John Godey - The Snake

"Scoop. We don't allow scoops on my paper." Her hand trailed lightly down his chest. "My friend, there's a time for talking and a time for fucking.

You know what I mean?"

Her legs parted, and she pulled him down and into her. Later, with the sheet drawn up to their waists, they slept a little. When she woke he was faced toward her, and speaking seriously, even anxiously.

"Eastman?" She tried to wake herself to his question. "Eastman. He said you blew your stack about the helicopter this morning, and his boss walked in…" She trailed off, shrugging, and her breasts quivered beguilingly. "He's been looking for another herp."

Converse nodded. "There are some good ones in town. Very good ones." He looked away from her. "But a new herp won't know where the snake is."

"But you do. Eastman said you did."

"I could have caught it this morning, even after the helicopter, but I didn't. So that Purie found it and got bitten. I'm responsible for him getting bitten. Is that what Eastman said?"

"He wouldn't go any further, for attribution, than that he had a hunch you knew where it was."

"Did you write it up-what he said?"

"I tried to get him to come out and state it flatly. It's my job, Mark, you know. But he wouldn't, so I couldn't use it."

"Well, I'm telling you. I know exactly where that black mamba is."

"Okay, thanks. But it's a hard-and-fast rule of mine that anything I hear in bed is off the record."

"That's nice to know."

She assessed the tension in his voice and laughed and kissed him. "I just made that up. I've never been to bed with a news source before."

"It was wrong not to have picked the snake up this morning-right?"

She hesitated before saying, "Right, it was wrong."

"And the Puries are going after it tomorrow, and someone else might get bitten, maybe even tonight. Right?"

"Mark, I can't help you assess your guilt, you've got to do that by yourself. But not now, darting."

He rolled out of bed. He seemed to disappear in the darkness, but then she saw him straighten up Iron the floor. He started to pull on his jeans.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm going to catch the black mamba. Before it bites anybody else."

"Oh no. Don't go now. Please?"

He sat down on the edge of the bed and slipped on his shoes.

He wants to expiate his sin of ornission, she thought. "Mark, I don't want you to leave me, I really don't. Besides, it's dangerous at night, isn't it?" He shook his head. "Listen, come here a minute." He started to pull a T-shirt on, and when his head emerged he shook it again. She whispered, "Come back to bed. I want you. Right this second."

In the other room a buzzer sounded. Converse said, "Chrisesake." He went out to the living room and opened the window and looked out. He said, "Chrisesake" again, and called out, "I'll be right down." He shut the window and returned to the bedroom. "It's Eastman."

Her body gleamed whitely through the darkness as she got out of bed.

"I'll be dressed in two minutes. I'm going along."

"No way."

She turned on a bed lamp. "If you're going to act like a herp, you can't stop me from acting like a reporter, can you?"

She was a lovely girl, Eastman thought, and she glowed with youth and fulfilment. She was in love with Converse-or whatever word they used for love these (lays. He felt the bite of regret and envy, and mourned for his own it recoverable youth.

Converse, who was carrying his snake catching stick, a pillowcase, and a large flashlight, looked at the waiting taxi in surprise. "How did you know I would come? After all, your boss gave me the boot this morning."

Eastman said gravely, "Well, I'm a pretty good judge of character, you know."

"I really behaved like a shit this morning," Converse said.

They got in the cab and Eastman said to Holly, "Where can we drop you?"

She shook her head. "I'm going with you."

Eastman started to protest. Converse said, "Save your breath, captain.

I tried."

"She might get hurt."

"Don't worry, I'll see to it."

The driver was looking back at them through his protective glass. Eastman said, "Where do I tell him to go?"

"The Boys Gate, 100th Street and Central Park West," Converse said. The snake's territory was somewhat closer to the east side, but he was more familiar with the approach from the west. "Then into the park, and I'll tell him where to let us out."

"Police business," Eastman said. "Make time."

The driver's shoulders shook with laughter. Eastman thought, The Hawaiian shirt never fooled him, he had me made all the time. The taxi sped up Eighth Avenue, cheating on all the red lights. Converse and the girl were holding hands. Eastman tried to remember the last time he had held hands with a woman, including his wife.

The cab made good time until it reached 86th Street, and then it began to crawl and, finally, stop at the tail end of a long line of stalled traffic.

"What's this all about?" Eastman said to the driver. "Can you see anything?"

"Fya rengines," the driver said. "Fya rengines and cop cars."

Eastman rolled down his window and heard a clangorous, dissonant blend of emergency sounds: sirens, bells, wailers, hooters. A brightness caught at the tail of his eye. He pushed the door open and ducked his head out beneath the cab's roof.

"Christ Almighty," he said, "the whole goddamn park is on fire."

Operation Pillar of Fire had begun at the first tick of midnight; thus, the night had technically become "tomorrow," and none would be able to accuse the Reverend Sanctus Milanese of having borne false witness.

Approximately sixty Puries took part in Operation Pillar of Fire. They were divided into eight squads of equal size and a larger ninth. The eight "diversionary" squads were designated by consecutive letters of the alphabet, A through H. The ninth went by the letter S for Serpent. There was at least one young woman in each of the eight squads A to H, but none in squad S. All, men and women alike, were dressed uniformly in black trousers or slacks, black polo shirts, and black socks and shoes. Squads A to H carried three five-gallon drams of gasoline. Squad S carried five drums, and was armed with shovels, axes, hoes, rakes, baseball bats, and roughly hewn forked sticks; many of the axes, shovels, hoes, and rakes were so recently purchased that they still bore the manufacturers' bright labels on their hafts.

Because they were aware of the police surveillance of the Tabernacle and the Reverend's mansion, the members of Operation Pillar of Fire assembled at widely dispersed points. They entered in cars (one each for squads A to H, two for squad S) through nine different gates, ranging the length and width of the park. Several of them passed patrolling police cars, but there were no incidents; they were indistinguishable from any other cars driving through the park. The squads were dropped off as near as possible to their assigned destinations, after which the cars drove away.

The "diversionary" sites were spread throughout the park, and away from the prime target area. The two southernmost locations were slightly to the west of the menagerie and along the Bridle Path near the Dalehead Arch. The northernmost sites were located in the Conservatory Garden to the east, near the Vanderbilt Gate, and on the Great Hill, almost directly across the width of the park to the west. One group penetrated to a wild area among the twining paths of the Ramble, another was on the opposite side of the Lake from the Ramble at Cherry Hill. A seventh group was at the King Jagiello monument a slight way from the 79th Street transverse, and an eighth in the center of the East Meadow.

Later, many people were to express astonishment that a plan of such detail and complexity could have been mounted in the four hours since the Reverend had returned from the East Side Hospital. But that was not at all the case.