“Guess what?” I informed him. “The crew isn't going to be along, because there isn't any leak. That was one of my friends calling. Now shut the door.” I raised my voice and lifted the gun a little higher. “If I have to shoot Matilda because she's attacking me, it's going to be on your conscience.”
Littlebaum quickly did as he was told. I motioned for him to come closer.
He ran one of his hands over his face and hair as he took a hesitant step toward me. Stripped of his rage, he had the confused look of a fragile old man who couldn't quite grasp what was happening to him. “Why'd you do that?” he finally asked.
“I wanted to see if someone was inside your house.”
Littlebaum wrinkled his face up in disbelief. “What are you, nuts?” he croaked. “Why didn't you call?”
“I didn't think you'd tell me what I wanted to know. But you will now, right?”
Littlebaum nodded docilely. He'd started to shiver. If I was cold in my jacket, he had to be freezing in his T-shirt, sweat pants, and socks, but I wasn't about to let him go into his house and get some more clothes on.
“Was Adelina here earlier?”
He rubbed his arms with his hands. “No. Why should she be?”
I could hear a faint rumble coming from the other side of the front door. Littlebaum cocked his head, smiled, and half turned. “Just a minute,” he told the big cat. The lilt in his voice was the kind a man uses to a woman he's in love with, which was too bad, because odds were Litdebaum and Matilda weren't going to have a happy ending. Then Littlebaum turned back to me. “She wants to know what's happening,” he explained. “She understands more than you would think.”
“I'm sure she does.” Maybe she did for all I knew. Zsa Zsa was certainly more perceptive than some, make that a lot, of people I've known. “When we're finished, you can go in and tell her all about our conversation about Adelina. She was looking to get rid of a suitcase full of Madagascar tortoises. I thought she might have tried to sell them to you.”
Littlebaum shifted his weight from left foot to right foot and back again. “She called me, let me see”âhe stopped and thoughtâ“was it yesterday or the day before? And offered me one, but I didn't buy it.”
“Why? I would have thought you would have liked that sort of thing.”
He glared at me. “I'm disappointed in you, Robin. You should know me better than that. I'd never buy CITES stuff. And anyway, she was asking too much money. Ten thousand dollars,” he scoffed. “You got to be crazy to pay that for a turtle. Even if it does come in pretty colors.” This from someone who had spent what he had on a lion cub. He motioned for me to come inside with skeleton-thin fingers. “Take a look if you want.”
I debated taking him up on his offer, but in the end I declined. I believed he was telling the truth. Even though he liked reptiles, mammals were his passion.
“Can I go now? I'm freezing my ass off out here.”
“In a minute.” I coughed. The cold was getting to me. “Do you know who Adelina was going to sell them to?”
He shook his head. “Didn't ask. I stick to my own business. All I ask is that other people do the same.”
Matilda roared. I heard scratching.
“She's going to ruin the door if you don't let me get in there,” Littlebaum said.
I lowered my gun and nodded for him to go on. “Hey, Parker,” I called when he was almost at the door, “maybe it's time for you to relocate the ark.”
He turned around. “What do you mean?”
“Sooner or later someone's gonna turn you in and they're going to take Matilda and everything else away from you and hold you for a psych evaluation. I know someone out West who has a lot of open land they might be willing to rent to you,” I added impulsively.
He didn't say anything.
I thought about what Sulfin had said about Littlebaum being cheap. “It would be worth the money.”
He nodded.
“You should consider it seriously.”
He squinted. His lips began to move as he tried to figure out why I was doing this. Finally he asked.
“Simple. I don't want to see your animals killed or have them end up in some fly-by-night traveling circus.”
Maybe conditions for Littlebaum's charges weren't ideal, which they weren't. Maybe he shouldn't have them, but the animals were still better off with Littlebaum than in some of the other places they could end up. And at least Littlebaum cared for them. That had to count for something.
“I'll think about it,” he said.
“Don't think too long,” I warned.
“Would you like to give Matilda a pet?” he asked shyly, the way a little boy does when he's showing you his special rock collection. “She liked you.”
I told him I'd love to, but asked if I could take a rain check for another day. Littlebaum looked disappointed.
“Are you sure?” he said.
I told him I was. Then I slipped the gun into my jacket pocket and took an old napkin and a pen out from the other one and wrote the phone number of my friend out West down. “Here,” I said, holding the napkin out to him. An offering. “Take it for Matilda's sake.”
The ends of the napkin fluttered in the breeze. Littlebaum extended his hand and took a few tentative steps toward me.
“All right.” He grabbed the napkin from my hand and crumpled it up in his fist. “All right.” And he went inside his house before I could say anything else.
As I headed back to the cab, I wondered if he'd understood what I'd been telling him. I hoped he had. I hoped he'd make the phone call, but I doubted it.
“Well?” Manuel asked as I slammed the cab door shut.
I rubbed my hands. It felt good to be where it was warm.
“What happened?”
“Adelina wasn't there.”
“I know. I saw.” He yawned. “Now what?”
“We go to Plan B.”
“I didn't know you had a Plan A.”
“Stop playing the comedian. I already told you. We're going to drive around and look for Adelina's car.”
He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the door. “That's fucked.”
“Elegantly put. What would you suggest? Exactly,” I said when he didn't answer. “You don't have a suggestion, do you?”
He fiddled with the brim of his hat. “She's probably home by now.”
“Good idea.” I tried to make my voice enthusiastic. “We'll begin there.”
Manuel groaned. “Robin, have a heart. Why don't you just drop me off? I got a whole lot of shit I could be doing instead of running all over the city.”
“No. I like having you with me.” Until I got this thing settled, I wanted Manuel where I could keep my eye on him. “First we'll go back to Adelina's place, then Myra's, then Sulfin's,” announced.
It was the only thing I could think of to do.
Chapter 25
M
anuel spent the entire hour and a half it took me to crisscross the city and check out Adelina's, Sulfin's, and Myra's houses whining. I half listened, veering back and forth between wishing he'd be quiet to thinking that if he ever went back to school Manuel would make a great courtroom lawyer.
His list was endless. Manuel complained about the fact that I'd made him come with me. He complained that he could have been at a party meeting girls. Or watching TV. He complained that now it was too late to get the Godzilla movie I'd promised him. When I didn't say anything, he told me that my plan was a waste of time, but in less polite language. He told me I should get a new ride. Something cool. Something he wouldn't mind being seen in if he had to go with me. Maybe something like an SUV.
According to him, my cab was Stone Age and I should get with the times, for God's sake. Get a car with air-conditioning and heated seats and killer electronics. Something with a CD player, because how could I listen to the radio anyway? All the stations in Syracuse sucked. The DJs sucked. The music they played sucked big time.
In fact, Syracuse sucked. He was tired of living in this city. He wanted to go someplace where there were some opportunities, someplace warm. He'd told his mother but she didn't understand. All she cared about was that he didn't have a job. She couldn't see that standing around in the mall dishing out slices of pizza wasn't for him. That he needed something interesting and challenging. She didn't understand that getting his GED and going on to a community college wasn't going to help him. After all, look at Eli. He was going to college and it sure hadn't made him any smarter. In fact, it was his desire to go to college that had gotten him in the mess he was now in.
“Ironic, isn't it?” Manuel punctuated his observation with a smug smile, infinitely pleased with himself.
The smile was the last straw. I told Manuel to shut up, not that he listened.
“You're just saying that because I'm right about Eli,” he sniffed. “I'm right about everything. You don't want to admit that this whole evening has been a waste of time. Can we go back to your place now?”
“No, we can't.” I had one more idea I wanted to try.
“No?” Manuel yelped. “What are we going to do? Drag Onondaga Lake?”
“We're going to check out Eli's house.”
“How about letting me off at the corner? I'll walk.”
“Forgetaboutit. I told you, you're coming with me.”
“Fine.” Manuel let out a heartfelt sigh. “But even Eli isn't stupid enough to go back there.”
As it turned out, Manuel was wrong.
“Holy shit. What a schmuck,” Manuel said when we saw that the lights were on in the flat.
“Maybe Eli isn't dumb. Maybe he wants to get caught.”
Manuel snorted. “Where do you come up with this kind of stuff?” he demanded as he reseated his hat on his head. “You sound like that moron of a guidance counselor they made me see in ninth grade. No one wants to get caught. No one.”
“I think people want to get caught all the time,” I countered. “I think that's why they do what they do.”
“And I think you're full of shit.”
“You do, hunh?”
“Yeah.” Manuel put his hand on the door handle. “You gonna order me out of the car?”
“Stay right where you are. That was a nice try, but not good enough.”
Manuel slumped back in his seat. “Well, I still can't figure why he should come back here.”
“Maybe he's figuring that that's what the police think and that's why it's a good place to hide out.” This time Manuel didn't disagree.
“If it were me,” he said, “I wouldn't go near the place. Or at least I'd leave the lights off. The police have got to be checking it out.”
“Evidently not. Or if they are, they obviously aren't doing it on a regular enough basis. Who knows? Maybe Eli just dropped in to get something and we were lucky enough to catch him.” I pointed at a Taurus parked four spaces down. “And that, I believe, is Adelina's car. What do you have to say now?”
“That we should have come here first.”
I drove down a little farther and pulled in behind a pickup truck. “Come on.” I turned off the engine and pocketed my keys. “Let's go.”
Manuel sat there stony-faced, fiddling with the zipper on his jacket, while the car wheezed and clanked, the way it always did when I shut it off.
I shook my head. I couldn't figure the kid out. “I don't understand you, Manuel. The way you've been bitching, I thought you'd be glad to get this over.”
Manuel scratched at his left sidebum. “You're not calling the cops on my cousin if he's up there, are you?”
“I think I'm going to have to,” I allowed. After all, Eli was wanted for questioning in Nestor's death.
Manuel bit his lip while he thought about what I'd said for a moment before speaking. “Because if you are, give me a sign first so I can leave.”
“Leave?” My voice sounded unnaturally loud in the silence.
“Before you call them.” He clasped his hands together, laid them on his knees, and gazed at them as if they were a crystal ball and he could see his future in it, and he didn't like what he was looking at. “I don't want to have to tell my mother I let Eli get arrested. She'll never forgive me.”
“I'll touch the top button of my shirt if I'm going to. Will that do?”
Manuel looked doubtful.
“Come up with something else if you want,” I offered.
He shrugged dispiritedly. “I guess that should work.” He got out of the car and followed me down the block. He could have been going to his own execution the way he was walking. “Don't expect me to help you,” he warned when we got to the bottom of the steps that led to Eli's flat. “Because I won't.”
“Fair enough.”
Eli was surprised to see us.
Very surprised.
“I can't believe you're here,” I told him after Manuel and I had burst through his door.
We'd tiptoed up the side of the steps, using the trees as cover. Then I'd knocked on the door. A moment later, Eli had asked who was there. I'd told him I needed to speak with him. It was urgent When he unlatched the door, I came through with Manuel following me inside. As I pointed Adelina's automatic at Eli, I began to see why people liked guns. They reduced complex problems to simple ones. I have the gun, therefore you will do as I say. Although, judging from Eli's complexion, dead white, and the beads of sweat on his lip, I wasn't sure this was the best approach. The last thing I wanted to do was scare him into a heart attack.
“What are you doing here?” I repeated.
“I just had to get a few things,” he stuttered.
I was just going to ask him what, when Adelina came out of the bedroom. “Nice to see you again,” I commented.
She walked over to Eli, put her hand on his shoulder and gave it a supportive squeeze.
“Solidarity. I like that,” I said.
Adelina looked as if she wanted to spit in my face.
Eli took Adelina's hand. “I hope it didn't take you too long to find your car keys,” he said to me in a mock-hearty voice.
I motioned for him and Adelina to go into the living room.
“About ten minutes.”
“Good.” He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and licked his lips. “I was worried.”
“That was considerate of you.” Out of the corner of my eye I saw something moving on the floor. I looked down. A Madagascar tortoise lumbered by my feet with a large piece of lettuce clasped firmly in his beak. Its shell and body looked as if they'd been painted by someone with a sense of humor.
“I'm glad to see they survived their travels,” I noted.
“They're really doing well,” Eli assured me. He gave me a bleak little smile. He looked paler. He had dark circles under his eyes. His face looked thinner. The last week hadn't been kind to him. “They have remarkable powers of survival, but I guess that's why they're still around. They and the lizards ...”
I interrupted. Given the way my day had been going, I wasn't in the mood to discuss animal taxonomy. “Have you been staying here all the time everyone's been looking for you?”
Eli shook his head.
Adelina took a step toward me. “He's been in my house. In the attic.” She looked as stressed as Eli, even more so, her blond hair and lipstickless mouth pulling all the color out of her face.
“So that story Eli told about your disappearing from home, that was a lie, too?”
Adelina allowed as how it was.
“What did you tell your mother?”
“I told her some bad people were trying to find me. That was enough. I knew she'd protect me from anything that came along. She's better than a pit bull.”
“I'd say so,” I agreed.
“She got you good, didn't she?” Adelina said, a slight, vengeful smile hovering on her lips.
I corrected her. “Actually, she got my car.”
“Lucky for you.”
“No. Lucky for
you.
Otherwise your mother would be in jail on assault charges. Who'd take care of your sisters and brother then?”
Adelina glowered at me. “I would. I do now anyway.”
While I thought about Donna chasing me with a bat and how lucky I was she hadn't connected, a second tortoise came out of the kitchen and went by us. This one had a piece of apple in its mouth. It was, like the first one, a little larger than the palm of my hand. Manuel stuck his foot out in front of it. The tortoise stopped, considered its options, and went around.
“Neat,” Manuel said to no one in particular. Then he squatted down and watched the tortoise crawl away.
“Where are the rest of them?” I asked.
“Nestor's room,” Eli said reluctantly.
“Let's go take a look.”
“Why?” Eli said.
“Because I want to.” And I motioned for everyone to move. After all, it wasn't as if I was going to ever see one of these animals again, outside of a zoo.
Eli and Adelina walked down the hallway and past Eli's room slowly, as if they'd learned a new gait from their charges, with Manuel bringing up the rear.
They stepped inside Nestor's room and stopped. I followed. The room had acquired a slight fishy smell.
“There they are,” Eli said, pointing.
From where I was standing I counted six tortoises. Two were eating out of a bowl filled with chopped fruits and vegetables, one was sitting in the water bowl, while the remaining three were basking under a heat lamp. It was hard to believe that these tortoises were worth over sixty thousand dollars. Back in Madagascar people ate them. They were stewpot favorites. An expensive meal.
It isn't as if you couldn't get them legally. You can. Zoos and a few private breeders have set up programs. The problem is, because the species is so endangered, you have to be willing to go through all the red tape that getting a CITES-listed animal into the country entails. And most people aren't willing to do that. They'd rather spend the money. It's simpler. And faster.
Poor tortoises. On top of everything else, their habitat is being destroyed, so even if people did stop eating them and other people did stop collecting them, they probably wouldn't be around in the wild too much longer. They were doomed, like the tiger and the rhino, their world whittled down to smaller and smaller scale, until there was no room left for them at all.
“What's the matter?” Manuel asked.
I realized I must have sighed out loud. “Nothing,” I said, thinking that soon the only things there'll be room for on earth are computers and wires and things that don't make a mess. “Where are the other tortoises?” I asked Eli, making myself get back to the business at hand.
He coughed. “What do you mean?”
“I count eight. There are supposed to be ten.”
“You're wrong,” he countered, while his eyes blinked like a semaphore, signaling his lie. “Chapman gave me eight.”
I raised my gun slightly. “Bad answer.”
“I'm not lying,” Eli protested. “I swear.”
“Don't be a walking cliche on top of everything else.”
“Why should I lie?”
“I don't know and I don't care.” I glanced at my watch. This was taking way longer than I wanted it to. “Who'd you sell them to?”
Eli looked at Adelina pleadingly. She gave him a contemptuous glance. “Tell her,” she ordered.
Eli pulled at his fingers. “Sulfin has one.”
“Where's he keeping it?”
“At his apartment.”
“And the other?” I prodded.
“I sold it to Littlebaum,” Adelina said. “So what? Is that a crime?”
“Yes. As it happens, it is,” I replied as I inwardly cursed myself.
I should have gone into Littlebaum's house when I had the chance. He'd offered and I'd said no. Why? Because I'd wanted to believe him, so I'd given him the benefit of the doubt. Which made me a fool. Now I'd just have to go back there again. And this time would be harder. I'd exhausted my meager bag of tricks and there was no reason to think he'd let me in when I came knocking on his door, especially since I was taking back someone he wanted and had paid good money for.
“My sister needs an operation,” Adelina told me. “That money is for her.”
“I see. And which sister is this?”
“My younger one. There's something wrong with her kidneys.”
“Right.” I took a last look at the tortoises, then told everyone to go out into the living room.