John Godey - The Snake

Jane went back to her seat. She shut her eyes and cried inwardly, without tears. When she opened her eyes a man in a white jacket was standing over her.

"I'm Dr. Moran."

"Yes." She couldn't say any more. The doctor looked grave.

"We've administered a polyvalent serum, he seems to be responding moderately well. He's remarkably calm, and that helps."

"Then he's going to be all right?"

The doctor made an ambiguous movement of his head that was neither affirmation nor denial. "He wasn't able to describe what the snake looked like with any certainty. Did you get a good look at-"

"Oh my God!" Jane said. "I left it in the police car! My camera. I took a picture of it."

Dr. Moran was sprinting toward the emergency ward entrance.

Within ten minutes of receipt of the report from the RMP car that had brought Jeff to the hospital, the police put two Emergency Service Unit trucks and every man and vehicle the Two-two could muster into a broad area surrounding the menagerie. In the darkness, the park glittered with the rays of flashlights and the powerful searchlight beams mounted on the ESU trucks.

The police were to work into the daylight hours before their fruitless search was called off.

Fumbling for the phone in the darkness, Converse knew with certainty that it would be Eastman, and it was.

"Sorry again. We have another victim of the snake." Eastman paused, as if to allow him to say something, perhaps to echo his, Eastman's, own grimness, but he was silent, and Eastman went on. "I'm at East Side Hospital. We have a picture of the snake. It's being developed. Can you come over?"

"Right away."

He hung up, and was already on his feet, groping for his clothing, when he realized that he had not even inquired about the victim, asked whether he was alive or dead. But, then, Eastman hadn't mentioned it, either.

When the snake left the menagerie area it did not return to its tree but ranged far afield from it, questing, as it had been ever since the rain had stopped, driven once again by an age-old imperative of its species.

It ran northward, lo the more uncultivated section of the park. Its movements were swift, with a quality of urgency. It did not move in a straight line, but quartered an area, delving into wild places, squirming into heavily overgrown patches, probing with its small head.

It was already light when it came upon a burrow concealed under a fallen tree in a tangle of heavy growth. Its previous occupant was a small animal, perhaps a family of small animals, but the faintness of the doors analyzed by the Jacobson's organ indicated that the burrow had been vacant for some time.

The snake cautiously broached the entrance to the burrow with its head, careful not to disturb the brush that covered it. It slid downward a short distance to make certain it was uninhabited (if there was an animal inside, it would leave in panic at the first appearance of the head), that it was large enough to accommodate the snake's length, that it had at least one additional exit.

The burrow fulfilled the snake's requirements in every way. It slid all the way inside. It tried the second exit hole, again careful not to dislodge the brush that hid the opening but would not obstruct a quick escape if one became necessary.

The snake coiled its long body comfortably inside the burrow and went to sleep.

A few minutes after Dr. Moran had left her, one of the cops who had driven them to the hospital came running in with Jane's Hasselblad. He went straight through into the emergency ward. He came out a short while later, and stopped when he recognized her.

"Be okay, honey, be okay."

"Did you see him?"

"Just for a second."

She wanted to ask if he was in pain, but instead she said, "Did he say anything?"

"No. I mean, not that I beard. He might have been talking, but I wasn't there long enough. They just took the camera and I came out."

"Yes. Well. Thanks, officer. For everything."

"Be okay. You'll see."

He touched the bill of his cap to her and left. A moment later a heavy-set, ruddy faced man came hurrying in. He was wearing slacks and a mesh shirt, and she heard him tell the nurse that he was Captain Something-or-other before going through the emergency ward entrance.

Presently, the black man came out, wearing a T-shirt which someone must have given him. There was a neat bandage under his eye, very white against his skin. He came over to where she sat.

"See? Never hold the loupe with this thing on."

"I hope you'll be all right," Jane said.

"Be all right, all right," the man said. "But have to lay off a few weeks, because I can't use the loupe in the other eye." He grinned. "Wife hear that she gonna get mad all over again. Make her wish she done hit me in the other eye."

After he had gone, Jane tried to catch the nurse's eye, but the nurse kept plugging away at her reports. Some nurse. An accountant. Jane looked at her watch: 5:30. It was probably beginning to get light out by now, but you couldn't tell in this windowless room. Dr. Moran appeared in the doorway, smiled at her, then snapped his fingers and went back into the emergency ward.

She conjured up an image of Jeff. He was lying on his back on a table, speaking to the doctors surrounding him. "Keep calm, fellers, and we'll all pull together and get this thing whipped. Teamwork and calm right?" Her eyes filled with tears. Jeff-such a dumb shit of a jock, all muscle and cock and an empty attic. Right? Wrong! He was a goddamn angel!

She remembered how he had calmed her down, and then calmed the watchman and persuaded him to go for help. While the watchman was gone he had told her that he was going to lie down, and that she mustn't get alarmed, that lying down was best for slowing up the action of the venom. He stretched out on the pavement, holding his tourniquet tight with his left hand, and when she asked him if it hurt he said it didn't, all he felt was just a kind of pins-and-needles effect…

A young man came loping into the reception room from outside. He spoke to the nurse, who picked up her telephone. The young man waited impatiently.

He was dressed in a torn T-shirt inscribed: Coxswain, Venice Gondola Crew.

The nurse nodded to him and he charged through the emergency ward door just as Dr. Moran came out again.

Dr. Moran sat down in a facing chair. His knees made soft contact with hers. He had great dark Irish eyes, and he brought them very close to her.

It made her dizzy to look at them. He told her that Jeff was holding his own, and that if they were able to identify the snake they would then probably inject him with the specific antidotal serum…

He spoke in a soothing, warm voice, meanwhile bearing down on her with those luminous bedroom eyes. She began to sob again. Dr. Moran tilted his head solicitously and patted her shoulder. Then she felt his hand slip down and touch her breast.

"There now," Dr. Moran said, "there now." His thumb was caressing the rim of her breast. Therapy, right? "Would you like me to give you something to calm you down?"

Give yourself something, she thought, give yourself something to calm your pecker down. She stopped crying and said, "No, I don't need anything. I'm okay."

In fact, she thought, I'm better than okay. I'm quite calm, and if he doesn't take his finger away I'll break it off for him. I'm calm, she thought, because that's the way to honour Jeff, that terrific, courageous, wonderful fucking machine. You're too honest and simple to die, Jeff, she thought, and moved back in her chair, removing her breast from the gently palpating thumb of Dr. Moran, of the deep velvet eyes, the shitty eyes…

"Feeling a little better?" Dr. Moran said.

"Much better," she said calmly. Boy, she was so calm she could taste it.

"And instead of sitting here and trying to feel me up, doctor, why don't you go back in there and see if you can't help save my Jeffs life?"