The Apex Predator (Kindle Single) Read online

  “I am already practiced, thank you.” Thor looked away from them, back at the cages, and said, “Release my tiger, please.”

  Dave said, “Hang on, now. We’ve got a process, and —”

  “What is the process?”

  Again they looked at each other. Thor could almost hear their thoughts. They were remembering who had arranged this hunt, and remembering what that might mean.

  “You’ll have a seat over there,” Dave said. “On that farthest bench. Once you’re settled and ready, you give us this signal —” he held his left fist in the air — “and then we will release the cat. He’s big, but he won’t come out all that fast. You just trust the scope and the trigger.”

  “What if he begins to run.”

  “He won’t.”

  “Why wouldn’t he?”

  “He’s used to it. He comes out every day.”

  “Why?”

  “To get food.” Dave was beginning to look frustrated. “Listen, if you want to go have a seat, we can —”

  Thor gestured across the snow-covered fields that extended beyond the high fence with its electrified top wires. “Why would he not want to run? All that land.”

  “Well, we’re not going to let him get that far.”

  “I do not understand. You intend for me to shoot him while he is inside of that…kennel?”

  “It won’t seem so easy once he comes out,” Robert said. It was a placating comment, and he wouldn’t meet Thor’s eyes.

  “Once he comes out, expecting to find food.”

  “These are apex predators, buddy. Top of the food chain. Once you get him in the scope, you’ll have the same thrill as you would in Africa, don’t worry.”

  “Africa,” Thor said. “That is where they have tigers?”

  “Siberia, wherever. Listen, we’re not there. We’re in Ohio.”

  “And yet I can kill a tiger.”

  “Yes. Now would you like to, or do you just want to keep talking?”

  Thor tried to recall if anyone, ever, had accused him of doing too much talking. He could not think of another time. He decided that Robert was right. He was talking too much.

  “All right,” he said. “I came here to see a tiger hunt. On with it.”

  “Fine by me, man. Now you go sit down and —”

  “Let him out first.”

  “That’s not how we do it. We only —”

  “Let him out first,” Thor repeated.

  Dave had opened his mouth to speak but Robert was already moving, already doing what he’d been told. He went back into the barn and then it was just Thor and Dave. Thor said, “If you would put your gun down, I would feel better.”

  Dave stared at him. Said, “I don’t have the gun. You do.”

  “The one at your back,” Thor said. “Please. For my comfort.”

  There was a long pause, and then Dave unzipped his jacket and reached inside of it. Thor was holding the Remington with the muzzle pointed at him now, and that was not lost on Dave.

  Dave removed a Sig Sauer semiautomatic from its holster and set it on the shooting bench beside him. It was cold and the wind was beginning to pick up but Dave had started to sweat.

  “What’s the deal?” he said.

  Thor was saved the need to answer when there came a banging of metal on metal, and a minute later one of the steel slide gates at the back of a cage rolled up, shuddering on its cables. For a moment there were only golden eyes in shadow, and then the tiger stepped forward and out into the open. He stood about 4 feet high, with a head as solid as an engine block. The gate was lowered behind him, trapping him outside of the barn and in the small pen.

  “How much does he weigh?” Thor said.

  “About 450. Now, you want to sit down and —”

  “Call Robert out, please.”

  Dave looked at Thor and then at the handgun he’d just placed on the bench between them and said, “Mister? We’ve got nothing to do with Belov but these cats. I don’t know what you’ve heard.”

  Thor said, “Robert, come on back. Thank you,” in a loud, clear voice. A moment later Robert appeared. He had a gangly walk, as if his boots were too heavy for him. He was looking at them in confusion.

  “You mention my boss,” Thor said, speaking to Dave. “I believe he was here once, yes?”

  Dave nodded. His long hair was starting to dampen with sweat.

  “He shot one?”

  “No. He watched while I shot it.”

  Thor nodded. That made sense. It made the most sense of anything in any of this.

  “When I knew that cat, it was just a cub. Now, tell me — who raised it?”

  “We did.”

  “It seems as if you do a very good job at that,” Thor said. “Based upon the size of the rug.”

  Dave didn’t answer. He was starting to get it, to realize that this was beginning to be a very bad day for him, but Robert wasn’t all the way there yet. He said, “Are we shooting, or aren’t we?”

  “We are,” Thor said. “But first I would like to see something. You said the cats know you. I would like a demonstration of that.”

  “What?”

  “Go see the cat.”

  Robert gave Dave a troubled look. Dave hadn’t taken his eyes off Thor. He said, “Do it, Rob,” in a soft voice.

  Robert crunched across the snow to the cage. The tiger approached immediately, coming all the way to the fence. It lowered its head and made a chuffing sound. There was no aggression in its movements. If Thor had been at the shooting bench, he would have his trophy by now.

  “Reach out to him,” he said.

  Robert obliged. Put out a hand. The cat smelled it, chuffed again, and rubbed the side of his head against the fence.

  “You would let me shoot him?” Thor said.

  “That’s what you came here for, isn’t it? To do some shooting?”

  “It is,” Thor agreed, and he was very aware of how easily he could make Robert dead before he even hit the snow, and he wondered how in the world Robert was not also aware of this by now. “I actually came to see a tiger hunt. So if you do not mind, I would like you to go inside with him.”

  Dave said, “What in the hell…” and then silenced when Thor’s eyes shifted back to him.

  “We don’t go in with them,” Robert said. “What’s your problem, man? Just do what you came here for.”

  “I am,” Thor said. “I came to see if these particular tigers will hunt. There is only one way for me to know that.” He set the rifle down against the shooting bench and then he drew his own handgun, a Glock, from inside of his jacket, and said, “Please, go inside. I would rather not make the decision. It should be the cat’s decision.”

  For a moment it was silent. The wind was riding across the snow-packed fields, pushing a chill at them, and the only other sound was the soft crunching of the tiger walking in the snow. Thor said, “I am honestly not sure what will happen to you in there. I am absolutely sure what will happen to you out here, though. I will kill you both, and then I will leave. Now, you are in a position to make that decision if you insist, or you can leave it up to the cat.”

  When no one took initiative to answer, he put the muzzle of the Glock to Dave’s greasy forehead, looked him in the eyes, and said, “Do you trust me or the tiger more? It is that simple.”

  Dave was shaking when he said, “The tiger.”

  “Very good. Then go in with him. I came to see the tiger hunt, and I will before I leave.”

  Robert tried to unlock the gate but his hands were shaking too badly, and when Thor put him on 10-second countdown, the shaking grew worse. Dave finally shoved forward and — right as Thor said three — got the lock to snap open. There was the scent of urine in the air, and it wasn’t from the cat. Dave got the lock off and dropped it into the snow and then he pulled the door open about a foot. The tiger tilted his head and regarded the situation curiously, but didn’t move to escape.

  “Go on now,” Thor said. He tapped Dave on the bac
k of the head with his gun.

  Dave went in, and the tiger shoved his face against the man’s leg. When he did that, Dave let out a little scream and fell over in the snow, but Thor understood that the cat was just curious about the urine stink beneath the camouflage pants.

  “And now you,” Thor said. Robert had stopped being responsive, so Thor had to encourage him by wrapping one hand around his throat and pressing the muzzle of the gun into his ear with the other. That got him moving, finally, and he crawled into the cage on hands and knees. The tiger turned from Dave — who was now curled into a ball with his arms over his head — to see the new arrival. Robert was crying when he got there, but the big cat didn’t do anything. Just sniffed.

  “Interesting,” Thor said. “He really does know you.”

  He knelt and found the padlock in the snow, then stood up and closed the door and fastened it. While he was working with the lock, the tiger hit the fence and snarled, the first aggressive sound he’d made. Dave screamed again, but he wasn’t even watching, and didn’t understand that the tiger was worried about the unfamiliar one, not the one who fed him daily and would have accepted $10,000 to allow a stranger to shoot him.

  “I told you I would let the cat decide,” Thor said. “And I have not lied. To date, he seems to have decided in your favor. Whether that will change, I am not sure. But it is very important that you remember something right now. I know your minds are in other places, but you need to focus for a few seconds. You need to look at me.”

  They both looked. Everyone was watching him now, including the tiger.

  “It would be a very, very bad idea to remember how you came to be locked in here with the cat,” he said. “I cannot stress this enough. It would be, quite simply, a terrible decision.”

  He believed that they understood. He watched for a few minutes, and the tiger circled the cage and sniffed his keepers but did not touch them. If he’d been more aware of their plans for him, it would surely have gone another way, but he wasn’t. He knew only that they had once fed him from a bottle, and that every day they had continued to feed him. A part of Thor was disappointed that they were not dead, but a larger part was pleased with the cat’s decision.

  “Thank you for the tiger hunt,” Thor told them, and then he left the cage, taking all of the weapons with him, exited through the barn, and went to his car. He waited until he was driving past Risko’s Tavern again to call Lincoln Perry and tell him that authorities were going to be needed in Sheffield Lake.

  “Is anyone dead?” Perry said.

  “Not when I left.”

  “You say that as if things might have changed since then.”

  “Perhaps they did. Have you found a home for the cats?”

  “I believe so. A sanctuary in Indiana. Good reputation. I’m also talking with a man in New York who can place any that they can’t take.”

  “All this still covered by my credit?”

  “I’ll run the accounting later, but for now we’re good. And, um, when I call about the place in Sheffield, how am I to explain that I learned there are two men locked in a tiger cage?”

  “If I wanted to resolve all of the problems, I wouldn’t need you.” Thor hung up.

  * * *

  He waited until after sunset to drive out to see Belov. Once he was at the house, he had trouble making it to the front door. For a long time he sat in the cold car and thought about people and places he had known over the years, and he watched as the holiday lights came on up and down the street, some elegant and beautiful, others absurd. They lit the snow that was already on the ground and then, just after dark, that which began to fall from the sky again, and finally he stepped out of the car.

  Belov answered the door himself, and his face was grave.

  “There’s trouble,” he said. A statement and not a question, because of course Thor would not visit unannounced unless there was trouble of a very serious kind.

  “Yes.” Thor stepped inside and shut the door behind him and looked into his boss’s eyes. They had been together such a long time now, and in a business such as theirs, long runs were not common. He had to force his eyes away from Belov’s and back to the orange and black rug. It was helpful to have it there. If it had been missing, he wasn’t sure that he would have been able to explain his visit.

  “The cats are going to be taken from Sheffield Lake, and from Fulton Avenue,” he said.

  Belov looked at him in astonishment. “You know this?”

  “I know it.”

  There was a pause, and then the older man shrugged. “It will go nowhere. There’s money in that trade but not interest. Those who the police wish to talk will not talk, and in the end, it is such a foolish approach, don’t you think? Imagine…all the ways they could pursue me and try to finish me, and they choose that? They’re out of ideas, I suppose. After all these years and so little success, I’m not surprised they’re chasing such foolishness. It’s all they have left.”

  “I am taking the cats,” Thor said.

  Belov cocked his head as if he hadn’t heard.

  “Facilitating it, rather,” Thor said. “I needed to tell you that. There would be no honor in doing it another way, and after so many years…you understand why this would matter to me. That I told you myself. You alone would understand that.”

  “Have you lost your mind?” Belov said. “What in the hell are talking about?”

  Thor nodded, because he had shared the man’s confusion and in some ways still did.

  “The issue was in trust,” he said. “Not between you and me. Between him and me. When I held him and fed him, he trusted me, because he did not know better. Do you understand that? I have never felt it before. Maybe you have. You raised children. They do not trust you now but once they did. But for me —”

  “The cat?” Belov interrupted. “You’re this concerned about the cat?”

  Thor didn’t answer. When Belov laughed it was soft and almost polite, almost forgiving.

  “Oh, my,” he said, and laughed again. “The damned cub? You cared what happened to it?” His smile had a mocking glitter. “Fine, fine. We will stop the trade. Find someplace for the rest. That will put you at peace?”

  He reached out and clapped Thor on the shoulder, and for an old man his grip was strong. Then he asked the question Thor had asked of himself.

  “Do you know how many men you have killed? And yet you’re worried about a tiger?”

  “I am not certain how many men I have killed for you,” Thor answered. “There have been a lot. And I have tried — truly, Dainius, I have tried — to understand what the difference is here. At first I thought it was because I had never held any of those men, fed any of those men. But that is not enough. That was just a moment, you know, it was a thing that happened and then was gone and I do not think that it is enough. Then I came to understand. The difference is that all of those men knew better than to trust me. Or to trust you. The tiger, though? He did not know better.”

  Belov tilted his head back as if he was finally registering the essence of the subject, and the smile was gone.

  “You know,” he said, “I didn’t kill him myself.”

  “Of course not. You never do. That I know well.”

  Belov frowned and took his hand away from Thor’s arm.

  “I’ll get rid of the damned rug,” he said. “If it bothers you so damn much, I’ll —”

  “I am not desensitized to them yet, that is the problem,” Thor said.

  “What in the hell are you saying? You’re making no sense.”

  “I have not been around such a thing before. I have not seen…” he nodded at the rug. “That before. Even for a man such as me, there is always something new. Even a new horror. You understand that?”

  “I understand,” Belov said, “that you’ve been in my home too long.”

  “I thought of ways in which it might be done so that we could still work together,” Thor continued. “I considered them. But of course it could not happen.
Too many years of trust will be broken by what I have done, and you could not overlook that. You might wish to, but you could not.”

  Belov stared at him, then pointed at the gorgeous striped fur on the floor. “All of your loyalty is gone over a rug? This is what you’re saying? Over a rug?”

  Thor shook his head. “No,” he said. “It is gone because you believe that it is a rug.”

  Belov blinked in confusion, and Thor was truly sad when he said, “You do not understand, do you?”

  “I do not,” Belov said. “A silly tiger cub? All of this over that? No, I do not understand. I always believed you were more of a…a people person.”

  This smile died in the womb as Belov saw the gun in Thor’s hand. Whatever he did not understand about the tiger cub that had grown into a rug, he understood completely about the gun. He understood that two decades and two continents of spanned loyalty could end in his world over something he’d never imagined. To him, this part would have been almost expected. Only the sources were not — neither Thor nor the tiger cub.

  Thor took him in a single shot, a silenced .22-caliber bullet to the heart, and he stayed with him while he died and he held his hand. The last time he had held a man’s hand it was his own father’s. Belov was not looking at him with a father’s eyes, but still Thor thought that the touch might matter, somehow.

  He did not linger when it was done. There was no point. He walked back outside and through the snow and went home.