“Mr Pawlaczuk?” Raymond said his own name with contempt, as if being called anything other than Raymond was an insult to his age. Pat herself did the same thing anytime someone called her Mrs Trudell. She’d reply with a folksy, Aw hell. My grandmother is Mrs Trudell. I’m Patricia. Pat for short. Her grandmother was now twenty years in the ground, and Pat was in her late forties. There was no arguing she wasn’t the elder Trudell woman in Fort Basin County. On top of it, her husband had died more than five years ago in Afghanistan. She wasn’t Mrs Anyone. All her affectations of youth were falling away with the passing days. Still, Raymond had at least twenty years on her. Maybe more.
She held the twin envelopes out. He refused to reach for them or even come down the steps. She took a step up onto the first riser. “That’s just far enough, Sheriff. Whatcha got there?”
“An order to cease and desist all operations on this… animal preserve, and a notice of foreclosure from the county. This zoo is operating illegally without permits or any of the licensure a man’d need to keep exotic animals. The conditions are a violation of county and state health requirements for both humans and livestock. And the county had condemned this house as well.” She failed at suppressing a smile. “You’re out, Raymond. We’re closing you down.”
FRIDAY
The stench grew stronger as he made his way deeper into the house. Competing smells of unwashed dishes and old garbage hovered on top of the scent of wild animal seeping in from outside. Just standing in this place made Orrin feel filthy.
Turning the corner on his way to the stairs, he passed the kitchen and half expected to see an orange-and-black monster sitting at the dinner table, licking its lips, wearing a barbecue bib, with a knife and fork clutched in its paws. Instead, all he saw was last night’s dishes and a pile of junk mail on the table. Beyond that, the back door. He crossed the room and checked the lock. He knew a tiger couldn’t turn a knob, but still, it made him feel slightly better to know the deadbolt was thrown.
The oppressive heat muddied his already jangled thoughts. He stared out the window in the kitchen door, and tried to remember the layout of the property, wondering if there was a way to flank the animal the long way around and get to his bike. While he’d toured the “zoo” a few times, it had been with his brothers along, distracting him. They’d laughed and talked shit and paid no attention to anything around them because they were the Dead Soldiers and the world stepped aside when they rode or strode through. Exit strategies and future plans weren’t anything they bothered with. A man, especially a Dead Soldier, walked out the same door he walked in. Except, Orrin was merely a man. And— one percenter or not—he couldn’t outfight a fucking tiger. His bike was parked in front, and that was his only way out. He had to outsmart the animal.
He went back out of the kitchen and found the stairs to the second floor. He took them three at a time. Somehow, it smelled worse upstairs than down. He approached the door on the south-facing side of the hallway. It was closed. His hand hovered by the knob as he imagined Raymond’s old lady, Val, waiting inside with a shotgun in her lap ready to cut him in half, leaving him to die like his father, bleeding out on the floor of a strange woman’s bedroom. He assured himself that Val wasn’t on the other side. If she was, she would’ve come running when Raymond checked out. He reached for the knob, and as soon as he cracked the door, he knew she was right where he feared he’d find her. Except, instead of sitting on the edge of the bed, waiting for him with a twelve-gauge, she was laid out, arms folded across her chest, face pale, a dark red stain under her hands. The high-pitched drone of flies buzzing in the room was maddening. He steadied himself against the doorjamb and tried to breathe, but the smell of her invaded his nostrils, made him feel like smothering, like he was being drowned in filth. He breathed her in and gagged. How long had she been lying there dead, waiting to be found? How long had Raymond been planning this?
Orrin recalled Bunker telling him to go to Tigertown. “That fucker Raymond’s been calling for two goddamn days,” he’d said. “You go find out what the fuck he wants and give him a reminder that he doesn’t get to demand a meet with me. I’ll talk to him when I want, not when he fuckin’ feels like it.”
Two days. She’s been in here two days.
Summer in Tigertown stank. The heat baked the dry dirt outside like a kiln and the smell of sun-cooked tiger piss hovered, pungent, in the air. And under that, there was rot. Raymond and Val tossed sides of beef, whole chickens, pigs and whatever else they could get their hands on into the cages to keep a dozen big cats alive. But they didn’t pick up after them, and whatever the cats didn’t eat sat in the sun, swarmed by flies and growing ever rank with decay. Compared to the bedroom, though, the cages smelled like the Yankee Candle shop in the mall.
Orrin put a hand over his mouth. The effect was minimal, merely adding a hint of leather to the fetor of the room. He pressed harder with the back of his glove, held his gorge, and staggered toward the window next to the bed.
The window fought him as he tried to yank it open with his left hand. The frame was old and neglected and it got stuck at an odd angle halfway open. He wanted to smash it. The sound of recalcitrant things breaking was often how Orrin measured compliance. Wood, glass… bones. But shattering the window wasn’t going to help him get away without leaving a trace. When the police finally showed up, he didn’t want them to find any sign the Dead Soldiers had been here. He put the pistol on the sill, held his breath, and slid the window down before lifting it open again more gently with both hands. This time it rose without sticking. He pushed the screen out, letting it clatter to the ground, leaned through and took a deep breath of merely distasteful air.
He looked down and muttered, “Fuuuck me.” The eaves below the window blocked his view of the porch and the tiger. He couldn’t hear it anymore either. Had it just stopped moving or had it moved on? He’d half expected to see it react to the falling screen, but it wasn’t a housecat. He didn’t figure he was about to distract it with a ball of yarn or a laser pointer.
In the distance, his motorcycle gleamed in the sunlight like an oasis. Shimmering in the hot air distortion as if it would vanish if he got too close. While the path from the house to his Triumph looked clear from up where he stood, he knew that was the real illusion.
Then he saw it.
The animal was stalking away from the house into the tall weeds on the other side of his bike. He watched it turn and crouch down. A shiver passed through Orrin as he realized the thing was lying in wait for him. Hunting. But the cat’s pelt was brighter than the dry brush in which it hid. He had it dead to rights.
He knelt down in front of the open window and took aim. His hand trembled with adrenaline and the unfamiliar weight of Raymond’s hand-cannon. The thing wasn’t right below him anymore. At this distance, he’d be better off trying to get the shot with a deer rifle. Raymond almost definitely had a thirty-aught somewhere in the house. He knew the old bastard had to be poaching deer to feed the cats. There was no way he could afford to buy enough meat from the butcher for his zoo. Not the way he kept coming to the Dead Soldiers for money. But Orrin had the tiger in his sights right now and didn’t want to risk losing that advantage while he went looking for a better weapon. He aimed, let out a slow breath, and squeezed the trigger.
The report of the gun deadened his ears. The fucking thing was loud. His own pistol made demure little pop pop pops compared to this one.