Peregrine

by William Bayer

  What was that second thing, she wondered, that second thing he’d said she should figure out for herself? It was in his story somewhere: “Think back on what I told you,” he’d said.

  She thought back and then, just as she reached her house, it struck her like a blow.

  Of course! Why hadn’t she thought of it? Hawk-Eye’s client had known about the falcon in advance. He’d told Hawk-Eye where to go, given him the breeder’s name. And that meant the client knew the breeder, which meant the breeder in turn knew him.

  She paused in the outer doorway of her house, thought it through again.

  Hawk-Eye had been the middleman between the man who’d bred the falcon and the falconer who wanted her but didn’t want to approach the breeder on his own. Why? Why pay Hawk-Eye fifty thousand dollars to perform a simple burglary?

  The answer came to her on the stairs.

  Hawk-Eye was a well-known falcon dealer; he had customers throughout the world. Send Hawk-Eye around to try and buy the peregrine and then, when she’s stolen, the breeder thinks Hawk-Eye is the thief. He doesn’t connect the robbery with this person he knows who knows he’s bred the bird. He figures Hawk-Eye stole her and sold her overseas. He never suspects his friend.

  All the next day she asked herself what to do, how to put this information to use. If only she knew who the breeder was, if only Hawk-Eye had told her that. But he hadn’t. He was scared. He knew he’d been used, and now he didn’t want to be involved.

  She thought about going to Herb, asking his advice. But she knew what he’d say: “You shouldn’t have let him go. Find that guy again and get what he says on tape!”

  Another possibility was to forget her pledge to Hawk-Eye, to take what she had to Janek and use it as leverage in case he had anything to trade. But she couldn’t do that, couldn’t betray Hawk-Eye, couldn’t welsh on her word. No matter that he was a thief and a black marketeer, he had trusted her, told her his story in confidence. In fact, she decided, the more she thought about it, she had no interest in sharing with Janek anyway. She had managed to dig out a major clue to the peregrine case, a clue she wanted now to follow up on her own.

  When she met Jay for dinner on Friday night she was tempted to tell him about Hawk-Eye. But then something happened, their meal turned intimate. He didn’t talk about falconry, steered clear of Peregrine, began asking her questions about herself. He was interested in her—she could sense that he was—and she didn’t want to break the mood. He was clearly looking for a relationship that went beyond friendship. She had felt that with him before, was stirred again by the thought.

  At one point he asked her how she had become interested in journalism.

  She told him about working on the student newspaper at Bryn Mawr.

  “At first,” she said, “it was just a way to meet people. I wanted to establish myself on campus. I wanted to enter into this world so unlike the one I’d left behind. In my house the only newspaper was the National Enquirer, and as far as TV went it was all sitcoms and football games. But then, once I got on the paper, I started getting idealistic. Paul pushed that on me. He was always so pure, you know. A journalist, he said, is a clarifier, a person who imposes order upon the chaos of events.”

  “But the natural order of things isn’t orderly at all,” said Jay.

  “Yes,” she said. “Now I realize that, but I didn’t when I started out. It’s taken me a long time to understand I can never be objective, and that it doesn’t make any sense for me to try and stand above things and play it cool.”

  “I knew you felt that,” he said. “It shows in your broadcasts—at least to me. You feel deeply. You aren’t detached. Your passion is evident, Pam. And passion is a precious gift.”

  She was flattered. He understood her, appreciated her, sympathized. He was so attractive, so secure and self-contained, such a change from Paul.

  After dinner they took a long walk through Greenwich Village. It was a fine night, there was a breeze, and the smell of half-decaying leaves upon the air. They walked down the narrow, tree-lined streets, their bodies nearly touching as they matched each other stride for stride. They barely spoke. A few times they stopped to look at a particularly handsome house or into someone’s living room. A soft golden light glowed from the front rooms of many of these old Village homes, and she had a sense of people inside living among fine furnishings and books, talking quietly before a fire, or moving at a stately pace across a warm, well-polished floor. It was a vision of a well-mannered urban life, of sophistication and affluence and gentility, the Old New York of Edith Wharton and Henry James. It inspired her. She wanted to share in it. It was Jay’s world, so different from her own, the rough world of television news.

  She wondered if he sensed what was going through her mind, how close she felt to him, the longing that she felt. She kept hoping he would kiss her, put his arm around her, touch her gently or simply take her hand. It seemed to her that he came close to doing that several times and then, each time, drew back.

  She didn’t know why, didn’t understand his reluctance. It was strange. They were poised for each other, yet he was holding back, perhaps savoring this delicate time, deliberately prolonging what would ordinarily be a moment between the warmth of friendship and the stirring of desire.

  When they finally reached her door, she was certain that he would kiss her, as certain as she’d been when he’d walked her home after their dinner several weeks before. Again there was a feeling of awkwardness when he kissed her on her forehead, stood back, and gently smiled. He seemed to be studying her eyes. When finally he left and she was going up the stairs, she thought, Next time he’ll linger a fraction longer and then I’ll invite him up.

  As she undressed, she thought about making love with him, what it might be like. Not comic, as with Paul, she was sure; and not boring, as with Joel. He would be serious and masterful—he was a falconer, a man accustomed to taming wild beasts. She would be his creature, tempestuous, high-strung. He would be firm with her, would lead her along, pull her with him into a zone of ecstasy. She would yield to his embraces, submit to erotic bliss. He would be her falconer and she would be his bird.

  Saturday afternoon she drove out to Connecticut. She had a long-standing appointment with Carl Wendel to visit his Trust for Raptor Birds. He greeted her warmly. He’d been almost bitter in his criticism of the Nakamura duel, but now, on his own ground, he seemed pleasant and eager to please.

  He had a pretty house, an authentic clapboard colonial set back from the road. And he had lots of land—his barn was situated among trees, out of sight even from the house.

  The barn door was made of steel.

  There were several locks and an impressive burglar alarm. While she watched him disconnect it she thought of Hawk-Eye—how much difficulty he would have had if it had been Wendel’s barn he’d invaded in his quest.

  The barn was large and dark inside—necessary, Carl explained, so as not to upset the birds. The space was divided into compartments, “breeding chambers,” built one beside the other along the longer wall. Carl explained the breeding process, the problem of getting two birds together in captivity where they didn’t have the opportunity to engage in normal courtship display.

  Each chamber had its own skylight so the photoperiod effect of spring would induce mating behavior. The chambers were large enough for the male to flap around and land on the female. There were ledges for copulation and for nests.

  “I never show myself,” he explained. “A young captive who sees people will imprint. I’ve had birds who’ve thought I was their mate, tiercels who’ve landed on my shoulder and splashed a drop of sperm, and females who’ve rubbed against me then laid a sterile egg. So I stay away from them, keep out of things. I let them find their own way. But, of course, I try and observe them as much as possible. I can watch them through the one-way windows and see if courtship is taking place.”

  He showed her the puppets he used to feed the babies if it was necessary to remove them f
rom their nests. He had falcon puppets for the peregrines and owl puppets for the owls. He’d grasp up a bit of food between his fingers disguised as the mouth of the mother bird and then push the puppet head through the feeding slot. The baby falcon or owl would think it was getting food from its mother. That way it wouldn’t imprint, connect the presence of a person with being fed.

  Pam was fascinated by the puppets and by this opportunity to closely observe large birds of prey. She peered in at all of them, found them appealing and frightening, too. And she was struck by how many owls there were—huge grave creatures whose eyes glowed and whose heads seemed to swivel while their bodies stood absolutely still.

  “I’ve played around using artificial light to simulate the breeding season. It doesn’t seem to work too well. I don’t like artificial insemination either. Too delicate. Not much point unless you’re trying to make hybrids ….”

  She faded him out. The techniques of breeding didn’t interest her, and now a strange idea was taking hold. A big barn. Breeding chambers built along one wall. One-way windows. Lots of owls. It looked, except for the elaborate security locks and the steel door, like the barn Hawk-Eye had described. But Carl could have put in the locks after he was robbed. Certainly he would have done that, she thought; once robbed he’d be stupid not to improve his security.

  “Is this a typical breeding barn?” she asked.

  “Oh, no.” There was boasting in his voice. “This one’s unique. My own design. There isn’t a private breeder on the East Coast who’s got a setup that comes close to this.”

  Carl: the breeder? The man Hawk-Eye had robbed? It seemed incredible, but as she thought back on Hawk-Eye’s story, other things began clicking into place. Hawk-Eye had followed the breeder to a train; she knew Wendel commuted daily into town. But why?

  Why? Why hadn’t Carl recognized his bird? And then she thought: He did!

  He was still talking about captivity breeding, but she wasn’t listening, was thinking back upon the time they’d first looked together at the film. She remembered his reaction, his almost visceral fright. He’d said he was disturbed by the bird’s size and the ferocious way it attacked. But maybe it was more, the knowledge that he’d bred this killer bird, that the eyass that had been stolen from him in the spring had killed the girl in the rink. He’d been the first to see the jesses. Maybe he’d been looking for them all along. Maybe he’d suspected a falconer and that’s why he’d been so persistent in seeking out the proof. She felt uneasy.

  Wendel hadn’t been honest with her.

  He’d known it was his bird, had known that from the start. She wondered whether to confront him now or try to draw him out without revealing what she knew.

  They left the barn, walked back to his house. She decided to bait him and see how he’d react. She asked as naturally as she could if he thought Peregrine might have been created by a breeder. “You know,” she said, “someone like you, someone who’s got a setup like this.”

  He winced at the notion. “Very unlikely.”

  She pretended she hadn’t heard him, continued on. “Maybe that could account for her size. Maybe she’s a hybrid, or a breeder made her big by special techniques, feeding, for instance, or drugs, or maybe even altering her genes.”

  Wendel stopped in his tracks. “Who gave you that idea?”

  “Couple of people.”

  “Who?”

  “Jay Hollander, for one.”

  “Well,” he laughed, “Jay’s always full of theories. I’m sure he’s got one, too, about how Peregrine was trained.”

  “Actually, he does have some ideas on that. Speculations—you know.” She paused. “Maybe you could speculate a little yourself.”

  “About what?”

  “The bird’s size—how it might have been achieved.”

  “You mean by a breeder?”

  She nodded. “I’d like your thoughts—off the record, if you prefer.”

  He started to walk again. “I suppose the sort of things you mentioned.”

  “Foods? Drugs? Genetic engineering?”

  “Maybe.” He turned away. “I wouldn’t know. I’ve never dabbled in that sort of thing myself.”

  He was lying—she knew it. He didn’t even lie very well. That made her angry, but she tried not to show it.

  The question was why he lied, what he had to gain. Maybe it was just fear, as Hawk-Eye had said, fear that his Trust for Raptor Birds would come under scrutiny and be closed down. But she couldn’t help but feel there was more than that, something else that made him lie. What? Why hadn’t he gone to the police? The robbery had taken place long before the attacks. What had Carl feared? What was he covering up?

  “What do you do with your falcons after they’re grown?” she asked.

  “Release them. I release them in various places in the hope they’ll survive and multiply in the wild.”

  “How many have you released?”

  “Not too many.”

  “Well—how many?” she asked again, this time with impatience in her voice.

  “Ten or so, I guess,” he said, “give or take a few.”

  “You mean in all the time you’ve been breeding you’ve only hatched ten peregrines?”

  “That’s a large number relative to the difficulty of breeding, and, remember, most of my work has been with owls. But I’ll tell you one thing, Miss Barrett. None of my birds has ever gone to a falconer. Not that I know of. Unless, of course, they were captured after release.”

  “Are they banded so you can tell?”

  “No. I don’t believe in that. They’re just released. I take them to remote areas, places where they might return and nest.”

  “Have you gone back to those places to see if they did return?”

  “Yes, I have, and some of them have returned, not too many but enough, considering the dangers they face from other predators and from men.” He stopped; they’d reached her car. “I appreciate your coming out, but now I have to get back to work. I’ll send you some scientific papers so you’ll understand captivity breeding a little better. Then maybe your questions will be a little better informed.”

  That was the closest he came to being rude. She could see he felt uneasy and wanted her to go. She thanked him for his time and slid into her car.

  After she started the engine he approached again. “Look, I’m sorry I was so abrupt. This whole thing’s got me upset. The sooner they rescue the falcon, the happier I’ll be. The bird will need a new home. I’ll be offering my barn. She shouldn’t be allowed to fly around. She’s got all this craziness in her and she’ll have to be protected from the anger that’s been aroused against her in New York. Yes—I certainly hope they turn her over to me. What a tragedy for the bird.”

  Driving back to the city, she thought over his final words. They seemed conclusive—he wasn’t interested in seeing the falconer brought to justice or in the fate of the people who’d been killed: All he cared about was getting his falcon back; nothing else mattered to him at all.

  She wondered about Carl. He was such a strange man, the way he lied, evaded her questions, his almost hysterical hatred of falconry, which didn’t fit with his breeding work. He talked about birds living free in the wild but kept a barn filled with birds who were caged. Then there were those rumors Jay had mentioned, that business about his having been attacked by an owl, then the strange shift in his personality, the switch from being a brilliant field naturalist to a man who preferred birds when they were dead and stuffed. Jay had said something about him she’d never quite gotten out of her mind: “It’s as if he saw something,” Jay had said. “Maybe the real horror at the basis of predation, the blood-thirsty terror of it, and after that he was never quite the same.”

  The problem now was how to follow up. She had uncovered certain facts: Hawk-Eye was the dealer; Carl Wendel had been the breeder; the falconer had coveted the bird, which meant he’d seen her, which meant that Carl knew his name. She had to extract that name from Carl, which meant
confronting him with his lies. But what if he denied he’d been the breeder, shook her off, refused to see or talk with her again? She’d only get one crack at him, one interview, and it would have to pay off. Otherwise she’d have to go to Janek, which meant betraying Hawk-Eye and giving up her chance to solve the case.

  She knew she wasn’t ready to confront Carl yet; she needed more information, hard facts he couldn’t brush away, such as how he’d bred such a large falcon and why he’d concealed the fact that Peregrine belonged to him, why he’d never reported Hawk-Eye’s theft to the police—in short, whatever it was he was covering up.

  She knew she was on to something. But what? Maybe Jay could help. She would call him when she got back to town, invite him over for a drink, question him about Carl, find out everything he knew. Then they’d go out to dinner, maybe Chinatown this time.

  Then back to her place for another drink. And this time he’d kiss her; this time they’d make love ….

  She fell into a reverie. Her thoughts of confronting Carl Wendel gave way to thoughts of making love with Jay.

  She imagined the scene—how he’d try to kiss her; her smile, her resistance, her mock attempt to fight him off. Then he’d “man” her—that’s what they called it in falconry …. She stopped herself. This was crazy, having fantasies when her real task was to learn enough to confront Carl successfully and extract the falconer’s name.

  She never did call Jay. She was about to, would have if she hadn’t found the note. It was in her mailbox, her home mailbox this time, along with her Bryn Mawr alumni magazine, and as soon as she saw the writing on the envelope she knew who it was from:

  HAVE FULLY RECOVERED FROM MY WOUNDS SUFFERED IN THE DUEL, PAMBIRD, AND AM NOW READY TO KILL AGAIN. VERY SOON I SHALL BE RIPPING OUT THE THROAT OF A PRETTY YOUNG GIRL, ONE WHO LOOKS MUCH LIKE YOURSELF.

  YOU ARE MY RIVAL, YOU SEE, RIVAL FOR MY FALCONER’S HEART. HE LIKES YOU, PAM, MY FALCONER DOES. HE LIKES YOU VERY MUCH. HE WON’T LET ME KILL YOU, BUT I MUST SHED BLOOD.