What should I wear? Khaki washed me out, so I chose a linen shirt in rose that tied at the waist, a white denim miniskirt and some low (i.e. three-inch) nude Sofft heels, since I’d be hiking. After one look at my calves in the mirror, I replaced them with Stuart Weitzman stilettos.
Then I tried to figure out what to do with Barry, the chameleon. I didn’t want the maids to sell him on the black market. He was currently lurching on top of the desk chair. I still had some lettuce, so I put it on the edge of my carry-on in hopes he’d go for it and fall in. No such luck. He just shot his tongue out and took it right off the zipper. I edged the bag closer, until it was right under him. Was this a bad fall for a lizard? It was only five inches. Just as he got to the edge of the chair, I scooped the bag down and kind of batted him in. He landed on top of my taupe bra and immediately started to disappear.
I realized how easy it was going to be to lose a creature who specialized in blending into his surroundings, so, just to be safe, I wound a fuchsia scrunchie around the bottom of his tail. I left him more lettuce, hoping it didn’t have e-coli. After all, he was now my plus one. I put the carry-on on the top shelf of the closet, put my Do Not Disturb sign on the door, and left the TV on.
I picked up my Balenciaga and headed down the hall, Bobby’s last known abode in my hand. It was always a good idea to establish a relationship with the concierge, so I handed the address to him, along with a generous tip.
“Cyd Redondo, Redondo Travel,” I said and asked what price I should negotiate for the fare. He looked at the address, frowned, and excused himself. Five minutes later, he’d personally arranged for a taxi and escorted me outside. There was a late model Mercedes by the curb, which I hoped was my ride, but instead, he handed me into a small white sedan with a green stripe, spitting white smoke out the tailpipe. It probably had a coolant leak.
I gave the cabbie the address on Dosi Street in the Mbezi Beach area—apparently a haven for ex-pats. We’d been driving about five minutes on the crowded Morogoro Road when the cabbie turned down an alley and slammed to a stop.
“Is someone after you, Miss?” he asked.
“Of course not.” I saw the Mercedes pass the alley. “Crap. Any chance we can lose them? There’s another ten U.S. if you do.”
“Perhaps one hundred?”
“Thirty. It’s all I have in cash,” I lied.
He shrugged and made a U-turn worthy of Vin Diesel. We flew down a series of dusty, rutted streets and alleys until we reached a neighborhood of tiny wooden bungalows and finally arrived at the address on Dosi Street. It was hard to see the house behind the tangerine and turquoise blankets hung on the laundry line that stretched across the yard. Instead of stopping at the curb, the cabbie tore under the blankets and into a hidden garage.
“What are you doing?”
“Getting you to your destination safely,” he said, jumping out and closing the garage door. That was when I saw the gun.
Chapter Twenty
“You’ve got to be kidding,” I said.
“They offered me fifty.”
Damn. Hoisted by my own thriftiness. “Who’s they? Is it too late to renegotiate?”
“Come on, Miss, inside,” he gestured with the gun. It looked like a Sig Sauer combat revolver, which was not great for me; according to Eddie they rarely misfired. After he jerked me out of the cab, the cabbie shoved the gun into the small of my back, then rammed a greasy makeshift blindfold down over my eyes as he pushed me toward the house. I felt my eyelashes unhinge. He opened a door and pushed me forward. The place smelled like the Elephant House at the zoo, times a hundred.
“I’ll wait out here.”
“Inside.”
I calculated the cabbie’s height and weight and figured he was about my brousin Jimmy’s size: five-nine. I just needed a solid surface to hold onto and him directly behind me. When I touched what felt like a counter, I put both hands down and waited until I could feel his breath on my neck and the gun pointed down, bumping my hip.
I leaned forward and kicked my stiletto heel backwards and up, directly into his balls.
I’d perfected the one leg kick years ago when Sal and Jimmy used to sneak up behind me on a daily basis. It was one of the few times when my shortness was an advantage. As expected, the cabbie didn’t have balls of steel. Like most men, his seemed to be made of something resembling chicken livers. He went down and I swung wide, knocking him out with the full force of my Balenciaga. Just when I jerked the blindfold off so I could grab the gun, I heard the hiss.
A cobra swayed back and forth on the counter, five feet from my head. I tried to concentrate on him and block out the dozens of cages of other snakes and squirmy reptiles that filled the room. What was I, a reptile magnet? This was no time to faint, as Roger wasn’t here to catch me.
I reminded myself that I had a snakebite kit, but the last thing in the world I wanted to do was sit on a filthy kitchen floor in my white miniskirt and suck poison out of myself. Plus, it looked like my head was the snake’s most likely target and I defy pretty much anybody to suck venom out of their own head. If we could do that, there’d be no therapists.
I kept as still as I could. I had no idea how far the thing could reach, but after the chameleon, I wasn’t taking any chances. I figured it could strike faster than I could aim the gun, if it were loaded. I needed some kind of shield. My Balenciaga was my only option—high and wide enough to cover my head and neck and the very top of my cleavage—but I loved this bag. Still, Bay Ridge Leather was great with stains. Surely cobra venom couldn’t be worse than barbecue sauce? I tried to calculate where the snake’s direct strike might go and said, “Please don’t let me die.” Then I gently cocked the revolver, threw my purse up in front of my face, jammed my eyes closed and pulled the trigger.
Everything got quiet. Then something slimy hit my arm. The screaming reflex forced my eyes open. The snake had made a dive for my bag and apparently the bullet caught it in mid-air. Half of it was hanging by its fangs from the thick red leather of my purse and half of it was twitching on the floor by the cabbie’s head.
I eased the purse down and watched to see whether the head, curved like some satanic hood ornament, was still alive. Something thick dripped down the purse, turning the dark red leather black. Finally, the head stopped twitching. Now, how to get the snake’s head and fangs off with the minimum damage to the bag?
I had mini travel tweezers, but they wouldn’t handle the weight and I really didn’t want to drop the bloody end of the snake on my new skirt. Breathing through my mouth, I surveyed the area, keeping the gun handy. Across the room, a burlap sack was wriggling. I didn’t consider burlap secure. I needed to get out of here. I checked that the cabbie was still breathing, took his keys, then secured him with plastic tie handcuffs courtesy of the 68th Precinct.
“Who doesn’t have tongs?” I opened drawer after drawer: nothing but matchbooks, dried-up ketchup packets, takeout chopsticks, and sporks.
I opened the fridge just in case, only to find it filled top to bottom with frozen pink/white mice, squished together in zip-locks like mutant jumbo shrimp. In the end, I decided on the chopsticks. Eddie had taught me how to use them when I was six. Eight thousand General Tsao Chickens later, I wasn’t bad.
Remembering to hold the bottom chopstick like a pencil and pretending this reptilian hunk of poison was just a slippery dumpling, I closed the wooden ends around its hood and lifted carefully, up and back, to disengage the fangs. At that moment, I heard the solid thunk of a car door closing. Two more seconds, I thought. I had just pulled the fangs free, when a door opened in the front of the house. By the time I stood up, there was a tall man with a military haircut and twice-broken nose, heading right for me. If he had a gun, it wasn’t out.
When he was about three feet away, I flung the snake head at his face and scrambled for the back door, out and into the garage, shoving the gun i
nto my bag. I had just gotten to the cab when the door rolled up, revealing two more guys: one short and ropey with bow legs and slicked-back hair, and the other bald, with a gut that poked through his suit like a boil. They both pulled guns. This was my vacation, damn it, where was my frosty drink?
The man inside yelled with a heavy South African accent, “Get that bitch in here, she butchered the bloody King cobra.”
I was considering the chances of reaching my gun when the guys shoved me through the door. The tall man looked down at the top half of the cobra, then at the cabbie.
“Well, you’re not getting paid,” he said to the prone figure, then turned to me. “You idiot. Don’t you know how much this snake was worth?”
“How much?”
“A hundred grand at least. Bunty sent you a price list.”
Who was Bunty? And who did they think I was? “Bullshit. Besides it was him or me,” I said.
“What was it going to do—bump you to death? Its mouth was stitched shut.”
“The hell it was.”
The man turned the snake head over, revealing the fangs. “Dammit, Moe” he said, turning to the fat man. “You were supposed to do this last night. You know one that size can kill a man in three minutes.”
“Exactly my point.”
“Shut up. That’s still no excuse for killing a perfectly good product. You should know better. And what in the fuckity universe was it doing loose?” Fuckity universe? “You know we’re supposed to ship these out today. Did you do the other ones?” Moe looked down.
“He had a hot date, Henrik,” the other guy said. “Stewardess.”
It was clear the tall guy, Henrik, was in charge. He was the one I had to take out.
He turned to the ropey guy. “You’re supposed to keep an eye on him, Jock. Jesus. Bunty is going to go berserk. You know what happens when the shipment is light.” Moe reached protectively toward his privates. “What a waste,” Henrik said, looking down at Moe’s crotch, then punching him in the face.
“Maybe we can sew it back together and they’ll just think it died on route. We lose most of them anyway.” Jock the short, ropey one said.
“Well, where are the other five?”
Moe and Jock looked across the room toward the wriggling burlap sack. Yikes.
“You guys are fuckity unemployable. Let me guess, you didn’t duct-tape those dart frog containers either, did you?” They were still looking at the floor. Henrik scowled at me. “And you. What kind of slag throws a snake head at a complete stranger?”
“The kind of slag who’s been kidnapped and attacked by an unstitched fuckity cobra.” I tried to open the outside pouch of my purse without their noticing. “Who are you, anyway, and why am I here?”
“Like you don’t know. If you had left that luggage alone like you were supposed to, we wouldn’t have had to arrange this meeting. You should know better than to bypass the middle man. Where’s the shipment now?”
While he was distracted, I slipped my hand in my bag and almost had a hold on the two things I needed. If I could distract them, my plan might work. I looked down and pointed. “Ahhhh! Cobra!”
As Henrik turned, I shot him, winging his arm. When Jock and Moe tried to grab me, I did a jujitsu turn, maced both of them in the face, then bolted for the door.
Chapter Twenty-one
I heard them yelling as I jumped in the cab and started it up. Luckily, the garage door was still open. I reversed too hard, swung into some trash bins, then headed back out the alley and hoped for the best. The first order of business was to get as far away from this house as possible.
Once I was a few blocks away I ducked down a tiny alley and hid under some hanging laundry. I kept my eye on the rearview mirror. My heart stopped when I saw the Mercedes fly by. I waited for them to back up. The alley was a dead end. Who were those guys? Smugglers, obviously, but why did they think I would know about cobra prices? And who was this Bunty character? Had the cabbie actually taken me to Bobby’s old address or somewhere else? Could they be the ones sending reptiles to Mrs. Barsky? I’d have to check a map. Later.
Finally, I inched the cab out. No sign of the Mercedes. I surveyed the area. The St. Jerome Church was on my right, so I was heading north. If I could keep the steeple on my right, I was pretty sure I could remember how to get to the embassy. Clearly the thugs thought I still had their animals and they weren’t going to let that go. I started the car and concentrated on driving, breathing easier once I saw the flame trees and the flapping stars and stripes. I slowed well away from the entrance and waved. Happily, the guards recognized me and didn’t shoot. Maybe my luck was improving.
The completely uncharming Under Under Secretary Brett Winbourne, clad in slightly damp Brooks Brothers, asked me what my visit was regarding. I said I preferred to tell the Ambassador Belk in person. While I waited, I tried Akida and wondered why he wasn’t answering. I paced for awhile. Finally, Winbourne returned and took me upstairs, entering the ambassador’s office behind me.
Belk rose from his desk and kissed my hand, gesturing to a massive couch. Maybe men in Tanzania measured their penises with couches instead of cars. He was wearing another pristine shirt, this time with a deep lavender tie and silver tie clip. He smelled of Aqua di Parma with a tiny hint of Dr. Scholl’s anti-fungal foot powder.
“Miss Redondo, what a pleasure. No more clients in jail, I hope.”
“No, this concerns a different matter, Ambassador.”
“Please, call me Harrison. What can we do for you?”
“I just wanted to inform the embassy that I was abducted at gunpoint and threatened with venomous reptiles earlier today.” I took him through everything that had happened in the cab and in the house, trying to keep the Andersons out of it. Of course, without them, it didn’t make any sense.
“Miss Redondo. Cyd. You’re among friends. It’s really best if you tell me everything. Your comments will remain in complete confidence.”
“Okay. Someone put animals in the Andersons’ luggage—I guess to smuggle them to the U.S. I think maybe the men were after the animals.”
“I see. Where are these animals now?”
“Roger has them. He’s supposed to turn them into the Wildlife Service.”
“Do you think you could identify any of these men if you saw them again?”
“Absolutely.”
“Good. It sounds like a horrible ordeal. Would you excuse us for just for a moment?”
“Of course.”
While Belk and his underling were gone, I poked around his office. I mean, why else did he leave me alone? I’d just sat back down when they returned.
“Cyd, we’d like to offer you a room here until this is sorted out. I don’t mean to alarm you, but it seems ill-advised for you to return to the hotel.”
“But I need my carry-on. I’m leaving on safari this afternoon.”
“I will send someone for your bag.” Belk gave the Winbourne my room number. Shit, I thought. Barry. The chameleon.
“My carry-on bag is extremely fragile. Please ask them to be careful with it.”
“Of course. I’ve also had the cab returned.” After the Under Under Secretary had left, Belk sat down beside me again, closer this time. “We’re having a gala this evening and I’d love for you to come as my guest. We can fly you to the reserve in the morning.”
A gala sounded pretty great after the day I’d had. And it would serve Roger right if I went on a date with his arch rival.
“That would be lovely. Thank you.”
“Excellent. We have a collection of formal wear if you don’t have anything with you.”
“Oh, I have something with me.”
Belk handed me over to a barrel-sized man in a sports coat, who took me down a series of complex hallways before he unlocked a large, paneled door into a sunny, beautifully appointed ro
om, complete with romantic mosquito net and an adjoining turquoise-tiled bathroom with a jacuzzi. My tax dollars at work.
“Did Hillary Clinton ever use this room?” I asked.
“State secret,” he said and winked. “Perhaps you could meet the ambassador for a cocktail at six? Your luggage will be here within the hour.”
“Thank you.” Wow. I was going to sleep in Hillary Clinton’s bed. Alone. I pushed the thought of Roger out of my head and explored the room. The French doors looked out on the courtyard, where caterers were preparing for the party.
What I wanted now was a bath. I ran the jacuzzi, careful not to let any of the water splash into my mouth. Once I was clean and lotioned up, I pulled the black sequined mini dress out of the side pocket of my purse. Debbie said that I was crazy to carry it around “just in case,” but yet again, I had proved her wrong. The dress was my favorite combination of glamorous and slutty: it hit me about a third of the way up my thigh, had a high boat-neck front and was cut down to what Roger had called my “coccygeal vertebra” in the back. I put on some fresh eyelashes and was just turning on my battery-operated curling iron, when I heard a knock.
I opened the door. My carry-on sat on the plush, moss-colored carpet. I brought it inside, closed the shutters, and unzipped the top. There was the plastic bag and a shred of lettuce, but no Barry. I emptied it completely. He wasn’t there. The thugs must have gotten to my room before the courier did. I don’t know why this made me so sad. After all, if the reptile guys had him, they wouldn’t be after me anymore. Still, I wouldn’t wish those guys on anyone, even a lizard. I had to tell Belk right away.
Having learned not to let any bags out of my sight, I left with my Balenciaga and was instantly lost. I saw a door ajar and looked in, hoping for directions. The room was empty, save for a large desk and a dolly filled with diplomatic bags and pouches of various sizes and shapes, but all made of dark green vinyl with “Property of the United States of America: Tanzanian Embassy” stamped on their sides with block numbers. A stack of waybills sat on the desk beside them reading BA flight 1756 with a set of documents that looked just like the ones sent to Mrs. Barsky: CITES label, Latin names, “Captive Bred” stamps, the works.
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