The Killing of Butterfly Joe

by Rhidian Brook

  ‘But-ter-fly Joe,’ he said savouring the name as if Joe were a notorious outlaw. ‘The FWA have been trailing your friend for some time.’

  A survival instinct made me decide to play the idiot. ‘FWA? What is that?’

  ‘Fish and Wildlife Agency. We’re the FBI of the animal kingdom. Except the FBI has ten thousand agents and we got a hundred and twenty. Crazy really when trafficking in wildlife ranks just behind drugs and humans in terms of profit. We are the thin green line between the protected species and extinction. Your friend is a one-man environmental wrecking ball. There are nineteen protected species. He claims to have all of them. He even admitted it! I didn’t even have to drag it out of him. He tried to sell some Palos Verdes blues last year. And that’s like selling a dodo.’

  Moroni finally took off his sunglasses, revealing mussel-shell rings around his eyes, quite lovely violet eyes with great long lashes. He looked tired from keeping all the species from extinction. I could see great dedication in the exhaustion. But someone was going to pay for that.

  ‘We could have arrested him twelve months ago for selling Palos Verdes blues to an undercover agent posing as a Japanese buyer. But it’s like poker with these guys. You gotta know when to play your hand. When he sold a set of Big Four at the LA Bug Convention he was bragging he had more where they came from! Said he had five birdwings. The Smithsonian only has two. But like all these guys he couldn’t stop bragging. Said he had all nineteen species on the endangered list. Claimed he has a set of five-winged blue morphos. A butterfly that don’t even exist.’

  I began to think about the Miranda and my own right to silence. I was being very slow to see that I was intimately involved in this.

  Moroni opened the file and pulled out some papers and photographs. He tossed a photo at me.

  It was Joe wearing his bow tie and carrying his attaché case. The grainy quality and the bow tie and glasses made Joe look like a clown up to no good.

  ‘This is your friend just last month. Selling to one of our undercover agents, pretending to be a buyer for a collector.’

  I shrugged. ‘Is that bad?’

  Moroni spread photographs of rare species of butterfly on the desk. He picked out the most spectacular. I knew what it was. It was an Alexandra birdwing. Mounted and framed by Isabelle’s fair hand. The Latin inscription in her spidery cursive.

  ‘You know what this is?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You are a butterfly salesman and you don’t know what this is? That would be like being a car salesman and not knowing what a Cadillac is. Except this is rarer than a Cadillac and more valuable. It’s more of a . . . Bugatti. It’s an Ornithoptera alexandrae. That’s an Alexandra’s birdwing. One of the rarest butterflies in the world. There are more white sperm whales roaming the oceans than there are birdwings in Papua New Guinea.’

  ‘Blimey.’ I continued to play the role of entomological ignoramus.

  He laid three more photographs of butterflies on the desk.

  ‘So if the Alexandra’s is the Holy Grail for collectors, then this is your Golden Fleece: Homerus. Named after some Roman poet.’ (Moroni knew his bugs if not his Roman poets. I decided not to correct him. Not with what was at stake.) ‘Then this one with the pretty flare is a chika. And this, from Corsica, is a hospiton which don’t look much but believe me when a hospiton has baby hospitons it’s laying gold.’ He set the four photos side by side now. ‘Together you are looking at the Big Four. You know what some people would pay for that set?’

  I shrugged. ‘A lot?’

  ‘Ten years, my friend. Or a $250,000 fine. And that’s just these. There are nineteen Appendix I butterflies listed under the Lacey Act. Your friend has, in the last eighteen months, offered to supply people with all nineteen at various points. We got it on tape. I can’t even say what that equates to in jail time, Mr Jones. We woulda got your friend in the end. These guys can’t stop bragging about what they got. And your friend certainly had something to brag about. I mean Palos Verdes blues? Do you know how rare they are? I mean we’re talking Tasmanian tiger rare, Barbary lion rare, great auk rare! Namely we’re talking extinct rare!’

  ‘That’s certainly rare.’

  ‘Why are you laughing? You don’t think I’m being serious?’

  ‘I’m not laughing.’

  ‘You’re smiling.’

  ‘I’m just trying to . . .’

  ‘Two hundred years ago there were whales in the oceans and buffalo on the plains. Then they brought in the Endangered Species Act. You ever heard of that?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No. That’s the thing. It has no power. You laughing again?’

  ‘It’s nerves. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Well, let me educate you. A little history lesson. They brought in the Lacey Act. In 1900. They had to do something to prevent, and I quote, “the extinction of all God’s creatures”. It prohibits trade in wildlife, fish and plants that have been illegally taken, possessed, transported or sold. There are serious civil penalties for anyone who violates these rules and your friend is a violator, make no mistake. And now I got him I ain’t letting him go in a hurry.’

  ‘I didn’t know about any of this, Mr Moroni.’

  ‘Agent.’

  ‘Agent. Sorry.’

  ‘How can you not know? You’re his partner in crime.’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘The other Flutter Brother, right?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That’s what he called you. The Flutter Brothers. Tells me you sold butterflies all over America.’

  ‘So he did talk.’

  ‘He didn’t talk any sense. He just talks in fairy tales. About the Wizard. The Lord. And the Flutter Brothers.’

  ‘I’ve only known Mr Bosco a few months.’

  ‘Right. He said you’re practically family. You’re going to marry one of his sisters.’

  ‘Joe exaggerates sometimes.’

  ‘Not about his bugs. It’s quite some operation he has going. Selling legit bugs to stores and running this on the side. Pretty smart cover. Are you the cover?’

  ‘Joe is no criminal.’

  ‘You know, in my experience, the best conmen don’t know they’re conmen. Like your friend. He just doesn’t realize it. He’s a bit crazy, too. Is he all there?’

  ‘All where?’

  ‘In the head. You know. Sane. You know he got forty days for contempt for saying the judge weren’t the judge that really counted. He’s quite the biscuit. Right now, he’s in that cell, acting like this is a joke, singing songs like it’s a holiday.’

  ‘Joe isn’t a crook. Or crazy. He’s a lot of things. But not a crook or crazy.’

  Moroni laughed. ‘Tell me what you know. And I’ll cut you a deal. Plea bargain. You seem like a sane young man. And I imagine your six-month visa is up for renewal soon. You wouldn’t want links to a felony to force you to leave this country prematurely. Why don’t you tell me where he got these bugs?’

  ‘They came from the family collection.’

  ‘Right, and I’m Elvis.’

  ‘His father was – is – a respected entomologist. The butterflies were caught by him.’

  I gave Moroni a full-fat version (the one in which the father was alive – the truer version). ‘He must have told you this?’

  ‘Sure. He told me that story. And the magistrate judge gave him forty days to prove it.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘If his father can prove the butterflies Mr Bosco sold were his then he goes free.’

  ‘And if not?’

  ‘Twenty years.’

  I had no reason to disbelieve Agent Moroni. But Joe must have wound him up something rotten for the agent had a seething suppressed rage, a mad revenger’s glint. I’ll admit I felt a powerful urge to put distance between me and Joe, to disabuse Moroni of the nature of our relationship. Tell him how Joe was elusive at best, untrustworthy at worst. That he made promises he couldn’t deliver. That I was never sure of wha
t the truth was when I was around him. All the bad bits. But the more he talked the more I believed Joe was right about Moroni: ‘he’d bitten the wrong end of the carrot.’

  ‘You know why I joined the service, Mr Jones? To catch people like your friend. People who plunder the treasures of the planet and then profit from them. Now your friend says you knew nothing about what he was doing. That you just work for his legit butterfly business. But I think he’s set you up. Played you for a fool. Used you – and your English thing. It gave him a look and sound of being legit. That big redneck was never going to get into some of the places without your help. I think he invented this story about inheriting them just to get around the law. But unless he produces his father he’s going down.’

  ‘Can I see him?’

  Moroni led me back down the corridor to a room that had a glass pane dividing it in two. The room through the glass had a cushioned low armchair, a bed and a basin. Joe was lying on the floor (I assume in solidarity with the world’s poorest majority), his hands behind his head. It wasn’t the body language of the guilty man or someone looking at twenty years in jail. At least here Joe couldn’t do any more deals, set more plates spinning. Here he was unable to menace the world with his Joe-ness. He was singing one of his ‘made-up’ songs, loud and annoying.

  ‘Way out West where the weather is fine

  I met a sweet girl and I made her mine

  We lived in a hut . . . by the oceans sweet

  And wrote fine poems and ate sweet meats!’

  ‘For someone in the kind of trouble he’s in he’s acting pretty breezy. He’s been doing that ever since he got here. He can’t see or hear us.’

  It seemed unfair being able to watch someone and talk about them without them knowing you were watching them. But I found it oddly reassuring that Joe was still Joe whether he was being watched or not. Still annoying. Still singing his songs. Still eschewing the bed. Joe being watched acted no differently to Joe alone.

  ‘You got twenty minutes.’

  Joe leapt up and embraced me. He was so big and strong that he held me slightly away from himself, afraid he might crush me. The height difference meant he planted his feet two feet away from me and leant over to stoop down. It was awkward but endearing and the first time he’d really hugged me like that. He always found new ways to win me over, and it was usually when I was at my wits’ end with him.

  ‘Rip! Thank the Lord. I am so bored. Here, take a seat on this lovely federal state chair.’

  ‘Moroni says I have twenty minutes. And you’re getting twenty years.’

  ‘Bogus angel.’

  ‘He seems pretty sure you’re going down, Joe.’

  ‘Moroni Macaroni Baloney. That was him in Rochester. And Tarrytown. They set me up, Rip. Those ads in the bug magazines. “Rare butterflies wanted”. Enough of him. You see Roth’s guys OK?’

  ‘Uh huh.’

  ‘You did?’

  ‘Yep. I bought us time.’

  ‘That’s great! The deal’s still alive then!’

  (I made a face to show Moroni was the other side of the glass and could hear.)

  ‘Oh, don’t worry about him. Come on, Rip. Tell me what you told Roth’s people. How did you do it?’

  ‘I told them that you died.’

  ‘Ha! No. Seriously?’

  ‘No. Seriously. I told them you died.’

  Joe looked at me and seeing I meant it his face opened up into that great shit-eating grin. Then he belly-laughed for about ten seconds. ‘Oh boy. I taught you well! Was it a beautiful death?’

  ‘It was a death you didn’t deserve, Joe. Heroic.’

  ‘Why, Rip. That is wonderful! How did I die? You need to describe it to me!’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘For real.’

  ‘I had you chasing a swallowtail – no a yellowtip – in the Kaaterskill Falls.’

  ‘That would be unusual at this time of year, but not impossible. Go on!’

  ‘And you were so preoccupied with the chasing that you missed the drop. I got quite into it. Almost cried myself at the end. I thought you’d be the first to agree that sacrificing you was a price worth paying to keep this deal alive.’

  ‘Absolutely solid, Rip. Good Theology, too. Substitutional atonement. Makes the world go round! Didn’t I tell you I’d achieve more dead than alive!’

  ‘My thoughts exactly.’

  ‘Death opens doors to hearts, you know. The Death of Joe Bosco. I like it. Was it as good as Saving Ma From The Fire or When My Father Never Came Back from the Jungles of Yucatán?’

  ‘It had to be. Roth’s people weren’t florists.’

  ‘Think, Rip, if you can manipulate the hardnosed business heads of America what more can you achieve?’

  ‘Look Joe, I have twenty . . . fifteen minutes. This guy Moroni is saying you have been selling illegal specimens. This is all well and good. But what now?’

  ‘I ain’t no illegal dealer. Those were my butterflies to sell. It ain’t ever been a crime to sell the family silver.’

  ‘Joe! Can we be serious for a bit? You know what they’re asking? You have to prove your father caught those butterflies!’

  ‘Rip, you are handsome when you get angry! A lover!’

  ‘I can’t help you unless you start being honest with me. No more twists. No more “I gotta meet a man about this”, or “I gotta go see so and so about that”. Deals on the side. No one tells me the truth in your family – except Isabelle.’

  I waited to see if he’d pick up on this but he was too tied up in his own yarn.

  ‘On the way here I nearly quit, Joe. I thought seriously about going back to being Llewellyn Jones. I went by my aunt’s. That close!’ I held up my thumb and index with a gossamer-thin wing gap between them.

  He looked stung for a fraction but he didn’t believe me.

  ‘I shown you wonders and I’ll show you more if you stick around. You want to go back to being a guy drifting along and tripping over because he can’t look where he’s going ’cos his nose is in a book? Getting high and depressed and telling people he’s going to be a writer when he’s got nothing to write about! I’m giving you stories here, Rip. Like bread to a duck.’

  ‘It would be good to have a . . . normal story. One where you didn’t go to prison.’

  ‘Well . . . that is . . . that is the most depressing news I heard all day.’

  ‘No, Joe. The most depressing news is that you got arrested and face twenty years in prison.’

  Joe scratched his hair as though he had nits.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me you were selling on the side?’

  ‘I wanted to tell you. But I had to work out what I can tell you. Because you’d choke on it if I did. I gotta feed it to you in pieces you can swallow. And like I said I wanted this deal to be the real deal. I’m protecting other people.’

  ‘From what?’

  ‘From . . . disappointment.’

  ‘Truth! You are always telling me the truth will set you free.’

  ‘It does, but it can also be like a sword, cutting people in two. I ain’t lied to you. I just couldn’t reveal all the information. I sold a few bugs. We needed the money. For college. And other things. For the house. How do you think we pay for it all? Ma thinks the business is enough but it ain’t. We can’t get loans. We got no credit anywhere. I had to sell some bugs, Rip. But it weren’t illegal. You think I’m as foolish as I look? I got my reasons.’

  ‘So why be secretive?’

  ‘Because . . . I can’t prove they were caught all those years ago. And if I got caught there’s always this danger that they would ask me to prove it. And that would mean having to go get . . . my father.’

  ‘Moroni said you didn’t ask for a lawyer.’

  ‘I screwed up with the judge. But maybe it buys us some time.’

  Joe stopped there and looked to the glass, suddenly caring about being heard. ‘Look. I’ll get out of here. Those butterflies were caught long before Fish and Wildlife
was even an idea. They were mine to sell. I’m exempt from that law because of the previously existing law when those bugs were caught. It’s called a grandfather clause. I already knew this because Ma once sold some aberrations years ago.’

  ‘Joe, they’re saying unless your father confirms that they’re his you go to jail.’

  ‘There’s other ways to prove it.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘It’s a storm at a tea party. It’ll blow over.’

  ‘How?’

  There was no other way to prove it. I knew it and I knew he knew it; but the alternative was too much for him to admit. Joe didn’t have a plate for this part. He’d run out of plates.

  ‘OK. What if I go and get him?’

  ‘Get who?’

  ‘The Unmentionable One.’

  Joe emitted that strange low groan he’d let out that first time I had asked about his father, the day he drove me to the house.

  Moroni’s voice came through the speaker. ‘Five minutes, people.’

  Joe took off his glasses and cleaned them, even though they did not need cleaning. He made little contortions with his nose, rubbed his mother-saving, plate-spinning, thorax-pinching hands. Events were catching up with him.

  ‘That can’t happen.’

  ‘But why?

  Joe shook his head.

  ‘Joe! Think about it. He can prove they’re his bugs. Then Moroni and all his other bogus angels will fly away and bug someone else. And you go free and we can do the deal.’

  ‘I made a promise to Ma.’

  ‘Break it!’

  ‘That’s the devil’s advice.’

  ‘No. The devil’s advice is to have nothing to do with your father because your mother tells you to! I’ll go and get him. You don’t have a choice, Joe.’

  ‘I don’t know where he is.’

  ‘Isabelle does.’

  He flinched, and stretched out his neck. ‘What?’

  ‘She wrote to him once.’

  ‘No, no, no.’

  ‘Yes, yes, yes. She wrote to him at Princeton.’

  ‘No. No. No.’

  ‘Yes. I think she knows. I know she knows.’

  ‘Dee-dee-dee. La da di,’ Joe covered his ears.

  ‘He could be a day’s drive. Less.’ I waited until he’d un-cupped his ears. ‘Joe, listen to me. I’ll go get your father. Ask him to help. I’ll take Isabelle with me. And who knows, you may like him. You may even get to know him.’