Kurt grabbed what looked like a bowl of food and threw it at the leopard, hitting the animal in the shoulder. It turned his way in shock, let out another growl, and then ran the opposite way toward the front of the store. Kurt watched it until it slipped out through the gap in the open door.
“Remind me to call animal control when we’re done,” he said as Joe clambered down.
Before Joe could answer, a shadow moved near the back of the store. This time, it walked upright.
Kurt ran that direction. Ion had made it to the rear exit and was pulling on it with all his might, but the steel door was locked tight. And unlike the front door, it was designed for security, not looks. He pulled and then pounded on it with his shoulder, and then turned and stared at Kurt.
Desperate, he tried to race past Kurt, but Kurt grabbed him and flung him back into the door. He darted for the other aisle, saw Joe, and stopped.
In a last desperate act he pushed a fish tank off a shelf toward Kurt. It crashed to ground and exploded, sending glass, water, fish, and a flood of tiny blue pebbles across the floor.
Somewhere in the tank, Kurt guessed, there were piranhas or some other kind of tropical fish, but he didn’t care at the moment. He jumped back. Avoiding the main impact, he looked up in time to see Ion making another break for the front door. This time, Kurt lowered the boom, clotheslining the elusive little man and body-slamming him to the floor.
Dazed and defeated, Ion looked up, surrounded by blue gravel and flapping fish.
“This could have been so much easier,” Kurt said, grabbing him by the lapels and yanking him to his feet.
“I’m not going to give you anything,” Ion said.
“You don’t even know what I want,” Kurt replied.
“You want Andras,” Ion said. “I know you’re looking for him.”
Maybe that’s why he’d been so resistant.
“He’ll kill me if I talk to you,” Ion explained.
“Not if I kill him first,” Kurt said.
“You’ll never kill him,” Ion said. “He’s always been ahead of you.”
“You’d better hope you’re wrong about that,” Kurt said. “Because you are going to tell me where he is.”
“Whatever you do to me, it won’t be worse than what Andras will do,” Ion said.
Kurt realized that was probably true. A handicap of being a decent human meant that, barring the worst circumstances, he wouldn’t stoop to the darkest levels of inhumanity. And that meant people like Ion would always be more afraid of someone like Andras than they would be of him.
Glancing at a bleeding abrasion on Joe’s arm that matched the claw pattern of the leopard, Kurt suddenly had an idea. There had to be something in this “Rare and Exotic” pet store that was a little less evolved.
He grabbed Ion by the neck and dragged him across the floor.
“Where shall we put you?” he mumbled, stopping in front of one cage after another. “The monkeys are too smart for you. The sloth might mess you up, but we don’t have all night.”
With Ion looking at him as if he were crazy, Kurt dragged him up to the Komodo dragon’s enclosure. The giant lizard had not moved a muscle despite the commotion.
“Now, this guy might do,” Kurt said, putting his hand on the door and working the double-levered latch.
“What?” Ion shouted. “Are you crazy?”
As Kurt managed to get the door open, the lizard’s tongue flicked out and sampled the air. A single eye opened, but it didn’t move.
Ion tried to squirm out of Kurt’s grasp, but Kurt grabbed a collar off of the shelf beside him. It had a long stick attached to it. It looked like some kind of animal control device that allowed the keeper to either push or pull the animal as needed, especially designed to keep a dangerous mouth away from a trainer.
In his own way, Ion had a dangerous mouth, but Kurt needed it to open.
He pulled the collar over Ion’s head and onto his neck and shoved him forward with the pole, pressing Ion up against the open door.
“I don’t know if this is the right choice,” Joe said.
Kurt looked back at him.
“I mean, the dragon,” Joe said.
“No on the dragon?” Kurt asked.
“Something about their bite,” Joe said. “It’s poisonous. But not like a cobra. They bite and then leave their victim to die. It takes days.”
“Huh,” Kurt said. “You’re full of surprises, Joe. Since when do you know about lizards?”
“Worked at a zoo one summer,” Joe said.
“Was there a girl involved in this story?”
“Callie Romano,” Joe admitted.
“Of course.”
Kurt yanked the stick collar back, and Ion was dragged across the floor and almost fell on his face. As Kurt shut the door, the Komodo dragon closed its eye and went back to sleep.
“So what do you suggest?” Kurt asked, beginning to enjoy himself.
Joe moved slowly down the row of enclosures. “How about this?”
He stopped in front of one of the largest enclosures in the small store. Eight feet deep and six feet wide, with some foliage, a small pool of water, and brown dirt on the floor. There was also a box with a grate over the top just outside it. A pair of large rats crouched inside the box.
Kurt looked into the larger enclosure. What he first thought was part of a tree moved a bit.
“Reticulated python,” Joe said, looking at the notes on the front of the clear plastic door. “Nocturnal hunters. They can reach almost thirty feet in length,” he added, “though this one is supposed to be only twenty-two.”
“Constrictor,” Kurt said, thinking aloud. “A twenty-two-foot, two-hundred-seventy-pound snake. Perfect.”
“You’re not going to—”
Before Ion could finish his sentence, Kurt had flipped the latch on the door, swung Ion in front of the opening and shoved him backward. He splashed down in the snake’s water pit.
Kurt opened the collar, pulled it over Ion’s head, and withdrew it. Joe slammed the door and pinned the latch.
“This thing’s handy,” Kurt said, looking at the stick collar and putting it down.
Ion got to his feet and looked around. Incredibly, the snake had already begun to move. Just its head and neck, sniffing around, nothing aggressive so far, but it seemed interested.
“I’ve been to a couple zoos,” Kurt said. “Honestly, never even seen one of these things move before.”
“Yeah,” Joe said. “The pythons in zoos are fed all the time, and they get so fat and overweight that they don’t do much of anything. But see how thin this one is.”
Joe pointed. The snake didn’t exactly look thin to Kurt, but he played along.
“He does look a little skinny,” Kurt said.
“Probably been starved for months,” Joe said.
By now Ion had moved toward the door.
“Why would they starve him?” Kurt asked.
“The owners of these places sell to rich collectors who want to see the snakes in action, crushing something and eating it,” Joe said. “So they keep ’em hungry until a buyer comes around. That what the rats are for.”
Kurt had no idea if Joe was serious or just making this stuff up, but it was a good shtick.
The snake was cooperating too, sliding down from the ledges near the back of the enclosure and beginning to stretch out.
Ion came up to the door. “Let me out of here, Austin.”
Kurt ignored him, instead looking at some type of poster describing the python. He looked at Joe. “It says here these things can eat a goat.”
“Oh yeah, sure,” Joe said.
Kurt looked into the enclosure. “He’s not much bigger than a goat. I wonder if it can get him down.”
“I don’t know,” Joe said. “He’s got a big head.”
Kurt turned. “He does have a big melon. Bet his neck gets tired holding it up.”
Ion went to speak and then froze. The snake had moved up behind him, its tongue had flicked out and grazed his thigh.
Kurt wondered if it would bite him first or just start coiling around him. Before it did either, Kurt decided to give Ion another shot at freedom.