He fingered the talon hung around his neck, lifting it so she could see it better.
“Six-ninety-pound grizzly, six feet seven inches long, nose to tail. Most terrifying thing you ever did see. Did it the right way, too, just me and the bear. Man against Nature.” He raised his arms, holding an imaginary rifle. “When you hunt, you’re part of nature. You see your prey. You sight, take aim—boom!”
Angel said, “And that’s a fair fight?”
“I tell you. That guy—coulda torn me apart. One swipe of those claws, your guts are on the floor. I swear.”
“And the bear. Did the bear have a gun too?”
“Hey. The strong and the smart win out, the rest go down. That’s Mother Nature for you. I win because I am smart enough to use a Ruger Hawkeye. Bear just ain’t that smart.” He turned back to me. “You understand, I know, ’cause you hunt too.” We were man-to-man. “You hunt your prey, you gotta learn to think like it, to act like it—you gotta know it, inside and out. Am I right?”
There was some truth in this, but none that I was willing to allow him.
“Or the other way,” she said. “You kill the bear, just teeth and nails. I might respect that.”
He laughed. She didn’t.
“Hey,” he said. “You think it’s trophies, don’t ya? Nuh-uh. Trophy’s just the extra, just the icing on the cake. It’s about life. The way the world works.
“There’s a place out in Montana. I can take you, if you want. You pay two grand, you hunt whatever you want. Rhino, lion, elephant. Anything. They buy it in special, see?”
He smiled; he had beautiful teeth. Not bear-killing teeth, exactly, but clean, and even, and white as a toilet wall.
“OK,” I said. “So now we’ve had our little talk, you drive us back to our motel, OK? And we can all get on with what we’re meant to do.”
Silverman was sitting back, sipping a beer, the camera in the crook of his arm. Eddie seemed oblivious to its little red light.
“You guys are not convinced,” he said at last.
He looked at each of us in turn.
“You’re cautious. I don’t blame you. Good business sense. So—I guess I’m gonna have to sweeten things. Here’s what I’m gonna do, OK? I’m gonna act like we got a bargain. I told you: I can make this problem go away. And that, I will do. What you do is up to you. You come through with the goods—then we talk money, and we all go home happy. But it really is your choice now. Got that?” He rummaged in a small drawer that came out of his chair arm, handed me a card. “That’s my cell number. Gimme a call, OK?”
“What makes you think,” I said, “I want to lose my job?”
And he smiled, as if it was all very obvious, and rubbed his thumb and forefinger together.
“Makes the world go round,” he said.
I pulled a face, as if I’d never needed money in my life.
He didn’t look convinced.
“You’re a smart guy, Chris. Let me lay it on the line for you. We have interests in the energy business. We looked into tidal power, wind power, atom power, all that shit. What you’ve got is the up-and-comer. We want a piece, that’s all. We want what your boss wants, what the Registry wants. We have a right to it, OK? It’s ours. One way—or another.”
He grinned, to sugarcoat the threat.
I said, “What makes you think that you can handle it?”
“Very simple.” He leaned back, stretched luxuriously, put his hands behind his head. “Because we have a god already, Chris. What we want now is another one.”
Chapter 29
Full Battery
“Asshole.” Angel stared after the vanished limo. She stood there on the grass verge, hands up, fists clenched. “This guy pays money to go shoot some helpless fucking animal? Can you believe that? I mean, hunting, all right. Real hunting. That, I understand. But what kind of dick—?”
“I’m more concerned about the other bit, to tell the truth,” I said.
“What bit?”
“The bit about them having a god,” I said.
“It’s bullshit.”
But Silverman looked up from his camera. “Not so sure,” he said. “They’re definitely interested.”
Angel sniffed.
He said, “The exhibition—‘We Got the Power’—they did some of the sponsorship. Not directly, but one of their companies.”
“Tax write-off,” said Angel. “Proves nothing.”
“Well, sure,” said Silverman. “But—” and he stopped himself, shook his head.
I said, “What?”
He fidgeted. Then, “He knew that I was filming him. Today, I mean. Just now.”
“And . . . ?”
“He didn’t care. Just came right out, said what he was going to say. Some of which, I don’t know, but some of which I’d guess was probably illegal. He wasn’t bothered. You saw that, right? He didn’t give a damn.
“So maybe we should think that over for a while. Considering what we’re getting into . . .”
Considering what we’re getting into.