"What the devil is he up to here? Has he been hanging around before?"
"Who was that? I didn't see him."
"Lomax's familiar-Quilter." A few feet from Ransom the lions munched at the joints of meat, jaws tearing through the bony shafts. Quilter's appearance had abruptly let another dimension into the uncertain future of the zoo.
Hands in pockets, Catherine followed him into the sunlight. "Tomorrow I'm moving in here, so I won't see you again, doctor. By the way, that houseboat of yours hardly looks as if it's going anywhere."
"I intend to put a stronger motor on it." The sky was still stained by the plumes of red and black smoke billowing upwards from the city. He saw Quilter moving past the entrance to the aviary, a circular wire-topped building that backed on to the pumphouse.
Ransom managed a faint smile. "I'm glad you've found yourself at last," he said.
She slipped her arm through his. "Why don't you join me, doctor? We'll teach the lions to hunt in packs."
Then she waved and walked away among the cages.
Clasping the valise, Ransom set off across the central promenade. He stopped behind the flamingo pool. Around him the animals patrolled their cages in the bright sun. The water tanker stood by the pumphouse, its hose trailing into a manifold. Whitman had gone off to the living quarters near the gates.
A bird's sharp cry pierced the air, ending in a flat squawk. Ransom walked along the wall of the pool, searching the empty passages between the cages. He stepped out into the open and moved quickly toward the pumphouse, darting into the shade below the roofs of the cages. The Syrian bear swayed along the bars after him, trying to embrace him with its ponderous arms. The cheetahs' tails flicked like whips, their cold eyes cutting at Ransom.
He stepped into the entrance to the aquarium. Faint sunlight filtered through the matting laid on the frosted glass overhead, a crack here and there illuminating a corner of one of the tanks. The usual liquid glimmer had been stilled, and there was a sharp tang in the air. Ransom moved between the lines of tanks toward the service door beyond the alligator pit, then paused as his eyes cleared in the darkness.
Suspended in the dim air around him, their pearly bodies rotating slowly like the vanes of elaborate mobiles, were the corpses of hundreds of fish. Poisoned by their own wastes, they hung weightlessly in the gloomy water, their blank eyes glowing like phosphors, mouths agape. In the smaller tanks, the tropical fish effloresced like putrid jewels, their colored tissues dissolving into threads of gossamer. Gazing at them, Ransom had a sudden vision of the sea by the coastal beaches, as clouded and corpse-strewn as the water in the tanks, the faces of the drowned eddying past each other.
Quickly he crossed the aquarium and stepped into the service unit. A narrow yard led him into the rear of the pumphouse. The machinery was silent, the large flywheel stationary in its pit. Masking his footsteps, he approached the open double doors, through which he could see the green hull of the water-tanker.
Standing with his back to Ransom, inspecting with interest the damp hose leading into the manifold, was Quilter. He wore the same filthy trousers stained with wine and grease, but he now sported an expensive gold and purple paisley shirt. Suspended from his belt by a piece of coarse string fastened around its -severed neck, was the dead carcass of a peacock, its limp jeweled tail sweeping behind him like a train.
A fly circled the air above his squat head, then alighted on his neck. Absentmindedly, Quilter raised his right hand, and then slapped the insect into a red smudge. He picked thoughtfully at the remains.
Ransom stepped out into the sunlight, and walked up behind him. With his right hand he held Quilter's arm tightly above the elbow.
Startled, Quilter -looked around, his liquid eyes rolling beneath his dented brows.
"Doctor-!"
"Hello, Quilter." Gripping the muscular biceps, an immense bulge of muscle, Ransom glanced between the wheels of the tanker for any signs of the Alsatians. "Is this your afternoon off? I didn't know you enjoyed zoos."
"Doctor…" Quilter gazed down at the fingers clenched around his arm, a puzzled frown on his face. "Doctor, I don't like-" He jerked his arm away, then lashed out at Ransom with the edge of his hand. Ready for this, Ransom sidestepped, knocking Quilter offbalance with his elbow. He clouted him across the shoulders with the valise. Quilter sat down heavily on the concrete, the peacock's tail flaring between his legs. For a moment he seemed stunned. Then a rheumy -smile struggled fitfully onto his deformed face.
His point made, Ransom leaned against the side of the tanker, washing his hand in the water dribbling from the hose.
"You should be more careful, Quilter. Now what are you up to here?"
Quilter shook his head slowly, apparently mystified by Ransom's behavior. He pointed to the water on Ransom's fingers. "One day, doctor, you'll drown in that much water."
"Keep to the point. What are you doing so far from home?"
Quilter gazed at him guilelessly. He stood up, hitching the peacock onto his hip, then inspected his shirt with great care. "Lomax told me to follow you, tell him everything you did."
"Interesting." Ransom pondered this. The frankness could be discounted. No doubt these were Lomax's instructions, but the real point of Quilter's remark would lie elsewhere. "As a matter of fact Lomax invited me to stay with him," he said, adding with deliberate irony: "You'll be working for me then, Quilter."
Quilter regarded him skeptically, his toad's face full of bile. "I'm working for Miss Miranda," he said.
"_That_ makes more sense." Ransom watched Quilter's face as it started to quiver, breaking into a mirthless ribald laugh. The scarred lips shook silently, the mole on his left cheek dancing. Repelled by this grimacing parody of a human being, Ransom turned to go, hoping to draw Quilter away from Catherine Austen and the zoo.
"I wish you both luck," he called back over his shoulder. "You have a lot in common."
Quilter stared after him, his eyes suddenly glazed, fingers absently feeling the bloodstreaked neck of the peacock hanging from his belt. Then he came to, and with virulent energy hurled after Ransom: "We'll have more later, doctor! Much more!"
Outside the zoo, Ransom waited before crossing the street. He rested against the trunk of a. dead plane tree, watching the deserted houses. Quilter's absurd words, crazier than even he could understand, echoed in Ransom's ears. Normally the youth would have tittered at the grotesque implications of the remark, but his obvious conviction in this new realm of possibility open to him made Ransom suspect that he was at last out of his depth. Perhaps the boy was regaining his sanity-no lunatic would ever dream up such an implausible fantasy.
Retracing the route Whitman had taken, Ransom set off across the street. The houses were empty, the garbage fires drifting from the gardens. The city was silent, the huge billows of the burning oil fires still rising into the air over his head. A door swung open, reflecting the sun with a sharp stab. Somewhere to his left there was a clatter of cans as a lost dog overturned a refuse bin.
Barely filtered by the smoke, the sunlight burned across the ashy dust, the flints of quartz stinging his eyes. After walking for a quarter of an hour, Ransom regretted not bringing a flask of water. The dust filled his mouth and throat with the dry taste of burning garbage. Leaning on the fender of a car, he massaged his neck, and debated whether to break into one of the houses.
A short way ahead he passed an open front door. Pushing back the gate, he walked up the path to the porch. Hidden by the shade, he glanced up and down the empty street. Through the door he could see into the living room and kitchen. Cardboard cartons were stacked in the hall, and unwanted suitcases lay across the armchairs.
He was about to step through the door when he noticed a small sign drawn in the dust beside the path a few feet from him. The single loop, like a child's caricature of a fish, had been casually traced with a stick lying on the path nearby.