"In the latest case, the provocation is obvious. The guy was trying to catch it. A black mamba that's cornered will attack without hesitation."
A television reporter specializing in violent city news, a semi-famous face, said, "What about the old wives' We about snakes not dying until sundown?"
"There's a fair amount of truth to it. Chop a snake's head off, and the body will continue to writhe for several hours. And a poisonous snake can inflict a fatal bite up to forty minutes after its head has been severed from the body."
There were exclamations all around the room, ranging from horror to wonderment, and a good deal of note-taking. That's what they want, Converse thought, the exotic, sensational details. They don't give a damn about what makes snakes tick.
"Young man?" The speaker was a middle-aged man with a white moustache.
"How many more people is this snake of yours going to bite before you kill it?"
"Why kill it? Why not capture it and put it in a zoo?"
The DI was on his feet. Unmindful of the microphones, he shouted, "Zoo, my ass. We're going to kill the shit out of that fucking snake. Okay, Whatsyername, move over."
The DI motioned imperiously. Converse changed seats with him. Eastman hitched his chair closer to the DI's. Together, they began to grapple with questions about the police search of the menagerie area (no luck, task force withdrawn), whether another sweep of the park in force was contemplated (not at this time), what additional steps would be taken to protect the public (the Commissioner's office is working on the problem), whether or not these steps might include closing the park (we're just working cops, we don't make that kind of decision)…
Converse sat erect in his chair so that he could see Holly. He caught her eye and she gave him a quick smile before she turned her attention back to the DI and Eastman. He continued to stare at her, compelling her to look at him. She did. She stared back. Their eyes locked and held.
Liberated woman, giving back as good as she got from male chauvinist? But there was no defiance in her gaze. Eyes uplooking. He felt lightheaded, giddy. Their eyes remained locked. An indefinable (but familiar) sensation began in his legs, paused at his groin, swept upward to his head, and made him giddier than before.
Suddenly, he remembered a movie he had seen at the Museum of Modem Art a few months before. It was about Catherine the Great, a very old flick, made about two hundred years ago. Elisabeth Bergner was Catherine, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. was some kind of duke or other. Their eyes met across a large candlelit room filled with courtiers. They stared at each other. No expression on their faces, but presently the flame on the candle in front of each of them began to waver slightly as their breathing became shallower and quicker. They kept staring. The candle flames began to waver with increased speed, more strongly, then faster still, more intensely, orgasmically…
Groaning, he forced his eyes away from Holly. Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Godssake, he must be as old as the picture, two hundred give or take a decade. His gaze, out of control, turned back to her and coupled. He listened to his breathing. Fast and shallow, would make a candle flame dance with passion. And he was getting lighter headed all the time. Rest of the room blurring, voices fading. Knowing his weakness, he knew himself to be in serious trouble.
Captain Eastman's voice, coming as from a great distance, tugged at his attention. "… unless Mr. Converse has anything else to add?"
He looked at Eastman. Thank God for Eastman, the evil spell broken. He shook his head. Eastman adjourned the press conference. Get out of the room fast, Converse told himself, eyes to the front, full speed ahead.
He threaded his way between the rows of chairs with swaying hips, like a broken field runner, making for the door. From the comer of his eye he saw Holly getting to her feet. He stopped abruptly. "Can I buy you a cup of coffee?"
Each time the frown appeared on the woman's face she would read on another sentence or two before raising her eyes from her paperback book.
Then she would say, "Peggy, remember what I said about staying on the pavement," or "That's far enough, come back here now."
The child ignored her within the permissible limits she had established in her twenty-two-month-old mind. She was sitting on the pavement and crooning softly and pleasurably to herself. She was plump, with long silky brown hair and violet eyes.
The woman would continue to watch the child for a brief time, then return to her book, the frown erased except for a barely perceptible remnant, some external tic of anxiety. In another minute or two the frown would reappear and she would look at the child again.
She was sitting on a bench in the shade, a short distance inside the park from the Boys Gate at Central Park West and 100th Street. The snake in the park was not the proximate cause of her frown, although it did contribute to her alertness. Her more immediate, and ongoing, concern was the large number of Hispanics who frequented the park in this area (but what was she to do, if she lived at 96th Street?). The snake was an exotic peril, distanced by its prominence in the media; the Hispanics-with their boisterous voices and passions throbbing just below the surface-were a familiar threat that existed right under one's nose.
"Peggy, I don't want you lying on the dirty pavement and getting yourself all filthy. Get up at once."
The child paid no attention to her. Her cheek brushed the pavement as she bent forward from her sitting position in that miraculous boneless way of small children. She was following the progress of a tiny ant that was climbing over her tanned leg. It tickled her skin and made her laugh.
The mother said, "Peggy," and, sighing, turned back to her book.
The ant descended from the child's leg. Effortlessly, the child rocked up onto her knees, and crawled after the ant. She found it, and cupped her hand over it. The ant crept out from under her hand and ran off. The child chased after it, crawling rapidly on her hands and knees. Near the edge of the pavement she lost it. She stopped, her eyes close to the ground. When she lifted her head she saw the snake. It was on the far side of the railing that edged the pavement, its head visible through a tangle of brush. The child clapped her hands together in surprise and delight.
The snake watched the child, hissing softly. Its tongue probed the air. The child was not moving, it was not an imminent threat, but the snake was wary. The child clapped her hands again, and crawled closer to the railing.
The snake tensed. Its hissing became harsher, it opened its mouth wide.
The mother looked up. "Peggy, what are you doing there? Get back here at once!"
The child paused, looked at her mother, then crawled forward again.
"Peggy! Damn that child."
She put her book down on the bench and got up and started down the walkway toward the child, her mouth thinned with annoyance, her frown settled deeply between her eyes.
The snake's length was concealed by the brush. Only its head and the erect portion of its anterior were visible. When the child stood up and moved forward, its eyes were almost on exactly the same level as the snake's. The snake hissed harshly, its mouth gaped widely.
When it felt the vibrations of the woman's footsteps in the substrate, it turned away from the child. The appearance of this fast-moving new threat confused it momentarily, and then it turned its attention back to the child, who was now well within striking distance.
The woman bore down on the child from behind and swept her up in her arms angrily.
"Didn't I tell you to stay near me? Bad girl."
The child struggled and tried to slip down out of her mother's hold, her arms stretched outward to the snake. The child almost plunged forward out of her mother's grip. But the mother held on to an arm, and used it as a lever to lift her off the ground. She shifted the child to her hip, and, scolding, fending off failing arms and legs, carried her back to the bench.