Armadillos & Old Lace (17 page)

“God damn”
said Perkins, “that was a world-class bell ringer.”

“It sure wasn’t one of them whiny, high-pitched, little Brenda Lee farts,” said Jim supportively.

At that precise moment the owner of the place walked into the humidor. One of the high-water marks of my life was watching his eager-to-please, unctuous, American smile fade as the noxious vapor wafted across the humidor signaling him that something was terribly wrong. His entire demeanor and total countenance became that of a person with the soul of a North Korean businessman ...

A strong hand on my shoulder quickly brought me back from this blast from the past. I spun around in the little room and saw a vaguely familiar face. The kind that takes you a lifetime to place and then you wish you hadn’t.

It was Boyd Elder.

“Didn’t mean to startle you, Kinkster,” he said.

“Never sneak up on a veteran.”

“Oh, were you in Nam, too?”

“No,” I said, taking a box of cigars down from the top shelf. “Gallipoli.”

“You know the other day,” said Elder, “when you were in the store I was so excited reading about your being on the murder case that I forgot to tell you something. You said to keep in touch if I thought of anything. It might be nothing. It might be important.”

“Spit it,” I said. The humidor was becoming mildly claustrophobic.

“There’s a guy I know, sort of a strange survi-valist type. Lives out in the country like a hermit.” 

“So far it could be me,” I said.

Elder laughed. Then he got serious.

“Not quite,” he said. “This is one of those kind of guys that somehow manage to fall through the cracks, as they say. No family. No close contacts. No driver’s license. No Social Security. No phone. Gets in touch when absolutely necessary through ham radio.”

“Wish more people were like him.”

“No, you don’t. He was in Vietnam, a special forces commando. Tells stories about coming back from the jungle and taking live canaries out of their cages and eating them for lunch. Half the weaponry used in the war has somehow come into his ownership. Took a piece of shrapnel in the head and has some motor as well as emotional problems.”

“Sounds like a nice chap to sit down to tea with.” 

“He lives out Harper Road.” At this juncture, Elder took out a notepad and drew a rough map for me showing how to get to the survivalist’s place. I took out a cigar, went through the pre-ignition procedures, and wondered if I was going to survive this conversation. “He’s also a beekeeper.”

“No law against that,” I said. “Sherlock Holmes was a beekeeper in his later years.”

Boyd Elder looked at me and I could tell that just describing the guy was starting to give him the heebie-jeebies.

“He also raises roses,” said Elder.

I lit the cigar, rotating it slowly in my right hand, carefully keeping the tip just above the level of the flame.

The guy’s name was Willis Hoover. It was entirely possible that going after him would result in a futile, somewhat dangerous wild goose chase, but at this point every lead had to be followed up. I’d never had a rendezvous with a half-crazed, gun-loving survival-ist at his isolated command center before. I wasn’t even sure what to wear. Possibly an ancient suit of body armor might be appropriate. Bring an attack duck with me. But there had to be a first time for everything, I thought. Just as long as the first time didn’t turn out to be the last thing you ever did.

So after waking up to “Wipe-Out” and feeding the cat and slurping three cups of hot black coffee I called Pat Knox’s office.

“Hello, dollface,” she said when she got on the line.

“That’s Mr. Dollface to you,” I said. “Look, Judge, I’m going out to follow up a tip from Boyd Elder, the guy at the flower shop. I’m going to see this weird survivalist type who lives way out Harper Road.”

“I’ll come with you.”

“Well, I don’t think that’d really be best foot forward. This will be kind of a male bonding experience. The guy is close to being a feral man. Probably hates all women, children, and green plants. Except roses. Loves roses.
Raises
roses, in fact.”

“Except for the roses bit, the guy sounds a lot like you.”

“Yeah. He could practically be my gay computer date. But I’d like you to find out what you can about him. Name’s Willis Hoover. Does that ring a bell?” 

“Not even a cuckoo.”

“Well, check him out if you can. And if I don’t call you at home by ten o’clock tonight, send out the search party.”

“You sure you want to do this alone?”

“Your Honor, the guy doesn’t like groups and he doesn’t like anybody even faintly on the periphery of the law. He and I should get along perfectly.”

“He may also be the break we’ve been waiting for. Now if you run into trouble, you call.”

“Sure thing,” I said. “And when he sews my lips shut I’ll send up smoke signals with my cigar and hum a few bars of 911.”

• • •

There was no way to call Willis Hoover and I had a distinct feeling that he was the kind of person who did not like surprises. So I got my security shotgun out of the back of the closet and loaded it up with eight shells. I made sure the safety was on. Didn’t want to blow my head off before I got out of the cattle guard. The gun wasn’t going to be much of a threat to a guy like Hoover. He probably had a walk-in closet full of AK Fuckhead Specials or whatever happened to be the most lethal illegal weapon of the moment.

I leaned the shotgun up against the wall, poured another cup of coffee, and lit up a cigar. I sat down in the sunlit doorway of the trailer and sipped the coffee, smoked the cigar, and reflected upon the subject of loners in this world. There’ve been some very good loners down through the ages. Henry David Thoreau, Emily Dickinson, Johnny Appleseed, the woman who worked with gorillas in Africa whatever the hell her name was, even Benny Hill in the last years of his life after they cancelled his television show. These people all knew that the majority is always wrong, and even if it isn’t, who gives a damn anyway. They knew that
within
is where it’s at, and if nothing’s happening within it doesn’t really matter if your co-dependent wife throws a black-tie surprise birthday party for you and hundreds of well-wishers show up who would just as soon wish you’d fallen down a well.

I liked loners. The downside, of course, was that every serial killer who’d ever lived had also been a loner. Well, you can’t have everything. People just tend to drive you crazy after a while. That’s why penthouses, nunneries, sailboats, islands, and jail cells do such a booming business. And trailers.

I took a solitary puff on the cigar, looked up through the blue haze, and realized that I wasn’t alone. Three little girls, Pia, Briana, and Tiffany, were standing under the cedar tree in front of the green trailer. I stared at them like a man waking up from a dream. They returned my gaze curiously. At last, they spoke.

“Okay,” said Pia. “Pick a number between one and ten but it can’t be one or ten.”

“Can’t be one or ten,” I said. Since I was going out soon to very likely get my balls blown off, another unlucky number to choose would be two.

I picked seven and kept it to myself.

“Don’t tell us the number,” said Briana.

“Wouldn’t think of it.”

“Now,” said Tiffany, “multiply your number by nine. Okay?”

“Okay,” I said. “I’ve got it.” I now had sixty-three, and while I liked these three little girls I wished they had not chosen this particular time to visit my trailer and browbeat me with a mathematical puzzle I did not as yet enjoy.

“Add the two digits together,” said Pia. “All right?”

Adding the two digits together produced nine and also produced a slight degree of tedium on my part. I stoically smoked the cigar.

“Have you added them together?” shouted Bri.

“Yes!” I shouted back.

“Okay,” said Pia. “Now subtract five.”

“Okay. I’ve got it.” The number was four and, congenitally unable to keep a secret of any kind, I was having difficulty retaining this life-or-death information unto myself. At least, I felt, the exercise must be nearing its conclusion.

I was wrong.

“Now,” said Bri, jumping up and down, “find what letter of the alphabet goes with your number.” I stared at her in mute pain.

“You know,” said Tiffany. “One is A. Two is B. Three is C. Four is D ..

“All right,” I said grimly. “I’ve got it.” The corresponding letter was “D,” and if this didn’t cease very quickly I was going to clear my throat with a ceiling fan.

I went back inside the trailer and poured another cup of coffee to try to stave off a headache that seemed to have come on rather suddenly. When I came back the girls were still there and all three of them appeared to be highly agitato.

“Is that it?” I said. “Can I tell you the letter?” 

“No! No!” they shouted. “Don’t tell us the letter!”

“Fine,” I said dismissively. “That was really a fun little game.”

“Okay,” said Pia. “Now think of a
country
that begins with your letter.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No,” said Bri happily, “we’re not.”

“Okay,” I said, “I’ve got a country.”

“Don’t tell us what it is,” warned Tiffany.

“All I’m going to tell you is I’m about ready to hang myself from the shower rod.” It was beyond my imagination that this puzzle could continue for so long and be so incredibly complex. It frazzled my remaining brain cells. But at least I had the country.

“Okay,” said Pia. “Now think of an
animal
that begins with the
last letter
of the country.”

I stared disbelievingly into some morbid middle distance halfway between Echo Hill and the Monkey’s Paw in New York. This game, if it was a game, was truly interminable.

“Think of an animal that begins with the last letter of the country I”
said Bri as if she were speaking to a two-year-old.

“Okay,” I said grudgingly, “I’ve
got
it.”

“Now,” said Tiffany, “think of a color that
begins
with the
last letter
of your animal.” I told myself this was the last time I’d ever have even a passing relationship with a child. Even if I lived to be a kindly old man I would never speak to a child again.

“Do you have the color?” demanded Bri.

“I’ve
got
it,” I said.

The girls looked at me in a state of high delight. I looked back at them in a state of total ennui, which soon transformed itself to total dismay.

“We didn’t know they had orange kangaroos in Denmark,” they all shouted together.

I was stunned.

“How did you do it?” I said.

“A girl can’t reveal all her secrets,” said Bri. “What’s the gun for?”

The girls all craned their necks and looked into the trailer at the shotgun leaning against the far wall.

I turned and gazed at it, too. It made an ugly little still-life painting.

“I may go on a little hunting trip later this evening.”

“You’re not going to kill anything?” said Pia with a look of disgust.

“Of course not,” I said. “It’s strictly for selfdefense.”

“Self-defense against what?” asked Tiffany.

“Orange kangaroos in Denmark,” I said. “Now go back to your activities.”

Dusty and I wound our way up Harper Road with the shotgun in the trunk and the late afternoon sun hanging low like a stage prop in a summer-stock sky. I thought of an incident Dylan Ferrero had mentioned to me that had once occurred on Harper Road. Dylan had been driving by several years ago and saw what he thought was some kind of petting zoo by the side of the road. A number of wild animals were in caged enclosures and a group of people with young children were walking around looking at the animals, petting, and feeding them. Dylan stopped because he remembered seeing a large black water buffalo like the kind he and I plowed riee patties with in Peace Corps training in Borneo. Dylan communed with the buffalo for a while and then left just as a long black limousine was pulling up.

Dylan had a few errands to run and when he came back down Harper Road about a half hour later he noticed that the water buffalo was gone. He stopped the car and looked around, and sure enough, no water buffalo. He and several stray children walked around to the back of the enclosures and there in the dust was the cleanly severed head of the water buffalo. The kids were in tears and Dylan was stunned as he asked the guy who ran the “menagerie” what in the hell was going on. The guy explained the buffalo had been sold to a customer in the limousine who only wanted the head for his trophy collection.