Bestiary (62 page)

Read Bestiary Online

Authors: Robert Masello

Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #United States, #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Thrillers

BOOK: Bestiary
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“Yes.”
 
 
He heard that. Then something that he couldn’t make out. Then: “. . . on the tram. I’m going home right now, to Joey. The fires are spreading.”
 
 
“What fires?”
 
 
“. . . from fireworks maybe . . .”
 
 
Fourth of July fireworks had already started a wildfire? It was only late afternoon—he’d thought the danger would have come after nightfall.
 
 
“Not in Summit View . . . ,” she was saying, “but above Sunset, the Palisades . . . Bel-Air.”
 
 
At the mention of Bel-Air, his ears pricked up. There were fires, approaching Bel-Air? The al-Kalli estate? The bestiary?
 
 
“I’ll call you at home,” he said, but already he sensed that the line had gone dead. “Beth—can you hear me?” He could tell that the line was still open, but he had no idea if he was transmitting. “I’m leaving now. I’ll see you at home as soon as I can get there. Beth?”
 
 
But the line was definitely dead.
 
 
He stuck the phone back in his pocket, went back into the converted storage closet, and said, “I’ve got to go—right now.”
 
 
Del looked stunned, and a little bit pissed; Carter knew that Del had been irritated lately by Carter’s elusiveness and seeming lack of commitment to the project at hand. More than once Carter had wished he could simply explain it all to him—not only because he hated to be so evasive with one of his oldest friends, but because he would have welcomed Del’s insights and opinions. Sitting up in Bel-Air, of all places on earth, was, without a doubt, the most astounding discovery in the history of the animal kingdom, a revelation second only to Darwin’s, a glimpse into the earliest origins of reptilian, mammalian, and avian life, and no one would have understood all that more deeply than Del.
 
 
“What do you mean, you’ve got to go? We’ve got the whole place to ourselves today—you know how much work we could get done in the next few hours?”
 
 
“I do, and I’m sorry.”
 
 
Del shook his head and sighed, then dropped the scalpel on the worktable. “Someday, Bones, you’re going to have to tell me what’s really going on.”
 
 
“I will,” Carter said, “I swear.”
 
 
Carter was already turning to leave when Del said, “So where are we going now?”
 
 
And it was only then that Carter remembered he didn’t have his car there; Del had picked him up, and they had planned to go for a hike after working for a few hours at the museum. Del had said there was something he wanted to show him.
 
 
Del laughed at the look on Carter’s face. “You forgot, didn’t you?” he said, jangling his car keys in the air. “I’m driving.”
 
 
Carter was speechless, wondering what to do next.
 
 
Del laughed again, and after quickly covering the remains, grabbed his backpack off the floor, and said, “Now, my friend, you are in my power! You will have to reveal your secret destination.”
 
 
Del headed out the door and marched down the corridor, his white hair flying. “Don’t forget to turn out the lights,” he said over his shoulder.
 
 
Damn, Carter thought—of all the days to carpool. He snapped the lights off and followed Del, who was heading not for the elevator—that would have required enlisting Hector’s help again—but the stairs to the atrium garden.
 
 
The garden where the bones of the La Brea Woman were now lying in an unmarked grave.
 
 
Another secret he had never shared with Del.
 
 
Outside, where Carter finally caught up to him, a hot Santa Ana wind was blowing. The air was parched and brittle. Del hopped up into the cab of his dusty truck, an all-terrain vehicle perched on monster tires, with a gun rack on top and a dinosaur decal on the bumper, and Carter clambered into the passenger seat. Carter was calculating fast—would it be worth it to have Del drive him home first, where he could pick up his own car, or should he just have him drive straight to Bel-Air? He glanced over at Del, who had the motor rumbling and the truck in gear.
 
 
“Where to, boss?”
 
 
“Bel-Air,” Carter said.
 
 
“Yeah, right. Where really?”
 
 
“Really.”
 
 
And Del could tell he meant it. “The mystery gets better and better.”
 
 
Carter rolled down the window as they drove out of the parking lot. Red, white, and blue bunting, wrapped around the streetlight poles on Wilshire Boulevard, flapped and rustled in the breeze. A bright sun beat down from behind a veil of wispy cirrus clouds. Carter was wondering what, if anything, he should reveal to Del when they got to al-Kalli’s estate. There was no reason he had to tell him, or show him, anything of the actual bestiary. Sure, he’d be curious, but Carter could always hold him off for now, and maybe, just maybe, he’d run into Mohammed al-Kalli himself and be able to persuade him that Del was a trusted and very valuable colleague, one whose advice and counsel might be of great help to the animals. That would be the best outcome of all . . . however unlikely it seemed.
 
 
Traffic was light as they drove, but twice they had to stop for fire trucks, their horns blaring, as they raced past. In the distance, Carter could hear other sirens blaring, too. The streets had an uneasy calm about them, a feeling Carter remembered from the Midwest when tornado weather came. He turned on the radio, and the sounds of a bluegrass band wailed from the powerful speakers. Carter quickly changed to an all-news station, and the announcer was saying something about a blaze that had erupted about fifty miles south of Los Angeles, near Claremont. “San Bernardino County has put all of its firefighters on alert for the Fourth of July,” the announcer said, “and, unfortunately, it looks like they won’t be sitting idle.”
 
 
At least those fires were far off. But even here, as Del piloted the truck toward Bel-Air, the air had a faintly acrid odor.
 
 
Carter fished in his pocket for his cell phone to call Beth. By now, she’d be safely home, but he wanted to make sure. He dialed, but he could barely hear a ring; he tried again, and this time he checked the battery. It was nearly dead; maybe that was why he’d had such trouble downstairs in the museum. He’d just assumed it was because of the location.
 
 
“Calling Beth?”
 
 
“My battery’s gone.”
 
 
“Wish I could help you out,” Del said, “but you know I don’t even carry one.”
 
 
Carter did know that. Del always said that when he wasn’t near a phone, he didn’t
want
to be near a phone.
 
 
“You want me to stop and find a pay phone somewhere?”
 
 
“No, that’s okay,” Carter said. “We’re making good time. Just keep going.” The sooner he arrived at the al-Kalli estate and made sure that everything was okay—he was a little worried that the air filters might need adjusting—the sooner he could go home for the night. Some holiday this was turning out to be.
 
 
At the gates to Bel-Air, several expensive cars were backed up, waiting to pull out onto a crowded Sunset Boulevard. Carter had never seen more than the lone Rolls-Royce or Jaguar waiting there at one time.
 
 
“Friends of yours?” Del asked as he drove the truck past a Bentley with an elderly couple in the front seat and two big black poodles hanging their heads out the back.
 
 
“Intimate.”
 
 
“Do I just keep going?” Del asked, and Carter said, “Yep, all the way to the top.”
 
 
Del clucked his tongue. “You do travel in the right circles, Bones.”
 
 
Carter didn’t answer.
 
 
“But you want to tell me
why
we’re going up there?” Del said.
 
 
And Carter felt that he couldn’t simply stonewall him anymore.
 
 
“There’s a man up here named Mohammed al-Kalli. I’ve sort of been working for him.”
 
 
“Moonlighting?” Del said with a puzzled smile. “Doing what?”
 
 
“He’s an amateur . . . naturalist.”
 
 
Del laughed. “A naturalist? Come on, Bones—nobody’s been called that for a hundred years. You’re going to have to do better.” He slowed the truck. “Right or left up here at this fork?”
 
 
Carter pointed to the right, and Del switched to a lower gear for the steeper climb. Carter thought about what more he could say; he knew he was just making things worse, and more mysterious, by being so evasive.
 
 
“He’s a very wealthy man—”
 
 
“That much I could figure,” Del said, glancing around at the increasingly rarified precincts they were driving through.
 
 
“—and he has asked for my advice—my help—with some animals he’s been keeping.” Already Carter thought he had gone too far; al-Kalli would have his head if he knew.
 
 
Del mulled that one over as he drove. “Some animals?” he said contemplatively. “What kind of animals? No disrespect, Bones, but the only animals you know anything about have been extinct for a very long time.”
 
 
Carter had skated right up to the edge of the truth, but until he had to—or until al-Kalli had given him his express permission—he didn’t feel he could say any more. “Bear to the left up here,” Carter said, and Del steered the truck past a tall, perfectly manicured hedge that ran for hundreds of yards. “You’ll keep on going until you see a stone gatehouse,” Carter said, “at the very top.”
 
 
He didn’t reply to Del’s last observation, and he knew perfectly well that Del was still waiting.
 
 
As they came up toward the crest, the gatehouse appeared at the end of the road. Carter could see Lee, the Asian guard, standing outside it, shading his eyes with his hand as he looked off toward the east.
 
 
“Next stop,” Del said, breaking the silence, “Jurassic Park.”
 
 
Carter cut him a glance, but Del didn’t look like he’d actually figured anything out. How could he? He was just making a joke. But if only he knew how close to the truth he’d come.
 
 
Lee turned and held up his palm as the truck approached the gate; of course he wouldn’t recognize the vehicle. When Del stopped and rolled down his window, Carter leaned toward the driver’s side and said, “Hey, Lee.”
 
 
“Oh, Dr. Cox,” Lee said. “Was Mr. al-Kalli expecting you?”
 
 
“No, I’m just here to catch up on some work.” Carter knew that even the security staff was told nothing about the bestiary. It was strictly on a “need-to-know” basis, and as far as Carter could tell, that “need to know” didn’t extend very far: it took in Rashid and Bashir, who tended to the animals, Jakob the bodyguard, and that new guy, Derek Greer, the ex-army captain with the bad attitude. Carter wasn’t sure if al-Kalli’s son, Mehdi, even knew, though it would have been one hell of a secret to keep from an inquisitive teenage boy.
 
 
“You can smell the smoke, even up here,” Lee said, pressing the lever to open the gates. “The peacocks, they’re going crazy.”
 
 
Del gave him a look, as if to say,
Peacocks?
and Carter just gestured for him to move on.
 
 
“Make damn sure you don’t drive over any,” Carter said. “Al-Kalli is very attached to his birds.”
 
 
“Curiouser and curiouser” was all Del said as he maneuvered up the long, winding drive, past the splashing fountain and into the forecourt of the great gray house. Two cars were there already: al-Kalli’s long black Mercedes, and a cobalt blue Scion, with a surfboard lashed to its top. The huge oaken door swung open, and although Carter might have expected to see al-Kalli, it was instead Mehdi, with a couple of his young friends. They were carrying towels and coolers and wearing flip-flops, and as they piled into the Scion, Carter asked, “Where’s your father, Mehdi?”

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