Chapter 16
L
ater, when I thought about the event, I realized that in a funny way the most amazing thing about it was that Zsa Zsa hadn't barked to let me know someone else was in the house. It was something I always counted on. Her warning me, before I could see something coming. But I guess that was only true if she wasn't eating. This time all her energies had evidently been concentrated on the bits of Tootsie Roll I was tossing her. It made me wonder if anyone else had been there, standing in the dark, watching me go by.
But I wasn't thinking about that at the moment. At the moment, the only thing I was thinking about was Eli. The two of us could have been playing a scene out of an old movie. He stopped dead when he saw me. I sat up so fast, the chair I was sitting on fell over. I automatically reached down and picked it up while keeping my eyes fixed on him.
The flicker of the candles on the table emphasized Eli's mouth and chin, giving them a soft, luxurious cast, while shrouding the rest of his face in darkness. Her attention finally aroused, Zsa Zsa began to bark and dance around Eli, darting in, then backing away, then going in again, the way she did when something frightened her.
Eli ignored the dog. All his attention was focused on me.
“Who were you expecting?” I asked. “Not me evidently.”
“I'm sorry. I really am.” He took a step back. Out of the comer of my eye I saw the left cuff of his pants leg brush against one of the tapers on the floor. The flame tip reached up and touched the material in a leisurely fashion. A delicate puff of red and yellow appeared.
“Eli!” I yelled.
“It's no good.” He shook his head from side to side and kept backing away. The puff became a vine, tracing its way up Eli's leg.
I gestured frantically. “Your pants.”
He looked down. His mouth formed a large black O.
I made brushing motions with my hands. “Slap it out.”
He didn't. He panicked. His mouth quivered. His lower lip drooped. “Oh, my God,” he moaned, jumping back and knocking another candle over in the process.
“Stand still for God's sake. I'm coming.”
The fact that Eli was hopping around like a kangaroo on speed did not improve the situation.
I ripped my jacket off as I ran.
The fire was spreading up his pants.
I'd taken two steps, and was about to take a third, when Zsa Zsa darted in front of me. I saw her, but not in time to stop myself from tripping over her and falling, coming down hard on my knees and the palms of my hands. She yelped and ran away. A pain shot up my wrist. I ignored it and concentrated on covering the remaining steps between Eli and myself.
I hit at his pants and knocked off a couple of burning embers. Then I wrapped the jacket around the front of his legs and smacked at it with my hands, beating out the flames, while Zsa Zsa played Greek chorus in the background.
Eli pointed in back of me. “Look!”
I turned. A small blaze caused by the candle Eli had kicked over had started behind me. I stamped the tendrils out. “It wouldn't kill you to help me,” I snapped.
Eli bit his lip while I just stood there, bent over, my hands on my knees, inhaling the odor of melted wax and the charred wood, listening to myself wheezing. Suddenly I was very, very tired. All I wanted to do was go home and go to bed.
“But what about my legs?” Eli finally said hesitantly. His hands were fluttering at his sides like birds. He looked close to tears.
“What about them?”
“Shouldn't we go to the hospital?”
It took every bit of spare energy I had to straighten up. “They're probably fine. You weren't on fire long enough to get burned.”
“They don't feel so great.”
Neither did I as I led him back over to the table and used one of the candles sitting on the table to take a look. The light wasn't great, but under the circumstances it was the best I could do.
“You can go if you want, but they look okay to me,” I reassured Eli after he'd rolled his pants up to his knees.
I'd been pretty sure he would be. In reality, he'd been on fire for no more than a few seconds. The denim was scorched, but from what I could see, aside from a superficial burn on the front of his calf, Eli was okay.
“It's a good thing you're not into polyester,” I cracked. “Otherwise you'd have diamond-patterned skin.”
Eli didn't laugh. I couldn't blame him. Picking my jacket up, I wondered if the cleaner's would ever be able to get the smell of smoke out of it. Then I wondered if it was worth cleaning and repairing. Given what it had cost, maybe it was time to retire it to the dustbin.
“At least it's not my leather one,” I told Eli as I inspected it. As far as I could see, the jacket had three small holes in the outer shell, not to mention the ripped zipper. And that was what I could see in the candlelight. God knows what I'd find when I looked at it tomorrow morning, but I put it on anyway, smell and all, because now that I'd stopped moving I was getting cold.
“Eli,” I repeated when he didn't reply.
He shivered. “I have to go.”
“I don't think so.”
“I can't stay here.” And he turned and started for the door. “I'm late. I have to do my work.”
“And what kind of work is that?”
“My schoolwork.”
“It's going to have to wait,” I flung at his back. “Don't even think about leaving.”
He kept lumbering along. I caught up with him and grabbed him by the arm.
He shook me off the way a bear shakes off a gnat. “I told you, I have to leave.” Eli's voice rose, quivered, and broke. “I could have . . .”
“Could have what?”
“Died.”
I ran in front of him and blocked his way. “You still might if you don't tell me what you're doing here.”
He hung his head. The candlelight made him look denser, harder, as if the dark had compacted his flesh. “I can't believe it,” he whispered.
“What can't you believe?”
“What just happened.”
“You know what I can't believe,” I told him. “What I can't believe is that you're here.”
Eli started to move again. “Really. I gotta go.”
“Of course. I forgot for a moment. You're an important man. You have things to attend to.” I moved out of his way. “Go ahead.” The reality was, I couldn't stop him. “Just tell me why you're here. You owe me that much.”
My eyes must have become accustomed to the dark, because I could see his forehead wrinkling.
“After all,” I reminded him, “I did just save your life. You'd be a cinder by now,” I added unkindly when he didn't say anything.
Eli wiped his mouth with his jacket sleeve. “I . . . I . . . got a call.”
“From whom?”
“From Adelina. She told me Nestor wanted to meet me here.”
“Adelina, hunh? And how did she know to get a hold of you?”
“I . . . I . . . don't understand.”
“It's very simple. Where did she phone you? My place? Yours? Sulfin's? Where?”
Eli didn't say anything.
“Come on. Where?” I insisted. “Or can't you decide?”
Eli cleared his throat. “Why are you so interested?”
“Because I'd like to get at least one thing in this mess cleared up. Remember. You were supposed to be waiting at my house for me to call.”
Eli looked away. “I would have. I was going to. Only George came by. He said he was taking me downtown. To make a statement. I told him I didn't want to go, but he told me I had to.”
Good Old George, I thought bitterly. And I'd been trying to get hold of him all day to tell him what was going on. Too bad he hadn't extended the same courtesy to me.
“Go on,” I prompted.
“We got in his car. He said he had to drop something off to get copied, someplace downtown first, before we went to the PSB. The place was on East Gennie. He told me to wait in the car. He said he'd just be a moment. But while he was inside, I saw this bus coming. We were parked right in back of the bus stop. I got out of the car and got on it and the bus took off.”
“And you just rode off?”
He nodded. “That's right.”
I laughed incredulously. “Just like that.”
“Yeah.”
“I can't believe George didn't make you go inside the copy center with him.” The guy was definitely slipping up in his old age.
Eli shrugged. “I don't know. I guess he thought maybe I was just this big tub of lard.” His tone was bitter. “Maybe he thought I was like some dog. Tell me to do something and I will.”
I wondered if that was what he thought of himself as I pushed a lock of my hair off my forehead. “And he didn't look for you?”
Eli shrugged again. “I don't know. Maybe he did. Maybe you should ask him.”
“I will when I see him, but for now I'd like to concentrate on you. So then what did you do?”
“I went over to Sulfin's.”
“You must have just missed me.”
Eli blinked and crossed his arms over his chest. “He didn't say anything about your having been there.”
“I just bet he didn't.”
“What's that supposed to mean?”
His story stank, but I didn't say that. I didn't say anything.
Eli continued after a few seconds, his voice hesitant and nervous. “I was eating a slice of pizza when Adelina called. . . . And that's when I found out about Nestor wanting to meet me here.”
“And that's your story. The one you're sticking to.”
“I don't understand,” Eli stammered.
“I just want to make sure.”
“Why is that?”
I shrugged. “Curiosity. I just wanted to see how far you'd go.” Then I casually added, “I know what's in the suitcase.”
Eli stared at me. I could hear his rate of breathing increase.
“Your pal Sulfin told me.”
“Told you what?” Eli countered.
“About the tortoises.”
He gasped.
“Manuel's right. You should be careful whom you tell your business to. Madagascar tortoises. I'm impressed.” I kept my voice level. “No wonder Chapman is so interested. How many do you have in there? Ten? Twelve? How much are they worth anyway? A hundred thousand all together? A hundred and twenty thousand? That's a tidy piece of change.”
Eli just stared at me.
“If they're alive.” But they probably still were. That was one of the things about tortoises. They could survive for a very long time in adverse circumstances, which is why, like snakes, they're a favorite with animal smugglers. Warm-blooded mammals have a much higher rate of attrition, attrition being a nice word for death.
“It wasn't my idea,” Eli whined. “It was Chapman's. Honest.”
“Honest isn't a word I'd be using right now if I were you.”
“But it's the truth,” Eli protested. “He told me all I had to do was take them over to Japan. He had the buyers and everything all set up and waiting.”
“I see.” I motioned to Zsa Zsa. She followed me outside. “So you kind of told me the truth. You just changed a few trivial things. Like the countries. And the contents of the suitcase.”
Eli looked down at the ground.
“And Chapman, he just picked you up at the bar because he liked the way you looked. The whole thing was pure coincidence. You've never done anything like this before.”
“I really didn't know.”
“You mean you never looked in the suitcase? You didn't have to take the tortoises out?”
“Iâ”
I cut him off. “Don't even bother trying to make up a story. I don't want to hear it. The only reason I haven't turned you and Chapman over to Fish and Wildlife yet is because I wanted to make sure this was real.”
“But . . .” Eli began.
I interrupted again. “Do you realize you and your friend could be responsible for the extinction of a species? How does that feel?”
“Well . . . I . . . didn't think . . .”
“That's right.” I poked my finger in his chest. “You haven't thought. At all. At least tell me this. Did Manuel know?”
“No,” Eli whispered. “I wasn't going to tell him anything, but he came by a half hour after I discovered what Nestor had done. I was really upset. And he asked me what the matter was. I had to tell him something. I don't know why, but I didn't want him to know about the tortoises. The story about the cigars just slipped out. One of the guys at work told me he was thinking of doing it. Somehow it just seemed better. More . . . dignified. And when he suggested you . . .”
“You figured, hey, why not mess up her life, too? Cigars. Tortoises. Snakes. Who gives a fuck? It's all the same.”
“I'm sorry.” Eli's voice was low, floating on the air. “Really I am. But if I'd told you the truth, you wouldn't have helped me.”
“You're goddamned right I wouldn't have.” I reached in my jacket pocket for my cigarettes, but all of them were crumbled from when I'd beaten the fire out on Eli's pants leg. What was that saying about no good deed goes unpunished? I finally found one that looked salvageable. I straightened it out carefully and threw the rest of the pack down on the floor. “I think what you're doing is beyond redemption.”
Of course, not a whole lot of other people shared my conviction. The buying and selling of endangered species protected by the CITES Act, officially known as the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, an act signed by one hundred thirty countries, is a growth business these days. Collectors in Japan and Germany are particularly avid, bidding up prices for hard-to-get species to record levels. For those who like shelled things, Madagascar-radiated tortoises are a particularly hot commodity. Their yellow head and domed shell with its bright yellow-and-black starbursts, make them walking art, one of the rarest and most prized tortoise species on earth. Especially since no two have the exact same pattern. Their shells are as individual as snowflakes.