Pedro Luz had told no one of the mishap. To replace the deceased vole, he had purchased a dwarf hamster for nine dollars from a pet store in Perrine. After minor modifications, the hamster had fooled both the customers and the male vole, which repeatedly attempted to mount its chubby new companion. Not only had the hamster rejected these advances, it had counterattacked with such ferocity that Pedro Luz had been forced to hire a night security guard to prevent a bloodbath.
Matters were further complicated by the appearance of an ill-mannered pinhead from U.S. Fish and Wildlife, who had barged into the theme park and demanded follow-up data from the “project manager.” Of course there was no such person because there was no project to manage; research consisted basically of making sure that the rodents were still breathing every morning before the gates were opened. With the feds suddenly asking questions, Charles Chelsea had quietly put out an all-points bulletin for a legitimate biologist—a recruiting effort that eventually induced Dr. Will Koocher to come to the Amazing Kingdom of Thrills.
Kingsbury decided not to burden Rachel Lark with the details of the doctor’s grisly demise; it was irrelevant to the purpose of his call.
“Forget the money,” Kingsbury told her.
“I must be hearing things.”
“No, I mean it.”
“Then what do you want?”
“More voles.”
“You’re joking.”
“My customers, hell, they go nuts for the damn things. Now I got spin-offs, merchandise—a major warehouse situation, if you follow me.”
“Sorry,” Rachel Lark said, “it was a one-time deal.” She’d pulled off the endangered-species racket on two other occasions—once for a small Midwestern zoo, and once for a disreputable reptile farm in South Carolina. Neither deal made as much money as the mango-vole scam, but neither had wound up in the headlines of the Washington Post, either.
Kingsbury said, “Look, I know there’s no more mango voles—”
“Hey, sport, there never were any mango voles.”
“So what you’re saying, we defrauded the government.”
“God, you’re quick.”
“I’m wondering,” said Kingsbury, “those fucking fur-balls I paid for—what were they? Just out of curiosity.”
Rachel Lark said, “Give me some credit, Frankie. They were voles. Microtus pitymys. Common pine voles.”
“Not endangered?”
“There’s billions of the darn things.”
It figures, Kingsbury thought. The blue tongues were a neat touch. “So get me some more,” he said. “We’ll call ’em something else, banana voles or whatever. The name’s not important, long as they’re cute.”
The woman who called herself Rachel Lark said: “Look, I can get you other animals—rare, not endangered—but my advice is to stay away from the feds for a while. You put in for another big grant, it’s a swell way to get audited.”
Again Kingsbury agreed without objection. “So what else have you got, I mean, in the way of a species?”
“Lizards are your best bet.” Rachel Lark stretched on her belly and motioned the masseur, whose real name was Ray, to do her spine.
“Christ on a Harley, who wants goddamn lizards!” Kingsbury cringed at the idea; he had been thinking more along the lines of a panda or a koala bear. “I need something, you know, soft and furry and all that. Something the kiddies’ll want to take home.”
Rachel Lark explained that the Florida Keys were home to a very limited number of native mammals, and the sudden discovery of a new species (so soon after the mango-vole announcement) would attract more scientific scrutiny than the Amazing Kingdom could withstand.
“You’re saying, I take it, forget about pandas.”
“Frank, they’d die of heatstroke in about five minutes.”
Exasperated, Kingsbury said, “I got problems down here you wouldn’t believe.” He nearly told her about the blackmailing burglars.
“A new lizard you can get away with,” she said, “especially in the tropics.”
“Rachel, what’d I just say? Fuck the lizards. I can’t market lizards.”
Rachel Lark moaned blissfully as the masseur kneaded the muscles of her neck. “My advice,” she said into the phone, “is stay away from mammals and birds—it’s too risky. Insects are another story. Dozens of species of insects are discovered every year. Grasshoppers, doodlebugs, you name it.”
There was a grumpy pause on the other end. Finally, Francis X. Kingsbury said, “Getting back to the lizards. I mean, for the sake of argument…”