If Thumper had seen it creeping around, he would have scampered away, the big sissy. But he was asleep in a cool spot under the bed on this warm April morn.
Summer had made an early cameo in Portland and didn’t want to yield the spotlight to spring’s curtain call just yet, some roses coming out of the wings before their cue, blossoming deep scarlet.
I finished my cereal at the houseboat window. Waves lapped in the wake of an outboard puttering down the Willamette, fishermen in search of spring Chinook. They were wasting their time. With the warm April and not much rain lately, the river hadn’t risen enough for the fish to move. The runs were still holding up on the Columbia, so these guys on the river weren’t doing much but moving water around.
I walked up into the Sellwood district and The Coffee Shack. I said my how-dos to Rossa and he slid a brew across the counter, straight up. I slapped down change and he turned to grind beans, not interested in conversation, meaning he’d lost big at the casino the night before. Best to let him stew when he’s boiling about bad cards.
Other than me, the place was empty. I checked behind the Blazers’ team photo on the far wall, what passes for my P.O. box, surprised to find a folded note stuck there. I stuffed it in my pocket and took off.
Moments later, under a shaded awning, I sipped my joe and read the note. It was from a woman I’d helped a couple of years ago, who was being stalked by her coworker. A dash of the creep’s own medicine had scared him off; the woman no longer lived looking over her shoulder and she had a pleasant new coworker.
The problem she needed help with now involved a tortoise named Gamera.
Karen’s home was a modest two-story on Tolman not far from Reed College. An old pine snuggled the side of the house, cooling half of it with shade.
We caught up on old times in the kitchen over coffee; I used my Coffee Shack cup, saving her the wash on a mug. Among Karen’s crop of strawberry-blond locks, grey hairs took a proud stand, a middle-aged woman’s war paint. Her green eyes and warm smile of white teeth no doubt fueled MILF fantasies for young men at the grocery store, but she seemed satisfied staying single. Raising a teenaged son put more than enough strain on even the most casual of relationships.
The story she told me had been in the news over a month ago: A tortoise had been found in a field not far from here, near death. Someone had snatched him from Karen’s backyard, turned him over, and stabbed him with a length of rebar, leaving him on his back to bleed out. When I’d seen the story on TV I hadn’t made the connection to Karen’s name, so enraged was I at the thought of this defenseless animal being tortured with no way to defend itself or scream for help, slowly dying in silence.
Karen took me into the backyard to meet Gamera. Normally, he’d have the run of the place, but since the attack he was being housed in a large, reinforced chicken-wire cage with fresh lettuce heaped in one corner. A tube protruded from one nostril, leading to an oxygen tank on the far side of the cage; one of his lungs had been punctured by his attacker and the organ was still repairing itself.
Karen opened the cage and let me scratch Gamera atop the head. Hard to tell if he enjoyed it or not, but he didn’t pull back into his armor so I’m guessing my touch wasn’t too offensive. For a sixty-year-old (the vet’s best estimate) who had undergone a near-fatal stabbing a month ago, Gamera seemed to be faring pretty well.
“He’d lost a lot of blood by the time he was found,” Karen said. “But the vets say he’ll make it. Psychologically, I don’t know. Since he doesn’t meow or bark, I can’t tell how he’s feeling.”
“I know what you mean. My rabbit at least squeaks and squeals sometimes, so I can get a feel for what he’s going through.”
She nodded. “After we got him back, he didn’t want to eat. I had to force it down him. But he’s doing better.”
“The cops have no leads?”
“I can’t even get them on the phone anymore. They gave it a lot of legwork at first, especially after the news coverage, but now it’s not a high priority.”
“You could call the news again, ask them for help. The public is a sucker for a good animal story.”
“I tried. They said they would send somebody over but it was the same day that biker got hit.”
“The one who rode the hood of the car for six blocks? I remember.”
“Pretty soon there’s going to be a civil war between bikers and motorists in this city.”
“I’m already stocked up for it,” I told her.
She smiled but didn’t think it worth a chuckle, her mind dark with other matters. “The police figure Gamera was targeted; it seems more likely to them than a random attack.”
“They’re right.”
“I can’t imagine anybody I know doing something like this. It doesn’t make sense.”
“How about somebody your son knows?”
Karen glanced at an upper window, curtains drawn against the sun. “He says no. But I don’t know… with everything he’s going through right now…”
I squeezed her shoulder. “Mind if I talk to him?”
Donny’s room seemed par for the course for a boy of nineteen not prone to sports. Comic books lay scattered about the room; sci-fi and horror-movie posters decorated the walls; his computer screen pulsed with a fantasy game: bearded barbarian with bloody mail and gleaming broadsword.
In the chair before the desk, skin pale for lack of sun, Donny’s shoulders poked out like chicken bones, jeans hanging off his legs like a scarecrow’s wardrobe. His face was open and wide, not even a hint of stubble on his head, bald as a squid.
“Obviously, you’d be pissed if you knew who did that to him.”
He glared. “Obviously. Duh.”
Nothing but teen ’tude.
“Yeah,” I said. “Dumb question.”
I scanned the room, eyes falling on a shelf of ornate figurines of Japanese movie monsters.
“I’m guessing you’re the one who named the tortoise. Gamera? Wasn’t he the giant turtle that could tuck in his head and legs and go spinning through the air like a Fourth of July pinwheel?”
He grinned for the first time since I’d entered his sanctum sanctorum, the smile of someone who’d found a kindred spirit. A gap showed in his bottom teeth. “Touché,” he said. “A woman after my own stripe.”
“Touché? Your own stripe? Does that gamer-speak work on the ladies?”
He shrugged bony shoulders, “Not really.”
“Looks like it worked on that one.” I pointed to a photo tacked on the cork-board amidst pages torn from Wired magazine: a cute Eurasian girl and Donny arm-in-arm; Donny with a full head of long blond hair.
As Donny’s eyes found the photo, longing flashed and then was gone. “She’s not my paramour… my girlfriend. Not anymore. Since graduation we don’t really hang with the same crowd.”
“What’s her name?”
“Calico. Well, her real name is Marise. But everybody calls her Calico.”
“Like the cat?”
He nodded. “Because she’s mixed race, like a calico’s fur is different colors.”
He shifted tiredly in his chair, changing the subject: “You going to help track down the scoundrel who hurt Gamera?”
“Scoundrel? Back to gamer-speak, I see.”
He shrugged.
I said, “I can think of a few other descriptive insults for whoever did that to Gamera. Most have fewer letters than ‘scoundrel’ and cut right to the meat of the matter. Not suitable for a family audience, as they say.”
“Using that sort of language might take the sheen off the luster of such a fine maiden.” He grinned.
I grinned back. Maybe that overblown verbiage would work on some of the ladies after all.