The Union Pacific rail lines run between the highway and the periphery of the lot, which was topped with a mix of gravel and asphalt. There were ten or twelve cars parked close to the market, but the remainder of the lot was empty. I drove to the far end, where I could see the pavement shrink to a narrow road that snaked upward and out of sight. I followed the road. The hill rose gradually with trees on either side forming a canopy overhead. The roadbed was not quite wide enough for two cars to pass, but I didn’t picture much in the way of traffic.
I kept my speed to a minimum as I trundled along the lane. I was driving maybe two miles an hour, noting the backside of the zoo structures as they appeared to my right. It was odd to see the facility from this perspective. Where the public areas were defined by walkways that wound among the animal enclosures, the hinterland was all business: garages and storage sheds; lengths of fence that could be moved and bolted into place where needed; service trucks, fork lifts, and utility vehicles; artificial jungle plants and fake boulders that could be called into use to create the illusion of the wilds. As a child, I’d ridden on the narrow-gauge kiddie train that circled the property, so I’d seen glimpses of the same inner workings.
I let Pearl direct me to a spot along the fence she said was closest to the camp.
“You better turn the car around in case we have to get out in a hurry.”
“What hurry? The guys are gone,” I said.
“But supposing they come back is all I’m trying to say.”
Oh great, I thought. I would have liked a place to pee, but it was too late for that and the urge was probably only a manifestation of a creeping attack of nerves. There was scant turning-around room available. I only succeeded by constantly backing up and inching forward, with Felix standing where I could see him in the rear- and side-view mirrors making hand gestures to signal left, right, and stop. Give the fellow an orange plastic baton and he could have offered the same guidance to an airline pilot arriving at the gate.
When I’d completed the 180-degree reorientation, I pulled on the emergency brake, killed the engine, and got out. The fence was a heavy-duty chain link with poles buried in concrete containers at ten-foot intervals. Someone had used cable cutters to open a seam that ran up along the side of one pole. The section of fencing was still bent upward where it had been pressed into use. Right away I thought about that high school geometry concept I never imagined would serve me in real life. The pole and the ground formed a right angle, with the hypotenuse measuring a lean thirty-six inches. Pearl was wider than a yardstick and I wasn’t sure how she’d manage to condense her girth sufficiently to fit through the gap. However, this invasion was her big hot idea and I wasn’t about to volunteer to take her place.
It looked like the emergency exit hadn’t been used for some time. The weeds were thick and the ground underfoot was spongy, a natural mulch of decomposing leaves and bark. The smell suggested decay, not of flesh but of plant material. Felix and I pulled up the stiff triangle of fencing while Pearl got down on her hands and knees and then lowered herself on her stomach. Being prone didn’t seem to make her smaller or more compact. Pearl’s fake leather jacket added mass to her already bulky frame. The raw cut tines of chain link formed a crooked line. Some of the tines pointed down and some upward, like the traffic teeth at a parking lot exit, intended to discourage you from changing your mind and backing up.
Felix said, “Whyn’t you take your jacket off?”
“Why don’t you shut your trap and let me do this my way?”
Felix and I exchanged a look and he shrugged.
She managed to hunch her way through the opening at an agonizing pace, but Felix and I knew better than to offer further tips. On the other side of the fence, she struggled to her feet and brushed herself off, dislodging dirt and twigs. Felix left me to hold up the flap of fencing while he slipped through after her.
The two began descending the hill, half slipping along the softened ground. A few yards farther on they disappeared into the tangle of saplings, fallen trees, and weeds. For a moment I could follow the rustle and thump. Pearl huffed and grunted briefly, and from that point on, sound was muffled and uninformative. She’d told me Terrence’s backpack was stashed in a tree and his book collection was stored in a waterproof box. How would she manage to carry both? The rest of his belongings were apparently stuffed in waterproof canvas bags, which I pictured her dragging up the hill. Surely, she and Felix would have to make more than one trip. Her claim that the job would take no more than ten minutes was patently absurd. Why is it that other people’s plans so often seem ill thought out while our own make so much sense?
I checked my watch. Not even a minute had passed though it felt like ten. The on-ramp where we’d seen the nearest panhandler was between the lanes of north- and southbound traffic, a ten-minute walk if he decided to leave his post and return to the camp. From my vantage point, I could see intermittent stretches of Cabana and a section of the parking lot across from the Caliente Café. I watched a car pull in and park. A woman got out with a jogging stroller and strapped her baby in the seat. At that distance, she was scarcely half an inch tall, an elf in my eyes.
I stayed close to the fence, clinging like a prisoner hoping to be liberated. I peered into the growth of trees down the hill from me but saw nothing. Traffic sounds didn’t penetrate the quiet. Above and behind me, the zoo property acted as a buffer, muting the low rumble of the Pacific Ocean on the far side of it. The slope in front of me dropped at an angle through the brush, extending maybe an eighth of a mile before it leveled out. The ground then rose up again to meet the railroad tracks, which were shielded from view by dense shrubs and a line of trees.
Without conscious intent, I tried to calculate the odds of the nearest bum returning prematurely. To me, the chances seemed iffy. I had to assume that on prior occasions, the Boggarts had seen Terrence with Dandy, Pearl, and Felix, sprawled on the grass, trading smokes or passing around a common jug of wine. The homeless seemed to be subdivided into smaller populations, not necessarily friendly toward one another, but not hostile either. Under ordinary circumstances, the Boggarts probably wouldn’t have stolen another fellow’s cart, but death had upset the balance in the social order and they’d used this to their advantage. Why, then, wouldn’t it occur to them that Terrence’s pals might try to recoup the loss?
As though in reply, I caught a punctuation mark of red in the parking lot below, a semicolon of cap and flannel shirt that appeared and disappeared so quickly that I blinked. Had I imagined it? I didn’t think so. Tentatively, I called out, “Hey, Pearl?”
The vegetation was so dense that the word was rendered flat, pasted against the thicket like a printed flyer announcing my alarm. As nearly as I could tell, the sound didn’t carry even one foot. I had no idea what the distance was between the point where I’d spotted the bum and the location of the camp, but what difference did it make? Felix and Pearl hadn’t been gone long enough to accomplish their aims, which meant he’d be walking in on them before long.
How could I stand at the fence and do nothing? An ambush was imminent and Felix and Pearl probably hadn’t had the good sense to designate one of them as a lookout. I would have preferred being more certain of what I’d seen. If I was wrong, I could help tote stuff up the hill. If I was right, at least they’d have some warning. I dropped to the ground and turned over on my back, holding up the treacherous flap of chain-link fence with one hand while I dug my heels into the dirt and used the leverage to hunch my way under.