Part 24 (2/2)

”d.a.m.n,” said Skink. He put a shoulder to the door and launched himself out of the station wagon, ”Hey, Flack, you coming or not?”

The storm came hard and they sat through it, huddled like Sherpas. The campfire washed out, but the soft-sh.e.l.led turtle was cooked to perfection. Skink chewed intently on its tail and blinked the raindrops from his good eye; the other one fogged up like a broken headlight. Water trickled down his bronze cheeks, drenching his beard. Lightning cracked so close they could smell ita”Winder ducked, but Skink showed no reaction, even when thunder rattled the coffeepot.

He adjusted the blaze weather suit to cover the electronic panther collar on his neck. ”They say it's waterproof, but I don't know.”

Winder could scarcely hear him over the drum of the rain against the trees. Lightning flashed again, and reflexively he shut his eyes.

Skink raised his voice: ”You know about that new golf resort?”

”I saw where they're putting it.”

”No!” Skink was shouting now. ”You know who's behind it? That f.u.c.king Kingsbury!”

The wind was getting worse, if that was possible. With his free hand, Skink wrung out the tendrils of his beard. ”G.o.ddammit, man, are you listening? It all ties together.”

”Whata”with Koocher's death?”

”Everythinga”” Skink paused for another white sizzle of lightning. ”Every d.a.m.n thing.”

It made sense to Winder. A scandal at the Amazing Kingdom would not only be bad for business, it might jeopardize Francis Kingsbury's plans for developing Falcon Trace. If anyone revealed that he'd lied about the ”endangered” voles, the feds might roll in and halt the whole show. The EPA, the Army Corps of Engineers, the Department of Interiora”they could jerk Kingsbury around until he died of old age.

”Look at the big picture,” Skink said. With a tin fork he cleaned out the insides of the turtle sh.e.l.l. The wind was dying quickly, and the rain was turning soft on the leaves. The clouds broke out west, revealing raspberry patches of summer sunset. The coolness disappeared and the air turned muggy again.

Skink put down the fry pan and wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his rainsuit. ”It's beautiful out here,” he remarked. ”That squall felt d.a.m.n good.”

”It might be too late,” Joe Winder said. ”h.e.l.l, they've started clearing the place.”

”I know.” The muscles in Skink's neck tightened. ”They tore down an eagle nest the other day. Two little ones, dead. That's the kind of b.a.s.t.a.r.ds we're talking about.”

”Did you seea””

”I got there after the fact,” Skink said. ”Believe me, if I could've stopped them...”

”What if we're too late?”

”Are you in or not? That's all I need to know.”

”I'm in,” said Winder. ”Of course I am. I'm just not terribly optimistic.”

Skink smiled his matinee smile, the one that had gotten him elected so many years before. ”Lower your sights, boy,” he said to Joe Winder. ”I agree, justice is probably out of the question. But we can d.a.m.n sure ruin their day.”

He reached under the flap of his rainsuit, grunted, fumbled inside his clothing. Finally his hand came out holding a steel-blue semi-automatic pistol.

”Don't worry,” he said. ”I've got an extra one for you.”

The woman who called herself Rachel Lark was receiving a vigorous ma.s.sage when Francis X. Kingsbury phoned. She'd been expecting to hear from him ever since she'd read in the Was.h.i.+ngton Post about the theft of the blue-tongued mango voles in Florida. Her first thought, a natural one, was that Kingsbury would try to talk her into giving some of the money back. Rachel Lark braced for the worst as she sat up, naked, and told the ma.s.seur to give her the d.a.m.n telephone.

On the other end, Kingsbury said: ”Is this my favorite redhead?”

”Forget it,” said the woman who called herself Rachel Lark, though it was not her true name.

Kingsbury said, ”Can you believe it, babe? My luck, the G.o.dd.a.m.n things get swiped.”

”I've already spent the money,” Rachel Lark said, ”and even if I didn't, a deal's a deal.”

Instead of protesting, Kingsbury said, ”Same here. I spent mine, too.”

”Then it's a social call, is it?”

”Not exactly. Are you alone, babe?”

”Me and a nice young man named Sven.”

The image gave Kingsbury a tingle. Rachel was an attractive woman, a bit on the heavy side, but a very hot dresser. They had met years before in the lobby of a prosecutor's office in Camden, where both of them were waiting to cut deals allowing them to avert unpleasant prison terms. Frankie King had chosen to drop the dime on the Zubonis, while the woman who now called herself Rachel Lark (it was Sarah Hunt at that time) was preparing to squeal on an ex-boyfriend who had illegally imported four hundred pounds of elephant ivory. In the lobby that day, the two informants had amiably traded tales about life on the lam. Later they'd exchanged phone numbers and a complete list of aliases, and promised to keep in touch.

Rachel's specialty was wildlife, and Kingsbury phoned her soon after opening the Amazing Kingdom of Thrills. Before then, he had never heard of the Endangered Species Act, never dreamed that an obscure agency of the federal government would casually fork over two hundred thousand dollars in grant money for the purpose of preserving a couple of lousy rodents. Rachel Lark had offered to provide the animals and the doc.u.mentation, and Kingsbury was so intrigued by the plana”not just the dough, but the radiant publicity for the Amazing Kingdoma”that he didn't bother to inquire if the blue-tongued mango voles were real.

The government check had arrived on time, they'd split it fifty-fifty and that was that. Francis Kingsbury paid no further attention to the creatures until customers started noticing that the voles” tongues were no longer very blue. Once children openly began grilling the Amazing Kingdom tour guides about how the animals got their name, Kingsbury ordered Pedro Luz to get some food coloring and touch the d.a.m.n things up. Unfortunately, Pedro had neither the patience nor the gentle touch required to be an animal handler, and one of the volesa”the femalea”was crushed accidentally during a tongue-painting session. Afraid for his job, Pedro Luz had told no one of the mishap. To replace the deceased vole, he had purchased a dwarf hamster for nine dollars from a pet store in Perrine. After minor modifications, the hamster had fooled both the customers and the male vole, which repeatedly attempted to mount its chubby new companion. Not only had the hamster rejected these advances, it had counterattacked with such ferocity that Pedro Luz had been forced to hire a night security guard to prevent a bloodbath.

Matters were further complicated by the appearance of an ill-mannered pinhead from U.S. Fish and Wildlife, who had barged into the theme park and demanded follow-up data from the ”project manager.” Of course there was no such person because there was no project to manage; research consisted basically of making sure that the rodents were still breathing every morning before the gates were opened. With the feds suddenly asking questions, Charles Chelsea had quietly put out an all-points bulletin for a legitimate biologista”a recruiting effort that eventually induced Dr. Will Koocher to come to the Amazing Kingdom of Thrills.

Kingsbury decided not to burden Rachel Lark with the details of the doctor's grisly demise; it was irrelevant to the purpose of his call.

”Forget the money,” Kingsbury told her.

”I must be hearing things.”

”No, I mean it.”

”Then what do you want?”

”More voles.”

”You're joking.”

”My customers, h.e.l.l, they go nuts for the d.a.m.n things. Now I got spin-offs, merchandisea”a major warehouse situation, if you follow me.”

”Sorry,” Rachel Lark said, ”it was a one-time deal.” She'd pulled off the endangered-species racket on two other occasionsa”once for a small Midwestern zoo, and once for a disreputable reptile farm in South Carolina. Neither deal made as much money as the mango-vole scam, but neither had wound up in the headlines of the Was.h.i.+ngton Post, either.

Kingsbury said, ”Look, I know there's no more mango volesa””

”Hey, sport, there never were any mango voles.”

”So what you're saying, we defrauded the government.”

”G.o.d, you're quick.”

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