Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In A Leopard Spot

Leonora’s smile revealed Hollywood-white teeth, quite emphatically pointed. Temple had met people with markedly pointed teeth before. But these were unnatural. They had been filed, just as Leonora’s face had been reshaped.

Temple realized then that she had quite literally walked into the lion’s den.

Max wasn’t aware of being stalked until he was almost back to the drop-off point where he was to meet Temple.

He had sighted some of the ranch’s security forces early during his ramble. These were camouflage-attired men with rifles, the kind of professionals that turned his blood cold: hirelings, not true believers. Hard men who were used to doing unspeakable things. It was kill or be killed with their sort, and Max had always tried to stay well away from either role.

He flattened himself among some scattered rocks, a shadow among shadows, and waited until they were utterly gone before moving on.

And then he came on the trail.

He was an urban animal. Wilderness tracking wasn’t his particular skill, but even a city slicker could see the random impress of a sneaker tread on the softer areas of sand.

Several sneaker treads.

The security forces wore desert boots. His own shoes always had smooth-soled leather. He had never left easily traceable tracks, like a tire, on carpeting or anywhere else.

Sagebrush was the only cover out here, but the three-foot-high growths pockmarked the flat desert floor as regularly as dotted Swiss. Max moved from bush to bush like a cartoon character, trying to figure out whether the sneaker set had been coming or going.

He had gotten close enough to the compound to not like what he’d found. Close enough to worry about Temple still inside. Now other trespassers were adding to the likelihood that either Temple or he might get into trouble.

Max checked his watch. Only an hour and forty minutes since he’d left Temple. Knowing her fondness for thorough jobs and her gift for talking her way into, and often out of, anything, she was probably still happily poking her nose into her host’s business.

He glimpsed movement to his right, sensed a buzz on the air, possibly a distant Jeep.

He dove for the best cover, a small outcropping of rock thirty feet away, hitting the sand and rolling the last few feet. Before he could roll upright, a heavy weight jumped him from above.

Lord, one of the lions is loose , was his first thought. The weight squeezed the wind out of him, flailing buff-colored limbs blurred his vision.

A blow to the head reassured him. It was hard, but not clawed. A human pride had him in their grip.

Max promptly feigned unconsciousness to avoid any more cracks in the skull. No one could go as convincingly limp as a magician.

“Not a guard,” someone whispered harshly.

“Then what? ” demanded another whisperer.

“Shhh! The Jeep’s coming this way.”

The grips on Max tightened as the vehicle’s motor and wheels ground, coughed, and spit sand through the sere desert air. It sounded like an eggbeater on the run.

The noise grew, hovered like a swarm of huge bees, then faded into a distant drone.

“Thank God.” This whisper was raspy, but it was a woman’s voice. “I hope we didn’t kill him.”

Max found that hope encouraging. Ranch security would have had no such scruples.

He played possum while they turned him over and poked at him like curious chimps.

“ Black? ”

Max, sweating, agreed. It was crazy to have gone a-hunting in city black out here, but he hadn’t become really suspicious until he and Temple had arrived, and by then it was too late to send out for a safari suit.

Hands pawed at him. “He’s not armed.”

Not with obvious weapons anyway.

“What’s a Joe Blow doing out here?”

Max stirred slightly, not wanting to start a ruckus. There were at least three of them, and while the odds didn’t concern him, keeping the peace did. Guards with powerful binoculars would catch any dust-up in this terrain.

“What—?” he groaned, trying to sound like an innocent, head-whacked schmuck.

He blinked the sand out of his eyes, finally focusing on tanned, seamed faces. Two men and a woman. She was the party’s senior member, a lean sixty-something with wiry strands of silver hair escaping a beige bandanna.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

The men, a twenty-something and a forty-something with outdoor faces, kept what they thought was a good grip on him.

“Exploring,” he answered.

“Alone? On foot? Dressed like that?”

“A friend dropped me off by car. I’d heard about this place. Wanted to look it over.”

“Didn’t you see the guards?” one of the guys asked.

“Yes. But they didn’t see me.” Max risked a grin. You don’t want to be seen by guards , he implied. I don’t either. Maybe we’re allies .

The woman snorted contemptuously. “In that outfit, and they missed you?”

“I headed for shadow when I saw or heard them. Unfortunately, you were part of the shadow I was heading for here.”

The woman’s burnt sienna fingers curled into the fabric of Max’s black turtleneck sweater. “Silk blend.” Her eyes, so light a gray they seemed as silver as her hair, hardened. “What the hell is someone like you doing out here on foot?”

“I’m looking for a big cat.”

“Going to take it down with your teeth, right?” asked one of the youngsters.

“Not going to take it down at all. Going to get it out of here.”

That made them sit up and take notice. Literally. The hands loosened on his limbs.

“What is your scam?” asked a thin-faced man with a sand-grayed ponytail down his back.

“No scam. What I said. I’m looking for a stolen leopard.”

The woman was unimpressed. “Alone. On foot. Out here. Unarmed. Dressed like that.”

“My partner is inside, and I’d really appreciate it if you’d quit playing twenty questions and let me start worrying about when she’s coming out, or if she’s coming out.”

Their custody eased even more. Max went on. “And you might mention who you are, and why you’re out here. Together. On foot. On feet that leave quite visible tracks, by the way.”

He looked around. Except for the walking stick that had beaned him, they carried nothing more obviously dangerous than water canteens and backpacks.

“She?” the woman asked.

Max nodded. “It was an impromptu mission, I admit. Not advisable in light of what I’ve found out here, including you.”

“Mission?” The thin-faced guy still looked suspicious. “You some kind of…cop? Paramilitary?”

Max smiled. “No. Just trying to help out a friend.”

“A friend who keeps leopards?” The man who asked this had freckles, a snub nose, earnest blue eyes. Must have been a cute kid, but his face and tone now were harder than the red rock in the Valley of Fire.

“A friend who works with a leopard. A magician.”

“They’d steal a performing leopard?” Ponytail’s voice shook with rage and surprise.

“Hard to come by unmarked heads.” Blue Eyes flashed a meaningful look at the others.

“You don’t know what you’re getting into,” the woman said to Max, having made up her mind about him. “We’ll get you back to where you need to meet your partner, if we can, but we won’t get caught to do it.”

Max allowed himself to move into a crouching position that was still nonthreatening. “I know what I’m doing out here, and now I know what’s going on out here, but why are you here?”

“What’s going on out here?” Blue Eyes taunted him.

“Canned hunts. Trophies for rich men, culled from zoos, stocks of abandoned exotic felines, the old, the weak, and the domesticated, available to dress your mantel for the sum of several thousand dollars. Pretty ugly racket.”