The Snake

by John Godey

  “Yes sir. There’s going to be a public outcry.”

  The DC nodded. “Your ass is on the line, Vincent. You’ve got forty-eight hours to get the snake. After that, you’ll be reassigned to someplace dirty. Nobody’s fooling around, now. This comes straight from the top.”

  The DC went back to join his peers, and DI Scott gave Eastman the gist of his conversation with the DC. “No question about it, this is a bullet straight from the P.C., bless his aching head. I’m telling you flat out, Tom, that if I go to Siberia you’re coming with me.”

  “Look,” Eastman said patiently, “we’ve been doing our best, robbing men from everywhere to put them in the park, even some old desk-duty cops who are practically crippled by arthritis. Our ESU trucks and personnel are out there all day long. And Converse has been going out every morning, like I told you, trying to find it sunning itself—”

  “He hasn’t produced any results,” the DI said flatly.

  “Maybe not. But he knows what he’s doing. Sure, the brass shoots an ultimatum at us, but it’s still going to take time. It’s a process of elimination.”

  “Well,” the DI said, “our asses are on the line, and I think I just thought of a process that will eliminate the whole process of elimination.”

  ***

  As the DI finished speaking to Eastman, Converse’s alarm clock went off. He sipped a cup of instant coffee while he shaved and dressed, and turned off the air conditioner before he left. He found a cab cruising on Hudson Street. Its driver was a kid with a beard who confessed that he was lost in the Village and would welcome guidance. He took notice of the Pilstrom tongs.

  “You gonna take a chance at catching that snake?”

  Converse nodded.

  “I don’t believe in killing things,” the driver said earnestly. “Like Schweitzer? I mean, the snake has a right to life. It’s a part of the ecology.”

  Eighth Avenue was dark and squalid. In a half hour, Converse thought, it would be light and squalid.

  “You know,” the driver said, “Schweitzer would go out of his way to avoid stepping on an ant?”

  “Some snakes eat ants.”

  “Ah,” the driver said, “eating is different from killing. Eating is ecology.”

  Converse got out at 100th Street and Central Park West, near the Boys Gate. There were only a few cars going by on the street, mostly cabs with the off-duty signs lit. To the east, the sky was lightening, but the sun was not yet up. It was the eleventh or twelfth day of the heat wave—he had lost count—and this was going to be another ninety-plus day. He shifted the Pilstrom tongs to his shoulder and headed into the park.

  ***

  He ambled eastward along the walkways, dreaming about Holly Markham, Empress of all the Russias, and it wasn’t until a ray of sunlight struck his eyes that he realized that he had been dawdling. He began to trot, holding the tongs in front of him now, like a soldier on a bayonet charge. By the time he reached his first target area of the day, not far from the short road (CLOSED TO THE PUBLIC—POLICE ONLY) that connects the East and West drives, the sun, white and aqueous, was starting to clear the buildings on Fifth Avenue.

  The site was a hollow in a heavily wooded, overrun area, dense with undergrowth, fallen leaves, a tangle of bushes, ground creeper, weeds, a couple of fallen trees; and, above it, a large flat plateau of rock. It was a beautifully convenient rock, Converse thought, in the perfect neighborhood for a black mamba’s home. But that had been the case, to be sure, in a dozen previous sites he had checked out.

  Moving cautiously, he edged toward a position that would bring him up to eye level with the table of the rock. He inched forward, careful to avoid making vibrations that a snake might “hear,” and took cover behind a thick bush where, if he didn’t move about unduly, he wouldn’t be likely to be spotted by a snake’s sharp eyes.

  A long bar of sunlight appeared on a margin of the rock, toning its color down to a warm gray; as Converse watched, the strip broadened visibly. In a few minutes it would cover the entire surface and provide an irresistible basking place for a black mamba. He shut his eyes against the brightness, and when he next opened them, the rock was bathed in sunshine. He shaded his eyes with his palm and stared outward at the rock.

  When he first heard the sound—or thought he heard it; it might have been wishful thinking—he pushed his head forward, straining. Nothing. Silence. Then he heard it again, a mere whisper of sound, but continuous now, and his heartbeat accelerated with an almost painful abruptness. Not daring to move, he listened with terrific intensity, and presently he was sure of it, certain that it was the sound he had been waiting to hear for all those long mornings in the park.

  It wasn’t much of a sound, and an untrained person might not have heard it at all, or, hearing it, might have dismissed it as of no consequence. But to a herpetologist it was unique and unmistakable—an innocent-enough rustle, much like the sound of a jump rope being drawn through the grass. His heart was thumping so hard that for a moment he entertained the ludicrous notion that it was straining the thin material of his T-shirt.

  As the sound came perceptibly closer beneath the rock, he thought joyously, My God, Converse, you’re a lucky man, then shook his head as if to rebuke himself. Not luck; it wasn’t luck at all, but a reward. He had been doing all the right things, he had been patient and painstaking, and sooner or later it was inevitable that he would find it.

  The sound had become louder and more distinct. Converse, tingling with excitement, looked out unblinkingly over the flat sunbathed surface of the rock and knew that in just another short moment he would see it: a small head would appear over the rim of the rock, swaying on a sinuous neck, a tongue would flick in and out, in and out, alert dark eyes would probe for danger, and finally, the black mamba would insinuate its great curving length up onto the rock.

  The rope-dragging sound intensified, and Converse braced himself for his first sight of the snake.

  Then the sound stopped.

  ***

  The snake felt the vibrations first at a distance. It paused below the rock and raised its head warily. It could see nothing threatening. But the vibrations continued, and they were disturbing. It darted its tongue and swiveled its eyes. Then, all at once, the ground became active, it began to shake, leaves and small stones flew, and there was a great wind. The snake whipped around in a swift turn and slithered into the brush. Even here, down below, leaves were blowing about, fragments of twigs were stinging its flanks. It broached the entrance to the burrow, pushed past the debris which had piled up around the entrance, and slid inside to safety.

  ***

  Later, Converse was to realize that he should have heard it long before he did—perhaps did hear it, but only with his ears, not his brain, because he was so intensely concentrated on the top of the rock and the sound of dragging rope.

  When the leaves and small stones stung his legs, and the trees and bushes began swaying, the sound crashed in on him with a roar. He looked upward just as the helicopter passed over him, so low that it barely seemed to clear the treetops. It was painted blue and white, there was a number on the fuselage, and, in large letters, POLICE. NO longer cautious, he came out of his hiding place and leaped up onto the flat shelf of the rock. He shook his fist up at the helicopter and screamed, “You bastards! You dumb, stupid, fucking saboteurs!”

  ***

  The courtyard of the Central Park Precinct was seething with activity when Converse got out of his taxi. Cars were pouring out of the underground garage, cops were piling into the ESU trucks, and still others were lined up in platoon formation. Inside the main precinct building there was more turmoil, with additional cops and plainclothesmen crowded around the desk. Nobody paid any attention to him as he went down the corridor to the Commander’s office. Eastman barely glanced at him. He was speaking on the phone, which he held tucked in between his shoulder and chin, and at the same time shuffling papers on his desk. He was unshaved, his clothes were rumpled, his blue eyes w
ere puffy and slitted.

  By the time Eastman finished his phone call, and took several others, all of which seemed to concern the deployment of police from other precincts to duty in the park, Converse’s anger had simmered down. Nevertheless, the first words he said to Eastman were, “Well, you fucked it up, captain.”

  Eastman’s reddened eyes looked startled, but he didn’t say anything. He held up his hand warningly, as if to indicate, Converse thought, that he wasn’t yet ready for anger, that he adjusted gradually to the unexpected these days where he would have leaped into its face twenty years ago.

  “A helicopter,” Converse said. “It would have been cheaper to call it up on the telephone and warn it to take cover. I swear, captain, it made me sick.”

  Eastman nodded, as if, at last, he was on familiar ground; there was always, inevitably, something that made someone sick.

  “Why didn’t somebody ask me about it? I could have told you it wouldn’t work. You promised to give me time.”

  “Time ran out a few hours ago,” Eastman said. He took note of Converse’s puzzlement. “You didn’t hear about it?”

  Converse shook his head, and Eastman told him about the McPeek family, his face blank, as though, Converse thought, he had exhausted pity and anger.

  “The little girl died a few hours ago. The wife is still on the critical list.”

  “Oh, Christ.”

  It was the kind of accident that occurred from time to time in Africa, when a black mamba would pursue a rodent into a house. In India, as well, where a cobra might enter through a ventilating duct. His eyes welled with tears.

  “So we have no more time for the scientific approach,” Eastman said. “We’re putting every policeman we can spare into the park, and we’re going through the houses on the street where the family was bitten. And that’s why we put the helicopter in the air.”

  “It’s awful,” Converse said. “It’s a great pity.” He brushed at his eyes. “But you won’t be helping them or anybody else by using a helicopter.” Remembering how the ground had trembled, and the storm of stones and vegetation, Converse’s indignation returned. “That damn stupid machine, just when the snake… might have been coming out to bask.”

  He had almost given himself away. Had Eastman detected the slight hesitation when he had caught himself up? He gazed past Eastman’s head to the window.

  “What happened when the helicopter came over this morning?” Eastman’s voice was heavy with suspicion. “Were you on its trail?”

  “If I Was on its trail, I’d have picked it up after the helicopter was gone, wouldn’t I?”

  And so he should have done. He should have waded into that hollow that he was so sure was the black mamba’s home and turned it over until he found the snake. But he had been carried away by anger.

  “Because,” Eastman said, “if I find out that you found it, and aren’t telling, so help me, I’ll beat the living shit out of you.”

  The captain’s eyes were ice and fire at the same time. This is how he must have been, Converse thought, when he was younger. Maybe I’m doing him a favor, rejuvenating him.

  He said calmly, “Relax, captain, you’re beginning to sound like an old-fashioned ass-kicking cop. I know you’re not but—”

  The hand that closed on the back of his neck was like a steel clamp.

  He wrenched himself free of it and whirled around.

  “Get the fuck out of here,” DI Scott said, “and don’t come back.”

  Converse had breakfast at the same coffee shop where he had gone with Holly. He ate slowly, touching his neck tenderly from time to time. Nobody had manhandled him that way since he was a kid, but his indignation was tempered by the thought that he had lied to Eastman. He liked Eastman. Eastman was a good man. But, like everybody else, Eastman wanted to kill the snake.

  He drank a second cup of coffee. There was no hurry. After a while he would return to the park, go down into that hollow, and stay there until he found the black mamba. He would catch it, bag it, and… and then what? Sneak it up to the Bronx Zoo and give it to his old boss for safekeeping? Turn it over to that showman and collect his twenty thousand dollars? What he would really like to do was shove it down DI Scott’s shirt collar.

  He walked slowly northward along Central Park West, resting on a bench now and then, fighting off the temptation to doze. There were five police cars parked near the Boys Gate, and a lot of cops inside the park. As he walked eastward he passed a group of Puries being herded by some cops. The Puries looked disheveled, and one of them had a bloody lip. The cops were grim-faced. He turned and watched the cops shove the Puries into patrol cars. More work for the Reverend’s lawyer, who had been kept busy the last few days bailing out the Reverend’s flock.

  Two cops, carrying shotguns, were standing beside the thicket that led up to the rock overlooking the black mamba’s hollow. Converse stopped and swore silently. Keep going, he thought, come back later. He nodded to the cops and sauntered by them, then stopped again. While there was only a small chance that they would find the snake, suppose it found them, and attacked?

  He turned and went back to the cops. One of them recognized him and said hello. “It’s the snake guy,” he said to his partner.

  Converse said conversationally, “You fellas got a lead of some kind?”

  The cop who had spoken first said, “We’re looking, that’s all. Christ, we never stop looking.”

  The other cop gestured toward the thicket with his shotgun. “Come on, Charlie, let’s get it over with.”

  “I hate this duty,” Charlie said. “Ask me to kick a door in with a perpetrator inside and I’ll do it, but snakes….” He shuddered.

  “You can save yourself the trouble,” Converse said. “It’s not in there.”

  “You checked it out?” Charlie said.

  “Yesterday. It’s not there.”

  “He’s the snake guy,” Charlie said to his partner, “so there’s no point to going in there.”

  Converse nodded. “Waste of time.”

  The second cop seemed doubtful. “The sergeant finds out we dogged it, we’re in trouble.”

  Charlie said, “You want to go in there?”

  The second cop said, “That sergeant is a bitch.”

  The stubborn sonofabitch, Converse thought, he’s going to win out, and I’m going to have to go in there with them to protect them, and if the snake does show up they’ll repay me by blasting it to bits.

  “Ah, what the hell,” the second cop said, “let’s forget it. Sergeant beefs, we’ll tell him the snake guy says it ain’t there, right?”

  Concealing his relief, Converse nodded and said, “See you, fellas,” and walked away. A dozen paces on he looked over his shoulder. The two cops were heading away from the thicket, walking toward their squad car, drawn up on the grass. Satisfied that they had given up, he headed toward Central Park West. He would come back later, toward morning, after the police had cleared out of the park, and bag the black mamba.

  He left through the Boys Gate and caught a bus. The man beside him had a newspaper. The headline announced the death of Mrs. Emily McPeek. Converse wept. The man moved to another seat.

  ***

  The attack on the McPeek family affected the city as no previous event had done. Reflexively, spontaneously, people began to gather at City Hall. It started near noon and gradually, throughout the day, increased in numbers and intensity. Many came from other boroughs—Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx—to voice their shock and horror. The fact that the snake had invaded a victim’s living quarters created a new level of terror.

  Nevertheless, the gathering was quiet. There were some concerted, rhythmic calls for the mayor to appear, but for the most part the crowd was orderly. A change of mood took place with the arrival in the afternoon of organized groups representing several unions, welfare recipients, P.T.A. mothers and the unemployed. The emotions of the crowd, worked on by these experienced demonstrators, began to heat up. The crowd became noisy, the
n unruly. The mayor’s bearded aide made three separate appearances on the steps, but the crowd refused to be satisfied with anything less than the presence of the mayor himself. At length, near 5 o’clock, when the size of the crowd had been swelled by home-going workers, the mayor was at last persuaded to show himself.

  An hour later, still somewhat shaken, Hizzonner phoned the Police Commissioner. “I want to tell you,” he said, “that although I am no stranger to harassment by the public, this is by far the worst I have ever gone through.”

  “I know,” the P.C. said, “I’ve been going over the reports. They’re bad.”

  “Bad is not the word for it. Do you know that some character took a punch at me? I almost got hit.”

  “You’re right. Bad certainly isn’t the word for that.”

  “My staff, they said, ‘Show yourself, that’s all they want. Show yourself and they’ll be happy.’ So I stepped out onto the steps, and this guy ran past your cops and took a swing at me.”

  “I’m looking into it,” the P.C. said, “and I’m going to ride some asses. Also I’m issuing instructions to beef up the force at the Hall.”

  “What bothers me is that it might catch on, and that the level of violence might escalate.” The mayor’s voice lowered to a whisper. “They might try something with a gun.”

  “Oh, no,” the P.C. said, “that just isn’t done.”

  “A thing like that could change overnight. It worries me.”

  “Well, I’m not a psychologist, your Honor, but for some reason, they like to go right to the top. The president, yes, everybody wants to shoot the president, because he’s the top man, that’s what seems to appeal to these nuts and their ambitions.”

  “It has been said—and by God, it’s the truth—that being mayor of New York City is the second most important job in the United States after president. Well, suppose you get some nut who isn’t as ambitious as the others, who maybe is content to knock off the second most important man in the country?”