"Most of these groups seem to specialize in rodents," the agent said. "Laboratory rats, mostly. Universities, pharmaceutical houses those are the common targets. What usually happens, they break in at night and free the animals."
"But we weren't doing experiments." Chelsea was exasperated. "We treated Vance and Violet as royalty."
"Who?" the agent said.
"The voles," Joe Winder explained cheerfully.
Charles Chelsea continued to whine. "Why have they singled out the Amazing Kingdom? We didn't abuse these creatures. Quite the opposite."
"You do any vivisections here?" asked Agent Hawkins. "These groups are quite vocal against vivisection."
Chelsea paled. "Vivisection? Christ, we gave the little bastards fresh corn on the cob every morning. Sometimes even citrus!"
"Well, this is what we've got." Hawkins flipped backwards in his notebook. "Two white males ages twenty-five to thirty-five, fleeing the scene in a 1979 blue Ford pickup, license GPP-B06. The registration comes back to a convicted burglar whose current alias is Buddy Michael Schwartz. I might add that Mr. Schwartz's rap sheet shows no history of a social conscience with regard to animal rights, or any other."
"Somebody hired him," Joe Winder said.
"Most likely," agreed the FBI man. "Anyway, they dragged the truck out of a rock pit this morning. No bodies."
"Any sign of the voles?"
Billy Hawkins allowed himself a slight frown. "We believe the animals are dead." He handed Winder copies of the highway patrol reports, which described the incident with the tourist family in the red LeBaron, as well as the subsequent Winnebago attack. As Winder scanned the reports, Charles Chelsea reminded him to keep the news under his hat.
Agent Hawkins said, "I heard something on the radio about a million-dollar reward."
"Right!" Winder said.
"How can you do that," the "FBI man said, "when you know these animals are dead?"
Joe Winder was having a wonderful time. "Go ahead," he said to Charles Chelsea. "Explain to the gentleman."
"Where's Koocher?" Chelsea grumbled. "I left about a dozen messages."
"Let's ask Pedro," said Joe Winder. "He sent one of his boys over to the lab yesterday. Must've had a reason."
Charles Chelsea folded his hands on the desk, waiting. Agent Billy Hawkins turned slightly on the couch to get a better angle on the security chief. Joe Winder arched his eyebrows and said, "How about it, Pedro? Something else happen at the Rare Animal Pavilion?"
Pedro Luz scowled, his tiny black eyes receding under the ledge of his forehead. "I don't know what you're talking about," he said. "Nothing happened nowhere." He fumbled with his clipboard. "See? There is no report."
The Security Department at the Amazing Kingdom of Thrills was staffed exclusively by corrupt ex-policemen, of which there was a steady supply in South Florida. The chief of Security, Pedro Luz, was a black-haired pinheaded giant of a young man who had been fired from the Miami Police for stealing cash and cocaine from drug dealers, then pushing them out of a Beech-craft high over the Everglades. Pedro Luz's conviction had been overturned by an appeals court, and the charges ultimately dropped when the government's key witness failed to appear for the new trial. The witness's absence was later explained when bits and pieces of his body were found in a shrimper's net off Key West, although there was no evidence linking this sad turn of events to Pedro Luz himself.
Once the corruption and murder charges had been dismissed, Pedro Luz promptly sued the police department to reclaim his old job, plus back wages and vacation time. Meanwhile, to keep his hand in law enforcement, Pedro Luz went to work at Francis X. Kingsbury's vacation theme park. The pay was only $8.50 an hour, but as a perk Pedro was given free access to the executive gym, where he spent hours of company time lifting weights and taking anabolic steroids. This leisurely regimen was interrupted by the embarrassing daylight theft of the prized voles and a personal communication of urgency from Francis X. Kingsbury himself. Chief Pedro Luz immediately put the security staff on double shifts, and rented a cot for himself in the office.
Which is where he snoozed at one-thirty in the afternoon when he heard a knock on the bulletproof glass.
Pedro Luz sat up slowly and swung his thick legs off the bed. He stood up, strapped on his gun, straightened the shoulders of his uniform shirt. The knocking continued.
Through the glass, Pedro Luz saw a wiry brown man in a sweaty tank top. The man battled a spastic tic on one side of his face; it looked as if a wasp were loose in one cheek.
Pedro Luz opened the door and said, "What do you want?"
"I'm here for the money," the man said, twitching. He clutched a grocery bag to his chest. "The million dollars."
"Go away," said Pedro Luz.
"Don't you even want to see?"
"The voles are dead."
The wiry man said, "But I heard on the news "
"Go away," said Pedro Luz, "before I break your fucking legs."
"But I found the mango voles. I want my money."
Pedro Luz stepped out of the office and closed the door. He stood a full foot taller than the man with the grocery bag, and outweighed him by a hundred pounds.
"You don't listen so hot," Pedro Luz said.
The man's face twitched uncontrollably as he tried to open the bag. "Just one look," he said, "please."
Pedro Luz seized the man by the throat and shook him like a doll. The grocery bag fell to the ground and tore open. Pedro Luz was so involved in assaulting the derelict that he didn't notice what came out of the bag: two half-starved, swaybacked ferrets, eyes glazed and bluish, lips flecked with foam. Instantly they settled in chewing on Pedro Luz's right ankle, and did not stop until he tore them off, bare-handed, and threw them with all his might against the nearest wall.
One hour later, the Publicity Department of the Amazing Kingdom of Thrills faxed the following statement to all media, under the caption "Rare Voles Now Believed Dead":
Police authorities reported today that the blue-tongued mango voles stolen this week from the Amazing Kingdom of Thrills are probably dead. According to the Florida Highway Patrol and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the rare mammals believed to be the last of the species were killed while crossing a highway after being abandoned by the robbers who took them.
Francis X. Kingsbury, founder and chairman of the Amazing Kingdom, expressed shock and sorrow at the news. "This is a tragedy for all of us at the park," he said Wednesday. "We had come to love and admire Vance and Violet. They were as much a part of our family as Robbie Raccoon or Petey Possum."
Mr. Kingsbury, who had offered $1 million for the safe return of the missing animals, said he will use part of the money as a reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for the crime.
A radical outlaw group calling itself the Wildlife Rescue Corps has claimed responsibility for the robbery at the popular amusement resort. Mr. Kingsbury said he was "shocked and dismayed that anyone claiming to support such a cause would commit crimes of violence crimes that ultimately led not only to the animals' deaths, but to the extinction of an entire species."
Charles Chelsea, vice president in charge of public relations, said that the blue-tongued mango voles were provided with the best possible care while in captivity at the Amazing Kingdom. Only last year, the Florida Audubon Society praised the Vole Project as "a shining example of private enterprise using its vast financial resources to save a small but precious resource of nature."
Next week, the Amazing Kingdom of Thrills will present a multi-media retrospective featuring slides and videotapes of the voles during their time at the park. Entitled "Vance and Violet: The Final Days," the presentation will be shown three times daily at the Rare Animal Pavilion.