She laughed, and walked up to Salome’s cage. Salome padded eagerly over to meet her and began rubbing her head against the bars. Spike barked a couple of times, and then returned to whining. Some watchdog.
“Oh, that’s a pretty little girl,” Maggie cooed.
“Little?” I echoed.
Maggie laughed.
“She’s on the small side for an Amur, even for a female,” she said. “What does she weigh, Brad? Maybe two hundred and fifteen pounds?”
“Only a little over two hundred,” he said.
“There, you see?” Maggie said. “I’ve got two big boys at home who are easily three times that.”
“You have two tigers?” I said, looking at Brad to see how he felt about this revelation.
“Eleven, actually,” she said. She reached in and began scratching Salome’s head.
“Miss West runs an animal sanctuary,” Brad explained, “Jungle West.”
“Miss West!”
An Amazon guard was peering into the room, apparently unwilling to enter.
“Yes, I’m coming,” Maggie said.
Brad, the keeper, watched with adoring eyes as Maggie ducked under the trailing vines and left the room.
He didn’t seem to notice when I followed her example—after first checking the knots holding Spike’s leash and reassuring myself that he was in no danger of getting loose.
Chapter 25
As I passed through the lobby, I saw people clustered around the closed door of the hotel restaurant. Shouldn’t it be open for lunch by now?
I pushed closer, and saw a sign taped to the door: CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. Below that, in bright red letters, someone had added, “BY ORDER OF THE HEALTH DEPARTMENT.”
The fans were already responding to the health department’s action, in a variety of ways. Several rude remarks in felt-tip pen already graced the margins of the sign. A few people were organizing parrot-and monkey-catching squads. A few more were organizing fast-food runs. And most were milling around, grumbling.
“I was getting to like the animals,” I heard one fan say.
“Yeah, only I was thinking we should have more of a variety next year,” another replied.
“And bigger ones,” a third suggested. A murmur of general approval followed. I made another entry to my growing mental list of reasons to avoid next year’s Porfiria convention. Assuming there even was a next year’s convention.
I headed for the dealers’ room. Not that I expected much to happen there. The only vendor doing much business was the enterprising owner of the Undiscovered Treasures booth, who’d bought a case of cheap, brightly colored umbrellas and was selling them as “parrot-sols.”
I’d begun to regret taking the booth. Of course, when I’d signed up for it, I hadn’t expected having a murder to distract me and, more important, my potential customers. Maybe business would pick up later in the day, but for the moment, when the convention-goers weren’t in panels, they were out in the lobby and the halls, watching the reporters outside, trading rumors, and getting underfoot whenever the police tried to do anything. Judging by the crowds that followed him, Detective Foley was fast becoming one of the most popular guests at the convention, though he wasn’t going to stay popular if he kept refusing to autograph programs.
I found Harry from Blazing Sabers loitering near the booth, talking to Steele.
“Chris said to remind you that we’re doing another demonstration tonight,” Harry said. “Doesn’t look like we’ll get much rehearsal time, so we’ll just do the same bit as yesterday.”
“Do they really think anyone wants to see it twice?”
“Why not?” he said, shrugging. “Twice is nothing; this crowd’ll watch the same Porfiria episode twenty times and come back for more.”
“Yeah, that’s true,” I said. “Hey, sign my nephew’s program, will you?”
“Sure,” he said, taking the pen I handed him and flipping neatly to the center spread. “I love these things; only time I ever get asked for my autograph. Of course, from what I hear, fans have started asking the police for their autographs now, so I guess I shouldn’t get too stuck up.”
With that, he turned to stroll off.
“Harry,” I called. “Are you busy?”
“Nah,” he said. “Chris and I were going to work out some new routines, but he’s still off driving the porcelain bus.”
“He’s that hung over?” I said. “Please tell me not to feel guilty that I didn’t confiscate his beer last night.”
“He’s a big boy,” Harry said. “Besides, it wasn’t the beers, numerous though they were; it was the tequila shooters later on.”