The Snake

Six

Special Operations Division (SOD), with headquarters in Flushing Meadows, Corona, consists of the following units: Emergency Service, Tactical Patrol, Street Crime, Auto Crime, Aviation, Harbour, and Mounted (known as Horse Soldiers). The most visible and widely publicized is the Emergency Service Unit, specialists in the oddball assignment. If there's a cat at the top of a pole, a smoke-out in the subway, a sniper to be dislodged, a bomb to be defused, a riot to be quelled, a building to be scaled, a finger stuck in a soda machine, someone trapped in an elevator, the ESU comes to the rescue. They are equipped for every conceivable emergency: oxygen masks and tanks, keys to the subway escape hatches, crampons, stun guns, floodlights, generators, jacks capable of lifting subway cars, rifles equipped with sniper scopes…

The man who was placed in charge of the field operation to find the snake in the park was Captain Thomas Eastman. As a younger man he had revelled in shinnying up poles, sliding down elevator cables, and carrying overcome victims out of subway tunnels, but now, with a bad knee, a general lack of fitness (weight, 240), and a recent melancholic awareness of his age (48), he directed the men in his command from the sidelines.

Captain Eastman was presented with his assignment by his boss, Deputy Inspector Vincent Scott, who had been the penultimate recipient of a buck that had begun with the mayor, passed to the Police Commissioner, and then descended in orderly steps to a Deputy Commissioner, the Chief of Operations, a Borough Commander, and the Deputy Chief in command of SOD. Eastman, who had left his office at 6 o'clock for his home in Hollis, was recalled by telephone. He arrived back at SOD Headquarters at 8:45.

"About the killer snake in the park," the DI said sourly. "You know which killer snake in which park I'm talking about?"

"Yessir."

"We just been given it."

"I thought we were already working on it."

"Just a couple of trucks and truck personnel helping out. Now we're running the show. You know anything about snakes?"

"Nothing special." Eastman pondered for a moment. "You're supposed to catch them behind the head with a long stick with a clamp at the end that closes up when you press a handle. Like the things grocers used to use years ago to bring packages down from a high shelf?"

"You don't have to catch it," the DI said. "Just get rid of it. Just get in the park and find this sonofabitch and kill it."

"That's what they were trying to do today, and didn't do it. The big problem is the size of the park. You know how big it is, Chief?"

"Certainly, I know how big it is. Fifth Avenue to Central Park West, 59th to 110th."

"Eight hundred and forty-some acres. I don't have any idea how to cover all that area."

"You don't need an idea, you need manpower. These days, everything is manpower." The DI shook his head. "You know how we killed snakes when I was a kid? We grabbed them by the tail and cracked the whip with 'em, just snapped their heads against a rock. Turn up a rock, grab them by the tail, and crack the whip…"

The DI's eyes were inturned, wandering in a distant and undoubtedly more agreeable past. Eastman curbed his impatience and waited for nostalgia to run its course. The DI's mood changed abruptly with a hardening of his eyes.

"You're getting manpower, as much as you need, and if you don't turn that snake up, it's your ass."

Somebody must be kicking his butt, Eastman thought, so he's kicking mine.

Definition of chain of command. He said cautiously, "You say I'm getting manpower? How much?"

"Five hundred." The DI paused to savour Eastman's astonishment. "They want that snake real bad."

Eastman's face was impassive again. "Yessir."

"Pulling them out of the high-crime areas, would you believe it? It's political. It's a red-hot item. You get my meaning? You better damn well turn it up."

"Yessir."

"Planning and Operations is putting the package together. You'll have the five hundred, or so they say, tomorrow morning. They're working late on it. You and me have a date to go down there." The DI's eyes gleamed with bitter amusement. "Not much sleep for you tonight, Thomas."

Who sleeps at night, anyway, Eastman thought, and said, "I wouldn't mind some technical help. There's a young fellow at the Bronx Zoo-"

"Two dead in less than twenty-four hours, that's one thing." The DI shrugged. "People die all the time. But the other thing, the politics, that's serious. You hear the news this evening?"

Eastman nodded. "John Q. Public is bitching."

"Right. That's why you got a whole army of cops to play with. They want a big police presence in the park. You get the meaning?"

"About seven or eight months ago," Eastman said, "there was this rattlesnake some nut kept for a pet in a small apartment house in Washington Heights, I think it was. It escaped, and I went down with a detachment. That was before my knee. We had a couple of those snake catching sticks, I think. Anyway, we evacuated all the tenants, and we tossed that house. I mean really tossed it, cellar to roof, every nook and cranny.

We must have been four or five hours at it, walking on eggshells all the time, and we couldn't find it. Then this young guy from the zoo heard about it and came down with a stick and a bag, and inside of five minutes he found the snake curled up near the boiler in the cellar. He lifted it up on the stick, popped it into the bag, and took it off to the zoo."

"An apartment house," the DI said. "That can't compare to Central Park."

"What impressed me, Chief, was not only that he knew right away where to look for it, but he saw it. For some reason, it didn't rattle. I forgot to ask why." Eastman shrugged. "We checked out the boiler area several times, and it was there all the time, only we didn't see it. But he saw it right away."

"We already got one of these characters, herpa-something, from the Natural History Museum, he's supposed to be helping us."

"I saw him on the tube," Eastman said. "Maybe he's okay, but this young guy… well, he didn't fool around."

"Yeah. I know what you mean. The Museum character acted like a professor, like he did a lot of reading about snakes. Get hold of this kid, if you want to." The DI looked at his watch. "I hope you had something to eat, because we got to go downtown right this minute."

Molting was one of the imperatives that governed the snake's existence.

Unlike most animals, a snake never stopped growing from the moment of birth to the moment of death. Because it literally outgrew its horny outer skin, it was obliged to shed at regular intervals, three or four times a year.

For several days now the snake's skin had been darkening and dulling, and its eyes, sheltered behind transparent protective lenses, had begun to dim. It was time to molt.

Because it was defenseless during molting, the snake sought the shelter of the topmost branches of its tree. It stretched its sinuous length out almost to its full extent, and began to rub its face against a branch of the tree. When the skin around its lips broke away, the process of molting was under way. Squirming vigorously over the next few hours, the snake advanced laboriously, like a finger being pulled out of a tight glove, until it had worked itself completely out of the old skin, which ended up at the tail, inside out.

The new skin was bright, the colours fresh and attractive. The snake was at its handsomest. Its eyesight was keen behind its new transparent lens.

The old skin, feathery, translucent, dropped a few feet after it had been discarded, and then caught and held fast in a net of twigs, undetectable from ground level.

As always after molting, the snake was hungry. In the darkness, it coiled down the tree and sped away in search of food.

Hizzonner was not awake for the eleven o'clock television news. It was just as well; it contained little that might have comforted him. The program opened with a sequence showing the cops who had been sweeping the park leaving as darkness came on: hot, dispirited, out-of-sorts, a beaten army executing a strategic withdrawal.

"Some of these policemen were on the verge of collapse, and those who criticized the effort-or lack of it-were on the whole sympathetic to the frustrated policemen themselves. Mostly, their barbs were directed at the mayor."

The mayoral candidate of the opposition party, wearing a white shirt and tie, his sparse hair ruffled by the breeze from the air conditioner in his elegant living room: "… sorry for this pitiful handful of sincere, dedicated men. The niggardly number of police assigned to hunt down the snake is only too typical of the halfway measures that have characterized this administration for the past four years. The hard-pressed people of our city deserve better. Their God-given right to enjoy the beauty of their park in safety and with peace of mind has been flouted by a mayor who…"

A former mayor, said to be grooming himself for a run for the governorship: "I don't want to come down too hard on the mayor, but if I was still in office I would mount the most comprehensive dragnet ever seen in this city."

From Washington, a member of the New York congressional delegation: "The good people of my district are being bitten to death by this deadly snake, and it has got to stop. If the mayor is unwilling or unable to do the job, then I say let's get someone on the job who can do the job. I have been trying to reach the governor in Albany, requesting him to send reinforcements, whether it be the National Guard or a contingent of state troopers, or both. My constituency must be protected."

A half-dozen new groups pledge their support for the march on City Hall in the morning. Shots of militant women, clamouring for the attention of camera and microphone. Following a commercial, the telecast continues with a shot of the same cobra that had been seen on the 6 o'clock news, then of a giant anaconda being held in the air by six men, then of a sidewinder rattlesnake slithering across desert sands in California.

Finally, a close-up of a Russell's viper being milked at a snake farm in Brazil. "Not all snake poison is malign. The venom being taken from this Russell's viper will be used as a coagulant for persons suffering from haemophilia."

An interview with the curator of reptiles of a Midwest zoo, filmed in front of the glass cage of a puff adder that had bitten him six months ago. The curator assures his interrogator that he harbours no in feelings toward the snake. "I made him irritable, you see." Touching a scar on his forearm. "Fortunately, with the prompt administration of antivenin, I recovered without any lasting ill effects."

In her modest but thoughtfully furnished apartment, responding to a hushed and commiserative reporter, Ms. Arline Simpkin, friend of Roddy Bamberger, second victim of the snake in the park: "Although it was only our first date, I realized that he was a rare type of person warm, cultivated, and so in tune with life." Large eyes brimming with tears.

"And to be struck down in the full flush of virile manhood." She pauses, ponders, seems to wonder if her remark is open to sexual interpretation, and flushes. "It isn't fair. It just isn't fair."

The anchorman: "Ms. Simpkin's statement provided the police with their first clue as to the possible whereabouts of the snake. It is, or was, in the environs of the Delacorte Theatre."

— hi a cluttered kitchen, with two small, solemn-eyed children wandering in and out of camera range, Mrs. Carmen Torres, mother of the deceased Ramon Torres, pretty, plump, wearing her hair in a towering beehive, rattles away in animated Spanish that is translated by a tall lean man with a scarred face and deep black eyes. The interpreter says, "She say her Ramon is a good boy." Mrs. Torres rattles on. "Once or twice he is arrested and the police try to frame him because he is Puerto Rican, but God is just, and he is sprung." Mrs. Torres waits impatiently for him to finish his translation, regarding him with a glittering, wary eye. She spouts Spanish again. "He was the sole support of herself and his three little brothers and one sister. And now that he is gone, who is to pay the rent and for the food? She wishes to know this."

The reporter asks the interpreter what Ramon was doing in the park at 3 o'clock in the morning. The interpreter puts the question to Mrs. Torres, who answers indignantly. He translates: "She say he is in the park to cool off, and because it remind him of the verdure of his beloved Puerto Rico.

So he stroll in the park, never expecting to be stung by a snake." Wrapping up, the reporter asks the interpreter if he is a member of the Torres family. "I am Roberto Ortiz, lawyer. I represent Mrs. Torres in this matter. We are filing a suit in the morning against the city for negligence. One million dollars for depriving this fine lady of her sole support and darling son." Mrs. Torres says in English, "Wuh mee-yun dolls."

The anchorman presses his earphone with a finger, listening. "We're going to take you to Columbus Circle for an on-the-spot report, live, from Marcia Brooks."

"This is Marcia Brooks, live, from Columbus Circle, where, as you can see, there is plenty going on."

The camera pans over a crowd milling around near the Merchant's Gate entrance to the park and clustered around the marble Maine Monument.

Standing out among dark complexions, bare chests, shorts, is a group of young, well-scrubbed, neatly dressed young men and women who seem to be haranguing the crowd, or any part of it that will listen. They are jeered at, laughed at, mocked, but they seem impervious to it.

Marcia Brooks whispers into her microphone, "These self-contained young people are Puries, members of the Church of the Purification, followers of the well-known religious sect led by the Reverend Sanctus Milanese. Let's listen."

She insinuates her microphone near a pale intense young man in a white, open-collared shirt, who is speaking to a young black man wearing a colourful bandanna around his head and an earring in his nose. "The snake is Satan, or rather Satan's messenger, who has taken the form of a serpent. It has been sent here to earth by the devil to subvert and proselytize and recruit sinners for the legions of hell."

The young black man: "Man, you full of…" His bad word is alertly blipped. "Onliest thing it recruit so far is two stiffs."

The crowd cheers, laughs, slaps thighs. The young black man grins and takes a bow.

Nearby, a young woman wearing a light blue, crisp dirndl, her eyes flashing, says, "You are deluded if you think it is funny. The snake is truly Satan's messenger. It is wily, it is evil incarnate and it will easily elude the police. It fears only the pure in heart and spirit, the army of Christ."

Marcia Brooks has edged toward the young woman, but before she can question her there is a commotion. The black man in the bandanna has suddenly become threatening. He is shouting, raging. He takes a boxer's stance, dances, draws back his fist. But before he can throw his punch, he is seized around the neck by a tall young man dressed in a dark suit, and hurled to the ground. The crowd surges backward, then forward, there is a flash of fists, some shoving, but by now six cops are there, pushing the crowd apart, breaking it open.

Marcia Brooks backs away from the fray. Somewhat breathlessly, she says that the Puries appear to be out in force, not only here in Columbus Circle but near the Pulitzer Fountain at Fifth Avenue and 59th, as well as at other locations on the perimeter of the park. It is her impression that the tall man who threw the man in the bandanna to the ground is a member of the Purie security squad, who call themselves Christ's Cohorts, but whom some people have bluntly characterized as a strong-arm squad.

Behind her, the police seem to have quelled the outburst. "The Puries took to the streets about ten o'clock this evening, and these ardent young followers of the Reverend Sanctus Milanese have been spreading the word that the snake has been sent to earth from, well, I guess from below, to…" She pauses, listens to the voice in her earphone. She nods, then says quickly, "I asked one of the Puries if they would be among those represented at City Hall tomorrow morning. I was told that they would not, definitely not, because, and I quote, 'we do not seek intercession from mortal man, but only from God Himself, Who speaks to us with the voice of the Reverend Sanctus Milanese.' That from a Purie-"

She is cut off. In the studio, the anchorman says hurriedly, "Thank you, Marcia. We take you now, live, to Purity House, the Fifth Avenue mansion of the Reverend Sanctus Milanese."

A tall blond man wearing a black suit, a white shirt, a dark tie, stands in the opening of a high, carved, gleaming doorway, facing a thicket of microphones. He says expressionlessly, "The Reverend Milanese is not available. He is at prayer." Reporters shout out questions. He responds, "Yes, I believe he will make a statement." "When?" "When God instructs him to."

The door is shut firmly. The camera holds on its polished elegance for a moment, then fades back to the studio.

"A final note, just in," the anchorman says. "Police cars will continue into the night to patrol the park with loudspeakers, urging the public to stay away." He consults a slip of paper. "We are informed that the Central Park Precinct has received over twenty calls from residents of the buildings rimming the park, on Fifth Avenue, Central Park South and Central Park West, complaining that the blaring of the loudspeakers is interfering with their sleep and, in some cases, the audibility of their television."

Frozen in that extraordinary fossil like quality of total immobility peculiar to reptiles, the snake watched the rat move along the base of the wall. The rat, which might have been intent on some prey of its own, failed to see the snake until the very last moment before it struck, and then it was too late.

The rat reacted immediately to the venom. Its brown hair stood up spikily, its body curled in on itself in an agonized spasm, and it bit frantically at the site of the bite. It turned away from the snake in terror, and with erratic movement retreated along the base of the stone wall. The snake, driven by its post-sloughing hunger, followed swiftly.

It overtook the rat, its head low to the ground now, its mouth gaped, but it did not strike again. It curled in front of the stumbling rat and faced it. The rat made an effort to retreat, but its legs gave out and it collapsed. It lay quietly, its teeth bared in a rictus, its eyes half shut. Although the snake customarily waited until its prey was dead, it did not do so now. It opened its mouth wide and took the feebly struggling rat between its teeth. With one side of its mouth hooked firmly into the rat's head, the snake pushed the teeth of the other side forward a short distance and engaged them. It did not take notice of the shudder that preceded the rat's death, but continued to push forward by alternate investment of its teeth until the rat was completely swallowed.