Peregrine

by William Bayer

  “Suddenly there were all these laws. People got desperate for good birds, and the only sources were overseas. I saw an opportunity, started traveling, visiting the bird markets in Turkey and the Emirates, Kuwait, Moscat and Oman, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia. Birds were cheap, peregrines especially, which everybody wanted over here. And then I discovered that the dealers there wanted our birds. They liked goshawks and Harris hawks and gyrfalcons—they wanted gyrs the most. So I got to know people on both sides and started arranging trades. There were ships going back and forth, oil tankers mostly, huge ships with a hundred places to hide a bird. I knew how to talk to seamen. All I had to do was make arrangements with a deckhand or a boiler room engineer, and nobody minded much because it wasn’t dangerous like smuggling dope.

  “That’s how I started out. Just trades at first: ‘I’ll trade you two goses for one peregrine’—that kind of deal. And then, when the laws became tighter, cash deals, a thousand or two thousand bucks for a bird delivered free and clear. Then I discovered that the big money was at the other end. Those sheiks over there—to them, birds are like a status thing. Having a gyr is like having a Rolls. They’ll pay anything to outdo their friends. So little by little I fell into it, until I found myself doing it full-time. I got known, and people started calling me Hawk-Eye. They said I had a good eye for buying birds, and of course there was the way I looked. I made a good living at it. I liked the birds and I liked the people I was dealing with. I didn’t give a crap about the conservation laws. I bought and sold to hawkers, people who needed birds for sport. I could sit down with one of those sheiks and spend hours bird trading, bargaining over a price. The sheik’s falconers would be there crouching with birds on their wrists. We’d drink sweet tea, eat lamb and rice with our fingers. Sit on Persian rugs in a tent. They treated me like I was somebody, not some stupid swab on a half-ass pension, but someone important who could get them things. They liked me, and sometimes I thought it was maybe the shape of my nose. Hooked, you know.” He turned, showed her his profile. “Like theirs. I have an Arab nose, they say.”

  “Did you ever have any trouble?”

  “Sure. I was arrested a couple of times, but they had to let me go. Couldn’t prove anything, could never hang anything on me. I always played it smart. Only dealt in cash. Had other people do the smuggling. Never raided nests or anything like that. I was the middleman, see, the guy in between. And word began to get around. If you want first-class hawks or hunting falcons, leave word for Hawk-Eye and wait for him to get in touch. I never welched on a deal, always played it straight. If I took a deposit and couldn’t deliver, I paid the money back. Old Reliable—that’s me. There’re other people in the business, and most of them are cheats. I worked hard to build my reputation. I only wanted to be the best.”

  She liked him. He was a character, a real low-life international type, a small-time adventurer out of a Conrad novel or a story by Maugham, a man with no particular aspirations who had stumbled into something, found himself a little niche. She had the feeling, too, that she had won him over, that by listening attentively and letting him talk she had gotten him to loosen up. She also felt that he had something to tell her and that it had to do with Peregrine.

  “So—what’s this ‘stuff that’s been going on’?” she asked.

  “Don’t know that I want to talk about that.”

  “Okay. I respect that. And I can see you’re not the kind of man who’s going to be coaxed into telling what he doesn’t want to tell. But please understand, Hawk-Eye, that I’m working on a story, and that it doesn’t make much sense for me to sit here while you beat around the bush.” She nodded to him, gathered her coat around her shoulders. “Why don’t you think about it for a while, decide whether you can trust me or not. If you have something to tell me, I’ll be glad to listen. If you decide I’m trustworthy, give me a call and we’ll get together again and talk.”

  She stood up as if she were going to go, leave him sitting there alone. She knew she was taking a big risk, that he might let her walk away. But she had a hunch he wouldn’t, that he needed attention, that he was a man with something to confess. And that for some reason, maybe just the fact that she was a beautiful woman and that she represented the media, he would make her his confessor, call her back and spill his guts.

  “All right,” he said, motioning for her to sit. “If I can’t trust you then who can I trust?” He exhaled. “This spring I got a message. Never got anything like it before. A man leaves this phone number around, wants me to call him at a specific time. Any Tuesday night at ten. Not five of or five after but exactly at ten o’clock. So I call. He answers. He’s in a phone booth, he says. From now on, he says, all the calls will be from him to me. I’ll give him the number of a booth, we’ll agree on a time, and he’ll call me. So after he explains that, he tells me what he’s got in mind, says he’s looking for an eyass peregrine, something terrific, ‘exceptional,’ he says, a ‘fantastic hunting bird.’ ‘So what else is new?’ I ask him. ‘That’s what I deal in. What’s all the mystery about?’ No, he says, I don’t understand—he wants something special, ‘the best’ he says, a female, strong, a bird with that special look. Well, I know what he means by that, so I say, ‘Okay, I’ll check around,’ and he says I still I don’t understand—he knows about this bird, he knows where she is, he knows that she exists. There’s this breeder who’s raised her. He wants me to approach him and make the deal. He doesn’t want the breeder to know anything, that I even have a client. And as far as price goes, he doesn’t care. ‘Sky’s the limit,’ he says. ‘Just get me that bird.’

  “Now that’s a very good commission from someone who doesn’t care how much he pays. I figure whatever this breeder’s going to charge, I can maybe double my money right away. So I go and see the breeder. He’s very uptight. Yes, he has falcons, a couple of chickens, two males and a female, but he doesn’t want to sell. ‘Is the female large?’ I ask. He looks at me kind of funny. Doesn’t want to talk about it, but I can tell by his expression that a large female’s what he’s got. ‘She’s awkward,’ he tells me. Says he doesn’t think she’s going to last. Can I see her? No. Forget it. Get out of here. So I figure that’s the end of that.

  “Well, the next time this guy calls me at the phone booth I tell him I haven’t had any luck. I recount the conversation with the breeder. Maybe I can find you something else, I say. ‘She’s the one I want,’ he says. I remind him she’s not for sale. ‘Don’t care,’ he says. ‘She’s the one I want.’ And then he mentions this incredible price—fifty thousand dollars. Buy her or steal her—he doesn’t care. ‘Just get her,’ he says. And he offers me ten grand up front. He’ll leave it in a locker at Grand Central, mail the key to my P.O. Well, I can’t turn down a deal like that. This guy’s for real, so I say okay. And sure enough, he mails me the key and the money’s there, so now all I got to do is get hold of that peregrine.

  “I think the situation through and I can see right away this isn’t going to be an easy job. I’m not a robber, and the breeder’s not going to sell, so the first thing I think of is that there’s maybe someone I can bribe. I find out there’s a kid who helps him, and I think, well, if I can get to that kid, say slip him a grand, then, maybe, he can slip me the bird and what could be easier than that? But the more I think about it, the riskier it starts to feel. Like suppose the kid says no, then tells the breeder—then he knows I’m after his bird and he can put on a guard or something and then I don’t have a chance. Or suppose the kid comes through and the breeder starts working on him and the kid begins to talk. Then I’m the accomplice and it isn’t just trading in unregistered birds, it’s stealing, it’s robbery, and I could go to jail. So I begin to think, all right, this is a hell of a lot of money, so maybe it’s worth it to bring in a professional thief. But I don’t want to do that because this isn’t like stealing furs where you just pick up the loot and run. This is an eyass peregrine which can damage easily. If someone doesn’t know what he’s doing, the bird c
an get killed by mistake. So anyway I start checking out the breeder’s schedule, and one day when I know he’s away I sneak onto his place. I go right up to the breeding barn and I take a good hard look at the lock—write down the number on it and the make. You wouldn’t believe how easy it was for me to get the key. All I had to do was go to some of the hardware stores around there, and at one of them I find they have this same type of lock and I tell the clerk I have a couple locks around my place and I want to standardize, don’t want to mess with all these different keys. So I give him the number off the lock and he goes in the back and brings me out a new lock and a set of keys and on the box the number’s the same. I buy the lock—thirty bucks. And now I’ve got a key to the barn.”

  There was delight in his voice now, the pleasure of a man solving a mystery, or of a schoolboy cracking a secret code. Pam could see that he loved telling this story, that he needed to tell it, and she knew she was a good audience—he had her on the edge of her seat. He must have felt that, too, because he took advantage of it, stopped talking, which only heightened her suspense.

  “Want another cup?” he asked.

  Impatient, she shook her head. “Think I’ll get one myself,” he said. He left her sitting there, went back downstairs to the counter. She watched him from the balcony. They were the only ones in the place. The young man who poured the coffee was blinking sleep out of his eyes. Hawk-Eye came back up, added his sugar and cream, slowly stirred his cup, looked up at her, smiled slyly, and resumed.

  “Now I was ready. I picked my day, rented a station wagon, drove out there, parked nearby, waited till I saw the guy drive out. I followed him to the station. He parked, went to the platform, got on a train. I drove back to his place, rang the bell just in case someone else was there, and when there wasn’t any answer I went out to the barn and tried my key.

  “No sweat. It opened right up. I let myself in, started looking around. It must have been a cow barn at one time. He’d divided it into compartments, very snazzy with the breeding chambers built against one of the walls. I looked into them. He had these little observation windows made of one-way glass and skylights and feeding slots—the whole bird-breeding bit. Well, let me tell you, if I’d wanted to clean up I could have really cleaned up that day. There were birds galore in there, all sorts besides the peregrines, a lot of owls, an awful lot of them, more than there were falcons if you can believe it—great horned owls, snowies, I don’t know what. Maybe half a million bucks’ worth of birds just there for the taking if I’d wanted them. But I didn’t. I just wanted that female, and I found her pretty quick. Checked her out through the window. She was big, very big, and she looked pretty healthy to me. She still had some baby fluff on her, but she was going to be ready to fly soon, I could see that in her eyes, and she had that look, you know, that look they get after they’re blooded, made their first kill. In the best ones you can see it early, even before they’ve hunted. That’s what you look for—the hunting eye.” He gazed straight at her and she saw what he meant. Hawk-Eye had it himself.

  “So I studied her a couple of minutes through the window, and then I set to work. I’d brought some meat with me laced with a tranquilizer. I stuck it in the food slot and hoped to hell she was hungry, because I wasn’t too keen about going in there to subdue her and give her a shot. She might put up a fight, break a few feathers. I didn’t think my customer would appreciate that. Well—no problem. She took the meat, and after twenty minutes or so she was out. I opened the door, crawled in there, just picked her up and put her in my box. Then I got out of there fast. The owls were starting to hoot and the falcons were screaming. I locked up the barn, put her in my car, and split.

  “When I got home, I found an old hood that fit her pretty well. Before she woke up, I looked her over carefully. She was a beauty, perfect shape and all, very good marks, very handsome bird. Maybe a little grotesque as far as size, which might affect her flying, since big birds aren’t usually so fast. I knew I wouldn’t have paid fifty grand for a bird like that. Too big a chance. There might be something wrong with her. Who knows what kind of drugs that breeder might have used. But it wasn’t me who was doing the buying. I didn’t care so long as I got paid.

  “Few nights later I had a date for a call. I get to the booth early and my customer calls right on time. When he hears I have the bird, he’s very excited. Starts asking me all these questions— what’s she like? is she nervous? how have I been handling her? have I been handling her too much? He doesn’t want me to man her—he wants to do that himself. Then he gives me instructions. I got to drive out to this very remote place two hours from the city in the Jersey pine barrens and leave the car just where he tells me and then take the bird and carry her to this tree that’s marked with a splash of Day-Glo on the trunk. I’ll find my money at the base of the tree. I’m to leave the bird there, take my money, and get out. That’s just what I did. I never saw him, and that was the end of it until a few weeks ago when this whole thing started up and I realized, I knew right away that this was the bird I’d sold. I could tell when I saw her on TV. I knew her markings, her mustache. They were the same. This guy I’d been dealing with—he was the falconer. I’d been talking with the goddamned falconer. I had that bird in my hands.”

  He sat back, nodded, held up his hands, looked at them amazed. “This spring I had her in my hands. And now, in just a few months, he’s turned her into a killer bird.”

  She was stunned. It was an amazing story, almost too amazing, too airtight, she thought. She wondered if she could believe him, and then she knew she did. His story was so vivid, so filled with details, she knew it must be true.

  “I want to ask you some questions,” she said.

  He waved his hand before his face.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “No more.”

  “But there is more, isn’t there? Who was the breeder?” she asked.

  “Look,” he said. “I committed a crime. I stole a bird. I could go to jail. And maybe I’m implicated in what’s happened since. People have been killed. I could be an accomplice, an accessory, something like that.”

  “Is that why you’ve been laying low?”

  “Yeah, sort of. And there’s a couple of other reasons, too. Two reasons, to be exact. Two things, very strange, that don’t add up at all.”

  “Such as the fact the breeder hasn’t come forward.”

  He nodded. “That’s number one.”

  “Maybe he doesn’t know.”

  “‘Course he knows. He’s a scientist. He knows markings. He knows I tried to buy her and then he came home one night and his big female eyass wasn’t there. She didn’t fly away. She was stolen. He’s a moron if he doesn’t know that. And now he’s seen her on television, seen her close-up on attack. He’s recognized her, put two and two together. But he hasn’t gone to the police.”

  “How do you know for sure?”

  “I got feelers out. No one’s looking for me. You’ve been the only one.”

  “Okay,” she said. “Then why hasn’t he come forward? For that matter— why didn’t he report the bird stolen at the time?”

  His eyes sharpened. He was Hawk-Eye the shrewd hawk dealer now. “First I thought, well, he didn’t want trouble. Why make a stink—you know what I mean. And then I thought, maybe his operation wasn’t on the up-and-up. Like how did he create a huge bird like that? Maybe he was fooling around with genetics and stuff, or hybrids. He could get in trouble, get closed down. Then, when the attacks started, I thought, well, he feels just like me. Afraid. Doesn’t want to get involved. This thing’s become a murder case, so the smart move is to stay quiet and hope they never trace back that bird.”

  “All right,” she said. “That’s very interesting. Now what’s the second thing?”

  “You’re the big investigative reporter. Why don’t you tell me.”

  “Oh, come on, Hawk-Eye, don’t hold back now.”

  “I’ve said all I’m going to say. Think back on what I t
old you and figure it out yourself.”

  He stood up, pulled up the collar of his coat. She stood up with him. She didn’t want him to walk away. He started down the stairs. She followed.

  It was late, nearly two A.M. McDonald’s was about to close. She looked at him as they hurried along the street. His jaws were clamped.

  “You’re scared,” she said.

  “Damn right I’m scared.”

  “Your client’s a killer. You’re dangerous to him because you’re the beginning of the trail.”

  “And I’m the end of it,” he said.

  They’d reached his subway stop. He paused at the top of the stairs, reached out to shake her hand. “Nice meeting you. Been watching you report this thing. Never met a TV personality before. Sort of wondered what you’d be like.”

  “Well—what am I like?” She couldn’t help but smile.

  “Nice kid,” he said. “Nicer than I’d thought.” Then he turned, left her standing there, descended into the subway.

  As she walked back home, she thought over everything. Jay had said find the man who sold the falcon and you’re on the trail of the falconer. Now she had found that man, or he’d found her, and his story led nowhere. It was closed at both ends: Hawk-Eye had never seen his customer, and he wouldn’t tell her the breeder’s name.