?” Winder said. “What happened to true goddamn love?” He got out of bed and tested his legs. Nina watched reproachfully.

  “I smell perfume,” she said. “Did you bring a woman home last night?”

  “No, a woman brought me. She saw me on Card Sound Road and wanted to go to the police. I told her to bring me here so I could be with the love of my life.”

  “Did you screw her?”

  “Only six or seven times.” He went to the bathroom and stuck his face under the shower and screamed at the top of his lungs, it hurt so bad. He screamed until his ears reverberated. Then he came out, dripping, and said: “Nina, be reasonable. Who’d make love with me, looking like this?”

  “Not me.”

  “Not anybody. Besides, I was half blind. I probably would’ve stuck it in her ear by mistake.”

  Nina smiled. Finally.

  Winder asked her who’d called so damn early. The phone is what woke him up.

  “Your employer, Mr. Charles Chelsea. He wanted you to know there was a dead person hanging from the bridge this morning.”

  Joe Winder shuffled back to the shower. This time he stepped all the way in and braced his forehead against the tile. He made the water as hot as he could bear. Maybe the dead man was Angel, he thought, or maybe it was the big guy who’d saved him from Angel.

  When Winder got out, Nina stood poised with a towel in her hand. She wore a white halter top and no panties. Winder took the towel and draped it over his head.

  “Why do you do this to me,” he mumbled.

  “Did you hear what I said? About the dead man?” She peeled off the halter and climbed in the shower. “Did you save me some hot water? I’ve got to shave my legs.” She turned the faucet handles and cursed the cold.

  “Sorry,” said Joe Winder. Raising his voice over the beating of the water: “So why is Chelsea calling me, just because there’s some dead guy? The bridge is five miles from the Kingdom.”

  Nina didn’t answer, just filed the question away and kept on shaving. Joe Winder sat down on the toilet and watched the fixtures fog up. Plenty of hot water, he thought; no problem.

  When she came out, he remarked how beautiful she looked. “Like a sleek arctic seal.”

  “Oh stop it.”

  “Don’t dry off, please. Don’t ever dry off.”

  “Get your hand away from there.” Nina slapped him sharply. “Put your clothes on. Chelsea’s waiting at the office.”

  Joe Winder said, “I’m phoning in sick.”

  “No, you’re not. You can’t.” She wrapped the towel around her hair and left the rest bare. “He wasn’t calling about the dead person on the bridge, he was calling about the whale.”

  “Orky?”

  Nina opened the bathroom door to let out the steamy humidity. Joe Winder impulsively clutched her around the waist. He pressed his cheek against her damp thigh, and began to hum the tune of “Poor Pitiful Me.” Nina pried him loose and said, “I’m glad you don’t get beat up every day.”

  Something was out of alignment in Winder’s brain. He blinked three or four times, slowly, but even as the steam cleared it didn’t go away. Double vision! The bastards had pounded him that badly. Nina’s bare bottom appeared to him as four gleaming porcelain orbs.

  Distractedly, he said, “Go on. Something about the whale?”

  “Yes,” said Nina. She stood before the mirror, checking her armpits for stubble. “Chelsea said the whale is dead.”

  “Hmmm,” said Joe Winder. Orky the Killer Whale.

  “And?” he said.

  “And, I don’t know.” Nina stepped into her panties. “He said for you to come right away. He said it was an emergency.”

  “First let’s go to bed.” Winder came up behind her. In the mirror he saw two pairs of hands cupping two pairs of nipples. He saw two faces that looked just like his—lumpy, lacerated, empurpled—nuzzling the tan silky slopes of two feminine necks.

  “All right, Joe,” Nina said, turning around. “But I’ve got to be honest: I’m very disappointed in you—”

  “It wasn’t what you think.”

  “—and I’m only doing this because you’re in pain.” Mechanically Nina took his hand and led him toward the bed. She kicked off her underwear and unwrapped the towel from her hair. Winder was grinning like an idiot.

  “I’m warning you,” Nina said, “this isn’t an act of passion, it’s an act of pity.”

  “I’ll take it,” said Joe Winder. “But, please, no more talking for a while.”

  “All right,” she said. “No more talking.”

  * * *

  Orky the Killer Whale had come to the Amazing Kingdom of Thrills under clouded circumstances. His true name (or the name bestowed by his human captors off the coast of British Columbia) was Samson. Delivered in a drugged stupor to a north California marine park, he was measured at twenty-nine feet and seven inches, a robust male example of the species orca. Samson was larger than the other tame killer whales in the tank, and proved considerably more recalcitrant and unpredictable. In his first six months of captivity he mauled two trained porpoises and chomped the tail off a popular sea lion named Mr. Mugsy. Trainers worked overtime trying to teach their new star the most rudimentary of whale tricks—leaping through a plastic hoop, or snatching a dead mackerel from the fingers of a pretty model—with minimal success. One day he would perform like a champ, the next he would sink to the bottom of the tank and fart belligerently, launching balloon-sized bubbles of fishy gas to the surface. The audience seldom found this entertaining. Eventually most of the seasoned whale trainers refused to enter the water with Samson. Those who tried to ride his immense black dorsal were either whiplashed or pretzeled or corkscrewed into semiconsciousness.

  Quite by accident, it was discovered that Samson was enraged by the color green. This became evident on the day that the human trainers switched to vivid Kelly-green tank suits without telling the other performing mammals. Samson was supposed to open the first show by fetching an inflatable topless mermaid and gaily delivering it to a young man on a ladder, in exchange for a fistful of smelts. On this particular morning, Samson retrieved the toy, carried it across the water on his snout, flipped it into the bleachers, snatched the green-clad trainer off the ladder, flipped him into the bleachers, then dived to the bottom of the tank and began to pass gas relentlessly. Each time somebody tried to lure him up, Samson shot from the depths with his mouth open, the great black-and-white jaws clacking like a truck door. The crowd loved it. They thought it was part of the act.

  Reluctantly the curators of the California marine park concluded that this whale was one dangerous rogue. They attempted to peddle him to another marine park, far away on the western coast of Florida, but first they changed his name to Ramu. The transaction took place at a time when ocean-theme parks around the country were reporting various troubles with trained killer whales, and animal-rights groups were seeking legislation to prevent capturing them for exhibit. Word of Samson’s behavioral quirks had spread throughout the marine-park industry, which is why it was necessary to change his name before trying to sell him.

  The day the deal was done, Samson was tranquilized, lashed to a canvas litter and placed aboard a chartered Sikorsky helicopter. There workers took turns sponging him with saltwater during the arduous cross-country flight, which lasted seventeen hours, including stops for refueling. By the time Samson arrived in Sarasota, he was in a vile and vindictive mood. During his first fifteen minutes in the new tank, he savagely foreshortened a pectoral fin on another male orca and destroyed the floating basket through which he was supposed to slam-dunk be
ach balls. Weeks passed with little improvement in the new whale’s temperament. One fateful Sunday, the animal abruptly awakened from its funk, tail-walked across the tank and did a dazzling double somersault before hundreds of delighted tourists. When a stubby woman in a green plaid sundress leaned too close with her Nikon, the whale seized her in his teeth, dragged her once around the tank, then spit her out like an olive pit.

  It was then that Samson’s new owners realized that they had been duped; they’d bought themselves a bum whale. Ramu was in fact the infamous and incorrigible Samson. Immediately the beast was quarantined as a repeat offender, while the Sarasota theme park made plans to resell him under the misleadingly gentle name of Orky.

  Francis X. Kingsbury was the ideal chump. The soon-to-be-opened Amazing Kingdom of Thrills was shopping for a major ocean attraction to compete with Disney World’s “living reef.” Kingsbury saw the Orky offer as a bargain of a lifetime—a trained killer whale for only nine hundred bucks, plus freight! Kingsbury snapped at it.

  Orky was more than a disappointment, he was a dud. No one at the Amazing Kingdom could train the whale to do a single trick on cue; capable of wondrous gymnastic feats, the animal remained oblivious of regimen and performed only when he damn well felt like it. Often he did his best work in the middle of the night, when the stadium was empty. But on those nocturnal occasions, when the park was closed and there was no one to reward him with buckets of dead mullet, Orky furiously would ram the sides of the whale tank until the Plexiglas cracked and the plaster buckled.

  Because it was impossible to predict his moods, Orky’s shows were not posted in a regular schedule. Tourists paid their money, took their seats and hoped for the best. Once in a great while, the killer whale would explode in exuberant ballet, but more often he just sulked or blew water aimlessly.

  One time Francis X. Kingsbury had suggested punishing the mammoth creature by withholding supper. Orky retaliated by breaking into the pelican pool and wolfing down nine of the slow-moving birds. After that, Kingsbury said to hell with the goddamn whale and gave up on training the beast. He knew he’d been scammed but was too proud to admit it. Kingsbury’s corporate underlings sensed that Orky was a sore spot with the boss, and avoided mentioning the whale exhibit in his presence.