Where Serpents Lie (Revised March 2013) (14 page)

“Are you a commercial breeder?”

“Strictly a hobbyist. By trade I’m a photographer and filmmaker.”

Stefanic took a step forward, set his citation book over the corner of the box, then lifted out the jar of young timber rattlers. The snakes retracted and looked out at the ranger. One buzzed and coiled to strike.

“These don’t look like our westerns or reds. These look like something else.”

“I believe they’re the common
viridis,
sir, based on the distribution maps I’ve seen.”

“Hmm. Awfully dark. No bands on the tails.”

“The juveniles morph considerably, according to Klauber.”

“You come here often?”

“Not often. But I love the park. Especially in the spring because all the flowers and reptiles are out. Got to watch for those mountain lions, though.”

Tighten up now, Hypok thought: hold your tongue and cut your losses. Stefanic seemed to be considering his mountain lion statement. A girl had been badly mauled here some years ago and every spring there was controversy about whether to open the park, and to whom. You had to be eighteen to be here without parents now, Hypok thought. Something along those lines. He felt a big runner of sweat drip down his back.

“It’s illegal to keep venomous reptiles in the State of California,” said Stefanic.

“I understand that, sir. It’s the reason I’m letting these go. I didn’t feel like I had a choice but to collect the small ones, with the boys killing them for no reason.

Hypok entertained a brief vision of the eighteen-foot king cobra appearing now, raising its head six feet off the grass and charging forward to sink its fangs into Stefanic’s forehead. That would actually solve a lot of problems.

“Let me see what’s in the bags,” ordered Stefanic.

“Well, all right.”

Hypok knelt down and unknotted one of the pillowcases. He used leather to make the ties. The case had a cream background with little rows of iris across it. One of his mother’s, of course. He grasped the corners at the top and lifted the bag, shaking it so the snake wouldn’t come flying out at him. Stefanic moved closer and looked in. He took off his hat because the brim was cutting off the light.

“That’s a big one.”

“Over five feet.”

“Where’d you get it?”

“Out here, a couple of seasons back.”

“You’ve been keeping it for two years.”

“I have a safe setup and take good care of them. No children or other pets around to cause problems.”

“What’s it eat?”

“Rats.”

Hypok wondered again if anyone in law enforcement would have had the breadth of knowledge to translate his pseudonym into the names of certain animals, then into the names of certain reptiles, then assume that he was a herpetologist, then extrapolate that he must keep a
horridus
as a pet, then recognize a
horridus
when they saw one. He didn’t think so when he signed his name to Item #2, and he didn’t think so now. But what if they’d gone that far, and asked around at the pet shops handling reptiles? What if an APB had gone out for anyone suspicious who was dealing with snakes? He couldn’t imagine that anyone could have found the big scale he’d folded so carefully and inserted into Item #2’s shed, although he’d privately wished someone would. But maybe those were some of the subconscious reasons he had for freeing the animals in the first place. Now this Stefanic.

Don’t get scared, he thought. Let those in law enforcement behave stupidly. That’s their job. But it would sure be nice if Stefanic got his face a little too close, wouldn’t it?

“That’s really something. The size of its head. And what, twelve or thirteen rattles? I’ve been working out here for two years and I’ve never seen one this big. Still doesn’t look right, though. It looks like the ones we used to find back in the Carolinas when I was a kid. Timber rattlers.”

“That’s exactly why I kept him,” Hypok ad-libbed. His heart was beating fast and light in his ears and his face was hot Wasn’t it just too fucking much to believe, that a slab like Stefanic would know a timber rattler when he saw one? Hypok suddenly hated himself for his arrogance and recklessness. He hated himself for his attempted coyness with the cops, for his mundane decision to taunt them, to get a little publicity. He had led a life of debilitating shyness and caution—he’d be the first to admit that—and now, now that he was emerging consolidated from three decades of simpering gutlessness, he was going overboard and giving himself away. Wouldn’t anything ever go right? “Because the coloration and pattern were so unique,” he heard himself saying. “Quite a specimen …”

Stefanic shook his head in admiration. “Spooky critter.”

“I think their reputations are undeserved.”

Stefanic set his hat over one of the other corners of the box, and stood. His hair was dented where the headband rested. “What’s your name?”

Hypok knew he had about one second to give a convincing reply. Anything but the truth, his instincts told him: say anything but the truth. Sounding calm and a little disappointed, he gave Stefanic his Web name: the name of the creature he became when he was in his workroom with his fingers on the mouse, yakking it up with some of the Friendlies, or the Midnight Ramblers or just any lonely child worshipper spending time in a private chat room.

Hypok smiled and looked down into the bag again. His cheeks were burning hot now and there was a distinct ringing in his ears.
You’re carrying your Lumsden license now. Why did you give a different name?
He half expected his mother to run out of the trees and lock him in the basement.

He took a deep breath but kept looking down into the bag so as not to look at the ranger. He knelt and set the pillowcase back in the box and made a show of tying the leather thong over the end, but he left it loose, just draped over itself.

“I’m not going to cite you,” Stefanic said.

Hypok still couldn’t muster whatever it would take to look at this … this unthinking block of stupidity standing over him. He remained kneeling, looking into the box. He felt a little stream of relief try to form inside him and he tried to hold on to it the best he could.

What? Wait—the ranger wasn’t going to cite him! He felt the tightness disappear from his chest and he wanted to smile warmly and perhaps clasp the shoulder of this man of the great outdoors, this firm but fair enforcer of natural law and order.

“Well, I really don’t feel as if I’ve done anything wrong.”

“Possession of venomous reptiles in the State of—”

“—You can understand the circumstances of those boys stoning young animals,
can’t
you?”

It came out much sharper than he would have liked. He was just a little out of balance now—his words didn’t match his thoughts and his thoughts didn’t match his feelings.

“I can understand you were keeping five-foot rattlesnakes as pets, too.”

Hypok told himself to just hold on now, just settle down, and everything would be all right. Stefanic would leave, forget his name, forget the encounter. All he was doing was walking in the woods, letting a few snakes go back home. Stefanic was not going to cite him.

“I’ll have to write up an incident report, though. That’s just to have on file. If I find you out here again, in possession of venomous reptiles, then I
will have
to cite you.”

Hypok nodded noncommittally. He felt his heart plummet to the center of earth and come out the other side, somewhere over in fucking China probably. He wondered if the rage showed on his face. In case it did, he looked away to the trees, then down into the box, then at his feet, then finally at Stefanic’s nameplate, so he wouldn’t have to look the ignorant ball of meat in the face.

“So.”

Stefanic took a knee, as if to be familiar, on his victim’s level, or at least comfortable while he wrote. He took the citation book off the box and flipped up the black lid. He pulled a silver pen from the pocket of his shirt and looked across at Hypok.

Stefanic spelled out Hypok’s Web name letter by letter, looking up at Hypok when he was done.

“Correct?”

“Correct.”

Why in the name of Moloch didn’t I just tell him my name was Lumsden?

He’ll check my license when we’re done and see Lumsden.

He’ll take the van plate numbers and see Lumsden.

Right then, at that moment, it was impossible for Hypok to tell who he hated more—himself or the crisply starched dipshit kneeling not three feet across from him.

Hypok stood up and expected the ranger to do likewise, but he didn’t. The moron was full of surprises.

Stefanic looked up at him. “Age and local address?”

Hypok made them up.

“You know your California driver’s license number?”

Hypok made up that, too. He realized that everything was going to be quite all right. He felt good again. Powerful and good. Then, “You know, I hike the parks in Orange County a lot. This is far and away the best one. You guys do a great job.”

“We try,” said Stefanic, still writing, but not looking up. “We do try.”

He was one of those guys, noted Hypok, who took about five minutes to write one letter or number.

“Do you mind if I set the juveniles free?”

“In a minute. Car make and model, year?”

“Oh, it’s a Dodge van. Ninety-six. In fact, I waited until last to set these babies loose, because they’re such cool, good-looking little animals.”

“Trouble, if you step on one.”

“That’s sure true.”

Hypok knelt down again and took up the jar to look at it. “You wonder how many will make it another year. You know, because of how small they are. Have you ever seen one of these eat—I mean, in nature out here?”

Stefanic stopped writing and looked at Hypok. “No. What’s your local phone, Ian?”

Hypok stood with the jar in his hands and held it up to the sky. He looked at the little snakes sliding around inside.

“Six-eight-one …”

Stefanic lowered his face to write, fifteen minutes to write three numbers, then looked back up at Hypok.

“Four-seven-seven-eight.”

Stefanic looked down at his citation page again and Hypok hit him over the head with the jar as hard as he possibly could. It broke into big shards because it was the heavy kind of half-gallon jar made for bulk condiments. Stefanic grunted and his face lowered. The right side of the jar came off in Hypok’s right hand so he held fast to the lid and set a big triangle of glass under the ranger’s throat and drew up fast and hard with it. He bent his knees for torque. There was this sudden intake on Stefanic’s part and a red stream looping in the air. Hypok did it again. The ranger lifted his head to look up and the stream gushed bigger so Stefanic kind of rolled with it, rocking back on his knees and half upright, with both hands at his throat and a bubbling wheeze issuing through his fingers. With his head cocked at an unnatural angle he stared up at Hypok in disbelief. Hypok jumped back and dropped the lid. He reached into the box and felt outside the bag for the big head of the male
horridus
and found it easily because it was nosing its way in the corner of the bag like they usually do, pressing the seams for a way out. He grabbed it firmly through the cotton with one hand and reached in with the other so they almost met and got the head good and firm and dragged the thing out. The other snake he didn’t even think about. The big
horridus
was just as strong and heavy as he knew it would be. The rattles hissed like a tire leaking air, but much, much louder. The mouth was open wide from the pressure of Hypok’s grip and the fangs stood out when Hypok hit the snake’s nose against the box. Three-quarters of an inch of hollow bone, dripping venom. Stefanic had gotten up. He still had both hands up to his neck and there was blood all over him, but he was up and backpedaling with his head still cranked to one side. He tripped and fell and rolled over. Hypok hustled to his side and pressed the open mouth of the
horridus
against the ranger’s calf. The snake bit down like a dog. Stefanic kicked his leg free and seemed to be trying to scream—Hypok was pretty sure—but the sound was a wet hiss that sounded like water against the pebbles of a streambed. Hypok jammed the snake’s mouth against the ranger’s ass. Stefanic rolled over and struggled upright, but Hypok was beside him and the ranger couldn’t see much because his eyes were smeared with blood and he couldn’t straighten his head without his neck gaping apart so Hypok drilled the big, white, open mouth of the viper straight into Stefanic’s face, right below the cheekbone, pressed it so hard the ranger lost his footing and fell over again. Hypok let go of the snake, but the
horridus
was stuck fast, anchored by those fangs, its upper jaw up by Stefanic’s eye and its lower one spread all the way down to the bottom of his chin.

Hypok stood there and looked down.

He’d never seen action like this, not even when he fed his mother to Moloch. If she hadn’t been feeble it would have been better. But this was another thing completely. He couldn’t stand it He felt himself excited down there and didn’t know what to do. It surprised him to feel that way now. That’s what the Items were for, and all the work he went through to collect them. It absolutely shocked him to feel stimulated, and he had the terrifying idea that this might mean he was homosexual. Because of Stefanic.

The ranger was still hissing wetly. But he wasn’t strong enough to get up and his chest was heaving, unbelievably fast. It was amazing that much blood could keep coming out. Hypok took a knee and watched, checking the time. It was the oddest thing, but he felt like he had all the time in the world. Compared to Ranger Rick here, he thought, I do. The snake let go and crawled away.

Now what?

I
struck out with both listing agents. Evans was in his seventies and Johnson was a fifty-year-old family man recently diagnosed—the agent told me confidentially—with AIDS. Two of twelve out of the way. I used a pay phone in a mini-mall to call three more of the agents, and set up appointments for the next day. I posed as a potential buyer because tomorrow was Saturday and even agents, hungry as they are for action in a cool market, don’t want to give up weekends to answer questions.

But I had a bad feeling about The Horridus investigation, so I went back to the Sheriff headquarters and picked up both the Pamela and Courtney files to study at home. I always have a bad feeling about investigations until they’re closed and the creep is in the can. But I felt even worse about this one than the others—something about the “pageantry,” the ritual, the threat of escalation and our slender evidence filled me with dread. I looked at Frances’s station, wondering if that big pink envelope might be on top, but that was a ridiculous idea, and it wasn’t. It’s hard not to be suspicious about things when it’s part of your job.

On my way home I dropped by two more pet stores that sold reptiles and showed my sketch to the clerks. Never seen him. We sell lots of snake food. Sorry. On the way out of the last one I picked up a
Truck and Van Trader
magazine to see if anyone was offering a late-model red Chrysler van for sale. But because we hadn’t released our description of the vehicle, I wondered if this part of the case was a waste of time. If he suspected his van had been seen, why not just garage it for a while? Sell it in Los Angeles or San Diego counties? Or paint it?

By the time I turned off of Laguna Canyon Road and rolled into the narrow driveway on Canyon Edge, I was tired and discouraged. I briefly thought of all the action I was missing at Tonello’s—Fridays are a true free-for-all. The liquor flows and the tongues loosen and you never know what you might hear. Maybe Jordan Ishmael would dance in his underwear. I thought of Donna because I always thought of Donna. I was not quite enough of a fool to believe, even for a moment, that the three of us—Melinda, Donna and I—were not headed for some kind of disaster. Someone would get hurt. Maybe we all would. But enough. I was home for a Friday night with people I loved, and I had my files on Pamela and Courtney to ponder late, when the house was quiet and the ghosts were free to roam and offer their opinions.

We took Penny to her tennis class—our standard Friday evening. It’s a late one that starts at seven at the high school courts, for the advanced nine- to twelve-year-old girls who love the game. Melinda and I sat on a wooden bench at courtside and watched Penny and the others do their drills. There’s something about a youngster who is developing skills that makes me very happy. I watched Penny lean into her two-hand backhands, her head steady and her knees bent, sending the ball high over the net with lots of spin, and deep into her opponents’ court. She’s an intensely focused player, and quick to pounce on mistakes, much like her mother would be if she played the game. The yellow ball arced back and forth over the clean green court. There was the clomping of tennis shoes and the wonderful pop of strings on felt. The dusk was falling and you could see the Pacific not far away, dark and brooding under the orange-black sky. The light of the sun bounced off the windows of the houses behind us, turning them copper. I turned and looked. Someone was barbecuing up on the hillside. The new palm trees in front of the high school swayed lazily in the breeze and you could already see the first stars and the moon in the sky, even though the sun wasn’t down yet. I took Melinda’s hand and held it against my leg. She stiffened at first touch, like she almost always did, then relaxed and moved closer to me. She kissed my cheek and I squeezed her fingers with my own. After the hell that Mel went through with her father, and within herself, her new affection was like the sun coming out after a long and bitter night.

We watched Penny, saying little. Something about this time of evening asks you to be quiet. So we sat there close together with our fingers locked and our palms loosely touching and watched the yellow balls go back and forth. I thought about Matt because I always think about Matt when I feel good. When I feel bad I think about him, too. We were snorkeling off of Shaw’s Cove here in Laguna when he died. It was a freakish situation that took the doctors several days to explain. I agreed to an autopsy, though the thought of Matthew’s perfect little body being torn by the saws was a thought that made me vomit, more than once. I didn’t know anything was wrong until I saw him floating on the water. I got to him and stripped the mask off his lolling face and swam for shore with all my might. On the sand I proned him out and slapped his face, listening for his heartbeat. I couldn’t hear anything inside him because my ears were roaring and this flock of seagulls had chosen the air right above us to hover and caw and cry. I got him to start breathing. The next thing I did was gather his cool little body in my arms and run. I was a lot faster than a call to 911 and a wait for help. Across the beach, up the steps, and down Coast Highway for about a mile to the little walk-in emergency clinic. It didn’t take long, maybe five or six minutes in all, but I held him close the whole way, because to me he was the most precious parcel on earth. I talked to him the whole time. I still remember what I said. I burst into the waiting area and carried Matt past the desk and the nurses, back into one of the examination rooms, where a doctor was talking to a woman. They were both briefly horrified. But the doctor understood almost immediately and he took one look at me and one look at my son, and grabbed Matthew away from me. I told him what happened while he applied the oxygen mask to his face and the nurse attached the cardiac shock pads to his tiny chest. He ordered me to get the extra blanket from the other exam room, which I did, but when I tried to get back in he’d locked me out. A few minutes later, it was over.

Penny’s coach told them to take five, so she came over and set her racquet on the bench. She plunked down between us, breathing hard in the way a nine-year-old breathes hard, and you understand that in about fifty seconds they’ll be fully recovered and ready to go again. “I’m hitting good, Terry.”

“Well. You’re hitting well.”

I don’t know why Penny addresses nearly all her tennis comments to me. She’s been playing a lot longer than I’ve known her. Maybe it’s because we come out here and hit sometimes on the weekends. In fact, she’s been addressing me instead of her mother, or both of us, for the whole year we’ve shared the same roof. I’ve wondered if it’s her way of welcoming me to the unit. I’m flattered by it, I suppose, but I sometimes wonder if Melinda is as unfazed by being “second” as she says she is. Not having any children of my own, it’s hard for me to say what might hurt a parent’s feelings and what might not.

Penny then offered me this very penetrating, unguarded, hopeful look, a look I’ve never seen her cast on anyone else. Her pupils seem to bore right in, but not in aggression, rather approval. There is a twinkle of humor in her gray irises. I think it means she accepts me as a person, and has unique feelings for me, and that they are good feelings. I’ve come to think of it as Our Look, because I return it as best I can, though I have no idea what
I
look like, gazing back.

“How’s the backhand, Pen?” asked Melinda.

“The usual,” she answered absently.

“Well, what’s the usual?” asked Melinda.

“You know,
Mom.
”

Melinda smiled and pulled Penny’s cap down over her eyes.

“
Mom, cut it out.
”

“Boo-hoo,” said Melinda.

“Boo-hoo,” I said.

Penny bounced off the bench and took up her racquet. She studied us. She tapped her mother on the top of the head with the strings, then me. “You’re just sticking up for her, Terry.”

“I think she’s worth sticking up for,” I said.

“And it’s nice to be stuck up for, sometimes.”

“My boyfriend’s going to stick up only for me,” said Penny.

“No use hogging all the good feelings,” said Melinda. “There’s enough of those to go around.”

Penny let out that impatient exhale that kids save for the ignorant, then skipped onto the court.

“She sure has gotten to be a smart-ass the last year,” Mel said.

“Kinda has.”

“She’s competitive and jealous.”

“Maybe she’s going out of her way to make me feel welcome.”

Melinda shook her head. “I don’t think so. It’s not that I don’t think she’s generous enough for that. Or duplicitous enough to fake it to get what she wants. She genuinely adores you.”

I thought about that. Melinda ascribes levels of sophistication—as in sophistry—to Penny that I don’t see. I see a lack of guile. It’s another example of the difference in the way we see children in general, I suppose.

“Do you really think she’d BS me?”

“Oh, yes. I think it’s instinct for some people. Intuitive self-preservation. Smearing a little honey on things. She knows you like her, and that’s your weak spot. She’s not exploiting it yet, I don’t think.”

“You make her sound like a Borgia.”

“I think she has depths you don’t see. Well,
do
you feel welcome with us?”

I thought about that for a moment. The last year had been full of good things for me and full of disappointments, too. “Yes, most of the time. I don’t forget that you two are the family and I’m kind of the third wheel, but … third wheels are good sometimes. Like on ATVs and trikes and—”

“—No, really, do you feel welcome, or don’t you?”

“I have. You’ve never made me feel like an outsider. And Penny hasn’t, either. I think she likes me.”

Melinda turned her face to me and studied me hard. She had that interrogator’s expression, the placid one that bores in, gathers all and gives up nothing in return. “In fact, she’s playing us off against each other a lot more now than she used to. She’s using you to leverage her discontents with me.”

“I see that. But I wonder where to draw the line.”

“You shouldn’t cater to her, Terry.”

“Do you really think I do?”

“Of course you do. You’re a sucker for affection, just like we all are. I don’t blame you. I just don’t think it’s probably good for Penelope, in the long run, if you overdo that kind of thing.”

I felt gut punched. I hated even the
idea
of getting between her and her daughter. I wanted harmony, not conflict. Clear lines, no clutter. Who doesn’t? Few things in life are more surprising than assuming your partner agrees with you, only to find out she or he vehemently does not. You wonder where you’re getting your ideas of who they are.

“I really didn’t think I was. But I won’t. I’ll be real careful about that.”

“Do what you mink’s right, Terry. It’s just a phase. It will be over soon.”

Melinda turned away and watched the court. “But what I’m saying is, it’s a cheap-shit stunt to endear yourself to her if you’re not going to stick around.”

Wham.

She looked back at me with a cruel little smile. I’d seen a lot of that smile back around the time her father died and we were both in our separate worlds of torment Not so much, lately.

“I’ll always do what’s best for
her,
Terry. Always.”

“You should. And so far as my sticking around goes, I’m here. And I’m happy to be here. I adore both of you. You’re two of my favorite people in the whole world.”

She nodded, still looking back at me. The smile was gone. “So you don’t think that I’m just a dried-up old bag who won’t give you a family of your own?”

“Not going to answer, Mel. You know what the answer to that is.”

And well she did, because this line of inquiry had come up before. So far as being dried up, Melinda has always been squeamish and uncertain about her own sexuality. Not prudish so much as afraid, slightly ashamed. With me, anyway. I have no idea what she was like with Jordan Ishmael. “Dried up” was a phrase she introduced herself, though she has been quite a bit less than dried up on several occasions with me. She’s often called herself my “old girl.” It’s been a term of self-endearment, as well as a way of getting me to acknowledge that her two years of seniority don’t bother me in the least. They don’t and never have.

So far as not giving me a family, that’s a decision she made clear to me from the very moment we even considered moving closer to each other. Long before we decided to share a home. Marriage, maybe, she said: no children. She had been there and done that. I agreed wholeheartedly. I had had Matthew, and he was a perfect human and a perfect memory, and he was enough. I had no desire to bring another child into the world. None of them would ever be him. I believed that I had been blessed once and blessed almost completely. And I believed that only a fool would ask more of life than that.

Melinda has told me a hundred times—the first few in all seriousness, the others as a kind of tossed-off joke—that I’d be better off with a young bimbo who would have my babies and still look good in a two-piece five years from now. But the fact that Melinda is the absolute opposite of a bimbo is exactly what made me love her to begin with. I took to her unadorned qualities like a trout released into a cold mountain brook.