Bronx Noir

The only thing slightly off was the presence of the sixth man in the room, the one sitting a little back from the circle. A decade older than the others, tall and rangy, he had sun-creased skin, a mustache that had once been blond but was now white, and deep-set eyes the faded blue of sea glass. He sat slouched comfortably in one of the teak-and-gold chairs, his long, tapering fingers occasionally drumming an odd rhythm on his thighs. His piercing gaze moved from one to another, and though he smiled at their loud jokes, he spoke only rarely himself. His drink sat untouched on the table beside his chair.

The others would have liked it if he’d joined in, maybe shared some of his own stories. But no one even considered asking.

They all knew his reputation. He was the one who sometimes disappeared for months at a time, going where no satellite could find him, living off the game instead of just bringing it home to show off. The one who people said could read a landscape with cheetah’s skill, follow the herds as relentlessly as a hunting dog, stalk his prey as silently as a leopard. The one whose obsession for the kill had once made his guns seem like extensions of his body. The one who had seen everything, shot everything, lived a life the rest of them could only dream of.

He was the one they all wanted to be.

Which was why they’d come to the Executive Suite.

A red-tailed hawk was circling over the thatched roofs of the zoo’s fake African village, peering down from the steel-gray sky at the shaggy baboons milling about on their pitiful, barren hillside.

Akeley had seen ospreys here, peregrines, once even an eagle that had wandered over from the Hudson. Predators all, their brains always processing the information their eyes transmitted. He wondered what they thought when they looked down on the apes, tigers, and wolves below.

Probably something like: Man, if I could kill that, I wouldn’t have to hunt again for weeks.

“Sir?”

Shit. He’d been drifting, something he did a lot more frequently these days than he once had.

Drifting could get you killed.

“Sir, I need to talk to you.”

A deep voice, Spanish accent. Slowly the hunter swung his gaze down from the sky and focused on the man dressed in white shirt and blue slacks, an inadequate navy-blue jacket zipped up in a hopeless attempt to block out the icy wind. A walkie-talkie swinging from his belt. The name on his white laminated badge read, F. Cabrera.

A zoo security guard, with chapped cheeks and watering eyes. Unhappy to be outside in this weather, but staying polite for now, probably because of Akeley’s age.

Still, the hunter could see that F. Cabrera was young and self-confident. A smile and a few conciliatory words wouldn’t stop him. And his politeness wouldn’t last long if he didn’t get the answers he was looking for.

Too bad.

“Sir, I had a report of a man fitting your description exiting an authorized-personnel door of the Monkey House.”

Akeley didn’t reply, just turned away and started walking, heading south and east, his strides eating up ground.

“Hey!” Cabrera sounded shocked by this display of insubordination. “Hey, I’m talking to you.”

Akeley kept going.

The guard got in front of him again. Now his face was stony, and he showed some teeth when he talked. His hand hovered over the walkie-talkie.

“Papi, you really think it’s a good idea to make trouble?” he said.