The Library at Mount Char (27 page)

Steve shook his head.

“Weight?”

“I lifted her, but it was all I could do. Two hundred, maybe?”

“I'd say two twenty-five, easy.” She paused. “You
lifted
her? Alone?”

“She helped, a little.” Still holding the stretcher he dipped his shoulder, pantomiming. “Fireman's carry.”

“Oh-kay. So…what are you, a trainer, or—” She shook her head. “Never mind. Later.” Inside the exam room they lay the stretcher on the table. “Jerri, go to the
Merck
and see what kind of dosage we need for a two-hundred-fifty-pound lion.”

“Ketamine and xylazine?”

The doctor wrinkled her face. “Unless you know better? This is my first lion.”

“That's what we used last summer. I'm on it.”

“We'll also need an ET tube. Biggest we've got.”

Naga's hind paws dangled off the end of the table. She lifted her head, looked around the room, rumbled. The doctor jumped back a bit.

“It's OK,” Steve said. He patted Naga's neck. “Nothing to be scared of.”

The tech—Jerri—returned a couple of minutes later bearing a big syringe and a bag full of plastic tubes. She handed it to the doctor.

Dr. Alsace checked the levels. “That's it?”

“We were a little short of ketamine.”

The doctor raised her eyebrows.

“Just a little.”

“OK. It will have to do.” She looked at the lion, frowned, then handed Steve the syringe. “You ever given an injection before?”

“No.”

“Nothing to it. This goes in the muscle. Jab it in quick, then inject slowly. See if you can find a spot on the back leg, away from the wound.” She handed Steve the syringe, then backed up near the door. “Jerri…behind me.”

Steve looked at Naga's hindquarter, found a spot with a good bit of muscle. He practiced jabbing. “Like this?”

The doctor nodded.

“It's like jabbing an orange,” Jerri offered, from the hall.

“OK.” Steve blew out a breath, focused. “Here we go.” He stuck Naga in her hip. She lifted her head, bared her teeth. She
roared
.

Steve jumped back. The needle dangled from Naga's hip. He held up a finger as if disciplining an unruly child. “Bad kitty! You be good!”

Slowly, her snarl faded. Steve took a step forward, then another. “This is going to make you feel better.” He laid his hand on the syringe.

Naga jerked up at his touch. With a wild yowl that made Steve's bowels feel loose, she swatted his chest with her right forepaw. Her claws dug deep trenches into the meat of him. Steve jumped back, yelling. Naga sprang from the table, landed with her paws on his shoulders, bit him in the left arm. Somebody in the hall screamed.

Steve, weirdly unafraid, worked his hands up to chest level and pushed as hard as he could, ripping Naga from his chest along with a good bit of skin from his back and shoulder. Naga bounced off the wall.

Following an instinct he didn't quite understand, Steve slapped the lion in the face. She didn't bite or claw him, possibly too surprised to do so, but she roared again.

Steve roared back. “
Go on!
You want to end up dead? You're still bleeding,
asshole!
Bite me all you want and you can bleed out in the parking lot! See if anyone lugs your huge ass to the zoo! Go on, see!” Drops of his blood fell to the floor and mingled with hers. They glared at each other. “Go on!”

After a while, Naga sank back against the wall. A second or two later she stopped snarling.

“Yeah,” Steve said. “I thought so.” He snatched the syringe up off the floor.

From behind him, the vet's voice. “I don't think you should—”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” He walked up to Naga. She snarled again, long white teeth against pink healthy gums.
I bet her capillary response is pretty good now
. Ignoring the snarl, he pulled her unwounded right hip away from the wall and jabbed the needle in it. She roared again, a deep bass sound that rattled the windows.

“Shut. The fuck. Up!”

“Slowly,” Dr. Alsace said. Her voice was muffled. Steve glanced back. The door was mostly shut. She peeped in, only the top of her head showing.

He pushed the plunger in, one excruciating millimeter at a time. In a few seconds it was empty. Steve pulled the syringe out, tossed it aside.

Naga looked at him, confused.

“There,” Steve said, sarcastic. “Feel better now?”

Naga looked at him for a moment, then slumped. A moment later she laid her head down on the floor. Steve slumped too, back against the wall. His shoulder blades felt wet. He stood up straight again, turned and looked. Where he had leaned, there was a big bloodstain on the wall. He turned to the vet. “You guys got a Band-Aid?”

“Jerri, get me some gauze and some tape.”

Naga lay on the floor, semiconscious.

“I think you can get started now,” Steve said.

“Not yet. Give it about ten minutes.”

“Oh. OK. Am I bleeding bad?” He walked over to her and presented his back.

She examined it. “It's not good. But I think it's superficial. Probably leave some scars, though. You're going to need stitches.”

“Shouldn't be a problem. I imagine someone will be along shortly to arrest me.”

“I don't doubt it. That was about the dumbest thing I've ever seen.” She paused. “Not un-brave, but very, very dumb. Is that your lion?”

“Not really. Kind of. We just met a couple of hours ago.”

She raised her eyebrows.

Steve shrugged. “It's been an intense couple of hours.”

The vet looked at Naga. “She's bleeding pretty bad. She probably wouldn't have made it much longer.”

Steve looked at her.

“I've seen worse, though. That bandage will hold it until she's anesthetized. I'm pretty sure I can stitch her up in time.” She looked at him levelly. “If you were trying to save her life, you probably did.”

Steve turned this notion over in his mind, examining it. He smiled. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. It really
was
dumb, though.”

Steve sighed, wishing for a cigarette. “The Buddha teaches respect for all life.”

“Oh.” She considered this. “Are you a Buddhist?”

“No. I'm an asshole. But I keep trying.”

T
en minutes later Naga was back on the table. They put the stretcher on the floor. Steve had muscled her onto it while she was still semiconscious. As he did this, Naga stretched her tongue out and licked blood off the back of his hand.

“It's OK,” Steve said, stroking her cheek. “No big.”

When Naga's eyes were shut he, Jerri, and Dr. Alsace lifted her up onto the examination table. While they were waiting for the anesthetic to fully kick in, Steve borrowed some bandages and started taping himself up.

Halfway through what was shaping up to be a really bad job, Dr. Alsace said, “Point that gun at me.”

“Beg pardon?”

“Point that gun at me.”

“Er…OK.” Steve pulled the HK out of his waistband and lifted it in her general direction.

“What's that you say?” Dr. Alsace said. “If I don't bandage you up, you're going to shoot me? Well, I guess I have no choice, then.”

Steve blinked, smiled at her. “Thanks.”

“Jerri, turn your back. I'm about to set a bad example.” Jerri obliged. Dr. Alsace cleaned out the scratches on Steve's back with a bottle of saline, then injected him with something. A minute or so later his back was numb. “Get me a rapID, would you?”

Jerri, gloved, went outside for a second and returned with a clear plastic tool about the size of a paperback book with two pinchable handles. “What's that?”

“Staple gun.”

“What?”

Ka-blap!

“Ow! Fuck!”

“Sorry. Hold still.”
Ka-blap!

“Ow! I'm not a two-by-four!”

“Don't be such a baby. I don't have time to suture.”

Steve managed to keep quiet for the next couple, but his face contorted with pain. He grunted on the sixth, seventh, and eighth
ka-blaps
.

“There we go,” Dr. Alsace said. “All done. Hold the gun on Jerri and tell her to bandage you up.”

Steve pointed the gun at her.

“Eeek! Don't shoot. Hang on, I need to get more tape.”

She returned a second later, eyes wide. “Um…mister?”

“My name is Steve.”

“Steve? There's a guy out there. He says he wants to talk to you.”

Steve's stomach knotted. “Cop?”

“I'm not sure. He has a gun.”

Steve thought about this for a second. He pursed his lips, nodded. “Tell him it's OK. Tell him to come in. I won't shoot anything.”

A second later Erwin walked in. “Glad to hear it,” he said. He glanced at Naga. “Hmm. Nice lion.”

“Thanks.”

“When I heard the call come in, I had a feeling this might be you. You're really extra-fucking-special under arrest. You know that, right?” Erwin pulled a set of those plastic cuffs that looked like cable ties out of his back pocket.

Steve didn't move. He was thinking about the front door, the tree line behind the strip mall, the taxi.

“No,” Erwin said, seeing him tense. “You shouldn't do that.”

“No?”

“No.” He pointed back in the general direction of the waiting room. “There's a guy on the roof back behind that dry cleanin' place. I used to work with him. He's a good shot. You try anything, he's going to put a bullet through your center of mass. It'll leave a hole in your back about a foot across. Half your guts'll blow out with it. You'll be dead before you even know what hit you.”

Steve walked out into the lobby and peeped out the window. “Oh…” he said. “Oh, wow.” There was indeed a guy on the roof of the cleaners
with a rifle. There were also around ten squad cars in the parking lot, blue lights flashing. A hundred yards away people streamed out of Walmart, heads down, running. He scanned the roof line and saw another sniper on top of the Monsieur Taco. “Fuck,” he said. “After all that.”

“Yeah,” Erwin said, “it's a bitch.” He jiggled the plastic cuffs in the air. “You gonna let me do this, or do we gotta shoot ya?”

Steve looked at the front door, tested his weight on his bandaged ankle.
Maybe I could duck out the back and…

“If you decide to run, can you give me a second first? I want to get them nice ladies out of the line of fire before the deppities start shooting. They're all excited, like. I don't think they'll be real careful when they see you come running out with a gun. Be a shame if the rest of us got killed along with you.”

Steve put his palms up to his temples. He walked around the waiting room saying, “Shit, shit, shit!” He kicked a big bag of dog food. Then, with a sigh, “OK. You're right. No way out. I've still got a problem, though.”

“Yeah? What's that?”

“I knew how this was probably going to end up, but I came here anyway. Now it occurs to me that if I just drop the gun—”

“Don't drop it,” Erwin said. “Might go off. Set it down gentle—”

“—yeah, sure. If I just drop it—”

“People on TV are always dropping guns. I saw a guy get shot that way once.”

“
OK
. Understood. I'll just set it down. If.”

“If what?”

“If you”—he looked significantly at Erwin—“promise me you won't let them just come in here and kill her. Promise me you'll figure out, I dunno, something. A zoo. A circus.” He searched Erwin's face. “Please. If you do that, I'll help you as much as I can.”

“Help me? How?”

“I don't know a whole lot, but I do know where they are—Carolyn and the rest.”

Erwin considered this. “Full cooperation? No holding back?”

Steve nodded.

“Can you sketch the interior of the place?”

“Sure.”

Erwin considered for a second. “I can't take that lion back to my apartment, you understand.”

“I understand that. I'm just asking you to tell me that you'll do your best.”

“Yeah,” Erwin said. “OK. You got my word.”

Steve nodded. He held out his wrists to Erwin.

“Put down the gun first.”

Steve set it on the reception desk, gently.

“Hands behind your back.”

He did that too. Blue lights flashed through the windows. He tilted his head back, shut his eyes. The sound the cuffs made as they closed was just like zipping up a plastic cable tie.

“Smart,” Erwin said. “They really would have killed you.”

“I know.”

Erwin leaned back and looked into Room Two. “That there's a big-ass lion.”

Steve smiled a little. “You think
she's
big, you should have seen her dad. Full-grown male. Maybe four hundred pounds?”

“Oh?” Erwin looked mildly alarmed. “He around?”

Steve shook his head. “Nope. Didn't make it out.” He raised his voice. “Hey, how's she doing, Doctor?”

They had started an IV and were giving Naga some sort of clear fluid. The bandage was off and Dr. Alsace was hunched over Naga's leg. She didn't answer. Jerri said, “Shh!” She walked over to the door and closed it, but slowly, giving the thumbs-up sign with her free hand.

Steve gave her a little nod. She nodded back, then shut the door.

“She yours?” Erwin said. “File didn't say nothing about you having a pet lion.”

“Not really. We just met. We've kind of been looking after each other.”

“Just ran into her on the street?”

“Actually, yeah.”

Erwin looked at him, waiting for a proper answer. After a minute or
so he gave up. “Any chance I can get you to give a little more detail on that?”

“Sure, sorry. Other things on my mind. I was out for a jog and a whole bunch of mean dogs—like, dozens of them—tried to eat me. I shot some, but they had me down on the ground. I was a goner. Naga and her dad kind of came in out of nowhere and pulled the dogs off me. Saved my life.”