The Devil's Menagerie

by Louis Charbonneau

  Well-meaning people like Dave didn’t want to believe there were real monsters in enlightened America at the end of the twentieth century. In the movies he watched, Dave readily accepted Freddy Krueger and Frankenstein’s monster, wolfmen, vampires, even a Hannibal Lector, but offscreen he preferred not to recognize the existence of parents who dumped children in trash cans, men who brutalized their wives out of plain meanness, monsters who drank human blood and cannibalized their victims. Like this serial killer in San Carlos, she thought, though the police were cautiously refusing to label him as such.

  A bell over the door rang when she stepped inside. She was immediately struck by the strong smells of oil and metal and leather. Everywhere she looked were guns, knives, holsters and accessories, bows and arrows. Racks of rifles and shotguns filled one whole end of the store. Handguns were displayed in glass cases under the long main counter. The salesman, a man in his sixties with thinning white hair combed straight back over a pink scalp pocked with incipient skin cancers, beamed at her. “Mornin’, ma’am, what can I do for you?”

  He reminded her of her grandfather. They would have had a lot to talk about, she supposed. Her grandfather, who had lived near Rhinelander, Wisconsin, had hunted pheasant and ducks and deer in their seasons. In Wisconsin, hunting was a way of life.

  Her father had taught each of his girls to shoot, using a 9mm Beretta automatic. When she asked to see a similar weapon, the black handgun the salesman produced felt heavier than she remembered. It was also larger. How could she carry such a gun around without being obvious?

  “It’s a fine choice,” the grandfatherly salesman assured her. “If you can handle it, that is. The slide mechanism needs a firm, hard pull. Some women have trouble with it, but you look to me like you got strong hands.”

  He showed her two similar guns, a Walther PPK/S 9mm, whose sleek design lived up to its quality reputation, and a Glock 17, a semiautomatic with a very smooth action and plastic grips that made the weapon lighter. She went back to the familiar feel of the Beretta. She had a large black leather purse she rarely carried. It was roomy enough to hide the Beretta.

  When she tried to purchase the gun, however, she was reminded of the two-week waiting period. All handguns had to be registered and a permit had to be issued.

  “Oh … I forgot.” Her disappointment was transparent.

  “There’s no waitin’ on a hunting rifle … or a shotgun, if you can handle one.”

  “I’m sorry, I …”

  The elderly man studied her, reading her anxiety. Did he also see the fault line? Was it that obvious?

  “You all right, lady?” He gave a soft chuckle. “Who was you figgerin’ to shoot? Havin’ a little trouble at home?”

  “No,” Glenda said quickly. Then she added, “I just want to protect my children.”

  The salesman stared at her. He walked away a short distance, peering toward the back of the store, where Glenda glimpsed a man at a desk talking on the phone. Returning, the balding old man spoke in a low voice, his manner conspiratorial. “I prob’ly shouldn’t be doin’ this, but you look like a decent woman wouldn’t do nothin’ foolish. If you really can’t wait, I know someone you can talk to might be able to help.”

  He scribbled an address on a notepad and tore off the sheet, which he folded carefully before handing it to her. “I’ll give him a call, let him know you’re comin’.”

  “How far is it? I don’t have much time …”

  “Hey, it’s four, five blocks. Off the highway, maybe you’ve seen it? Ed’s Garage? And listen, ma’am … you take care.”

  “Yes … yes, thank you.” She wanted to get out quickly, to escape the smells and the arsenal of death and the sharp scrutiny of the old eyes that surely saw through her motives and found her guilt. “Ed’s Garage …”

  “You can’t miss it. And you come back now, y’hear?”

  ED’S GARAGE HAD a half-dozen older cars parked outside and two up on racks inside the service area of what had once been a working gas station and was now that rarity, an old-fashioned auto repair shop. One mechanic was down in a pit servicing a Ford LTD that reminded Glenda of the one they had traded in on the used Dodge wagon three years ago. A second man, Ed Portis, was the one whose name was on Glenda’s scribbled note. He came toward her wiping his hands on a rag, glanced at the note and without a word led her out back of the garage. He unlocked a storage room and stepped inside, pulling the chain on a bare overhead bulb. When Glenda hesitated he gestured impatiently. The space she entered was not much bigger than a walk-in closet.

  Without preamble Ed Portis unlocked a metal storage cabinet about the size of a school locker. “You want something small, not too heavy, that will do the job, am I right?”

  “Yes …”

  “You prob’ly been lookin’ at automatics, am I right? This here’s a revolver. Smith & Wesson .38 Special, two-inch barrel. It’s the kind of gun cops use today as a hideout or backup, now they’ve stepped up to .44’s and .45’s to try to keep up with the bad guys. It’s double-action, you just squeeze the trigger. Easy to use. There’s some recoil you don’t get with an automatic, but not too bad.”

  The six-shooter had a polished steel frame and barrel with wooden grips. It felt businesslike in her hand. And it was lighter and more compact than the 9mm automatics she had been shown.

  “It’s very nice,” she said, cringing a little inside.

  “But you’d like to see something else, am I right?”

  He took the Smith & Wesson from her, returned it to the locker and produced a small stainless-steel automatic that was almost lost in his large hand. “This here’s an AMT .380 Kurz Backup. Made right here in Orange County. This one’s used, but it’s never been registered,” Ed explained mysteriously. “Not as fancy as some, but it’ll do the job. Uses these plastic-tipped short 9mm bullets.”

  “They look small,” Glenda said, more for something to say than because she was concerned about the size of the bullets.

  “Hey, I saw a demo with these little babies. Fired through a steel filing cabinet with a watermelon inside. Made a hole the same size goin’ in on one side and comin’ out the other. But the watermelon was spread over the inside of that cabinet like a spray paint. It’s that little plastic tip there, it expands like a flower.”

  “I see,” Glenda said weakly. But she knew the gun was what she had been looking for. It was very compact. It would fit easily into her purse. And it was not a toy.

  “You want a gun small enough to carry and still have stopping power,” the mechanic said, seeing the answer in her eyes. “At two hundred fifty bucks it’s a bargain.”

  She wondered what Ed thought she wanted to stop with the gun.

  It didn’t seem to matter.

  FROM THE GARAGE she drove directly to Elli’s school, arriving ten minutes before Elli bounded out of the building. They stopped at a McDonald’s for lunch, an indulgence Glenda agreed to only occasionally. Then they drove home to wait for Richie. These days Glenda didn’t relax until both of her children were safe at home. Richie’s behavior the night before increased her tension as she waited. She tried to keep busy by helping Elli with some finger painting at the kitchen table.

  At three o’clock she went out on the porch. The sun was in her eyes as she gazed up the street. When the yellow school bus pulled around a corner and stopped she felt her pulse quicken.

  One boy hopped down off the bus, turning to wave at someone inside. Then the bus pulled away.

  Glenda stared up the street in disbelief. Richie wasn’t there.

  * * *

  HE PROWLED THE mall until it was dark. Sat in the Food Court for a while, nursing a Slurpy and watching people eat all around him. He began to feel hungry. He left the area and, with the late afternoon crowds thinning out, walked to the end of the mall and stepped outside. Beyond the intervening hills the sun was setting out over the ocean, the horizon a wide canvas across which a careless painter had spilled buckets of pink and orange and lavend
er.

  Returning to the mall, Richie killed another half hour in the Radio Shack store. The next time he emerged the sky was gray with only a narrow ribbon of red at its western fringe. At this time of the year twilight was brief, and by the time Richie made his way along San Anselmo Drive the shadows were already deepening between the buildings and in the thick foliage in front of many of the older units.

  Apartment 110 at Vista Valencia was a front unit with a walled patio protected by established evergreens nearly as high as the wall and a mass of bougainvillea that spilled across one end. Numbered tiles mounted in a wooden frame beside the door identified the apartment, whose entrance was just beyond the locked gate, on the left side of an entry passageway to an inner courtyard. From the street Richie could see sliding glass doors leading from the apartment to the patio.

  There was no light inside.

  Richie stood irresolute on the sidewalk. He had counted on his father being there. A woman walking a small white dog on a leash glanced at him curiously as she passed, pulling on the dog’s leash as it tried to sniff Richie’s feet.

  Slowly he approached the front of the apartment building. When he was within the shadows of the entry he looked back over his shoulder. The shrubbery around the front patio screened him from the woman walking her dog. After a moment’s hesitation Richie slipped behind the evergreen bushes, crouching below branches that raked at his face. At the far end of the short wall the thicket of bougainvillea loomed. Richie knew better than to try to climb there—the bougainvillea over one end of the porch at home had sharp thorns—but the dense growth prevented anyone seeing him from that direction.

  In the few minutes he had been there the shadows had thickened. He peered through the shrubbery toward the street. A car drifted by, but no one was in sight along the sidewalk.

  Until that moment he had not been certain what he meant to do. Now he turned to study the stucco wall surrounding the small patio. It was less than six feet high. He was able to place both hands on top of the wall and, with a little jump, he planted his elbows over the top. The first time he tried to swing one leg up he lost his grip and fell back. He crouched behind the bushes, waiting for an outcry that would mean someone had seen or heard him. All he heard was a thin burst of laughter from a television set nearby.

  On the next attempt Richie got his arms and one leg over the top of the wall. He perched there for an instant, struggling to keep his balance, then spilled over the wall and dropped inside.

  He crouched in the darkness on all fours, his heart thudding. The patio, about twelve feet wide and five feet deep, contained several hanging plants badly in need of water. There was a webbed chaise and two white plastic chairs flanking a small matching table. Less than five feet away, a sliding glass wall faced the living room of the apartment.

  As Richie tried to peer into the room, a light went on.

  Twenty-Nine

  “THEY’RE ON INDIAN time,” someone joked.

  Ralph Beringer didn’t laugh. By eight o’clock—two hours after the powwow was supposed to have started—nothing much had happened. The Indians didn’t seem to mind. He had seen several of them in the parking lot when he arrived at six, donning their dancers’ regalia. More than an hour passed before the first of the dancers showed up at the arena.

  The centerpiece of the powwow was a roughly circular arena in one of the college’s open grass quadrangles. Chairs and shaded covers for the Native American participants surrounded the area, with many spectators bringing their own chairs, standing, or sitting on blankets on the grass. In the center of the arena a smaller circle of Native American drummers were grouped around a large drum. They had started singing to the beat of the drum about seven o’clock and had kept it up for the next hour in what was called the Gourd Song. A few dancers had drifted into the arena, men and women wearing traditional outfits, shuffling to the drumbeat while they kept time with gourd or metal shakers decorated with beads and feathers. Beringer had quickly found the chanting monotonous. It followed him remorselessly as he mingled with the crowds, young and old, that thronged the aisles fanning out from the arena. Here vendors had set up their stalls displaying bead and turquoise jewelry, T-shirts, pottery, baseball caps and other souvenirs. Beringer hoped to find Nancy Showalter among these stalls, joining all the other college girls teasing their boyfriends into buying them a trinket.

  Over a loudspeaker he heard the master of ceremonies calling. “First call for the Grand Entry! Dancers, get ready …”

  First call, Beringer thought, reflecting more disgust than impatience. That probably meant a few more dancers would straggle into the arena in thirty minutes or so. Indian time …

  Two hours prowling and no sign of Nancy. Had she changed her mind about the powwow?

  He stopped at a stall that sold Indian fry bread, dusted with powdered sugar and sweetened with honey. Beringer studied the crowds while he tore off pieces of the bread, which was surprisingly delicious. A man with a thick neck, hard eyes and a beer belly pushed past him. Nearby, a younger man with a buzz haircut moved along another aisle with the same alert air and roving gaze, hardly glancing at the goods on display. Both were plainclothes cops, Beringer thought.

  He had expected them.

  When he returned to the arena there was increased activity. The gourd dancers were finally finishing their last set, the drumming and chanting livelier than before. It built to a climax and stopped abruptly. Over the loudspeaker the announcer called out, “Dancers, get ready for the Grand Entry!”

  Finally, Beringer thought, the real show was getting under way. Maybe that was what Nancy and her friends had been waiting for. Maybe they knew about Indian time.

  The Grand Entry began with three groups of singer-drummers spaced around the arena. Slowly the circle filled with dancers, dressed in all manner of colorful shawls and scarves, feather headdresses and hair roaches, beaded shirts and leggings and moccasins. Some of the male dancers were as handsome as warriors in old paintings, and the women, especially the younger ones, were stunning. As the dancers slowly circled the arena, passing before Beringer, his eye was drawn to a slender girl in a white deerskin dress, fringed and decorated with elaborate beadwork. Her long, glossy black hair had been plaited into two braids, adorned with silver conches. She had a pretty face with small features and the black eyes of a fawn. She moved, like all of the female dancers, with remarkable grace to the beat of the drums, her moccasined feet hardly seeming to move while her slender figure rose and fell in perfect rhythm to the dance.

  Beringer felt a familiar heat.

  Crazy even to think about it. An Indian maiden was not part of the plan. Besides, the chances of her name being right for his purpose were slim to none. And it would be difficult to get her alone. Many of the Indians seemed to have come to the powwow in large family groups.

  The announcer was explaining the meaning of the powwow as the dancers filled the arena, how it celebrated the gathering of friends and relatives, celebrated their traditions and customs and heritage as a people. “It is a time when we greet all of our brothers, the Sioux and the Cheyenne, the Kiowa and Omaha, the Navajo and Apache, Choctaw and Osage, in peace and love …”

  Beringer stopped listening.

  Across the arena, beyond the Indian girl in the white deerskin dress, Nancy had arrived. She stood several inches taller than her friend Mark, who stood beside her. She was wearing a short black skirt over a skin-hugging black body stocking—everything on parade, Beringer thought. She watched the dancers with animated delight, talking and gesturing.

  Though agitated, Beringer did not move. He couldn’t follow Nancy around, at least not closely. The beady-eyed cops and security guards would be alert for any solitary man stalking a young woman. He would simply have to wait.

  She was his. She would not have been brought to his attention otherwise. Beringer, who had no faith, had come to believe in his destiny.

  DAVE LINDSTROM CRUISED past the campus around eight-thirty, saw the crowds an
d a sign that read, POWWOW PARKING, with an arrow pointing toward one of the campus parking lots.

  Dave remembered talking about the tribal gathering earlier that week at the dinner table, contemplating a family outing this Saturday. Would Richie have come here on his own? Angry over the quarrel about his father, might he have sought out crowds and activity?

  Parking in the designated lot, Dave wandered along aisles of stalls to the main arena. An elderly, dignified Native American was giving an invocation, talking about Mother Earth, turning ceremoniously to face all four directions as he acknowledged the reverence his people had for the natural elements of life. The arena was crowded with Indians in colorful dress. Dave wished he could stay longer. He wished the family outing he had planned had brought him here, not his frustrated, aimless search for his missing son.

  Walking slowly along the aisles past tented stalls, he replayed the scene at the dinner table the night before. Could he have handled it better? Had he let Richie down in some way he had not recognized or understood? Or was Glenda right in thinking that Ralph Beringer was manipulating all of them, including Richie?

  The futility of wandering the aisles overcame him. He turned abruptly between two stalls, cut across another aisle and escaped from the area. A shortcut between nearby buildings took him to the back of the parking lot where he had left his car.

  Moments later he was back on the streets of the city, asking himself where Richie might have gone. Where did the boy plan to spend the night? Was he with his father? Anger mixed with Dave’s frustration. Dammit, Richie knew how his mother would worry if he stayed out all night? Was this his way of punishing her? Punishing both of them?

  The mall, he thought. Richie was old enough to enjoy wandering along the mall, looking in display windows or exploring some of the shops. It was worth a shot anyway. Dave couldn’t think of anything better.

  He was running out of ideas. Reluctant to abandon the search, he was also convinced that he shouldn’t leave Glenda alone much longer.