“After they’ve mined diamonds for hundreds of years, over the world, and
only found seven red ones… where in the hell did Frank come up with a
jarful?”
Bobby shook his head and said nothing.
Clint reached into his pants pocket and withdrew one of the diamonds,
smaller than the specimen that Bobby had brought for Archer van
Corvaire’s appraisal.
“I took this home to show it to Felina. I was going to return it to the
jar when I got to the office, but you hustled me out before I had a
chance. Now that I know what it is, I don’t want it in my possession a
minute longer.”
Bobby took the stone and put it in his pocket with the larger diamond.
“Thank you, Clint.”
DR. DYSON MANFRED’S study, in his house in Turtle Rock, was the most
uncomfortable place Bobby had ever been. He had been happier last week,
flattened on the floor of his van, trying to avoid being chopped to bits
by automatic weapons fire than he was among Manfred’s collection of
many-legged, carapaced, antenna-bristled, mandibled, and thoroughly
repulsive exotic bugs.
Repeatedly, in his peripheral vision, Bobby saw something move in one of
the many glass-covered boxes on the wall, but every time he turned to
ascertain which hideous creature was about to slip out from under the
frame, his fear proved unfounded. All of the nightmarish specimens were
pinned and motionless, lined up neatly beside one another, none missing.
He also would have sworn that he heard things skittering and slithering
inside the shallow drawers of the many cases that he knew contained more
insects, but he supposed that those sounds were every bit was imaginary
as the phantom movement glimpsed from the corners of his eyes.
Though he knew Clint to be a born stoic, Bobby was impressed by the
apparent ease with which the guy endured the creepy-crawly decor. This
was an employee he must never lose. He decided on the spot to give
Clint a significant raise in salary before the day was out.
Bobby found Dr. Manfred nearly as disquieting as his collection. The
tall, thing, long-limbed entomologist seemed to be the offspring of a
professional basketball player and one of those African stick insects
that you saw in nature films and hoped never to encounter in real life.
Manfred stood behind his desk, his chair pushed out of the way, and they
stood in front of it. Their attention was direct upon a two-foot-long,
one-foot-wide, white-enamel, inch-lab tray which occupied the center of
the desktop and over which was draped a small white towel.
“I have had no sleep since Mr. Karaghiosis brought this me last night,”
Manfred said,
“and I won’t sleep much tonight either, just turning over all the
remaining questions in mind. This dissection was the most fascinating
of my care and I doubt that I’ll ever again experience anything in my I
to equal it.” The intensity with which Manfred spoke-and the
implication that
neither good food nor good sex, neither a beautiful sunset nor a fine
wine, could be a fraction as satisfying as ins dismemberment-gave Bobby
a queasy stomach.
He glanced at the fourth man in the room, if only to divide his
attention briefly from their bugophile host. The guy in his late
forties, as round as Manfred was angular, as pi as Manfred was pale,
with red-gold hair, blue eyes, and freckles. He sat on a chair in the
corner, straining the seams of gray jogging suit, with his hands fisted
on his heavy thigh looking like a good Boston Irish fellow who had been
trying to eat his way into a career as a Sumo wrestler. The
entomologist hadn’t introduced or even referred to the well-padded
server. Bobby figured that introductions would be made who Manfred was
ready. He decided not to force the issue-if on because the round man
silently regarded them with a mixture of wonder, suspicion, fear, and
intense curiosity that encouraged Bobby to believe they would not be
pleased to hear who he had to tell them when, at last, he spoke.
With long-fingered, spidery hands-which Bobby might have sprayed with
Raid if he’d had any-Dyson Manfred moved the towel from the white-enamel