Stuffed (26 page)

Chapter 27

P
redictably, I wound up back in the hospital, at a trauma center somewhere in a traditionally very bad neighborhood in Brooklyn. This may not sound like the optimal place to be, but the reverse is actually the case. Because of the rough neighborhood, these guys see the most gunshot and beating victims of almost anywhere in the country. That was reassuring, except for the fact that I was a beating victim myself.

The phalanx of police of every shape and form surrounding my room was not as reassuring. Acronyms abounded: USFW, FBI, NYSDEC, NYCPD, even CIA.

No, I didn’t have a lawyer. I had something better: Angie. She was glued to my side, fending them off, the way you hold off a pack of wolves with fire. Well, the doctor assigned to my case, Dr. Singh, was right in there. Singh was an Indian woman, with a long black braid. I’m used to seeing doctors being composed and often distracted, if not detached. This woman was consumed with trying to figure out what had happened to my internal organs and wouldn’t stand for the acronyms pestering me and getting in her way as she rushed me through a battery of tests. But mostly she kept coming in with other surgeons, poking my black-and-blue side and belly, watching me yelp with pain, and muttering terms like
peritoneal lining
and
rebound tenderness
that didn’t mean anything to me. But they also did a CT scan and what they called a
lavage,
in which giant needles were inserted into my belly so they could wash out my gut looking for telltale blood, bile, and what have you. I took some comfort in her headstrong manner and thoroughness but also knew that meant there might be some cause for alarm. It meant she had reason to worry my injuries might turn fatal.

Words like
peritonitis
were mumbled here and there, as was
colostomy,
but after two days they calmed down and decided exploratory surgery wasn’t necessary. While there was blood in my urine, it seemed my kidney was only bruised. My liver and spleen each took the equivalent of a black eye, and they marveled that my pancreas came through without so much as a broken fingernail. There was a minor tear of the bowel, and they began focusing on that and talking about a colostomy. It would have been temporary, but I didn’t relish the thought of having my droppings collected in a bag on my belt. In any case, the nick to my colon was eventually assessed as inconsequential. In time, I was expected to have a complete recovery without any surgery at all.

Dr. Singh told me that stomping victims, as one of them called it, are often some of the most severely injured.

“Were you not a young man,” she said, “you might not be so lucky.”

Lucky? Sure, all things considered.

Young man?
Hey, beats the hell out of
mister.

Relieved? In spades. But I still felt like hell.

Angie, as I said, was a champ, keeping her considerable fortitude focused on making sure I got the best treatment possible. She managed to not cry in front of me while all this was going on. And to not ask any questions about what happened. Until the second night in the hospital. She told me I’d have to talk to the acronyms the next morning.

“I’m ready,” I whispered.

“I brought you some bubblegum.” She held out a pack. “Thought it might make you feel better.”

I thought about Smiler putting that Fruit Stripe gum on my tongue, about gagging on it in the spook house.

“I think my gum days are over.”

My bed was cranked up a little, and there was a tray with some really bland, really bad food on it in front of me. Untouched.

“Well, how about some ice cream?” Angie held up a tub of banana ice cream, my favorite.

I smiled faintly. “Now you’re talking.”

She drew her chair next to the bed, pried open the ice cream, and spooned some into my mouth.

“Garth, they think you know where it is.” She slipped another spoonful of ice cream into my mouth. “Pete told me they checked everywhere.”

I’d surmised that Pete had filled her in on the essentials. Of course, I had questions of my own.

“Renard is dead?” It still sometimes hurt to talk, so mostly I whispered.

“Under arrest. Only Park and one of his bodyguards were killed. The other two are cooperating, and they think they can get to Park’s chop shop through them.”

“And the Koreans?”

“All that was reported in the papers was that there was a drug bust or some such thing at a Brooklyn carnival that night. That explains away the commotion. They’re keeping a lid on the Koreans. I guess there’s some behind-the-scenes stuff going on, diplomacy. Pete suggested that we ‘seriously consider’ keeping this to ourselves in the interests of national security. I think the idea is that if we keep our traps shut they won’t press any charges against you.”

“Charges?”

“You know that if they wanted to, they could make things difficult.” She shrugged, spooning some more ice cream into my mouth. “They could think of something.”

“Yeah, I’m sure Walker could think of something. Like an execution. He tried to shoot me on that ride.”

“I don’t think you have to worry about Walker,” Angie snorted. “He got hit by the ricochet.”

I rolled my eyes. “How fitting that he should get hit by his own bullet.”

“Not a bullet,” she said, spooning more ice cream into my mouth.

“Hmm?”

“Flip. His body landed on Walker after bouncing off the wall of the ride.”

I began to chuckle. It hurt my sides but made my intellect dance.

“It’s not funny.” She withheld the next spoonful. “His neck is broken. Looks like he’ll be on disability for some time.”

“Sorry, but you’ve got to admit,” I whispered, “it’s kinda absurd, and I have a hard time feeling sorry . . . How about some more ice cream?”

“Garth, what did happen?” She shoveled in another spoonful. “I know, you ran into Renard and Park down in Chinatown, and they kidnapped you, and then they tried to make you a go-between to sell the kving-kie horn stick thing to the Koreans. But how did Flip suddenly show up? And how did you get out of this . . .”

“Alive?” I whispered.

She nodded, looking at the floor.

“I don’t know how to answer that.” I sighed.

She looked at me, eyes wide, but said nothing.

“I could tell you that I got lucky. I can’t say for sure that what happened out there, whether any of it was directly related to the horn. When I wanted to make it to the water and wanted the spotlight to go out—that’s probably just when the commandos charged the sub and shut it down. Did I make the two Koreans who were kicking me disappear?”

I didn’t have a rejoinder for that one.

“But?” she prompted.

“But . . .” I sighed again. “Perhaps the squeaky toy was more powerful than the horn.”

“To think he was afraid of that cute little toy,” she whispered back.

I closed my eyes. “There’s no doubt in my mind that Flip had powers. He made the Korean soldiers sing.”

“Sing?”

I opened my eyes. “Belle Beverly.”

Her jaw dropped. I continued.

“And it wasn’t just throwing his voice. Their mouths moved, and his voice came out.”

“Which song?”

“Does that really matter?” I rolled my eyes. “I don’t even like thinking about it. The point is he definitely had telekinetic powers. And he felt that the kving-kie had power, and that’s why he was there. Maybe even how he was there. And maybe . . .”

She let that sit for a second, looking at me intently. I had to continue.

“Maybe that’s why I chased the limo. Maybe, just maybe, I felt some connection to the kving-kie. I mean, what the hell was I thinking?”

“Rodney says you lit out after that limo like a track star.”

“I saw Renard and Smiler—I mean Park—and, well, I knew he must have it. But that didn’t mean I had to chase them down.” I closed my eyes, my brow furrowed.

I felt Angie’s hand on my forehead, massaging the wrinkles of consternation away. “Anyway, it’s not important. What is important . . . As your partner and protector here, I need to know what happened to the kving-kie. You had it last, didn’t you?”

I opened my eyes and looked deep into hers.

“Yes. I was lying there on the pier, trying to figure a way out, and it was still in my hand. That gnarled, stupid horn was still in my grasp.”

“What did you do with it?”

“I was thinking about the whole mess I was in, about how all this happened, about what people believe . . . believe about the power of a cow horn. And it became suddenly clear to me that the truly destructive power was probably not in the horn but in what people believed about it, regardless of whether it had any power. Like the way people kill, and steal, for diamonds and money, things that in and of themselves are essentially worthless.”

I could see she was getting impatient. But I wasn’t going to rush it. She wanted to know what happened, and this was probably the most important part. At least to me.

“And then I realized—in an instant—that the only thing, for me, that really holds any power over anything, over me, is my love for you.”

She made a gentle gasp, but held her tongue.

“It was then, while holding the kving-kie—which I’d held on to for dear life, for reasons I can’t explain—that I was able to let it go.”

“Go?”

“Pampers.”

“Pampers?”

“I dropped it in the river.”

She put her hand over her mouth. “But they looked there. . . .”

“Believe me, it’s gone.” I shook my head gently. “For good.”

“It could wash up on a beach in Staten Island, or on Coney Island. How do you know it’s gone for good?”

I closed my eyes again. I reflected on what Renard said about salt water destroying the horn. But that wouldn’t have reassured me. What did reassure me was that the vision of flaming gazelles, of Flip, of exploding windows did not come. And thinking of it no longer frightened me.

I smiled weakly.

“I just know.”

Epilogue

K
eep your Gobi and Sahara deserts. Death Valley? Laughable. Take it from me, there is no hotter place on any continent on Planet Earth than Massachusetts. Specifically, Brimfield Antiques and Collectibles Show in July. Well, it certainly seems that way. Dusty and crowded as any Tunisian bazaar, the miles of aisles with hundreds of vendors’ tents are a course through which nomad shoppers tramp. Some, like so many Foreign Legionnaires driven mad by the relentless heat, foolishly gulp down soda pop and wallow in french fries, only to be stricken down by bloating. Others lose their way, Aussies staggering deliriously across the Gibson’s sandy scrub, searching vainly for that tent with the cheapest
Cowboy in Africa
lunch box.

I dress for safari, all khakis and a canvas fedora, and keep bottled water close at hand. But by the time the sun gets over the yardarm and starts blinding the already heat-stricken crowd, even an old hand like me is worn down to the very nub of my wits. Like a hunter on the savanna, relentless scanning of the tents’ merchandise is required, looking for my taxidermy prey. Seven hours of this have my eyes unable to hold still in their sockets. I’ve walked probably six miles through row and row of tents, haggling and marking my map with the location of my latest kill. By day’s end, the Lincoln and I have crawled the congested byways back to collect my trophies. With the car’s radiator about to boil over, I end my sojourn at Rodney’s oasis, his Brimfield tent, for the best beer of the year. Like Chinese food, the Brimfield beer was a ritual of Rodney’s and mine.

This year, Angie joined me. I tried to dissuade her, or at least get her to train for this demanding ordeal, but she wanted to go. Since our fiasco with the kving-kie two months before, she’d been spending more time with me as a matter of habit, even though Van Putin had her busier than ever with the art of jewelry work. And I’d been spending more time with her. Mortal danger has a way of defining what’s important in life.

I’m proud to say she was holding up well and made my hunt much easier. We’d bought walkie-talkies so that she could scout one area while I scouted another. You come to get a feel for the shopping terrain year to year at these fairs. Some areas are hot for taxidermy, others not. I more or less had her troll the historically less productive shoals, where every once in a long while you hook into a whopper.

When Angie targeted something of interest, she’d call in her coordinates by row and aisle. Instead of my safari garb, Angie had opted for all-white cotton shorts and blouse, enormous round sunglasses, and a straw hat with a red bandanna on it. The bandanna was so I could spot her in the crowd.

It was about two weeks since Dr. Singh said my liver and I could resume the regular consumption of alcohol. Except for the occasional (if regrettable) SB binge, I don’t consider myself a big drinker, but apparently it was enough that I lost ten pounds in those six weeks. Either that or I eat more when I drink. Probably a little of both. Anyway, I was in fighting trim for the summer’s antiques fairs.

My trailer was loaded with some new pieces and a few I had brought to trade but hadn’t managed to move. Among the large new pieces was a hammerhead shark (a whopper Angie found), a zebra shoulder mount, a kangaroo pelt, a full-body mountain lion, a standing black bear, and a peacock. Among the stuff I had left to trade: Reggie.

I know, he was supposed to replace Sneezy, and Otto was very upset I was taking the new penguin away to trade. Dudley did a superb job, as always. But John Mason, one of the big taxidermy dealers at Brimfield, was hot for my penguin and had promised me a trove of stuff in trade. Let’s remember that I’m a businessman. One with some considerable hospital bills to pay. Unfortunately, Johnny came down with shingles and sent his cousin in his place. Without telling him anything about the penguin deal. So once again I was chauffeuring a dead penguin.

Angie and I draped a tarpaulin over our horde to protect them from the sun but lifted the penguin from the backseat. He was too delicate for this heat, had been out in it too long as it was. I could hear Dudley admonishing me for abusing his work of art. Reggie needed shade to conserve the natural oil in his feathers.

Rodney was sitting on an old sea chest in the musty canvas shade of his tent, a wet bandanna tied to his wide forehead and a pile of beer cans at his feet. I hadn’t seen him since Chinatown, though we’d spoken briefly on the phone.

“Angie!” he bellowed. “Can’t believe Garth’s been leavin’ this ravishing woman alone in New York all these years. How do you like Brimfield?”

“I’ve always wanted to go on safari with Garth.” She leaned down and gave him a peck on the cheek. “But next time we bring bearers.”

“Pick me a cold one,” I rasped, and stopped mopping sweat from my face just in time to catch an incoming Schlitz.

“Bloody ’ell, Garth. Was wonderin’ whether you’d make it. Thought maybe you’d seen just about enough of me for a while.”

“Don’t kid yourself. I’m here strictly for your beer, you know that.”

Rodney got up and cleared off an old wooden rocker for Angie. “So the liver seems no worse for wear, ’eh?”

“Haven’t sprung any leaks.”

It was about a hundred degrees cooler under the canvas. I sat on a sea chest next to Rodney and placed Reggie on a milk crate next to me.

Angie settled into the rocker. “Where’s my beer?”

Rodney plunged his hand into the cooler and handed her a cold one.

“You two been keepin’ the bad luck at bay, have ya?” Rodney opened another beer for himself, then shook his head. “Sorry, I promised myself I wouldn’t start in with that. Well, damn luck and all. I’m grateful that my friend Garth has pulled through.”

The three of us clunked beer cans in a toast.

“I’ll drink to that,” I sighed. “Everything is back to normal. The cops are off my back. No more carnies with gaffs, no more kving-kie.” I leaned against a Hoosier cabinet and cooled my neck with my beer.

“See you and Angie found some merchandise,” he said, gesturing to my trailer.

“Yep, what you see there plus a water buffalo–hoof lamp and an old, old vulture mount.”

Rodney snorted. “A vulture? People’ll buy a moth-eaten vulture?”

“Yup. Thing is a goner too. I’ll pluck it and sell the feathers to Native Americans for use in folk art. Don’t laugh. This southwestern art thing is big. I can get a pretty penny for the feathers, while some Santa Fe buyer glues them to a soup bone and sells them to spiritually enlightened gringos. Feel free to stock up on old tennis rackets, but I’m putting more chips on birds of prey. Of course, I’ll have to be careful to document what I buy and sell, keep it all on the up-and-up.”

“And that.” He gestured to Reggie. “Is it the new one? Sneezy’s replacement?”

I didn’t get a chance to answer.

“Have you heard the one about the penguin driving his convertible to Las Vegas?”

“Uh . . .”

“Well, there he is, driving across the desert. Sunglasses, one flipper on the steering wheel and the other on the door, when all of a sudden like—BOOM—steam pouring out from under his hood. As luck would have it, he’s just closing on a little town, a filling station on one side and ice cream stand on the other. . . .” This one would make a polar bear blush. He ended it with the penguin saying, “I did not! That’s ice cream!”

Rodney grabbed his belly, put his head back, and howled with laughter. To my surprise, Angie was once again in a fit of laughter over one of Rodney’s racy jokes, so much so that she had to steady herself on his shoulder.

“Well, looks like I missed a good one!” a voice from behind me said. “Hello, Garth. This must be Angie.”

Rodney and Angie’s runaway hilarity skidded to a stop.

I smelled cloves. A familiar chill weeviled up my neck. Jimmy Kim ducked into Rodney’s tent.

“This fellow must be Rodney.” Kim, seemingly fresh from the golf course in a sport shirt and pleated tan slacks, came forward and forced a handshake on the yeasty Brit, whose eyes shifted to mine. “I can see what they say is true. You tell one heck of a good joke.”

“This the happy Korean bloke?” Rodney asked guardedly.

“That’s me,” Jimmy laughed. “I was in the neighborhood and thought I’d stop in, join your chat.” He pulled a forearm across his brow and took a swig from a bottle of mineral water. “Hot one, eh?”

Kim was the only loose end from the kving-kie imbroglio. I never did find out exactly for whom he worked, though in as much as he was with the cavalry that rescued me, I subscribed to Dudley’s dark prediction that Jimmy was from one of our own government’s shadowy inner workings. I hadn’t seen him since that night on the pier. And hoped I’d never see him again.

“Still following Garth?” Angie gave him the evil eye. “We ought to call the police.”

“Angie, please. I’m not following Garth. He’s just a man of habit, which makes him easy to find. As I said, I thought I’d stop in and see how you two are doing.”

“So let’s ’ave it, Jim,” Rodney snorted. “Who are you? What’s your part in all this, then?”

“My part in this was to keep Garth from getting in the way. Anyway. What I came to talk to Garth about is to make sure he takes the proper perspective on that ugly business two months ago. With the white crow, all that. Rodney, Angie: You mind if I talk to Garth in private?”

“They stay.” I shook my head. “Say your piece, Jimmy.”

His smile wavered, but his eyes brightened. “Very well. I suppose you think all that nonsense out on the pier was about the kving-kie, about the North Koreans wanting to buy it.”

We just looked at him. He continued.

“Well, it was and it wasn’t. The idea was to fool the North Koreans into buying a bogus magic horn. No easy feat, let me tell you. In the process, we had to convince U.S. Fish and Wildlife and particularly Agent Renard.”

“And Partridge?” Angie asked.

“A swell guy too.” Jimmy shook his head. “No, he was in on the game. Anyway, the idea was to get this on the market. We knew there was a rotten apple in the barrel, we just didn’t know it was Renard. We wanted him and his North Korean connections. Especially Park. Well, things went off track when Flip and his crew stole the crow standing on the horn. No sooner did we lure them in than Fletcher’s mother took the thing to Gunderson’s and Garth bought the crow. If I’d interceded, the whole ball of yarn would have unraveled. I wanted the carnies to sell it to Renard, keep the whole thing natural and out of my hands. Had Renard or Park sensed my hand in this, they would have scattered.”

“But you were the one who put the ad in the paper,” Angie said. “The
want my white crow back
ad.”

“Well, when I saw Flip’s profile, I knew he was just using the carnies to get the horn for himself. He had no intention of selling it to Renard or the North Koreans.”

“So you were the one who was going to meet them and buy it at Partridge’s mansion? Then what?”

“Well, the plan was to take out Flip and scare Tex Filbert and MacTeague back toward Renard. Flip trying to kill them before I got there didn’t figure into the plan.”

“Take out?” Rodney squinted. “You mean kill, don’t you?”

Jimmy ignored him. “Flip was a pretty cagey customer. By the time I got there, all hell had broken loose, they had Angie . . . Well, I managed to slip in and save Garth.”

Angie gasped. “You dragged Garth from the burning room?”

Kim brandished a smile that was only half bashful. “I couldn’t let my friend Garth die.”

“I guess I should thank you, though I can’t help but feel you had another motive.” I stood up. “Like you needed me to draw Flip back so you could take him out. You knew he’d come back for me to get at the horn.”

He sucked his cheeks. “If you want to take the cynical view, I can’t stop you.”

“Well, I’m cynical too.” Angie stood next to me. “So in essence, you’re saying it was a fake kving-kie that Flip the Penguin Boy was after, that the Koreans handed over suitcases of cash for?”

“Exactly.” Jimmy gave us a big smile. “Just to flush them out. What I came to let Garth—and now you and Rodney—in on is that it was all a hoax, orchestrated to fool the North Koreans. The magic horn was a fake, and Partridge’s trip to Korea to find it was backstory.”

“But why?” Rodney stood and joined our ranks. “And who do you work for?”

“Why? Who? Those are things I’m not at liberty to divulge. But honestly, can’t you guess?”

“CIA, NSA, like that, eh?” Rodney volunteered.

“Nothing so pedestrian.” Kim winked. “Anyway, all you need to know is that this was all part of the continuing brinksmanship between the United States and North Korea. It’s really that simple.”

“But is it?” I put a hand on his shoulder. “I have to wonder, Jimmy, why they would send you to tell us this.”

“We don’t want people going away from this convinced there are magical horns.” He grinned, and I thought I detected the slightest unease in his smile. “The idea could spread. And, well, to appeal to you not to compromise national security.”

Rodney, Angie, and I exchanged glances.

“Couldn’t it be, guys”—I grinned—“that Kim here represents our government’s efforts to procure a
magic
horn? That they thought it might be able to be used as a secret weapon, just like the North Koreans thought they could use it for a secret weapon? I mean, who were all those different police that showed up down at the pier? Not all were U.S. Fish and Wildlife and NYCPD. There were commandos. And you seemed awfully concerned out there on the pier about the whereabouts of the kving-kie. A fake kving-kie. You know what I think?”