Tortoise Soup (3 page)

It seemed three hundred and fifty desert tortoise hatchlings had just disappeared.

The location of the
Center is kept fairly secret because of the science-fiction-type research that’s performed there. In a sort of Nietzschean superman twist, young hatchling and juvenile torts are fed what amounts to Michael Jordan’s diet. The result has been a production line of “super juvees,” tortoises three times as large as a normal reptile left to fend for itself. This would be my first visit.

I passed the 7-Eleven, the only civilization for miles around, and turned onto an unmarked dirt road. Dust balls of fine, powdery silt rolled off the sun-stunned desert floor, caking my Blazer in a replica of Miss Havisham’s ancient wedding gown. Soon a cyclone fence came into view, racing alongside my car mesmerizingly, and leading to a locked gate. Beyond that lay the one-story Center, camouflaged the same drab beige as the land. I beeped my horn to announce my arrival and waited inside my portable sauna for someone to open the gate.

A funny thing happened in Clark County, Nevada, when the desert tortoise was placed on the endangered species list. Since the reptiles have their burrows just about everywhere, all construction was forced to a grinding halt. Housing developments came to a standstill. Schools couldn’t be built. The new airport was put on hold, along with half-finished highways and casino hotels. What was at stake was money. Big money. Billions and billions of dollars.

Because Nevada’s favorite colors are gold, silver, and greenbacks, money changed hands, and, in the blink of a tortoise’s eye, Las Vegas was back in business. The Fish and Wildlife Service was handed a large chunk of cash along with an offer they couldn’t refuse: builders would construct a conservation center for tortoise research. In return, developers were once again free to obliterate the desert.

The conservation center quickly turned into a dumping ground, with captive tortoises breeding as prolifically as rabbits. In fact, the problem was now what to do with all the critters. It seemed someone had just created his own solution.

Five minutes had gone by, and I was still waiting to be let in. Having passed through the stages of steamed and baked, I was now well on my way to being deep-fried. Patience may be a virtue, but it’s not mine. I was at the point where I’d kill for a Coke.

Getting out of the Blazer, I opened up my handy-dandy Leatherman—a multi-pliers pocket tool kit, complete with wire cutter, straight and serrated blades, screwdriver, bottle opener, metal file, scissors, tweezers, and nail file. In less than ten seconds flat, I managed to jimmy the lock and I drove on inside. So far, security at the Center was worse than my old ground-floor apartment back in New York, which had been referred to by the local Hoods ’R Us as an easy lay.

I walked through the front door and was greeted by an array of stuffed desert wildlife frozen in lifelike positions. Since no one running the Center was to be found among the lot, I made my way down the hall, passing one sterile enclosure after another, until I finally arrived at the darkened lab. A small, sparse room, its decor was wall-to-wall wire cages. Each pen was marked to identify the tortoise inside. All stood eerily empty. It wasn’t the high-tech extravaganza I had expected for the millions of dollars that had been spent.

“What are you doing in here?”

I turned around and saw a young man in his early twenties, wearing a white coat as if dressed up to play doctor. Remnants of teenage acne marred his face, and heavy tortoiseshell glasses gave him the air of a nerd. He stood ramrod-straight with his hands clenched deep inside his coat pockets and looked me over as if I were an annoying piece of sagebrush that had somehow blown in.

“I’m Agent Rachel Porter with Fish and Wildlife. You left a message that a number of tortoises were stolen?” I inquired, using my best official tone.

The young man made an effort to peer down his nose, even though I stood a good inch taller. He then began to sniff around the room, his nostrils dilating with each whiff, as if in search of a missing piece of cheese.

“I don’t believe the term ‘stolen’ was used. What was said quite precisely was that they had disappeared,” he corrected me.

I glanced at his name tag, which identified him as William Holmes. “Well, Bill, unless Houdini’s been here, I’d say your super juvees have been nabbed.”

“My name is William, and we have no evidence of a break-in. As was stated before, they’ve simply vanished, Porter,” he haughtily replied.

A smarmy wiseass who was probably getting along by living off grants.

“The name is Agent Porter. Would you like to tell me precisely what you mean by the term ‘vanished’?” I responded.

The corners of William’s mouth curled down as if he didn’t have time for such nonsense. “What I mean is that they no longer appear to be here. However, no locks seem to have been tampered with and no windows have been broken. As to precisely what has taken place, I’m afraid I must unfortunately leave those details to
your
attention, Agent Columbo.”

I already hated the kid. “For your information, Bill, I just unlocked the entry gate without a key. And by the look of it, I could probably do the same with the front door. With the kind of security system you’ve got here, who needs to break windows?”

I switched on an overhead light and began to look around.

William stood stiff as a board. “Would you mind not poking at anything before asking?”

If I’d had a cattle prod, I might have inquired as to what he meant. Instead, I made a slow survey of the room. None of the cages contained food or water and each pen door had been carefully closed.

“What time this morning did you realize that the tortoises were missing?” I inquired.

William paused for a moment before answering. “I first noticed they had disappeared two days ago.”

“Two days ago?” I was stunned. “What were you doing all this time? Waiting for them to magically reappear?”

I’d have to report the kid to somebody. The job was crying out for a replacement. William refused to look me in the eye, which only annoyed me further.

“Well, what did you think? That they had gone out for a quick Burger King fix? Why did you wait so long before reporting this?” I asked.

William’s lips barely moved as he spoke. “I thought they might have been borrowed.”

I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he’d been munching on magic mushrooms for the past two days. But he just didn’t seem the type.

“Borrowed? And what would they have been borrowed for?” I prodded.

William shot me a withering glance. “We do all sorts of experiments here.”

Okay. So the place was a bordello for kinky sex. I still had to hunt down three hundred and fifty missing tortoises.

Turning to leave, I noticed a neon-green tortoise painted on the door to the lab.

I pointed to the painting. “Is this the work of some budding Picasso? Or is it so everyone will know where the tortoises are kept when they’re not being borrowed?”

Holmes gave me a look to kill. “That appeared around the same time the tortoises vanished.”

I stepped in for a closer view. The form appeared to have been hand-painted using a stencil. “So nobody here is taking the credit?”

“No. I guess that must mean you’ve got your first clue, Porter,” Holmes said, folding his arms.

“And what would that be, Bill?”

A grin, reminiscent of a weasel in heat broke out across his face. “It obviously means that this is the work of some commando group of econuts, who slipped in during the night and liberated the tortoises.”

The kid had to go. “Yep. You’re right, Sherlock. I guess the case is closed.”

I stepped past him and prowled around the rest of the building. The kid was right about one thing—there had been no break-in. It was beginning to look like an inside job.

I turned around and almost bumped into Holmes, who had been tailing my every move. “I take it that you’ve spoken with everyone who works here?”

Holmes pulled back an inch. “Of course I have. No one has the slightest idea what could have happened, but they are all very concerned.”

If they were as concerned as Holmes, there was the possibility that the tortoises could already have been missing for weeks.

“I’d like a list of everyone who works here, along with their address and phone number,” I informed him.

William eyed me suspiciously. “I already told you I’ve spoken with everyone. What do you want that for?”

Good thing the kid wasn’t gunning to be a brain surgeon. “I have some follow-up questions. Is there a reason you should have a problem with that?”

Holmes didn’t bother to respond.

“By the way, Bill, be sure to include a number where I can reach you as well,” I added.

Hesitating for a second, he licked his lips. “Why do you need my number?”

“Backup for the raid on the commando group,” I dead-panned.

Holmes jammed his fists into his pockets again and skulked off to make the list. When he finally returned, he held the piece of paper just out of my reach.

“Ask around all you want, Porter. But everyone who works here does so because they care about tortoises.” There were tiny sweat marks on the paper beneath Holmes’s fingertips.

“A lot of people in Nevada care about tortoises. Mostly for the wrong reasons.” I pulled the list out of his hand and headed for the door.

“By the way, Porter. How did you know it was the super juvees that were missing?” he asked, his voice high and tight in his throat.

“Would you keep regular tortoises in a lab, each in individual pens?” I retorted.

Holmes stared at me without saying a word. I didn’t bother to tell him it was the age and weight carefully listed on each cage that had given it away.

The best thing about driving through the desert is that you have plenty of time to think. There’s nothing much else to do. I began totting up a list of suspects in my mind. So far, nearly everyone in southern Nevada was on it.

With the federal government owning ninety percent of the land in Clark County, there’s little private land left to buy. Instead, miners and ranchers lease public land for pennies, but with restrictions attached in a big flashy bow of government red tape. When I’d arrived, I was informed that miners despise the tortoise because their presence inhibits mining. I learned that ranchers hate the critter since they’re the cause of cattle grazing being curtailed. And developers routinely yell at me that they have no land to build on.

But my list of suspects didn’t stop there. Wealthy collectors with exotic tastes hanker after the threatened creature as a “must have” pet. And in Vietnamese and Cambodian communities, they’re lusted after at sumptuous banquets in the form of highly prized tortoise soup.

All of this left me with an endless number of places to begin my search. Frustration makes me hungry. I reached inside my bag of chips, found it was empty, and decided it was time for lunch. There was one place where I could eat and possibly pick up some information as well.

The Mosey On Inn was a pit stop on the road to nowhere. A giant statue of Paul Bunyan took up most of the parking lot, and I had yet to figure out its meaning—there was nothing in sight to chop down. I parked next to Paul’s boot and walked inside, where I spied Ruby at her usual spot behind the counter.

“Hi there, sugar. Mosey on in here.”

Ruby and her husband had moved to Nevada three years ago. Her husband had declared it his retirement paradise; Ruby saw it as her hell. Having lived most of her life in Nebraska, she’d been dragged out here against her will, kicking and screaming all the way. Ruby’s worst nightmare came true when after only two months in Nevada, her husband blissfully dropped dead of a heart attack while experiencing a lap dance in Vegas. Ruby had found herself stuck in a trailer that had been bought with their life savings and working a dead-end job.

“What’ll it be today, sweetie?” she asked, pleased at having a customer.

“A slice of lemon meringue pie and a jolt of black coffee would be perfect,” I replied.

Ruby waddled back and forth filling my order, her ample rear end threatening to burst her uniform at the seams. The buttons on the front of her dress were equally strained, thanks to a bountiful bosom, which was further accentuated by a large, purple plastic orchid pinned to her chest. Ruby helped nature along by smearing a generous dose of rouge on the tops of her cheeks and then applying the same ruby-red paste to her lips. To top it off, tiny rolls of tight blond curls covered her head, resembling a serving platter full of miniature pork sausage. The effect was that of a kewpie doll on acid. Ruby had been out in the desert too long.

“So what brings you out here today, sugar? It can’t be just our homemade pie.” Ruby smiled at me.

She was right. My fork bounced off a slice that must have been coagulating for days.

“Some young tortoises are missing from the conservation center,” I replied, slowly chewing on a mouthful of rubbery lemon curd. “I was wondering if you might have heard any news.”

The Mosey On Inn is a hangout where information on illegal deals is regularly exchanged. It’s out of the way, the food is bad, and word has it that Ruby gets a small cut on any business that goes down. My counterdefense was to ply her with makeup, perfume, and hair spray whenever she supplied me with any dirt. I pulled out a small bottle of White Diamonds cologne and slid it her way. Ruby eagerly snapped it up and squirted on her daily fix, permeating my coffee with its sweet, cloying scent.

“How about them wackos?”

The rasping voice came hurtling at me from the back of the room. Turning around, I saw a figure disengage itself from a dark corner and make its way to the front. The man was dressed in full camouflage, but it was his face that caught my attention. He looked as though he’d been caught in a napalm attack and just barely survived.

“The whole bunch of ’em are crazy as loons. Call themselves guerrillas. I call them flaming assholes,” he croaked.

One eye was a mere slit. The other stared out from a puffy mound of scar tissue, where it burned with the intensity of a live ember. He held a cup of coffee in his hand, complete with a straw. Taking a sip, his mouth opened and closed like a fish stranded on land.