The Snake

Twelve

The policeman at the desk in the Central Park Precinct recognized Converse and waved him on toward the Commander's office at the end of the corridor.

Captain Eastman, stripped to his shorts, was lying on his back on a cot.

There was no ease in his sleep, Converse thought. He lay heavily on the thin mattress, as if at the mercy of the downward pull of gravity, or his problems, or perhaps his age. The hair on his chest was white, matted with sweat.

Converse shut the door softly and went back through the corridor. In a small office opposite the desk, four hoods were polluting the air with cigarette smoke. They were dressed in dirty jeans, wisps of shirts that exposed their chests, studded leather belts, beards, gunfighter moustaches, long unkempt hair. They were a part of the Central Park Precinct's anticrime unit.

Converse stopped. "You guys know the park," he said. "Where's the best place to hide? The least people, the most wild areas?"

Three of the detectives turned to the fourth, and one of them said, "Ask Sergeant Paschik. He's our first whip, and he's been here at the Two-two a little over a hundred years."

Sergeant Paschik was in his forties but, with his unshaven face and drooping, two-toned, gray-and-black mandarin moustache, he looked no less raffish than his younger colleagues.

"Sergeant?" Converse said.

"Uptown. North of 96th Street. It's a fact that about ninety percent of the people use the park below 85th Street. The Receiving Reservoir takes up most of the space between 86th and 96th, so I would concentrate on the area north of 96th."

"Is it less manicured up there?"

Paschik nodded. "It's real wild up there. You could get lost in some parts if you didn't know your way around."

"Or don't speak Spanish," one of the detectives said.

Paschik said, "It's a fact that above 96th the population, east side and west side both, is mostly Spanish. Naturally, they use the park near their own neighbourhood. So it's a fact that it's not as safe there as in the southern part."

One of the detectives said, "I thought the snake was biting people around 80th, around there."

"Was," Converse said. "But its instinct would be to find a wilder and less frequented territory."

He thanked the anticrime squad, and they wished him luck. He went home, fed the python and the cat, and went to bed to catch up on his sleep. He dreamed of Catherine the Great, Empress of all the Russias.

The handout from the office of Hizzonner the mayor read: "I profoundly regret the tragic death of this fine young man to whose athletic prowess we thrilled so many times in the past." Jeff had been a secondstring pulling guard on the Columbia football team. "Yet, even in this moment of tragedy, I cannot pass up the observation that he was foolhardy. If he had not tried to catch the snake, but had merely retreated, no harm would have befallen him.

"And so I take this opportunity once again to urge the public, with all my heart, to exercise the utmost caution. Above all, do not attempt to take matters into your own hands. The police, with the help of experts, are redoubling their efforts. Do not hinder or hamper them in their work. Do not endanger your own life. Please cooperate."

The Reverend Sanctus Milanese, the solicitation of whose views had by now become a regular item on the itinerary of the media, said: "The members of the Church of the Purification are conscripted in the army of God to destroy the personification of evil. Can soldiers sit on the sidelines while this messenger of Satan crushes the city in its oily toils? The police are powerless, for it is not given to a temporal force to overcome the Devil. Only the Godly are sanctioned for this work, for only they are blessed by Divine guidance. They shall prevail who are pure."

"You're going to continue to search for the snake in defiance of the orders of the police and the mayor's instructions?"

"We respond to only one Authority, and His name is God. We will continue our search as before, and there may be new initiatives as God proposes them."

The Police Commissioner, told about the Reverend's statement, said that the police would not tolerate vigilantism in any form or for any reason.

Whoever disobeyed the police directives would be dealt with sternly.

Jane Redpath refused to be interviewed for television. She said, "I know how much you bastards like to have people weep on camera for the entertainment of your audience, and I realize I'm being unsporting, but you can all go fuck yourselves."

With Jeff's death, the city turned a corner. It became euphoric. The snake in the park became a jewel in the crown of the city's obsession with its own eccentricity. The public reasserted its prideful conviction that it inhabited the most put-upon city in the whole world. When bigger and better and more unendurable disasters were contrived, they were visited justly upon the city that matched them in stature; which was to say, the city that was superlatively dirty, declining, expensive, crime-ridden, unmanageable, and glamorously unlivable beyond any other city in the world. By lunchtime, gallows humour jokes were already epidemic. And never mind that most of them were retreads of stale ethnic jokes; they worked surprisingly well with the mere substitution of the word "snake" for "Italian" or "Polish."

Manufacturers of novelties, famous for their opportunism and dazzling speed of production, succeeded by late afternoon in flooding the city with snake buttons, snake decals for auto bumpers, stuffed snakes of many lengths, designs, and colors. Not long afterward, strikingly realistic, battery-powered snakes of great technical sophistication were to appear.

There was a run on canned rattlesnake fillets in gourmet specialty stores, and the brave people who ate them inevitably compared their taste to that of chicken, only better.

Four Hollywood film companies filed notice of intent to make a movie about a snake in Central Park; by nightfall, one of them had brought a lawsuit against another, charging infringement of its title, "Black Mamba." The news division of all three television networks patched together half-hour films about snakes for presentation following the eleven o'clock news, with full commercial sponsorship. A porno film, in which a young woman performed the sex act with a squirming and unhappy snake, was revived and did turn away business at the box office. A nightclub introduced a snake-charming act: a man in a turban playing a flute for a cobra so lethargic from being refrigerated that it could barely spread its hood. Educational paperback books dealing with reptiles flooded the newsstands and bookstores. Herpetologists and zoo curators were at a premium for guest appearances on television talk shows.

Snakeskin shoes, jackets, handbags, ties, and belts were snapped up in clothing and department stores. Sheets, pillowcases, and window drapes with a serpentine motif appeared almost overnight.

Comedians on television, at hotels, in nightclubs, and even in a Broadway show here and there, introduced snake jokes. These ranged from the innocent and simpleminded ("Goodness snakes alive!", "It's me, Snake, I mean Jake") to the dirty and simpleminded ("What's eleven feet long and stands up when it's irritated? Sorry to disappoint you, baby, it's a black mamba").

The reptile houses at the Bronx and Staten Island zoos were so packed with spectators that it was almost impossible for any but those in the front ranks to see the exhibits. When a man visiting the Staten Island Zoo used a hammer to smash the glass of a cage containing a sand viper and then attacked the snake with a breadknife, the police were called in to clear the snake house for the rest of the day. The next morning, crowds were kept back five feet from the cages by barriers, and special guards were on hand to protect the snakes from further assassination attempts.

A well-known showman made the front page of two of the city's three daily newspapers with his offer of $20,000 for the snake in the park, alive.

Throughout the day, alternating between the claustrophobic office of the Commander of the Two-two and the desk up front, where he hovered nervously around the teletype, Captain Eastman had been logging reports from the park. Good news and bad news. Good: there were many fewer people in the park than the day before, whether because they were paying heed to the mayor's plea or simply because of the heat, which had touched 99 degrees at three o'clock, there was no way of telling. Bad: lots of Puries out, neatly dressed, barely seeming to sweat (maybe they did have an in with God, Eastman thought), methodically checking out likely areas where the snake might be hiding. There had been several minor scuffles with the police who ordered them back onto the walkways, and one serious one. Two members of Christ's Cohorts, the Purie security guard, had engaged in a slugging match with a cop. It was only with the arrival of reinforcements that the Puries had been subdued. They had been booked at the Two-two and been held in detention for several hours before it was time to take them to night court, where they were charged with disorderly conduct, assault, and resisting arrest.

The cop who had fought with the Christ's Cohorts had lost a tooth. What had impressed him, aside from the fact that they were handy with their fists, was their lack of emotion. "I've never seen guys fight like that," he had told Eastman. "No swearing, no hollering, not even a mad expression on their face. I swear, it gave me the creeps."

Technically, Eastman was "coordinating" the police effort in the park.

Although he had been desk-bound for several years, he had never really become accustomed to it. He thought of it as "sitting on his ass," when he should be "doing something." He would have much preferred being out in the field with one of the ESU trucks. Near ten o'clock there was a bit of gruesome comic relief. A grinning cop reported that he and his partner had come upon a Purie wandering through the park, dazed, battered, completely naked, and had taken him to West Side Hospital. He had been snake hunting in the Ramble, according to his story, when he had been set upon and beaten by a half-dozen men. The cop, winking, describing the Purie as "one of them," said that he had obviously been gang-shagged.

Converse arrived with his stick and pillowcase, looking so refreshed and rested that Eastman almost hated him for it. Youth. But the prospect of getting out of the precinct house and "doing something" palliated his sourness.

"Godssake," Converse said. "It looks like a mob scene."

The driver had taken them into the park through the Engineer's Gate at 90th and Fifth Avenue, and was following the East Drive around the perimeter of the Receiving Reservoir. The park seemed to be twinkling with lights, and they could make out shadowy figures, some of whom must have been police personnel, others, Puries. Driving, they were almost blinded by the brilliant sweeping floodlight of an ESU truck.

"Where do you want to stop?" Eastman said.

"Noplace," Converse said. "What black mamba in its right mind would turn up with all this going on? Those lights? Those people clumping around everywhere? Forget it. it's going to hole up and stay hidden until everybody goes away."

Eastman's definition of "doing something" did not include riding around in a police car. "How the bell can you hope to find it if you don't get out and look for it?"

"No way," Converse said. "If I knew all this crap was going on I would have stayed home. Remember what I told you about a snake having to be found by stealth?"

"Certainly I remember," Eastman said. "I make it a point never to forget anything you tell me. Then what the hell are we going to do?"

"It's hopeless," Converse said, "and there's no sense getting sore, captain. You want to get out, I'll keep you company. But it's a pure waste of time."

Eastman was silent. He sat hunched against the window of the car, glowering.

Converse said, "Anyway, our best chance is to catch it basking. It's one of the few times a snake stays put. I'll be out here tomorrow morning just before first light."

The car rode on between the huge North Meadow at their left and the small East Meadow to the right. The driver slowed down. "What do we do, captain?"

"Shit, I don't know. It's a lovely night for a spin around the park. What do you say, Hortense?"

Converse shrugged. "I'm sorry, captain."

Eastman sighed. "I guess you're right. Tomorrow morning-you going to pick me up?"

"I could," Converse said. "But. His voice trailed off.

"But you'd rather not?"

Converse nodded. "It's really a one man job. You'd simply be trailing along."

He's probably right, Eastman thought, and I can use the sleep. Then a suspicion stirred in his mind. "Look, are you afraid I'll shoot it or something?"

"If I find it," Converse said with a grin, "I'll turn it over to the Lost Property Clerk."

Eastman told the driver to find someplace where he could turnaround.

"Get a fix on one of the floodlights and drop me off by one of the ESU trucks. Then take Mr. Converse here to someplace where he can catch a bus home."

Converse said, "Don't waste your time, captain."

"Waste of time or not, I'll be doing something."

"Instead," Converse said, "let me buy you a beer."

"I don't drink on duty."

"When are you off duty?"

"That's it," Eastman said. "Never."

Near 115th Street, a rat jumped out of an overturned garbage can. It stopped right in the middle of the sidewalk and looked at him. It was an ugly old bastard, with a scrunch-up face and a long wormy tail and red eyes. Its fur was a mangy gray, same like the color of morning before the sun over the East River would get high enough to clear the tenements and throw a little light around.

Alvis Parkins said softly, "Shitface, I'm gonna waste you."

The rat was watching. It was a smart old rat, and Alvis knew that if he made a sudden move it would take off. So, smiling and talking sweet to it, he began to ruffle up the bottom of his shirt, slow and easy. Gently do it. Slip the piece out quiet, cock it, level it, and then boom, blow old rat away.

He had the piece in his hand when the rat suddenly took off, scuttering off the curb and racing for the other side of the street. Alvis steadied the piece with both hands, squinting down the short barrel, tracking old rat until he had it right where he wanted it. But he didn't pull the trigger. He lowered the gun abruptly, shoved it back under his belt, and pulled his shirt over it.

Dumb shit, he thought, watching the rat disappear in an alley between two buildings, dumb shit, you came near fucking up. Dumb nigger shit, all you need was make a gunshot noise so somebody call the cops and they pick you up for just being in the streets this time of morning, and they spread you up against a wall and find the piece on you. What make it worse, that piece wouldn't never have shoot straight enough to hit something, especially a old gray running rat. Maybe couldn't even hit it with a professional piece, a hundred- two-hundred dollar piece, so how was he ever gonna hit it with a little old twelve dollar hunk of junk iron.

Forget it. Besides, why should he go exterminate a rat in Spanish Harlem?

Let the spics kill they own goddamn rats.

The good feeling he got when he first spotted the rat went away and he began to feel sour again. Walking on south, he swore out loud whenever a car or truck went by on Seventh Avenue. Mean as he felt, better not let nobody fuck around with him. One bad look and he would bum somebody.

Saturday Night Special couldn't hit no rat halfway across the street, but point blank up against somebody it would blow half their ugly face off.

The sun was lighting up the sky, though it was still gray down below as he crossed Cathedral Parkway, sauntering, ignoring a couple of trucks, making them blow their horns at him, making them hit their brakes. Screw them. Street belong to me every much as it do to them. He went into the park through the Warriors Gate. Still pretty cool, though in a few minutes the sun would start hotting it up. Remembering the heat and stink of the apartment, he was glad he had that ruckus with his aunt, it give him a good excuse to split. Get away from heat and old Uncle Tom aunt at one and the same time.

Silly old bitch didn't know the score. Thought dope was bad, thought chicks was bad, thought school was good, thought church was good, Knew he had the gun, she would probably call the cops in. Mostly he didn't pay no attention to her, but tonight she was waiting up for him, and her jaw just go Eke a express train-fifteen-year-old boy have no call to come in four-thirty in the morning, and et cetera. He sassed her and sassed her, and finally old auntie get mad and take a swing at him. When he like to fall down laughing at her, she come on with the big black skillet, and could have bust his arm if it land. So he dodge around the kitchen, and finally get around back of her and take it away and smash the table with it, and then run out the door.

Have to get something going for hisself and split for good. Too old for living with old auntie and the rest of the kids. Needed a pad anyway, tired of balling chicks on rooftops. Come to think of it, in his whole life never had no chick in a bed. High time. Have to promote hisself some bread. Meanwhile, shit, what he doing in this dumb park? What he care about grass and trees and such shit? And don't forget old snake. Old black mamba. Old nigger mamba. Didn't scare him. Old snake come dancing along, he pull his piece and blow old snake's head away. He laughed at the image of a headless snake.

He ran up a hill, and looked down the Meer to the east, with sun on the water now, and straight ahead of him the long stretch of the North Meadow. He raced down the far side of the hill, sliding on his sneakered feet, grabbing at branches as he went. His momentum carried him down onto a walkway, and he had to put on the brakes or run right into the railing and bust his balls.

At the West Drive, a car came along, with its headlights still on. As it went by, a red face under a hard hat poked out and shouted jeeringly at him.

"Honkies," he shouted back, "motherfuckers, shit-eaters."

The car slowed, and a muscular arm hung out of the window, feeling for the door handle. Alvis's heart began to thump. He reached under his shirt for the hard blunt shape of the piece. If they got out of the car he would gun the mothers down! The car picked up speed and went on. The beefy red face was hanging out the window, mouthing words that were lost in the sound of the accelerating car. Alvis shouted, "Pinkface!

Shit-face! Motherfucker!"

The car disappeared around a curve.

He grinned, and crossed the roadway jauntily, forcing another car to squeal its brakes. He smiled, feeling good, and ignored the shouts that drifted back from the car.

At the Reservoir, the early-bird joggers were out, most of them dressed in white shorts and T-shirts and expensive sneakers. Dudes were soaked in sweat, red in the face, and sucking air like they was gonna die very next step. One was a pretty young chick with silky blond hair flying behind her and little tits that bounced like crazy under her Tshirt.

"Hey baby," he yelled at her, "how you like some real exercise?"

After that, he started jiving most of the joggers. "Look, dads, you too old, you gonna have a heart attack." "Hey, man, you look like a busted-down hoss." "Look at the great tits on you, mister." A young black man came sailing along, slim and high-kicking, barechested, wearing a yellow sweat band around his forehead. "Show them honkies how to do it, brother," Alvis yelled.

Alvis decided to run, and he began to breeze past the joggers, giving them a little grin as be went by. But after one circuit he quit. Too hot, man. He started back to the north, going off the walkways and climbing up a hill whenever he saw one. It was a good feeling being up high. He liked it even better when there was also a lot of trees and bushes, like being hid out in a jungle. He hacked his way out of a jungle, came down into the open, and then ran at a big steep sloping rock. Hey, man, watch this move, up the rock like a fly climb a wall. His sneakers gripped and his momentum carried him to the top. And there, stretched out about a mile long, was a big mother of a snake.

The stone struck the rock in front of the snake, and skittered away. The snake's long body stirred into movement at once, gliding over the rock, taking up its own slack. Its head rose upward on a taut column, and its tongue flicked out. When a second stone landed just in front of it it recoiled for a moment, and then its head rose higher. Its eyes picked up the flight of the third stone while it was still in the air. The stone fell, and almost hit the snake in the arc of its bounce. The snake turned and crawled down the slope of the rock, its scutes pushing back against the irregularities, pressing the long body forward in a powerful twisting movement off the face of the rock and into the underbrush.

Alvis could hardly believe the speed of the snake. It moved like it had a revved-up engine. With a yell, he came out of concealment and ran up the side of the rock. He stopped for a second and took out his piece, then ran down the outer side of the rock in the path the snake had taken.

He stopped again at the bottom and peered into the tangle of brush.

At first he didn't see anything, and then he picked up the snake's movement, and saw it wriggling down under the brush. Got me these great eyes, he thought. He leveled the piece downward at the snake, but it was too tough a shot. Still, it felt good, pointing the piece, and it kept him from getting seared. He tracked the snake with the piece, and then, suddenly, it disappeared. He stared at the brush where he had last seen it.

Not there. Nor was any of the brush moving.

"Be fucked."

He picked up a stone and tossed it down where he had last seen the snake, in a mess of dead branches, vines, last year's brown leaves, the trunk of a rotten tree. The stone landed where he wanted it to, and he watched good, but there wasn't no movement.

"Be fucked."

He thought about it for a second, then edged forward real easy into the brush, moving sidewards, so that if old snake came at him he could swivel around and hightail it for the rock. He had this funny feeling in his feet, but he wasn't gonna let no snake bluff him out. He held the piece pointed downward, with his finger on the trigger. He took a little jump onto the fallen tree trunk. He hunkered down on the tree for a good look all around, but he couldn't see no sign of the snake. Then, just when he was about to stand up, he spotted the hole. It was under the tree, and twigs and like that all around it. No wonder nobody could find old snake. Well, he thought proudly, they don't none of them have the good eyes like Alvis. He laughed gleefully, then clapped his hand over his mouth. Didn't want snake to hear him.

"Gonna ice you, snake."

He stepped down from the tree trunk, one foot at a time, slow, not making a sound. Then he crouched to one side of the hole, and slowly reached around with the piece, curving his arm so the muzzle was pointing right into the hole. He felt real cool, but playing it safe in case old snake decided to pop out suddenly. Laughing softly to himself, he steadied the piece and slowly flexed his finger against the resistance of the trigger.

In the hole, the snake hissed harshly as the light at the entrance to the burrow darkened. Its tongue brought in a strong odour of threat. It pushed forward in a sudden powerful thrust, and surged out through the exit hole.

It struck twice, in rapid succession.

The piece fired into the hole and recoiled, and at the same moment Alvis felt a sharp sting on his neck, and then another sting, and the second time he saw the snake, the head up tall and the mouth wide open. He jumped up and ran backwards a few steps. The snake was watching him, hissing and swaying. He clapped his hand to his neck, and saw there was a little smear of blood on it. Sonofabitch had done bit him, crept out through another hole and done bit him. Motherfucking snake! Shouting, swearing, Alvis backed up a few more feet, raised his piece, and fired twice before the piece jammed. He saw the slugs hit the ground and raise dust and bits of leaves, and he knew he had missed. The snake started to crawl toward him, coming like an express train. He wheeled around and ran for the rock, and he went up it like a fly up a wall. No time to put no fancy moves on. Just keep running or he would get catched up.

The snake pursued as far as the rock and stopped. It held its posture of threat for a while after the figure disappeared over the top of the rock.

Then it returned to the burrow. Its tongue at the opening brought in a disquieting smell, sharp and acrid. The snake didn't enter until the smell grew lighter. It went in cautiously, and didn't relax its tension for a long time.

Got to get me to a hospital, Alvis thought, but not to no honky hospital.

You black, they treat you like shit in them places. One time, some kid on the block OD'd, and they kept him waiting so long that when they got around to him the poor fucker was dead. Uptown, the patients were black, and so were some of the doctors.

So he ran northward through the park, sometimes touching his neck, and feeling okay because it wasn't bleeding no more.

He wasn't running real good, feeling some tired, but he reckoned he wasn't gonna die because he was young, not old like them other ones. He wasn't breathing too good, but shit, you wanna feel great if you bitten by a mile-long crawler?

He stuck to the walkways. They wound around a lot, but it was easier to run on the flat surface. Chest felt funny, and legs going heavy, but he kept running, kept putting 'em down one after another. He could hear the sound of his sneakers slapping down on the pavement. Old sun was up hot now. He felt sleepy and like to lay down. He ran around the Cliff, and tried to turn on more speed. Almost out now. Then the wall was coming up in front of him. He had some trouble getting over it. Legs heavy, heavy.

But finally he cleared it, and was out of the park.

He started to cross Cathedral Parkway and began to stagger. Car coming down at him, have to turn on the speed. But his legs was folding up under him. He heard the car screeching its brakes, coming on big as a house.

At the last second he tried to put on a move, but his legs was no place, and the car hit him and tossed him, and he was dead when he came down.

Converse stood in the center of the North Meadow, facing east. The invisible presence of the sun, hidden beneath the rooftops of Fifth Avenue, backlit the buildings and turned them into cut-out silhouettes. On the Meadow, the parched grass looked gray. Above, the sky was a mottled gray; to the west, it was still dark.

The approach of daylight was reassuring, and it evaporated the remnants of uneasiness Converse had felt when he had entered the park from Central Park West and begun to walk along the eerily deserted walkways. Although he wasn't a particularly scary type, he was aware of the city's legendary perils, and he kept his nerve up kiddingly by imagining himself making a nice move with the Pilstrom tongs, ringing a mugger around the throat, and popping him into the pillowcase. Being careful, of course, not to get bitten.

The tongs and pillowcase were well on the optimistic side, considering the intimidating size of the area he had to cover. Already, in his short walk, he had seen half a dozen heavily overgrown sites that might suit a black mamba as a hiding place. The question was where to start. At the moment, with the rim of the sun just beginning to appear over the buildings, he simply didn't know. The vastness of the park made it all seem hopeless.

No. He shook his head, as if to reprove himself. He was a good her petologist, he knew snakes, and he would turn up the black mamba no matter how much territory he had to scour. The real problem was that everyone was in such a bloody hurry. Well, there wasn't any way to do it in a hurry. The watchword was patience.

The sun was a whitish watery semicircle above the rooftops, and already he was beginning to feel its heat. And so would the black mamba. At this very moment it might be moving, in its swift elegant glide, toward the rock it would bask on. Maybe. In this alien terrain it might feel safer climbing into the top branches of a tall tree, basking, and then swinging back down to shade in the thick foliage below. The green mambas did that as a matter of course, and so did the blacks when they were so inclined.

He hoped its inclination would be otherwise; it would be very difficult to spot in a tree. As a general rule, black mambas weren't all that shy. They were secure in the knowledge of their speed and the potency of their bite, and since this one was obviously a highly aggressive specimen, it was reasonable to expect that it would choose to bask on a luxurious rock.

Okay, Converse told himself firmly, so much for pure reason. Let's get organized. No point trying to check out any rocks today, too random, not likely to produce any results. The sun was already up, and climbing fast.

The snake wouldn't require much exposure; in this heat it wouldn't lose much body temperature through the night. Best idea would be to explore the whole northern sector, cast to west, from the 97th Street transverse to the end of the park, marking out likely places for closer examination.

There were lots of likely places-wild, untended areas with heavy tangled brush, fallen trees, piles of leaves and dead branches. More of the city's poverty; no money available to the Parks Department to hire enough grounds men to prune and chop and clear and haul away. He moved slowly and methodically, resisting the impulse to look at this or that rock, to plunge into an inviting thicket.

When he heard a patter of footsteps he was taken by surprise. It was a black kid, running-the first human being he had seen since he had entered the park. Soon there would be others. He watched the kid for a moment.

He himself was a jogger and, compared to his own stride, this kid's was sloppy and disjointed. He watched until the kid disappeared behind a rise, heading toward the north end of the park.

Aside from a single crumpled dollar bill, a few coins, a pack of cigarettes, and a condom tucked away in a packet of book matches, Alvis Parkins's pockets were empty. There was nothing to identify him.

Together with his effects, he was taken to the morgue, where he was tagged and assigned to a chilled drawer. Among other injuries, his neck was broken and badly lacerated, and the fang marks were obliterated. Not that anyone would have looked for them on the body of the victim of an auto accident.

The police began a routine effort to find his survivors. But there were no fingerprints on record, and nobody made a missing persons inquiry. His aunt, the only one who might have done so, was accustomed to the boy being absent for days at a time. Eventually, the Medical Examiner's post-mortem examination would turn up evidence that Alvis had been bitten by the snake in the park, but it would be ten days before the autopsy was performed, due to a heavy work load and the fact that several autopsists were on vacation. Since the cause of his death seemed clearly evident, Alvis Parkins was a low-priority case.