Victor lifted one eyebrow. “Last I checked, women weren’t finite machines that might run out of steam. Why are you so against her ménage idea? We’re all only here for another few days. It’s not like we can’t share.”
Ian stuck out his lower lip stubbornly. “I’m not sharing with a fucking interloper like you. You didn’t even think how I might feel when you just busted in and grabbed her.”
Victor shrugged. “Suit yourself. We can continue to see her separately.” He looked Ian up and down with an almost lewd look. Ian’s skin prickled with a sense of something forbidden, although he didn’t know what. Did Victor have switch hitter leanings as well? “Although I see nothing wrong with us both enjoying the teachings of the sophisticated Mistress Felicity in the same room at the same time. Don’t knock a good cocksucking until you’ve tried it. Speaking of knocking. You still plan to come with me tomorrow to that knock-and-talk with that exotic animal smuggler? Todd Beard, I think Perry said his name was. Some sort of lowlife who supplements his smuggling with that non-sport of hog-and-dog ‘hunting.’ Poor white brutality at its worst. Completely unsportsmanlike. He’s not just killing the pigs to eat—he’s just leaving them there for blood sport. Puts Kevlar vests on his pig dogs and jacks them up into the pack mentality.”
“What?” Ian’s mind was still swimming with the possibilities of the cocksucking Victor had mentioned. Did Victor mean he would suck Ian’s cock? Or the other way around? Either way, Ian’s cock was stiffening with a perverse stimulation.
“Todd Beard. I’ve got his address from Perry. We can have a knock-and-talk, scope out his property. He’s been killing pigs by his own admission since he was sixteen, so I’m sure he’s savvy that we have no call to obtain a search warrant, but let’s just see what we can see before we start the undercover op, shall we?” Without waiting for an answer, Victor sailed off to the bathroom where Ian could hear him gathering up his toiletries.
Ian drifted to the bathroom door and waved dismissively at Victor. “You don’t need to leave. I apologize. I was just hot that you seemed to be butting into my affairs.”
“No problem,” Victor said lightly, throwing shampoo and deodorant into a gray bag. “Perry just told me that a cabin next to his suddenly became available. Something about rats nesting in someone’s Dolly Parton wig, so the old guests went back to Texas.”
Ian needed clarification. “Of course I’ll come with you to that doggy hog guy’s house. The other rangers were telling me how they never have a backup partner and have to cover 4500 square miles of territory on their own, with no one to watch their backs. But what did you mean about cocksucking? Of course I’ve had my cock sucked before. What would make you think I hadn’t?”
Zipping up the bag with a snap of his wrist, Victor stepped up very close to Ian. He was so close the pungent smell of sex wafted from him. Pussy. This impudent asshole smelled like Felicity’s pussy! How had he managed that? Felicity hadn’t bound him with the rumpled necktie Ian had seen? “I wasn’t insinuating you’d never had your cock sucked. I was insinuating that maybe you had never sucked on a nice juicy cock.”
And with that, Victor vanished from the bathroom, making a beeline for the front door. He only turned to stick his head back into the room and call out, “You may want to think twice about rejecting Miss Felicity’s offer, Ian. You may never get another offer like this in your life.”
And he was gone.
Ian knew that. He needed to figure out how to accept Felicity’s offer without losing face. He had been an immature, selfish brat, wanting Felicity all to himself when he barely knew her. He should want what was best for Felicity, not think about himself!
“Maybe you have never sucked on a nice juicy cock.” What an arrogant asshole. Normally Ian would have been incensed with such impudence. But tonight he was just so pleasantly exhausted from his session with Mistress Felicity, he didn’t have energy to plot any revenge.
In fact, Victor’s lewd insinuation was getting him all steamed up. He had better take a nap before heading out to Rowan’s party.
* * * *
“This is Dr. Reznik, 5023.”
Victor drove one of the Division’s enormous trucks, speaking to the dispatcher on the radio. He wasn’t a conservation officer, so he didn’t wear the uniform that was actually sort of sexy. But he had the same authorities as the officers, so he had the duty belt prickling with the weapons Ian had always admired so in the commandos he worked with in Washington. Right now Victor just wore a Glock and stun gun at his waist, looking almost as frightening as any black ops specialist in his camo pants and boots. Because any knock-and-talk was potentially dangerous, Ian imagined that Victor would snap the handcuff case onto the duty belt as well.
In manly times like this, Ian wished he had been licensed to concealed carry. As it was, Victor had only invited him along because he was the only spare male, all of the more useful conservation officers being busy with wedding and household crap. Ian knew he was as useless as tits on a bull. Okay, over the years he’d been privy to the technical details of many special ops raids. He knew the lingo, the techniques, and the logistics of planning. But without a weapon, in an emergency, Ian knew he was as useless as a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest.
So he imagined Victor chose him for the company. He would be much more useful later on, when they set up the computer sting operation, if they couldn’t nail this asswipe today.
“Janellen, we’re heading into Poverty Canyon on our way east into Bird in Hand,” Victor told the dispatcher.
“What’s your vector, Victor?” Janellen’s voice cackled with glee at her joke. “This slimy perp has been around forever. He’s constantly taunting officers in Bird in Hand, Blanding, and Monticello with how we’ve got nothing on him and never will. Out there, people don’t like law enforcement.”
“You’re not kidding,” Victor agreed. “They’re living off the land, shooting deer off their decks.”
Janellen continued, “You probably don’t see much of that during your fancy tours of Europe or your African safaris. But Julian, Gabriel, and Perry can tell you. There are plenty of those survivalist types out there, so you be careful.”
Victor took his finger off the radio’s button and spoke only to Ian. “I’ve got DNA kits for anything I can pick up outside his house. I’ve got rope from the ostrich and some fibers from the lion cub the father turned in. It’s a long shot, but some of the African species’ have been identified. If we can nail him for trafficking in African animals, we can make some felonies stick.”
Janellen said, “There’s a BOLO out on Beard, but all everyone only sees is him outside a bar wagging his twig and berries at them.”
Ian made a face. “Oh, gross.”
Victor flashed an “I’ve seen much worse” smile. To Janellen he said, “If he tries to wave his 100 percent all-beef thermometer at me, I’ll slap him with a lewd and lascivious.”
“You be careful. Out.”
They were driving past a brown Division of Wildlife sign that declared TAKE A STAND AGAINST POACHING. DEFEND WILDLIFE AND THE RIGHT OF FUTURE GENERATIONS TO ENJOY IT.
Ian asked, “What are we pretending we’re investigating today? We have to have at least a half-assed reason to be knocking on his door.”
“Fuck,” said Victor. His GPS told him this was the turnoff for Skyline Drive, but the road hadn’t been snowplowed. Tire tracks of many enormous four-wheelers had carved foot-deep ravines in the hard pack. Victor engaged the truck into four wheel drive. He careened slowly through the crud that was like cookie dough. “We should get tire imprints from whatever trucks we find parked outside his house. Found some tire tracks outside where we think the ostrich escaped. I’ll just ask Beard to see his hunting license. Some yokels at that Bird in Hand bar were bragging about a pig that Beard stuck recently. Feral hogs are invasive and destroy the riparian corridor, so I’m not sad to see them being thinned out. They aren’t a draw animal in Utah, but we can snoop around while we get h
im to show us his hunting license.”
“Hoping he doesn’t show us his flesh trombone first.”
Victor said, “Well, well. What do we see here?”
Victor was slowly pulling the truck to the side of the tracks, and Ian’s gaze followed his. He gasped loudly at the unexpected sight.
Victor unbuckled his seat belt and opened his door. “You think Todd Beard has been expecting us?”
Once it sank in what he was looking at, Ian felt nauseous. The hog’s head on the fence post looked like one of those realistic Halloween masks, only in a mask the tusks wouldn’t have been piercing out of that gaping maw. As Ian got out of the truck and went closer, he saw that the black-red blood that trickled from the mouth had only been recently frozen, so the head had been placed there sometime that morning.
With one boot on a large rock and hands on hips, Victor looked like a mountaineer surveying his lands. Except he was looking at the bloody, screaming face of a feral pig. “I wonder how ol’ Tumescent Todd knew we were coming.”
“Maybe it’s not a sign for us,” Ian suggested. “Maybe, like you said, he doesn’t even kill the pigs to eat. He’s got too many, so runs around sticking their heads on posts.”
Victor shook his head. “No. This is his calling card. He’s saying ‘I’m watching you assholes.’ He’s a narcissistic, self-centered motherfucker. He’s provoking us. For him, this is personal.”
“But how did he know we were even coming? At breakfast we told Perry, Gabriel, Julian...”
“Easy.” Victor looked so confident, so sure. “He’s got a police scanner. I just stupidly told Janellen on the radio that we were headed to a slimy perp’s house in Poverty Canyon. I should’ve been more cryptic.”
“But that was only ten minutes ago. This head’s been here longer than that.”
Victor only paused to think for a fraction of a second. He regarded the ferocity of the pig’s glassy eyes. “When we first got into the truck an hour ago, I told Janellen I was looking for the ‘pig-sticker.’ I think I probably called him a dim-witted douche bag too.” Victor headed back to the truck.
Ian got in on the passenger side. “I think you called him an epic asshat as well. If that’s true that he has a scanner, now we’ve lost the element of surprise.”
Victor continued his old man’s Sunday drive down the snowy lane. “Not really.” He picked up the radio again. “Dispatch. This is 5023, Officer Krumholzer. Change of plans. We just saw a herd of wild swine heading down Poverty Canyon. We’re going to try to harvest however many we can.”
Janellen was understandably confused. “Are you not going to that knock-and-talk—”
“Over and out,” barked Victor, replacing the radio in its cradle.
“Genius using that fake name,” breathed Ian.
“Right,” Victor said skeptically, navigating the snowy road at approximately twenty miles per hour. “Let’s just hope his truck and dogs aren’t ready to go at a moment’s notice.”
They were lucky. They pulled into the ranch house’s cruddy driveway just as Todd Beard was vaulting out of a side door toward some dog kennels. He was a burly, bearded fellow who looked like a lumberjack in his plaid shirt and wool cap. That he was checking the chamber of a carbine didn’t soothe Ian any. He saw at least six dogs barking their heads off and lunging at the chain link enclosures.
“It’s go time,” said Victor. He pulled the slide back on his Glock to make sure a round was in the chamber and holstered it.
Once again Ian felt insecure with no weapon. This time his reason wasn’t egomaniacal but rather safety-minded. “Let’s roll,” he agreed, just because he’d heard his company’s commandos saying that. It did give him the confidence and bluster needed to exit the vehicle unarmed, but he fell in line more behind Victor than next to him. Victor, accustomed to wrangling wild ostriches and lions, strode toward the dog kennels with much more bravado. Ian did notice a strange dart sticking out of a 3-D target of a turkey. It had the fletching of a regular dart, but the shaft looked like a syringe. On an impulse, Ian reached out and snatched the dart from the turkey. He pocketed it in his overcoat.
“State Wildlife Resources,” Victor called out chummily. “How’s it going?”
Ian was glad he’d greeted the perp before Todd Beard had a chance to let a pig dog out of its kennel. Beard jumped about a foot and twirled around. “Officer Krumholzer!” he gasped before collecting himself.
Victor chuckled to himself. Not only had his plot worked, but they had caught Beard so off-guard that he hadn’t changed out of a pink undergarment, the strap of which peeked out when his plaid lumberjack shirt slid from his stocky shoulder. Victor exchanged a meaningful glance with Ian. “How’d you know my name? Anyway, just here for a friendly visit. I’m new in this zone and heard you were a big hog-and-dog guy in the area.”
Brad smiled widely now, approaching Victor and Ian. “You heard right. I’ve been pig hunting since I was fifteen. What happened to Officer Donovan?”
“He’s on a vacation,” said Victor. “May I see your hunting license, sir?”
It was the oddest thing, but the pink strap was so narrow and satiny it really looked like a bra strap. Ian’s first thought was Where would he find a bra large enough for him? “Certainly, officer. Right here in my truck.”
Thankfully they left the slathering, snarling pig dogs behind. Ian shuddered, thinking kindly of the gentle Newfoundland dog that Doug Ostrovsky owned over at the Triple Play.
“These hogs are Russian boar,” Victor said conversationally. “You’re doing a good service to the ecosystem, thinning them out like this. They’re nothing but invasive carp with legs. I don’t like the waste, however. Can’t you find anyone else to take them off your hands?”
Todd Beard had something in his back pocket that was, strangely, shaped like a battery-operated dildo. He hung a massive butt crack when he leaned over his truck’s passenger seat to snag his hunting license from behind the sunshade. Ian and Victor shared wide-eyed looks as Beard’s pink thong was, unfortunately, revealed to them, snug between his two pitted cheeks. Even worse, a poorly-drawn tramp stamp undulated on his tailbone. “Uh, yeah, you know, I don’t agree with waste, either, officer. So I do sell a lot of the meat. It’s the only way to make a living here in these parts.”
Ian put his hands on his hips. Right. That’s why so many pig carcasses have been found strewn all over these hills. “Mr. Beard. That’s an interesting tattoo on your shoulder. What’s it of?”
Beard spun to face the men, eagerly handing Victor his license. As expected, he seemed extremely overjoyed that someone wished to talk about his disgusting tattoos, and he readily unbuttoned the top button of his plaid shirt, like a striptease artist revealing his charms. “You like it? This here one is a butterfly—hey, wait a minute.”
Beard realized Ian was tricking him into revealing his lacey bra, but too late. He yanked his collar up to his chin and snarled, “You jackoff! Who the fuck are you, anyway? You’re not a conservation officer. You’ll find nothing on me! I’m clean as a whistle, you crazy ho-bags!”
“You’re right,” said Ian, “I’m not a conservation officer. I’m a friend of Officer Krumholzer here. I’m actually a symphony conductor. I’ve come to the Triple Play Lodge for the convention.”
Ian wanted to see if Beard responded to his acknowledgement of the female impersonator’s convention, but Beard was huffing and puffing so heavily, it was hard to tell. “Listen, Krumholzer. Take your pansy friend and leave my property. You’ve got nothing on me. I’m just an innocent, simple pig hunter who likes living out in nature with his dogs.”
“That’s just fine, Mr. Beard.” Victor was the picture of calm as he gave the innocent hunter back his license and tipped an imaginary cap to him. “I’m sure everything is on the up and up. Maybe I’ll run into you hunting. I sure do enjoy a good slow-cooked carnitas now and then.”
“Good day,” Ian said stiffly to the red-faced man. He walked back to Victor’s truck
loudly humming “The Way We Were.”
“And don’t come back!” Beard yelled with the confidence of someone half a football field away. “I’m going to complain to Officer Donovan about your bullying scare tactics!”
Victor had to do a ten-point turn to get going back down the driveway. The sluggishness of their departure effectively ruined any of the dramatic buildup they had created.
“I wonder where he bought that bra,” Ian mused. “And was that a dildo in his back pocket or was he happy to see us?”
Victor grinned as he looked in his rearview mirror. “We can’t fault a man for liking a little bit of fashion and a splash of color.”
“I know.” Ian grinned, too. “But it sure wasn’t anything I expected to see at an animal smuggler’s hideaway. I wonder if he’s attending the conference at the lodge? I found this.” He eased the syringe from his pocket and displayed it low, in his palm, for Beard was still glaring at them.
“Good,” said Victor. “I can express mail it to my home office and have them test it. No doubt it’s coated with an animal tranquilizer from a tranq gun. I was able to swab some DNA while he was showing us his thong from a couple of items in the back of his truck. There was a cage too small to hold a Russian pig, and I grabbed a few downy feathers that could be ostrich. And his tires definitely matched the ones we found in Blanding.”
“Good,” agreed Ian. “That should be enough to issue a search warrant, right?”
“Right. But when we get back to the lodge, we can still follow up on those craigslist sales, see if any of them lead back to Trendsetting Todd.”
They were now safely trundling down the slushy lane. Ian felt satisfaction at their mission. He was puffed with pride that he had finally completed an undercover operation. He vaguely wished Rowan was there to share it with him, but he swiftly found he was glad he was with Victor Reznik instead. He felt Victor looking sideways at him.
“Symphony conductor?” said Victor. “Really?”
Two Sirs, with Love [McQueen Was My Valley 4] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Page 8