Native Tongue

  Molly McNamara took out a pale blue tissue and began to clean her eyeglasses: neat, circular swipes. “I suppose it’s possible,” she said, “that somebody in our little group has gotten carried away.”

  “It’s an emotional issue,” agreed Billy Hawkins, “this animal-rights thing.”

  “Still I cannot believe any of the Mothers would commit a crime. I simply cannot believe they would steal those creatures.”

  “Perhaps they hired somebody to do it.”

  Hawkins went into the briefcase again and came out with a standard police mug shot. He handed it to Molly and said; “Buddy Michael Schwartz, a convicted felon. His pickup truck was seen leaving the Amazing Kingdom shortly after the theft. Two white males inside.”

  Behind the bedroom door, Bud Schwartz steadied himself. His gut churned, his throat turned to chalk. Danny Pogue looked frozen and glassy-eyed, like a rabbit trapped in the diamond lane of 1-95. “Bud,” he said. “Oh shit.” Bud Schwartz clapped a hand over his partner’s mouth.

  They could hear Molly saying, “He looks familiar, but I just can’t be sure.”

  The hair prickled on Bud Schwartz’s arms. The old witch was going to drop the dime. Unbelievable.

  Agent Hawkins was saying, “Do you know him personally?”

  There was a pause that seemed to last five minutes. Molly nudged her eyeglasses up the bridge of her nose. She held the photograph near a lamp, and examined it from several angles.

  “No,” she said finally. “He looks vaguely familiar, but I really can’t place the face.”

  “Do me a favor. Think about it.”

  “Certainly,” she said. “May I keep the picture?”

  “Sure. And think about the Wildlife Rescue Corps, too.”

  Molly liked the way this fellow conducted an interview. He knew precisely how much to say without giving away the good stuff—and he certainly knew how to listen. He was a pro.

  “Talk to your friends,” said Billy Hawkins. “See if they have any ideas.”

  “You’re putting me in a difficult position. These are fine people.”

  “I’m sure they are.” The FBI man stood up, straight as a flagpole. He said, “It would be helpful if I could borrow that Smith-Corona—the one that was used for your press announcements. And the ribbon cartridge as well.”

  Molly said, “Oh dear.”

  “I can get a warrant, Mrs. McNamara.”

  “That’s not it,” she said. “You see, the typewriter’s been stolen.”

  Billy Hawkins didn’t say anything.

  “Out of my car.”

  “That’s too bad,” the agent said.

  “The trunk of my car,” Molly added. “While I was grocery-shopping.”

  She walked the FBI man to the front door. “Can I ask you something, Agent Hawkins? Are you fellows investigating the death of the killer whale, as well?”

  “Should we?”

  “I think so. It looks like a pattern, doesn’t it? Terrible things are happening at that park.” Molly looked at him over the tops of her glasses. He felt as if he were back in elementary school. She said, “I know the mango voles are important, but if I may make a suggestion?”

  “Sure,” said Hawkins.

  “Your valuable time and talents would be better spent on a thorough investigation of the Falcon Trace resort. It’s a cesspool down there, and Mr. Francis X. Kingsbury is the root of the cess. I trust the FBI is still interested in bribery and public corruption.”

  “We consider it a priority.”

  “Then you’ll keep this in mind.” Molly’s eyes lost some of their sparkle. “They’ve up and bulldozed the whole place,” she said. “The trees, everything. It’s a crime what they did. I drove by it this morning.”

  For the first time Billy Hawkins heard a trembling in her voice. He handed her a card. “Anything solid, we’ll look into it. And thank you very much for the tea.”

  She held the door open. “You’re a very polite young man,” she said. “You renew my faith in authority.”

  “We’ll be talking soon,” said Agent Hawkins.

  As soon as he was gone, Molly McNamara heard a whoop from the bedroom. She found Danny Pogue dancing a one-legged jig, ecstatic that he was not in federal custody. Bud Schwartz sat on the edge of the bed, nervously pounding his fist in a pillow.

  Danny Pogue took Molly by the arms and said: “You did good. You stayed cool!”

  Bud Schwartz said, “Cool’s not the word for it.”

  Molly handed him the mug shot. “Next time comb your hair,” she said. “Now then—let’s have a look at those files you boys borrowed from Mr. Kingsbury.”

  * * *

  Joe Winder took Nina’s hand and led her down the trail. “You’re gonna love this guy,” he said. “What happened to the movie?”

  “Later,” Winder said. “There’s a ten-o’clock show.” He hated going to the movies. Hated driving all the way up to Homestead.

  Nina said, “Don’t you have a flashlight?”

  “We’ve got a good hour till dusk. Come on.”

  “It’s my night off,” she said. “I wanted to go someplace.”

  Winder pulled her along through the trees. “Just you wait,” he said.

  They found Skink shirtless, skinning a raccoon at the campsite. He grunted when Joe Winder said hello. Nina wondered if the plastic collar around his neck was from a prison or some other institution. She stepped closer to get a look at the dead raccoon.

  “Import got him,” Skink said, feeling her stare. “Up on 905 about two hours ago. Little guy’s still warm.”

  Winder cleared a spot for Nina to sit down. “How do you know it was a foreign car?” he asked. He truly was curious.

  “Low bumper broke his neck, that’s how I know. Usually it’s the tires that do the trick. That’s because the rental companies prefer mid-sized American models. Fords and Chevys. We got a ton of rentals up and down this stretch.”

  He stripped the skin off the animal and laid it on one side. To Nina he said: “They call me Skink.”

  She took a small breath. “I’m Nina. Joe said you were the governor of Florida.”

  “Long time ago.” Skink frowned at Winder. “No need to bring it up.”

  The man’s voice was a deep, gentle rumble. Nina wondered why the guys who phoned the sex line never sounded like that. She shivered and said: “Joe told me you just vanished. Got up and walked away from the job. It was in all the papers.”

  “I’m sure. Did he also tell you that I knew his daddy?”

  “Ancient history,” Winder cut in. “Nina, I wanted you to meet this guy because he saved my life the other night.”

  Skink sliced the hindquarters off the dead raccoon and placed them side by side in a large fry pan. He said to Nina: “Don’t believe a word of it, darling. The only reason he wanted you to meet me was so you’d understand.”

  “Understand what?”

  “What’s about to happen.”

  Nina looked uncomfortable. With one hand she began twisting the ends of her hair into tiny braids.

  “Don’t be nervous,” Joe Winder said, touching her knee.

  “Well, what’s he talking about?”

  Skink finished with the raccoon carcass and slopped the innards into a grocery bag, which he buried. After he got a fire going, he wiped his palms on the seat of his new canvas trousers, the ones he’d taken off Spearmint Breath. He watched, satisfied as the gray meat began to sizzle and darken in the fry pan.

  “I don’t suppose you’re hungry,” Skink said.

  “We’ve got other plans.” Nina was cordial but firm.

  Skink foraged through a rubble of old crates and lobster traps, mumbled, stomped into the woods. He came back carrying a dirty blue Igloo cooler. He took out three beers, opened one and gave the other two to Nina and Joe Winder.

  Before taking a drink, Nina wiped the top of the can on the sleeve of Winder’s shirt. She touched a hand to her neck and said, “So what’s with the collar???
?

  “Telemetry.” Skink pointed a finger at the sky. “Every week or so, a plane comes around.”

  “They think he’s a panther,” Joe Winder explained. “See, it’s a radio collar. He took it off a dead panther.”

  Skink quickly added: “But I’m not the one who killed it. It was a liquor truck out of Marathon. Didn’t even stop.”

  Nina wasn’t plugging in. After a pause she said, “Joe, don’t forget about our movie.”

  Winder nodded. Sometimes he felt they were oceans apart. “The panther’s all but extinct,” he said. “Maybe two dozen left alive. The Game and Fish Department uses radio collars to keep track of where they are.”

  Skink drained his beer. “Two nights later, here comes the liquor truck again. Only this time he blows a tire on some barbed wire.”

  “In the middle of the road?” Nina said.

  “Don’t ask me how it got there. Anyway, I had a good long talk with the boy.”

  Winder said, “Jesus, don’t tell me.”

  “Cat’s blood was still on the headlights. Fur, too.” Skink spat into the fire. “Cracker bastard didn’t seem to care.”

  “You didn’t …”

  “No, nothing permanent. Nothing his insurance wouldn’t cover.”

  In her smoothest voice Nina asked, “Did you eat the panther, too?”

  “No, ma’am,” said Skink. “I did not.”

  The big cat was buried a half-mile up the trail, under brilliant bougainvilleas that Skink himself had planted. Joe Winder thought about showing Nina the place, but she didn’t act interested. Darkness was settling in, and the mosquitoes had arrived by the billions. Nina slapped furiously at her bare arms and legs, while Joe Winder shook his head to keep the little bloodsuckers out of his ears.

  Skink said, “I got some goop if you want it. Great stuff.” He held his arms out in the firelight. The left one was engulfed by black mosquitoes; the right one was untouched.

  “It’s called EDTIAR,” Skink said. “Extended Duration Topical Insect/Arthropod Repellent. I’m a field tester for the U.S. Marines; they pay me and everything.” Studiously he began counting the bites on his left arm.

  Nina, on the shrill edge of misery, whacked a big fat arthropod on Joe Winder’s cheek. “We’ve got to get going,” she said.

  “They’re nasty tonight,” Skink said sympathetically. “I just took seventeen hits in thirty seconds.”

  Winder himself was getting devoured. He stood up, flailing his own torso. The bugs were humming in his eyes, his mouth, his nostrils.

  “Joe, what’s the point of all this?” Nina asked.

  “I’m waiting for him to tell me who killed Will Koocher.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake.”

  Skink said, “We’re in dangerous territory now.”

  “I don’t care,” Winder said. “Tell me what happened. It had something to do with the mango voles, I’m sure.”

  “Yes,” said Skink.

  Nina announced that she was leaving. “I’m getting eaten alive, and we’re going to miss the movie.”

  “Screw the movie,” said Joe Winder, perhaps too curtly.

  For Nina was suddenly gone—down the trail, through the woods. Snapping twigs and muffled imprecations divulged her path.

  “Call me Mr. Charm,” Winder said.

  Skink chuckled. “You’d better go. This can wait.”

  “I want to know more.”

  “It’s the voles, like you said.” He reached into his secondhand trousers and took out a bottle so small it couldn’t have held more than four ounces. He pressed it into the palm of Joe Winder’s right hand.

  “Ah, the magic bug goop!”

  “No,” Skink said. “Now take off, before Snow White gets lost in the big bad forest.”

  Blindly Winder jogged down the trail after his girlfriend. He held one arm across his face to block the branches from slashing him, and weaved through the low viny trees like a halfback slipping trackers.

  Nina had given up her solo expedition forty yards from Skink’s campsite, and that’s where Winder found her, leaning against the slick red trunk of a gumbo-limbo.

  “Get us out of here,” she said, brushing a squadron of plump mosquitoes from her forehead.

  Out of breath, Winder gave her a hug. She didn’t exactly melt in his arms. “You were doing fine,” he said. “You stayed right on the trail.”

  They were in the car, halfway to Homestead, when she spoke again: “Why can’t you leave it alone? The guy’s nothing but trouble.”

  “He’s not crazy, Nina.”

  “Oh right.”

  “A man was murdered. I can’t let it slide.”

  She picked a buttonwood leaf from her sleeve, rolled down the window and flicked the leaf away. She said, “If he’s not crazy, then how come he lives the way he does? How come he wears that electric collar?”

  “He says it keeps him on his toes.” Joe Winder plugged a Zevon tape in the stereo. “Look, I’m not saying he’s normal. I’m just saying he’s not crazy.”

  “Like you would know,” Nina said.

  15

  On Sunday, July 22, Charles Chelsea got up at eight-thirty, showered, shaved, dressed (navy slacks, Cordovan loafers, blue oxford shirt, burgundy necktie), trimmed his nose hairs, splashed on about three gallons of Aramis and drove off to work in his red Mazda Miata, for which he had paid thirty-five hundred dollars over dealer invoice.

  Chelsea had two important appointments at the Amazing Kingdom of Thrills. One of them would be routine, and one promised to be unpleasant. He had not slept well, but he didn’t feel exceptionally tired. In fact, he felt surprisingly confident, composed, tough; if only he could remain that way until his meeting with Joe Winder.

  A crew from Channel 7 was waiting outside the main gate. The reporter was an attractive young Latin woman wearing oversized sunglasses. Chelsea greeted her warmly and told her she was right on time. They all got in a van, which was driven by a man wearing a costume of bright neoprene plumes. The man introduced himself as Baldy the Eagle, and said he was happy to be their host. He began a long spiel about the Amazing Kingdom of Thrills until Charles Chelsea flashed his ID badge, at which point the bird man shrugged and shut up. Chelsea slapped his arm when he tried to bum a Marlboro off the Channel 7 cameraman.

  When they arrived at the killer-whale tank, Chelsea stepped from the van and held the door for the reporter, whose first name was Maria. Chelsea led the way inside the marine stadium, where the TV crew unpacked and began to set up the equipment. Chelsea sat next to Maria in the front row, facing the empty blue pool. Above them, men on scaffolds were sandblasting the word “Orky” from the coral-colored wall.

  Chelsea said, “I guess the others will be along soon.”

  Maria removed her sunglasses and brushed her hair. She took out a spiral notebook and flipped to a blank page.

  “The other stations,” Chelsea said, “they must be running a little late.”

  Five others had received the same fax as Channel 7 had. Surely more crews would show up—it was Sunday, after all, the slowest news day of the week.

  Maria said, “Before we go on the air—”

  “You want some background,” Chelsea said helpfully. “Well, to be perfectly frank, Orky’s death left us with a rather large vacancy. Here we have this beautiful saltwater tank, as you see, and a scenic outdoor stadium. A facility like this is too special to waste. We thought about getting another whale, but Mr. Kingsbury felt it would be inappropriate. He felt Orky was irreplaceable.”

  Charles Chelsea glanced over Maria’s shoulder to see the Mini-cam pointed at him. Its red light winked innocuously as the tape rolled. The cameraman was on his knees. Squinting through the viewfinder, he signaled for Chelsea to keep talking.

  “Are we on?” the PR man said. “What about the mike? I don’t have a mike.”

  The cameraman pointed straight up. Chelsea raised his eyes. A gray boom microphone, the size of a fungo bat, hung over his head. The boom
was controlled by a sound man standing to Chelsea’s right. The man wore earphones and a Miami Dolphins warm-up jacket.

  Maria said, “You mentioned Orky. Could you tell us what your staff has learned about the whale’s death? What exactly killed it?”

  Chelsea fought to keep his Adam’s apple from bobbing spasmodically, as it often did when he lied. “The tests,” he said, “are still incomplete.”

  Maria’s warm brown eyes blinked inquisitively. “There’s a rumor that the whale died during an encounter with an employee of the Amazing Kingdom.”

  “Oh, that’s a good one.” Chelsea laughed stiffly. “Where did you hear that?”

  “Is it true?”

  The camera’s blinking red light no longer seemed harmless. Charles Chelsea said, “I’m not going to dignify such a question by responding.”

  The reporter said nothing, just let the tape roll. Let him choke on the silence. It worked.

  “We did have a death that night,” Chelsea admitted, toying with his cuffs. “An employee of the park apparently took his own life. It was very, very tragic—”

  “What was the name of this employee?”

  Chelsea’s tone became cold, reproachful. “It is our strict policy not to discuss such matters publicly. There is an issue of privacy, and respect for the family.”

  Maria said, “The rumor is—”

  “We don’t respond to rumors, Ms. Rodríguez.” Now Chelsea was leaning forward, lecturing. The boom mike followed him. “Would you like to hear about our newest attraction, or not?”

  She smiled like a moray eel. “That’s why we’re here.”

  Oh no it isn’t, thought Chelsea, trying not to glare, trying not to perspire, trying not to look like the unvarnished shill he was.

  “I brought a bathing suit,” Maria said, “as you suggested.”

  “Maybe we should wait for the others.”

  “I think we’re it, Mr. Chelsea. I don’t think any of the other stations are coming.”

  “Fine.” He tried not to sound disappointed.

  The cameraman stopped taping. Chelsea dabbed his forehead in relief; he needed to collect himself, recover from the ambush. Everybody wants to be Mike Wallace, he thought bitterly. Everybody’s a hardass.