Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 130, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 793 & 794, September/October 2007

The Theft of the Ostracized Ostrich by Edward D. Hoch

© 2007 by Edward D. Hoch

Art by Mark Evan Walker

Inexhaustible is the word that comes to mind when one thinks of Ed Hoch. It isn’t only that he’s written more than 940 published stories. He also generously serves on awards committees (most recently for the CWC’s Arthur Ellis Awards), provides a necrology for the MWA annual, and often writes introductions to other writers’ books.

It had been more than a year since Sandra Paris, known in some circles as the “White Queen,” had last encountered Nick Velvet. She thought of him often, sometimes as a friend and occasionally as an adversary. Once, during a particularly passionate dream, she’d even imagined him as a lover.

She was thinking of him as her plane landed at the Palm Springs International Airport. This was a job like any other, she decided, and there was no need to call on Nick for assistance. Besides, even a six-month-old pair of ostriches could bring well over three thousand dollars, and a full-grown pair much more. They were hardly valueless. Ostrich farming had become a profitable business in many parts of the country, especially in the desert regions of California.

The first thing Sandra did after claiming her luggage was to pick up the rental car she’d reserved. Her destination was north of the city, near Desert Hot Springs, an ostrich farm called Bainbridge Acres that was home to half a hundred of the birds. Sandra had dined on ostrich meat at a New York restaurant and found it similar to beef, but it was supposedly much healthier. She’d been hired to steal one of the birds, but apparently not for the meat. Renny Owlish had been very specific when he hired her by phone. She’d see one ostrich away from the others, all by itself. “An ostracized ostrich!” he’d said with a chuckle. “That’s the one I want you to steal.” He’d made a plane reservation for her and even booked a room at a nearby motel.

She’d been driving about thirty minutes when she rounded a curve and saw the ostrich farm below her in a little valley. There was no mistaking the great flightless birds with their long legs, mostly black feathers, and tall curving necks. The slightly smaller females had grayish-brown feathers with a bit of white. And yes, one ostrich was noticeably off by itself. Sandra pulled off the road and watched it for a time. Once it started trotting over to join the main group but they immediately scattered.

That was the bird Owlish wanted, but seeing the size of it she knew she’d need a truck of some sort. The birds had a large area to roam in, and with the warm weather they’d probably be left out at night. Her best bet was early morning, before the Bainbridge workers were out in the field tending to the birds. She was the White Queen, after all, and Impossible things before breakfast was her motto.

She spent the day searching out the right sort of vehicle and finally decided on a horse trailer. At a distance it was difficult to estimate the ostrich’s height, especially with its head bobbing up and down, but she guessed at between six and nine feet, pretty much full-grown. If she could entice it onto the trailer’s ramp, no lifting would be required. Otherwise she was faced with the task of tranquilizing the big bird and lifting its two-hundred-plus pounds into a truck.

She spent her second day observing the early-morning routine at Bainbridge Acres through binoculars from the nearby hill. Nothing much happened till after daylight, when a sturdy woman in jeans and boots came out to fill the trough where the big birds drank. She seemed to be checking their water supply and scattering food pellets, though Sandra knew that ostriches were a grazing bird that could live off natural vegetation and insects. She estimated the flock of about fifty birds would need around twenty acres for food but they seemed to have all of that. She’d read somewhere that the toothless ostriches ate almost anything, including pebbles and stones that remained in their stomachs and helped grind the swallowed food.

That night she went to bed early and was up well before dawn. The motel night manager, Sid Rawson, saw her backing out with the horse trailer and came over to question her, his squinty eyes on the lookout for trouble. He relaxed a bit when he recognized her as a guest, but still asked, “You got a horse in there?”

“Not yet. I’m on my way to pick one up. That’s why I paid in advance. Hold the room, though. I might be back for another night.”

“Drive careful now.”

Sandra had noticed an access road that ran along the outside of the Bainbridge fence through some brush toward a distant cabin probably used by hunters. She was wearing a black sweater and jeans, and slipped a black stocking cap over her blond hair. She doused her headlights and turned down the dirt road, guided mainly by moonlight though the first hint of daybreak had appeared on the eastern horizon. Already she saw some of the ostriches approaching, running toward the fence. But in near darkness it was difficult to pick out the one she wanted.

Stopping the car, she opened the door of the horse trailer, positioned the ramp, and clipped through the fence with wire cutters, hoping there was no alarm system. Now that her eyes were accustomed to the gathering light she was able to pick out the shunned bird, standing off to one side on its slender legs. She circled around and charged the ostrich, waving her arms to drive it toward the hole in the fence. Then, when it was close enough to be forced through to the horse trailer, she attempted to put an arm lock around its neck.

That was when things turned ugly.

“The damned ostrich kicked me, Nick! It almost broke my leg!”

Nick Velvet stared down at Sandra and shook his head. He’d flown across the country in answer to her urgent phone message to find her nursing a badly bruised thigh in a seedy motel room in the California desert. “I came to your rescue once after you were bitten by a cobra in Marrakesh, but I hardly thought you’d need me after being kicked by an ostrich in California.”

“It’s not funny!” she groaned, shifting her weight a bit and pulling up her jeans. “And that’s all you get to see.”

“Too bad. I was admiring the view. You’re sure it’s not broken?”

“I had it X-rayed at the hospital, made up a story about falling down the stairs. It’s just a bad bruise, but I sprained my ankle when I fell. They told me to rest, put ice on it, and keep it elevated to hold down the swelling.”

“How were you able to get out of there?”

“Luckily it was my left leg, so I could drive, but of course I didn’t get the ostrich, and by now they’ve discovered the cut fence and probably have a guard on duty. That’s why I need your help, Nick.”

“I don’t steal ostriches. They’re too valuable.”

“Not this one,” she argued. “Their biggest value is for breeding, but this one is shunned by the others for some reason. Breeding is doubtful. Its only value would be for meat.”

“And feathers and leather. Their eyes, which are larger than their brains, are sold to researchers, and their feet are ground into powder and sold in the Far East as an aphrodisiac. Even their large eggs are valued in some African religions.”

“Come on, Nick! How’d you learn all that?”

He smiled. “On the Internet. I travel with a laptop computer now, very twenty-first century. While I was waiting to board the plane I went online.”

She gave a sigh. “Will you help me?”

“Who hired you and how much is he paying?”

She hesitated and then said, “I can’t tell you who, but he’s paying me fifty thousand.”

Nick shook his head. “I happen to know that you don’t do anything these days for under a hundred grand.”

“Is that on the Internet too?”

“No, but the word gets around.”

She made an effort to sit up and put some weight on her left leg, but she grimaced in pain. “All right,” she said. “I’m getting a hundred grand and I’ll split it fifty-fifty with you. Satisfied?”

“What makes this particular ostrich worth that much money?”

“I’m like you, Nick. I don’t ask and they don’t tell.”

“Who’s they?”

“Do you have to know?”

“Sure. What if something happens to you and I’m stuck with the bird on my hands? Gloria wouldn’t welcome it back home.”

“He’s a man named Renny Owlish. A businessman of some sort. We’ve never met, but I’m to phone him as soon as I have the bird and set up a meeting. He already paid me a one-third retainer. Now you know as much as I do. Satisfied?”

“Do you still have the horse van?”

“Of course. I wasn’t about to return it with the job undone.”

Nick thought it over. “It’ll be tougher now that they’re on guard. For that kind of money why don’t you simply drive up to the front door and offer to buy the ostrich? If he’s no good as a breeder, they’d probably sell him for a few thousand at most.”

“I should have tried that in the beginning,” she admitted. “Now that they know about the robbery attempt, they know it’s valuable to someone.”

“They can’t know you were after just one ostrich. They probably think ordinary rustlers were responsible.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Ostrich rustlers?”

“This is the Wild West, isn’t it? Suppose I drive out to see them in my rental car and get the lay of the land. What are their names?”

“It’s Bainbridge Acres, a husband and wife with a few farmhands to take care of the birds. I don’t know their first names.”

“I’ll find out. You rest up. If this doesn’t work I’ll need your help.”

Bainbridge Acres was located near the desert, but with vegetation and a flowing stream sufficient to supply the flock of half a hundred ostriches that raced around flapping their short, underdeveloped wings. The house itself was an adobe ranch sheltered from the sun by a few cottonwood trees near the edge of the stream. Nick parked his rental car out front and went up to the door.

The woman who answered his ring was short and graying. Nick quickly explained that he was from the Animal Protection Establishment.

“The what?” she asked.

“APE. I’m sure you’ve heard of us. We travel around inspecting flocks of farm animals. I was driving by and I detected a problem with one of your ostriches.”

She eyed him through the screen door, unwilling to admit this stranger to her house. But she relented a bit and said, “That would be Oscar. We don’t know what’s the matter with him lately. He’s acting so strange that we gave him a name, Oscar Ostrich. My husband says the gals won’t let him near them. We may have to end up sending him to the slaughterhouse.”

“That would be a shame,” Nick told her. “Perhaps I could examine him.”

“I’d have to ask my husband about that. Wait here a moment.” She disappeared from the doorway and Nick glanced around, taking in the white wicker porch furniture and a stack of American Ostrich magazines.

He was flipping through one of these when a stout man in his fifties appeared in the doorway behind the screen. “Beth says you want to examine Oscar,” he said without preliminaries. “You a vet?”

“No, I’m with APE, the—”

“She told me. Never heard of ’em.”

Nick retreated a bit. “I don’t want to give him a medical exam, just get a closer look at him, learn whatever you can tell me about his ailment.”

The screen door opened and the man extended his hand. “I’m Walt Bainbridge.”

“Nicholas,” Nick muttered.

“Come along and I’ll show him to you.”

Bainbridge led the way off the porch and toward the barn. “Have you and the missus been in the ostrich-breeding business long?”

“Five, six years. The market for ostrich steaks and byproducts really took off around the mid ‘nineties. We were late catching up.”

They paused at a fence near the barn where water and feed were available for the birds. “When did this odd behavior start?” Nick asked. A plane flew low overhead, drowning out his question, and he had to repeat it.

“That happens all the time,” Bainbridge grumbled. “When did it start? Oh, maybe about ten days ago. He was fine until then. He’s still fine, for that matter. It’s the rest of the flock that are acting strange. Of course, ostriches have a reputation of being a stupid bird, but this is going too far.”

“They don’t really bury their heads in the sand, do they?”

“ ’Course not! The head’s often down there nibbling sand or pebbles, or trying to hide from its enemies. But the head is never buried in the sand. They’d suffocate if it was!”

The ostrich in question had wandered over to them as Bainbridge coaxed it with a handful of seeds. Nick sniffed a bit, detecting a slight odor. “Do they always smell like that?”

“Like what? Nose isn’t as good as it used to be. Too many allergies.”

Nick stared into the massive eyes of the ostracized bird. “I haven’t had much experience with ostriches. How do you handle something this large?”

“Very carefully. If they kick you, they could break your leg. Had some dogs out there barking at the birds one night last week, and someone cut through the fence two nights ago but the birds scared him off.”

“Is that so?”

“Somebody’d have to be loony to try rustling ostriches. But next week I’m having some security cameras put in, just in case.”

Nick agreed. “You can’t be too careful. But what about handling them? You have to get your arm around their neck, don’t you?”

“Not just that,” Bainbridge explained. “You have to use a sock, usually one with the toes cut off. I wear it on my arm and when I grab the neck with my right hand I slip the sock off my left arm and over their head so they can’t see. That’s the best way to handle them.”

“Good thing to know.” He watched the behavior of the birds for another few minutes and then said, “That one wouldn’t be good for mating. You should get rid of him.”

“The wife and I talked about it. We might come to that.”

“I could make you an offer right now if you’re interested.”

“Why would you want him if he’s no good?”

“I know of an ostrich study under way at the University of Arizona. Your bird would make a perfect specimen for research.”

The stout man considered his suggestion. “How much?” he asked.

“I think I could go as high as five thousand.”

He considered it, then said, “I’d have to ask the missus.” He turned and went back to the house.

Nick used the time to study the layout of the farm more carefully, in case he had to return after dark. In a few minutes he saw Walt Bainbridge returning. “What did she think?”

Bainbridge shook his head. “Not for any price. He’s Oscar Ostrich to her now, and she’s not selling him for any research.”

“Of course. I understand.”

He drove back to the motel to give Sandra the bad news.

She listened in silence to his report, then tried to stand. “Those pain pills helped. It’s coming along. I can go with you, drive the truck.”

“Not tonight you can’t,” he decided. “Give it another day and we’ll see how you are. I’ll take a room here.”

“You’re welcome to sleep here.”

“Now what would Gloria think about that? I’ll get a room. The place is practically empty.”

“It’s after six. The night manager is probably on duty. His name is Sid.”

“I’ll find him.”

Sid Rawson had just come on duty when Nick found him at the registration desk and took a room two doors down from Sandra. “I’ll show it to you,” Rawson told him. He was a slender man with long tapering fingers that seemed always in motion. “Got any bags?”

“Just this overnight one. I can manage it.”

“You a friend of Miss Paris?”

“Business acquaintance.” He was surprised that Sandra had registered under her own name.

“You like to play cards?”

“Occasionally.”

“Later tonight there’s a friendly game of poker in room Twenty-nine if you’re interested.”

“What time?”

“Around ten.”

“I might drop in,” Nick said. It would take his mind off Sandra Paris alone in her room down the hall.

He went to a fast-food place across the street and picked up something for them both to eat. “How are we going to steal the bird?” she wanted to know.

“We start by cutting the toes off a pair of my socks.”

He hung around for a while after they ate, then went down the hall to room 29. The place was already smoky when Sid Rawson opened the door. There were three other men in the room and the night clerk was pleased to see Nick. “Good! You got a fourth, boys! I can get back to the desk.”

A bald man named Josh Fielding seemed to be in charge. He unwrapped a new deck of cards and announced the rules. “We play Texas Holdem here. Are you in, Mr. Nicholas?”

“Sure,” Nick said and bought twenty dollars’ worth of chips from the banker, a red-haired man in his thirties. His name was Henry Wilson and he was a salesman of bathroom fixtures.

“Twenty won’t get you far with this crowd,” he warned Nick. “The ante alone is five.”

“A bit rich for my blood,” he replied. “I’ll go for forty and that’s my limit.”

The fourth man at the table, Charlie Rainbow, was a local rancher, part Native American, with a leathery face and deep blue eyes. They drew for the deal and he won, giving the cards a quick, rapid shuffle and cut. He dealt two hole cards to each player and the game was under way.

Nick lost another ten dollars before he folded, figuring he’d try one more hand before quitting the game. Fielding and Rainbow, who knew each other, were talking about the latter’s German shepherds, which he actually used for herding sheep. Wilson was a stranger, much like Nick, but he managed to win the hand. On the second hand Nick had two kings as his hole cards, and he ignored his self-imposed limit to bet sixty dollars. One of the flops gave him a third king, but he ended up losing to Fielding’s full house.

“That’s it for me,” he told them, rising from the table.

“If you’re in town, try again tomorrow,” Rainbow told him. “We try to get a game going most every night.”

Nick returned to Sandra’s room and was surprised to find her on her feet. “Where’ve you been?” she asked.

“Poker game down the hall. I lost.”

“Nick! Keep your mind on business.”

“More to the point, what are you doing up?”

“I dozed for a bit and I’m feeling better now. I think we should go tonight.”

“Sandra—”

“In the early morning, before dawn. Before breakfast.”

“Impossible things before breakfast.”

“Exactly! I need you, Nick. I can drive the car, but I need you to get the ostrich into the horse van.”

“He’ll probably still be asleep.”

She shook her head. “He was awake the other morning. Awake enough to give me a good solid kick.”

He could see there was no talking her out of it. “All right,” he agreed. “We’ll go. I hope I’m more successful than I was at cards.”

When they left the motel at four A.M., clouds had moved in to all but obscure the moon. Sandra was walking with a decided limp, but it didn’t seem to affect her driving. “Bainbridge told me he’s installing security cameras next week,” Nick told her.

“Locking the barn after the horse—”

“Ostrich.”

“—ostrich is stolen.”

“At least we hope it’ll be stolen,” Nick agreed. “Here’s the turn.”

He’d debated whether to cut the fence at the same spot Sandra had chosen, but when they reached it there was enough pre-dawn light for Nick to see that the fence hadn’t really been repaired, just patched with chicken wire.

“The same spot?” Sandra asked.

“The same spot. It’ll be easy.”

He’d barely removed the chicken wire when he saw some of the ostriches moving toward them. He slipped the toeless sock over his left arm and climbed through the opening. The birds seemed more curious than hostile and he moved quickly through them, searching for Oscar. The dark-feathered males seemed identical in this light and he decided to rely on his nose. He’d detected a definite Oscar odor on his previous visit.

And suddenly the ostracized ostrich was there in front of him, stretching its neck until it towered over him. The others had scattered, and Nick was alone with his prize. He took a deep breath and wrapped his right arm around its neck, careful to avoid a kick from its legs. Then he pulled the sock from his left arm and slid it over the bird’s head. Oscar made a hissing sound, apparently a show of anger.

Sandra was waiting outside the fence with the ramp down on the horse van. “Be careful he doesn’t kick you,” she warned.

“Don’t worry. I think I’ve got him under control.”

“I remember that smell. What is it?”

“I have a feeling that’s what makes him so valuable.”

Oscar went into the horse van, his vision still obscured by the sock, and Sandra quickly closed it. “We make a great team,” she said as she slipped behind the wheel and gunned the engine.

They were almost back to the highway when the first bullet shattered the side window behind Nick’s head. “Someone’s shooting at us!” Nick yelled. “Off to our right. Keep your head down!”

“Is it Bainbridge?”

“I don’t know. Keep driving.” He heard two more shots, but they missed the car. He only hoped they’d missed the ostrich as well.

“I can see headlights. He’s following us!”

“Do you have a gun?”

She shook her head. “Couldn’t get it through airport security. Didn’t think I’d need one anyway.”

The pursuing vehicle had cut across the field, trying to head them off. There was enough light now to make out a black SUV with tinted windshield, closing fast. “If he fires again he can’t miss us,” Nick told her. “Any ideas?”

“We stop and hand over the ostrich.”

“And he’ll kill us anyway.”

“I guess you’re right.”

The SUV pulled up alongside them and a familiar figure got out. It was Charlie Rainbow, the rancher who’d been at the poker game, and he was holding an old-fashioned six-shooter aimed right at them. “Hey,” Nick said in a friendly voice, “don’t you ever sleep?”

“Not when I hear cars on my property. That’s when I get out my pistol.”

“This is your property?”

Rainbow nodded. “Right up to Bainbridge’s fence. And you’re trespassing, Mr. — Nicholas, was it?”

Sandra remained silent and let Nick handle it. “Sorry about the trespassing. My girl and I were just looking for a little privacy.”

“Yeah? This isn’t no lover’s lane, Nicholas. Better go back to your motel room.” He glanced at the horse trailer and waved the pistol at it. “What’s in there?”

“My horse,” Sandra said, breaking her silence. “Want to see him?”

“No, just get off my land.”

“What about my broken window?” Nick asked.

“What is it, a rental? Just tell them it was vandalism. Their insurance will cover it.”

“All right. Can I have a chance to win back my money tonight?”

Rainbow grinned. “Sure. We’ll be there. Just stay off my land. I’d hate to shoot you by accident.”

On the way back to the motel, Nick asked, “What if he was a horse fancier and wanted to look at your nag?”

“It was still pretty dark. He couldn’t have seen him very well.”

“Well enough to tell a horse from an ostrich, I’ll bet.”

“Nick, we have to take chances in this business, you know that.”

“Are you always this lucky?”

She snorted. “I once served prison time for stealing a roulette wheel, as you well know.”

“Okay, what do you do now? Phone Renny Owlish?”

“Exactly. We have a bird in the hand.”

“Or at least in the van.”

Sandra parked the van at the rear of the motel lot and detached it from her car. Nick brought out some water and snacks for the big bird, who didn’t seem to mind his captivity all that much. Later he joined Sandra in her room and returned the trailer key to her. She called Owlish on her cell phone with the good news. “I have the product, Mr. Owlish. I’m ready to deliver it for the balance of the money.”

Nick could hear the raspy response. “Where are you? At the motel?”

“Of course. Are you coming here?”

“It may not be safe. I’ll call you back in a few hours, when I’m in the vicinity.”

“Fine.” She gave him her cell-phone number. “I’ll be hearing from you.”

“What now?” Nick asked.

“We’ve got the bird. All we have to do is turn it over to Owlish and collect our money.”

“But why is he so valuable? Have you thought about that?”

“I’m just a thief, Nick. You’re the one who sometimes plays detective.”

“It has to be drugs or diamonds.”

“What do you mean?”

“Ostriches will eat anything, and since they have no teeth, small stones often remain in their stomachs to grind foodstuffs. An adult ostrich can carry a couple of pounds of pebbles in its stomach for this purpose.”

“You’ve been surfing the Internet again.”

“That’s what it’s for.”

“So if it’s drugs or diamonds, how did they get into the ostriches’ lair in the first place? Do you think they just fell from the sky?”

“Exactly! Planes fly over Bainbridge Acres all the time. These were dropped in some sort of small containers to be picked up on the ground. Only the pilot missed the target area and the stuff landed among the ostriches.”

Sandra wasn’t convinced. “Even if our ostrich swallowed some of it, why would that keep the others away from him?”

“Oscar has a definite odor about him. Walt Bainbridge has allergies and couldn’t smell it, but I certainly could and so could you. The containers for the drugs or diamonds or whatever were strongly scented so they could be located after being dropped from the plane. The scent was repulsive to the other ostriches and they steered clear of Oscar.”

“Nick, can you imagine grown men sniffing around the ground for these things?”

“No, but I can imagine dogs.”

She’d walked to the window to peer out at the car, and suddenly she cried out, “Nick! There’s someone at the horse trailer!”

He was at the window in a flash, staring out at a red-haired man wearing a heavy leather coat. “Do you know him?”

“I never saw him before.”

“I did. I played cards with him last night. His name is Henry Wilson. Come on!”

They reached the horse trailer as Wilson was struggling to pick the lock on the back door and the ostrich was giving out his familiar hissing sound. But he wasn’t the only intruder. Nick saw Charlie Rainbow’s SUV pulling into the parking lot and heading for them. “Get away from that trailer,” Rainbow told them, brandishing the six-shooter he’d used earlier.

Wilson turned, expressing annoyance at the interruption. “Put that gun away, you fool!” he told Rainbow. “It’s broad daylight! Do you want the police on our necks?”

“I want that bird,” Rainbow said, “and I mean to have him.”

“Wait a minute,” Nick urged. “Before we all get arrested, let’s go to my room and talk this over.”

Sandra started to protest but he gave her a light jab in the ribs to urge her agreement. The four of them trooped up to Nick’s room with Rainbow still keeping a hand on his gun. Nick sat them down and began talking. “I think you’ll all agree that what we have here is a very valuable bird. I believe a flight by a private plane from Mexico purposely dropped several small containers holding a valuable substance, something you couldn’t risk being found by Customs if you brought it across by car. They were meant to land on your property, Rainbow, but they fell into your neighbor’s ostrich farm by mistake. We know ostriches will eat virtually anything, even small stones, and this one the Bainbridges named Oscar ate your valuable cargo. The pellets were strongly scented so they could be located by your dogs after they hit the ground. You mentioned at the poker game that you had German shepherds, which are often considered better than bloodhounds at picking up a scent. But the dogs merely led you to the ostrich farm, where Bainbridge heard them barking last week. After studying them and noting the ostracized one, you were sure it was the tracking scent that was keeping the others away. You contacted Renny Owlish and Owlish hired Sandra to steal the ostrich.”

“What’s Wilson’s part in all this?” Sandra asked.

Nick smiled. “Owlish booked your hotel room so he knew where you’d be staying. He arrived here earlier and took a room under his real name, just to keep an eye on things.”

“You mean Henry Wilson and Renny Owlish are the same person?”

“That’s right,” Nick told her, keeping an eye on Wilson.

“You knew that because of the bird in Owlish’s name,” she said.

“No, I knew it because Renny Owlish is an anagram for Henry Wilson.”

“Oh.”

“Let’s cut the talk,” Rainbow said. “The chips are mine and I intend to recover them from that bird’s stomach.”

“Diamond chips?” Sandra asked. “Is that what this is all about?”

Henry Wilson sighed. “Computer chips, the most powerful yet developed in Japan, stolen and smuggled into Mexico on their way to the highest bidder in Silicon Valley. Worth far more than diamond chips these days. They’re packed into small metal capsules, twelve to a capsule. Six capsules were dropped. That ostrich has seventy-two computer chips in its stomach.”

Sandra took over then. “The deal was one hundred grand to steal that ostrich, and I did it, with Nick’s help. I want the balance of my money. Then you can have the bird.”

“You’ve got a third of it. That’s all you’re getting,” Wilson said. “You may have the ostrich but we’ve got you.”

“Hand over the key to the horse trailer,” Rainbow ordered. The six-shooter was back in his hand. “I can’t miss at this range.”

“You get the key when I get my money,” Sandra told them.

Wilson slapped her across the face and Nick grabbed him around the neck, yanking him backward. But Rainbow moved in with his gun and pointed it inches from her head. “One move and she dies,” he shouted. “Give us the key!”

“You’d better do it,” Nick told her. “They mean business.”

“Nick—”

“Do it.”

She slipped the key from the pocket of her jeans and handed it over. “Shall we tie them up?” Rainbow asked.

“No need,” Wilson decided. “She’s got a bum leg and he’s past his prime. They can’t hurt us.” He took a packet of hundred-dollar bills from his pocket and tossed it on the bed. “Here’s another ten thousand. Consider yourselves paid in full.”

They left Nick and Sandra and headed for the horse trailer in the far corner of the lot. Rainbow brought his car around and hooked it up to the trailer. They didn’t want to risk anyone seeing the ostrich in the busy motel lot, so they drove several miles out of town before they found a deserted side road where they could unlock the rear door and view their prize.

It was only then that they discovered the trailer was empty.

“How’d you do that, Nick?” Sandra Paris asked as they headed north with the ostrich in a horse trailer.

“When I went down to feed Oscar just after we got back to the motel, I saw the night manager, Sid Rawson, going off duty. I gave him a thousand dollars to rent a duplicate trailer. I knew one or both of those guys would show up. That’s why I poked you to help get them up to the room and away from the trailer, so Sid could make the switch. I bought a new padlock for him to put on the duplicate trailer, and gave you the key to that lock, keeping the original key in my pocket. I promised him another thousand when we met him just now and reclaimed the bird.”

“What now?”

Nick shrugged. “You should be able to find a veterinarian who can remove those capsules from Oscar’s stomach without doing fatal harm. Then you drive to Silicon Valley and shop them around to the highest bidder. Maybe you can even get Oscar back to Bainbridge Acres.”

“Come with me, Nick,” she urged. “We’ll have a fine old time together.”

“I can’t do it,” he told her, a bit sadly. “I helped you this far as a favor, because you called on me. But my job is done now. You can pay me for expenses, but that’s all. Drop me at the San Jose airport and I’ll be on my way home.”

“Gloria’s waiting.”

“Yes, that too. I hope she’ll always be waiting.”

When she dropped him at the airport she said, “I guess this is goodbye, then.”

“If you ever get kicked by another ostrich, give me a call. You’ve got my number.”