Native Tongue Read online

  “We’re all doomed,” said Joe Winder, “if you really think about it.” Which he tried not to.

  Bud Schwartz parked the pickup truck under an immense ficus tree. He told Danny Pogue not to open the doors right away, because of all the mosquitoes. The insects had descended in a sibilant cloud, bouncing off the windows and the hood and the headlights.

  “I bet we don’t have no bug spray,” said Danny Pogue.

  Bud Schwartz pointed at the house. “On the count of three, make a run for it.”

  Danny Pogue remarked that the old place was dark. “She saving on the electricity, or what? I bet she’s not even home. I bet she was hoping we got caught, so she wouldn’t have to pay us.”

  “You got no faith,” said Bud Schwartz. “You’re the most negative fucking person I ever met. That’s why your skin’s broke out all the time—all those negative thoughts is like a poison in your bloodstream.”

  “Wait a minute, now. Everybody gets pimples.”

  Bud Schwartz said, “You’re thirty-one years old. Tell me that’s normal.”

  “Do we got bug spray or not?”

  “No.” Bud Schwartz unlocked the door. “Now let’s go—one, two, three!”

  They burst out of the pickup and bolted for the house, flailing at mosquitoes as they ran. When they got inside the screened porch, the two men took turns swatting the insects off each other. A light came on, and Molly McNamara poked out of the door. Her white hair was up in curlers, her cheeks were slathered in oily yellow cream and her broad, pointy-shouldered frame was draped in a blue terry-cloth bathrobe.

  “Get inside,” she said to the two men.

  Immediately Bud Schwartz noticed how grim the woman looked. The curlers, cream and bathrobe didn’t help.

  The house was all mustiness and shadows, made darker and damper by the ubiquitous wood paneling. The living room smelled of jasmine, or some other old-woman scent. It reminded Bud Schwartz of his grandmother’s sewing room.

  Molly McNamara sat down in a rocker. Bud Schwartz and Danny Pogue just stood there like the hired help they were.

  “Where are they?” Molly demanded. “Where’s the box?”

  Danny Pogue looked at Bud Schwartz, who said, “They got away.”

  Molly folded her hands across her lap. She said, “You’re lying to me.”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Then tell me what happened.”

  Before Bud Schwartz could stop him, Danny Pogue said, “There was holes in the box. That’s how they got out.”

  Molly McNamara’s right hand slipped beneath her bathrobe and came out holding a small black pistol. Without saying a word she shot Danny Pogue twice in the left foot. He fell down, screaming, on the smooth pine floor. Bud Schwartz couldn’t believe it; he tried to speak, but there was no air in his lungs.

  “You boys are lying,” Molly said. She got up from the rocker and left the room. She came back with a towel, chipped ice, bandages and a roll of medical adhesive tape. She told Bud Schwartz to patch up his partner before the blood got all over everything. Bud Schwartz knelt on the floor next to Danny Pogue and tried to calm him. Molly sat down and started rocking.

  “The towel is for his mouth,” she said, “so I don’t have to listen to all that yammering.”

  And it was true, Danny Pogue’s wailing was unbearable, even allowing for the pain. It reminded Bud Schwartz of the way his first wife had sounded during the thrashings of childbirth.

  Molly said, “It’s been all over the news, so at least I know that you went ahead and did it. I suppose I’m obliged to pay up.”

  Bud Schwartz was greatly relieved; she wouldn’t pay somebody she was about to kill. The thought of being murdered by a seventy-year-old woman in pink curlers was harrowing on many levels.

  “Tell me if I’m wrong,” Molly said. “Curiosity got the best of you, right? You opened the box, the animals escaped.”

  “That’s about the size of it,” said Bud Schwartz, wrapping a bandage around Danny Pogue’s foot. He had removed the sneaker and the sock, and examined the wounds. Miraculously (or maybe by design) both bullets had missed the bones, so Danny Pogue was able to wiggle all his toes. When he stopped whimpering, Bud Schwartz removed the towel from his mouth.

  “So you think they’re still alive,” Molly said.

  “Why not? Who’d be mean enough to hurt ’em?”

  “This is important,” said Molly. The pistol lay loose on her lap, looking as harmless as a macramé.

  Danny Pogue said, “We didn’t kill them things, I swear to God. They just scooted out of the damn truck.”

  “We didn’t know there was only two,” he said. “We thought there must be a whole bunch in a box that size. That’s how come we wasn’t so worried when they got away—see, we thought there was more.”

  Molly started rocking a little faster. The rocking chair didn’t squeak a bit on the varnished pine. She said, “I’m very disappointed in the both of you.”

  Bud Schwartz helped his partner limp to an ottoman. All he wanted was to get the money and get the hell out of this spooky old house, away from this crazy witch.

  “Here’s the really bad news,” said Molly McNamara. “It’s your truck—only about a thousand people saw you drive away. Now, I don’t know if they got the license tag, but they sure as hell got a good description. It’s all over the TV.”

  “Shit,” said Bud Schwartz.

  “So you’re going to have to keep a low profile for a while.”

  Still breathing heavily, Danny Pogue said, “What’s that mean?”

  Molly stopped rocking and sat forward. “For starters, say goodbye to the pickup truck. Also, you can forget about going home. If the police got your tag, they’ll be waiting.”

  “I’ll take my chances,” said Bud Schwartz.

  “No, you won’t,” said Molly. “I’ll give you a thousand dollars each. You’ll get the rest in two weeks, if things die down. Meanwhile, I’ve arranged a place for you boys to stay.”

  “Here?” asked Danny Pogue in a fretful, pain-racked voice.

  “No, not here,” Molly said. “Not on your life.”

  She stood up from the rocker. The pistol disappeared again into a fuzzy pocket of the blue robe. “Your foot’s going to be fine,” she announced to Danny Pogue. “I hope I made my point.”

  The bafflement on the two men’s faces suggested otherwise.

  Molly McNamara said, “I chose you for a reason.”

  “Come on,” said Bud Schwartz, “we’re just burglars.”

  “And don’t you ever forget it,” Molly said.

  Danny Pogue couldn’t believe she was talking to them this way. He couldn’t believe he was being terrorized by an old lady in a rocking chair.

  “There’s something else you should know,” said Molly McNamara. “There are others.”

  Momentarily Bud Schwartz’s mind had stuck on that thousand dollars she’d mentioned. He had been thinking: Screw the other eight, just grab the grand and get lost. Now she was saying something about others—what others?

  “Anything happens to me,” Molly said, “there’s others that know who you are. Where you live. Where you hang out. Everything.”

  “I don’t get it,” muttered Danny Pogue.

  “Burglars get shot sometimes,” Molly McNamara said. “Nobody says boo about it, either. Nobody gets arrested or investigated or anything else. In this country, you kill a burglar and the Kiwanis gives you a plaque. That’s the point I was trying to make.”

  Danny Pogue turned to Bud Schwartz, who was staring down at his partner’s swollen foot and wondering if it was too late to make a run for it. Finally he said, “Lady, we’re very sorry about your animals.”

  “They’re not my animals,” said Molly, “any more than you are.”

  3

  At half past ten Joe Winder went down to The Catacombs, the underground network of service roads that ran beneath the Amazing Kingdom of Thrills. It was along these winding cart paths, discreetly out
of view from visitors, that the food, merchandise, money and garbage were moved throughout the sprawling amusement park. It was also along these secret subterranean passageways that the kiddie characters traveled, popping up suddenly at strategic locations throughout the Amazing Kingdom and imploring tourists to snap their picture. No customers (“guests” was the designated term) ever were allowed to venture into The Catacombs, lest they catch a glimpse of something that might tarnish their image of the Amazing Kingdom—a dog rooting through a dumpster, for example. Or one of Uncle Ely’s Elves smoking a joint.

  Which is what Joe Winder saw when he got to the bottom of the stairs.

  “I’m looking for Robbie Raccoon,” he said to the elf, who wasn’t particularly jolly or gnomelike.

  The elf belched blue smoke and asked which Robbie Raccoon he was looking for, since there were three.

  “The one who was on duty this afternoon,” Winder said. “The one who fought with the rat robbers.”

  The big elf pointed with the smoldering end of the joint. “Okay, there’s a locker room on the west side. Just follow the orange signs.” He took another drag. “I’d offer you a hit, but I got this nasty chest virus. Hate to pass it along.”

  “Sure,” said Joe Winder. “No problem.”

  The lockers were at the end of a damp concrete tunnel that smelled of stale laundry and ammonia. Robbie Raccoon was straddling the bench, trying to unzip his head. Winder introduced himself, and explained that he was from the Publicity Department.

  “I’m writing a press release about what happened earlier today,” he said. “A few quick questions is all.”

  “Fire away,” said Robbie Raccoon. The words came out muffled, from a small opening in the neck of the costume.

  Winder said, “I can barely hear you.”

  With a grunt Robbie Raccoon removed his head, which was as large as a beach ball. Joe Winder was startled by what he saw beneath it: long shimmering blond hair, green eyes and mascara. Robbie Raccoon was a woman.

  She said, “If you’re going to make a joke, get it over with.”

  “No, I wasn’t.”

  “Don’t think this is my life ambition or anything.”

  “Of course not,” said Joe Winder.

  The woman said her name was Carrie Lanier. “And I got my SAG card,” she said, still somewhat defensive. “That’s the only reason I took this stupid job. I’m going to be an actress.”

  Mindlessly Winder said, “You’ve got to start somewhere.”

  “Darn right.”

  He waited for Carrie Lanier to remove the rest of the raccoon outfit, but she didn’t. He took out his notebook and asked her to describe what had happened at the Rare Animal Pavilion.

  Carrie shrugged in an exaggerated way, as if she were still in character. “It was two men, we’re talking white trash. One of them has a sledgehammer, and they’re both walking real fast. I start to follow, don’t ask me why—I just had a hunch. All of a sudden the one with the hammer smashes out the glass in one of the exhibits.”

  “And you tried to stop him?”

  “Yeah, I jumped the guy. Climbed on his back. He turned around and clobbered me pretty solid. Thank God for this.” Carrie knocked on the crown of the raccoon head, which was propped face-up on the bench. Her fist made a sharp hollow sound. “Chicken wire, plaster and Kevlar,” she explained. “They say it’s bulletproof.”

  Joe Winder wrote this down, even though Charles Chelsea would never let him use it in the press release. At the Amazing Kingdom, each publicity announcement was carefully purged of all intriguing details. Winder was having a tough time kicking the habit of taking good notes.

  Carrie Lanier said, “He knocked me down pretty hard, but that’s about it. There was a tour group from Taiwan, Korea, someplace like that. They helped me off the ground, but by then the two dirtbags were long gone. I could’ve done without the ambulance ride, but Risk Management said I had to.”

  “Can I say you suffered a slight head injury?” Joe Winder asked, pen poised.

  “No,” said Carrie Lanier. “As soon as the X-rays came out negative, they hauled me back to work. I’m fine.”

  That wouldn’t go over well with Charles Chelsea; the vole story was infinitely more dramatic if a park employee had been wounded in the rescue attempt.

  “Not even a headache?” Winder persisted.

  “Yeah, I’ve got a headache,” Carrie said. “I’ve always got a headache. Take a whiff of this place.” She stood up and yanked on the fluffy striped raccoon tail, which was attached to the rump of the costume by a Velcro patch. The tail made a ripping sound when Carrie took it off. She tossed it in her locker and said, “Why would anyone steal rats?”

  “Voles,” said Joe Winder.

  “The guys who did it, boy, what a pair. Scum of the earth.”

  Again Winder didn’t bother to write this down.

  “It’s crazy,” said Carrie Lanier. She reached beneath her left armpit and found, deep in the fur, another zipper. Carefully she unzipped the costume lengthwise down to her ankle. She did the same on the other side. As she stepped out of the animal outfit, Winder saw that she was wearing only a bra and panties. He tried not to stare.

  Carrie hung the costume on a pair of hooks in the locker. She said, “This damn thing weighs a ton, I wish you’d write that down. It’s about a hundred twenty degrees inside, too. OSHA made them put in air conditioners, but they’re always broken.”

  Winder stepped closer to examine the raccoon costume, not Carrie Lanier in her bra (which was the type that unhooked in the front; pink with lacy cups). Winder held up the animal suit and said, “Where’s the AC?”

  “In the back. Here, look.” Carrie showed him. “The batteries last about two hours max, then forget about it. We tried to call the feds and complain—what a joke. They haven’t been out here since the day Petey Possum died.”

  “Do I want to hear this story?”

  “Heart attack,” Carrie Lanier went on. “This was Sessums. Billy Sessums. The very first Petey Possum. He’d been twenty-two years with Disneyland—Goofy, Pluto, you name it. Billy was a pro. He taught me plenty.”

  “So what happened?”

  “One of those days. Ninety-two in the shade, one twelve inside the possum suit. The AC went out, and so did Billy.” Carrie Lanier paused reflectively. “He was an older fella but still …”

  “I’m sorry,” said Joe Winder. He put his notebook away. He was starting to feel prickly and claustrophobic.

  Carrie said, “You’re gonna put my name in the press release?”

  “I’m afraid not. It’s company policy not to identify the actors who portray the animal characters. Mr. Kingsbury says it would spoil the illusion for the children.”

  Carrie laughed. “Some illusion. I’ve had kids grab my boobs, right through the costume. One time there was a Shriner, tried to goose me in the Magic Mansion.”

  Winder said, “How’d they know you were a woman?”

  “That’s the scary part.” Her eyes flashed mischievously. “What if they didn’t know I was a woman? What if they thought I was a real raccoon? What would Mr. Francis X. Kingsbury say about that?” She took a pair of blue jeans out of the locker and squirmed into them. “Anyhow, I don’t want my name in any stupid press release,” she said. “Not for this place.”

  “Maybe not, but you did a brave thing,” said Winder.

  As Carrie buttoned her blouse, she said, “I don’t want my folks knowing what I do. You blame me?”

  “You make lots of little children happy. What’s wrong with that?”

  She looked at him evenly. “You’re new here, aren’t you?”

  “Yeah,” Joe Winder said.

  “My job’s crummy, but you know what? I think your job is worse.”

  Joe Winder wrote the press release in forty minutes. “Theft of Rare Animals Stuns Amazing Kingdom.” Ten paragraphs on the crime itself, with a nod to the heroics of Robbie Raccoon (“who barely escaped serious injury”). Three
paragraphs of official reaction (“a sad and shocking event”) from Francis X. Kingsbury, chairman and president of the park. Three grafs more of scientific background on the blue-tongued mango vole, with a suitable quote from Dr. Will Koocher. A hundred words about the $10,000 reward, and a hundred more announcing new beefed-up security precautions at the park.

  Winder put the press release on Charles Chelsea’s desk and went home. By the time he called Nina, it was nearly one in the morning. He dialed the number and hoped she would be the one to answer.

  “Hello, sugar,” Nina said.

  “It’s me.”

  “God, I need to talk to a real man,” she said. “I had a fantasy that got me so hot. We were on the bow of a sailboat. Making love in the sun. I was on top. Suddenly a terrible storm came—”

  “Nina, it’s me!”

  “—but instead of hiding in the cabin, we lashed each other to the deck and kept on doing it in the lightning and thunder. Afterwards the warm rain washed the salt off our bodies. …”

  “For Christ’s sake.”

  “Joe?”

  “Yeah, it’s me. Why don’t you ever listen?”

  “Because they don’t pay me to listen,” Nina said. “They pay me to talk.”

  “I wish you’d get a normal job.”

  “Joe, don’t start.”

  Nina was a voice for one of those live dial-a-fantasy telephone services. She worked nights, which put a strain on her personal relationships. Also, every time Joe Winder called, it cost him four bucks. At least the number was easy to remember: 976-COME.

  Nina said, “What do you think about the lightning-and-thunder business? I added it to the script myself.”

  “What was it before—something about whales, right?”

  “Porpoises, Joe. A school of friendly porpoises leaped and frolicked in the water while we made love. Our animal cries only seemed to arouse them.”

  Nina had a wonderful voice, Winder had to admit. “I like the new stuff better,” he agreed. “The storm idea is good—you wrote that yourself?”