by S. J. Rozan
Moving faster, staying in the lengthening shadows, he kept to his course.
West.
Toward the African Plains.
* * *
“We all decide who wins,” Smithfield said.
Everyone nodded. It was the only fair way.
Wilson said, “We get together afterwards and vote.”
More nods.
“And fill each other in.” Smithfield’s lips turned upward. “Every last detail.”
Their favorite part from the beginning.
“We decide where yet?” Kushner asked.
“Great Western Gun Show,” Akeley said.
“Salt Lake City, that is?” Kushner asked.
Akeley nodded.
“Listen, though,” Wilson said. “If we can’t, like, agree, who gets the tie-breaking vote?”
Everyone looked at him, but no one spoke. They all knew the answer to that one.
There.
The prey. As unaware, as self-deluding as the monkey had been, and the bear. Another degraded animal that had convinced itself it was wild, free, unfettered.
The hunter felt himself relax. He was in time.
Just.
It was standing half-hidden behind a screen of bare forsythia. Leaning forward, head hunched low, fierce dark eyes focused on something the hunter couldn’t see. Then, almost imperceptibly, it shifted its weight, muscles tensing as it assumed a predator’s classic pre-attack posture.
Time to put an end to this.
Moving as fast and silently as a shadow, the hunter came up behind it. “Don’t do that,” he said.
His prey jumped, swung its head around, and stared at him.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” it asked.
They drew lots. Each got a different zoo, a different part of the country. Minnesota, Miami, San Diego, Washington, the Bronx. The targets: the zoos’ biggest and fiercest animals, or their rarest, or their most difficult to approach.
“I think they’ve got the whole Big Five at my zoo,” said Crede, who’d drawn San Diego.
“Yeah, but I’ve got pandas,” said Smithfield, who was headed to Washington.
Only Wilson seemed to have some reservations, now that their plan was becoming a reality. “Yeah, but—” he said. “I mean, aren’t all these things going to be, like, too easy to kill?”
His words drawing scornful looks from the rest, as if they’d all long since considered that possibility, and discarded it.
Akeley said, “Sure. But who said it was about the kill?”
“Well—” Wilson fumbled for words. “Then…then what is it about?”
Akeley stared at him. “It’s about the hunt,” he said. “The plan. The approach. The wait. The moment—the one moment. And the aftermath.”
Just like it used to be.
He looked into Kushner’s sickly yellow eyes.
The neurosurgeon. Back in the Executive Suite he’d worn some fancy cologne, but now he smelled like powder and heated steel and sweat.
And something more. Something…undone. Unfulfilled.
The hunter let his gaze follow the direction that Kushner had been pointing his Browning autoloader. There, walking along the path that bordered the gray and barren African Plains—nothing like the golden expanse of the real thing—were the surgeon’s final targets.
The little blond girl and her mother. Heading obliviously toward the Asia Gate, walking fast in the gathering darkness, but not faster than a .338 cartridge could fly.
Kushner looked down at the girl, then back at Akeley. The lust for the kill was still strong in him.
“Please,” he said. “Please…let me finish.”
Kushner hesitated in the hallway outside the suite as the others took the elevator down to the exhibition floor. Then he stepped back inside the room. His deeply tanned face was underlain by a reddish flush.
“I have a question,” he said. Akeley waited.
“The kills—” The words were cautious, but the surgeon’s eyes gleamed.
Akeley guessed what was coming next. “What about them?”
“Do they have to be—” A deep breath. The gleam brighter. “To be—animals?”
Yes: what he’d expected.
The word had gotten around about Kushner over the years. How he’d accidentally shot and killed a porter on safari in Namibia, and then another in northern Kenya. Garbled rumors of yet another death, maybe in the Peruvian Amazon, maybe in Thailand.
Or maybe both. The world was full of potential victims, places where a rich American could get away with murder.
“Well,” Akeley said, “aren’t we all animals?”
Kushner blinked, then grinned. His lips were wet. “And will it—will it help me win?”
The hunter merely shrugged.
Knowing that the surgeon would take that as a yes.
“What else did you kill?”
The girl and her mother had moved out of sight.
“What?”
The hunter thought about the time he’d lost in the World of Darkness. “I saw the bear and the tamarin. What else?”
“Snow leopard. Bengal tiger.” Kushner squared his shoulders. “I don’t understand,” he said. “You aren’t supposed to be here. You aren’t supposed to be anywhere. This is my zoo. You’re just the money man.”
“Oh?” The hunter unzipped his bag. “And who do you think I am?”
“Akeley—” the neurosurgeon said, then stopped.
The hunter reached into his duffel for the first time all day. “Do you even know who Carl Akeley was?” he asked.
Kushner, looking at the bag, gave a little shake of his head.
“A hundred years ago, a little less, Carl Akeley was one of the world’s great sportsmen. He loved to shoot.”
Out of the duffel came his Winchester. His elephant gun. There was already a .458 Magnum in its chamber.
“And then he saw that the hunt was becoming a farce, a slaughter. And so he gave it up.”
The hunter hefted the rifle in his hands. It was a good old gun. Like him, it was almost ready to retire, but he thought they both had one more shot in them.
“Akeley saw the day coming when the great herds would be nearly all gone, and the honorable hunters of past years would be replaced by amateurs, men who cared only for the kill, not for the contest. So he decided to fight to save what was left.”
The surgeon, his tan turned the yellow of rotting cheese, was staring at the gun. He didn’t appear to be listening.
The hunter sighed. It was useless trying to explain. He raised the gun to his shoulder.
The surgeon followed the movement with red-rimmed eyes. “What about the others?”
The hunter permitted himself a little smile. “The others,” he said, “are behind bars.”
The surgeon put his hand to his mouth. His gun bag lay forgotten at his feet. “And me?” he asked.
“You I wanted for myself.”
The hunter wrapped his finger around the cold steel of the trigger. With a sudden, smooth movement, he swiveled so the rifle was aimed directly at the surgeon’s head.
“Know what?” he said. “I think you should run.”
They’d all gone at last, taking their Scotch, their memories, and their anticipation with them.
The hunter sighed. His legs ached as he walked over to the refrigerator and took out a Tusker. Not a great lager, he had to admit, but still. It reminded him of the smell of the savanna, the safari of white clouds marching across the enormous Kenyan sky, the nasal bleats of the migrating wildebeest herds, and, further off, the grunting cough of a lion proclaiming its territory.
All a vanished world in a bottle of beer.
He sat down, unsnapped his cell phone from its clip on his belt, and did what he’d always done at the end of a long day’s hunt, just before he pulled the trigger.
He checked to make sure his escape route was rock-solid.
Kushner was shivering uncontrollably.
How cold is
it?
“Run where?” he said.
“Wherever you like.” The hunter leaned forward, touching the barrel of the Winchester gently against the surgeon’s quivering temple. “But start now.”
With a sick, despairing look, Kushner turned and stumbled away. He nearly tripped, then regained his footing and ran, legs pumping, arms flailing, northward up the path. The hunter could hear him gasping out the word “Help” again and again as he ran, but he had no air in his lungs to shout, and anyway, there was no one around to hear him. The zoo was closed.
Fifty yards away he got, a hundred, before he came to a break in the wall of bushes. There he hesitated, looking back over his shoulder, as if he might spot Akeley in the gloom. As if there was any chance of ever seeing the hunter, if the hunter didn’t want to be seen.
For a moment more Kushner jittered on his feet. Then he reached a decision and turned, intending to go cross-country toward the road that bordered the zoo.
Akeley, having known he’d do that, waited.
For three seconds, four, the surgeon was out of sight. Then he reappeared in a clearing, a tiny gap where a vine-ridden maple tree had come down in a storm. He paused, looking around, listening for any signs of pursuit. But it was nearly dark now, and his pulse was pounding, so his eyes and ears told him nothing.
That’s how it usually went. The wildebeest about to be swatted to the ground by the lion, the Thomson’s gazelle the moment before it faces the cheetah’s rush. Victims so rarely recognize mortal danger until they feel its jaws around their throats.
Kushner straightened and took the first of four steps—just four—that would have carried him to the road and safety. At that moment, when escape suddenly seemed so close, so possible, the hunter’s index finger tightened.
The Winchester kicked hard against his shoulder. But he was used to it, and knew how to keep his head still, his eyes focused.
So he got to watch the .458 perform its own brand of surgery on the neurosurgeon’s brain.
The doors of the 5 train rattled open before him. He stepped into the nearly empty car, beginning the first leg of a journey that would land him in Panama late that night. There he would collect the money the Big Five had planned to dole out to the “winner” of the zoo slaughter.
And after Panama, where?
Africa, of course. Poor, besieged Africa, just a shadow of what it had once been, but still the only real place on earth. Sitting in this capsule of plastic and steel, he gazed at the continent’s limitless skies, tasted the wind-borne dust sweeping across its vast savannas.
The train’s doors half shut, then squealed and opened again. Two people entered.
The little blond girl and her mother.
They sat down opposite him. The woman, looking cold and worn, closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the plastic seat. For a minute or so, the girl played with a stuffed monkey on her lap. Then, as if sensing the hunter’s presence, she lifted her head and looked directly at him.
Her eyes widened and spots of color rose to her cheeks. He saw her lips move. You, she said silently.
He gave a little nod.
The girl stared, as if willing him not to disappear once more. Then she dug her elbow into her mother’s side.
“Honey!” The woman didn’t move. “Let me rest.”
“But Mom,” the girl insisted, “it’s him! The man from the zoo.”
The woman sat up. Now her eyes were open.
“See?”
The woman saw. The corners of her mouth turned down.
Having savored her moment of vindication, the girl went back to her toy. But her mother scowled at the hunter all the way to East 86th Street, as if she knew—just knew—that he’d been stalking them all afternoon, and even now was planning to leap across the aisle and finish the job.
PART V
ALL SHOOK UP
ERNIE K.’S GELDING
BY ED DEE
Van Cortlandt Park
All three of us turned sixteen halfway through the first summer of JFK’s presidency, when all things seemed possible. Lefty Trainor, Brendan O’Leary, and I had spent that summer caddying, drinking beer, and unsuccessfully trying to lure BICs, otherwise known as Bronx Irish Catholic girls, into Van Cortlandt Park. Okay, so maybe not all things seemed possible.
It was 9 p.m. on a hot Friday night in August and we were in our usual spot on the curb outside the White Castle under the el station at Broadway and 242nd Street. We were checking out the skirts and wolfing down belly bombs. Local street wisdom had it that the little cheeseburgers were the best way to soak up the quarts of Rupert Knickerbocker beer we’d imbibed across the street, in the park. Three quarts of warm beer for $1.19 on a park bench had loosened our vocal chords for a doo-wop session under a streetlight we’d smashed to make it harder for the cops to zero in on us. Cops didn’t like doo-wop or guys our age. But in the dark and without the element of surprise, they were no match for us in Vanny. As my mother said, “You ran through that park like a bunch of savages.”
“Here comes God’s gift to women,” Lefty said.
“Kronek or the horse?” I said.
Patrolman Ernie Kronek was the worst human being in the Bronx. Kronek was a NYPD mounted cop assigned to patrol the 1,100 acres of Van Cortlandt Park. He’d made it his personal mission to torture us. If he’d caught us in the park drinking beer and singing he would have charged at us, swinging his nightstick like he was the King of England on his polo pony. He loved to whack us, then smash the beer. We all had bruises from Ernie K. at one time or another. He truly hated us, but he loved the girls. Every night, about this time, he’d ride across the parade ground to the southwest corner of the park. He’d sit there atop his horse and stare at the girls coming down the steps of the el station. Treating them to a gaze at his manly physique. Asshole. Everybody knew it. Even the other cops.
On the opposite side of Broadway, the local men were gathering in Hagan’s Bar to wait for the early edition of tomorrow’s Daily News. It was a Bronx ritual. Every night around this time they’d leave their apartments and walk to Hagan’s to have a cold brew and listen for the bundles to be tossed from the truck. Then they’d have one more while Irv from the candy store cut the bindings and stacked the papers on the outside racks. On Saturday nights the three of us helped Irv put the Sunday paper together. We lugged the early edition off the sidewalk and stuffed each paper with the Sunday magazine, the comics, the sale ads, and the classifleds, which had come earlier in the week. Our hands and faces would be black with printer’s ink, but we had two bucks each burning holes in our pockets. Irv always tossed in a free paper, usually a torn one, but we only read the sports section on the back five pages. Between Irv’s deuce and the money we made caddying at Van Cortlandt, the nation’s oldest public golf course, we didn’t need anyone’s free newspaper.
“It’s gotta be the horse,” Lefty Trainor said, as a tall redhead in pale blue shorts giggled and pet the big Tennessee Walker. The horse was named Con Ed for the electric company who donated him. Ernie K. called him “Connie,” but it wasn’t a female. Poor Connie had the worst of it, having to lug Ernie K.’s fat ass around. We held no grudge against the horse, who after all was just an innocent animal. The cop was another matter; we watched in disgust as he flashed his Ipana smile down on the thirtyish redhead, his square jaw jutting outward.
“Who does the woman remind you of?” Lefty said.
“Maureen O’Hara,” I said.
“No, c’mon,” Lefty said. “B.O., who do you think she looks like? Seriously.”
We’d called Brendan O’Leary “B.O.” since kindergarten. B.O. was having a lousy summer, ever since he got dumped by his girlfriend. Lefty and I had been going through every joke known to man and Milton Berle, trying to cheer him up. He’d been a real sad sack, especially when the beer buzz began to wear off. Getting him back to his happy old self was the main reason we started our vendetta against Ernie K. The nuns had taught us that the pursuit of a wor
thy goal can help take your mind off your own problems.
“Marilyn Monroe,” B.O. said, but Marilyn was a blonde. He wasn’t even trying. He did, however, smile and wave to his dad, as he pushed through Hagan’s door. B.O.’s dad was a detective in Bronx Homicide; that’s how we knew the other cops considered Ernie Kronek an asshole. As every Friday night, my dad was already in Hagan’s, in his corner near the window.
“I got a buck says he bags this one,” Lefty said. “She looks half shit-faced to me.”
I’d never bet against Ernie K.; his act was a smooth one. He had a nose for a certain type of woman. The type my father called “free spirits” and my mother called “hoors.” He’d quietly offer these girls a special ride. It was against the police department’s rules, but he’d make an exception in their case, winking as if they were coconspirators in some rebellious adventure. He had a soft spot for beautiful women, he’d say. Then he’d have them walk into the park, to a bench behind the trees, near the old stone house, the family mansion, now a museum. Ernie would wait a few minutes, looking around to see if anybody was watching him, then slowly amble toward the meeting spot. He’d have the woman stand on a bench, then he’d pull her up onto poor Connie, letting the woman feel his powerful arms. He had a whole routine; a slow romantic tour of the park’s historical highlights, all the while moving deeper into the dark recesses of the park, to his “special spot.” We had Ernie K.’s act down pat.
The screech of metal on metal drowned out conversation as the Broadway train clattered to a stop above us. Red sparks floated in the night air. With the exception of creeps like Ernie Kronek and a few others, this was the best neighborhood in the city. We had everything, because 242nd and Broadway was the end of the line, the last subway stop in the Bronx. The place was always crowded, day and night. We had five bars, two candy stores, and Manhattan College just up the hill. Commuters going to or returning from school or work or partying in Midtown got off and caught a bus for Riverdale or Yonkers. Husbands, wives, or mothers, whatever, parked on the Van Cortlandt side of Broadway and waited for their loved ones. Guys bought flowers, others stopped in one of the bars for a quick pop before going home to the bride. An endless supply of skirts floated down from the subway platform above. But most of all, that park across the street. Thank you, Van Cortlandt family, for the biggest backyard in the universe.