The Chameleon Fallacy (Big Bamboo Book 2) (14 page)

The smile faded from Atlas Page’s face. He whistled softly and crossed himself. “Fuck, son. You gonna need more than that to go up against that viper. That man is evil, boy, y’hear? Evil.”

Baby Joe smiled. “We’ve met before. Know where I can find him? Tonight?”

“
Everywhere and nowhere, man. In the shadows. In the mist. In your dreams. Inside your head. You don’t know what you messin’ with, boy.”

“
So where will I find him?”

“
At his club, the Mama Mambo. At one of his joints. At his place down by the Ox Bow. He ain’t hard to locate. It’s dislocating him that’s the problem.”

Baby Joe nodded. “I’ll keep it in mind.”

Baby Joe walked through the heavy redolent darkness back toward the lights of the main road. Somewhere in a back room someone was wailing a sad blues. This time nobody watched him as he passed. As he got to the intersection, he calculated that the time it had taken him to walk was just about the same time that it would have taken Atlas Page to make up his mind to call Lord Lundi.

***

The guy had good hands. Asia had to admit she was enjoying being touched. He was strong but not too forceful, and he knew when to lay on and when to hold back. It was very pleasant out there in the garden in the shade. She had her drink in an ice bucket beside her, the birds were singing, the bees were buzzing, the sun was warm on her back and shoulders but the breeze was keeping her from being too hot. It was all very soporific, and under different circumstances she could have easily drifted off. But her mind wouldn’t let her. That nagging unease. That inner whispering. The disquiet that she couldn’t put a finger on.

The man moved his hand down to the small of her back. As he massaged her on either side of her spine her buttocks began to move. She felt a small frisson of excitement but suppressed it. She forced herself to think about Baby Joe. She wished that he was with her—then she wouldn’t be so confused. Or would she? What was happening? Was it possible that she didn’t love him anymore? Was that even conceivable? Or that he didn’t love her?

She didn’t feel it to be so, but how could you be sure? The only thing they both knew for certain was that it wasn’t the same. But then, how could it be? It never stayed the same. For anyone. It was just a question of whether you grew together, or grew apart. Could you do both at the same time? Sometimes it was as though she didn’t know him, as if a stranger lay next to her or sat across the table from her. But then he would say something, or make a gesture or a facial expression, and all of a sudden the old Baby Joe would be there and the love would come flooding back with all its relentless power. Maybe this separation would be good for them. Perhaps when she got back there would be an answer. Perhaps…

The man moved his hands down onto her thighs. It felt good as he slid his smooth powerful fingers up and down her legs, up to the bottom of her pelvis and back. As his hand rose slowly toward her pudenda she caught her breath. The hands moved away. What was that? Disappointment? She was getting turned on. What was she going to do about it? And if she did something about it, how was she going to feel about it afterward?

The hands went away. She waited, tense now. Eager. Waited for the hands to come back. Aware that she wanted them to. And not caring that she did. When they did, they were different. Rougher. Quicker. Suddenly one hand grabbed her vagina. Another stuck a finger into her anus. Hard. She screamed and opened her eyes and squirmed round.

Lundi was there, smiling down at her. He was wearing a dark hood. She aimed a slap at him but he stepped back easily, still smiling. She slid off the table and stepped toward him, with her fists clenched and her knuckles white.

“
I’m gonna kick your fuckin’ ass, you sick-lookin’ creep.”

Lord Lundi stuck his face toward her, with his lips pursed, inviting her to take a swing. She did. He stepped out of range. As she waded in to throw another punch, he sprayed a cloud of white powder from his mouth into her face. She gagged and choked and put her fingers to her eyes. Blinded, she stepped backward and tripped. She tried to put her hands out to break her fall, but for some reason she could not. She fell heavily. She opened her mouth to curse him, but nothing came out. She felt as if she couldn’t breathe. Panic overtook her. She attempted to stand, but her legs wouldn’t work. She fell again, facedown onto the grass. A terrible paralysis gripped her. Terror welled up inside her—a blind, desperate panic. She wanted to scream more than anything in the world, but she could not. She felt Lundi’s weight on top of her. He placed his lips next to her ear. She could feel the hot wetness.

“
La coupe du poudre
,” he hissed. “Tetrodotoxin. From the puffer fish. You will see all. You will hear all. You will
feel all
. But you will not move. You want to know why?”

Lundi pulled off his dark glasses. He pushed his blind and opaque eye close to hers. It was a repulsive, slimy orb; a ghastly, disgusting veined world, filling her whole field of vision.

“
You boyfriend. Baby Joe Young. He do this to me. He steal my eye. He burn me skin, so I can never feel the sun again. So I take you. For mine. He will come for you. He will die. You will die. But first…”

Every nerve in Asia’s body screamed in terror and pain and outrage as she felt herself penetrated and brutalized, but she could not make a sound.

***

The Maasai people of Kenya and Tanzania believe that their god, Old Enkai, gave all the cattle in the world to them. They are confirmed cattle raiders, but in their eyes it is not theft, it is merely the recovery of their own property. In a similar vein, Khuy Zalupa, who by this time had added “connoisseur,” “patron of the arts,” and “patriot” to his résumé, had arrived at the conclusion that Russian artifacts should be in Russian hands, and that, ergo, Peter Carl Fabergé’s Easter eggs, which were national cultural icons, should also be in Russian hands. Specifically his. Which is why he had dedicated himself to collecting them—all of them.

The methods he employed could have, somewhat ironically, been taken from the lexicon of the CIA training manual. Infiltration, destabilization, misinformation, counterintelligence, covert black ops, termination with extreme prejudice, by whatever means necessary, get ’er done, etcetera etcetera.

As with other collectors, he was almost obsessive in his search, and conducted, or had conducted for him, meticulous research and strenuous detective work into the possible locations of the eggs. That was why the eggs listed in all reliable inventories as “missing” were actually on display in his bedroom in his dacha near Yalta on the Crimean peninsula. It is also why several of the examples thought to exist in museums and private collections around the world were also on display in his bedroom in his dacha near Yalta on the Crimean peninsula, having been snatched and replaced with fakes.

But not even Khuy Zalupa could keep something like that an absolute secret. Sooner or later, some scoundrel would scale the harem wall and make free with the Sultan’s jewels, even at the risk of his own jewels. Rumors leaked out, whispers were heard in boudoirs and kitchens and giggles in galleries, insinuations were made…until in certain circles in the upper echelons of the jewelry industry, it became common knowledge that Zalupa was trying to put all the eggs in one basket. It was just that nobody dared do anything about it.

Fanny Lemming was party to the stories, and from her unique perspective, had more reason than anybody to believe them to be true. But she didn’t care to do anything about it either…until she saw the photograph.

***

Plan A was out. Baby Joe stood beneath the high broken-glass-topped wall that surrounded Lundi’s compound, and realized that his wall-climbing days were over. He also had cause to reflect upon his lack of preparation. And to ask himself a pertinent question: What the fuck did he think he was doing? He was doing it all wrong and he knew it. He had not studied the building. He did not know what the layout of the grounds was. He had not made any observations regarding its defenses and security. Lundi knew he was coming and yet Baby Joe had made no attempt to disguise his appearance, no attempt at subterfuge of any kind. He was just asking for it. Walking into the bear’s cave and slapping her cubs about.

Was his anger and worry clouding his judgment, or was it something subtler and sinister, something taking place at a subconscious level that he didn’t even want to consider? A leap-before-you-look plunge into the abyss, just to see what happened and not caring either way. A bow. A curtain call. A look-how-much-I-loved-you? Or was he just pushing it? Rolling the dice, just for the craic? And if so, who stood to lose? He could do what he wanted with his own sorry ass, but if he went down, what about her? It was madness. He wasn’t the man he had once been, and he couldn’t just walk into things anymore and expect to walk back out of them again. So what did he call this?
What are you going to do now, hotshot?

He shuffled and reshuffled several alternatives in his mind, reassessing the situation, reevaluating his tactics, and realigning his strategic objectives, and he formulated a cunning plan. He was going to walk up and ring the fucking doorbell, then shoot any motherfucker who wasn’t Asia or Crispin. Anything was better than being a lame and lovesick old man looking up at a wall three feet higher than you could reach.

The cameras on top of the wall swiveled to follow him as he made his way to the main portal. He flipped them the bird. He heard the dogs whining behind the wall and knew they were following his progress on the other side. He started to grin. The war drums began to beat in time to his pulse and he felt the old happiness rise inside of him. It was madness, but it was a fine, fierce madness.

He was almost at the door when the voice of reason in the back of his mind addressed him in a calm and thoughtful manner:
You are a spent and stupid old man, and if you do this thing you will die
—
and so will she, you stupid bastard. What the fuck are you thinking? You know she’ll be alive because he will wait. He will want her to watch you die. Are you here to help her, or to help him? Get a grip. Make a fucking plan.

Baby Joe decided that the voice of reason had a point. He turned around and walked back the way he had come. The cameras followed him as far as the corner.

He selected a Buick Roadmaster, based on the fact that he believed them to be a sturdy model. His assessment was confirmed after he hotwired it and rammed it through a side portal. The windshield came out, and it would need a trip to the paint shop, but it kept going, all the way to the front door. He knew if he got out of the car he would have to shoot the dogs. He didn’t want to have to shoot the dogs. He reversed up, aimed the hood at the big bay window, and floored it. He was already rolling out and up as the car slammed into the fireplace. He crouched behind the open door. The motor was still racing. He reached in and killed it. No lights came on. He looked toward the staircase: nothing. Down the hall: no one. The dogs could have come in through the hole that the Buick had made, but they didn’t. All in all, as devil-may-care, quixotic, quasi-suicidal singlehanded attacks on heavily protected property owned by albino psychotics go, it was anticlimactic.

Baby Joe slowly stood up. The echoes of the motor were still loud in his ears. He surveyed the scene. The car had upended a pool table and some of the balls were still gently rolling along the parquet floor. He stepped forward and then abruptly stopped. He heard something. Very slight, but definitely a movement, low and to his left. He moved forward again. The closet. He didn’t believe it. Some clown was actually hiding in the fucking closet. He raised the piece. And stopped.
Fucking think, man. What is wrong with you? What if it’s a child? What if it’s Asia?

He stepped up to the door, took a firm grip on the handle with his left hand, pointed his weapon at the panel, and yanked. A slight, dark-skinned man fell backward out of the cupboard, rolled, and bumped up against the fender of the car. Baby Joe reached down and grabbed his collar, and belted him around the back of the skull with the gun, hard enough rattle his fillings but not hard enough to put him down or out. The man’s hands went up around his ears. Baby Joe planted the gun against the man’s temple.

“
Where is she?”

The man lost it. “Please-don’t-shoot-I-don’t-know-anything-please-don’t-shoot-me-I’m-only-here-to-play-fucking-golf-I-work-for-Elmo-Yorke-he-did-it-I-hate-fucking-golf-please.”

Baby Joe shoved the gun into his belt, grabbed Monsoon Parker under the arms, and hauled him to his feet.