Ray said, "You don't care if the White brothers go to jail or not. You just said you had other people working for you. They could pick up the slack easy enough. You wanted her dead for your own personal reasons."
"Is that right, Ray? Then tell me, why don't you. What were my real reasons?"
Ray swallowed a breath of air, let it out.
"Maybe you were worried, since she'd gotten interested in us, she might stumble across your name along the way, find out what the hell you're up to. And you're the kind of guy goes around in nice, fresh clothes, manicured nails, kind that doesn't like fecal matter splattered on your white suede shoes. So the woman had to die. That's it, isn't it? She was getting close to us, and you started feeling a bull's-eye growing on your forehead."
Patrick's lips formed a razor-thin smile.
"Let's put it this way," he said. "In my part of the world, a man of my stature does not associate with people like the White brothers. It would not enhance his career possibilities."
"If you'd just told us the truth, we would've disposed of Allison right here in Miami. I don't get it, why we had to go over there to do it."
Patrick leaned forward, gave Ray a careful look.
"Let me ask you something, Ray. You're a smart man. Now, here's a woman who is a threat to your careers, yet you did nothing about her. If I hadn't motivated you, would you have ever thought of removing that woman on your own?"
"Maybe," he said. "Maybe not. I didn't think she was that much of a threat. I still don't."
"Well, there it is. That's exactly why I felt I had to commit my little subterfuge with you."
"And shooting the orangutans, that was just a bonus?"
"Exactly," Patrick said. "As long as we were there, why not?"
"Okay, okay, all right," Orlon said. "So we kill the bitch. Do this favor for you. What the hell's in it for us?"
Patrick kept on smiling, his eyes working on Ray.
"What's in it for you?"
"Yeah, that's right."
"My continued good cheer," Patrick said.
"His continued good cheer," Orlon said. "Oh, boy."
Ray had to pull his eyes away from the man's smile. Felt like he was being possessed.
"Allison's on our plate. We'll clean her up for you. You don't have to worry about fecal matter anymore."
"I'm glad to hear it, Ray. I'm very glad to hear it."
He turned his head and smiled at Orlon, then got up to go, making a sly move to his pocket, touching his .25 through his pants, a little reminder.
"And I don't want to hear another goddamn word about your problems acquiring these animals. If you don't start moving faster on the deliveries, I'll be forced to give the work out to those who can."
"Not to worry," Ray said. "Twenty years of animal dealing, we haven't had a dissatisfied customer yet."
"Tell the truth, Ray," Orlon said. "We did have a couple of dissatisfied customers, but they didn't live to talk about it."
Patrick studied Orlon for a moment. Inspecting him like he was searching for a fleshy spot where he could sink his teeth, take a deep guzzle of Orlon's blood.
"I have to tell you," Patrick said at the door. "You two will appreciate the irony of this."
"What irony is that?"
"Right now I'm going back to sleep with the daughter of the woman you are going to kill."
"What?"
"She's my lover now. Another youthful fantasy fulfilled."
Ray shook his head. Stared at this man in their doorway. Dark-haired with those bright blue eyes. Grinning at the White brothers like a man who'd just told a dirty joke.
"You murdered one daughter and you're screwing the other?"
"Crudely put, but correct."
Orlon smiled.
"Man, I like this guy. He's got the morals of Cagney in White Heat. One sadistic son of a bitch."
"Good night, gentlemen. I expect the animals within a week."
Ray shut the front door behind Patrick, and he and Orlon went back into the living room. Betty pushed the pillow off her face and sat up.
"Holy shit," she said. "You guys are killers?"
"Not as a full-time activity, no," Ray said.
"Mainly we specialize in animals," Orlon said. "But humans seem to be the new cash crop."
Orlon sat down on the red-and-black Ralph Lauren couch, Ray sat across from him on a matching chair.
Betty said, "You all see what's going on here, don't you?"
They both looked over at her.
"I mean that story he gave you, that's a load of bullshit."
"Hey, Orlon. Take her upstairs, shut her in a closet, would you? Nail it shut."
Betty said, "You didn't manage to kill this Allison person over there in the jungle, right?"
"Yeah," Orlon said. "That's right. Her daughter got herself killed, but the mother escaped."
"Okay," Betty said, sitting up now, tightening the belt on her kimono, crossing her legs carefully, looking almost prim. "So what would've happened, do you think, if you'd actually killed her?"
"Nothing would've happened," Orlon said. "She'd've been dead, is all."
Ray was staring at her, all at once getting a glimpse of where she was headed. He felt the hairs rise on his neck, his arms. Hairs standing straight up. His questions getting answered, the ones he'd only been half asking himself.
Betty said, "If this guy's so concerned about his goddamn reputation, you think he's going to go out there in the jungle with you guys, kill a few women, then just let you walk away, the both of you knowing what transpired? He the kind of guy to trust that none of it'll ever come back to haunt him?"
"She's right," Ray said.
Betty said, "He was going to kill you guys. Except this Allison lady got away and then he thought better of it. Thought he should keep you alive, have you finish up the job, get you to murder her back in Miami, then he'll either turn you in to the cops or whack you himself. That's how I read the guy."
"She's right," said Ray. Hair on his arms trying to pull free, get the hell out of there. "We're in a flood of shit."
"He's not going to kill us," Orlon said. "He needs us."
"No, he doesn't," Betty said. "You heard him. There's plenty of people providing him with all those animals he wants. You guys are disposable."
"Christ, Betty," Ray said. "I didn't know you were so smart."
Betty smiled at the two of them, first Ray, then Orlon.
"Sure I'm smart, hon. Why else would I have picked your brother from all the other morons hitting on me?"
Orlon didn't smile. He stepped over in front of her.
"Why don't you go upstairs, get your clothes, Betty, go on back where you came from."
"What?"
"You heard me," Orlon said. "I'm tired of you. Get out."
"Is he kidding with me?" She was looking at Ray.
"No, I'm afraid he isn't," Ray said. "He's got a thing about women who're smarter than he is. They scare him."
"Well, hell," she said, standing up. "That narrows down the field considerably, doesn't it?"
"Get out of here, Betty," Orlon said. "Go on back to the pancake house, sit on the griddle and cool your butt off."
"Sorry," Ray said. "He gets like this."
"No problem." She started for the stairs. "Hell, I was starting to feel my IQ slip into the single digits from being around the guy."
Betty left, and Orlon sat down on the couch across from Ray and stared up at the ceiling and listened as she started to bang around up there.
"Shit," he said. "I was just getting to like the bitch."
Upstairs Betty slammed a door. Some glass broke.
Quietly Orlon said, "Now I got to put her under."
"What?"
"She knows who we are, man, what we do. We can't let her go waltzing out of here. The only question is, do I do the job upstairs or down here?"
"Oh, Jesus."
Orlon stood up. He brushed his right hand against his pajama leg like he was dusting it off, eyes on
the ceiling.
"You just stay put, Ray. Watch some TV. Don't worry yourself. I'll handle the dirty work, as usual."
When Orlon had rounded the corner and was on the stairs, Ray found the TV zapper and switched the set on. The VCR too. And there was the tail end of the movie Orlon had been watching the other night. Humphrey Bogart still playing a gangster, up in the rocks having a shootout with the hick cops. Humphrey grimacing, firing his big tommy gun until it was empty and then throwing it down at the advancing men, and pulling out a six-shooter. Bullets zinging off the rocks around him.
Ray pointed the zapper and cranked the sound all the way up. Made it so loud there was nothing in his head but that noise. The pop pop pop of Hollywood guns. Humphrey firing slow and methodical. One, two, three, four, five, and six. Then standing up from behind the rock and hurling that pistol down at the posse. Snarling at the men, he catches a bullet in his chest, another one in the shoulder, and another one and one after that. Thrown to the side against a boulder, lying there, but still not dead, eyes open, his grimace getting meaner as more bullets strike him.
Ray watched Bogart's last seconds alive, his body shredded by lead. Ray was intent on the TV screen, on the racket coming from the set. Getting a little glimpse of what it must be like to be Orlon, feeling that movie replacing everything in Ray's head for those few minutes, squeezing out all the rest of it like a headache so brutal it wouldn't let you think.
CHAPTER 22
At six-thirty on Thursday morning, when she came out of the bedroom, Allison found Thorn sitting on the couch, reading one of the old newsletters. They exchanged good mornings and she went into the kitchen, made coffee. When it was ready, she and Thorn walked out to the porch, sat in the Adirondack chairs and faced the sunrise.
Discreetly she palmed the Zippo from the side table, slid it into the pocket of her faded gray jeans. She'd put on a long-sleeved cotton polo shirt, pumpkin colored, collar turned up, an old thing, soft and shapeless from a hundred washings. The right color for today, a tone that would blend with the parched browns and grays of the autumn Everglades, camouflage her approach. A pair of dirty Adidas tennis shoes, her black-framed aviator sunglasses propped up in her hair. No jewelry, nothing to catch the sun and flash a warning.
When her coffee grew cool, she set it aside and cleared her throat. Thorn looked over, and Allison began to explain what she wanted to do, the plan she'd conceived in the long empty hours last night. He listened without interrupting, nodding his head as she finished.
"A tea party," Thorn said. "Invite them over, everybody sits down, we all have a nice cup of chamomile and the White brothers just spill their guts."
She gave him a stern look.
"Look, Thorn, I need to be absolutely sure it was them, hear it from their own mouths. And I have to understand why it happened. Why Winslow had to die."
"These guys aren't tea sippers, Allison."
"If we have the upper hand, I think we can convince them to tell us. Make a deal with them. We want their boss. We want to know what's going on. They can walk, as far as I'm concerned. They're nothing. Without somebody propping those two up, they'll turn into the same losers they were a year ago."
"The upper hand," he said. "What does that mean exactly? That I hold the Remington? That's how you see it?"
"Yes."
"And what if they struggle? What if it's not neat?"
She gazed out to the south, at the hammock of pines and cypress. A lone snowy egret was fastened to the high branches of one of the pines like some rare flower that had shut its petals.
"Well, anyway, one thing's for damn sure," Thorn said. "They're not very smart. I mean, if they fell for my vet impersonation, how sharp could they be?"
"I'm counting on that."
They watched a large red-shouldered hawk coast in and land nearby in the naked branches of a slash pine. Three kestrels followed it, and began dive-bombing the big bird, but it held its place and seemed to ignore their cries.
"And this guy Crotch Meriwether, you're sure he'll help?"
"He might, if I put it to him the right way."
"Crotch?" Thorn said. "That's the guy's real name?"
"It's the only name I've ever heard," Allison said.
"Crotch like in crotchety?"
Allison glanced over at him.
"Think lower," she said. "Below the belt."
"Oh."
"I understand he was considered a lady's man in his younger days. I suppose that's where he got the name. Though now that he's in his seventies, crotchety might fit better."
For the first few years after moving her headquarters to the Shack, Allison had been full of self-congratulation for living in such isolation. She thought she'd penetrated as deeply into the rich secret heart of the wilderness as it was possible to go. Then she met Meriwether, a man who had hacked his way far deeper, living as remote from human contact as was possible to get in the state of Florida. And it was not just the miles themselves that separated him from civilization, it was the nearly impenetrable tangle of vegetation that filled those miles. His isolation was absolute. Any ordinary person trying to locate Meriwether's cabin would have to take along a week's provisions, a half dozen sharp machetes, a stack of snakebite kits, and leave a thick trail of inedible bread crumbs going in.
"Oh, yeah, Winslow told me about this one. The guy you put in Raiford. Your first big win." She mumbled in the affirmative.
"Mr. Extinction."
"That's right."
"Almost singlehandedly responsible for eliminating half a dozen species."
"Well, not quite that many."
Thorn stood up. He studied the kestrels hounding the hawk. His work shirt was badly rumpled, hair uncombed.
"This the same guy wrote you the postcards? Described in detail what he was going to do to you?"
"I didn't realize Winslow knew about it."
"Why him, Allison? The man hates you. He's not going to cooperate, help you trap the White brothers."
"That's exactly the point, Thorn. He's the last person they'd suspect of collaborating with me. They'll never see it coming if it comes from Crotch Meriwether."
"But why would he help you?"
"I have reason to believe he may hate the White brothers even more than he hates me."
The hawk opened its wings, lifted up off the branch, then settled back in the same roost, shooing away the pestering birds. Looking very stately up there, surveying the distances. But the smaller birds weren't giving up, determined to drive this predator out of their feeding area. Diving, squawking.
"Now, look, Thorn," she said. "I'm going to have to do this first part alone. You can wait here till I get back."
"Hell with that."
"If it's just me, unarmed, coming into Meriwether's territory, very submissive, nothing will happen. But if he sees a man with me, it'll threaten him, get his blood going."
"This is a man who promised to kill you, Allison."
"That was a long time ago. I haven't heard from him in years. It's all cooled down by now, I'm sure it has."
"I'm going." He took a couple of steps forward, and put her in his shadow.
"No," she said. "I'm sorry, Thorn. But this is my problem."
"I'll make it easy for you, Allison." He looked out at the gathering daylight, the hum of the Everglades beginning to rise. "Either I go with you, or you don't go at all."
She gave him a long look, shrugged, then went back inside. She washed the coffee cups and plates from last night. Thorn used the bathroom, came out whistling a Beatles song. She had to work for a moment to remember its name. "Hey, Jude."
Hands in the dishwater, she lifted her head to listen to the tune, a dizzy sensation sweeping through her, feeling ancient and youthful at once. She watched Thorn walk onto the porch, whistling his simple-hearted song out at the wilderness.
Allison finished the dishes, and while Thorn waited for her at the Jeep, she put paper in the fax machine. She shut the front door, locked it, and
as she was stepping off the porch she heard the machine begin to crank out its first stored message.
***
Thorn and Allison sped through the grassy marshlands of the Everglades, water gleaming in all directions, unusually high for this time of year, catching the reflection of the slow-moving stratus clouds. It brimmed to the highway in places, and Allison could see her Cherokee rippling along, the aluminum jon boat lashed to the roof rack.
She told Thorn what she knew about Meriwether. A trapper for fifty years: gators, ratsnakes and rattlers, crocs. He sold the hides to Texas boot makers, the meat to some north Florida restaurants, and he even located a ghoulish tourist shop that would pay him for each cleaned-up gator skull.
Over the years Crotch had also served time as a commercial fisherman, stone crabber, charter boat captain, and full-time drunk. Twenty years ago, when the pompano and mullet started thinning out, and the crab and lobster and shrimp supplies were nearly depleted, Crotch had even taken a turn at smuggling pot.
But mainly he was a hunter. He'd been shooting curlew for fifty years, ibis, spoonbills, even confessed to Allison that he'd killed manatees a few times, lured them to the surface and shotgunned them. Killed them and grilled them. Told her they tasted somewhere between pork and beef.
"Jesus," Thorn said. "Manatee."
Allison looked out her window at the ghostly replica of her Jeep traveling along beside them in the dark water.
"On the one hand, Crotch is a low-life trafficker in illegal game, pelts, meat, even skulls. He's a poacher with no regard for bag limits, or harvesting bans. He knows which animals are protected and which aren't, but he doesn't give a damn. He's been going into the park for forty years, taking whatever game he wants. He's shot at wildlife officers, set fires to keep his favorite deer-hunting areas clear. The man's an outlaw, pure and simple.
"But on the other hand, you could argue that he's nothing more than an old coot who's simply behaving exactly as he always has, living a tough life, surviving off the land. Only problem is, the land got fragile all around him."
"Well," Thorn said. "Maybe he's one of the reasons it got so fragile."
"True, true."
"Sounds like you approve of the guy."
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