Inexhaustible is the word that comes to mind when one thinks of Ed Hoch. It isn’t only that he’s written more than 940 published stories. He also generously serves on awards committees (most recently for the CWC’s Arthur Ellis Awards), provides a necrology for the MWA annual, and often writes introductions to other writers’ books.
It had been more than a year since Sandra Paris, known in some circles as the “White Queen,” had last encountered Nick Velvet. She thought of him often, sometimes as a friend and occasionally as an adversary. Once, during a particularly passionate dream, she’d even imagined him as a lover.
She was thinking of him as her plane landed at the Palm Springs International Airport. This was a job like any other, she decided, and there was no need to call on Nick for assistance. Besides, even a six-month-old pair of ostriches could bring well over three thousand dollars, and a full-grown pair much more. They were hardly valueless. Ostrich farming had become a profitable business in many parts of the country, especially in the desert regions of California.
The first thing Sandra did after claiming her luggage was to pick up the rental car she’d reserved. Her destination was north of the city, near Desert Hot Springs, an ostrich farm called Bainbridge Acres that was home to half a hundred of the birds. Sandra had dined on ostrich meat at a New York restaurant and found it similar to beef, but it was supposedly much healthier. She’d been hired to steal one of the birds, but apparently not for the meat. Renny Owlish had been very specific when he hired her by phone. She’d see one ostrich away from the others, all by itself. “An ostracized ostrich!” he’d said with a chuckle. “That’s the one I want you to steal.” He’d made a plane reservation for her and even booked a room at a nearby motel.
She’d been driving about thirty minutes when she rounded a curve and saw the ostrich farm below her in a little valley. There was no mistaking the great flightless birds with their long legs, mostly black feathers, and tall curving necks. The slightly smaller females had grayish-brown feathers with a bit of white. And yes, one ostrich was noticeably off by itself. Sandra pulled off the road and watched it for a time. Once it started trotting over to join the main group but they immediately scattered.
That was the bird Owlish wanted, but seeing the size of it she knew she’d need a truck of some sort. The birds had a large area to roam in, and with the warm weather they’d probably be left out at night. Her best bet was early morning, before the Bainbridge workers were out in the field tending to the birds. She was the White Queen, after all, and Impossible things before breakfast was her motto.
She spent the day searching out the right sort of vehicle and finally decided on a horse trailer. At a distance it was difficult to estimate the ostrich’s height, especially with its head bobbing up and down, but she guessed at between six and nine feet, pretty much full-grown. If she could entice it onto the trailer’s ramp, no lifting would be required. Otherwise she was faced with the task of tranquilizing the big bird and lifting its two-hundred-plus pounds into a truck.
She spent her second day observing the early-morning routine at Bainbridge Acres through binoculars from the nearby hill. Nothing much happened till after daylight, when a sturdy woman in jeans and boots came out to fill the trough where the big birds drank. She seemed to be checking their water supply and scattering food pellets, though Sandra knew that ostriches were a grazing bird that could live off natural vegetation and insects. She estimated the flock of about fifty birds would need around twenty acres for food but they seemed to have all of that. She’d read somewhere that the toothless ostriches ate almost anything, including pebbles and stones that remained in their stomachs and helped grind the swallowed food.
That night she went to bed early and was up well before dawn. The motel night manager, Sid Rawson, saw her backing out with the horse trailer and came over to question her, his squinty eyes on the lookout for trouble. He relaxed a bit when he recognized her as a guest, but still asked, “You got a horse in there?”
“Not yet. I’m on my way to pick one up. That’s why I paid in advance. Hold the room, though. I might be back for another night.”
“Drive careful now.”
Sandra had noticed an access road that ran along the outside of the Bainbridge fence through some brush toward a distant cabin probably used by hunters. She was wearing a black sweater and jeans, and slipped a black stocking cap over her blond hair. She doused her headlights and turned down the dirt road, guided mainly by moonlight though the first hint of daybreak had appeared on the eastern horizon. Already she saw some of the ostriches approaching, running toward the fence. But in near darkness it was difficult to pick out the one she wanted.
Stopping the car, she opened the door of the horse trailer, positioned the ramp, and clipped through the fence with wire cutters, hoping there was no alarm system. Now that her eyes were accustomed to the gathering light she was able to pick out the shunned bird, standing off to one side on its slender legs. She circled around and charged the ostrich, waving her arms to drive it toward the hole in the fence. Then, when it was close enough to be forced through to the horse trailer, she attempted to put an arm lock around its neck.
That was when things turned ugly.
“The damned ostrich kicked me, Nick! It almost broke my leg!”
Nick Velvet stared down at Sandra and shook his head. He’d flown across the country in answer to her urgent phone message to find her nursing a badly bruised thigh in a seedy motel room in the California desert. “I came to your rescue once after you were bitten by a cobra in Marrakesh, but I hardly thought you’d need me after being kicked by an ostrich in California.”
“It’s not funny!” she groaned, shifting her weight a bit and pulling up her jeans. “And that’s all you get to see.”
“Too bad. I was admiring the view. You’re sure it’s not broken?”
“I had it X-rayed at the hospital, made up a story about falling down the stairs. It’s just a bad bruise, but I sprained my ankle when I fell. They told me to rest, put ice on it, and keep it elevated to hold down the swelling.”
“How were you able to get out of there?”
“Luckily it was my left leg, so I could drive, but of course I didn’t get the ostrich, and by now they’ve discovered the cut fence and probably have a guard on duty. That’s why I need your help, Nick.”
“I don’t steal ostriches. They’re too valuable.”
“Not this one,” she argued. “Their biggest value is for breeding, but this one is shunned by the others for some reason. Breeding is doubtful. Its only value would be for meat.”
“And feathers and leather. Their eyes, which are larger than their brains, are sold to researchers, and their feet are ground into powder and sold in the Far East as an aphrodisiac. Even their large eggs are valued in some African religions.”
“Come on, Nick! How’d you learn all that?”
He smiled. “On the Internet. I travel with a laptop computer now, very twenty-first century. While I was waiting to board the plane I went online.”
She gave a sigh. “Will you help me?”
“Who hired you and how much is he paying?”
She hesitated and then said, “I can’t tell you who, but he’s paying me fifty thousand.”
Nick shook his head. “I happen to know that you don’t do anything these days for under a hundred grand.”
“Is that on the Internet too?”
“No, but the word gets around.”
She made an effort to sit up and put some weight on her left leg, but she grimaced in pain. “All right,” she said. “I’m getting a hundred grand and I’ll split it fifty-fifty with you. Satisfied?”