Wild Meat (17 page)

I’m Gimble-her! I’m Gimble-he!”

Hugh chuckled again. Couldn’t help it.

William gave an exasperated exhalation. “Yeah, I remember it, and it was slightly funny the first time, a year and a half ago. But there’s no need to spit in his face.”

“Lighten up, Willie. What’s he going to do? Quit?”

William stared for a long moment, seeming to struggle not to react after that last provocation. At the age of twelve, having recently learned that the word had an anatomical connotation, he had complained to their father about Hugh calling him “Willie.” The younger boy had been forbidden to use the name again. Hugh had teased his big brother about running to Daddy, but had seldom broken the rule, and never at all since they were teenagers.

“You don’t look well,” William finally said.

“The malaria,” Hugh explained. “Takes a while to get all the way back to a hundred percent.”
Time to give a little ground,
he thought. “And sorry, I…sometime during the initial fever, I threw my back out, and they’ve given me these supersonic painkillers for it. I get a little too floaty sometimes. I don’t really have any problem with Gimble; he’s just such an easy target that sometimes….”

“Alright, just please don’t drop the ball on me now. Not after all these months of everything going perfectly.”

William stepped over to his desk and picked up a glossy round cardboard tag the size of a saucer. He handed it to Hugh. “I think we emailed you a scan of this, didn’t we?” he said.

“No, actually I haven’t seen it before.”

The tag was printed in two shades of green and had a loop of green yarn attached. In the middle was the face of a chimpanzee, eyes slightly downcast so that it appeared lost in thought. Lettering around the top edge read: “MADE WITH SANDERSON TROPICAL TIMBER” and on the bottom: “PROTECTING OUR WILD BRETHREN.”

In smaller print under that:
“
Two percent of the purchase price of products made with Sanderson Tropical Timber goes toward maintaining wildlife sanctuaries.”

“What do you think?”

“I think two percent of the purchase price is a lot of money.” Hugh said, trying to sound as though he still gave a baboon’s fart about the company’s finances.

“After about a year, the caption will change to ‘proceeds from the sale of,’ without specifying the percentage. Plus the wildlife sanctuaries should actually make us money as they turn into tourist attractions. People will pay to ride around on the trams and look at the animals, and it won’t be cheap.
Visitors will also shell out for snacks and souvenirs. We should eventually pull in plenty more than our operating costs.”

“Will the initial setup cost us much?”

“Not really,” William said. “Look at the one in California. We bought it out a year ago, but now we’re changing its name and promoting a grand opening of the visitors’ program. It’s a place in the desert called the ‘Imperial Rainforest’ but it’s about to become ‘Sanderson Wild Adventure Land.’”

Gimble had just returned with the makeup artist, an anemic-looking young woman that might have been his twin, or maybe what Gimble would have looked like as a female zombie.

“I guess the name ‘Imperial Rainforest’ is supposed to be a joke,” Gimble said, “because it’s in the Imperial Desert, inland from San Diego. ‘Wild Adventure Land’ sounds a lot snappier.”

“It’s been an easy setup so far,” William continued. “The place’s usual donors are still contributing. We don’t have to worry about learning the ins and outs of running a sanctuary because the present staff and the previous owners are staying around on our payroll. We’re letting them hire the people they need to handle the additional animals we’re going to bring in.”

“I guess I’ll be spending some time in California,” Hugh said. He’d already been spending plenty of time there for entirely different reasons; no need to mention that.

“And here…
,” William said. He shuffled through some folders on his desk and produced a colorful cartoon. “This’ll be part of the promo for the made-over sanctuary.”

It was a caricature drawing of Hugh Sanderson surrounded by an assortment of smiling animals with big friendly eyes. He could tell the females by their lavender fur and long eyelashes. The cartoon Hugh was smiling, too, and his eyelids had the idiotic droopiness of the hero in a Disney cartoon. He held a purple baby chimp at his side like a human child, and the little ape had the same facial expression as Hugh; it also wore a diaper. Hugh wore boots, khakis, and a hat that suggested both Indiana Jones and the late crocodile guy from Australia.

Hugh stretched his face into a smile. “Hey, maybe I can help Cap’n Crunch stop that nasty pirate from harpooning whales or something.”

He was really thinking of finding Francine Whelk, or Caroline Yi, or whoever the hell she was, and firing a harpoon straight through her ribcage at close range. 

CHAPTER
THIRTEEN

Rita had become obsessed with the idea of traveling to Africa. She’d wanted to go there for years, and now Amy’s stories had amped up the urge. She stood behind Amy’s chair, rubbing her shoulders as Amy clicked on links related to trekking and camping in
countries south of the Sahara.

Amy had gotten home from Arizona a few hours earlier. She was relaxed and upbeat after seeing her parents in good spirits, still active and independent. The Red Rock area clearly agreed with them, and it was still gorgeous terrain despite the obscene overdevelopment underway in some areas.

It was late afternoon, and Rita would have to head off to work soon, but she’d insisted on first cutting Amy’s hair, which had become quite the unruly haystack.

“Don’t bother going anywhere in Africa unless you have a lot of time,” Amy told her.  “Otherwise it’s just a tease.”

“Five more months and I’ll have tons of time,” Rita said. She had resolved to quit her job at the beauty salon when her bank account reached a certain dollar figure, and had calculated that it would happen within six months. After that, and before starting up her own salon, she planned to do a lot of traveling. “I want to camp in the forest if I can,” she said.

“There
are plenty of places to do that. In fact, let’s see….” Amy did a search and clicked on a link for camping in West Africa. A small image on the search page full sidetracked her. “Hey, see that bird? I think it’s a turaco.” She clicked on the thumbnail. “Yeah, it is. It lives in the highlands, and I’m sure I’ve seen at least one.” She returned to the page full of search results. “And look at those climbing vines – the ones with the bright red—” She stopped. “Just a sec.”

She clicked another image that had
caught her eye – two ‘T’s interlocked with an ‘S,’ the logo of Sanderson Tropical Timber. A new page appeared and Rita, peering over Amy’s shoulder, read aloud: “ ‘Sanderson Free Forest Campground. Free for those who love the planet and love adventure.’ Well, there’s one place I know to stay away from.” Then she abruptly began giggling.

“What?”

“That just reminded me….” Rita squatted down next to Amy so she could reach the keyboard. “Something I came across in a search this morning.” She typed quickly into the search bar and scrolled through the links that appeared.

In a moment they were looking at several rows of comics that showed a cartoon Hugh Sanderson in various stages of undress. In at least half the pictures, he was engaged in sexual acts with
drawings of real-life celebrities as well as fictional cartoon characters, including the entire cast of Scooby-doo.

The drawings were surprisingly detailed. The backgrounds were full of beds, sofas, sex toys, additional twosomes and threesomes in action and, in one, a wall full of mounted, medieval-looking weapons.  Sanderson’s facial expressions were most often absurd accompaniments to the words
“OOOHH”
and
“WOWWW”
that appeared in explosive red letters inside dialogue balloons. In some pictures, however, his face appeared relaxed, the eyes softly closed in concentration or rapture, his body posed like a marble Greek statue, as though someone seriously meant the image to be erotic.

“Can you believe that?” Rita said. “It looks like he’s enough of a celebrity to get somebody all heated up.”

“Looks like somebody has a ton of time on his hands. You see the detail in some of these? That’s real obsession.”

“We can go back to the campgrounds now, darling,” Rita said. “I just thought the pictures were a hoot.” She reached for the mouse and backtracked to the list of campgrounds, then stood and resumed massaging Amy’s shoulders.

“Maybe there are some more freaky pictures on the review of Sanderson’s campground,” Amy said. She followed the link with the company logo, but there were no images, just comments.

Rita leaned closer and said, “What’s that mean: ‘Best ruby is always at Sanderson’s?’”

“Don’t know.” Amy opened up the thread.

_____________________________________________

Wish I could bring home some Free Forest ruby,
but the airport dogs would find that stuff even if their nostrils were stuffed with Vaseline and menthol.

_____________________________________________

>Someone got a few vials all the way to Texas without getting busted.

_____________________________________________

>>I heard someone got stopped at an airport and didn’t get busted, but didn’t get to keep it either. They couldn’t bust her with it because it’s not illegal (yet), because most governments probably don’t even know about it. But in the story I heard, U.S. customs kept the ruby ’cause they said it was a potential biohazard.
_____________________________________________

>>>If I was a cust
oms official, I’d arrest anyone carrying something that smelled like that. But right now I’d pay 300 euro for a finger-bottle full
!


_____________________________________________

>I heard you can get it in Amsterdam, but I bet it’s bullshit.

_____________________________________________

>Ruby will kill you.

_____________________________________________

>>Ruby doesn’t kill people. Cops do.
_____________________________________________

>>>Fuck you.

_____________________________________________

>You can get it anywhere on Avenue 9, but it’s still cheaper at Free Forest.

_____________________________________________

>>And no worrie
s at Free Forest cause nobody’s going to bust you there.

_____________________________________________

>>>I’ve never heard of anyone getting busted for it anywhere.

_____________________________________________

>>>>Me neither, but everyone says they lock you up forever if they catch you with it in Equateur, and I’m not taking any chances.

_____________________________________________

>>>>>I thought it wasn’t actually illegal.

_____________________________________________

>>>>>>Supposedly it’s illegal in Equateur. The word at Free Forest Campground is that ruby was once used in some religious ritual that’s been revived, and now it has some political, anti-government significance. So if you’re carrying ruby, then you’re part of some plot, and they kill you or lock you up forever. Even the security guards at the campground tell that story. They warn you that if you get sick and go to a clinic in the city, and the nurses want to know what the horrible smell is, you can’t tell them about ruby because you’ll end up dead in some dungeon. I don’t know if any of that is true or not, but that’s the story that gets passed around.

_____________________________________________

>>>>>>>The story is bullshit. The only explanation is that the security guards at Free Forest started the rumor because they’re in on the trade and they want you to think that Free Forest is the only place you can do it without getting busted bigtime. There can’t be any ancient ritual, because ruby’s probably some synthetic designer poison invented last Friday.

_____________________________________________

>>>>All this talk is making me jones jones jones!!!

_____________________________________________

>You don’t get busted at Free Forest, but you can sure as hell get stuck there. Lay around in a cloud of stink while your money drains away and that’s the end of your trekking days. Not to mention you do a few drops too much and you get a day of catatonia and piss yourself like a bum on the sidewalk.

_____________________________________________

>>You have to take at least three times the normal amount for that shit to happen. Besides, no one makes anyone else take it.

_____________________________________________

>>>No one makes anyone else take it? What about splashing.

_____________________________________________

>>>>Yeah, okay. Splashers should be shot.