by Betty Webb
I nodded. “Good thing she’ll be reporting, not chasing. The Great Escape is supposed to loop around the entire zoo, but she’d have me netted before I made it out of Africa Trail.”
“What happens once they net you?” Jane asked.
“They ‘sedate’ me, then carry me off to Quarantine on a stretcher. A real animal who’d escaped would stay in Quarantine for several days, or at least until the tranquilizer was entirely gone from its system and it was settled down enough to go back to its enclosure. What most people don’t understand is that escapes scare the animal as much as it does humans because the poor thing’s out of its environment. People are running around screaming, and there’s a rifle-waving mob chasing it. While the animal is still in Quarantine, its habitat is checked to see if there was a system failure—like a bad lock—or a human one. Whatever caused the escape must be corrected before the animal is returned.”
Yancy looked wistful. “I worked with a lion once on some sword-and-sandal flick with Dwayne Johnson, you know, the Rock. Friendly animal—the lion, I mean. His trainer walked him around on a leash.”
Others at the table jumped to share warm and fuzzy stories about the pet lions, tigers, and leopards they had either encountered or read about, which had me shaking my head. Too many people believed that once a wild animal grew accustomed to their presence, it would behave the same way as their pet cat or dog. A lot of those folks wound up dead. I tried to interject some common sense into the discussion, but no one wanted to hear it. Common sense isn’t romantic.
Admitting defeat, I picked up my half-eaten turkey leg and exited the tent.
Before making it back to Llama Rides I encountered Willis Pierce headed toward Peasant’s Retreat with a drumstick twice the size of mine. The former Shakespeare looked no happier than earlier.
“Miss your old job?” I asked, sympathetically.
He flicked a fly off his drumstick. “You think? Oh, gee, what could possibly be more fun than sitting on my butt all day in a small tent, listening to the Royal Court mangle Elizabethan speech. The Duke of Norfolk has a Brooklyn accent, for Pete’s sake! At least young Howie always gets it right. My influence, I dare to believe. His singing voice approaches the professional, too. If this were New York, I’d steer him toward Broadway, but sadly, it’s not. He prefers fish.”
“Marine life.”
He pulled a face. “Fish.”
With that, he waved farewell with his drumstick and continued on to Peasant’s Retreat.
A little further along I ran into Bambi, who had opted for a Castle Burger instead of turkey. She was walking arm in arm with Judd Sazac, and from the moony look on his face, they weren’t discussing the weather. The two were also headed toward Peasant’s Retreat, unaware that his wife would spot them the moment they walked in. For a brief moment I thought about issuing a warning, then decided not to. The Sazac’s troubled marriage was none of my business.
Neither was the marriage of Melissa and Cary Keegan, but when I passed the Royal Armory, I was surprised to see black-clad Cary looking stricken as his wife exited the stall with a triumphant expression. Had Melissa finally had enough? When she caught sight of me, she immediately contorted her beautiful face into one of anguish and dabbed a lace-trimmed handkerchief at a dry eye.
“Don’t ever get married, Teddy. Men are brutes.” Voice trembling, she threw a glance over her shoulder at Cary. She cringed, dabbed her dry eyes again, then hurried away.
Unbidden, an image of Joe flashed across my mind. His kind brown eyes. His soft lips. His gentle hands.
She was wrong. Not all men were brutes.
Maybe not even Cary.
Although I was still gun-shy after discovering my friend Deborah’s troubled past, I decided it was only fair to check out the Keegans and the Sazacs. And Bambi, of course. Just because her husband-stealing behavior was overt didn’t mean she wasn’t covering up even worse crimes.
I spent the rest of my break wandering along the High Street, watching acrobats and jesters, listening to troubadours, and admiring the Green Man as he pretended to be a tree. Maybe it’s just me, but I’d always found the Green Man, a figure from English folklore, to be sinister. Tolkien’s “ents” aside, there’s something unnerving about a walking, talking tree. The Faire’s wasn’t too creepy, though, and as the actor stretched out his arms and rustled his cloth “leaves,” I saw the wisp of a smile on his green-painted face.
At the north end of the street the Silly Slatterns had just left the Middleshire Stage, replaced by Ded Bob, the ventriloquist act. After a few ribald jokes, the wise-cracking skeleton dummy asked for volunteers. Hands shot into the air. Although I enjoyed Ded Bob’s wickedly humorous one-liners, I didn’t have enough time left to see the show, so I started back to Llama Rides.
As I drew abreast of the Royal Pavilion a knight in full armor stepped out of the gaily-bedecked tent and hailed me.
“Good morrow, fair damsel!”
Even through the metallic echo, I recognized his voice only too well.
My father.
“Are you nuts?” I hissed. “What if someone recognizes you?”
He didn’t trouble to lower his voice. “In case you haven’t noticed, daughter mine, I’m covered head to toe in this very hot, very heavy, very authentic relic from days of yore that Aster Edwina was gracious enough to loan me. The legs were too short, but I was able to cannibalize another set to add to them. Bet you can’t even see the patches. Didn’t know I could do metalwork, did you? Oh, I’ve learned so many useful things from my years on the run. Now, since we need privacy for the very important thing I’m about to tell you, whither us away to that wee alley behind the Viking Encampment. Forsooth, et cetera.”
“Forsooth, yourself,” I muttered, but followed dutifully on his heels as he clanked along.
Once we were out of sight of the main thoroughfare, he asked, “How’s your mother?”
“Doing as well as can be expected.”
“Is she still beautiful?” He sounded wistful. Despite their mutual problems, I’d always suspected my mother and father still loved each other.
“Caro wouldn’t allow herself to be anything other than beautiful, Dad. Didn’t you have ‘a very important thing’ to tell me?”
“Oh, that. I received an interesting phone call last night from one of my informants. Remember Victor’s girlfriend and getaway driver? Named Kate Garrick? Seems that a cousin of hers lived, and maybe still lives, in San Sebastian County.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, indeedy, which might be why Victor settled here after his escape. Remember my telling you that he and Kate had been planning to stay with some cousin until the baby was born? From my own experience on the lam I know it’s never easy starting a new life among strangers, so if you have a connection someplace, that’s where you head. Unfortunately, my informant isn’t certain about the cousin’s name. He thinks it’s Suzanna or Cheryl or Sharon or something else that starts with an ‘S’.”
“Cheryl is usually spelled with a ‘C’.”
“Maybe they were into funky spelling, this being California. As I was saying…”
“Cousin on Kate’s father’s side or mother’s side?”
“I didn’t ask for a genealogy chart!”
“Dad, if she was a maternal cousin, she would have been born with a different last name, but if the relation was on her father’s side, the cousin would share Kate’s surname of Garrick. That would make hunting her down relatively easy, even if she eventually married.”
Low muttering behind the armor. “Well, I don’t know, and I doubt if my informant knows, but I’ll ask the next time he calls. One more thing. A few years after Kate married that blackjack dealer, she died.”
Before I could ask, he added, “Of natural causes.”
“What happened to Victor’s
kid? Did her husband raise it?”
“My informant had no clue.”
“Boy or girl?”
An exasperated sigh. “No clue there, either. And that’s all I have for you now, but listen, is that turkey leg any good? I’ve worked up quite the appetite lugging around all this armor.”
“Delicious. But since you’d have to remove your visor to eat, I don’t advise it.”
“I’ll order one to go, then. And maybe a couple more for Aster Edwina and Mrs. McGinty. That housekeeper used to be quite the looker, you know.”
With that, he clanked off.
Although irritated with my father for venturing out in public, however disguised, I found his information intriguing. If Victor’s girlfriend had lived, she would now be in her fifties. There was no guarantee her cousin was close to her age, but allowing for a ten year span either way the cousin could be anywhere from her forties to sixties. Vague, yes, but if I could somehow come up with her name…
Thinking furiously, I headed back to Llama Rides.
“Thanks for watching him,” I told Deborah, who had been talking with an entire family dressed as peasants. In the far corner, Alejandro stood with his back to us, munching on chopped carrots.
“No problem. Hey, I just heard you’re going to be the star of the Great Escape this year. That should be fun.”
News traveled fast in the Renaissance. “That’s what Aster Edwina keeps saying.”
“Don’t worry about it. Phil was the lion once. That’s before we got married, and I think you were still living up in San Francisco. He had a great time.”
“Then Phil’s not the guy who fell and broke his wrist.”
She grinned. “As a matter of fact, he was. Since it was his right wrist and he’s right-handed, he was pretty much helpless, so I started taking casseroles and whatnot over to his apartment, and helped him with the housework. One thing led to another.”
“‘Another’ meaning you two wound up married.”
The grin faded. “Yeah. By Victor Emerson. The creep. Good thing someone killed him before I got to him.”
Face flushed with anger, she walked away.
“Hey, Alejandro!” I called. “Ready to go back to work?”
At the sound of my voice, Alejandro deserted what was left of his lunch and trotted across the enclosure toward me.
“Maaa!”
I started to tell him I was happy to see him again, too, but he moved right past me and headed for the little peasant girl standing by the gate, her tiny hand stretched. Upon reaching her, he lowered his head and gave her a slobbery kiss. The fact that he dribbled soggy hay all over the child’s carefully ripped dress didn’t bother her parents at all; they beamed.
“What a sweet llama!” the mother said. Perfect orthodontia shone through her artistically begrimed face.
“With children, yes, not so much with adults, so make certain you stay behind the fence while your daughter takes her ride.”
“We have a dog like that,” the father said, knowingly. His teeth were as perfect as his wife’s. “Bess tolerates us but she adores Stacey and any other child within licking distance.”
Whenever I heard a story like that, I could guess its history. “Is Bess a rescue dog?”
A nod. “We figure that in the past some adult must have treated her badly, but whatever child she lived with, probably a little girl, was more gentle.”
“That’s Alejandro’s story, too.” Looking down at the girl, I said, “You ready for your llama ride, Stacey?”
She was.
I picked up the little peasant and sat her down on Alejandro’s saddle. “You can talk to him as you ride. He likes that.”
She complied, and by the time her ride was over, Alejandro had heard all about Goldilocks and the Three Bears. He looked disappointed when I handed her back to her parents, but when he spotted a boy her age waiting by the gate he cheered right up.
Alejandro had a happy afternoon.
For a while.
The next couple of hours passed similarly, with scores of adoring children lining up for a chance to ride the llama. At one point a tour group comprised of kids too big to ride but not too old to admire him stood and watched as he toted around a kindergartener. Alejandro was enjoying his popularity so much that I didn’t at first notice when his body language changed. But as I led another little girl toward him for a ride, I saw his ears go back and his entire body get stiff.
“Alejandro?”
He made a noise that sounded almost like a dog’s growl.
“What’s wrong, boy?”
From behind me, I heard a man say, “I’m tellin’ you, Marge, thash Alejandro!” His speech was slurred, as if he’d downed too many ales.
“Let’s just go,” a woman said. She sounded irritated.
Then thudding feet made me turn from the child to see a heavy man with a flushed face cut away from the crowds and tear toward the gate, his arms flapping like an ostrich trying to take flight. One of his hands held a beverage cup. Liquid sloshed as he ran.
“He wansh a beer!”
“Ernest! Stop!” the woman yelled.
Ernest kept coming.
I lifted the little girl away and told her to run to her parents. Then I grabbed the llama’s lead rope and held on tight.
Too late.
With a nimble move for a man in his condition, Ernest vaulted the fence with one hand, and continued running toward Alejandro, his cup-holding arm outstretched. So intent was he on reaching the llama that he didn’t see the child. He ran right over her, sending her sprawling into the dirt.
Ever hear a llama scream? It’s a horrible noise, somewhere between a shriek and a cough.
Wheeck! Wheeck! Wheeck!
Alejandro jerked the lead rope from my hand. With teeth bared and ears flat against his head, he dashed forward to insert himself between Ernest and the shocked child. His herd guard instinct had taken over, and he was going to protect that tiny creature no matter what.
Wheeck! Wheeck! Wheeck! he screamed at Ernest. Get the hell away from her!
With an insensitivity born of inebriation, the fool just kept coming.
“Hey, Al, yoush…”
Alejandro didn’t let him finish. He hit Ernest with his shoulder, knocking the man away from the child. The beverage cup flew in the other direction, spraying beer into the air.
Ernest squalled in protest.
Then Alejandro began stomping him.
Ernest’s squalls turned into screams that almost matched the llama’s as those clawed feet pounded him again and again while the little girl picked herself up off the ground and made a beeline for Mommy and Daddy.
The second she reached them, Alejandro ceased his attack.
It wasn’t over yet. As I snatched back his lead rope, Alejandro hocked up a big green-tinged ball of phlegm and spit it into Ernest’s face.
Chapter Eleven
Whenever there’s an animal attack, no matter how insignificant, bureaucracy grinds into gear. In this case, the first step was to alert First Aid, then Security. As Ernest’s wife muttered darkly about lawsuits, an EMT attended to his wounds. Security, late on the scene because of a fistfight between a minstrel and a monk on High Street, took the drunk into custody until two San Sebastian County deputies arrived and whisked him away.
The second step in the bureaucratic mill was less pleasant: informing Aster Edwina.
The old woman was not pleased. “You say you actually heard the word ‘lawsuit?’”
“His wife was pretty upset.”
“Besides you, who saw the attack?”
“Numerous people, but I was too preoccupied to take witness statements.”
“You could at least have gotten their names.”
“Well,
I didn’t.”
“He’ll have to be put into Quarantine.”
“Who? Ernest?”
“Don’t get smart with me, Theodora. Get that llama into the Quarantine barn before he causes more trouble.”
She rang off.
The little girl and her family, as well other witnesses to the attack, having been dispersed by Security, Alejandro now stood alone in the far corner of Llama Rides. Head down, ears flopped sideways, he looked the very picture of a depressed animal.
“I’m so sorry, sweetie,” I told him, as I led him toward the horse trailer. “You didn’t do anything wrong but you’re going to be punished anyway.”
Cursing Ernest-whoever-he-was, I loaded Alejandro into the trailer and drove him back to the zoo.
***
Given everything that had happened, I expected Aster Edwina to release me from working the Faire, but she didn’t. Sunday morning found me attempting to milk a goat at the Village Idiots Encampment. The goat didn’t like it and neither did I. When she kicked over the pail a second time I threw my hands up in defeat.
“Taking a break,” I called to a nearby peasant, who in civilian life was the chief neurologist at San Sebastian County Hospital.
“Lazy trollop!” After theatrically scratching himself, Dr. Arnold Steinmetz scratched the ears of the piglet he was holding.
“Back at ya, Arnie. Want me to bring you anything from Dowager’s Dumplings?”
“Spotted Dick would be nice. Forsooth.”
“A la mode?”
“In for a farthing, in for a pound, trollop.”
“See you in fifteen, then.”
The Faire was even more crowded than yesterday, but my heart gave a sad little twist as I passed the empty Llama Rides enclosure. The fact that Camel Rides was doing big business with a new camel didn’t make me feel any better. I kept seeing Alejandro’s sad face when I left him in Quarantine.
People who think animals don’t have feelings have never known any animals.
On my way to Dowager’s Dumplings I noticed that Ded Bob was just finishing his act on the Middleshire Stage, and it occurred to me that I had not yet talked to him. The ventriloquist had been resting in his trailer when Deanna and Judd Sazac were brawling, and although I could guess the nature of their argument, it wouldn’t hurt to have my suspicions confirmed.