T. Boyle - When the Killing's Done

The weight of the car has crushed its rear legs and tail, pinning them to the pavement in a glutinous mélange of fur, gristle, bone and blood. Its head and neck are rigid and the front legs — the miniature paws with their shining claws black as pencil lead — scrape spasmodically at the unyielding blacktop as if to dig their way free. She tries to be dispassionate about it — she’s at risk of being late for a meeting that will help determine the fate of any number of species interlocked in a unique ecosystem while this animal before her, this unfortunate individual, is superabundant in its range. But when she’s standing over it and the eyes, trembling, liquid, unplumbable, are fixed on her and she examines the fine arrangement of the black-tipped hairs and the perfect cream white arc of the chest, she feels the emotion come up in her. This perfect thing and she’s killed it. Or crippled it. Crippled it beyond hope. But what should she do? Nudge it to the gutter with the toe of her shoe? Wrap it in something — newspaper, the old pair of shorts Tim keeps in the trunk to wear under his wetsuit — and take it to the vet? Or animal rescue? Or just — put it out of its misery?

As it happens, the decision is taken out of her hands, because in that moment a kid she vaguely recognizes — a boy of twelve or thirteen, from the pricey condos that give onto the oceanfront across from the hotel — rattles up to her on his skateboard and lets out a low whistle. “Oh, man,” he says, looking from her to the writhing squirrel, “gross. Did you hit it?”

“Yes,” she says, and why is her voice reduced to a whisper? Why is she suddenly on the verge of tears?

Before she can say anything further, before she can think, the boy steps forward on his own initiative and grinds his heel into the animal’s head till the gray and pink strands of the neural matter sluice free, like spaghetti.

She’s chosen the Docksider for breakfast because it’s close to the office, has unmatchable views and an upscale menu. Frazier — he’s a Kiwi, having founded Island Healers back at home in New Zealand where the invasive species practically outnumber the native, a man’s man who prides himself on his ability to handle anything, any terrain, any animal — would no doubt have preferred a coffee shop without the vaguest aroma of pretension, but there’s no harm in elevating the ambience a little. Plus, while he might put on a rough exterior the way a bushman might wrap himself in a hide against a cold night, she’s begun to notice that he’s as conversant with a good wine, nouvelle cuisine and a snifter of Armagnac as anybody she’s met in the committee rooms of Sacramento or the District of Columbia. As for Freeman and Annabelle, they’re just happy to be out of their offices and looking at a tablecloth instead of a scored card table with a pot of coffee and a straw basket of stale bagels set in the middle of it.

Of course, everything’s a bit off kilter from the first, because by the time she’s found a parking spot, darted across the lot and up the outdoor stairway to the restaurant, she’s thirteen minutes late and they’re all sitting there waiting for her, cranked up on their second — third? — cups of coffee and talking nonstop. For a moment, watching their expectant faces as she propels herself across the room, notebook and laptop tucked under one arm and her hair flying out behind her like a deflated parachute, she considers making an excuse — telling them of the contretemps with the squirrel, the congestion on the freeway, the way the lights, every one of them, seemed to have been timed against her by an evil DMV bureaucrat tracking her Prius on a computer screen — but excuses are for children, kids like the boy with his skateboard and gory heel trying to explain the blood spoor on the carpet to his mother, and she opts simply to slide into the seat next to Annabelle and whisper, “Sorry.”

But everything’s relaxed, everybody on the same page, working toward the same goal without animosity or bickering or internecine competition. So what if Annabelle’s constituency has possession of nine times the land the Park Service has? So what if the main ranch, sitting squarely on the Nature Conservancy property, is the jewel of the island and Alma would give her eyeteeth to be able to set up there in the old Stanton house and has to make do instead with Scorpion? So what if Carey Stanton, rubbed raw by some Park Service functionary twenty years ago, ceded the property to the Nature Conservancy instead of her and Freeman and the people of the United States of America? So what if Annabelle had pushed so hard to hire a concern out of Wet Bone, Idaho, over Island Healers that Freeman had twice stormed out of the room? So what? They’re all in this together and they’re all friends — old friends now — and they’re sitting down to breakfast together in a place designed to make everybody feel good so they can hear what each in turn has to report about the progress from Phases I and II to this, the climax of the entire campaign: Phase III, the unleashing of the hunters, not to mention their dogs, ATVs, helicopters and lead-free bullets, which is already now in its fourth month.

Freeman is watching his waistline. He orders grapefruit, cottage cheese and coffee, “Black, no cream.” He’s not overweight, or not at least as far as she can tell, but he’s one of those men who just seems big all over, big in the shoulders, arms, wrists, fingers, big right on down to his fingernails, his head massive, his neck thick as one of the stanchions under the pier. The only incongruous thing is his feet, which are disproportionately small, so that he always seems to be floating above them as if he’s been pumped full of helium.

Frazier — forty-six and big enough in his own right, dressed in his khaki bush shorts and matching short-sleeved, multi-pocketed shirt, his silvering hair in a military buzz cut and his legs stretched out casually in the aisle — orders the Captain’s Breakfast, crab-stuffed crepes, fresh fruit plate, eggs benedict and sourdough toast saturated in butter, with a side of fries and homemade coleslaw. He upends the sugar container over his coffee, then fills the cup to the top with half and half. And smiles round the table. “Hard work chasing pigs up and down those canyons,” he says. “A man’s got to have calories to burn. Not to mention a beer or two and maybe a wee little nip of something at the end of the day.”

“Wee?” Alma echoes, and she’s grinning at him while the waitress hovers, all in good fun. “Wee” for Frazier translates to half a pint, minimum, which is what his engraved silver flask holds. She’s seen him refer to it time and again as they tramped the fence line, looking for pig sign, and when they sat down to an evening meal at the picnic table out front of the ranch house at Christy Beach on the far end of the island, he was able to put away a six-pack all on his own — and never, not for an instant, had she detected any change in him. Half a pint of Mexican brandy and a six-pack of beer in a system all sweated-out, and no clumsy movements, no slurring of words, just a steady stream of Kiwi talk on every subject under the sun. She looks to the waitress, then nods to Annabelle, to see what she’s having before committing herself to the strawberry crepes and crème fraîche.

Annabelle — she’s Alma’s age exactly — is a white blonde with see-through eyebrows and invisible lashes, dressed today for the office, in a blue silk suit and matching heels in a shade so close to the color of her eyes it’s uncanny. How many shops did she trundle through to find that ensemble, Alma wonders, envisioning whole armies of sales girls paraded across the floor in consultation, the multifarious phases of light parsed against the sheen of the material and the narrowly focused hue of her eyes. Where does she find the time? Not to mention the money? Like Alma, she’s unmarried, but unlike Alma she’s currently unattached — and working for a nonprofit in service of the environment is hardly the way to worldly wealth. She must be a real bargain hound. Either that or she has family money. Alma watches her push the menu away with a languid flick of the wrist and lift her eyes to the waitress. “I think I’ll have the spinach and goat cheese omelet with a side salad — the endive. It comes with a balsamic vinaigrette, right? Nothing creamy?”