NativeTongue

But Winder could barely walk for the pain. Outside, under a low muddy sky, the tourists rushed excitedly toward Kingsbury Lane, where a band had begun to play. Pedro Luz marched Winder against the flow of yammering, gummy-faced children and their anxious, umbrella-wielding parents. The ticket office was on the other side of the park, a long hike, and Joe Winder had pla

Eventually the crowds thi

Winder thought of Carrie Lanier, and hoped she had the good sense not to come looking for him. He felt Pedro Luz's crutch jab him between the shoulder blades. "Hold it," the security man commanded.

A hoary figure appeared at the end of the walkway ahead of them. It was a tall man carrying two red containers.

"Now what?" said Pedro Luz.

Joe Winder's heart sank. Skink didn't see them. He went down two nights of stairs and stacked the gas cans on the back of a Cushman motor cart. He ran back up the steps, disappeared through an unmarked door near the Rare Animal Pavilion and quickly emerged with two more cans of gasoline.

"The Catacombs," Pedro Luz said, mainly to himself.

Joe Winder heard him unsnap the holster. He turned and told Pedro Luz not to do anything crazy.

"Shut up, smartass."

As they watched Skink load the second pair of cans onto the Cushman, Winder realized his own mistake: he had tried too hard to be reasonable and civilized and possibly even clever. Such efforts were wasted on men such as Francis X. Kingsbury. Skink had the right idea.

Pedro Luz aimed his .45 and shouted, "Freeze right there!" Skink stopped at the top of the steps. Pedro Luz ordered him to raise his hands, but Skink acted as if he didn't hear.

"Don't I know you?" Skink said, coming closer.

Pedro Luz found it difficult to look directly at the bearded stranger because one of the man's eyeballs seemed dislodged from the socket. As Skink approached, he gave no indication of recognizing Joe Winder.

"Hello, gentlemen," he said. Casually he bent to examine the taped stump of Pedro Luz's leg. "Son, you're dropping more parts than a Ford Pinto."

Flustered, Pedro Luz fell back on standard hardass-cop colloquy: "Lemme see some ID."

Skink reached into the blaze-orange weather suit and came out with a small kitchen jar. He handed it to the security man and said, "I believe this belongs to you."

Pedro Luz felt his stomach quake. At the bottom of the jar, drifting in pickle juice, was the tip of his right index finger. It looked like a cube of pink tofu.

"The old woman bit it off," Skink reminded him, "while you were beating her up."

Beautiful, Joe Winder thought. We're both going to die long horrible deaths.

Hoarsely, Pedro Luz said, "Who the hell are you?"

Skink gestured at the soiled bandages around his chest. "I'm the one you shot at the trailer!"

All three of them jumped as a Roman candle exploded high over KingsBury Lane. A band was playing the theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey. It sounded dreadful.

In the tank below, Dickie the Dolphin rolled twice and shot a light spray of water from his blowhole. A few drops sprinkled the barrel of Pedro Luz's gun, and he wiped it nervously on the front of his trousers. The circuits of his brain were becoming badly overloaded; assimilating new information had become a struggle – the drugs, the finger in the jar, the one-eyed stoner with the gas cans, the fireworks, the god-awful music. It was time to kill these sorry bastards and go to the gym.

"Who first?" he asked. "Who wants it first?"

Joe Winder saw no evidence of urgency in Skink's demeanor, so he took it upon himself to ram an elbow into the soft declivity beneath Pedro Luz's breastbone. Winder was stu

He hoped like hell it was the pistol.

Marine biologists debate the relative intelligence of the Atlantic bottle-nosed dolphin, but it is generally accepted that the graceful mammal is extremely smart; that it is able to communicate using sophisticated underwater sonics; that it sometimes appears capable of emotions, including grief and joy. Noting that the dolphin's brain is proportionally larger and more fully developed than that of human beings, some experts contend that the animals are operating in a superior cognitive realm that we simply ca

A more skeptical view (and one endorsed by Joe Winder) is that dolphins probably aren't quite as smart as tourist lore suggests. Otherwise why would they allow themselves to be so easily captured, subjugated, trained and put on public display? It seemed to Winder that somersaulting through hula hoops in exchange for a handful of sardines was not proof of high intellect. Given fins and some Milk-Bones, your average French poodle could master the same feat.

It is certainly true, however, that captive dolphins exhibit distinct and complex personalities. Some are gregarious and easily tamed, while others are aloof and belligerent; some are happy to perform stunts for cheering tourists, while others get ulcers. Because each dolphin is so sensitive and unique, curators must be extremely careful when selecting the animals for commercial aquarium shows.

When it came to jumping hula hoops, Dickie the Dolphin was competent if unspectacular. The same could be said for his tail-walking, his backward flips and his mastery of the beach ball. While most spectators thought he was a lovable ham, experienced dolphin trainers could see he was just going through the motions. Ever since replacing the deceased Orky as the Amazing Kingdom's aquatic star, Dickie had approached each performance with the same sullen indifference. He took a similar attitude into the swim-along sessions, where he habitually kept a large distance between himself and whatever loud pale humanoid had been suckered into entering the tank.

The exception, of course, was when Dickie the Dolphin got into one of his "moods." Then he would frolic and nuzzle and rub eagerly against the swimmer, who inevitably mistook these gestures for honest affection. Dolphin researchers have documented numerous sexual advances upon human beings of both genders, but they ca