Carcass Trade

by Noreen Ayres

  Ahead, the mountains were hidden by a powdery haze. An off ramp took us beyond a cattle ranch whose choking odor lingered in the vent wells of the car. I followed the man-bike down a narrow paved road lined by token fences, new tumbleweed, and yellow-green wild carrot woozy from wind.

  As we rolled past the gateway to Monty’s unnamed farm, I saw, on a nub of gray phallic Cyclone post, a meadowlark in full midmorning gargle, her mouth open wide as scissors and her yellow breast thrust bold despite our passage.

  Monty’s farm was smaller than Campana Rancho but his pig domicile was one big square of shining white, blue shake-roofed swine city. The farmhouse itself seemed oddly disassociated from the animal building. A sand color, the house was nearly invisible under the only large tree around.

  Monty was off his bike and out of helmet by the time I got out of my car. I wondered if I’d have to fight off advances in the house, but I did need to use the bathroom. “Home sweet home,” he said, leading the way to the front of the house.

  Flanking the door were two dust-covered bushes dripping spiderwebs and old sheddings at the base, and behind a scalloped brick flower corral running along the house were several thin sun-dried, rolled newspapers. The screen door was propped partly open with a brown grocery sack of lemons, some with orange burn spots on them. He peered into the sack a moment and said, “Lemonade,” then unlocked the solid brown door and held it for me to go in. “The bathroom’s through there,” he said as he set the lemons on a table, “but I’m not responsible. Hands use this like a bus station when I’m gone.”

  “I’ll manage not to get cholera,” I said.

  “I gotta make a phone call,” he said, passing me and entering one of the two bedrooms, and the door to it open and showing all its office wares: a small computer station with printer paper spilled to the floor, a beige metal bookcase filled with binders and spiral-bound books, and a desk against the opposite wall. Office warehouse stuff. But at least no bad guys lurking behind doors as yet.

  The bathroom was not all that bad, and I was surprised to see pink glycerine soap and a woman’s deodorant and hand lotion on the windowsill. When I came out I drifted down to the other bedroom and stood in the doorway taking inventory. The double bed was made, covered with a woven spread with rodeo riders being bucked into violent curves. At the bottom lay a woman’s pair of tan shorts with a tiny red floral print. Next to the shorts was a tan camp shirt, and resting on the floor beneath were a woman’s pair of burnished leather sandals. Women’s clothes, but who knew, maybe Monty was like the biker transvestite at Blue Jay, Helen or Henry, take your pick. Joe had asked me that day, What do you suppose a transvestite wears who lives in Scotland?

  Whoever the clothes belonged to, I was ready to meet another player in Monty’s life. I hoped it was Miranda Robertson.

  The room smelled of scent like air freshener, and the two windows were open high enough to clear the top of a beer can in one and a ceramic piggy bank in another. I went to a mirrored closet door and slid it open with one finger. On the right were Monty-like clothes: shirts, jeans, two pairs of shoes, a few belts, and a cream-colored cowboy hat. At the opposite end, when I slid the other door open, were about six outfits clearly female, on wire hangers, and a nylon, hotly flowered robe I was sure I had seen in the window of Victoria’s Secret on special last month.

  I closed the door, hearing Monty’s voice muffled in the other room, and moved out to the hallway so I could hear more. Luckily, hanging on the walls were three framed antique citrus crate labels I could study while I tried to overhear. He was saying things like, “Good girl,” and “How much?” and “I told you not to do that.” And then he said, “I’ll pick you up later. No, later than that. Watch TV or something. Do a crossword.”

  Hearing the floor creak, I worried that the phone he was using was portable, so I moved on out of the hallway, glancing in his office as I went by, and there he was, sitting on the desk. He said, “See you, baby,” but not to me, and then I heard the phone hang up. I walked quickly to the back door near the kitchen, to stand there as though I were admiring the view of the pig yards and a slithery green pond out behind it, and far off, the long flat outline of an industrial building in front of the blue-milk mountains.

  “Well, so Monty has a girlfriend after all,” I said, and nodded toward the part of the house with the bedrooms.

  “Monty has friends of all color, stripe, and sex, and Monty loves them equal.” He stepped away, sneezed three times, and said, “Must be pollens don’t favor me though.” He sneezed again twice, drew out a handkerchief to mop his beard and reached for the handle of the refrigerator. “Have a cold one,” he said, handing me a can of Colt .45.

  We went out to the smallish structure, the larger one up on a hill having some work done on it, he said, and I saw pigs all over again. We passed the empty breeding compartments, then the birthing, weaning, growing, and finishing pens, for white hogs of the breed American Landrace. “I’m tryin’ for a lean, mean porcine, but you make ’em too lean, they get muscle-bound. They walk funny and they don’t mate good.” He made his legs stiff and walked like a toddler with a loaded diaper, then looked back at me and winked. “You wouldn’t want to sleep with somebody walks like that, wouldja?”

  “Don’t think so.”

  “See them little chubs at the bottom of their feet? Dewlaps, for balance when they’re matin’.” In one sty, a great pig gray as wet flour lay with its ears over its eyes while it napped. “Bodacious!” he called. “Wake up, you lazy swine!” But Bo only wimped his ear over so he could see who was making all the racket and continued to loaf there with his pink belly showing and his testicles resting like pale dumplings in soup.

  “That is one hunk of hog,” I said.

  “He is one happy, done-diddlin’ guy. A Manor Meishan, shipped him all the way from London, and I paid a bloody fortune for him. Hell, he gets too hot, I’m gonna bring a chair and set there and fan him myself. He’s a cross between a British and a Chinese strain that’ll give the kids more to eat than a dried-out, tasteless, knife-nickin’ chop on their dinner plates every Wednesday night. He’s my fertile, fast-growin’, ham-hock hero, this guy, ain’t ya, there, Bodacious?”

  “You’re really into this,” I said. “I think you like it better than the bar.”

  “Way better. Anyways, you have to have your money on a coupla runners or risk having nothin’ at all.”

  Bodacious snorted and threw his head up as if he smelled dinner cooking. The sound of a jet growled overhead, and Bodacious harumphed, clicked his teeth, then lay back down, giving his tail a flick. Against his crown, a blue ear tag gleamed flat as a poker chip.

  “Well, I’m impressed,” I said, and pushed off toward the exit way.

  He said, “Okay, let’s get you on the road. Some mean old man wants you to work tonight.” He put his hand on the top part of my hip and I stepped ahead of him and walked faster. We were a good fifty yards from the larger structure, and another fifty back to the house from this smaller building. Nearing the house, he said, “You need a loan, your wallet gone?”

  “No,” I answered, my knees a little shaky because he was standing too close. I heard a shuffle of footfall and looked around his shoulder to see a sight that set me back a minute, certain that something had been slipped into my coffee while I was admiring wire at Mr. Avalos’s rancho. Coming from around the corner was a small man buried in a drape of bloated snake, its tail dragging in the dust, and the forward length of it twined around the man’s right arm. The snake’s head was up, apparently appreciating the side-view scenery.

  “Yo, Monty,” the little guy said, and tripped a half step forward because the snake decided to roll its weight higher on his neck; then again, the stumble could have been from the man’s untied shoelaces.

  “Simon,” Monty said. “How you doin’?”

  “I came by to see if you had any piglets you could let go of.”

  “In your dreams,” Monty said.

  “Where�
�s Miranda? She around?” he said, looking at me with a little uncertainty. There it was—her name spoken in the living air. “You ain’t afraid of snakes, are you? This here is Dragonwick. Dragonwick, meet Miss . . . ?”

  “Brandy,” I said.

  Simon looked me up and down in an open, candid way. His pointed chin bore the barest efforts of a goatee, and his hair kinked in tan tufts several inches back from his forehead. His teeth crossed over one another. He looked at Monty and said, “She could be her sister,” nodding to me, “if she was taller.”

  “Whose sister?” I asked.

  “Miranda,” Simon answered. “I say something wrong?” Monty was moving toward the front of the house, allowing a view of the faded red pickup Simon must have arrived in under the jet noise. “We’re just on our way out, Simon,” Monty said. “Whyn’t you drop around some other time?”

  Simon reddened at the neck and ears. Both hands rested on the thick reptile as though he were steadying a brace of water buckets. “You might want to check out Water Canyon if you’re lookin’ for a nice place for a picnic,” he said, trying to recover. “Just don’t go plinking with your elephant gun while I’m out there.”

  “Wouldn’t think of it,” Monty said.

  “I’m headed on up to Slaughter Canyon. Slaughter Canyon, Water Canyon. Kinda sounds alike, don’t it? I’m gonna let Dragonwick go after a couple ground squirrels.” Simon lowered the tailgate, preparing to put the snake back in her wood-and-wire box, but she was rolling around his body like a frantic lover not wanting to say good-bye, so he just settled a moment against the truck until she calmed.

  “You put her down out there? How do you get her back?” I asked.

  “I stomp on the ground, she comes slithering. Works just like a dinner bell. They go by vibration, see. She feels it, thinks I’m a big gopher.” I shivered, and he said, “Really, she’s harmless. Now, if I’d been handling live bait for her, say, a rat, and she smells him on me, that’d be bad news. She can’t see for shit, wouldn’t know it was her old pal Simon.”

  “It’s not poisonous, then,” I said.

  “A poison snake will have a bull-nose and slanty eyes. Look here at this pretty girl,” he said, grabbing the head and holding it like a microphone for me to talk into. Stepping back, I bumped into Monty. “Just a harmless old round-eye. I don’t know why Switchie don’t like her. Guess she just spooks him.”

  “See you later, Simon,” Monty said.

  “Oh, hey, before I forget—I’m thinking o’ buyin’ a flattie, a forty-six with a really ripped tranny. You take a look at it for me?”

  “No problem,” Monty said.

  Simon rotated to the back of the truck, straining his stringy muscles to lift the boa to her box. He flipped the lock flap down and turned back, brushing hay off his belly. “Some guy died and left his knuckle to his old lady. She don’t know what to do with it. Young guy. He got that Kern River coxy, that bug’s been eatin’ the brains outta the farmers up in Central Valley? Man, it’s bad. You told me pigs is good for research, heart valves and all that? Better maybe donate a few hogs up there, make yourself a reputation. Maybe they’ll name a petrified turd after ya.”

  “I’ll think about it, pal,” Monty said, securing the tailgate for Simon and smacking him on the bare skin of his tattooed back.

  Simon kept jabbering as he moved toward the cab of the truck, saying to me, “Nice to meet you, there. You take care,” and then to Monty: “Bring your friend over if she wants. We can play some gin rummy,” and he tripped again on his dirty shoelace, fell backward and thunked both elbows into the side of the pickup door. “Damn,” he said. “Forget the gin rummy. I need that girl gimme dancing lessons.”

  27

  I was swimming in pigs. Pigs and pythons—or was it a boa Simon had? Whatever, I was leaving the whole odd nation behind, satisfied with the idea of wire cutters in a towel under my seat, and happy I wasn’t lying murdered in a shed.

  A sense of incompletion filled me because I meant to push Monty for more information on Miranda but didn’t, and blamed it on Simon’s snake. At least he mentioned Miranda’s name. That didn’t mean she was alive, but together with what I learned from Les about the implants, it assured me. If Miranda was alive, though, who was in the car? Could I tell Nathan with absolute surety it was not Miranda? Not yet.

  It was four o’clock by the time I could punch the recall button on the car phone to reach Joe, and I asked him to hang tight there at the lab, I was bringing along a surprise.

  Seen under the comparison microscope, a nick near the crotch of the wire cutters formed a shallow W. In addition, there were clear striae on the blade edges. These tiny furrows, along with the mirror-image W, would show on whatever wire the blades nipped in two, but it would take luck, a good eye, and precision camera work to capture it.

  I set the camera and snapped off a highly magnified picture of the tool, and then Joe handed me the brutal wire taken off public drunk Rollie Pierson, lately of Blue Jay Campground. “The chances individual characteristics will match up are slim,” Joe said.

  “I know,” I said. “But how many tries was it, five thousand, before Edison found the right filament?”

  “He also believed he could invent a machine that could talk to the dead, and chewed his food thirty-two times while reciting, ‘Nature will castigate what you don’t masticate.’”

  “You read too much,” I said.

  He gave me a squeeze around the shoulder. “I talked to Oskar Lombard over at the morgue. He had a hard time finding a next-of-kin, but he finally got the wife’s sister. She’s making the ID.”

  I said, “Hey, look at this.”

  Joe took my place at the eyepiece. “Distinct bite mark,” he said. Then he took the orange-handled wire cutters and held the blades under the glass. “Same bite on the cutters. Nice going.” He rose up, the elliptical eyepiece leaving a mark on his skin.

  “We still have to tie Switchie to the evidence,” I said. “So far we have nothing but me.”

  “Then let’s take good care of you,” Joe said.

  “I have to go out there tonight. To the Python.”

  He frowned. “How long?”

  “I don’t know. Three, four hours.”

  “I’ll pick you up.”

  “No.”

  “Let me pick you up.”

  “It’s better I keep to the pattern,” I said.

  “How do I know you’ll be safe?”

  “How do we know we won’t get zonked in a drive-by leaving here? We don’t.”

  “You’re too rational you know that?”

  “Just don’t say I’m hardheaded.”

  “Would I do that?”

  We were on a conference call to Captain Exner, telling him what we found under magnification. Joe said, “We’ve got a piece of recovered evidence with marks unique or identifiable to one source.”

  “No other case similarities, however,” the captain said. “Isn’t that right?”

  “Check.”

  “Then you are needlessly complicating two separate cases.” The captain’s voice came through as if he were talking from a ship’s hold. Someone else was in his office who would cough or say something every now and then, and maybe that’s why the captain was impatient.

  “But there are strong, apparently matching individual characteristics on both pieces,” Joe repeated.

  “Sanders,” the captain said, “if you have anything to show me, document it and send it over. Otherwise, I have lawyers who are going to be shooting me catch-cop questions in about fifteen minutes. I gotta go. Smokey?” he said.

  “Yes?”

  “Do I understand you went out to that ranch without backup?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “No backup.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Who’s your supervisor over there?”

  “Stu Hollings. Sir? Can I—?”

  “Give me a written report on it.”

  “Sir, is a plainclothes as
signed to me yet?”

  There was a pause on Captain Exner’s end. Joe, sitting nearer to the phone because we were using his office, leaned closer and said, “Smokey determined the risk was minimal, Captain. Beyond that, she couldn’t raise anybody when the initial contact with Blackman was made. She tried. She’s a very cautious—”

  “I’ll be getting back to you,” he said, “eighteen hundred or so.” Six P.M. A few of us use military time but most don’t except on reports.

  When he hung up, I turned to Joe and said, “At least he interrupts you too. What an asshole. I’m not staying here till six o’clock.”

  “Is that any way to speak of a superior?”

  “You’re right. He’s a stupid asshole.”

  “Grapevine has it one of his guys is charged with a two-eighty-eight on a female DUI.”

  “Oh no.”

  “Forced oral copulation under color of authority. Another cop squirreled off on him. Pressure’s tough on friendships.”

  “What do you say to a cup of coffee?”

  We walked down to the room where the coffee maker is. Somebody put up a new sign on the bulletin board: THERE’S NO RIGHT WAY TO DO A WRONG THING.

  When I make phone calls, I make a rack of them. I face phone communication the way I do housework; push hard and get it over with. First, Doug Forster, to see if he’d heard anything I hadn’t on the Carbon Canyon case. He wasn’t there. Then my brother; but I wasn’t ready. I hung up after one ring.

  I tried Ray Vega, range rider in his hot Mustang patrol car. I couldn’t raise him. Hoped he was in bed with Francine or in a shower soaping some pretty girl down.

  I phoned the coroner’s tech, Oskar Lombard, who, I learned, was actually a reserve deputy assigned to the coroner. Reserve personnel take all the training of a regular sworn officer, but they don’t get paid. Some put in more hours for free than they give at their real jobs, a sense for justice or an urge for excitement deep in their veins. I asked him to check on Meyer Singer, the molasses-slow odontologist putting teeth together on the burn case. Oskar said all the recovered teeth were back in the jaw, affixed with nondestructive putty. “I saw them myself,” he said.