I gave our address. “How fast can you get here?”
“Say again?” said Officer Blum, alarmed. “You’re in the Dakota?”
“Yes, we’re in the Dakota.” I gripped the phone and said, “I’ve ID’d the snake. It’s a cobra. Maybe a forest cobra. Definitely deadly.”
“I hope you’ve got nerves of steel, then, young lady. Don’t make any sudden movements. You don’t want to make that snake angry.”
My office door opened and Jacob came out holding four and a half feet of inky-black cobra. Its head was gone, but its body still twisted in Jacob’s hand. My throat pretty much closed up.
Jacob brought the snake over to Hugo.
“Here’s your snake, young man. Take a good look. I hope you never see one of these again. Now, bring me a shopping bag, a broom, and the vacuum cleaner, please.”
“Hello?” Officer Blum said. “Are you still there? Was this your snake? Was it your pet?”
“No way. Why would you think that?” I asked.
“I hate to tell you,” she said, “but this is not the first snake loose in the Dakota today. In fact, it’s the third. Pest Control is in your building right now.”
I gripped the phone more tightly. “Are you kidding me?”
Jacob eyed me curiously.
“Do I sound like I’m kidding?”
“What the hell is going on?” I asked Officer Blum.
“No idea, but I’ll tell the guys to come to your apartment next.”
I grimaced as Hugo held out an open garbage bag and Jacob deposited the gory body in it.
“Actually, that’s not necessary. This one is officially dead,” I said to Officer Blum. “Maybe I should just bring it to them.”
“Well, okay, then.”
She told me the Pest Control officers were on the second floor and I signed off.
“Where are we going?” Hugo asked me as we headed toward the front of the apartment with the heavy bag full of dead snake.
“To find the Pest Control guys,” I answered, slinging the bag over my shoulder. “Hugo, what were you actually looking for in Malcolm’s file drawer?”
“Cigarettes,” he said matter-of-factly.
“What?”
He lifted his shoulders. “I was looking for his stash.”
Before I could demand why he would do such a thing, he added, “In movies about writers, they all smoke. I’m getting into character.”
“Geesh, Hugo.” We paused in the foyer. “You want to stay four-foot-eight forever?”
“That’s a myth about cigarettes stunting your growth,” he said as I opened the front door. Then he shouted out to Jacob, “We’ll be right back.”
“Be back in five minutes,” Jacob shouted back. “Five.”
Hugo dashed across the hall and thumbed the call button until the elevator arrived. As we piled in, I turned over our latest drama in my mind. We didn’t live near a zoo. And there were no indigenous snakes in New York City.
So why were there snakes loose in the Dakota?