The Wild (13 page)

The telephone rang again. "Is this the home of the wolf lady?"

"No." She hung up. "Another reporter."

It rang yet again. "My name is Rebecca Fontinworth. I represent the Animal Rights League, and I'd like to ask you if you realize just how evil—"

Cindy hung up again. "Stanford, please hurry up!"

His was the next call, and it broke her heart. "As long as the wolf hasn't hurt anybody, I don't see a problem."

"And if it has hurt somebody?"

"Big problem. They'll want to test it for rabies. They'll keep it in quarantine, probably donate it to a zoo. And you'll get a fine, not to mention the inevitable lawsuit. Cynthia?" She could not speak. "Hello? Tell me this isn't the situation. Cynthia?"

"He bit a man."

"Badly?"

"In the foot. Plus the papers are calling."

A sigh. "All right, then we have a problem. I am going to do what I can. You cannot expect me to get the wolf returned to you. The best we can hope for is a nice berth in the zoo. I will try to prevent the animal's being destroyed."

It was hideous. She threw the phone as if the instrument had gotten hot. The man was talking about Bob, about Bob's
life
! She could hardly breathe, couldn't do more than make an awful sound—"eh, eh, eh"—as her blood thundered and her breath came in raw stutters.

Monica took up the phone. "I'm their psychiatrist."

"You live with them?"

"When I must. And right now I must. I'm camped out in the living room."

"The one I'm most worried about is Bob. Don't let him get involved in this. God knows what will happen."

"Maybe God knows and maybe God doesn't. Try to get the wolf out. As their psychiatric adviser, I'm telling you that this is the best course."

"I can't possibly get it out."

"Try. Do anything. It is important to their sanity, to their very survival." She put down the phone.

"Thank you, Monica. But it's hopeless. I know it's hopeless. He's going to die this insane, stupid, impossible death. Oh, how stupid, how stupid!"

"Mama, we're going to get him out. If we have to spring him, we're going to do it. We can't let Dad just die!"

She thought of last Saturday at the zoo. Was that when it had all started, when that strange wolf had been staring at Bob? He had wanted to leave there, as if he already sensed that something was wrong. And what of the wolf, what had it known? Maybe that wolf—maybe it was somebody, too, and it knew the signs, had seen them in Bob. "The world isn't what we thought," she blurted. "It's completely different!"

"Well, I have to agree now." But Monica looked personally insulted. "Science is a limited view of things."

"Every view is limited. The occult is limited."

Kevin spoke up. "The occult isn't a limited view. It doesn't reject phenomena like science. The trouble with the occult is that it misinterprets everything. Demons, ghosts—"

Monica slammed her hand against the table. "How do we know! At least one thing is true for the three of us. We have had the veils lifted from our eyes, and that is not bad. We
know
for certain that things are not as they seem. We
know
that this world is full of dangerous and mysterious powers. That gives us an advantage. And I'll tell you another advantage we have. We know that Bob is inside that creature. He understands English and he has the mind of a human being. If we can get to him, we might be able to spring him."

"We're no SWAT team. How do we get into the place? What do we do?"

"We're both pretty."

Cindy was thunderstruck. "We use—"

"Sex, of course. We seduce."

"You saw those goons?"

"They'll seduce, believe me."

Kevin, who was as prudish as his father, had gone still. He was clutching his spoon, his knuckles streaked red. Cindy reached toward him. For all his brilliance, her son was the most vulnerable human being she had ever known—next to Bob. At least Kevin had inherited his mother's temper, and could use it. Bob had no temper, little anger, no guile.

Sometimes, though, he could see beyond the mountains.

Chapter Ten

T
HE DOG SLOP BECAME INTERESTING TO BOB AT ABOUT
noon. He could well imagine what must be in it—possibly even the remains of animals that had been gassed. His impression of the Animal Control Foundation was not a bad one. Obviously there were employee abuses here, but the basic situation wasn't intolerable. Too bad young Kevin had never wanted a dog. Had there been dog food in the house, Bob might have been able to identify this by brand—if, indeed, it was a brand and not something made here. Nutrition concerned him. He would have known the cereal, ash and waste content, and the food value.

He sniffed it, and was surprised to discover that his nose could tell him a great deal about what was before him. There was a thick, oozing odor that seemed to congeal in his muzzle: perhaps that was fat. Another odor, slightly gray, almost like wet cement—that was ash. There was some cereal, not much. Then a faint but piercing scent that made his stomach tighten with need. This was the meat, the real food. Then there was bone, and the dense smell of organs. What had they done, dropped dead animals into a hopper and ground them up, then thickened the whole mess with ashes? Was that all there was to making cheap dog food?

He returned to the question of the source of the meat. Certainly it wasn't steak. Dog was probably a good guess. Or maybe bulls, roosters. What if unscrupulous zoos sold their cadavers to dog-food manufacturers? This could be anything. Gorilla. Python.

The smell of the meat went deep into his brain, into lusty new centers. This new, inner self must be the instinct of the wolf he had become. He turned to it, and found confidence mixed with churning fury, a questing, probing mind that was designed to compare and make sense of millions of odors. If he quieted his chattering human thoughts, he was at once connected to this spirit. His nose made sense for him then, and the few odors he could verbally identify expanded by a thousandfold into a nonverbal catalog of great richness.

That wasn't good enough, though. He was a man, and verbal. To use the powers of this new body, he had to break the boundary that existed between its instincts and his familiar mind. He could not abandon his human self to the wolf. And yet there were things in the smells—living, twisting things—that were not connected to human words at all. Call them memories, call them longings, they shot through his body like the very words of creation.

His wolf sense knew there was food value in the slop. But the man Robert Duke was not about to taste it.

At one o'clock his gut knotted. In the distance he heard Paul Simon singing "Graceland," and they hauled four more dogs down the hall. The slop, drying and lined with flies, said, "I am life."

Two o'clock. The keepers muttered. A man came, smelling of coffee dregs, sauerkraut and hot dogs, and took pictures of him through the bars. When the keepers retreated, the man pulled a monopod out of his camera case and tried to prod Bob. "C'mon, you sucker, get mad." He laughed, a cruel, nervous man with a nose like a knife, a man with eyes glazed by what Bob saw was a habit of sadness. "Heyah! C'mon, sucker, give me a snarl!" He lit a Bic and thrust it at Bob, flame full on.

With a blubbery flap of tongue and lips, Bob blew it out.

"Holy moly."

The man then met his eyes. A terrified, screaming mutt was slammed into a cage. Barking erupted, the flip-flop rhythm of doghood.

The man looked away. "What the fuck are you?" he said in a hoarse voice. He started to raise his camera, then dropped it and grabbed the monopod. "You bastard!" He jabbed it at Bob, who pressed himself against the far bars. He jabbed again, and Bob felt the monopod against his skin. Again, and it seared a rib. The man was sweating, grimacing. "Fight, baby! C'mon, you aren't gonna fucking eat me! Fight, you bastard!"

Then the camera,
click click click.
Bob tried to create an expression of utter peace, deep, soft, calm. With a curse the man ran off. Soon he was back, one of the keepers in tow. "Look, get behind the cage. Get the damn thing's tail and give it a pull. I gotta have it growling. I'll get page one if this sucker looks dangerous enough."

"I ain't doin' that. It ain't right."

"Ten bucks says different."

"Ten bucks, man, I can't buy shit with ten bucks."

"A double saw, then."

"Double, you got yourself a man." The keeper headed around to the back of the cages. Bob stood in the middle of his space, his tail curled way up under his legs. "C'mon, c'mon— Jeez, how you know I'se after your tail?"

"It's weird. You shoulda seen it a minute ago, it blew out my lighter. Sorta slobbered it out. I dunno."

Fingers came in and closed around Bob's tail. He felt stabs of agony right up his spine and he cried out.

Almost at once the pain stopped. "Christ!" The keeper was out from behind the cage. "You hear that? You hear what it sounded like?"

"What of it?"

"I been around dogs for fifteen years. Wolves, I seen a dozen wolves. We get 'em in here once in a while. They jus' big, quiet dogs. They don' make no sound like that." He was staring at Bob. "We oughta gas that thing right now. I don' know what that is."

"I still didn't get my picture."

"You can keep your fuckin' picture! I don't want your money. Thas' a voodoo in there."

"Oh, Christ, do you believe in that stuff?"

"I'm from Brooklyn, turkey. But there ain't no wolf that screams like a man. Ain't no wolf."

The keeper retreated, his footsteps echoing on the damp concrete floor. The newspaperman took a final picture. "Thanks a lot, Voodoo Wolf," he said. With a last jab from his monopod he also left.

Silence brought boredom, the curse of all the creatures here. Boredom intensified hunger. Bob imagined a nice array of sushi:
tekka maki, taro, ikura,
sparked by a pyramid of green Japanese horseradish, freshened by delightful slivers of fresh ginger, the whole deliciousness washed down by a rich Sapporo beer. Then he would have
yokan,
sweet red bean paste, as dessert. Not this flyblown bowl of garbage that so tempted the wolf.

Left alone, he had plenty of time to consider the significance of a newspaper photographer. Maybe there would be a public outcry against his imprisonment. But no, on reflection he suspected it would go the other way. Man fears the wolf, that is in the nature of things. Newspaper people would have one objective: excite that fear in order to sell papers.

Water dripped, a dog whined, four more animals were gassed together, their frantic, muffled barking sending thrills of fear through the little colony. More strangers were brought in, to fill the cages of the dead. Doors clanged, slop was poured, a vet forced something down the throat of a dog with diarrhea. Another dog vomited worms and was gassed at once, and his cage swabbed down by a tired-looking keeper.

Pigeons, sitting on the sills of the high windows, gobbled and cooed. Bob looked up, as millions of men and others have looked up from cages and jails, and longed after the wings, and saw a thread of sky. He could have wept but he had no tears. Then he leaned swiftly down and ate his slop.

His cage was thrown open, and before he could so much as growl, a net came and he was being carried down the hall. The black gas box stood before him, open, its wooden interior scored by a legion of digging dogs. He could see where they had chewed frantically on blocks and joints, and he could see the grille at the back where the gas came through.

He screamed, it was his only hope, apparently all he had left from humanity. Their faces went wide with surprise, but they kept at their work. He wallowed in the net as they stuffed him down into the box. Then the door closed. It was tight. His legs were twisted under him, his muzzle jammed against the wood. The oldest and worst of all terrors burst up within him. Monster though he had become, he wanted to live. A windy night, a bucking deer, blood beneath the moon; starlight in Manhattan, dancing at 3:00 A.M. Slow love, the jumping of cubs in the spring, watching Kevin sleep the sleep of an angel.

A valve creaked, the gas hissed. He smelled its choking must, a powerful, ugly note of ether in it that marched him off to sleep.

An angel stood before him in a seersucker suit, his white wings glancing sunlight. He was laughing, and waving a red lantern. When their eyes met, the library of the universe was opened to Bob, and he received rich, sustaining knowledge: he, too, was known, Robert Duke, and his fate was understood, and he was loved.

Then he was strapped to a table and there was another strap so tight around his jaw that his muzzle whistled when he breathed. His side was partly shaved, he could feel the cool air. And his head was thundering. They had only half killed him, had stunned him.

"Weight's a hundred and sixty-one pounds. That makes him one of the largest wolves ever found. He has a most unusual voice, and he has green eyes, another unusual feature. His coat is richly colored, displaying seven distinct shades, browns, grays, tans, white, and black. The overall effect is to give him an extraordinary glow. His teeth are healthy, and his skeleton is massive. Until we have done detailed X rays or dissected him, we cannot determine the laryngeal features that give him his voice. Our present theory is that he is a highly unusual breed of wolf, perhaps Russian or Chinese in origin, possibly imported to serve a ritual purpose within the voodoo community. When he wakes up fully, we will display him in the rear courtyard, at which time you may take pictures."

Bob watched a stuffy man with the bald head fold his papers and clear his throat. Then the net floated down and he was carried away again. As two of the keepers were putting him in his cage he heard a number whispered in awe: "fifteen grand."

"You kiddin.' In the pool?"

"Sure enough. This a voodoo wolf. They gonna be a doc to bleed 'im. They gonna be a mama-san. He gonna eat them shepherds up. I glad I ain't got my money on 'em."

"It a bad scene, man, you gonna get some demon outta that thing. I dun hear it screamin' in the gas, it's some kinda banshee or somethin.' Gonna let Roy hold my marker for the pool."

"What make you think Roy so brave, if you not? Who gonna run the fight, the mama-san?"

"They gonna ring the whole courtyard with the Fierce Water of Johnny Blood."

"Then it safe."

"I ain't so sure. Them voodoos always get all mix up. You never know what's gonna go down, they start playin' with the demons."

"Where your faith my man, Papajesu gonna protect you."

"Papajesu, shit. I ain't goin'."

Later Bob was brought to the courtyard. For a time the air was brilliant with flashbulbs. In the green, glowing haze they left in his eyes, he saw a single pale face and his whole body ached with longing. He stared straight at her, he devoured her with his eyes, he tried to coordinate his tail enough to wag it. Cindy shone in his glance. She stood familiarly beside the vet who had examined him, seemed to speak to him easily, and even touched his arm from time to time with the tips of her fingers.

That gave Bob hope. If he understood what she was attempting, it was a good idea. She might be. able to accomplish it. When he was returned to his cage, he found there a bowl of chopped steak. He gobbled it; this body did not easily bear hunger. Cindy had somehow been responsible for this food, he was sure of it.

As night slipped in the high windows, he became less sure. Finally there was a stirring among the dogs. His heart raced. He expected to see her with keys.

Instead there came a strange procession. He had always heard that there was voodoo in New York City, but this man was more elaborately dressed than the cardinal on Easter Sunday morning. He wore long white robes embroidered with a collar of dancing skeletons. There was a red cross on his back and a black pentacle on his breast. He wore a top hat and carried a cane. Over the robe was the tattered tailcoat of an ancient morning suit. His fingers were all ringed with skulls and such, and his feet were shod in doeskin shoes. He smelled of oil of cloves and dried blood, molasses, and thick, decayed breath. A drum beat in his shadowy entourage, and many of the dogs barked with fear. Straining on leads, their collars worked with daisies and spray-painted purple carnations, came four powerful young German shepherds. They were snarling and eager. Bob had seen them before, waiting in the front cages where the keepers took prospective owners and claimants. You could get a mutt here free, but one of these animals would cost. They were fine and brushed, and the keepers exercised them daily.

As they passed Bob they set off a poundwide round of nervous barking.

He listened to the rhythm of drums and the bleating of a trumpet, and saw flames flicker up from time to time in the dark outside. There were chants. The old priest pranced past the door, his top hat shining in the torchlight, a cigar clenched between his teeth.

Bob kept watching the corridor, hoping that Cindy would come through it, having somehow struck whatever deal she was making with the vet. But she didn't come, and the ritual that had formed around the betting pool grew louder.

Incense, cigar smoke, the sharp scent of hashish all wafted in, borne on a heavier layer of oils: rose, clove, pepper. The worshipers danced past, their faces alight in the torches, saying words he could not understand in the pidgin of the islands. When they put their hands on him, he let forth the scream that had terrified them before. If it frightened them now, they gave no sign. He was carried out into the courtyard and left there with the four shepherds, who had been worried during the ritual to a pitch of rage.

He could smell their anger and their hurt. These dogs had loved man. Human enmity made them feel bad about themselves.

Their thick, angry odor gave over to the hot pitch of breath when they barked at him. To be with him in unbarred surroundings terrified them. He was more afraid, though, and he clawed desperately at the door, trying to somehow get away. At all of the high windows there were faces peering down, and over the back wall they also peered.

Bob didn't know what to do. He couldn't talk to these dogs, he had no arm to parry with when they attacked. All he could hope to do would be to bite back. But he'd never bitten. He didn't know how to bite.