There was blood on his fingers.
“That’s just from the meat,” said Beauchamp. “It won’t hurt you none.” He cranked the engine. It roared to life, and they went tearing around behind the Kentucky Star and into the woods. Beauchamp drove like he was crazy. He gunned for trees and then swerved away from them at the last minute, whooping and hollering the whole time.
“You ain’t going to believe what I got to show you,” Beauchamp hollered at him.
“No, sir,” said Rob weakly.
“What?” Beauchamp shouted.
“No, sir,” Rob shouted back. “I ain’t going to believe it.”
But he did believe it. He believed it with all his heart.
Chapter 19
Beauchamp hit the brakes.
“We’re almost there,” he said. “You got to close your eyes so it’s a surprise.”
Rob closed his eyes and the jeep went forward slowly. “Don’t cheat now,” Beauchamp said. “Keep them eyes closed.”
“Yes, sir,” Rob said.
“All right,” Beauchamp said finally. “Go on and open them up.”
He had pulled the jeep up as close to the tiger cage as possible without driving right into it. “Tell me what you see,” he crowed. “Tell me what is before your very eyes.”
“A tiger,” said Rob. He let his mouth drop open. He tried to look excited and amazed.
“Damn straight,” said Beauchamp. “King of the jungle. And he’s all mine.”
“Wow,” said Rob. “You own him?”
“That’s right,” said Beauchamp. “Fellow I know owed me some money. Paid me with a tiger. That’s the way real men do business. In tigers. He come complete with the cage.” The toothpick in the side of his mouth danced up and down; Beauchamp put a finger up to steady it into silence.
“What are you going to do with him?” Rob asked.
“I’m studying my options. I figure I could set him up out front of the Kentucky Star, have him draw me some more business into the motel.”
The tiger stood and stared at Beauchamp. Beauchamp looked away from him. He tapped his thick fingers on the steering wheel.
“I also might just kill him,” Beauchamp said, “and skin him and make me a tiger coat. I ain’t made up my mind. He’s a lot of work, I’ll tell you that. He needs meat twice a day. That’s where you come in. I need you to come out here and feed him. Two bucks every time you do it. How’s that sound?”
Rob swallowed hard. “How do I get the meat in the cage?” he asked.
Beauchamp dug in his pocket and pulled out a set of keys. “With these,” he said. He shook the keys and they gave a sad jingle. “Don’t pay no attention to the big keys. They’re for the locks on the door. Open them up and that tiger will get out and eat you for sure. You understand? I ought not to give you this whole set, but I know you won’t open up that door. Right? You ain’t no fool, right?”
Rob, terrified that keys to the cage existed and that they were about to be handed to him, nodded.
“See this tiny key?” Beauchamp said.
Rob nodded again.
“That’s for the food door, right there.” Beauchamp pointed at a small door at the bottom of the cage. “You just open that up and toss the meat in a piece at a time. Like this.”
Beauchamp swung himself out of the jeep with a grunt. He reached in the back seat for the grocery bag, took out a piece of meat, bent over and unlocked the tiny door, opened it, and threw the meat in. The tiger leaped forward, and Beauchamp took a quick step backward, stumbling.
“That’s all there is to it,” he said, straightening up. His forehead was shiny with sweat, and his hands were trembling.
“What’s the tiger’s name?” Rob asked.
“Name?” said Beauchamp. “He ain’t got a name. You got to name something before you toss it a piece of meat?”
Rob shrugged and blushed. He bent over to scratch his legs so that he wouldn’t have to look at Beauchamp’s sweaty, angry face.
“You want to get introduced proper?” said Beauchamp in a mocking voice. “Well then, get on out of the jeep.”
Rob climbed down.
Beauchamp grabbed hold of the fence and shook it. The tiger looked up from his meat. His muzzle was red with blood; he stared at Beauchamp with a fierce look in his eyes that was familiar to Rob.
“Hey!” Beauchamp shouted. “You see this boy here?” He pointed at Rob. “He’s your meal ticket. Not me. It’s this boy. He’s got the keys now. Understand? I don’t got them no more. This boy’s got them. He’s your boy.”
The tiger stared at Beauchamp a minute more, and then he slowly lowered his head and started back to work on the meat.
“Now you two know each other,” said Beauchamp. He pulled a tattered bandanna from his pocket and wiped the sweat off his forehead.
On the hair-raising ride back to the Kentucky Star, Rob realized who the tiger’s stare reminded him of. It was Sistine. He knew that when he told her he had the keys to the cage, her eyes would glow with the same fierce light. He knew that she would insist that now they had to let the tiger go.
Chapter 20
The last thing Beauchamp said to him was, “Don’t forget, now, this is our business deal. It don’t concern nobody else. You take that bag of meat and hide it somewhere, and I’ll bring you more meat tomorrow. In the meantime, you keep your mouth shut.”
At three o’clock, the school bus pulled up, belching and gasping and sighing. Norton and Billy Threemonger started pelting Rob with date palms before the bus even came to a complete stop. The bus door opened and Sistine came running toward him, dodging the dates, looking as serious as a soldier on a battlefield.
“Let’s go see the tiger,” she shouted to him.
Rob was dismayed to see that she was still wearing his shirt and jeans.
“Where’s your dress?” he blurted.
“In here,” she said. She held up the same grocery bag he had given her the night before. “I changed as soon as I got out of the house. My mother doesn’t know. I found a book in the library today and read about big cats. Do you know that panthers live in the woods here? We could set the tiger free, and he could live with them. Come on,” she said. She started to run.
Rob ran, too. But the keys to the cage felt heavy in his pocket, and they bumped up against his leg and slowed him down so that Sistine beat him there. When he arrived, she was standing pressed up against the fence, her fingers wrapped in the chainlink.
“Tigers are an endangered species, you know,” she said. “It’s up to us to save him.”
“Watch out he don’t attack you,” Rob said.
“He won’t. Tigers only attack people if they’re desperately hungry.”
“Well, this one ain’t hungry.”
“How do you know?” Sistine asked, turning around and looking at him.
“Well,” said Rob, “he ain’t skinny, is he? He don’t look starved.”
Sistine stared at him hard.
