health and safety’of the gators. Of the gators! Ever rassled a gator, mister?”
“No,” said Roger, handing her money, his nose narrowing as though he were trying to cut off the sense of smell.
“Well, I sure as hell have-where you think I got this scar? — and I can tell you it ain’t the gators need protectin’. Park it in the lot and stay on the people side of the fence.”
She opened the gate. Roger drove into a dusty little yard, parked beside the only other car, a rusted-out Chevy on blocks. A few feet beyond it stood four or five rusted rows of bleacher seats, and beyond that lay a ditch, filled with algae-crusted water and lily pads, and fenced in with ten-foot-high chain-link. Six alligators, five of them between eight and twelve feet long, the sixth a baby, lay motionless on the far bank.
Roger and Whitey sat in the bleachers, read the rules- Positively No Feeding, Do Not Stick Fingers Thru Fence, No Teasing — watched the gators. The sun was hot, the air full of small, sharp-edged flying things, the gators still. After only a minute or two, Whitey’s shirt was sticking to his back; he noticed that Roger, in his black suit, didn’t seem to be feeling the heat at all.
For no reason that Whitey could see, the baby gator suddenly rose up and made his way to the ditch. It stood at the edge, seemed to be looking at Whitey and Roger, the only spectators across the way, then slid into the water and disappeared.
“Cute little bugger,” said Whitey.
Silence. Roger was staring at the water. Whitey was just about to say “cute little bugger” again when Roger turned to him. Whitey realized for the first time that there was something about Roger’s gaze that made him reluctant to meet it; in fact, he couldn’t. “You seem like a bright guy,” Roger said. Whitey looked modest. “So let me ask your advice on something.”
“Like what?”
“Maybe it’s even happened to you.”
“What has?” said Whitey, starting to lose the thread. A frog croaked nearby; Whitey spotted it, a big bullfrog, even bigger than the one he’d speared on I-95, sitting on a lily pad.
“Reducing it to the simplest possible terms,” said Roger, “did anyone ever take something valuable from you?”
“Not that I can remember.” But then Whitey thought of his freedom, and wasn’t sure.
“You’re a lucky man,” said Roger. “But suppose someone did. What would you do?”
“Like what kind of thing?”
“Call it a work of art.”
“Get it back, of course,” said Whitey. “I’d go after the fucker and get it back.”
“And which is more important?”
“Huh?”
“Of the two. Revenge or recovery of the object?”
Whitey felt Roger’s gaze on his face, suddenly knew the word for what this was-networking, or maybe mentoring. In any case, he knew this was an important question. Revenge or recovery of the object: he tried to sort out the terms. The right answer, from his point of view, was to go after the fucker. Who gave a shit about art? On the other hand, maybe Roger was the type who did give a shit about art.
“That’s a tough one,” Whitey said, searching Roger’s face for some clue. Their eyes met, and Whitey turned away, again unsettled by looking into Roger’s eyes, and as he turned, he saw the baby gator surfacing in a patch of lily pads, weeds trailing off its snout. Eeny meeny minie moe, said Whitey to himself, eeny being revenge and meeny recovery. Recovery won.
“The art,” said Whitey, and could see from Roger’s nod, a satisfied nod, as though he’d expected Whitey to do well all along, that he’d guessed right. “Recovery of the art,” Whitey said, “every goddamn time.”
“My former assistant thought otherwise,” Roger said.
“He did, huh?” said Whitey, shaking his head.
The baby gator glided over to the bullfrog’s lily pad. A green blur, some splashing, and then the bullfrog’s legs were dangling from the baby gator’s mouth. The baby gator submerged.
“He is a cute little bugger,” Roger said. “Awakens old, old memories.”
“Oh yeah? Like what?”
“I wouldn’t want to bore you,” Roger said.
“Hey, you’re not boring me, Rog, I swear.”
Roger’s face tightened, for no reason Whitey could see, as though he’d felt a sudden pain. He glanced at Whitey-again Whitey looked away-and went on. “I brought one like him home the first time I ever went to Florida, with my aunt. I was six years old.”
“So you’re not from here?” But Whitey knew that already from the way Roger said “ont,” just like he did.
“Can you guess what happened?” Roger said, maybe not hearing the question.
“It escaped?”
“A good guess, Whitey, a very good guess. But no. My parents didn’t let me keep it. They made me give it to the zoo.”
“I know just how you feel,” Whitey said. “Same thing happened to me with a weasel. Only it wasn’t the zoo. My ma just made me let it go, back in the woods.”
“Did she?”
“You don’t know my ma-that’s her through and through.”
“This was in New Hampshire?”
Whitey saw no other course but to admit it. He nodded.
“You know your way around the woods up there?”
“Shit yeah, Rog. I grew up like that goddamn what’s-his-name.”
“Natty Bumppo?”
“Never heard of him. It’ll come to me.”
But nothing came. The baby gator appeared on the far side of the ditch, climbed out, lay with his elders in the sun; no sign of the bullfrog. Roger said, “My former assistant didn’t.”
“Didn’t what?” said Whitey, who was thinking of his own bullfrog, and the crown-shaped ring of blood on its bumpy green head.
“Didn’t know his way around the woods.”
“No, huh?” Whitey conceived a brilliant question: “What were his qualifications, anyway?”
“Not the right ones, evidently. Do you know that saying about law and sausages, Whitey?”
“Law and sausages?”
“You don’t want to look too closely at how either of them is made. My work’s a bit like that.”
Law and sausages. Whitey didn’t get it. Was Roger trying to tell him he was a tough guy or something- dangerous? Whitey couldn’t see it. He, Whitey, was tough and dangerous-he thought of that stupid whore and her pimp with the baseball bat, and what had happened to them. Or was Roger trying to tell him that the assistant had to be tough and dangerous? Or maybe Roger checked his watch, his Rolex, stood up. “Better get you back to your post,” he said. “Wouldn’t want to put your job in jeopardy, would we?”
“Well, the thing is-” said Whitey, but Roger was already walking away and didn’t seem to hear.
Roger pulled over at the side of 441. He turned to Whitey, who’d been smelling the leather coat in the backseat, again gave him that look that seemed to see deep inside. “I said I’d pay you for your time.” And there was a one-hundred-dollar bill-not the same one, because there was no hole-held out for him. He was thinking all kinds of things to say, like it’s too much, and I didn’t really earn it, but while he was in the middle of thinking them, he grabbed it.
Roger smiled.
Whitey opened the door, started to get out. But how could he let this go without at least trying? What was there to lose? “This assistant thing,” he said, “are you looking for a replacement?”
Roger raised his eyebrows in surprise. “I hadn’t really thought about it yet.” He seemed to be thinking about it now, staring into the distance. “I’d need someone more discreet this time,” he said. “Discretion is the sine qua non in this business.”
That threw Whitey, and he licked his lips a couple of times before saying, “You never said what the business is exactly.”
