Bestiary (39 page)
Authors: Robert Masello
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #United States, #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Thrillers
Al-Kalli threw him away, like something soiled, and Rashid sprawled on the dirt floor of the bestiary. He knew enough not to get up; it was better to lie prostrate, submissive, defeated; it was true among the animals, and it was true among men.
Al-Kalli’s gaze, filled with contempt and disgust, moved away from him. The scent of blood in the air, however slight, had agitated the animals. There were grunts and snarls, and overhead the furious beating of wings. As al-Kalli watched, his prized phoenix dropped off its lofty perch and swooped in a blaze of red and gold into the air, screeching like a whole flock of eagles. It flew madly from one end of the vast facility to the other, the tips of its glistening wings grazing the steel walls, its claws extended and flexing as if anxious to capture some living prey.
The other animals, watching its flight and perhaps envying the bird’s relative freedom, let loose with a louder volley of howls and yelps and growls. There was a dense, musky smell in the air, and even Jakob instinctively loosened his jacket enough to make drawing his gun easier.
What was he to do? al-Kalli wondered, as the cries rose around him. His beasts were dying—the legacy of his family, for thousands of years, was about to vanish under his care. Under difficult circumstances, he had saved as many as he could, as many as he thought necessary to breed and sustain the species. But he was failing. Rashid was a fool, and, despite all his training, no more capable of caring for such exquisite treasures than the idiot boy, Bashir. These were creatures from a time before time, beasts that had walked among the dinosaurs, that had grazed the fields of Eden. It would be a risk—it would always be a risk—to share the knowledge of them with anyone.
But what was needed, al-Kalli saw more clearly now than ever before, was someone who knew that world. Someone who understood creatures of such great antiquity—someone who revered them as he did—and who might intuit what they needed to survive.
And if such a man existed, al-Kalli knew who it might be.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CARTER BENT LOW over the plaster of paris and with the tip of his scalpel delicately removed a piece the size of a dime.
“Neatly done,” Del said, taking a sip of his cold coffee. “At this rate we’ll be finished by Labor Day.”
“What year?” Carter said, straightening up and, with his hands at the small of his back, stretching.
Del glanced up at the clock on the wall of the lab. “It’s almost ten. How much longer you want to go?”
Carter wasn’t sure. They were working on the remains of the La Brea Man, and they were doing it in the public lab on the ground floor of the Page Museum. This was the lab where the work was routinely done, behind a curved glass wall that allowed the general public, during normal museum hours, to watch the process. But these weren’t normal museum hours, which was the only reason Carter was willing to risk using this lab at all. Working on something as sensitive as the La Brea Man—given all the controversy it had already created—was probably something he should be doing only in a place safe from public view.
It was just that the museum had no better lab than this.
“You getting tired?” Carter asked.
“I can go a while longer,” Del said, tucking some strands of his long white hair back into his headband. “Long as we’re not interrupted by any ghosts.”
“I haven’t seen any yet.” But then, it would hardly be possible; they were working in a tiny island of light, in an otherwise dark and empty lab, in the middle of an otherwise dark and empty museum. Carter, too, had heard the rumors Del was referring to; the night watchmen had reported some strange goings-on. Moving shadows on the wall. Scratching noises. Once, some violent banging in the sub-basement. As far as Carter was concerned, either it was nothing at all or it was something the protestors were up to. Maybe they thought they could spook the museum into giving up the bones.
If that was the case, they were sorely mistaken.
Especially as he was making such notable progress on the bones of the left hand—the hand in which something, something still encased in the asphalt, was held. In fact, with another few moves of the chisel and scalpel, he thought he could separate the object from the hand itself.
“Put another tape on, and we’ll work for the duration of one side.”
Del turned and popped the Loretta Lynn out of the boom box balanced on the next stool. “What do you want to hear?”
“Something with electric guitars and no whining. The Stones, the White Stripes, the Vibes.”
“I brought some Merle Haggard. Boxed set—
Down Every Road
?”
Down Every Road
?”
Carter laughed. “If that’s what you’ve got.”
And then he went back to work on the hand, while Del, on the opposite side of the lab table, continued removing flakes of plaster from the occipital lobe of the skull. During the day, the bones were carefully concealed under a black plastic sheath, but for several nights now, Carter and Del had taken to working on them for another hour or two after closing time. They hadn’t ever gone this long, but as the skeleton became more and more revealed, Carter’s compulsion to continue the work had grown. Beth, he knew, was less than enthused about his longer hours, but he promised her it would be over soon. And it wasn’t as if she hadn’t run into this kind of problem with him before.
He tapped the side of the plaster on what appeared to be the little finger of the man’s left hand, and a tiny fissure opened up. He tilted the tensor lamp to give himself a better view, and yes, he could see that there was now a tiny, barely discernible line running between the bone and the still-coated object. If he was very careful, and a little bit lucky, he would now be able to separate the two.
“You getting along any better with your brother-in-law?” Carter asked. Del was still staying with them in their fancy condo on Wilshire Boulevard.
“As long as I stay out on the balcony, they’re okay with it and so am I.”
“The traffic noise doesn’t get to you?” Carter used a fine camel’s-hair brush to whisk away the plaster dust.
“They’re on the twenty-ninth floor,” Del replied, without looking up from his work either. “I get more noise from the planes. But no, it’s not ideal. I’m looking for new accommodations.”
Carter picked up the scalpel once more and gently increased the delineation between the bone and its prize. Merle was singing, in a rich baritone—Carter had to hand him that—about how all his friends were gonna be strangers.
“You up for another hike this weekend?” Del said.
“Sure.”
“Maybe we can go somewhere they don’t slash your tires.”
“That would be a good idea.” After their last hike in Temescal Canyon, they’d had to wait an hour in the parking lot for a tow truck to arrive. And Carter had had to shell out for a new set of tires.
He used the scalpel as a wedge, and just as the plaster cracked, and the bone and object cleaved apart, the overhead lights all over the lab snapped on.
“What the hell is going on in here?” Carter heard from the door directly behind him.
He didn’t have to turn around to know who it was.
Gunderson, in a natty suit and bow tie, was standing in the doorway, with a red boutonniere in his lapel. Del quickly turned off the music.
“Do you know what time it is?” Gunderson went on.
Carter knew perfectly well. But what, he wondered, as he draped a clean cloth over the newly separated object, was Gunderson doing here?
“I was just leaving a concert downtown,” he volunteered before Carter could ask, “and in view of all the security problems we’ve had of late, I thought I’d swing by.” He strode over to the table. “And I’m very glad I did.”
He glanced down at the plaster cast and quickly assessed the situation. “You,” he said to Del, “I would not expect to know any better.” But then he wheeled on Carter. “But how could you do something so obtuse?”
“This is the best lab on the premises, and we need to proceed with the work.”
“In full public view?”
“We keep it covered and out of sight during museum hours. We’ve only worked on it at night.”
Gunderson let out an angry breath and ran a hand back over his hair. “Dr. Cox, I know that the Page Museum considered it a coup to get you to come here. But I for one always had my reservations. I looked into the events that precipitated your departure from New York University, and I wasn’t exactly relieved. Your unorthodox research methods not only led to a massive lab explosion—”
Carter wondered if he was going to run down all the sordid details.
“—but also caused the deaths of two of your colleagues.”
Apparently he was. Carter looked over at Del—he’d never told his friend the whole story, and now he wished that he had. It’s just that it was something he tried, without much success, to put out of his mind.
“Now it looks like you’re up to your old tricks, and I won’t have it in my museum.”
When was it, Carter thought, that the Page had become
his
museum?
his
museum?
“I want this . . . specimen removed first thing tomorrow. I’ve already got the NAGPRA people swamping me with official queries and threats about our government funding. The last thing I want to do is give them any fresh ammunition.” He threw one last look onto the remains, much of them still concealed by the plaster cast used to preserve them during the recovery and transportation to the lab, and then turned abruptly on his heel. “The museum closes at six P.M., gentlemen,” he said on his way to the door. “The only person authorized to be in here is the night watchman.”
The door, on an air-hinge, slowly closed and latched behind him, and Carter and Del were left alone again, in the now brightly lighted lab. Carter wasn’t sure what to say.
“Two?” Del finally said. “I knew about your friend Joe Russo, but there was another guy who died, too?”
“Joe died from burns,” Carter said, “in the hospital. A young assistant professor, Bill Mitchell, was killed at the scene.”
“He was the one who started the laser?”
“Yes,” Carter said.
“Without knowing about the gas pockets in the rock?”
“He wasn’t even supposed to know about the project. He wasn’t supposed to be in there.”
“Where were you?” Del hadn’t meant to make it sound so accusatory.
“Upstate, at a friend’s house, for the weekend.”
Del rocked on his heels, as if pondering the data, then said, “Well, it sounds to me like it was one royal fuck-up.”
Carter couldn’t deny it.
“But it wasn’t your fault. You weren’t even there.” It was what Beth had tried to tell him a thousand times—what he’d told himself nearly as many. But it didn’t matter. He would carry the disaster in his heart to the end of his days, and he would mourn the loss of his friend Joe Russo always.
“So,” Del said, gesturing at the La Brea Man, “what do you want to do about our friend here?”
Carter wasn’t sure yet. He could set up a makeshift lab in the sub-basement, but it would take a few days of preparation. What he did know was that he wanted to spirit one piece of the find away immediately; now that he’d removed the mystery object from the man’s hand, he wanted to get to work on it first thing the next day. And he certainly couldn’t do that in here anymore.
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