Bestiary

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Arter got lost three times on the way to al-Kalli’s estate. He was in too much of a hurry, he knew that, and he’d barely slept all night. And the road to the top of Bel-Air was a winding one.

At the gatehouse, he’d had to explain himself twice to the guard, who’d then called the main house, and after a minute or two, waved him through. Even then, he’d had to wait while one imperious peacock had strutted slowly across the driveway.

Jakob had opened the front door, smirking, and ushered him through the vast entry hall and then out again to the back. They’d walked across the flagstoned terrace, then to the side of the swimming pool. Al-Kalli was doing laps, methodically. Carter was shown to a seat at a glass-topped table, Jakob departed, and a servant appeared out of nowhere to offer him coffee. Carter accepted, gratefully.

The morning sun slanted across the green expanse of the lawn, the shimmering blue of the pool, the purple blossoms of the jacaranda trees nearby. Birds twittered in the branches overhead, a light breeze stirred the leaves — it was idyllic, it was paradise, and Carter thought maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to be rich.

Then he thought how strange it was that such a perfect setting should conceal such an astonishing thing as the bestiary.

Al-Kalli did one more lap, then drew himself up out of the pool in a swift, fluid motion. To Carter’s surprise, he was naked, and his body, the color of beaten copper, was as hairless as his head. He was also trim and muscular. He scrubbed himself vigorously from head to foot with a striped towel that was folded on the end of the diving board, then pulled on a white robe and came toward Carter as he fastened the belt.

“Even I didn’t expect you quite this soon,” he said, sitting down at the table. He raised his chin and the servant reappeared, this time with a large silver tray. On it were two crystal bowls of sliced fruit, a basket of muffins and breads, a frosted pitcher of what looked to Carter like guava juice. While everything was placed in front of them, al-Kalli asked, “What else would you like? Eggs, sausages?”

“No, this is plenty,” Carter said.

“When I was at school in England, I never could understand their passion for bangers and kippers and such stuff, especially first thing in the morning.” He poured some cream into his coffee, sipped it. A drop of water hung from his sapphire ring, then dropped onto the table. “English taste, in many things, eludes me.”

Carter had no strong opinion on the subject.

“But at least I don’t have to ask what brings you here,” al-Kalli resumed with a sly smile. “Did you sleep at all last night?”

“Not really.”

“I’m happy to hear it. It means you were as impressed as I’d hoped you’d be.”

“Impressed is not the word.”

“Perhaps not. But there really aren’t any good words, are there, to adequately describe the bestiary?”

“No, there aren’t,” Carter agreed. But he’d come here with some important things to say, and he didn’t want to hold off any longer. “I’ve been giving a lot of thought to what you said.”

“And?”

“And I can’t go along with everything you want. I can’t agree to keep this discovery secret. What you have here is one of the greatest and most miraculous… zoos”—he still hadn’t figured out what to call it and “bestiary” seemed strange—“in the history of the world. Do you even know what these animals are?”

“We know what my family has called them, for time immemorial.”

“I’ve spent the whole night researching them, and though I’ll need more time to study and confirm my initial take, I think I can tell you some things already. Would you like to hear?”

“Nothing would please me more.”

“Your basilisk?” Carter said, raring to go. “It’s probably what paleontologists would call a saichania. It means ‘beautiful one’ in Mongolian. It’s from the family of ankylosaurs, armor-plated, plant-eating dinosaurs that lived in the Late Cretaceous.”

Al-Kalli looked intrigued, and while spooning a piece of fruit from his bowl, said, “Interesting — go on.”

“Your griffin? Your griffin is — and again, I’m going to need a lot more time to make sure I’m right — your griffin is what we’d call a homotherium. A kind of cat, a close cousin of the saber-toothed cat, extinct since the end of the last ice age, about fourteen thousand years ago.”

“Or so you thought.”

“Or so we thought.” Carter had to laugh, too, though it came out sounding a little crazier than he’d expected. He had to key down; he had to get some sleep.

“And the phoenix?”

“Best guess? Argentavis magnificens. A full skeleton has never been found. It had a wingspan twice as wide as any living bird. It’s in the vulture family, and it dates from the Late Miocene.”

“It’s a great deal more beautiful than any vulture I have ever seen,” al-Kalli replied. He sounded slightly offended at the very suggestion.

“It is,” Carter said. “It is. But how could we have known that? No one has ever seen one before.” He was also talking too fast. He had to slow down; he had to calm himself.

“Have a muffin,” al-Kalli said, tilting the basket toward him. “The cook makes them fresh every morning.”

Carter took one, broke it in half, and began eating mechanically, without paying any attention. He hadn’t even mentioned the most amazing discovery of them all. “And then there’s the manticore, as you call it,” he said.

“Ah yes, the pride of the bestiary.”

Carter washed the muffin down, barely having tasted it, with half a glass of juice. “It’s a therapsid, a kind of reptile that was a direct ancestor of the mammals.”

“Are you saying it’s a dinosaur?”

“No, no, this animal was something else, something earlier. We don’t know much about it — its bones are extremely difficult to find, and the best place to look for them has been the Karoo Desert in South Africa, which is one of the least hospitable places on earth.”

Al-Kalli poured some more coffee into Carter’s cup, before refilling his own. “Then think how much easier it will be to study the manticore—”

“The gorgon,” Carter corrected him. “Gorgonopsian.”

Al-Kalli nodded, conceding the point for now. “Think how much easier it will be to study this gorgon in the flesh, and in the comforts of Bel-Air. Isn’t that precisely the sort of opportunity a man like you would prize?”

And it was. Carter could never have imagined such a thing—no one could have. The whole scenario, from start to finish, was quite literally impossible. How could creatures like this have survived? Anywhere? How could they have been brought together, and preserved, by one family, however wealthy, however powerful, inhabiting a palace in a desert waste? How could they have been brought, of all places, to Los Angeles, California? To the movie-star precincts of upper Bel-Air? None of it made any sense. Beth had told him some of the stories about the rich and mysterious al-Kalli clan — the sinister rumors of their barbarity, their occult powers, their lineage so old it was lost in the mists of time — but he had chalked it all up to superstition and hearsay.

Mohammed al-Kalli, he’d told her, was just a man — a man with a lot of money, there was no disputing that — but just a man. He wasn’t a wizard, he wasn’t Prospero, he wasn’t Merlin.

Or — and this was a thought he’d been entertaining for hours — was he?

“I can give you everything your work here could possibly require,” al-Kalli said. “Just name it and it’s yours.”

“Right now, I can’t even answer that question. What I need, I guess, most of all, is simply a chance to go back to the bestiary and see the animals for myself. Again.”

“You doubt what you saw last night?” al-Kalli said sympathetically. “That’s quite understandable. But I’m not running a tourist attraction here. You appreciate, I hope, that no one outside of my family, and a few loyal retainers, has ever even seen the bestiary.” True, al-Kalli thought, he had allowed that lowlife Captain Greer to see the place, but then, Greer was expendable — and soon. “If I’m going to permit this, I will need to know that you are prepared to accept my offer.” He sat back in his chair, the sapphire ring catching the sunlight and glistening like ice. “I need to know that you’re going to help me save the animals.”

How could Carter refuse such a challenge? But how, he wondered, could he accept it? “I’m a paleontologist,” he said, “not a veterinarian.”

“I have a veterinarian — Rashid — you saw him. He has had the finest training available. But he no longer knows what to do. The animals are ailing; they are dying. And he does not know how to stop it.”

“Then you need to find someone else, someone better, more knowledgeable.”

“I can hardly bring these animals to the attention of your average vet. Even if I could, what would he know about them? Nothing. He wouldn’t even know what he was looking at.”

“I’m not sure I do, either.”

“I have great faith in you,” al-Kalli said, “perhaps more than you do. These are the last of the menagerie. When I left Iraq, I had to leave nearly everything I owned behind; God knows what Saddam and his troops did to the rest. Even the book, the book your wife is restoring for me now, I did not have time to recover; I had to make special arrangements, later, to have it brought out of the country.” He put his coffee cup back in its delicate Limoges saucer, then leaned forward in his chair. “You, better than anyone else alive, know what these creatures are; you know how they lived, how they bred. Help me save them,” he said, “and then, when that has been done, when the immediate danger is past, we can reveal our secret to the world.”

Carter had listened carefully to every word, but still wasn’t sure he believed it. Was al-Kalli playing him? Did he mean it when he said that he’d eventually share the bestiary with the world? Or was that just another ploy to ensure Carter’s cooperation?

“I’m simply not ready yet to part with my creatures,” al-Kalli said reassuringly. “Once the word is out, it will be difficult — probably impossible — to maintain any control over them. But give me some time, give me your help, and I will be.”

His black eyes were bright with sincerity; his expression was sober but hopeful. Carter wanted to believe him — or maybe, somewhere deep down, he too wanted to hold on to the secret, just for a little while longer. Something of this magnitude, once it came to light, would indeed spiral out of control quickly. The animals would be spirited off to some state-of-the-art facility, God knew where, and scientists from all over the world would flock to study them. Would Carter continue to have access to them? Or would his role be summarily forgotten? The science he knew he could cut, but when it came to politics and bureaucracy and all the cut-throat stuff that professional advancement seemed increasingly to demand, he was hopelessly at sea.

“You will, while the animals are here, give me unfettered access to them?” Carter asked.

“Of course,” al-Kalli said, leaning back and spreading his hands. He knew he had just won. “As far as I’m concerned, you can move into my house.”

“And whatever I recommend, even if it does mean ultimately moving them or calling in some other expert, you will do?”

“Yes,” al-Kalli replied, with well-feigned enthusiasm.

Carter didn’t know how, under these circumstances, he could possibly refuse. Nor, frankly, did he want to. “Then let’s get to work,” he said, rising from his chair.

Al-Kalli smiled up at him. “Splendid,” he said, clapping his hands for Jakob. “I’m so pleased.” He knew that he’d won this battle the moment Carter had appeared that morning, but it was good to have it formally concluded. People, al-Kalli thought, could always be made to do what you wanted them to — and then, just as easily, they could be gotten rid of.