“Why don’t the both of you leave that poor girl alone?” demanded Elias, and pointed an accusatory finger at Roland. “You won the Heisman Trophy!” he exclaimed. “You should be coaching the next winner, instead of playing hatchet man for some rich sonofagun! Why are you wasting your precious gift?”
Roland flinched. “Why don’t I break you in half?” he asked.
“You try it!” shouted Wizzie. She launched herself at Roland, who looked down at her as if she were an especially irritating housefly; Gunderman grasped her around the waist and pulled her backward, her arms and legs still flailing.
“Celia!” shouted Elias. “Call the poli…where’d she go?”
Silence descended as everyone stared at the open window. In the distance Celia raced across a field toward the woods, her blonde hair streaming behind her.
She’s so beautiful, thought Gunderman, then checked himself for his unprofessionalism.
“Now look what you’ve done!” said Wizzie disgustedly, pulling away from Gunderman and glaring up at the three men. “I hope you’re all happy!”
• • •
Anna Lee Lassiter leaned against the counter in the clinic, wiped her hands on her faded jeans, and regarded her husband of twelve years.
As usual she was damp and disheveled, her clothing splattered with various wildlife-generated body fluids, her dark hair bursting from beneath its bandana. Paul, as always, looked like he’d just stepped out of a menswear ad. Wearing a spotless T-shirt emblazoned “Blue Moon Wildlife Center, Allentown, Kentucky,” he glanced up from the exam table, gave her a blinding smile, then continued syringing worming medicine down the throat of a groundhog.
Anna Lee checked her phone, something she tried to avoid whenever possible. “What the Sam Hill!” she said.
“What is it?” asked Paul.
“Luna’s on her way with the eagle, and last night somebody took a shot at her husband!”
“No!” said Paul. “Was it Warren?”
“Don’t know,” said Anna Lee. “But things are heatin’ up out there. All kinds of law enforcement are makin’ unscheduled visits.”
“This could be problematic. What are the laws in Kentucky when it comes to harborin’ a fugitive?”
“I don’t know and I don’t care, neither,” snorted Anna Lee. “Typical political bullcrap! Coddle the billionaire, and make a criminal out of a girl just tryin’ to do the right thing by our national symbol! Bless her heart!”
“I don’t know how much coddlin’ that billionaire’s gettin’ if somebody just shot at him. We still got room in the fourth flight?”
“Yep. He can go in with the three other balds for camouflage. We’re gonna git that girl and that bird to Hélène’s, and not back to some damned goober in Florida.”
The door opened and in swept Iris, perfectly made up, clad in tight jeans and a low-cut shirt. “Happy Saturday!” she cried, swinging her jaunty ponytail. “Ready for my party tonight?”
“Why, aren’t y’all a vision?” said Anna Lee. She scowled, pulled a half-dozen mealworms from her pocket, and threw them at her best friend.
“Would you quit throwin’ worms at me?” said Iris, fishing one out of her bra and throwing it back at Anna Lee. She turned to Paul. “Why’s your dearly beloved got her panties in a wad this time?”
“She’s in Mama Bear mode,” said Paul. “Luna’s on the run with the eagle, and last night somebody shot at her husband.”
Iris’s jaw dropped. “Was it Warren?” she asked.
“Listen,” said Anna Lee. “That girl’s got everybody and their brother after her, all on account of she made one great big marital mistake.”
“Well,” sighed Paul. “That big mistake bought us a new Jeep.”
“And wouldn’t you give it back if it meant gettin’ her outta this mess? Anyway, looks like the media’s all preoccupied with the shootin’, which is good, so she can lay low here for a few days. But we can’t let the word out about who she is. How many of the volunteers are on her email list?”
“Let’s see,” said Iris. “Three. Maybe four.”
“Tell ‘em don’t say nothin’ to the other volunteers. She’s with a real nice guy named Ned, we’ll just say we met ‘em at a wildlife conference and they’re passin’ through. They must be drivin’ somethin’ nondescript, we can park it in the back in case the police come by.”
“Ok,” said Iris, “but what about the Paulettes? You know how they live for drama!”
“Will you quit callin’ ‘em that?” said Paul.
“Sweetheart,” said Anna Lee. “That horse has left the barn.”
“It’s your own fault,” grinned Iris. “If you didn’t look like the star of a beach party movie, you wouldn’t have lovelorn volunteers trailin’ y’all around.”
“They’re sixteen,” said Paul, looking aggrieved. “They’re underage girls, and I’m a 38-year-old happily married father of two! We need a ‘no volunteers under 21’ policy.”
“If you keep smilin’ at ‘em, they’ll keep cleanin’ cages,” said Anna Lee. “That’s all I care about.”
“Oh, look,” said Paul, pulling out his vibrating phone. “Here’s an update from Esther.”
“Good gravy,” said Iris, peering out the window. “I think Butch and Sundance just arrived in their nondescript car.”
• • •
“In three miles, your destination is on the left,” intoned Ned’s phone. He picked it up and tapped it. “Stop directions,” he said. “Call Francine.” He glanced at Luna. “I have to call my office. I told them I’d only be a couple of days, and today they’ve called me…eight times. I can’t keep doing this, because I have to get back to work.”
The phone trilled and clicked. “Ned?” emerged a voice.
“Hi Francine,” he said.
“Ned! Oh my God! Did you kidnap Adam Matheson’s wife?”
“What?”
“You were on TV! They showed a picture of you and your car and said you were wanted for questioning! Did you do it? Hello?”
“I didn’t kidnap anybody!” he said. “I have family matters! I’ll be back in a couple days, gotta go!”
He disconnected, and Luna’s phone pinged. “It’s from Esther,” she said, and read it aloud.
[email protected] Cops have Ned’s name and the make of the Chevy. Also the current plates, because the cruiser caught you on camera when you left this morning. I told them I met you at a conference and didn’t realize who you were. Said you’re on your way to New Mexico.
“Jesus,” said Ned. He coasted to a stop on the shoulder, and turned to face her. “You said you knew how to do this. What do we do now?”
Luna twisted her hands in her lap, then clenched them into fists. “They think they have all the power,” she said, her voice low and angry. “But they don’t! Not if you don’t let them. So you wait, and then you beat them.”
He regarded her, baffled. ”What are you talking about?”
She glanced at Mars, drowsing on his perch, and her features relaxed slightly. ”I’m sorry. Just get me to Anna Lee’s, then go home. If they try to charge you with anything, tell them I had a gun on you. I’m not kidding.”
“But that’s ridiculous,” said Ned.
“Let’s go!”
The rooflines of a row of flight cages were visible behind a neat cluster of buildings. Luxuriant viburnum nearly covered a stretch of chain-link fence, and two small bicycles rested on the weedy lawn of an Adirondack house. The hand-carved sign hanging from a tall post read BLUE MOON WILDLIFE CENTER.
A woman in tight jeans and a flowered shirt skipped out of a building, arms in the air. “Hi, there!” she cried. “Git yourselves out of that awesome car, y’all must be dog tired!”
Ned and Luna emerged, and the woman clasped them both in a quick embrace. “Luna — it’s me, Iris!” she said. “It is so nice to finally meet you! And you must be Ned, our hero driver! Are you two all right? You’re lookin’ kinda iffy, though I s’pose that
could be because of the TV sayin’ that Ned here’s a kidnapper. Oh look, behind me is Anna Lee, and this is Paul.”
“Come here, sugar,” said Anna Lee, opening her arms to Luna.
“Don’t you worry, Ned,” said Paul. “We take care of our own.”
“We can’t stay with you, Anna Lee,” said Luna.
“‘Course you can!” exclaimed Iris. “Where else y’all gonna go? Ain’t no flight cage at the Motel 6.”
“They’ve seen the car,” said Luna. “Somebody’s going to spot it, and then you’ll be in big trouble. Can you just keep Mars overnight?”
Silence fell, then Anna Lee spoke up. “Let’s think about this logically, all right? We’ll hide the car in Iris’s brother’s barn, and we’ll hide the bird in one of the flight cages. Ain’t nobody here ever laid eyes on Luna, ‘cept for photos of her in her zillion-dollar dresses, and ain’t no pictures of you out there yet, right Ned?”
“I don’t think so,” said Ned.
“Don’t mean to burst your bubble,” said Paul regretfully, and held up his phone. From his driver’s license photo Ned stared straight into the camera, the long hair brushing his shoulders slightly tangled.
“Is that a mug shot?” asked Anna Lee. “What have you been up to?”
“Oh, here’s something from Carlene,” said Paul, looking back at his phone. “She says your husband’s doing damage control on TV. Lemme see if I can call up this link.”
He held out his phone. “Of course my wife hasn’t been kidnapped,” said Adam, wearing a suit and looking unruffled. “She’s fine. I just spoke to her twenty minutes ago. And accusing her of any kind of theft is a little absurd, don’t you think? Yes, she has the eagle, and she’s going to return it.”
Everyone looked at Luna. “I didn’t talk to him,” she said.
“I hate to say it, but for an old guy he’s awful hot,” said Iris. “I think of billionaires as bein’ short and fat.”
“Let him spin it all he wants,” said Anna Lee. “You just stay here for now.”
“Hang on, I just got the best idea ever!” Iris exclaimed, clasping her hands together. “In case you two don’t know, my official title here is Director of Communications and Makeovers. Know why? Because rehabbers never have time to fix ‘emselves up, so I do it for ‘em. ‘Cept for Anna Lee, obviously she won’t let me near her, bless her heart.”
“Shut up, Iris!” said Anna Lee.
Iris gave the group a triumphant smile. “I’m gonna give Ned a makeover so good his own mama won’t know him! That way kidnapper or no kidnapper, he won’t be so easy to flag. Come on, Ned, we’ll go hide the car, and then afterward y’all come on over for the party.”
“What party?”
“My Saturday Night Volunteer Party!” said Iris. “Starts at seven!”
“Ned needs to get back on the road,” said Luna.
“Y’all got a long row to hoe if you’re goin’ to Canada,” said Anna Lee. “Nobody around here knows you, and Esther told the cops you’re on your way to New Mexico. So come on and chill out with the rehabbers, and forget the damned goober husband for one night.”
“I sure as heck need a break from the owls and the bunnies,” said Paul, giving Ned a punch on the arm. “And y’all need a break from your life of crime! So why don’t we just get us some beers?”
“There!” said Anna Lee. “It’s settled. Now let’s unload your poor traveler, and let him stretch his wings.”
• • •
Adam left back-to-back meetings, climbed into a waiting SUV, and double-checked his schedule: 8:00 ballet - Kaplan. Ballet, period. Not which ballet. He spent his traveling time on the phone. When the car stopped and the door opened, he looked at the Swan Lake banner and grimaced. More fucking birds! he thought. Accompanied by Paszkiewicz, he met his five guests in the lobby and led them to his private box in the magnificently restored old theater. After they were seated, Herb Kaplan turned to him.
“Do they know who shot at you yet?” he asked, in an undertone.
“Not yet.”
“Jesus, Adam, I can’t believe you didn’t cancel tonight. You’re an iron man. What’s going on with Luna?”
“The media’s making up all kinds of garbage. She’s on her way home from visiting her cousin.”
Adam glanced at Kaplan’s stunning second wife, her head cocked as she listened to her stepson murmur something into her ear. She raised her eyes to Adam’s, and deliberately held his gaze. Automatically he filed this away for future reference, and returned to Kaplan. A few minutes later the music began, and the curtain rose.
Adam watched the kaleidoscope of dancers, fine tuning the Electrex merger and debating how to back Florida’s irritating new senator into a corner. But then the stage cleared and darkened, and the prince watched the enchanted swan maiden dance with her graceful, long-legged flock. And Adam remembered standing in his bedroom with a pair of binoculars and watching Luna glide among the flamingos and the crowned cranes, disturbed by his own behavior but filled with an eclipsing kind of hunger.
No thank you, she had said, when he invited her to dinner. Not maybe another time, or I have other plans. Just no, thank you.
He thought of the first time he stopped by the zoo and discovered her with his soon-to-retire zookeeper. She and Tom were eating lunch and laughing, and Tom held up a photograph of his granddaughter dressed as a palmetto bug for Halloween. Tom was easy-going, problem-solving, and paternal. The week before Tom left, Adam studied his body language and mimicked it when he was with Luna. He slowed his pace, toned down his gestures, and lowered his voice. He postponed an important meeting the day Tom left so he, too, could say goodbye, shaking his hand and handing him a thick envelope after Luna hugged him and, trying hard to smile, waved farewell.
Whatever you need, he told her when Tom was gone, all you have to do is tell me.
She knocked on his office door four days after he returned from Chicago. Mr. Matheson? she said. I need more shade for the elephants.
How much more shade? he asked, fighting the urge to say, call me Adam. Why don’t you show me?
They walked to the zoo, Luna politely answering questions but asking none of her own. In the corner over there, she said. I know a company that makes shade structures.
Would the elephants like something more natural? he asked. Like a tree?
I’m sure they would, said Luna, with a smile. But it would have to be an awfully big one.
Okay, he replied. I’ll take care of it.
When she returned from a three-day wildlife conference in Miami he was sitting by the pool, reading a prospectus. How was the conference? he called, as she crossed the lawn. It was great! she replied, then she stopped dead and gasped at the 30-foot ficus tree, the elephants and gazelles basking beneath it. He remained in his seat, wearing a casual smile as he held himself in an iron grip.
I like animals, he said, his heart pounding at the incredulous joy on her face. I want them to be happy. He raised a hand, and forced himself back to his prospectus. Thank you, she called, and hurried toward the zoo.
The glittering ballerinas whirled across the stage, delicate in appearance but made of steel.
He had tossed occasional group invitations her way: dinner at a five-star restaurant, a party on his yacht, front row seats at a pop star’s concert, never reacting with more than a smile and a nod when she refused. Eventually she appeared in his office to discuss the zebras, and as she turned to leave he bowed his head and rubbed his eyes. Are you okay? she asked.
Just tired, he replied. I’m going to get through today, then I’m going to have dinner on the patio and relax for the first time in six months. I still owe you a welcome-to-the-neighborhood dinner if you feel like joining me, he added, in a tone that showed he knew she would decline.
All right, she said.
As soon as she left he called one of his techies and asked for a list of all the animals on the property, as well as short descriptions of what in hell they were. Springboks. G
ila monsters. Hornbills. This is insanity, he thought, as he memorized the list.
She appeared in a cotton blouse and a pair of khakis, wearing no jewelry but the silver bead hanging from a cord around her neck. He could still see her, poised and polite, yet so guarded that he wondered why she had accepted his invitation at all. I don’t drink much, she said, clearly not appreciating the $7500 bottle of Domaine Leroy Chambertin Grand Cru 1990 he had impulsively ordered brought up from his cellar, suspecting if he bragged about it she probably wouldn’t drink it at all. He waited for her to speak but she seemed content to sit in silence, looking out over the ocean, occasionally watching a passing bird.
I don’t know much about Pygmy Slow Lorises, he said finally.
She looked at him in surprise. She recited a short natural history, then described the galagos and pottos included in the family Lorisidae. When he nodded encouragingly, she began spinning tales about the four in his zoo: their mannerisms, their personality quirks, their complicated relationships, until he was so heavily invested in the gripping soap opera taking place in his own back yard that he almost demanded she give him daily updates.
I’m talking too much, she said, breaking the spell. I don’t usually do that.
During the ensuing silence he racked his brains, determined to show his interest in wildlife. I was just in Rome, he said. I saw lots of pigeons.
How many? she asked.
After dessert she finished her single glass of wine and stood. Thank you for dinner, she said, and refused his offer to walk her to her bungalow.
He sent no follow-up: no text, no call, no jaw-dropping gift. Instead, he rose in the night and followed an incomprehensible siren’s song until he discovered he could see her bungalow from the fourth bedroom in the guest wing. Unable to fathom his own directive, he had Enrico tail her whenever she left the property.
She’s walking on the beach, said Enrico the first time.
By herself?
Yeah.
Is she talking on the phone?
No.
Is she wearing headphones?
No.
What’s she doing now?
She’s just standing there. She’s looking at the ocean.
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