Die Again: A Rizzoli And Isles Novel Part 9

O'Brien looked at his personal a.s.sistant, who'd just walked into the room. "Rick, can you take care of that? Get 'em names and numbers?"

"Sure thing, Jerry."

"But I can't see any of those weirdos following through on their threats," O'Brien said. "They're just a bunch of hot air."

"I'd take any threat seriously," said Jane.

"Oh, I'll take it dead seriously." He tugged up the edge of his billowing aloha s.h.i.+rt to reveal a Glock in his under-the-waistband holster. "No point having a CCW if I don't keep one on me, right?"

"Did Leon say he was getting any threats?" asked Frost.

"Nothing that worried him."

"Any enemies? Any colleagues or family members who might profit from his death?"

O'Brien paused, lips pursed like a bullfrog. He'd picked up his whiskey gla.s.s again and sat staring at it for a moment. "Only family member he ever talked about was his son."

"The one who pa.s.sed away."

"Yeah. Talked about him a lot on our last trip to Kenya. You sit around a campfire with a bottle of whiskey, you get to talking about a lot of things. Bag your game, dine on bush meat, talk under the stars. For men, that's what it's all about." He glanced at his personal a.s.sistant. "Right, Rick?"

"You said it, Jerry," Dolan answered, smoothly refilling his boss's whiskey.

"No women go on these trips?" Jane asked.

O'Brien gave her a look usually reserved for the insane. "Why would I want to ruin a perfectly good time? Women only screw things up." He nodded. "Present company excepted. I've had four wives, and they're still bleeding me dry. Leon had his own lousy marriage. Wife left with their only son, turned the boy against him. Broke Leon's heart. Even after the b.i.t.c.h died, that son went out of his way to p.i.s.s off Leon. Makes me glad I never had kids." He sipped his whiskey and shook his head. "d.a.m.n, I'm gonna miss him. How can I help you catch the b.a.s.t.a.r.d who did it?"

"Just keep answering our questions."

"I'm not, like, a suspect am I?"

"Should you be?"

"No games, okay? Just ask your questions."

"The Suffolk Zoo says you agreed to donate five million dollars in exchange for the snow leopard."

"Absolutely true. I told 'em I'd allow only one taxidermist to do the mounting, and that was Leon."

"And the last time you spoke to Mr. Gott?"

"We heard from him on Sunday, when he called to tell us he'd skinned and gutted the animal, and did we want the carca.s.s?"

"What time was this call?"

"Around noon or so." O'Brien paused. "Come on, you guys must already have the phone records. You know about that call."

Jane and Frost exchanged irritated looks. Despite a subpoena for Gott's phone records, the carrier hadn't delivered. With nearly a thousand daily requests from police departments across the country, it might take days, even weeks, for a phone company to comply.

"So he called you about the carca.s.s," said Frost. "What happened then?"

"I drove over and picked it up," said O'Brien's a.s.sistant. "Got to Leon's place about two P.M., loaded the animal into my truck. Brought it straight back here."

"Why? I mean, you wouldn't want to eat leopard meat, would you?"

O'Brien said, "I'll try any meat at least once. h.e.l.l, I'd chomp down on a juicy human b.u.t.t roast if it's offered to me. But no, I wouldn't eat an animal that's been euthanized with drugs. I wanted it for the skeleton. After Rick brought it back, we dug a hole and buried it. Give it a few months, let Mother Nature and the worms do their work, and I'll have bones to mount."

And that's why they'd found only the leopard's internal organs, thought Jane. Because the carca.s.s was already here on O'Brien's property, decomposing in a grave.

"Did you and Mr. Gott talk when you were there on Sunday?" Jane asked Dolan.

"Hardly. He was on the phone with someone. I waited around for a few minutes, but he just waved me away. So I took the carca.s.s and left."

"Who was he talking to?"

"I don't know. He said something about wanting more photos of Elliot in Africa. 'Everything you've got,' he said."

"Elliot?" Jane looked at O'Brien.

"That was his dead son," said O'Brien. "Like I said, he'd been talking about Elliot a lot lately. It happened six years ago, but I think the guilt was finally getting to him."

"Why would Leon feel guilty?"

"Because he had almost nothing to do with him after the divorce. His ex-wife raised the boy, turned him into a girlie-man, according to Leon. The kid hooked up with some wacko PETA girlfriend, probably just to p.i.s.s off his old man. Leon tried to make contact, but his son wasn't too keen on staying in touch. So when Elliot died, it really hit Leon hard. All he had left of his son was a photo. Had it hanging in his house, one of the last pictures ever taken of Elliot."

"How did Elliot die? You said it happened six years ago."

"Yeah, the kid got it in his fool head to go to Africa. He wanted to see the animals before they got wiped out by hunters like me. Interpol says he met a couple of girls in Cape Town, and the three of them flew off to Botswana for a safari."

"And what happened?"

O'Brien drained his whiskey gla.s.s and looked at her. "They were never seen again."

BOTSWANA.

JOHNNY PRESSES THE TIP OF HIS KNIFE AGAINST THE IMPALA'S ABDOMEN and slices through hide and fat, to the greasy caul that drapes the organs beneath. Only moments ago he brought down the beast with a single gunshot, and as he guts it I watch the impala's eye cloud over, as if Death has breathed a cold mist across it, glazing it with frost. Johnny works with the swift efficiency of a hunter who's done this many times before. With one hand he slits open the belly; with his other he pushes the entrails away from the blade to avoid puncturing organs and contaminating the meat. The work is gruesome yet delicate. Mrs. Matsunaga turns away in disgust, but the rest of us cannot stop watching. This is what we have come to Africa to witness: life and death in the bush. Tonight we'll feast on impala roasted over the fire, and the price of our meal is the death of this animal, now being gutted and butchered. The smell of blood rises from the warm carca.s.s, a scent so powerful that all around us, scavengers are stirring. I think I can hear them now, rustling closer in the gra.s.s.

Above us, the ever-present vultures are circling.

"The gut's full of bacteria, so I remove this to keep the meat from spoiling," Johnny explains as he slices. "It also lightens the load, makes it easier to carry. Nothing will go to waste, nothing goes uneaten. Scavengers will clean up whatever we leave behind. Better to do it out here, so we don't attract them back to camp." He reaches into the thorax to tug on the heart and lungs. With a few strokes of the knife, he severs the windpipe and great vessels and the chest organs slide out like a newborn, slimy with blood.

"Oh G.o.d," groans Vivian.

Johnny looks up. "You eat meat, don't you?"

"After watching this? I don't know if I can."

"I think we all need to watch this," says Richard. "We need to know where our meal comes from."

Johnny nods. "Exactly right. It's our duty, as carnivores, to know what's involved in getting that steak to your plate. The stalking, the killing. The gutting and butchering. Humans are hunters, and this is what we've done since the beginning." He reaches into the pelvis to strip out the bladder and uterus, then grasps handfuls of intestines and tosses them onto the gra.s.s. "Modern men have lost touch with what it means to survive. They go into the supermarket and open their wallet to pay for a steak. That's not the meaning of meat." He stands up, bare arms streaked with blood, and looks down at the gutted impala. "This is."

We stand in a circle around the kill as the last blood drains from the open cavity. Already the discarded organs are drying out in the sun and the vultures grow thicker overhead, anxious to rip into this ripening mound of carrion.

"The meaning of meat," Elliot says. "I never thought of it that way."

"The bush makes you see your real place in the world," says Johnny. "Here, you're reminded of what you really are."

"Animals," Elliot murmurs.

Johnny nods. "Animals."

AND THAT'S WHAT I see when I look around the campfire that night. A circle of feeding animals, teeth ripping into chunks of roasted impala meat. Just one day after being stranded in the wild, we have devolved into savage versions of ourselves, eating with our bare hands as juices drip down our chins, our faces streaked with black from charred fat. At least we do not worry about starving out here in the bush, which teems with meat on the hoof and on the wing. With his rifle and skinning knife, Johnny will keep us well fed.

He sits in the shadows just outside our circle, watching us gorge. I wish I could read his face, but it's closed to me tonight. Does he look at us with contempt, these clueless clients, helpless as baby birds, who need him to put food in our mouths? Does he blame us somehow for Clarence's death? He picks up the empty bottle of whiskey that Sylvia has just tossed aside and deposits it in the burlap sack where we store our rubbish, which he insists we must haul out. Leave no trace, he says; that is how we respect the land. Already the rubbish bag clinks with gla.s.s empties, but there is no danger we'll run out of booze anytime soon. Mrs. Matsunaga is allergic to alcohol, Elliot drinks only sparingly, and Johnny seems determined to stay stone-cold sober until we are rescued.

He returns to the fire and, to my surprise, he sits down beside me.

I look at him, but his eyes stay on the flames as he says quietly: "You're handling the situation well."

"Am I? I didn't think so. Not particularly."

"I appreciated your help today. Skinning the impala, breaking down the carca.s.s. You're a natural in the bush."

That makes me laugh. "I'm the one who didn't want to be here. The one who insists on hot showers and proper toilets. This trip was about me being a good sport."

"To please Richard."

"Who else?"

"I hope he's impressed."

I glance sideways at Richard, who is not looking at me. He's too busy chatting up Vivian, whose formfitting T-s.h.i.+rt leaves no doubt that she's braless. I focus, once again, on the fire. "Being a good sport only gets you so far in life."

"I hear from Richard that you're a bookseller."

"Yes, I manage a bookshop in London. In the real world."

"This isn't the real world?"

I glance around at the shadows surrounding our campfire. "This is a fantasy, Johnny. Something out of a Hemingway novel. I guarantee, it's going to show up in one of Richard's thrillers someday." I laugh. "Don't be surprised if he makes you the villain."

"What part do you play in his novels?"

I study the fire. And say, wistfully: "I used to be the love interest."

"No longer?"

"Nothing stays the same, does it?" No, now I'm the millstone. The inconvenient girlfriend who'll have to be dispatched by the villain, so the hero can pursue some new romantic interest. Oh, I know all about how things work in men's thrillers because I sell those novels to countless pale, flabby men who are all, in their minds, James Bond.

Richard knows just how to tap into their fantasies because he shares them. Even now, as he reaches over with his silver lighter to light Mr. Matsunaga's cigarette, he is playing the suave hero. James Bond would never fuss with a mere match.

Johnny picks up a stick and prods the fire, pus.h.i.+ng a log deeper into the flames. "For Richard, this may be only a fantasy. But this one has real teeth."

"Yes, of course you're right. It's not a fantasy. It's a b.l.o.o.d.y nightmare."

"Then you understand the situation," he murmurs.

"I understand that everything's changed. It's not a holiday any longer." I add, softly: "And I'm frightened."

"You don't have to be, Millie. Watchful, yes, but not frightened. Now, a city like Johannesburg, that's a scary place. But here?" He shakes his head and smiles. "Here, everything's just trying to survive. Understand that, and you will, too."

"Easy for you to say. You grew up in this world."

He nods. "My parents had a farm in Limpopo Province. Every day, when I walked out into the fields, I'd pa.s.s leopards perched in trees, watching me. I got to know them all, and they knew me."

"They never attacked?"

"I like to think we had an agreement, those leopards and I. It was respect between predators. But it didn't mean we ever trusted each other."

"I'd be afraid to step out of my house. There are so many ways to die here. Lions. Leopards. Snakes."

"I have a healthy respect for them all, because I know what they're capable of." He grins at the fire. "When I was fourteen, I was bitten by a pit viper."

I stare at him. "And you're smiling about it?"

"It was entirely my fault. I collected snakes as a kid. Caught them myself, and kept them in various containers in my bedroom. But one day I got c.o.c.ky and my viper bit me."

"Good G.o.d. What happened then?"

"Luckily it was a dry bite, with no venom. But that taught me there's a penalty for carelessness." He gives a regretful shake of the head. "The worst part was, my mother made me give up my snakes."

"I can't believe she let you collect them in the first place. Or that she ever let you step foot outside with leopards around."

"But that's what our ancestors did, Millie. This is where we all come from. Some part of you, some ancient memory deep in your brain, recognizes this continent as home. Most people have lost touch with it, but the instincts are still there." Gently he reaches out and touches my forehead. "That's how you stay alive here, by reaching deep for those ancient memories. I'll help you find them."

Suddenly I feel Richard's eyes on us. Johnny feels it, too, and instantly conjures up a big smile, as if a switch has been flipped. "Wild game roasting on the fire. Nothing to beat it, eh, everybody?" he calls out.

"Way more tender than I ever expected," Elliot says, licking juices from his fingers. "I feel like I'm getting in touch with my inner caveman!"

"How about you and Richard do the butchering when I bring down the next one?"

Elliot looks startled. "Uh ... me?"

"You've seen how it's done." Johnny looks at Richard. "Think you can do it?"

"Of course we can," says Richard, staring straight back at Johnny. I'm sitting between the two of them, and although Richard has ignored me for most of the meal, he now slings an arm around my shoulder, as if to declare owners.h.i.+p. As if he considers Johnny a romantic rival who would steal me away.

The thought makes my face flush hot.