"Hey!" I shouted, and Evil Ed looked my way, saw me, and nodded, no doubt pleased to be moving out of the range of one of Rat Lady's monologues.
He drew a beer from the keg as he made his way toward me, but I shook my head.
"I don't want a beer. I've got a question."
Evil Ed raised his eyebrows, set the beer down, folded his arms, and leaned back some.
"You saw him. Could you describe him?"
"Describe who?"
"The guy I was talking to the night before last. Fat guy, really pale skin?"
He shook his head. "Wasn't but you. Sitting in that booth, drinking yourself into a coma, talking to yourself, coming out with a laugh every now and then, nothing happy about it, that laugh."
I kept on: "His name was Derrick Thorn. He was some kind of foreigner, spoke funny."
But no accent, I thought, for the first time. "He paid for the beers."
Ed frowned. "You paid for your beers your ownself."
I had him there. "Then how come I didn't have a tab run up?"
"You did. You paid it at the end of the evening."
"I never do that," I said.
Evil Ed laughed. "That's right. Took me by surprise. You was drunker than usual, which is saying something."
Reflexively, I reached for the beer. This was to be a medicinal beer, a beer for clarity. If I could slow my thoughts down, I could sort them out.
It took more than one beer. A lot more. When Evil Ed came by, he would glower at me, maybe thinking I had more important things to do then sit and drink beer. But I was working, thinking, and finally it came to me: I remembered what I needed, staggered to my feet, and headed back toward the stairs.
Back in my room, I headed straight for the nightstand, grabbed the drawer, yanked it-
too hard-and it flew out, and all the cards and pens and antacid tablets jumped up in the air and scattered over the floor. Shit.
There were a lot of business cards. And, of course, amid this ridiculous surfeit of self-advertising, there wasn't,
of course, of course, any card bearing the name Derrick Thorn and promising "good deals by mutual bargain" a phrase goofy enough to lodge in my mind even if the creator of that inanity was as elusive as truth at the White House, even if-
I let out a whoop of triumph and pounced on the card. I turned it over, saw the number, and without consulting my fever-riddled and almost worthless mind, I ran to the phone, snatched up the receiver, and made the call.
The phone rang and rang. Having no alternate plan, I was willing to sit there with it ringing. Maybe it rang for thirty seconds, maybe thirty minutes, I don't know. Then the ringing stopped and static rushed in, like an ocean wave over the sand.
I thought I heard a voice. I shouted, "Hello! Hello, Derrick Thorn!"
The tide of static ebbed. "Yes," the voice said.
I couldn't speak.
Who was this? But then: "Hello Mr. Sam Silvers. You are calling with the congratulations! Yes. Ha, Ha! No more the child support, no more the, how did you say, blood from the turnip!"
"You son of a bitch!" I screamed. "Where's Danny? Where's my son?"
"Do not be worried. I will take the care of it. Trust me, like money in the bank!"
I was squeezing the receiver as though it were Thorn's throat. "I need to see you," I said. That was better, much better than saying I intended to kill him.
Oh, I am clever in a clinch. There was a long silence, in which I thought the phone might go dead. But some urgent certainty told me I couldn't speak again; I had to wait.
"Yes. Sure. We make the bargains," he said. "Now you help me, one hand scratching the other. I will meet you tonight. Look at your watch and I will look at mine. Just us to meet, no body elses. At ten of the watch tonight. At the zoo."
"What?"
"At the zoo. To bring justice to the penguins."
"What?"
"The penguins, they do nothing wrong. They are good birds. But they have the enemies just the same, the seals and others. I think they are political. I am sure they are prisoners of the government."
I wasn't following this. "I will be there at ten tonight. Is Danny there? Let me talk to him," I said.
He hung up.
The zoo's parking lot hadn't been cleared. The unseasonably nasty weather had closed the zoo for the day; temperatures were supposed to rise tomorrow, and, despite the desultory falling snow, I could see stars sprinkled between the clouds.
The parking lot was a white expanse, blue in the shadow of a bare-branched tree, gold under the single street lamp. I looked at my watch. It was ten minutes to ten. The tracks of my boots were all that marred the lot's smooth surface, which meant that Derrick Thorn hadn't arrived yet.
I waited, shivering with fever and the chill air, my breath coming out in white clouds. Ten came, and 10:05, and 10:10. I could feel the gun in my coat pocket, its weight both threat and reassurance. When Evil Ed's back had been turned, I'd leaned across the counter and retrieved it. I had to hope that Evil Ed wouldn't notice its absence. And if he did? He wouldn't report a missing gun to the cops. But he might figure out who took it, and Evil Ed could be scarier than any cop I'd ever met.
In my room, I'd confirmed that the clip was full, and on my way to this rendezvous, I'd stopped the car along the highway and walked off into a patch of evergreens and indulged in some target practice, sending a bullet into the trunk of a dead pine tree. It worked, and the seven remaining bullets were seven more than I'd need, unless he'd harmed Danny, in which case all seven slugs would be residing in Derrick Thorn's flesh.
I am not a fan of guns, but I know something about them. My father had been a collector, and, when I was young and under his spell, we would bond at the shooting range. I lost interest when he left my mother to run off with his secretary, an ancient, dishonorable tradition (my father's dad had, incredibly, done the same thing). I was fifteen when Dad left.
So here was my legacy: I knew how to shoot a handgun.
At 10:15, I was getting restless, panicky. I walked up to the gate, gripped the bars and peered in at the animal statues and kiosks. The gate swung open, taking me by surprise, and I slipped, falling forward, banging my head against the gate. My knees skidded on the snow-covered ground, but I managed to get my hands in front of me in time to prevent my face from colliding with the icy bricks. I knelt there on all fours, dazed, and then I saw the small blue-shadowed footprints that marched between my hands: the bare footprints of a child. The snow was wet and preserved the imprint of each toe. Were these my son's footprints?
I followed the footprints, moving as fast as I could but not running for fear I'd fall and break something. I looked up, and the Reptile House loomed in front of me, more imposing than I remembered it, its crenellated towers given authority by the night. The footprints were farther apart as they neared the steps leading to the door; Danny had been running-and, yes, I was certain it was Danny now, for no reason except that I knew it to be so.
The footprints climbed the steps and ended at the door. I gripped the door's handle and pushed.
Locked. No, it moved, but there was resistance. I leaned into the door with my shoulder, and it moved reluctantly. There was light from within, gleaming on the blue marble floor, and black, no red… There was a great smear of blood-another thing I knew with a certainty beyond logic; blood!-curving away, under the door, behind the door. I entered the room and closed the door, and the body lay revealed, up against the wall, where I had shoved it with my shoulder against the door.
The security guard had been a small man, but bigger than my son, much bigger than Danny, and he lay curled on his side, oddly crumpled as though thrown there by some vast malevolent force, and in my horror and fear I felt a rush of relief because that's the way our hearts are made and this was not my son.