Tortoise Soup Read online

  Suzie Q’s head popped out from behind the tie-dyed curtain and I caught sight of one of Frank Sinatra’s hairy legs. “You’re full of shit, Georgia. All you care about is what kind of drink to make next and selling those pain-in-the-ass mutts.” Suzie Q giggled.

  She strolled out, dressed in the same baggy tee shirt, loose jeans, and sandals she’d had on the other day. I wondered if the girl ever bathed. She stepped over us into what passed as their kitchen and dug through drawers and stray paper bags until she found what she had been looking for: a pack of coconut-covered pink marshmallow Sno Balls, a close relative to Twinkies.

  “So exactly why did you quit working for Fish and Wildlife? What happened that was so bad?” I was curious to know what might await me in the near future.

  Georgia squashed the butt of her cigarette on a small bare patch of floor before leaning back on her elbows, her chest straining to be set free from the skimpy confines of the halter top. “When you get to the point where you can’t do your job because your own agency turns against you, it’s time to get out.”

  “You’re still not telling me what happened.” I wasn’t letting Georgia wiggle out of this as easily as she had her halter top.

  “Jesus, you’re dense, Porter. If I wasn’t such a humanitarian, I’d let you run smack dab into trouble without a second thought.” She hacked on a lungful of smoke as she lit up another cigarette. “I went up against a mining company with what I considered to be a shitload of violations.” Georgia took a deep puff, her information suspended in the air. “You do that in this state and you’re history.”

  I finished my drink, running my finger inside the glass to scoop out stray bits of banana. “What mine did you go up against?”

  Georgia finished off her daiquiri, the foam settling on her lips. “The Golden Shaft, that perennial favorite of politicians and government alike.”

  The woman had my attention. “But I’ve been told that Golden Shaft is an exemplary mine. They’re even receiving an award for environmental awareness.”

  Georgia grinned. “Doo dah, doo dah. Don’t that beat shit. It’s amazing what those boys back in Washington can do. Violations miraculously disappear with the whisk of a pen.” Her grin quickly vanished. “I was rewarded with the choice of transferring to scenic Newark or quitting.”

  I looked at Georgia Peach and wondered if she had lost her marbles in the process. “So you quit and settled here near the mine? Why?”

  “Those assholes are bound to fuck up, and when they do, I’m gonna nail their balls to the wall.” She got up and grabbed the blender, placing it on the floor. The horde of hair balls rose up as one unit and rushed over, stuffing their flat little snouts inside.

  “All right, so I’m doomed. But I’ve still got a job to do. Where would you begin to look for three hundred and fifty missing tortoises?” I asked.

  Suzie Q took a bite out of the Sno Ball and rubbed her tummy. “They’re long gone by now,” she replied with a satisfied air. “Kiss those little critters bye-bye. Right, Frankie?”

  She raised a marshmallow encrusted finger and rubbed the tarantula’s back, leaving bits of pink fluff in his fur.

  “How can you be so sure that they’re gone?” I felt Frank Sinatra’s minuscule eyes zoom in on me.

  “Because anyone with enough brains to steal the things knows that they’re worth bucks. And when anything is worth bucks, you take it to Pahrump to sell. If you really know the business, your haul is stashed with Wes Turley, the best dealer in town,” Suzie Q nonchalantly replied.

  Pahrump was infamous for mercenaries, wildlife dealers, and other lowlife scum. Suzie Q plucked Frank Sinatra off her shoulder and held him a hairsbreadth from her face, giving me the creeps.

  “They’ve disappeared into the pipeline by now,” she cooed to Frank. “The only way she’ll ever find them is floating in some Chinaman’s soup. Isn’t that right, sweetheart?” She brought her lips to what I hoped was Frankie’s face and let loose a loud smack.

  “She’s right, Porter,” Georgia chimed in. “It’s all speed, scam, and scumballs out here.”

  Like she was telling me something new.

  The door slammed open and a waterlogged Noah floated in out of the rain. He didn’t bother to say hello but went straight for the Jack Daniel’s. Screwing the top off, he wrapped his lips around the neck and hoisted it upside down, draining the bottle.

  Then he stared at me and burped. “You asked me the other day why I got fired, Porter. If you’re free tomorrow, come by in the morning and I’ll show you. I promise it’ll be time well spent. You’ll get to learn one hell of a lot about this wonderful state we call home.”

  Having said his piece, Noah fell back onto a cushion.

  “Sounds good; I’ll do that. But I want to ask you about something I’ve heard. Harley Rehrer and his friends claim that the three of you are responsible for the break-in at the conservation center. They believe you’ve been planting stolen tortoises on their land.”

  Noah laughed, kicking his feet so hard that streams of water flew out of his boots. “You got to hand it to those boys. They’re always good for a laugh.”

  “I’m glad to amuse you, but that doesn’t answer my question. Harley says you’re doing it in order to have him run off the land.”

  “That man don’t know shit from shinola. Did he tell you they were the wrong color, too?” Noah grinned.

  “How did you know that?” It was beginning to seem that everyone in Nevada was trailing me—I must have more charisma than I thought.

  “ ’Cause I’ve heard the same shit before!” Noah boomed. “Harley’s just kicking and screaming ’cause he and his honchos are afraid of losing their government subsidies. He wants to make sure all you good taxpayers continue to ante up the bucks. Hell, all of us want something: I want lots of young girls, and I’d let you pay for that, too.” Noah grinned lasciviously.

  I glanced over at Georgia Peach and Suzie Q, sprawled out on the cushions. As far as I could see, neither of them seemed to fit the bill.

  “Not those two. Those are nasty, vicious females who bite and scratch,” he growled and cocked his head at me. “If you’re going to be swayed by Harley and his gang, you’re in for a shitload of trouble—’cause we got us a whole lot of western lunatics out here. You’re just beginning to scratch the surface, girl.”

  I wondered if Noah included himself on that list.

  By the time I headed back to Vegas, the rain had died down to a depressing drizzle, finally lifting to reveal a sunset of staggering beauty. Mauve and scarlet painted the sky as I drove toward the city, which shimmered under miles and miles of neon twinkling like thousands of pieces of gold. An army of Joshua trees appeared as if out of a mirage, their stout bodies and upturned branches resembling an army of inverted tarantulas. Growing to thirty feet in height, the cactus was named by Mormon pioneers who proclaimed the plant’s big “arms” were pointing the way to the Promised Land.

  Not yet having bought pet food, I picked up a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken, extra crispy, along with soggy French fries and two sides of slaw, before going home.

  After finishing dinner, I opened the button on my pants with a sigh of satisfaction, then decided to continue the process, stripping off the rest of my clothes. I climbed into the bath with a glass of tequila and tried my best to escape the day.

  But images of Noah’s wife and children kept creeping into the dark corners of my brain. Though I pressed the palms of my hands tightly against my ears, there was no blocking out the screams of a baby. I slammed the door hard on my imagination, but a little boy’s fingers slipped inside and deftly pried open the door. He silently stared at me, his face a canvas of terror, as wave after wave of water touched his toes, moving up to his chest to lap at his chin. His mother’s tears turned into rain that washed over the boy and then inched up, intent on taking her baby. And all the while, Noah stood on land, the roar of the flood drowning his screams as his family disappeared.

  Determi
ned to shake the image, I glanced down at my own submerged legs and was startled to see only a skeleton there. I watched in horror as the flesh began dropping off my hips and waist, then the disintegration crept up to my chest and throat. I tried to cry out, only to discover that skeletons are unable to scream. Water filled my lungs and I started to choke, a burning sensation cutting off my breath. Thrashing around, I woke up and realized that I had fallen asleep in the tub.

  I toweled myself off and decided to call it a night. Crawling under the sheets, I drank one more shot of tequila. A whimper drew my attention down to the floor. It was Pilot, flashing the most pitiful expression I’d seen since my high school boyfriend had begged to have sex. Even worse, the ploy worked. I patted the covers and Pilot jumped up. Sprawling, he staked out his territory in typical male fashion. I lay down again as Pilot lodged his back against mine, making me long for Santou. At least I knew where Pilot was at all times.

  Eight

  Pilot woke me early the next morning. I put him out in my fenced-in backyard, then showered and dressed as I contemplated making the two of us breakfast. Visions of eggs and bacon danced in my head, broken by a rip-roaring commotion from out back. Pilot barked and snarled in a frenzy that had me worried I’d find him foaming at the mouth. Then I heard the rabid growl of Roy Jenkins, the neighbor on my right.

  “Shut the hell up, damn dog! Porter, get out here!” he screamed.

  I took a peek out the door and discovered Pilot had kept himself busy by digging a huge hole under the cyclone fence, heading straight into Jenkins’s backyard. On the other side, Jenkins’s three rottweilers hurled themselves against the chain link in a kamikaze attempt to get at Pilot. Pilot was the only one barking, though. The other three dogs merely uttered pitiful yelps, sounding like a chorus of high-pitched, squeaky springs, belying their vicious appearance. The dogs weren’t suffering from sore throats: Jenkins had had the pooches surgically altered, removing their voice boxes after they woke him too early one post-boozing-and-brawling morning.

  “Goddamit, Porter. What the hell have you gone and done, getting yourself a mangy critter like this?” Jenkins spat in fury.

  Pilot growled at him in response.

  “Jesus Christ, just when I was beginning to get a good morning’s sleep!”

  Jenkins was an angry little man. Though he had a body as solid as a brick outhouse, his head was too big for his torso. The bushy black beard and dark hair covering the tops of his ears added to his general appearance of a gnome gone wild on steroids. A perennially unemployed auto body mechanic, he had a backyard littered with car parts and broken-down bodies resting on cinder blocks.

  Roy was always looking for an easy way to make a fast buck. His main problem was that there was too much empty space where his brain should have been. His last venture had led him to buy sixty AK-47 rifles as well as a hundred thousand rounds of ammunition right after the assault weapons ban went into effect. Roy had thought gun prices would go through the roof. Instead, they crashed straight to the floor. But it started him on yet another sideline. He now worked as a vendor at local gun shows, which were generally attended by the area militia. Roy called his business Born to Kill. His stand carried everything from video cassettes with instructions on how to be the ultimate sniper to cast saws that claimed to be able to cut the leg off a poodle in under twenty seconds. Roy’s philosophy was summed up in a sign plastered on his front door: “Guns are like wives. If it ain’t yours, don’t touch.” Fortunately his wife had the good sense to leave long ago.

  “Why’d you have to go and get a dog, Porter?” Jenkins hissed. “Piss off too many people? Afraid you need protection these days?”

  His breath was rancid as a dead raccoon, even from the other side of the fence.

  “Hell, I’ll come and stand guard over your body anytime, babe.” Roy licked his lips.

  I would rather have had a cast saw taken to my own leg. Jenkins thrust his hand through the chain link in a pretense of trying to pet Pilot, hoping to get on my good side. But Pilot could sniff out a rat. Baring his teeth, he growled. Roy snatched his hand back, scraping his skin against the metal.

  “Great! I probably got tetanus now,” he complained. “Your dog went insane when I brought a bowl of dry chow outside. What are you feeding that mutt, anyway?”

  “I was thinking of bacon and eggs.” Roy probably ate dry chow himself.

  “Good God, Porter. Get a grip—that’s a dog you got there. You want someone to feed, you can feed me, sweet thing.” An obscene glint lit his eyes.

  “What, and take you away from all the hookers in town? Don’t be silly, Roy,” I responded.

  Jenkins tugged at his beard while he eyeballed me. “I notice you never have any men coming around, sugar. What say I come over tonight and show you a good time? Maybe relieve some of that tension that gives you that unattractive bitchy edge.”

  I was glad I hadn’t eaten breakfast yet. This way I’d just get dry heaves. “Sorry. I’ve got a hot date with Dr. Kevorkian.”

  I was afraid that Jenkins might be right about my tension and the lack of a man—but he sure as hell wasn’t the answer. Just the thought of Roy au naturel was enough to keep me celibate forever.

  Pilot and I piled into the Blazer and set off for our date with Noah under a clear blue sky. It was the kind of day that seized you by the throat and insisted you pay attention. The mountains in front of me looked like a series of vertebrae ready to erupt from beneath their skin, while barrel cactus festooned the side of the road, resembling bright-red balloons that had strayed from an all-night party only to settle in the middle of the desert.

  I pulled up to the ark, where Georgia Peach and Suzie Q lay on two air mattresses, sunbathing in the nude, a pile of panting Lhasa Apsos gathered around them. It wasn’t a pretty sight. My stomach gurgled, and I regretted the fried-egg sandwich I’d bought when I stopped to get a bag of dog chow for Pilot.

  Suzie Q stroked Frank Sinatra, who sat on the ground by her side. But what caught my eye was the fact that Frank appeared to be sucking on a shapeless mass of skin.

  Georgia Peach noticed the look on my face and chuckled. “Frank is just finishing his meal,” she explained.

  I was afraid to ask, but there was no getting around it. “What was it?”

  Suzie Q blinked through her wraparound shades. “It was a Mojave rattler.”

  Mmm. Yummy. I wondered how Frank Sinatra had managed to consume something that size.

  Suzie Q must have read my thoughts. “First Frank crushes its skull with his jaws.”

  I was impressed that she could tell where his jaws were at all.

  “Then he feeds on the soft parts, sucking on the snake till there’s nothing left.”

  It was beginning to sound like a porn film.

  Georgia Peach smirked at me. “It’s a fascinating event, Porter. A twenty-four-hour eat-a-thon. You should come and watch sometime.”

  Yeah. It was on top of my list of things to do, right after spending the night with Roy Jenkins.

  Noah climbed down out of the ark; thankfully, he was dressed in cutoffs and an explosive Hawaiian shirt.

  “Okay, Perky. Let’s go.”

  Oh, God. Not Perky. Anything but Perky. “I hate Perky,” I told him.

  Noah grinned. “I thought you might. Okay, in that case, let’s haul ass, Red.”

  I hated Red, too, but decided to let it go.

  He turned and headed toward a banged-up Suburban utility van. I followed, with Pilot bringing up the rear. It wasn’t until Noah glanced around that he noticed there would be three of us traveling together.

  “You don’t intend on bringing that nasty critter with you, I hope. I don’t bite, you know.” Noah smirked.

  “Leave him here, Porter. He can play with Frank Sinatra and the dogs,” Georgia called out.

  After what I’d seen of Frank’s handiwork, I had no intention of letting either Pilot or myself get anywhere within jaws range of the arachnid.

  “Thanks, but
Pilot likes to go for rides,” I explained as I waved the dog inside.

  A turquoise-blue disaster on the outside, with scratches and dents on almost every square inch of space, the interior of the Suburban held just as little charm.

  Gold shag carpeting with a variety of stains covered the floor. The dashboard was crowned with an air freshener decorated with pictures of Jesus. A Star of David hung from the rearview mirror, along with a giant pair of fuzzy dice.

  I looked at Noah and arched an eyebrow.

  “I like to cover my bases,” he replied as he slapped on a pair of Ray Bans.

  Shoving a bottle of Jack Daniel’s between his legs, he thrust the throttle into gear. We jerked off in a series of stomach-churning stops and starts, with a horde of Lhasas yapping behind and the Grateful Dead blasting off the interior walls.

  Noah decided to take the scenic route. My back came close to being knocked out of whack as we jolted over rocks and plunged into small gullies. Then we turned a corner and headed down a mountain, and the Suburban almost slid off the road.

  “Oh, shit!” I yelped, and grabbed onto the strap above the passenger door.

  “That’s exactly why I call those things shit handles, Red.” Noah took a slug of Jack Daniel’s. “It’s a technical term I devised. I’m gonna suggest that Chevy use it as part of their next ad campaign.” He grinned.

  I looked at him and wondered what drug he’d dropped this morning, as strains of Jerry Garcia pounded in my head.

  “So tell me what you know about a place called Los Alamos,” Noah began.

  I pried my fingers, one by one, off the strap. “Well, I know it’s not Spanish for the Alamo.” I leaned over and turned the Dead down a good ten notches. “Let’s see. Isn’t Los Alamos located in New Mexico?” I asked. Noah nodded as I dug through my memory. “And I’m pretty sure it was the birthplace of the atomic bomb.”

  “Very good. You get an A in history. More importantly, it’s a facility that’s run by DOE—or as you civilians call it, the Department of Energy.”