Т Паркер - Where Serpents Lie

Hypok stood up and expected the ranger to do likewise, but he didn’t. The moron was full of surprises.

Stefanic looked up at him. “Age and local address?”

Hypok made them up.

“You know your California driver’s license number?”

Hypok made up that, too. He realized that everything was going to be quite all right. He felt good again. Powerful and good. Then, “You know, I hike the parks in Orange County a lot. This is far and away the best one. You guys do a great job.”

“We try,” said Stefanic, still writing, but not looking up. “We do try.”

He was one of those guys, noted Hypok, who took about five minutes to write one letter or number.

“Do you mind if I set the juveniles free?”

“In a minute. Car make and model, year?”

“Oh, it’s a Dodge van. Ninety-six. In fact, I waited until last to set these babies loose, because they’re such cool, good-looking little animals.”

“Trouble, if you step on one.”

“That’s sure true.”

Hypok knelt down again and took up the jar to look at it. “You wonder how many will make it another year. You know, because of how small they are. Have you ever seen one of these eat — I mean, in nature out here?”

Stefanic stopped writing and looked at Hypok. “No. What’s your local phone, Ian?”

Hypok stood with the jar in his hands and held it up to the sky. He looked at the little snakes sliding around inside.

“Six-eight-one...”

Stefanic lowered his face to write, fifteen minutes to write three numbers, then looked back up at Hypok.

“Four-seven-seven-eight.”

Stefanic looked down at his citation page again and Hypok hit him over the head with the jar as hard as he possibly could. It broke into big shards because it was the heavy kind of half-gallon jar made for bulk condiments. Stefanic grunted and his face lowered. The right side of the jar came off in Hypok’s right hand so he held fast to the lid and set a big triangle of glass under the ranger’s throat and drew up fast and hard with it. He bent his knees for torque. There was this sudden intake on Stefanic’s part and a red stream looping in the air. Hypok did it again. The ranger lifted his head to look up and the stream gushed bigger so Stefanic kind of rolled with it, rocking back on his knees and half upright, with both hands at his throat and a bubbling wheeze issuing through his fingers. With his head cocked at an unnatural angle he stared up at Hypok in disbelief. Hypok jumped back and dropped the lid. He reached into the box and felt outside the bag for the big head of the male horridus and found it easily because it was nosing its way in the corner of the bag like they usually do, pressing the seams for a way out. He grabbed it firmly through the cotton with one hand and reached in with the other so they almost met and got the head good and firm and dragged the thing out. The other snake he didn’t even think about. The big horridus was just as strong and heavy as he knew it would be. The rattles hissed like a tire leaking air, but much, much louder. The mouth was open wide from the pressure of Hypok’s grip and the fangs stood out when Hypok hit the snake’s nose against the box. Three-quarters of an inch of hollow bone, dripping venom. Stefanic had gotten up. He still had both hands up to his neck and there was blood all over him, but he was up and backpedaling with his head still cranked to one side. He tripped and fell and rolled over. Hypok hustled to his side and pressed the open mouth of the horridus against the ranger’s calf. The snake bit down like a dog. Stefanic kicked his leg free and seemed to be trying to scream — Hypok was pretty sure — but the sound was a wet hiss that sounded like water against the pebbles of a streambed. Hypok jammed the snake’s mouth against the ranger’s ass. Stefanic rolled over and struggled upright, but Hypok was beside him and the ranger couldn’t see much because his eyes were smeared with blood and he couldn’t straighten his head without his neck gaping apart so Hypok drilled the big, white, open mouth of the viper straight into Stefanic’s face, right below the cheekbone, pressed it so hard the ranger lost his footing and fell over again. Hypok let go of the snake, but the horridus was stuck fast, anchored by those fangs, its upper jaw up by Stefanic’s eye and its lower one spread all the way down to the bottom of his chin.

Hypok stood there and looked down.

He’d never seen action like this, not even when he fed his mother to Moloch. If she hadn’t been feeble it would have been better. But this was another thing completely. He couldn’t stand it He felt himself excited down there and didn’t know what to do. It surprised him to feel that way now. That’s what the Items were for, and all the work he went through to collect them. It absolutely shocked him to feel stimulated, and he had the terrifying idea that this might mean he was homosexual. Because of Stefanic.

The ranger was still hissing wetly. But he wasn’t strong enough to get up and his chest was heaving, unbelievably fast. It was amazing that much blood could keep coming out. Hypok took a knee and watched, checking the time. It was the oddest thing, but he felt like he had all the time in the world. Compared to Ranger Rick here, he thought, I do. The snake let go and crawled away.

Now what?

I struck out with both listing agents. Evans was in his seventies and Johnson was a fifty-year-old family man recently diagnosed — the agent told me confidentially — with AIDS. Two of twelve out of the way. I used a pay phone in a mini-mall to call three more of the agents, and set up appointments for the next day. I posed as a potential buyer because tomorrow was Saturday and even agents, hungry as they are for action in a cool market, don’t want to give up weekends to answer questions.

But I had a bad feeling about The Horridus investigation, so I went back to the Sheriff headquarters and picked up both the Pamela and Courtney files to study at home. I always have a bad feeling about investigations until they’re closed and the creep is in the can. But I felt even worse about this one than the others — something about the “pageantry,” the ritual, the threat of escalation and our slender evidence filled me with dread. I looked at Frances’s station, wondering if that big pink envelope might be on top, but that was a ridiculous idea, and it wasn’t. It’s hard not to be suspicious about things when it’s part of your job.

On my way home I dropped by two more pet stores that sold reptiles and showed my sketch to the clerks. Never seen him. We sell lots of snake food. Sorry. On the way out of the last one I picked up a Truck and Van Trader magazine to see if anyone was offering a late-model red Chrysler van for sale. But because we hadn’t released our description of the vehicle, I wondered if this part of the case was a waste of time. If he suspected his van had been seen, why not just garage it for a while? Sell it in Los Angeles or San Diego counties? Or paint it?

By the time I turned off of Laguna Canyon Road and rolled into the narrow driveway on Canyon Edge, I was tired and discouraged. I briefly thought of all the action I was missing at Tonello’s — Fridays are a true free-for-all. The liquor flows and the tongues loosen and you never know what you might hear. Maybe Jordan Ishmael would dance in his underwear. I thought of Donna because I always thought of Donna. I was not quite enough of a fool to believe, even for a moment, that the three of us — Melinda, Donna and I — were not headed for some kind of disaster. Someone would get hurt. Maybe we all would. But enough. I was home for a Friday night with people I loved, and I had my files on Pamela and Courtney to ponder late, when the house was quiet and the ghosts were free to roam and offer their opinions.