Little Saigon

Chapter 26

Cristobel was sitting on his porch. She had a little package on her lap, gift-wrapped in lavender paper, a deep purple bow. “Hi, cutie,” she said.

Frye felt his ears getting hot, a jolt of bad energy shooting up his spine. He stared at her, cracked a skullish smile. “Hi.”

She followed him in. “What’s wrong?”

“Not a thing.”

“For you.”

He opened the package. It was a daily planner for the year, with a good pen attached. “Nice,” he said.

“I figured you could use it, Chuck. Interviews for jobs and stuff. I mean... what’s wrong with you? Is that supposed to be a smile or—”

Frye took her face in his hand, hard. The planner fell to the floor. He grabbed an arm, dragged her to the couch, and pushed her down. “Then you’d know exactly where I’d be, wouldn’t you? Was that the deal, Cris? Keep an eye on Chuck? Make sure he doesn’t get too close to Rollie Dean Mack because there isn’t any fucking Rollie Dean Mack?”

Her color drained, her eyes went hard.

Frye slammed the door and locked it. He kicked the planner across the floor. He pulled the purse from her hands and spilled it out. A .22 automatic bounced onto the couch cushion. He waved the little pistol at her. “What are you doing for Burke?”

She looked at him with absolute disbelief now, a dignity so deeply shocked it was all she could do just to behold him. “You’re really crazy, you know that?”

“I saw you with Parsons last night, on your patio.”

She breathed deeply, nodded, looked straight at him. “You better listen to me, Chuck, and listen really well. I met Burke Parsons at the fights with you. And I happened to goddamn like him at first. Last night, I finally told him to cool off. That’s between us, not you. But Burke doesn’t care what you do or when you do it, and I don’t either. You’re the last topic of conversation when we’re together — I can guarantee you that. Don’t flatter yourself. I attract men, and I can get rid of them when I need to. We were talking. Don’t try to chain me up. And don’t even dare try to tell me which men to see and which not to. I’m sick to death of you and your plots, Chuck. You don’t own me. Fuck somebody else if you can’t hack it. Fuck yourself.”

“Did he send you to Rockpile that first morning? Was that your idea, or his?”

Cristobel looked at him, eyes clear and dark, jaw set. “You don’t listen, do you? Getting to know you was my stupid idea, and it gets stupider by the second. I saw you out there in those waves, and I had to find out if what I thought was true. What a silly, dangerous, romantic, stupid bitch I am. After what happened to me in Long Beach, it made sense to admire from a distance. I should have kept it that way.”

Frye could feel the rage bubbling far down inside himself, a sour potion coming quickly to boil. “Nothing happened in Long Beach, or any other beach. You made it up. You weren’t raped. You weren’t touched. I had a cop friend of mine check it out. Like it or not, Cristobel, you came back clean.”

“He’s lying. It happened on August sixteenth of last year, just before one in the morning. I was drunk. I had a fight with—”

“You told me that already.”

“I sat in the station while that lady took samples out of me, I found the men who did it in the line-up, I sat through sixty days of court while they put that guy away, I dream about that night every goddamned time I close my eyes.”

“They never touched you. There weren’t any men. You made it up.”

She took a deep breath, stepped toward Frye, and slapped him hard across the face. “Don’t you ever say that, Chuck.”

Frye reached out to her blouse, took it firmly in his fist, and yanked it down. Buttons popped, the material flapped open.

She slapped him again.

“This how it was?”

He reached for her pants and she hit him harder this time, fist closed, knuckles ringing off his eyebrow. He caught her knee with his palm as it slammed upward toward his crotch, then spun her around and pushed her down to the floor. She sprawled, slid, gathered herself up, and charged him. Frye caught her first blow with one arm, her next with the other. She teetered off balance, and he shoved her over the back of the couch. Her shorts and panties came to her knees with one tug; he yanked them away, then forced her head into the cushions. He was a little afraid of how easy it was.

“Or was it more like this?”

She straightened and swung her empty leather purse. It hit him flush in the head, a whack that left his ear ringing and one eye screaming in pain. He pushed her into the bedroom. He could hear the lock clicking, her rapid breathing.

And he could smell himself, a wicked, high-pitched stink unlike anything he’d ever smelled before, a smell of attack and cruelty, a smell of rage. He lowered his shoulder, ran three steps, and blew the door right off its rusty old hinges.

She ran into the cave. Frye followed. There she was in the darkness, pale flesh retreating. He lunged toward her golden hair, following it like a beacon. Amazing, he thought, how weak her arms are when you get a good solid hold of those wrists.

She threw her knees at him, but he just angled forward and they caught him in the thigh. Crashing through his box of Christmas ornaments, they tumbled over to the cold damp earth.

Frye stood over her, a foot on her ankle, one of her wrists locked in his fist.

She was panting below him, hair on dark earth, sweat-slick body shining.

“This what it was like?”

“Kind of. They were rougher. Come on, Chuck. Finish it off.”

He stepped off her, let go of her arm, and pulled down his pants. For a moment he considered his dick, limp as a sock in the half-light of the cave. He pulled his pants back up. “I don’t understand this part of it. When you get this pissed, the last thing you want to do is fuck somebody. I guess I’m not the type.”

“I didn’t think you were. You don’t have the nuts.”

Frye was tempted to punch her in the face, but he was losing his sense of purpose. “This’ll sound dumb, but I thought we had something good going,” he said.

“We did.”

“You got something I could love. But I wouldn’t believe you if you said good morning.”

She was silent for a moment. He could hear her breathing. When she spoke again, her voice was hard. “I hate you,” she said.

He walked back to the living room, threw all her stuff into the purse, and heaved it onto the floor by the door.

She came out a few minutes later, an earth-smudged mess, blouse ruined, hair wild, eyes down. She found her shorts and stepped into them. A tear tapped onto the hardwood as she leaned over and lost her balance. Her knees were scraped. Her face was red.

She went to the door, picked up her purse and slung it over her shoulder.

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“What hold does he have on you?”

“The same as you — none at all.” She looked at Frye, then wiped her face on the back of her hand. “What you believe now doesn’t matter.”

“Get out of my life.”

She fiddled with the lock, swung open the door, and walked out.

Burke Parsons called five minutes later. “Haw Chuck, how’s it hangin’?”

“Funny you should ask.”

“Well, things are sure good here at this end. Lucia’s back from Washington and we’re having a few good pals over for drinks. You and Cristo-hoosey wanna come by?”

“What for?”

“For drinks, like I said. Celebrate the MIAs and all. Just casual. Your ma and pa are coming. Bennett’s wrapped up in something, but I thought you might as well join us. I got some news from Rollie Dean.”

“Not interested.”

Burke paused. “Chuck, truth of the matter is, I’d like to talk to you about something. Private like. I think there may be some misunderstandings I can straighten out.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t talk business on the phone, Chuck. Superstitious. All I can tell you is I got something you’ll want to hear. I been involved in some stuff you might want in on. I ain’t gonna beg you, boy, it ain’t my style. We’re in that little old mission-style deal down on Crescent Bay. You’ll see the cars out front.”

Frye figured it might be as good a time as any to tell his father that Burke was getting ready to screw him. “Why not?”

“See ya in half an hour, Chuck. Bring that girl now, if ya want to.”

“Haven’t seen her in a while.”

“Hell, bring someone else. Imagine a guy like you’s got plenty of arrows in the old quiver.”

Parsons’s house was a three-story Spanish style on Crescent Bay, with flower pots under the windows, iron grates over them, and brown tile on the roof. Frye noted his father’s car on the street and Burke’s black Jaguar in the driveway.

Lucia answered the door with a smile on her face and a glass of wine in her hand. She’d permed her hair since the show, and now the black locks fell in curls to her shoulders, over her forehead. “Come in, Chuck.”

“Congratulations, Lucia.”

“Thank you. It was worth every hour I put in. No Cristobel?”

“Apparently not.”

She gave him a sly smile, then led him down a wide entryway done in Mexican tile, potted palms, a gurgling fountain that fed a wide pool. Gray, foot-long fish moved through the water with a languorous, automatic, side-to-side rhythm. “Baby sharks,” said Lucia. “Burke loves them. Ugly, aren’t they?”

The hallway opened to the huge living room on the left and a dining room and kitchen to the right. Past Lucia’s shoulder, Frye could see Edison and Hyla. And at a glance: General Dien, Senator Lansdale, Carole Burton, a local millionaire who’d made his fortune in car wax, the Orange County DA, a soap actress and her cleavage competing for Burke’s attention, an Angels’ first baseman who could hit for power, an insanely tanned TV evangelist who’d recently taken up residence in Laguna Beach.

It’s just too crème de la crème for words, Frye thought. I could puke.

He took some champagne from a passing waiter and downed it.

Edison performed an elaborate greeting; Hyla hugged him and kissed his cheek. Lucia introduced him to a few people, then moved off to greet another guest.

“I guess Benny’s got that rally to get ready for,” said Hyla. “I wish he could have come. I think he needs a break or... something.”

“He’s all right, Momma.”

“I hope so.”

Edison glommed two glasses of champagne, presenting one to his wife. “Lucia’s done a job, I’ll say that for her.”

“Burke’s about to do a job on you,” said Frye.

Edison drank. “How so, Chuck?”

“Come outside.”

Burke appeared as if conjured, standing between Frye and his father now, a glass of champagne held out to Chuck. “Haw, Chuck. How do you like our digs?”

“Looks nice, Burke.”

“This ain’t but a bit of it. We got three stories here and a basement that’ll blow your mind. Ed and Hyla’s seen it all, but how about I give you a tour?”

Parsons guided him away with a grin. “I’ll bring him back in two shakes, Hyla. Won’t be time for me to get him in trouble.”

“Oh, Burke.”

“Lovely lady, your mom, Chuck. Real lovely.”

He led Frye through a sliding glass door, across a patio with another fountain. A guest house stood at the far end of the yard, under a tall stand of banana trees. “That little place is where Lucia’s staff works — around the clock, sometimes.” They entered the west wing of the house. “This is my part. And I got the whole second floor and basement. Lucia’s got the third.”

“I didn’t know you lived together.”

“Works out good, on account of we’re both gone a lot, but at different times.”

Back inside, Frye could hear their footsteps echoing on the paver tiles. A wooden chandelier with big candles glowed overhead, a rounded doorway gave way to a library with ceilings a mile high and bookshelves all the way to the top. Burke had one of those sliding ladders attached to each shelf. There were four good leather recliners, each with a reading lamp next to it. Along one wall was a small bar, well-stocked. Burke waved him toward it, then reached over the counter and stood back. A section of the paneled wall eased out, to the low grinding sound of a motor. A light went on. Frye regarded the staircase leading down.

Burke smiled. “I’m gimmick-heavy, Chuck. It’s my nature. Watch these steps now, kinda steep.”

Frye followed him down.

“You know, Chuck, that Cristobel’s one good-looking hunk of girl. Lucky find.”

“I’m not sure how lucky it was, Burke.”

Parsons turned to look at him. “She a dud in bed or something?”

“She’s great in bed. We get near one, she starts a feeding frenzy.”

Burke smiled. “Think that’s true about blondes bein’ dumb?”

“No.”

“Me neither. But I sure like ’em that way. Blonde and dumb is a hard combination to beat.”

The basement was one big space, divided only by poles supporting the ceiling, and lit by rows of industrial fluorescent lamps hung by chains. It felt like the parking structure for a department store, but without the cars — wide and cool with the light tapering off into dark planes and corners. Frye heard his footsteps echo as he stepped to the floor.

The left quarter of the room was covered with padding. There were two exercise bikes, two heavy bags, a speed bag, a Universal machine and a bunch of shiny weights in stands. The support pole by the speed bag was wrapped in padding to head height.

“The gym,” said Burke. “I try to get in an hour a day, but usually it’s more like two. I got pairs of everything for Lucia, but she don’t go for this stuff.”

Frye smacked the heavy bag on his way by.

“You spar?” asked Burke.

“No.”

“It’s fun.”

“I get carried away sometimes. Same as Bennett does.”

Burke gave him an assessing look. “How far you get carried is the question. Sparring and fighting are two different things. Check these.”

A stand in the corner contained six Japanese fighting swords, some long, some short. Frye noted the long handles, the lacquered scabbards, the leather grips well-stained by sweat, the ornate pommels.

A fancy version of what was used on Tuy Xuan, thought Frye.

“Katana,” said Burke. “Several thousand dollars’ worth of Jap killing edge. I got them black market in Hong Kong during the war. Those two on the end were billed as genuine Sagami School, and they’re not. But you know what, Frye?”

“No.”

“It don’t matter.” Burke slid out the weapon. The layers of the temper line caught the light. “Waste of money, actually. I don’t get more than a couple hours a week on ‘em. The exercises bore the hell out of me, and there’s nothing you can actually hit with these things. Cut that pole in half if you put your mind to it.”

“Looks wicked.”

Burke looked closely at a blemish on the blade, then straight at Frye. “Not ‘less the man who’s swinging it is. How come you been poking around Elite Management, Chuck?”

“I wanted to talk to Rollie Dean. Seen him lately?”

The padded floor was soft under Frye’s feet. Burke set the weapon back in its scabbard. “Over there’s the gun range, Chuck.”

The bullet traps and targets were flush with the far wall. A bench was positioned about fifty feet away. A chain with clips on it ran from each trap all the way to the bench, powered by smallish motors to bring the targets back and forth. Frye noted that the trap walls, angled gently to guide in the bullets, were pocked with silver and gray. Two padded headsets rested on the bench, and several boxes of foam ear plugs. Burke tapped a file cabinet that stood beside the bench. “I got a weakness for sidearms, Chuck. When I got in the agency, they took advantage of it. I was good at what I did. You know, Chuck, in a way I’m just a good ol’ boy. I like to sip my beer and watch the boxing match. I like a round of poker and a good rodeo. I can talk redneck with anybody’s fucked his daughter. But there’s another side of me that just don’t care about some things that lots of other people care about. I want you to think on that for a second. Anyway, I’m into hardware. Pull out that drawer there, have yourself a peek.”

The inside of the drawer was lined with felt. On the bottom was a wooden tray with two rows of handguns, upright, handles fitted perfectly to the wood, barrels resting on the felt bottom. Fifteen, Frye thought, maybe twenty.

“That’s the big-caliber stuff, forty-fours and fives. Hell, I got a fifty-four magnum in there I killed a grizzly with up to Montana. Hit him in the snout at fifty yards and the thing did a back flip. Ended up with a bearskin rug without a head. Anyhow, below those are the medium-caliber ones, and the last drawer down has the derringers and subcompacts. You shoot?”

“Pop taught me to shoot trap. I was pretty good with his old .45, too.”

“Pick up that Gold Cup, there. Clip is full. See how you can do at fifty feet.”

Frye removed the Colt from its place, checked the magazine, jacked a round into the chamber. He flicked off the safety and aimed down the length of his arm at the white-on-black silhouette.

“Shoot for speed, Chuck. Bad guys are always fast.”

Frye took a breath and let it out slowly — just as Edison had taught him — then squeezed off the first round. His ears rang, smoke rose into his eyes. The automatic bucked up, and when it leveled, he added six more.

Parsons laughed, hit a button, and the target slid toward him, pulleys squeaking. “You didn’t even get paper with that first one,” he said. “The other six all got on the white, though. That’s fair shooting at fifty feet, but I’ll tell you, it’s that first one you want true. Usually, that’s all you get.”

“Your turn, Burke.”

Burke shook his head. “We’re not in the same league, Chuck. Not at this game, anyhow. Let me ask you something. I saw an old convertible parked at Elite Management last night. That was your Mercury, wasn’t it?”

“Sure was.”

“Then I guess you figured out by now that Rollie Dean Mack don’t exactly work there, in the strict sense.”

“That’s what I gathered.”

“World’s a crazy place, ain’t it?”

Frye shrugged, slid open the action, and put the pistol back in place.

“You know, Chuck... I feel awful bad about what happened between you and Elite. If I’d have been paying closer attention to things, you wouldn’t have lost your job. But I’m too damned busy these days — really. Would you be willing to let me square things with Billingham and get you all set to write again?”

“I thought you were going to do that two days ago.” Parsons pushed the drawer shut. “Just between you and me, I was hoping you’d give up trying to find old Rollie. I didn’t bank on you being so damned tenacious. You nosed around my business, and you blew my little cover, so there’s no sense playing games with you anymore, Chuck. See, Elite’s my business, but I don’t like being the front man. I hate those bright lights — I’m best in a backup position. It’s actually none of your concern why. Put it this way, if I was a Beatle, I’d want to be Ringo.”

“But you’d still want to write the music.”

Parsons smiled. “You got it. Can I get you your job back? I mean... do you want it or not?”

“Why’d you get me canned in the first place?”

“I thought I explained that. You just caught onto Rollie’s cuff like a pit bull and wouldn’t let go. Hell, I figured if you were gonna keep calling and writing, sooner or later you’d come around for an impromptu interview instead of a scheduled one. So I just took you off the case. See? I was right. And I’m glad you’re not going to the paper tomorrow morning to write about there being no Rollie Dean Mack at Elite. That’d be bad for everyone. But I didn’t figure you’d keep after him. Christ, Chuck, don’t you ever just give up?”

Frye baited him. “All that to cover a crooked fight?”

“Oh, hell, the fights don’t mean a thing to me. That’s the one tiny legit thing I do at Elite, just to keep the door open. Chuck, I move a lot of money in and out of that place. Oil. Stocks and bonds. Real estate. You name it. Some of it’s even legal. Elite’s got divisions and groups and wings and holdings and subsidiaries you ain’t even heard about and never will. And I’m every one of them. I move and shake. Sometimes I gotta do things that are gonna catch the public eye. That’s when I let Rollie Dean and the rest of the other fellas handle it. I just do it in their names. Like I said, I don’t like the spotlights. I wish to hell you’d never tangled with Rollie, because I didn’t want to lose him, and I didn’t want to mess you up either, Chuck. Funny part is, my fighter plum got knocked out that night. There wasn’t no fix of any kind in. I swear it. I got better things to do than fool around with nickel-and-dime boxing matches, for cryin’ out loud.”

“Why’d you put Cristobel up to watching me?”

“What in God’s holy name are you talking about, Chuck?”

“You and Cris, on her porch last night.”

Parsons blushed. Frye couldn’t believe it.

“Gosh, you weren’t supposed to be in on that one.”

“I was. What were you doing there, Burke?”

Parsons shook his head, stared down at his boots. “I was only tryin’ to get it wet, Chuck. Same as you. I have to admit one thing, and I ain’t ashamed of it, mostly — I love poontang. I took one look at her at the fights that night and I just had to have her. I’d say I’m sorry, but I’m really not. And I’m still working on the bitch, too. Cristobel’s the hardest piece of ass in the world to get. Last night I took her some flowers and sweet-talked her a little. I tried to kiss her up, but she didn’t like that a bit. She had some rape trouble up to Long Beach, is all I can figure. Gun shy.” For a moment Parsons looked at him with the exasperated good humor of a kid caught with a Playboy. “Hell, Chuck, you don’t own that girl, but I’ll lay off Crissy if she means that much to you. I got plenty other fields to plow. So far as her watching you, that just never occurred to me. Maybe it should have. Truth is, I don’t trust anybody enough for that kind of work. Especially some bimbo I don’t even know.”

“Do what you want, Burke.”

“Say no more. I can see I stepped out of line a bit with her. Hey, get over here and check out my critters. You’ll really like these, and I caught most of them myself.”

Frye stood before a huge glass cage. It was almost twenty feet long, six high and deep, with a eucalyptus branch lying in the middle. Half the floor space was a pond. The other half was all reptile, coiled upon itself like a rubber telephone pole, head resting, tongue easing in and out for leisurely whiffs of the atmosphere. The eyes were pale green, big as quarters, with elliptical pupils like a cat’s. The scales along its jaw looked like tile.

“Eunectes murinus,” said Burke. “Anaconda. He’s pushing twenty-six feet long and tips the scales about two-eighty.”

“What do you feed him?”

“You don’t want to know. Could eat a small man, though, if his shoulders weren’t too broad. Or a woman, easy. Probably eat your average Vietnamese real quick like and still have room for dessert.”

Frye looked at Parsons, who was studying the snake with a detached admiration. The animal began to move now, sliding against the glass with no visible means of locomotion. Frye felt the muscles in his back go cold.

“So what’s your next move, Chuck, far as Elite Management goes?”

“I’m not really sure. Any ideas?”

Parsons laughed. “I like you, Chuck. You’re the kinda fella’d drive a car salesman bugshit ‘cause you’d never make an offer ‘til you got one from him first. Now, if I were you, what I do about Elite would depend on what I’d done already.”

“I haven’t told anyone,” he lied. “If that’s what you’re thinking. Not Benny. Not Pop. Nobody.”

Parsons nodded along. “Now we’re getting somewhere, Chuck. It’s good you’ve kept this to yourself. That’s good for starters. See, it’s important in a situation like this that I stay mobile. I hate getting pinned down. What I find in this life is a whole bunch of snake pits that truly aren’t worth sticking your hand into, ‘less you like getting bit. Every now and then you find some sorry fella who does, but that ain’t you, Chuck. If I were you, I’d take a no-harm, no-foul outlook. I’d let things alone. I’d forget any quirks you might have noticed about the way another man does his business.” Burke led him past the anaconda’s cage to a stack of three smaller terrariums. “Top cage is Gaboon viper, longest fangs in the world, up to an inch and a half each. Middle one is black mamba, fastest snake in the world and the meanest. Believe me. Bottom is a good ol’ western diamondback, and that sucker weighs almost twenty-five pounds. Caught him myself, right outside El Paso. I used some snakes in the war when I questioned prisoners. Cong hated them. Couple of times, things got out of hand. Poor Charlie, he hated to see me comin’ with a duffel bag and a putting iron. Putting iron makes a good snake-stick. Anyhow, you can get a feel for those snake dens of life I was talking about.”

Frye bent down for a look at the rattler. It was big around as a softball, with a head like a slice of pie, and dark diamonds on a desert-bleached background.

Burke went to the next cage, smiled, and pointed. “That there is commonly held to be the baddest serpent of the land. King cobra, Chuck, ophiophagus hannah. They get to eighteen, twenty feet, but Charlotte here is only but twelve. Forty-thousand folks a year die of snakebite, and Charlotte’s kind do their share of it. They’re not aggressive, really — kind of lazy in fact. They’re like me. You get ’em riled up, though, and look out! Here, I’ll introduce you proper.”

Burke pulled a pin from the cage top and swung it open. He tapped on the glass with the backs of his fingers and said something to the snake. Then he reached in and took her by the middle, hefting a coil up and dipping in his other hand to get more. The more he pulled and lifted, the longer the snake seemed to get. Then he stepped back, twelve feet of cobra sliding around his body as if it were a tree, its head free, tongue darting. “Charlotte,” he said, “meet Chuck Frye.” Burke grinned from behind a looping, pale green curl.

“Defanged?”

“Nope. She’s loaded, just like my guns. But she’s friendly. Here, like to hold her?”

“No thanks.”

“Don’t be shy, Chuck. Don’t want to hurt her feelings now, do ya?”

Burke gathered the animal, its head still waving free through the air, and arranged her over Frye’s shoulders. Frye felt his legs go heavy and his ears start to ring. The snake was cool, and he could feel the muscles inside it, precise, mechanical, effortlessly bunching and sliding over his own. He supported the last three feet of her with his left arm. Charlotte cranked her blunt, heavy head to him and looked him straight in the face.

“Now, Chuck, if Charlotte here were to zap you right in the snout, where she’s aiming, you’d scream, untangle her, run up the stairs, and croak before you hit the patio.”

The snake pointed her tongue at Frye, wiggled it, took it back.

A freight train roared through Frye’s brain. He felt the sweat rolling down his back and sides.

I’m not going to show it, he thought. I’m not going to give Burke one bit of satisfaction in this.

When he looked at Parsons, it pleased him that what he felt strongest now was not fear, though he felt that too, but rather a clear, uncomplicated rage. It felt good inside him, somehow familiar, somehow new.

“I’m glad to know that, Burke.”

“It’s a neurotoxic venom — stops your heart and just about every other moving part you got. Turns your nervous system to soup. Over in Asia, an elephant steps on a big cobra, gets nipped, and falls over dead a minute later. That’s power, Chuck. Over in the ‘Nam now, I’d use vipers on account of their poison works slower and burns a helluva lot more. Eats up your flesh, muscles, the works. Man, I got some interrogation results with my little bag of snakes. And the same putter I’d play nine holes with in the mornings, too!”

Charlotte’s head moved away, and Frye eased his hand under it for support. She reeled back and he saw the eyes coming at him, scales getting bigger, tongue out. On his shoulder, her head was light and cool and the scales slid against his neck like leather buttons.

“You couldn’t do that with a pit viper, Chuck, on account of they sense the heat and zap it. Charlotte here’s a more primitive model. She’s slower too. Fast movement, though, she don’t like one bit. That’ll set her off, and she’ll get mad as all get out and zap whatever she can hit.”

“Guess at this point, it would be me.”

Burke stepped forward with an opaque grin and tapped her head. He tapped it again.

The head rose, took on a certain fierce alert, and tracked Burke’s hand as it moved away. Frye could feel his chest hitting cotton.

“Anyway, Chuck, the main reason I want to see you is just to say I can help you on the job. Now for my askin’ price — I just want you to lay off snooping around my business at all hours of the goddamned night and basically stay the fuck out of my life. You forget about Rollie Dean. You got a problem with the way I make a living, that’s too bad. I don’t believe for one second you haven’t squawked to Bennett or that blond airhead I’m trying to bang. I can understand that. What I’m asking is you just lay off and leave me and my sister alone and let the law take care of the law. I don’t ask twice, Chuck. I got a good thing going and I ain’t about to let you mess it up. What the hell good would it do? You just go back to work instead of paying so much attention to other people’s business, and the world’ll keep spinning like it’s supposed to. Am I being clear on this here proposal?”

“Pretty damned.”

“Think I’m asking too much?”

“Your timing is odd.”

“How do you feel?”

“Tarzanesque.”

Parsons waved his hand before Charlotte again, then studied Frye. “That’s my best and final, Chuck. I think it’s a good offer, a fair trade. Frankly, though, I can’t figure you out. You’re an unknown quantity, and that makes me and Charlotte a bit nervous. You’re no idiot though, so I think you can see I’m being fair here.”

Burke stepped forward again and fanned his hand in front of Charlotte’s face. She reared, wavered, held still. Then she spread her hood — two phantasmagoric flaps rising from her neck, scales spreading against translucent skin, a milky white light showing through between the rows. Frye felt her weight shifting as she swayed. His arm was getting tired. A drop of sweat burned into his eye. Charlotte’s head pivoted as Burke moved to the side, then behind Frye. She swayed, seemed to focus on Frye’s mouth. She was two feet away. Her tail dug into his crotch.

“We got an understanding now, Chuck?”

“We do.”

“I knew you’d do business. You’re sensible after all. Rollie Dean you’re just gonna forget about, right?”

“That’s right.”

“No word to anybody?”

“Not one.”

“There are a number of points being made in this conversation, Chuck, and it’s important that you grasp them. The bottom line is, you mess with me, and you’re betting a dollar to make a dime. It just plain ain’t worth it.”

Burke reappeared in the corner of his vision. Frye sensed a flash of movement and felt the snake’s body tighten around his own. Parsons stood back, Charlotte’s head in his hand now. He was laughing. “Like winding up a garden hose, Chuck!”

Burke stepped back, hauling the snake with him. Frye could feel her tail dragging across his pants, then up his belly as Burke pulled her off.

A moment later he was stuffing the last of the light green body back into the cage, still holding her head in his right fist. “Charlotte don’t like going back in, so I gotta hold her like this. Actually, I don’t trust the bitch. Every inch a woman, isn’t she?”

“Not like any I know.”

“You haven’t been around enough.” Burke snapped the cage top shut, looked at Frye, and wiped a hand across Frye’s forehead. He looked at his fingertips. “Not bad, Chuck. Not any more than I’d have sweated. I hope you don’t interpret any of that as a threat. There’s a million ways to get things done in this world.”

Frye felt his pulse evening, the numb fear draining from his legs. But still, what he felt most was this new anger, non-negotiable, uncluttered. “You only need one, if it works.”

Parsons laughed, walking toward the stairs. “Amen to that, young man. You want to know something weird? That kind of shit does absolutely nothing to me. Nothing. To me, there’s nothing inside when it comes to violence, except it’s a tool. It’s like clipping your nails. That, basically, is where I stand.”

“I see.”

They walked up the stairs, Parsons first. The library door swung open automatically, its motor groaning. Frye easily imagined yanking Burke down the stairs, letting him fall, and strangling him at the bottom. He laughed to himself. That, basically, is where I stand.

“What you grinnin’ at, Chuck?”

“Thanks for the tour. Sensible household pets are hard to find.”

“You ought to be here at feeding time, Chuck. It’s just like hell, and you get to watch. Gonna stick around a while?”

“I’ve got a freedom rally to catch.”

“Oh, that thing. Hope someone shows.”