Native Tongue (26 page)

“Fine. Excellent.” Kingsbury propped his elbows on the desk in a way that offered Pedro Luz an unobstructed view of the lurid mouse tattoo.

“Two things—” Kingsbury paused when he spotted the bandage on Pedro Luz’s finger.

“Hangnail,” said the security chief.

“Whatever,” Kingsbury said. “Two things—some assholes, the guys who stole my files, they’re blackmailing me. You know, shaking me down.”

Pedro Luz asked how much money he had promised them.

“Never mind,” Kingsbury replied. “Five grand so far is what I paid. But the files, see, I can’t just blow ’em off. I need the files.”

“Who are these men?”

Francis Kingsbury threw up his hands. “That’s the thing—just ordinary shitheads. White trash. I can’t fucking believe it.”

Pedro Luz had never understood the concept of white trash, or how it differed from black trash or Hispanic trash or any other kind of criminal dirtbag. He said, “You want the files but you don’t want to pay.”

“Exacto!” said Kingsbury. “In fact, the five grand—I wouldn’t mind getting it back.”

Pedro Luz laughed sharply. Months go by and the job’s a snooze—now suddenly all this dirty work. Oh well, Pedro thought, it beats painting rat tongues. He hadn’t shed a tear when the mango voles were stolen.

Kingsbury was saying, “The other thing, I fired a guy from Publicity.”

“Yeah?” Watching that damn tattoo, it was driving Pedro silly. Minnie on her knees, polishing Mickey’s knob—whoever did the drawing was damn good, almost Disney caliber.

“You need to go see this guy I fired,” Kingsbury was saying. “Find out some things.”

Pedro Luz asked what kind of things.

Kingsbury moved his lips around, like a camel getting ready to spit. Eventually he said, “The problem we had before? This is worse, okay. The guy I mentioned, we’re talking major pain in the rectum.”

“Okay.”

“As long as he worked for us, we had some control. On the outside, hell, he’s a major pain. I just got a feeling.”

Pedro Luz gave him a thumbs-up. “Don’t worry.”

“Carefully,” Kingsbury added. “Same as before would be excellent. Except no dead whales this time.”

God, thought Pedro Luz, what a fuckup
that
was.

“Do I know him?” he asked Kingsbury.

“From Publicity. Joe Winder’s his name.”

“Oh.” Pedro Luz perked up. Winder was the smartass who’d been hassling him about Dr. Koocher. The same guy he’d sent Angel and Big Paulie to teach a lesson, only something went sour and Angel ended up dead and Paulie must’ve took off. Next thing Pedro knows, here’s this smartass Winder snooping around the animal lab in the middle of the night.

Mr. X. was right about the guy. Now that he was fired, he might go hog-wild. Start talking crazy shit all over the place.

“You look inspired,” Kingsbury said.

Pedro Luz smiled crookedly. “Let’s just say I got some ideas.”

When Molly McNamara opened her eyes, she was surprised to see Bud Schwartz and Danny Pogue at her bedside.

“I thought you boys would be long gone.”

“No way,” said Danny Pogue. His eyes were large and intent,
like a retriever’s. His chin was in his hands, and he was sitting very close to the bed. He patted Molly’s brow with a damp washcloth.

“Thank you,” she said. “I’m very thirsty.”

Danny Pogue bolted to the kitchen to get her a glass of ginger ale. Bud Schwartz took a step closer. He said, “What happened? Can you remember anything?”

“My glasses,” she said, pointing to the nightstand.

“They got busted,” said Bud Schwartz. “I used some Scotch tape on the nose part.”

Molly McNamara put them on, and said, “Two men. Only one did the hitting.”

“Why? What’d they want—money?”

Molly shook her head slowly. Danny Pogue came back with the ginger ale, and she took two small sips. “Thank you,” she said. “No, they didn’t want money.”

Danny Pogue said, “Who?”

“The men who came. They said it was a warning.”

“Oh Christ.”

“It’s none of your concern,” said Molly.

Grimly Bud Schwartz said, “They were after the files.”

“No. They never mentioned that.”

Bud Schwartz was relieved; he had worried that Francis X. Kingsbury had somehow identified them, connected them to Molly and sent goons to avenge the burglary. It was an irrational fear, he knew, because even the powerful Kingsbury couldn’t have done it so quickly after their blackmail visit.

Still, it was discouraging to see how they had battered Molly McNamara. These were extremely bad men, and Bud Schwartz doubted they would have allowed him and Danny Pogue to survive the encounter.

“I think we ought to get out of here,” he said to Molly. “Take you back to the big house.”

“That’s a sensible plan,” Molly agreed, “but you boys don’t have to stay.”

“Like hell,” Danny Pogue declared. “Look at you, all busted up. You’ll be needing some help.”

“You got some bad bruises,” agreed Bud Schwartz. “Your right knee’s twisted, too, but I don’t think it’s broke. Plus they knocked out a couple teeth.”

Molly ran her tongue around her gums and said, “I was the only one in this building who still had their own.”

Danny Pogue paced with a limp. “I wanted to call an ambulance or somebody, only Bud said we better not.”

Molly said that was a smart decision, considering what the three of them had been up to lately. She removed the damp cloth from her forehead and folded it on the nightstand.

Danny Pogue wanted to know all about the attackers—how big they were, what they looked like. “I bet they was niggers,” he said.

Molly raised herself off the pillow, cocked her arm and slapped him across the face. Incredulous, Danny Pogue rubbed his cheek.

She said, “Don’t you ever again use that word in my presence.”

“Christ, I didn’t mean nothin.”

“Well, it just so happens these men were white. White Hispanic males. The one who beat me up was very large and muscular.”

“My question,” said Bud Schwartz, “is how they slipped past that crack security guard. What’s his name, Andrews, the ace with the flashlight.”

Molly said: “You won’t believe it. The big one had a badge. A police badge, City of Miami.”

“Wonderful,” Bud Schwartz said.

“I saw it myself,” Molly said. “Why do you think I even opened the door? He said they were plainclothes detectives. Once they had me down, I couldn’t get to my purse.”

Danny Pogue looked at his partner with the usual mix of confusion and concern. Bud Schwartz said, “It sounds like some serious shitkickers. You say they were Cubans?”

“Hispanics,” Molly said.

“Did they speak American?” asked Danny Pogue.

“The big one did all the talking, and his English was quite competent. Especially his use of four-letter slang.”

Danny Pogue rocked on his good leg, and slammed a fist against the wall. “I’ll murder the sumbitch!”

“Sure you will,” said his partner. “You’re a killer and I’m the next quarterback for the Dolphins.”

“I mean it, Bud. Look what he done to her.”

“I see, believe me.” Bud Schwartz gave Molly McNamara two Percodans and said it would help her sleep. She swallowed the pills in one gulp and thanked the burglars once again. “It’s very kind of you to look after me,” she said.

“Only till you’re feeling better,” said Bud Schwartz. “We got some business that requires our full attention.”

“Of course, I understand.”

“We made five grand tonight!” said Danny Pogue. Quickly he withered under his partner’s glare.

“Five thousand is very good,” Molly said. “Add the money I still owe you, and that’s quite a handsome nest egg.” She slid deeper into the sheets, and pulled the blanket to her chin.

“Get some rest,” Bud Schwartz said. “We’ll take you to the house in the morning.”

“Yeah, get some sleep.” Danny Pogue gazed at her dolorously. Bud Schwartz wondered if he was about to cry.

“Bud?” Molly spoke in a fog.

“Yeah.”

“Did you boys happen to find a piece of finger on the floor?”

“No,” said Bud Schwartz. “Why?”

“Would you check in the kitchen, please?”

“No problem.” He wondered how the pills could mess her up so quickly. “You mean, like a human finger?”

But Molly’s eyes were already closed.

Charles Chelsea worked feverishly all morning. By half past eleven the parade was organized. The gateway to the Amazing Kingdom of Thrills was festooned with multicolored streamers and hundreds of Mylar balloons. Cheerleaders practiced cartwheels over the turnstiles while the Tavernier High School band rehearsed the theme from
Exodus
. Several of the most popular animal characters—Robbie Raccoon, Petey Possum and Barney the Bison—were summoned from desultory lunch breaks in The Catacombs to greet and be photographed with the big winner. Above a hastily constructed stage, a billowy hand-painted banner welcomed “OUR FIVE-MILLIONTH SPECIAL GUEST!!!”

And there, parked in the courtyard, was a newly restored 1966 Chevrolet Corvair, one of Detroit’s most venerated deathtraps. Charles Chelsea had been unable to locate a mint condition Falcon, and the vintage Mustangs were beyond Francis Kingsbury’s budget. The Corvair was Chelsea’s next choice as the giveaway car because it was a genuine curiosity, and because it was cheap. The one purchased by Chelsea had been rear-ended by a dairy tanker in 1972, and the resulting explosion had wiped out a quartet of home-appliance salesmen. The rebuilt Corvair was seven inches
shorter from bumper to bumper than the day it had rolled off the assembly line, but Charles Chelsea was certain no one would notice. Two extra coats of cherry paint and the Corvair shouted classic. It was exactly the sort of campy junk-mobile that some dumb Yuppie would love.

The scene was set for the coronation of the alleged five-millionth visitor to the Amazing Kingdom. The only thing missing from the festive tableau, Chelsea noted lugubriously, was customers. The park had opened more than two hours ago, yet not a single carload of tourists had arrived. The trams were empty, the cash registers mute; no one had passed through the ticket gates. Chelsea couldn’t understand it—the place had not experienced such a catastrophic attendance drop since salmonella had felled a visiting contingent of Rotarians at Sally’s Cimarron Saloon.

Chelsea prayed with all his heart that some tourists would show up before the television vans. He did not know, and could not have envisioned, that an eighteen-wheeler loaded with the decomposing remains of Orky the Whale had flipped on Card Sound Road and paralyzed all traffic heading toward the Amazing Kingdom. The highway patrol diligently had set up a roadblock at the junction near Florida City, where troopers were advising all buses, campers and rental cars filled with Francis X. Kingsbury’s customers to turn around and return to Miami. The beleaguered troopers did not consider it their sworn duty to educate the tourists about an alternate route to the Amazing Kingdom—taking Highway 1 south past Jewfish Creek, then backtracking up County Road 905 to the park. The feeling among the troopers (based on years of experience) was that no matter how simple and explicit they made the directions, many of the tourists would manage to get lost, run out of gas and become the victims of some nasty roadside crime. A more sensible option was simply to tell them to go back, there’d been a bad accident.

Consequently Charles Chelsea stood in eery solitude on the makeshift stage, the cheery banner flapping over his head as he stared at the empty parking lot and wondered how in the hell he would break the news to Francis X. Kingsbury. Today there would be no celebration, no parade, no five-millionth visitor. There were no visitors at all.

Joe Winder felt like a damn redneck—he hadn’t been to a firing range in ten or twelve years, and that was to shoot his father’s revolver, an old Smith. The gun Skink had given him was a thin foreign-made semiautomatic. It didn’t have much weight, but Skink promised it would do the job, whatever job needed doing. Winder had decided to keep it for ornamental purposes. It lay under the front seat as he drove south on County Road 905.

He stopped at a pay phone, dialed the sex-talk number and billed it to his home. Miriam answered and started in with a new routine, something about riding bareback on a pony. When Winder broke in and asked for Nina, Miriam told him she wasn’t there.

“Tell her to call me, please.”

“Hokay, Joe.”

“On second thought, never mind.”

“Whatever chew say. You like the horsey business?”

“Yes, Miriam, it’s very good.”

“Nina wrote it. Want me do the end?”

“No thank you.”

“Is hot stuff, Joe. Cheese got some mansionation.”

“She sure does.”

Joe Winder drove until he reached the Falcon Trace construction site. He parked on the side of the road and watched a pair of mustard-colored bulldozers plow a fresh section of hammock, creating a tangled knoll of uprooted tamarinds, buttonwoods, pigeon
plums and rouge-berry. Each day a few more acres were being destroyed in the name of championship golf.

A team of surveyors worked the distant end of the property, near Winder’s fishing spot. He assumed they were marking off the lots where the most expensive homes would be built—the more ocean frontage, the higher the price. This was how Francis X. Kingsbury would make his money—the golf course itself was never meant to profit; it was a real-estate tease, plain and simple. The links would be pieced together in the middle of the development on whatever parcels couldn’t be peddled as residential waterfront. Soon, Winder knew, they’d start blasting with dynamite to dig fairway lakes in the ancient reef rock.

He saw that both bulldozers had stopped, and that the drivers had gotten down from the cabs to look at something in the trees. Joe Winder stepped out of the car and started running. He remembered what Skink had told him about the baby eagles. He shouted at the men and saw them turn. One folded his arms and slouched against his dozer.

Winder covered the two hundred yards in a minute. When he reached the men, he was panting too hard to speak.

One of them said: “What’s your problem?”

Winder flashed his Amazing Kingdom identification badge, which he had purposely neglected to turn in upon termination of employment. The lazy bulldozer driver, the one leaning against his machine, studied the badge and began to laugh. “What the hell is this?”