The Death Gods (A Shell Scott Mystery) (35 page)

I glanced at those beefy
hands resting on his hips, the hairy darkly-tanned arms. Belking’s
forearms were almost gross, half again as thick as my own, more
like Popeye’s after two cans of spinach. Maybe I didn’t have proof
Belking had been in his car at the Halcyon’s lot last night, but
I’d have given long odds he either had been or knew who was. Who,
and why. If it had been Belking, he could probably have picked up
both of my bully assailants, one in each meathook and tossed them
into his sedan without grunting.

“
... or if you loaned it to
some Mafiosi,” I continued pleasantly. “Or, of course, ask if maybe
some youthful funlovers took it for an unauthorized spin,
y’know?”

Those dark green eyes
actually seemed to get darker. Maybe it was just that the lids
lowered a bit, as though in synch with the corners of his mouth
pulling down. He shifted his weight slightly, and for a moment I
wondered—more in amazement than alarm—if this blister was actually
about to take a swing at me. Surely, he wouldn’t make such a
grievous mistake, I told myself. True, he had thirty, forty pounds
or so, on me; and arms like Popeye’s; but Belking was an old cat,
probably fifty or more.

For the briefest moment, a
peculiarly disturbing moment, I remembered how surprised I had been
upon learning that spry and vigorous Henry Hernandez was in fact an
unbelievable eighty-three, but then the thought sort of wisped away
into the ether and I couldn’t even recall why it had disturbed
me.

Nothing happened. Except
that Belking inhaled, let his breath out in a long sigh, and said,
“You through?”

“
Yeah, other than saying
congratulations to Belking-Gray before I go. And to you, of
course.”

“
I wondered when you’d get
around to that. Congratulations on preliminary approval for our
IFAI vaccine, right?”

“
Right, Dr. Wintersong’s
vaccine—or, I guess technically, Belking-Gray’s vaccine, if you’ve
got the patent on it.”

“
We do.
Fortunately.”

“
Preliminary approval? My
impression from the newspaper story was everybody might be getting
shots of it by day after tomorrow.”

He smiled without parting
his lips. “Approval for clinical trials. Animal testing was
recently concluded—with very impressive results; the vaccine is
almost as safe as distilled water—but mass immunizations can’t
begin until after those trials have produced corroborative evidence
of the vaccine’s efficacy and safety in humans.”

That last sentence came
out canned, like something he might have been reading from a
teleprompter. “When might that be?” I asked. “I mean, how long does
it take, a year? A day and a half?”

I thought at first he
wasn’t going to answer. Then he did that inhale-and-sigh bit again
and said, “This is an unusual situation, because of the unusual and
extreme danger to the entire population of the country—indeed, the
earth, the entire population of the planet itself—due to the
out-of-control IFAI epidemic. Even you must know that, until now,
there has been neither prevention nor hope of cure for the
increasing number of victims infected with the deadly
virus.”

“
Even I? Where you going
with this?”

“
I had not concluded my
response. In the light of these highly unusual and potentially
catastrophic circumstances, the clinical vaccine trials were in
fact commenced some time ago. After completion of all animal tests
required and with full knowledge and approval of the federal Food
and Drug Administration, of course.”

“
Of course.”

“
Therefore, mass
immunizations could commence in a few weeks. Two or three, probably
less. The sooner the better, naturally, to protect those thousands,
perhaps millions, who might otherwise become infected with the IFAI
virus.”

“
Ah...”

He squinted. “What does
that mean?”

“
Ah? Nothing special. Just,
ah...mass immunizations, that’s when everyone has to get the shots,
right?”

“
Wrong. Everyone who
desires to avail himself, or herself, of the protection guaranteed
by the vaccine may get the shots from public health services or any
qualified physician. Assuming, of course, that the Food and Drug
Administration does in fact approve the vaccine.”

“
Is there any doubt the FDA
will? I mean, has the FDA ever failed to approve a vaccine, even
when there wasn’t a disease for it to prevent?”

“
That’s a goddamn
ridiculous statement.”

“
How about the Swine Flu
vaccine? Didn’t the FDA and every medical genius in the country
approve that dandy when there wasn’t a single case of Swine Flu
anywhere on the planet then, or since? Wasn’t a lot of big bucks
spent with insistance that everybody in the country should be
vaccinated—to prevent an epidemic of a disease that didn’t exist?
And didn’t Belking-Gray get a good chunk of those
bucks?”

Belking’s eyes narrowed
even more and his face flushed, got distinctly redder than normal.
A vein over his left temple became suddenly prominent. He looked
like a man about to have an attack. Or, maybe, about to attack
me.

But I went on, so aware of
his irritation coming at me, and mentally stretched by the almost
suffocating nearness of those hundreds of stuffed animal corpses,
that it actually seemed a good idea at the time.

“
Hypothetical question:
What if IFAI is no more a true virus-caused disease than Swine Flu
was, or AIDS, or any of the other now-nonexistent diseases
everybody alive is supposed to be immunized against? And suppose,
down the road, public opinion forces the FDA to rescind its
approval for your Wintersong vaccine—maybe after it kills a few
thousand people, sickens a few million more—what then? Do you, and
Belking-Gray, ship tons of Wintersong’s unsold bugshit to Africa,
Brazil, Afghanistan, and a bunch of third world countries, and
peddle it there?”

Two curious things
happened at the same moment then, or at least I became aware of two
curious things. First, the corners of Belking’s mouth pulled down,
and he shifted his weight slightly—just as he had a few minutes
before—but this time he pulled both hands away from his hips,
raising the left one, dropping his right three or four inches; and
I knew he was actually about to throw a punch. At me.

But at the same time I
became aware of a strange whining sound—a kind of gritty
“ooobiebobiebunnynngggg” played on a musical buzz saw—and I
wondered if I could possibly have developed a disabling form of
instant tinnitus in both ears, simultaneously. But if that screechy
chalk-on-a-blackboard sound was inside my ears, it was so loud that
Belking heard it, too. And it was of such arresting dissonance that
he forgot to hit me. Or decided not to.

There it was
again.

“
What in God’s name was
that?” I asked, asking nobody in particular.

“
Sybil,” Belking said. Not
to me, but as though to that same nobody in particular.

Then, dimly recalling that
“Sybil” was the name of Belking’s wife, and hearing the clack of
heels on the floor somewhere behind me, I was able to decipher the
next whiningness as, “Hobie, Hobie, hon, are you ready to—oh, there
you are.”

I glanced over my
shoulder. Yeah, Sybil Belking, skirting the Dali ram exhibit and
walking toward us, still going on about what time it was, and
they’d be late for lunch with the Mayor, and if she didn’t keep
track of their appointments and remind him of them he’d spend all
his time with the dumb animals, and more, which I
missed.

Missed, because, when she
stopped a yard from us, peering intently into her husband’s face
while ignoring me entirely, I automatically glanced briefly at
Hobart Belking just as he glanced briefly at me. Our glances met
for only a second or two as I said “Sybil?” sourly, and he said
sourly “Sybil.”

I think it was our one
moment of genuine man-to-man rapport; one, and only.

To say that Sybil
Belking’s voice was high, thin, brassy, and disturbingly
unmelodious, and that it was probably causing bats to stir
restlessly in distant caves, would have been several
understatements. And it is probably unkind to say that the voice
flattered the body from which it issued; but I’ll say it anyhow.
Somebody once remarked that a woman “can’t be too rich or too
thin,” but all by herself Mrs. Belking proved that wit at least
half wrong. She was so thin—well, if you sliced a normal woman from
head to toe twice, and thus lopped her into three skinny pieces,
Mrs. Sybil Belking would be the one in the middle.

On that narrow angular
body was draped a pinkish-colored dress, unadorned except for a
sort of polka-dotted creamy-white belt that looked like, and
probably was, leopard skin, which matched the creamy-white fur
dotted with dark circles dangling loosely from the crook of one
arm. On her feet were shoes that looked like lizards.

Her thin-lipped mouth was
still moving, and I heard her telling Belking that she’d taken “oh,
a dozen, at least a dozen” phone calls for him, naming one
Governor, one Senator, several reporters and scientists. All of
that was like the faint whining of a distant air-raid siren, but
then I clearly heard a phrase that grabbed my attention. Grabbed it
suddenly, and held it.

“
... and there’s a writer
named Dane Smith, who’d like to interview you. About the vaccine,
of course. Dr. Billy said she’s friendly, could be helpful, and you
might consider it. Well, if we aren’t going to be late for the
luncheon, we should leave now. All rightie, hon?”

Hon’s face was impassive,
or maybe bleak. I waved a couple of fingers at it, and at the
profile of Mrs. Belking, who apparently considered me not really
there, or invisible, or another of the dumb animals, and walked
toward the Museum’s doors.

Not the rear doors.
Instead, I went to a spot just inside the entrance and turned, to
get a look at Hobart Belking’s Wild Animal Museum from there, as it
was designed to be seen by first visitors.

The lights were still on,
the two campfires flickering. Far to my left an exhibit of elk
included a small but realistic looking waterfall sparkling in the
light. Just inside the entrance doors, near on my left, was a
brown-black Kodiak bear on all fours, thick neck arched, head
raised and glassy eyes gazing at me. On my right was the enormous
polar bear Belking had already pointed out to me—another “clean
kill, dead in the heart”—rearing high into the air above my head,
lips pulled back from fearsome fangs, both thick arms raised with
knifelike claws extending from the massive paws, glass eyes
glittering.

Ten yards ahead of me, Mr.
and Mrs. Belking were turning, stepping toward the Museum’s rear,
preparing to leave. Around them and on the walls above them, were
the two hundred and fifty-six “prizes,” the Wild Animals of Hobart
Belking’s Wild Animal Museum, or what was left of them. Entire
freeze-dried bodies, or mounted heads and necks, antlers and horns
and tusks, skin and hide and fur and feathers, each attached
severed head blinded by eyes of glittering glass.

It was unquestionably a
bright and, in some ways, a beautiful scene. The animals were
beautiful indeed, their fur and form and posture, the illusion of
graceful or powerful movement, pleasing to the eye. So were the
fowl, for in the imitation trees and even on the ersatz earth were
dozens of birds, perched on limbs or preparing for flight, vivid
plumage cheerful and bright. But there was no movement, none at
all, those gaping mouths never closed, the turning heads never
turned, nothing breathed, no blazingly-bright-feathered bird soared
in splendor.

Beautiful, artful,
impressive—but cold, still, sterile. And, at last, ugly. It all
looked to me, now, like a graveyard filled with hundreds of
brightly-painted corpses imprisoned outside their caskets. And
showing off his prizes to me and saying, I remembered Hobart
Belking, his voice hushed and suffused with the emotion of a
penitent in prayer, “A lot of my life is here, in the Museum, a lot
of my goddamned life. Hell, most of it is.”

And that was sad,
depressing, dismaying, and even frightening. It had to be at least
a little frightening to know that Hobart Belking, founder and
builder of Belking-Gray Pharmaceuticals, Inc., billionaire
businessman, respected sportsman and harvester of beauty in its
prime, could confess without shame that most of his life was
death.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-ONE

I walked to the double
entrance doors and outside into sunlight. Into bright sunlight,
welcome warmth and blaze and burn of life. I took a deep breath,
sucked in sunshine, stretched my arms and legs, and wiggled a
little just for the fun of it. I’d been temporarily embalmed and
the stuff had stopped working, or I’d been slightly frozen but now
was thawing.

I trotted briskly down the
steps, turned at the Museum wall paralleling the driveway, heading
for my Cad in the rear. When I was only halfway to the lot,
Belking’s black Mercedes-Benz rolled on by, Hobart looking straight
ahead, ignoring me. Right behind the Mercedes came a copper-colored
Jaguar X56 sedan. Mrs. Belking ignored me, too, but I figured that
was because she couldn’t see me. For a moment I was tempted to
yell, “HEY, BABE!” at Sybil and scare her pants off, but the
temptation lasted only a moment, because she was clearly a babe who
should keep her pants on.