Open Water (24 page)

“I need to ask you a favor,” he said.

“What kind of favor?” She watched his smile crimp at the corners and diminish, until his lips were flat, and she sensed that whatever he was asking, it wasn’t something insignificant. They stood inches apart. His jeans were smeared with something, maybe it was brake fluid. She noticed that the color of his eyes, this close, had the intensity of lilacs. She shouldered past Willis and walked into her kitchen.

She pulled her coat off and turned around.

It was perched on the back of a dinette chair, facing her, the ruffled blue pneuma of a South American god. A huge parrot with gentian feathers. The bird trembled. It paced back and forth on her kitchen chair, its great claws working to keep it balanced on the narrow perch. Its face had gaudy yellow eye rings, circles of naked skin around deep black pupils. There was another naked strip outlining its lower mandible, a bright lemon clown-smile painted on. Its huge beak was grinding; it bit the cushioned back of the chair, tearing a hole in the vinyl cover. The bird eyed Holly and shivered as if its nerves were shattered.

“My god,” she said. “What in the world—”

“It’s a macaw. It’s the biggest breed. A hyacinth.”

“A hyacinth macaw? It’s unbelievable.”

“Can you keep it for me?” Willis said. “Just for a day or two?” Willis knocked his forearm against the bird’s breast
until it climbed onto his cast. “I can’t keep it in Rennie’s house while they’re looking for it.”

“Don’t tell me. It’s stolen?”

“I
rescued
this bird.”

“It’s a hot bird?”

“Look, do you need a Beltone? I said I rescued it.”

“I don’t know anything about parrots. I can’t keep this bird here. He’ll wreck stuff. Look at that chair.”

“I’m finding a cage. Fritz is on it right now. A bird like this needs a big cage, so it might take us a little time.”

“Someone needs a cage,” she told Willis.

“You really feel that way?” He looked at her. “I’m fucking crushed.”

She didn’t answer him. He seemed to know that her feelings were running amok. Holly looked at the bird on Willis’s arm. The bird had stopped shivering. It moved onto Willis’s shoulder, biting the collar of his thermal undershirt, its strong beak puncturing the binding. Willis freed his shirt and shifted the bird back onto the chair. It walked back and forth on the chair, then halted beside Holly. It turned its face sideways and stared at Holly with one eye. The macaw seemed to recognize that it was central in their negotiations. In turn, Holly peered at the bird; the macaw jerked its head up and down in mock regurgitation. It enjoyed claiming the center of attention.

Willis said, “It’s hand-fed and really tame. Its flight feathers are clipped so it can’t really fly. It’s worth about thirteen grand at least. It has a mate, together they’re worth twice that much. Breeder pairs get a price.”

“It has a mate?” Holly was stalled on that information.

“I’m in the driver’s seat. This fellow Showalter has the female down in Connecticut. He’s going to ride over here and ask me about the male.”

“You were supposed to deliver this male bird? Where? To a pet store?”

“I think it eats sunflower seeds.” He was trying to maintain a counterfeit level of expertise to enlist her to his side, but he didn’t have his information.

Holly looked at the two of them. Gorgeous primitives, feathered or not. “You don’t even know what it eats? You take a pet without knowing the first thing—”

“This is not a pet. This is a magnificent animal.”

“No kidding.”

“I’m going to sell it—”

“Not from here,” she said.

“Rennie needs cash.”

“Does Rennie know about this bird?”

“Maybe it’s not for sale. Maybe I’ve fallen for it.”

The bird voided a milky circle on the floor. Holly would have to find newspapers. Holly thought of Elliot Tompkins, the don at Saint George’s who was a trustee of the Norman Bird Sanctuary. He might tell her what to do about a giant macaw. The bird was tearing plastic strips from the chair and flinging them in all directions, then plucking loose the polyester batting from the chair cushion. It wasn’t an attempt at nesting but a studious deconstruction of the very thing it rested on. It didn’t seem to recognize that if it chewed through its perch it might fall straight to the floor.

Holly’s stomach muscles were hurting. Maybe it was the herring she had eaten at Rennie’s, but she knew it was Willis. When he stood near her, within a few inches, she felt her abdominal wall ache; her pelvic sling became suddenly tensed and heated. She recognized every sign of it. Then the bird emitted its first shriek; it was celebratory, pleasurably abrupt, wild. It stood on one foot and
stretched open its huge wing, a glorious fan of serrated cobalt.

Holly sat down at the kitchen table. She watched the parrot pace until it stopped to preen, drawing its hooked beak down an individual feather. She opened the vegetable bin in her refrigerator and found a wizened ear of sweet corn. Willis broke it in half and offered it to the parrot. The bird stood on one foot and held the cob in the other claw. He plucked the kernels, sending most of it around the room. Then Willis brought the bird into the bathroom where it could be confined. Holly lowered the shower-curtain rod so it could have a perch, but the bird was too heavy and the rod collapsed.

Willis was reciting suggestions. He seemed comfortable giving her orders. The shower curtain was wet and difficult to reorganize on its pole. Willis gave her minimal assistance; then, he lifted the rod off her shoulders and jammed it back tight. He went into the kitchen and carried the marred chair into the bathroom. Willis transferred the bird to the back of the chair, where it clutched the messy vinyl backing. Holly closed the bathroom door.

“What if I need to use the toilet?” she said.

“I don’t think it will bite your ass, if that’s what you mean. Just watch your fingers.”

“I’m not going in there.”

“You’ll burst.”

She looked at him hard. She took a dish towel from a door knob and folded it square. “I’m late for work,” she said. “I have to thaw the pizza dough. I’m behind schedule.” She left the house. As she backed her Toyota down the drive, she saw Willis through the window at her kitchen sink. The lights were burning. It was a strange sensation to leave someone in the duplex when usually it was empty.

After finishing her shift at Saint George’s, she drove over to Warwick Mall. She looked through racks of bathing suits at Jordan Marsh. After that, she pushed a cart through the twenty-four-hour Star Market. She waited as long as she could and finally she came back to her house. Willis had departed, but when she looked into the bathroom she saw that the bird was sleeping perched on one foot, its beak tucked behind a velvety blue wing. She took her toothpaste and brushed her teeth in the kitchen. When she wanted to use the toilet, she turned sideways on the seat and sat with her back to the parrot. She feared it might bite her and she watched over her shoulder. The bird opened its eye, its amber pupil dilated and contracted, but it didn’t unfold from its tucked position.

In the morning, Holly leaned into the kitchen counter in her rayon bathrobe and pecked at the push buttons on the telephone, trying the number she wanted. She dialed the number four times; each time, her fingers brushed the wrong zones of the keypad. She forced herself to slow down and at last she rang through to Elliot Tompkins at Norman Bird Sanctuary, where he worked part-time.

Elliot said, “No kidding, a hyacinth macaw? Shit, that’s a rare treasure. That bird is protected by the Washington Convention. I can’t believe you have it. We’d love to see it here as a guest exhibit—”

“That’s not what I mean. Maybe you can just tell me how to take care of it. It’s in my bathroom. It’s eating plastic—”

“They’ll chew anything. You need a big cage or a standing perch. Where did you get it? Is it stolen or something?” He was teasing her.

“It’s been going without food—”

“Look, I’ll keep it at my house. I’ve got an empty flight and we can stick him in there until you find a good cage. I’ll put you in touch with the Bay State Cage Bird Society. A bird club. They’re having an avian yard sale. There might be some cages available. You might find what you need.”

The idea of such an organized event made her stomach clench. Who kept parrots? Fat men with eye patches, Hell’s Angels on Harleys. It was the Long John Silver motif; little old ladies preferred finches and budgies. Willis didn’t fit either profile. “Didn’t you just say you might take it for me?”

“Is this a stolen parrot, Holly? Don’t bullshit me—”

She told him that it was a rescued bird.

“Since when is that Pratt kid with Animal Rescue?”

Holly was surprised that he understood.

Elliot agreed to come and get it off her hands.

When she placed the receiver back, Willis was at the door with a bucket of peanuts and sunflower seeds. He waltzed right through the kitchen and into the bathroom. He took time to notice that she wasn’t even dressed, her delicate robe was a thin rosy flow from her hips to her ankles. When she moved, the fairy cloth seemed to whisper little remarks and she pulled the cord tighter. “What are you staring at?” she said.

“Well. It’s all right there, isn’t it?”

Willis brought the bird into the kitchen. It flapped its huge wings, revealing an open window on each side where its flight feathers had been trimmed. Willis placed the bird on a heavy wooden curtain dowel. He spilled the seed mix across the window sash and the bird started to eat.

Fritz came up the driveway in Rennie’s car. He knocked on the door frame and came into the kitchen. He said, “No luck finding a cage. Everything at Pet Doctor was
teeny-tiny. For itsy-bitsy canaries.” Holly introduced herself again. In turn, Fritz told her his full name, with his saint’s name thrown in. “Giovanni Francis Xavier Federico.”

“That’s your confirmation name?” She smiled. She couldn’t tell what she felt about him. He seemed pleasant enough, but he didn’t smile. He looked her way with a complicated empty expression. This empty expression seemed like simplicity itself, but then she noticed a grim tightness in his jaw as if his teeth were wired.

Fritz had something in his coat. He said to Willis, “Feel this.”

“What are you saying?”

“Here, pinch it.”

“Pinch it?”

“Right here. I’m serious.”

Willis tapped the small bulge in Fritz’s jacket. “What’ve you got?”

Fritz lifted his lapel and tugged something free from his coat. It was alive. A little teacup Chihuahua, not much bigger than a rat, but its eyes were marble-sized. The eyes were the biggest thing on it. Fritz put it on the floor.

“What is that, a flea?” Willis said.

“Man’s best friend.”

Willis toed the dog until it flopped over, barking in short irate squeaks.

“I couldn’t resist,” Fritz said.

Willis said. “How much did it put you back?”

“Two-fifty.”

“When I’m trying to get a lump of cash? You sink our capital into something like that?”

“Want it?” Fritz said. “I mean it. For you. Here, take it. I want you to have it.”

Holly said, “No dogs.”

“What does she mean, ‘no dogs’? Who is she talking to?”

Willis said, “Take it easy.”

Fritz told Holly, “Point. This is a pedigree canine. It isn’t just a dog.”

Willis took the puppy and circled it against his cheek and over his forehead like a chamois. “It’s nice, Fritz. Really nice. But we have a serious financial investment with this bird, and since Holly is helping out, let’s not push it.”

Fritz pressed the puppy into his coat again and waited for Willis to tell him the plan.

Willis said, “This is what we do. We wait and see.” He was grinning, as if he had eaten the pie off a windowsill. The planning stages were his best moments, when reasonable dreams promised reasonable rewards.

“Is he kidding?” Holly said.

Fritz said, “He’s saying, wait and see. Isn’t that what you’re telling us?”

Willis said, “Shit, do you need an ear wax removal system? We sit.”

“Good enough for me.” Fritz crossed his wrists behind his head.

Willis looked between the two of them. “Showalter will dictate our move. He’ll come looking for his truck, number one.”

“You have this fellow’s truck?” Holly said.

“In Rennie’s shack. I plan to sell it back to the company. Then he’ll have to purchase the bird, give me a cash advance on it.”

“A kind of pressure switch,” Fritz said. “That’s plush.”

Holly said, “You’re kidding. Isn’t that like extortion?”

“Listen to her. Miss Kojak,” Fritz said.

“Don’t mind him,” Willis said.

“Well?” Holly said. “Explain the difference.”

“I’m not too worried about Showalter. He’s over a barrel.”

“He’s put his own dick out,” Fritz said.

They were teasing her.

Holly said, “I can’t wait for this to happen. This plan you’re talking about. I want the bird out of here. I have a friend at the Norman Bird Sanctuary who said he will take the parrot. He’s an expert aviculturist—”

Willis said, “That would be good except this bird is my big cash item, I’m not lending it out.”