Inside, in the emergency ward, an augmented Emercrit Group (West Side's equivalent of East Side's Code Blue Team) was working to save the lives of Webster McPeek, his wife Emily, and the two McPeek children, Webster Junior, nine years old, and Charlene, six. Only ten-month-old Parker McPeek, who had slept through everything in his crib, had not been bitten. The victims had been administered black mamba antivenin immediately upon arrival at West Side but their present condition varied.
The two males seemed to be responding well, but Mrs. McPeek and young Charlene were, in the words of one of the Emercrit Group, "touch-and-go."
The police brass, centered about a Deputy Commissioner at one end of the waiting room, were deep in conference. DI Scott and Captain Eastman, the two lowest ranks, had not been invited to join. They stood a little way off, smoking. Presently, the Deputy Chief in charge of SOD separated himself from the group, and beckoned DI Scott to one side.
"The heat's on," the DC said. "You've been given forty-eight hours to get that snake. When it starts biting people outside the park, it's going too far. You know who those people are?"
"What people, sir?"
"The family that got bitten. They're from Trinidad. She's a social worker, and he works as a warehouse man for a supermarket chain in the daytime and goes to law school at night. These aren't any of your welfare blacks, but a fine wonderful family. You get the point?"
"Yes sir. There's going to be a public outcry."
The DC nodded. "Your ass is on the line, Vincent. You've got forty eight hours to get the snake. After that, you'll be reassigned to someplace dirty. Nobody's fooling around, now. This comes straight from the top.)
The DC went back to join his peers, and DI Scott gave Eastman the gist of his conversation with the DC. "No question about it, this is a bullet straight from the P.C., bless his aching head. I'm telling you flat out, Tom, that if I go to Siberia you're coming with me."
"Look," Eastman said patiently, "we've been doing our best, robbing men from everywhere to put them in the park, even some old desk-duty cops who are practically crippled by arthritis. Our ESU trucks and personnel are out there all day long. And Converse has been going out every morning, like I told you, trying to find it sunning itself-"
"He hasn't produced any results," the DI said flatly.
"Maybe not. But he knows what he's doing. Sure, the brass shoots an ultimatum at us, but it's still going to take time. It's a process of elimination."
"Well," the DI said, "our asses are on the line, and I think I just thought of a process that will eliminate the whole process of elimination."
As the DI finished speaking to Eastman, Converse's alarm clock went off. He sipped a cup of instant coffee while he shaved and dressed, and turned off the air conditioner before he left. He found a cab cruising on Hudson Street. Its driver was a kid with a beard who confessed that he was lost in the Village and would welcome guidance. He took notice of the Pilstrom tongs.
"You gonna take a chance at catching that snake?"
Converse nodded.
"I don't believe in killing things," the driver said earnestly. "Like Schweitzer? I mean, the snake has a right to life. It's part of the ecology."
Eighth Avenue was dark and squalid. In a half hour, Converse thought, it would be light and squalid.
"You know," the driver said, "Schweitzer would go out of his way to avoid stepping on an ant?"
"Some snakes eat ants."
"Ah," the driver said, "eating is different from killing. Eating is ecology."
Converse got out at 100th Street and Central Park West, near the Boys Gate.
There were only a few cars going by on the street, mostly cabs with the off-duty signs lit. To the east, the sky was lightening, but the sun was not yet up. It was the eleventh or twelfth day of the heat wave-he had lost count-and this was going to be another ninety-plus day. He shifted the Pilstrom tongs to his shoulder and headed into the park.
He ambled eastward along the walkways, dreaming about Holly Markham, Empress of all the Russias, and it wasn't until a ray of sunlight struck his eyes that he realized that he had been dawdling. He began to trot, holding the tongs in front of him now, like a soldier on a bayonet charge.
By the time he reached his first target area of the day, not far from the short road (CLOSED TO THE PUBLIC-POLICE ONLY) that connects the East and West drives, the sun, white and aqueous, was starting to clear the buildings on Fifth Avenue.
The site was a hollow in a heavily wooded, overrun area, dense with undergrowth, fallen leaves, a tangle of bushes, ground creeper, weeds, a couple of fallen trees; and, above it, a large flat plateau of rock. It was a beautifully convenient rock, Converse thought, in the perfect neigh borhood for a black mamba's home. But that had been the case, to be sure, in a dozen previous sites he had checked out.
Moving cautiously, he edged toward a position that would bring him up to eye level with the table of the rock. He inched forward, careful to avoid making vibrations that a snake might "hear," and took cover behind a thick bush where, if he didn't move about unduly, he wouldn't be likely to be spotted by a snake's sharp eyes.
A long bar of sunlight appeared on a margin of the rock, toning its color down to a warm gray; as Converse watched, the strip broadened visibly. In a few minutes it would cover the entire surface and provide an irresistible basking place for a black mamba. He shut his eyes against the brightness, and when he next opened them, the rock was bathed in sunshine. He shaded his eyes with his palm and stared outward at the rock.
When he first heard the sound-or thought he heard it; it might have been wishful thinking-he pushed his head forward, straining. Nothing. Silence.
Then he heard it again, a mere whisper of sound, but continuous now, and his heartbeat accelerated with an almost painful abruptness. Not daring to move, he listened with terrific intensity, and presently he was sure of it, certain that it was the sound he had been waiting to hear for all those long mornings in the park.
It wasn't much of a sound, and an untrained person might not have heard it at all, or, hearing it, might have dismissed it as of no consequence.
But to a herpetologist it was unique and unmistakable-an innocent-enough rustle, much like the sound of a jump rope being drawn through the grass.
His heart was thumping so hard that for a moment he entertained the ludicrous notion that it was straining the thin material of his T-shirt.
As the sound came perceptibly closer beneath the rock, he thought joyously, My God, Converse, you're a lucky man, then shook his head as if to rebuke himself. Not luck; it wasn't luck at all, but a reward. He had been doing all the right things, he had been patient and painstaking, and sooner or later it was inevitable that he would find it.
The sound had become louder and more distinct. Converse, tingling with excitement, looked out unblinkingly over the flat sunbathed surface of the rock and knew that in just another short moment he would see it: a small head would appear over the rim of the rock, swaying on a sinuous neck, a tongue would flick in and out, in and out, alert dark eyes would probe for danger, and finally, the black mamba would insinuate its great curving length up onto the rock.
The rope-dragging sound intensified, and Converse braced himself for his first sight of the snake.