Bird Brained (Rachel Porter Mysteries)

by Jessica Speart

  I glanced out the kitchen window, where her impressionable darlings were chasing after the dog with their hatchets.

  “What did he threaten to do?” Willy must have come up with something especially atrocious to have her drinking so early in the morning. Either that, or Bambi just liked to start her day with a hefty tequila punch.

  “You mean besides threatening to permanently shut my mouth for me?” Bambi snapped.

  “She’s a slut! She’s a slut!” squawked the Cuban Amazon sitting in the corner of the room.

  Bambi threw her empty glass at the bird’s cage as the parrot deliriously flapped its wings.

  “You’re a bitch! You’re a bitch!” the bird screeched. It hooked its beak around the bars and pulled, trying to get out.

  “I swear, I’m gonna sic that thing on Willy some day.” Bambi pointed a midnight-blue fingernail in the bird’s direction and then brought it up to her neck, sliding the rapier slowly across her throat.

  I didn’t blame the bird for trying to escape. In his position, I’d have been sawing away at the bars by now. I knew I was going to have to rescue the parrot, even if it meant staging a break-in myself. “What exactly did he say he was going to do?” I asked once again.

  Bambi licked the top of the tequila bottle, and then screwed the cap back on. “He said first he’s gonna shoot me. After that, he plans on getting in one last screw for old time’s sake. Except it’ll be better than ever, he said, ’cause for once my mouth won’t be flapping.”

  I was about to respond when the sound of hatchets at work made us run to the kitchen window. Willy’s young progeny were chopping away at the house like so much firewood.

  “Stop that, you little bastards!” Bambi shrieked.

  She opened the door, picked up a broom, and flung it at them. But aim wasn’t one of her strong points. The boys screeched in delight as the broom hit the dog. They immediately followed suit, pouncing on top of the mangy mutt, who managed to squirm out from beneath the two flailing bodies and hightail it around to the front of the house. Both boys took their frustration out on the broom. They swung their hatchets like mini-serial killers, hacking the wooden handle into scores of tiny pieces.

  Bambi picked up the thread of her story as if there had been no interruption. “Then, he said he plans to saw my body up into itty-bitty chunks. After which he’s gonna dump the parts in a trough, throw on some lime, set the whole thing on fire, and have himself a Bambi-que.”

  “It’s time that you call the police, Bambi. You’ve got to file a complaint. That way, you can get the court to issue a restraining order against him.”

  “Yeah, right. All you’re talking about is a temporary stay of execution. What I need is to get rid of the bastard somehow.” She ran her fingers up along the rows of her platinum spikes, as if testing their use as potential weapons.

  “All that’s going to accomplish is to land you in jail. You really need to let the police handle this,” I pressed.

  Bambi swung the tequila bottle menacingly in her hand. “You know, Porter, you’re the one who got me in this mess to begin with. If it hadn’t been for you shooting your big mouth off to Willy, all I’d be worrying about is getting my boobs lifted and landing a good job at a club.”

  The sequined bull’s-eyes on her bra glittered in agreement. I watched out the window, where the boys picked up sharpened pieces of the chopped broom and went after each other with their newly made spears. Call me crazy, but it seemed she had bigger problems to contend with than booking a plastic surgeon.

  “Listen, Bambi. The last thing I ever meant to do was to bring you any more trouble, and I plan to take care of it. But you’ve got to call the police, to be safe. They need to know what Willy is threatening to do.”

  Bambi stubbornly shook her head. “Bullshit, Porter. The cops are useless, and you know it. By the time they show up, I’ll be dead and Willy will have gotten rid of all the evidence.”

  She unscrewed the tequila cap with her teeth, took one last swig, and stuck the bottle inside the freezer. “I ain’t done hard time in this place, with those kids, and that bird, to end up looking like an overdone rump roast.”

  “Maybe you should consider going away for a while,” I suggested. “Let things with Willy cool down.”

  “Uh, uh. I’m not going nowhere. I hear he’s been sleeping with the girls from the club where I used to work—and that’s where I draw the line. He’s running around making a fool out of me.” Bambi’s voice trembled, and her eyes began to brim with tears. She raised the hem of her nightie and swiped at her makeup. But the darkened shadows had already spread, like a layer of soot washing away in a downpour.

  “Hell, that man would screw a maple tree if the sap was running high,” she said, wiping her nose.

  I could easily imagine Willy having more luck with a maple than with most women. “I’ll go and talk to him, Bambi,” I promised. “But do me a favor and keep your doors locked.”

  The sequined bull’s-eyes glittered. “You just tell that bastard to lay off the girls I know. Otherwise, he’ll be holding his pecker in his hand and singing soprano,” Bambi vowed.

  I headed for Willy’s as visions of chain saws, troughs, and barbecues ran through my head. I felt sure that, given the time, I could come up with the horror flick he’d stolen that imaginative scenario from. The continuing mystery to me was how Bambi could be in love with such a man.

  As I turned down the dirt road that led to Willy’s, I had to slam on the brakes. Writhing on the ground lay a five-foot-long Eastern diamondback rattler. It had been run over and left to suffer and slowly die, pecked alive by vultures.

  I got out of the Tempo and walked to where the reptile was trying to slither away from my oncoming tires, its body jerking spasmodically in tortuous contractions. Then I slowly knelt down.

  Willy couldn’t have been responsible for the deed. Not due to any compassion for a critter’s pain, but because he would have finished the snake off, taken its skin, and left the bloody carcass to rot.

  The snake struggled to raise its head, rattling halfheartedly to ward me away.

  Pulling out my 9mm revolver, I shot the rattler clean through the head. It was the second time I’d had to kill a critter; the second time I’d broken my vow. I picked the lifeless snake up, and moved it out of the path of any more cars.

  Then I continued down the dirt road, the normally sun-dappled pines and palmettos now holding dark, ominous shadows. Though I tried to brush away the feeling of impending doom, ghostly whispers sprang up in the still air, their cries eerily reminiscent of Willy’s neglected cats.

  I pulled up to where Weed’s Dodge Ram normally sat. My guess was that after threatening Bambi, he’d sobered up, got in his truck, and hightailed it north to visit Mama Weed and Buzz in Georgia.

  I parked and got out of the car.

  Willy’s menagerie lay pathetically on the floors of their cages with their usual hopeless stares. I decided to poke around until I discovered where Willy kept his stash of raw meat. If the animals had to be locked up, I could at least make sure they had plenty of fresh food and water.

  The door to Willy’s trailer was locked, but easy to jimmy. I’d come prepared for the stench this time by bringing a bandana. I tied it bandito-style over my mouth and nose, then pulled open the aluminum door.

  There was just something about Willy’s trailer that reminded me of a spider’s lair. Maybe it was the innate sense of evil that hung over the place.

  I flicked on the light switch and looked over to where Big Mama usually lay, but the eighteen-foot python wasn’t there. I remembered Willy telling me how cranky she got when she couldn’t be with him, which bolstered my theory that Willy had decided to vamoose for a while. I wondered if she insisted on sitting in the front seat of his Dodge Ram next to him.

  I stepped over Willy’s mushrooming pile of laundry and headed for his poor excuse for a desk: a piece of plywood resting on two empty plastic garbage pails. The desktop contained a hefty as
sortment of bills, spanning everything from overdue child support to his latest visit to the emergency clinic. A grocery receipt attested that Weed still had enough moolah to stock up on his favorite beer.

  On the floor between the two pails sat a cardboard box. I pulled it out as carefully as if it were the remains of a contagiously diseased animal.

  Dear Lord, just don’t let there be any spiders, centipedes, roaches, or other multilegged things inside.

  Wishing I had gloves, I slowly lowered two fingers into the box. Out came dried snakeskins, then Guns N’ Roses, and Aerosmith cassette tapes. I dove back down to pull out cougar teeth and claws, which I assumed were from Weed’s unhappy menagerie. Handfuls of yellowed newspaper articles touted the grand opening of his sanctuary. One had a photo of Willy looking even more malnourished than usual. A small black leopard was slung around his shoulders, and a 9mm Beretta was stuck in his belt. The accompanying caption read, “a protector of God’s endangered critters.” The perfect image for the local youth to aspire to.

  I reached farther down and brushed against the pebble-textured cover of a photo album. A quick flip through its pages left me feeling as if I was bearing witness to the downfall of civilization. There were the obligatory photos of Bambi as star in a variety of “Oh my God, I can’t believe my legs can actually bend this way” poses. These were followed by shots of Willy in flagrante with an assortment of “models,” most of whom looked like they belonged in a smack-shooting gallery. My stomach took a dive as the album deteriorated into the even more perverse.

  The next few pages had photos of a waifish young girl who looked to be about eleven, dressed in high heels, a micro-miniskirt, lots of makeup, and little else. I realized that Willy was playing with a smaller deck than I had even imagined. Then I turned the pages and landed smack dab in Willy’s real wonderland. Stomach-churning magazine photos displayed bloated, dead bodies being munched on by hungry dogs, while other corpses provided a quick pick-me-up for bands of roving coyotes.

  The walls of the room began to beat like a quickening pulse around me, and the taste of bile rushed up on an express elevator straight into my mouth. I threw Willy’s obscene trash back into the cardboard box.

  The only place left to examine was in the back of the trailer. Just the thought of entering Willy’s bedroom made my skin crawl. There are spiders’ webs, and then there are things far worse: dank and frightening places where even creepy crawlers won’t go. I headed for his dungeon, which I’d heard referred to as “Willy’s weenie-whacking boudoir.” Stepping over the pile of laundry, my shoe landed in something oozing and sticky. I looked down to discover the decomposing remains of a tiny gray mouse.

  I tore off the bandana and screamed with all the pent-up tension, rage, and nausea that had built up within me. In response, a chorus of fierce roars from outside shook the tin walls. I swore to myself then and there that I’d call every city, state, and federal agency until I got Weed’s cats removed immediately and placed in decent homes. The fact that Weed had gone away and left them alone should make the job that much easier. And if that didn’t work, then, damn it, I’d pry the cage doors open myself and let them wreak their own havoc on Willy Weed’s body and soul.

  I lifted my foot and moved on, refusing to faint in this hellhole. But I was going to burn every article of clothing I had on as soon as I got home.

  Willy’s bedroom held even less charm than the rest of his abode. A far nastier pile of laundry was heaped in the corner of this room. Posters of screaming, nude women fleeing dementos armed with chain saws, axes, and Freddy Krueger nails lined the dingy walls. Other than that, the bedroom was decorated with a filthy, stained mattress that lay on the floor. A stack of magazines was piled near the bed. A quick glance proved his choice of reading material to be almost as good as his photo album—Bra Busters, Open Legs, and Barely Sixteen.

  Next to the magazines was a shopping bag. I peered inside to make sure that nothing was dead or moving before rummaging through the contents, then pulled out his-and-her handcuffs, a black leather hood with zippered mouth, a leather whip, a large can of shaving cream, and a couple of razors.

  All that appeared to be missing was a vibrator. But then, I suppose Willy wasn’t looking for any competition.

  I hated to touch Weed’s mattress, but it was the last possible place to look. I lifted the worn-out bedding, leaning it against the wall. Bingo! Willy and Alberto had something else in common besides smuggling birds. What was it with these guys and hiding things under their beds?

  Three separate passports lay like large, squashed bugs on the floor. All three contained Willy’s photo, but each passport bore a different identity. There was Hank Hefner, Bo Guccione, and Lyle Flynt. It made twisted sense that he’d taken the last names of his “why-the-hell-couldn’t-I-have-their-life” porn-king idols.

  Hank, Bo, and Lyle had all been pretty busy traveling in and out of Brazil over the past few years. The fictitious trio had doubtless smuggled a fortune in hyacinth macaws and their eggs into the U.S.

  Tap, tap, tap came a flurry of sound above me. I froze. The tinny vibration started up again a moment later. Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap! The noise was louder and longer this time, as if dozens of tiny demons in tap shoes were prancing on the metal roof directly over my head. Then a shadowy form caught my eye.

  I moved toward the grimy bedroom window. Ever so slowly, the dark shadow flickered into view a second time—a foreboding grim reaper hovering in lascivious anticipation, waiting for the right moment to grab me.

  My fingertips brushed against the poster of a screaming babe for support as an icy shiver shook my body. The shadow emerged again and my heart stopped—until I saw that it was the silhouette of a large pair of wings, and realized what was terrorizing me. Dozens of black vultures had congregated on the roof of Willy’s trailer. They must have sensed that Weed was one of their own.

  My heartbeat returned to normal, and I glanced quickly around the room one last time, eager to leave. Weed’s telephone and answering machine sat nearly hidden alongside the heap of malodorous laundry. A bottle of half-finished tequila lay on the floor nearby with a pickled worm floating inside, having died in a drunken reverie. It was a no-brainer as to where Willy had picked up this souvenir. The label on the bottle read, MADE AND BOTTLED IN MEXICO.

  I hit the rewind button on Willy’s answering machine. With any luck, he wouldn’t have bothered to erase his last few messages. I thanked the god of dumb psychos, as what distinctly sounded like a mechanically distorted voice boomed out over Weed’s machine.

  “This is the Commander, you insolent fuck-up. I want your ass over here right now.”

  The caller had Willy’s character nailed to a tee. Maybe there was a pecking order in the Cobra Club, complete with titles and ranks. Then a second message began to play.

  “Tell the Commander that he can place his grocery list whenever he wants. All’s clear to fill another order from the candy store.”

  Okay. Now I really was curious. I played the messages back one more time, listening carefully. But there were no secret clues to be gathered. I wondered who the Commander was, and why he’d be calling a lowlife like Weed. And just what was this candy store the second message had spoken of? It had to be some sort of code.

  I stuffed Willy’s three passports into my back pocket, figuring that should put a stop to his trips for awhile. If nothing else, it might give some birds a reprieve. Then I lowered the mattress to the floor and returned to the front of the trailer, satisfied that I’d discovered whatever was to be found in Weed’s squalid abode. My entire body felt like it needed to be steamcleaned and dried—maybe even given a flea bath—but there was another trailer to explore first.

  I opened the flimsy door to leave and walked smack into Willy. The cast had been cut off his leg, revealing a foot that was swollen the size of a football, its color a nasty mix of purple and green. He’d nestled his tootsies in the bottom half of a sneaker, whose top and sides had been cut out. Filthy stri
ps of adhesive tape anchored the sneaker’s raggedy sole to his foot. Otherwise, he looked the same as I’d last seen him, down to his yellow JUST DO ME T-shirt.

  Willy looked nearly as startled as I was. Then he smiled a slow molasses of a grin, his eyes looking me up and down as if I were one of his mice and he was the big, bad snake. The ruby in his tooth caught a ray of sun, causing me to imagine Bambi knocking it out of his mouth, and wondering how much she would get for it. My train of thought was rudely interrupted as Willy reached up and shoved me back inside, his hands cupped over my breasts.

  “Hey there, darlin’. You been waiting here all by your lonesome for big Willy?” His breath was as rancid as his laundry.

  I knocked his hands off my chest, only to have Willy grin wider and enter the trailer. Before today, I had thought of him as just one more easily handled slimeball. Now that I’d caught an eyeful of his photo album, I was afraid he was far tougher than I had imagined. To make matters worse, I’d left my revolver in the glove compartment of my car.

  “I just got here a minute ago,” I bluffed. “The door was unlocked, so I assumed you’d be in. There are a few things I want to talk to you about.”

  The corners of Willy’s mouth pulled down. “Now that’s stranger than a coon’s tail, Agent Porter.” His voice curled around my name as constrictingly as a snake, and his fingers wound themselves in my curls. “’Cause I just ran my hand along the hood of your engine, and it’s nice and cool. Not hot, like you’d expect it to be.”

  Willy closed the door of the trailer behind him. “Besides, I distinctly remember locking this door. But I see that couldn’t keep you out. Must be that you’re wanting me real bad, Porter—so let me help you get your engine started.”

  Weed walked toward me slowly, grinding his groin in a poor imitation of a Chippendales dancer. I pushed him away as hard as I could and moved back, nearly stumbling into the pile of laundry.

  “Cut the crap, Willy,” I warned.

  Weed licked his lips and rubbed his crotch. “You know, if you’re nice to me, I might be able to get you some publicity. I’m talking real good, glossy photos. I got connections, big time. Hell, we could have you pose with some of my cats out there.” Willy’s eyes glittered. “I’m not talking some piece of crap, but a Playboy or a Penthouse spread. One of those high-class magazines.”