Which is where he snoozed at one-thirty in the afternoon when he heard a knock on the bulletproof glass.
Pedro Luz sat up slowly and swung his thick legs off the bed. He stood up, strapped on his gun, straightened the shoulders of his uniform shirt. The knocking continued.
Through the glass, Pedro Luz saw a wiry brown man in a sweaty tank top. The man battled a spastic tic on one side of his face; it looked as if a wasp were loose in one cheek.
Pedro Luz opened the door and said, “What do you want?”
“I’m here for the money,” the man said, twitching. He clutched a grocery bag to his chest. “The million dollars.”
“Go away,” said Pedro Luz.
“Don’t you even want to see?”
“The voles are dead.”
The wiry man said, “But I heard on the news—”
“Go away,” said Pedro Luz, “before I break your fucking legs.”
“But I found the mango voles. I want my money.”
Pedro Luz stepped out of the office and closed the door. He stood a full foot taller than the man with the grocery bag, and outweighed him by a hundred pounds.
“You don’t listen so hot,” Pedro Luz said.
The man’s face twitched uncontrollably as he tried to open the bag. “Just one look,” he said, “please.”
Pedro Luz seized the man by the throat and shook him like a doll. The grocery bag fell to the ground and tore open. Pedro Luz was so involved in assaulting the derelict that he didn’t notice what came out of the bag: two half-starved, swaybacked ferrets, eyes glazed and bluish, lips flecked with foam. Instantly they settled in chewing on Pedro Luz’s right ankle, and did not stop until he tore them off, bare-handed, and threw them with all his might against the nearest wall.
One hour later, the Publicity Department of the Amazing Kingdom of Thrills faxed the following statement to all media, under the caption “Rare Voles Now Believed Dead”:
Police authorities reported today that the blue-tongued mango voles stolen this week from the Amazing Kingdom of Thrills are probably dead. According to the Florida Highway Patrol and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the rare mammals—believed to be the last of the species—were killed while crossing a highway after being abandoned by the robbers who took them.
Francis X. Kingsbury, founder and chairman of the Amazing Kingdom, expressed shock and sorrow at the news. “This is a tragedy for all of us at the park,” he said Wednesday. “We had come to love and admire Vance and Violet. They were as much a part of our family as Robbie Raccoon or Petey Possum.”
Mr. Kingsbury, who had offered $1 million for the safe return of the missing animals, said he will use part of the money as a reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for the crime.
A radical outlaw group calling itself the Wildlife Rescue Corps has claimed responsibility for the robbery at the popular amusement resort. Mr. Kingsbury said he was “shocked and dismayed that anyone claiming to support such a cause would commit crimes of violence—crimes that ultimately led not only to the animals’ deaths, but to the extinction of an entire species.”
Charles Chelsea, vice president in charge of public relations, said that the blue-tongued mango voles were provided with the best possible care while in captivity at the Amazing Kingdom. Only last year, the Florida Audubon Society praised the Vole Project as “a shining example of private enterprise using its vast financial resources to save a small but precious resource of nature.”
Next week, the Amazing Kingdom of Thrills will present a multi-media retrospective featuring slides and videotapes of the voles during their time at the park. Entitled “Vance and Violet: The Final Days,” the presentation will be shown three times daily at the Rare Animal Pavilion.
Tickets will be $4 for adults, $2.75 for children and senior citizens.
In the cafeteria, Charles Chelsea handed Joe Winder the fax and said, “Nice job, big guy.”
Winder stopped on the last sentence. “You’re charging money? For a goddamn slide show?”
“Joey, we’re running a business here. We’re not the National Geographic, okay? We’re not a charity.”