The Elephant Whisperer
By Elizabeth Kent
My thanks to my very capable beta, Lark.
Warnings: A little violence, a little blood, a little whining.
E-mail: lizannkent@yahoo.com
A scream split the night, and Face jumped. Another scream followed. This one, higher pitched, dissolved into giggles. Face smiled as two small ghosts ran past him hand in hand, trick-or-treat bags banging against their sheet-clad legs. Shaking his head at their antics, he drew back into his cover, a deeply-shadowed alcove near the door to the zoo's nocturnal house. With his jet-black cape and dark suit, he was pretty sure nobody would be able to spot him. He pulled back the sleeve on his suit jacket and checked his watch. It was nine o'clock, and so far, all was well. Except for one thing.
He was alone. Alone and, to tell the truth, kind of lonely. Oh, he knew Hannibal and BA were nearby. Hannibal was wearing that disgusting old fart outfit he insisted on pulling out every Halloween. The grey wig stuck out every which way, and the bristly moustache fairly dripped with enough fake crumbs and boogers to turn the stomach of even the most dedicated caramel-apple fanatic. It was no wonder he wasn't getting any business at his booth. That was the plan, though, as the booth also concealed the fugitive brother and sister (a strange-looking, strikingly pale pair of twins) who were part-owners of a traveling Romanian circus. They had hired the team to investigate the disappearance of their ring master only hours after an accident involving a collapsed tent, the knife-thrower's dagger collection, and the untimely demise of the circus's clown.
The ring master, the twins had told them, was rumored to be an elephant-whisperer (and Face smiled to himself, remembering how BA had snorted at the very idea of anyone whispering to an elephant). He wore a special amulet that contained, it was said, seven white hairs from the fabled Ghost King of the elephant world. That amulet enabled him to easily control the circus's five elephants with nothing more than a soft word. Only the ring master and the clown, who had been the ring master's lover for fifteen years, knew the incantation that activated the amulet and brought the elephants under the man's control.
The ring master, the twins believed, had either deserted or been kidnapped. Either way, it only made sense (to them, at least) that he would go (or be brought) to the city zoo to influence the elephants to do God knew what. And it would happen on Halloween. Face had more or less stopped listening at that point in the twins' story, running through his mental list of Hollywood Halloween parties he'd been invited to and deciding which ones it would be most advantageous to attend
If anyone had told him a week ago that instead of attending one of those parties with his lover he'd be crouched in the dark at the zoo waiting for some kind of pachyderm revolt, he'd have said they were nuts. The whole case was nuts, and he still couldn’t believe Hannibal had accepted it. But he had. He'd seemed mesmerized by the twins' bizarre story, and when they finished, Hannibal had puffed out a couple of smoke rings and watched them drift away toward the sky, nodded thoughtfully, and said, "We'll take the job."
Face had immediately objected. "Hannibal, I've already got plans for Halloween," he'd said. "And I've already put down a big deposit for my costume" (which was a lie, but a necessary one, Face believed).
Hannibal had just winked at him. "Good," he'd said. "You'll need one for what I've got planned."
Face had whined some more, joined by BA, who had plans of his own at the youth center. But Hannibal had just bared his teeth around his cigar and said, "Hey, it'll be fun!"
Well, it wasn't fun yet. Face was getting cold and cramped, and fog was creeping in and obscuring the elephant pen. The whole thing creeped Face out, and as tired as he was of hearing Murdock's theories about circuses, unexplained disappearances, and strange sightings in the night, he longed for the other man's companionship…just to keep an extra eye out.
Pretty soon he'd have to move. He'd arranged for Murdock to meet him here just after the zoo's Halloween party ended, and now he was late. He probably couldn't make up his mind what costume to buy. He'd change his mind fifteen times if Face wasn't there to make him settle on just one. Face jumped as a rat ran across the toe of his expensive Italian loafer and cursed Murdock for missing the rendezvous.
Face wasn't afraid of the dark. Not at all. No, he just didn't like to be alone, especially on a holiday, and Halloween was a holiday. One he liked. He'd been allowed to trick-or-treat as a youngster with the other kids from the orphanage, and it was on those All Souls Days after Halloween when he'd really honed his skills as a negotiator (and con man) in acquiring double the amount of candy he'd personally collected. A holiday where someone gave you things and you didn't have to give anything back. The very thought had always warmed his young and larcenous heart.
He had a bag of candy with him right now. Some teenager, someone really too old to be trick-or-treating anyway, had set it down just around the corner of the nocturnal house while he and his ghoulfriend made out in the bushes. Well, the kid had had his treat, so Face, who wasn't likely to get any other treats tonight since his lover had not yet put in an appearance, helped himself to the bag of candy. Who said Special Forces training wasn't useful outside the military?
It was getting chilly, and as the last of the party animals left the zoo's Halloween bash to go home and sleep the uneasy sleep of the sugar-laden, Face pulled his cape more securely around his shoulders and pulled out the fake fangs he'd flashed so winningly at the female security guard as he entered the zoo that evening to be part of the night's Walk of Horror. All he had to do was pop out of the bushes occasionally and give the kids a fright, and nobody noticed when he disappeared from his post and began his surveillance of the elephant enclosure.
"Face, you there?" Face's pocket whispered.
Face fished out the walkie-talkie and depressed the button. "I'm here, BA."
"You see anythin'?"
"You mean like someone whispering to the bats in the nocturnal house? No, and I can't believe I'm wasting my Halloween doing this."
"You a vampire, ain'tcha?" BA's voice came back, sounding smug and amused. "You should feel right at home."
"At least I'm not so bizarre-looking all the time that I don't even have to wear a costume to fit in," Face snapped back. He heard teeth grinding and a low growl, but BA didn't reply.
"You got Murdock there with you yet, Lieutenant?" That was Hannibal's voice, somewhat muffled through the debris-clogged moustache.
"Not yet."
"Well, we've got another half hour, but if he doesn't show, move out and get yourself in position by the elephants. The twins think if anything's going to happen, it'll happen at midnight."
"Of course it'll happen at midnight," Face muttered to himself as he stuffed the walkie-talkie back in his pocket and covered it with his cape. "It's Halloween. All the elephant whispering happens at midnight on Halloween."
A breeze sprang up, and Face suddenly felt chilly. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. Hearing a soft, shuffling footstep, he turned and nearly screamed as a gorilla hunkered down beside him, smiled, and reached for the treat bag..
"Hey!" Face said, snatching the bag back. "That's mine!" He shook a finger under the gorilla's nose. "And you're late!"
Brown eyes regarded him solemnly, disappointment evident. Damn, Face hated it when Murdock gave him that look. "Oh, all right," he said, handing the bag back.. "But hurry it up, we have to move out soon. What the hell took you so long, anyway?"
Murdock didn't answer. His attention was on the candy he had dumped out on the sidewalk and was busy rooting through with large, hairy paws. Face spared a moment to admire the costume and imagine himself slowly peeling Murdock out of it as soon as they were done with this ridiculous stakeout. Murdock must have gone to the costume store on Wilshire that Face had told him about. It was expensive, but the costumes were the best, most realistic ones you could get. The company even supplied the costumes for the Aquamaniac films, and it was where Face got all the bits and pieces of Hannibal's disguises (except the cheesy old fart one, which Hannibal had found himself at some discount costume warehouse in the valley).
Murdock settled back with a bag of nuts (which he normally wasn’t that crazy about, but Murdock *would* want to stay in-character) and his favorite chocolate bar.
"You could put the rest of it back in the bag, you know, " Face said, mildly annoyed. "I haven't gotten to eat any of it yet." Face wasn't a big candy eater and never had been. It wasn't the eating of it as much as the acquisition of it that he loved.
Murdock offered him the rather mangled remains of the chocolate bar which he had evidently decided to eat from the middle out, paper and all. Not that it was totally unlike Murdock to eat paper. Face shook his head and grimaced. "Never mind," he said. "I'll get something later."
Murdock shrugged and bit another huge chunk out of the candy, chewing with evident relish.
"What, didn't you get any lunch today?" Face asked. "Do I have to send BA back over to kick that orderly's ass again?"
Murdock could be trying at the dinner table when he was in one of his moods. He might decide to entertain the other diners with a song, or he might begin a lecture on the sex life of broccoli. Or he might try to cajole the servers into giving him *all* the fruit cocktail and foist off his steamed carrots on one of the catatonic guys. One of the orderlies had decided the best way to deal with him was not to let him eat at all for a couple of days. It was effective, but cruel, and the first time Face heard about it, he and BA had arranged a private interview with the orderly in question. Looked like it might be time to call the guy in for a second interview.
Face leaned out a bit and looked around the corner. At the far end of the walk that led from the nocturnal house to the primate house, Hannibal still stood with his caramel apple stand. Wielding a push broom and wearing the brown coveralls that identified the zoo's maintenance staff, BA was slowly working his way toward Hannibal's position.
Face felt fingers stroke his hair and brush over his shoulders, straightening his cape. "Murdock, don't get chocolate on my costume," he warned. "I have to return this undamaged to get my deposit back." He sat back and leaned against Murdock's sturdy bulk. "No elephant-whisperer yet," he said. "I'm getting cold."
Murdock put an arm around his shoulder and nuzzled his neck . They sat in companionable silence for awhile, waiting for Hannibal's signal. Face tolerated Murdock running his oversized gorilla fingers through his hair and pretending to extract vermin. Trust Murdock to get fully into the gorilla experience. If it had been anyone else, Face would never have allowed it, but hell, the dampness was already ruining his carefully-crafted vampire-do anyway, and it wasn't like anyone was going to see them now, so he allowed the intimate intrusion into his personal space. It felt kind of good, anyway. He could sort of see why primates did this sort of thing for each other.
"They used to bring us here a lot when I was a kid," Face whispered. "I think orphans got free admission or something." He turned his head and looked into Murdock's eyes. There was no mistaking those eyes in any costume, or the compassion he always found shining from them when he talked about his childhood. "That was back when all they had were the cages with bars." He shook his head a little. "I felt sorry for the animals. Always on display, nothing in their world like the places they were meant to live. It just didn't seem right, you know?"
Murdock nodded, squeezed him a little, and stroked his shoulder soothingly, like the nuns used to do when he would stand outside a cage and cry for the poor creatures held inside. He was glad to see that zoos were moving toward building habitats for the animals that recreated their natural environments as closely as possible. In fact, soon after they returned to LA after breaking out of Fort Bragg, he'd contributed a large sum of money he'd liberated from one of the officers at Bragg to the creation of the new tropical rainforest habitat at the zoo. He'd spent enough time in cages in Nam to appreciate even the illusion of freedom. Anything was better than looking out at the world through a set of bars, be they bamboo or steel.
Murdock's arms came around him and pulled him close, and he relaxed against his friend's furry (and somewhat ripe) bosom. They must not have cleaned this costume too recently. But he was warm, and Face was cold and tired of being on this stupid stakeout. He relaxed against the man whose humor and antics had gotten him through six months in a Cong prison camp. It wasn't until after they'd escaped that Murdock had finally broken, a fact Face had not really understood. Why fall apart when you had finally gotten your freedom? Why not just celebrate being alive and free? Only later had he learned the full extent of what Murdock had suffered in the interrogation sessions and then hidden from the team on his return to the cage. Then he had begun to comprehend what it had cost Murdock to keep up the cheerful, positive act that had saved Face's sanity at the cost of Murdock's own.
That was why he seldom begrudged Murdock a little silliness now, and why he indulged Murdock's "method acting" when he not only wore a disguise, but became the disguise. Hadn't he worn a disguise for all those months in the camp? And hadn't it cost him everything to help them? It irritated BA when Murdock became a giant sock puppet with a phobia about darning needles, or adopted a weed and insisted on building it a tiny greenhouse to live in, but Face swallowed his irritation and played along with his friend, lately his lover, too, and tried to remember that part of Murdock still lived in the cages the rest of them had escaped, and it was Face's job to make that confinement bearable.
"Lieutenant, elephant-whisperer at ten o'clock!" Face sat up, looked to his right, and saw the circus ring master (still dressed in the costume he'd disappeared in) in the company of four burly men. One of the men carried an elephant goad, its sharp point and curved hook gleaming wickedly in the lights along the path.
Face pulled the walkie-talkie back out of his pocket. "I see them," he said.
"Murdock there yet?"
"Here's here. So whatever you do," he glanced at his companion, "don’t hurt the gorilla."
Hannibal's chuckle made both Face and Murdock smile. "Got it," Hannibal said. "Now move into position. I'll give you the go-ahead after we see exactly what they're up to."
"Right." Face pulled away from Murdock's warm bulk reluctantly, got to his feet, and pulled the weapon from his shoulder holster. "You ready?"
Murdock rose and followed Face, gorilla-style, out of the shadowed doorway. Carefully they eased around the corner of the nocturnal house, keeping low, and followed the wall to reach a spot directly across from Hannibal's apple stand. The ring master's group would have to pass right by Hannibal's position to reach the path that cut off from there and headed past the back of the nocturnal house and on to the elephant enclosure.
Halloween was probably the only night of the year the team could stroll across an open space in full view of their enemy and raise no suspicions. As far as anyone else was concerned, they were a pair of weary zoo workers heading out after the Halloween party. Face took care to look tired and bored as he and Murdock passed in front of the group. The ring master cut a glance at Murdock, looking at him strangely (not that that was unusual with Murdock) before he led the others on by. Once the group had passed, Face signaled Murdock to follow him, and they took a circular path that put them at the elephant enclosure just before the others arrived.
Pushing his cart, Hannibal trailed the group, trying to get them to buy his candy apples, complaining that everyone else was gone and he still had apples to get rid of. He kept spilling apple cores and nuts along the way to keep BA busy with the broom. He was making pretty good progress, too, Face thought, considering he had the twins stashed inside his little four-wheeled cart. They had insisted on being included, saying that if all else failed, they might have some slight influence with the elephants due to their long association with the ring master. Hannibal hadn't thought it was a great idea. None of them thought it was a great idea, but for some reason, none of them could readily articulate a reason to refuse. The twins had somehow squeezed themselves into the cart, sandwiched between bags of apples and cans of caramel topping, and they had not murmured a word of protest the whole evening.
Hannibal caught up and blocked the group's progress briefly, grumbling all the while and peering up at one of the men to give him a good look at the disgusting moustache. "Come on," he said, shaking the man's shoulder. "One candy apple apiece, that's all. I'll even give you a discount. Damnit, they told me the kids would be swarmin' all over my stand if I came tonight, and what did I get? Nothin'. Not one damn candy apple sold. I got a wife an' kid to feed!"
"Oh fer cryin' out loud," one of them finally said. He shoved a few dollars at Hannibal, grabbed a couple of apples off his cart, and said, "Now get the hell outta here and leave us alone. Can't you see we're tryin' to look at the animals?"
Hannibal ambled off, still grumbling. The men shook their heads and tossed the apples on the ground. Face, concealed in the bushes with Murdock, could well understand their reluctance to eat apples that had been anywhere near Hannibal's dripping moustache. The ring master stared thoughtfully after the cart, the only man in the group who seemed not to be put off by Hannibal's bizarre behavior and appearance. But when you hung out all day with people who ate fire and stuck their heads in lions' mouths, even a demented candy apple man would seem ordinary.
BA had disappeared during Hannibal's altercation with the men, but Face knew he would be near. Hannibal would get into position soon, too, as soon as he'd ditched his cart.
It was closing time at last, and the men ducked into the shadows cast by a small stand of evergreens nearby. They were uncomfortably close to Face's position, and he was careful not to jiggle the bushes as he settled down to wait them out. Murdock rested his chin on Face's shoulder and shared the same view between the bushes, his breathing gentle and soothing in Face's ear.
Twenty minutes later the group emerged from their concealment and gathered at the gate, still holding the ring master securely by the arms. "Okay," one of them said, "it's all clear. Let's get a move on. Titus, you got the key?"
"I got it." Titus pulled a keychain out of his pocket and began unlocking the gate to the elephant paddock. "You, uh, you sure this is safe?"
The first man chuckled. "We got our elephant whisperer with us, and he ain't gonna give us no trouble," he said. "Not if he don't want the rest of his circus freaks to go the way of his clown lover!"
The ring master remained silent, fingering his amulet and looking steadily at the bushes where Face and Murdock were concealed.
"He tol' me that elephants got some kinda code of honor," Titus said, struggling a bit with the elaborate locks on the gate. "Said they don’t do bad stuff just 'cos he tells 'em to."
"What's bad?" the first man said. "All we're gonna do is set them free to roam the city on Halloween. It's like a vacation."
"You hope to stampede them," the ring master said, his voice low and cold. "You hope to use them to hurt people and allow them to be hurt in turn just to provide a distraction."
"And what a distraction it'll be!" the first man said. "Ten pissed-off elephants trampling cars and trick-or-treaters while we break into the bank, pretty as you please, and take what we want. Who's gonna pay attention to one alarm when these elephants are breaking shop windows and setting off car alarms wherever they go?"
"You're evil, Mr. Tooms," the ring master said. "The Ghost King will not allow his subjects to be used thus."
"Whatever," said Tooms, turning back to Titus. "You in yet?"
"Lock's sticking," Titus said.
"I thought you tested it last night."
"I did," Titus said. "It worked fine!"
Face looked back over his shoulder at Murdock's silly gorilla grin. He'd heard a lot of interesting ideas before from the bad guys, but this one really took the cake. An elephant stampede! Hopefully the elephants were all too sleepy or well-fed at the moment to be willing to run amok through the city streets. He knew Hannibal was picking all this up with the bug he'd planted on the ringleader.
"The Ghost King is preventing you from entering," the ring master said softly.
"Oh yeah?" Titus said as the lock finally clicked over. He shoved open the gate. "Looks like yer Ghost King's havin' an off night."
The men holding the ring master gave him a shove, and Tooms said, "Start whispering, and don't try anything cute. Remember my men still have your twins under surveillance."
"Do you?" the ring master said thoughtfully. "Do you really?" His glance flicked once again to the bushes where Face was concealed, and in spite of himself, Face felt a chill run up his spine. Murdock's hairy face rubbed comfortingly against his cheek, and the feeling passed.
"Yeah, really," Tooms said, "and if you don't want them to die a messy death, you'll get in there and get those elephants on the move."
The ring master sighed deeply and stepped into the enclosure. He strode to the center, his right hand clutching the amulet around his neck, and his left held up as if in blessing, but said nothing. The men followed him in, standing in a loose half-circle around him.
It was time to move out. Face turned his head slightly toward Murdock. "Kiss for luck?" he asked.
Murdock puckered up his big gorilla lips and gave Face a sloppy kiss. Not up to his usual standards, but prosthetic lips were hard to work with. Face smiled and moved out, with Murdock knuckling the ground behind him. They stole into the enclosure silently, each one picking his mark.
The elephants, who had been lying down or gently munching hay, turned their attention to the ring master, though he had yet to say a word. Their ears perked up when Tooms poked the ring master in the side with the end of the elephant goad. "Get busy," Tooms said.
An unearthly silence fell over the enclosure. Face heard only the whispered words of the ring master, speaking a language that Face could not understand. He looked at Murdock, who was listening intently and nodding his head. Trust Murdock to make a study of some arcane elephant-whispering language!
Almost as one the elephants stood, and Face thought it odd they did it so silently that he could not even hear the straw crunching under their massive feet. He caught a flicker of movement off to his right and looked over just in time to see a clown conceal itself behind one of the elephants. Hannibal and his damn disguises again. He was probably trying to give Tooms a heart attack by bringing back the specter of his victim. It was a nice touch, Face thought, if a bit melodramatic. Hopefully it would not also give the poor ring master a heart attack when his dead lover popped up from behind the elephant. That would just be cruel.
"Hold it right there!" Hannibal's voice rang through the enclosure. Something about the placement of walls made it impossible to tell where the voice was coming from, a Halloween touch that made Face smile even as he launched himself at Titus.
In the melee that ensued, Face caught glimpses of the action around him as he fought his (much larger) opponent. Murdock in his gorilla suit was toying with his man, feinting, dancing back, landing a punch, then beating his chest ferociously while the other man got up to attack him again. BA had suddenly appeared at the other side of the enclosure, and Face caught a gratifying glimpse of him pummeling one of the men. The ring master continued to whisper to the elephants who, to Face's great relief, stood still and placid, ignoring the tumult around them.
Titus landed a heavy blow, knocking Face to the ground. As he scrambled to his feet again, he saw Titus pull a gun and draw a bead on the ring master. He didn't even want to contemplate the carnage that would result if the man fired that weapon and started the elephants stampeding. "No!" he yelled, grabbing the man's arm. But he was too late. The sound of the shot echoed around the enclosure, unnaturally loud, and the ring master crumpled. There was a terrible cacophony of trumpeting, and the ground vibrated under Face's feet as the agitated elephants started crowding each other and them.
As he and Titus fought for the weapon, he felt real fear, picturing the lot of them trampled to death. Where was Murdock? Was he safe? A second shot echoed, and Face found himself once again on his back, this time in the cold water of the elephant pool between the feet of a very angry elephant, a terrible pain in his head. Oh my god, he'd been shot, and if that wasn't bad enough, he was going to be trampled the rest of the way to death *and* drown. What an ugly way to go!
He wanted to get up but couldn't move, so dizzy he wasn't sure which way was up. Everything around him was filtered through a red haze, gradually turning black from the outside in. Directly across the pool from him he saw the ring master supported against the chest of a circus clown, his lips still moving. So Hannibal had that under control. To his left, Murdock was picking up Titus and throwing him bodily across the enclosure. Damn, Murdock was mad! But that was pretty impressive.
As his vision narrowed to a tiny speck of red and then went black, the elephant's foot , which had been partly supporting his head, moved, and he felt the water close over his face.
It was cold. He could feel himself shiver, the cold almost, but not quite, overwhelming the pain in his head. Was that from the bullet wound, or was that the elephant's foot gradually crushing his skull? His head was too heavy to move even to find out, but some morbid urge to at least be sure how he was dying made him open his eyes.
Everything was blurry under the water. But he heard whispering. Heard it clearly. It wasn't whispering, exactly. It was louder than that. "Face! Face, wake up!"
He blinked rapidly, and the blurriness passed. He wished it hadn't as a moustache dripping with food crumbs and glistening grey boogers appeared only inches from his face. He moaned, and Hannibal moved back out of view.
"He's back," Hannibal said.
"Thank God!" A beautiful redhead with huge brown eyes leaned over him, stroking back his wet hair and planting a kiss on his cheek. Her long hair covered his face momentarily, and her bosom pressed against his as she scooped him into her arms and rocked him. "God, I'm so sorry, Facey. I was too late. I'm sorry!"
He was dead. He had to be dead. And God was torturing him by sending a vision of loveliness in the wrong gender to escort him to hell. Or, if he was lucky, to purgatory. Where was Murdock? Hopefully he had survived the stampede. He moistened his lips and tried to get his voice to work. "G'rilla," he muttered.
"Yeah, Facey, I'm a girl."
Huh? He knew that voice. Too deep and husky to come from a girl, and with that familiar drawl that made his heart beat faster. What the hell?
"Murdock ran into some trouble." Hannibal leaned over Face again, and Face groaned, turning away from the hideous sight. "Oh, sorry." Hannibal leaned back out of sight while the redhead pressed a piece of gauze over the painful spot on his forehead.
"G'rilla," Face whispered
again. The others exchanged puzzled
glances. "Go - rilla," he said slowly, enunciating each syllable. "Go - rilla."
Suddenly he had a fleeting memory of having practiced this before. Standing outside the gorilla cage on his
first visit to the zoo, with Sister Margaret holding his hand and helping him
sound out the words. "Go - rilla," she had said, having him repeat it back
carefully. "Baby is an orphaned
gorilla," she said, reading the rest of the sign for him. "His mother was killed by hunters, and
he was found nearby and rescued by a park warden. He was brought to the zoo to live. Isn't that nice, Templeton, that another
little orphan found a home?"
Face remembered watching the timid little gorilla who crouched in the corner, alone and largely ignored by the other gorillas in the cage. Face had burst into tears then, and the sister had hurried him away to a different exhibit. On subsequent visits he had always returned to the gorilla cage where he and the other orphan stood in silence and stared sadly at each other. When he could, Face shoplifted some peanuts or other treats to share with Baby. Eventually he taught Baby to wave hello and goodbye, something that delighted them both and made them (briefly) the center of attention when other zoo-goers noticed.
When Face was ten, he'd gone to the zoo one day to find the gorilla gone. Baby had been sent to another zoo, the new sign said, on the other side of the country. They hoped he would be happier there, as he'd been unable to make very many friends among the other gorillas in Los Angeles.
He'd thought about that gorilla a few times since then, particularly when he had made the donation to the zoo, hoping the poor guy had finally found a band to accept him and a nice girl gorilla to make a family with.
"No gorillas here, Facey, just us," the redhead whispered.
Face looked up into her eyes and said, "Murdock?"
"Yeah," Murdock said. "I'm sorry. I got mugged coming over here…some drunk guy wanting to pick up a pretty girl. Can you believe it? I didn't get here till the very end when the elephant was lifting you out of the pool."
"You weren't here?" Face didn't mean it to come out sounding so accusing, but Murdock winced and looked away.
"No, and I can't say how sorry I am."
"But the gorilla…"
"Yeah, kid, what was that all about?" Hannibal asked.
"Was him!" Face insisted groggily. "Wearin' a g'rilla suit! I know it was him!" He was starting to get pissed now. He didn't mind a practical joke once in awhile, but damnit, he'd almost been killed here, and he'd been worried sick about Murdock, and now here he was dressed in drag and trying to pull one over on him.
"He must've hit his head harder than we thought," Murdock said. "Maybe that elephant squeezed him too hard dragging him out of the water."
"The elephant didn't hurt him," the ring master said quietly. He had appeared at Hannibal's elbow, a white bandage wrapped around his upper arm, and stood looking down at Face. "She knew exactly what she was doing."
The elephant lifted him out of the pool? The one that was going to step on his head? Face couldn't believe it. But the ring master spoke as if it were a commonplace event. Of course, he'd had a lot more experience with elephants.
"Then why is he hallucinating?" Murdock asked.
"'M not hallush'nating!" Face snapped. He pulled away from Murdock, scrambled to his feet, and swayed.
Murdock caught his arm. "Okay, okay," he said. "I'm sorry. It…it just seemed like a good idea to have the gorilla suit on with a different costume under it." He lowered his voice. "I just wanted you to be surprised when you helped me out of the gorilla suit. That's all. And then when you got knocked out, well, it wasn't any fun just waiting around inside that hot suit anymore."
Face glared at him. For some reason, the story just didn't ring true; even the ring master wasn't looking like he was buying it. The story sounded logical but felt wrong. But he couldn’t think of any other explanation either, and he had to admit that only Murdock would think of wearing two different and equally outrageous outfits at the same time.
"Forgive me?" Murdock asked.
Face sighed. "Okay, okay," he said. It took too much energy to stay mad at Murdock, anyway. It was an innocent prank, and one he might have found pretty damned funny if he hadn't ended up the night under an elephant's foot.
"Here, let's get him in the van," Hannibal said as the team's home away from home pulled up next to the elephant pen. Face looked around. All the elephants were back where they had been, and only the churned-up mud around the pool showed that anything had been happening. The ring master went back into the enclose and moved slowly from animal to animal, patting each one and speaking to it softly. Occasionally an elephant lifted its trunk and gently nuzzled the man's face or chest. The pale twins followed him solemnly.
"All's well that ends well," Hannibal said, peeling off the offensive moustache and stuffing it in a pocket.
"Liked the clown better," Face said.
"What clown?"
"Oh, don' you start, too!" Face whined.
Hannibal just smiled indulgently "Better get in the van, Lieutenant. I think this cold air is starting to give you a fever."
"Cold air doesn't," Face began, but BA cut him off with a terse, "Hurry up!" as distant sirens heralded the imminent arrival of security and police officers, probably in response to phone calls about gunfire at the zoo.
"You coming?" Hannibal asked the ring master.
"No," he said. "I'll stay here and keep the elephants calm."
"And your former captors, too," Hannibal said, nodding at the men chained between the feet of four large elephants who kept roaming the ends of their trunks over the men's faces, blocking eyes, mouths, and noses periodically.
"Yes, them , too."
Hannibal shook hands with the twins and the ring master. "Don't hesitate to call us again if you run into anymore trouble," he said.
The ring master nodded. "We thank you for your help," he said. "May the Ghost King bless you and your men."
"Uh, you too," Hannibal said. He turned back to the others. "Let's get our little vampire back home and to bed, Captain," he said with a grin.
Face was beginning to feel a little faint, so he let the remark pass and allowed Murdock to help him into the van, where he passed up his usual seat and moved to the back where he could sit on a bench seat and lean his back against the wall and his side against Murdock.
BA made a quick U-turn and headed slowly away from the elephant pen. Face looked out the back windows at the trio from the circus. The twins flanked the ring master, their faces wreathed in smiles, the first Face had seen them wear since he'd met them two weeks earlier. Which was probably why he had never noticed before that their teeth were filed into sharp little points.
"How you feelin' honey?"
Face turned to look at Murdock, gorgeous in any disguise. "I'm okay," he said. "Nothin' a good night's sleep in a warm bed won't cure."
Murdock pulled off the red wig. "I think we can arrange that," he said. He reached down his dress, saw Face looking, and said, "Hey, how about a little privacy here!" as he fished for his falsies.
Face smiled, looking back out the window at the small trio as it receded in the distance. His mouth fell open in shock, though. Standing behind the trio, clearly illuminated in the pale light of the full moon, were a clown and a gorilla. The gorilla raised its paw and waved goodbye as BA rounded a curve and the group disappeared from sight.
The End