ISBN 1-59201-036-9
Books Unbound E-Publishing Co.
http://www.booksunbound.com
Publication September 2004
Cover Art by D. Lee
Poacher's Clearinghouse
Sandoval McNair
Copyright 2004
All Rights Reserved
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and occurrences are either the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, places, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and not the goal of the author or Books Unbound.
Chapter One
I saw the pile of severed black bear paws on the counter as soon as I walked into the restaurant kitchen, and my plan for Sangsant Panich's arrest took a nosedive straight into the bucket.
"Do you have something for me?" Panich said behind me. I jumped and nearly dropped the paper wrapped package of elk steaks I'd been holding onto the butcher's block. Sneaky little weasel.
I took a deep breath, resisted turning around. If he wanted to deal he could quit lurking around behind me and talk to me face to face.
We were standing in the bustling kitchen of his Thai restaurant, Panich's Place, in the Northwest District of Portland, Oregon. His family members pushed past and around us like worker bees in a stainless steel hive.
"What in the hell are those?" I asked, feigning ignorance. "Those bear paws?"
"Bear paws, so what?" Panich said. He was still behind me. A kid balancing a pot on his hip yanked on the handle of the door to the walk-in freezer. It opened with a thick, schlucking sound, and he ducked inside.
"Whaddya do with bear paws?" I asked. I knew the answer, but right now I wasn't playing me, Jace Madrigal, Fish and Wildlife officer, but instead, you-can-call-me-Sue, a small-time poacher from Goobersville, somewhere in the Coast Range, looking to make a few extry bucks selling illegal wildlife.
I dumped the package of elk on the counter and picked up a bear paw in both my hands. It was heavy, maybe a pound or two. The hair was coarse on the round, broad paw, the claws thick and curving.
"Whaddya do with bear paws?" I said again. "You make bear paw casserole or something? Never saw a use for bear paws myself, once you pulled the claws out."
As a rookie, first time I'd worn a wire I'd nearly blown the bust because I was speaking just a little too loud and had been inclined to bend my head down to where a tiny microphone nestled between my breasts. I'd stopped when I'd noticed the poacher starting to bend his head sideways in unconscious imitation.
Rubén Chacal and another wildlife officer, Frank Reid, were riding the van and Rubén was listening in on my evidence-gathering conversation with Mr. Panich. I'd sold poached elk to Panich a couple times before this, to establish a pattern. This time I came not to sell but to bust him on Trafficking in Illegal Wildlife
But buying elk was nothing compared to stacking up a pile of four bear paws on your restaurant's kitchen counter. The last thing I wanted now was for Chacal and Reid to come crashing through the door yelling, Police, Freeze! I'd been with the Portland department for a whole week and a half now. This was the first time I'd worked directly with Chacal. I hoped if he heard the words 'bear paws' he'd understand that something was up and wait for a cue from me.
Panich was still standing behind me, and frankly, it was giving me the creeps. What if he was holding one of those giant butcher knives, the blade rising higher and higher--
I turned around.
No butcher knife.
He wasn't even looking at me, but at the floor below the counter holding the paws. On the lower shelf were stacked cleaned margarine tubs and industrial-sized plastic teriyaki sauce jars. On the floor at my feet lay a neatly stacked pile of empty burlap sacks marked in Asian characters.
He tapped at the pile of bags on the floor with his white-shoed toe and snapped out something in his hometown dialect. A boy, still in his teens, almost certainly younger than the legal working age of 15, scurried over, collected the bags in his arms, shoved them back onto the shelf, and dodged out of sight. Maybe if I couldn't get the illegal wildlife charge to stick, I could bust him on child labor laws. Always good to have a backup plan.
"They make a delicate and flavorful soup," Panich said. "For my special customers only." He straightened the knot of his silk tie with forefinger and thumb, the other three fingers rigid. It reminded me of old Nazi films. Did he smoke a cigarette with his fingers cupped protectively around the ember?
Panich took the paw from my hand and thumped it back down on the scarred maple butcher's block. The paw shed a few stiff black hairs on impact. It wasn't like I had been planning to eat at Panich's Place anyway, but now you'd have to pull out my fingernails first.
Sangsant Panich was a contrast in weird. He spoke excellent English with a slight British accent, and wore pastel leisure suits straight out of the Fashion Police Files, with delicate, expensive silk ties in vivid colors. Today's suit was a light blue only polyester could achieve; the tie was shamrock green.
"How much," I asked. "For the soup, I mean."
"You couldn't afford it," Panich said disdainfully. He plucked a matching green silk hankie out of the leisure suit's breast pocket, wiped his hands fastidiously, arranged the hankie back in the pocket. A stiff black hair clung to it at a rakish angle.
"You don't know," I said. "Maybe I can. Maybe I want a bowl of bear paw soup right now." I was rambling, hoping to clue Chacal in that things weren't going the way I'd expected.
Chacal and Reid hadn't been part of the sting before now. On my second day in the department I'd been handed the tip that Panich was buying illegal wildlife and had walked into his kitchen the next day with elk prime rib and a tale of backwoods poaching. Panich bought the story and the elk, and I came back two more times to demonstrate his recidivism. Only on this last buy did I need backup. I wasn't anticipating a shoot-out, I just needed more hands to secure the crime scene and all of Panich's family members, slash hired help.
"Three-fifty." Panich said. He stood before me, arms akimbo. Staccato orders snapped back and forth from waiters to cooks in a clipped, sibilant tongue. Pots banged on and off of the spider web burners crouching over the gas flames. I wondered if any of those pots were stewing up some bear paw soup.
"Well hell, I think I can pay three-fifty." I dug in my pocket and came up with a handful of dollar bills.
"Three hundred fifty dollars." Panich didn't actually say, you uncouth goob, but somehow it was there anyway. That's okay, heck it's good. Bad guys usually don't feel threatened by an uncouth goob, and usually don't check further to see if the goob is in fact a witty, yet self-deprecatory undercover cop.
"Three hunnerd fifty bucks for bear paw soup?" I stuffed my cash back in my pocket like I was afraid he'd snatch it away. I'd said bear paws half a dozen times now. Don't come in, boys. Stay in the van, boys. Just play it cool, boys. Real cool.
"No way!" I said. "Who's buying a bowl of soup for three-fifty a pop?"
"None of your business."
"I don't believe you. Folks gotta be crazy, spend that much money on something like that. Do they get the claws for free? Like for a necklace or something?"
Panich stiffened, but he couldn't resist the chance to educate such a rube.
"Where I come from, great men treat their friends to delicacies such as this. It is a matter of respect, and honor. You, of course, would not know of such things."
I'd researched Panich before selling to him. He'd had a rumored history of buying illegal wildlife products, and I wanted to know if he could afford as much as I could push at him. He could. As a matter of fact, he could afford to send a triplet of grandchildren to the University of Oregon, and still drive a Mercedes.
Which made the leisure suits even more of a mystery.
"Dang," I said. "Ain't you the grand one."
Panich took in my jeans, flannel shirt (tails out to hide the gun on my belt in back), down vest, baseball cap. "We come from different backgrounds."
Sometimes undercover work stings your pride. "I unnerstand about showing off. Maybe I just don't wanna, is all. Maybe I'm rich as old King Midas, and you just don't know."
A girl of perhaps sixteen scurried past me, lugging a huge pot of steaming rice, her hands encased in fat white oven mitts. Panich grumbled something at her, nodded his head toward me. She snapped an answer back at him over her shoulder, laughing.
Great. Ridiculed in a language I didn't understand. A multicultural sneer. And no need to be so snotty about my duds. This shirt was Eddie Bauer.
"If you are rich," Panich said, "I am Bugs Bunny."
"Well at least I don't eat Bugs Bunny soup," I said.
"You Americans are all about save the animals, save the animals. Animals are just animals." He shrugged, then straightened his lapels with a gentle tug. "They are here for us to use as we see fit."
"Hey," I said, "you don't see me saving any animals." At least not yet, buddy boy. Respect for cultural differences aside, people who poach wildlife for luxuries are in it for the money. If Panich were feeding his starving family, that might be another thing.
"Three fifty." I shook my head. "For that price, I'll go out, shoot me a bear, and cook me some soup my own self."
"You shoot bear?" Panich asked me, black eyes suddenly interested. He poked a scrawny finger at me. "You shoot it, I'll buy it."
"You want bear from me? Don't you already got a supplier?"
"What do you care?" Panich said.
I held up both hands, palms out. "I don't wanna step on nobody's toes, don't want nobody mad at me. Those boys protect their territory. Who is it selling you some bear?"
"You don't worry about that," Panich said. "There are plenty of bear. Enough for everybody." He leaned in, poked the air in front of me again. "Beside, you American girls are all big libbers, anyway. You can do anything a man can, right?"
"Better," I said, for the sake of the guys in the van. "Anyway, big money usually means there ain't enough for everybody. Maybe your guy don't wanna share. Who is it?"
"Paws and gall bladder," Panich went on, choosing to ignore my query. "Especially gall bladders. The pay is decent."
The smell of peppers and coconut milk swirled around me. I'd never be able to eat Thai food again after seeing the hairs fly off the bear paw as it hit the countertop, smelling the faint odor of meat gone off. Not to mention the gall bladder thing.
I shrugged, not wanting to push any farther. "So how much you gonna give me if I bring you some bear?"
"Maybe 500 for a gall bladder," Panich said.
"Five hundred dollars for a gall bladder from a bear? What you gonna do with it?" I asked. "Make soup? Dang all, you know what's in a gall bladder?"
"Not soup," Panich said. "Medicine. Bile cures anything, everything."
"You swallow that stuff?"
"It is very powerful," Panich said. "It cures cancer, liver problems, many ailments."
"Gall bladders." I shrugged. "Maybe I'll bring you some bear next week then."
"I will buy it," Panich said again. "Gall bladders. All you can bring. Now give me the elk."
I passed the package over, still thinking about the bear.
Panich handed over one hundred and fifty dollars, and I made a show of counting the bills. We'd come up with the price after some serious haggling the first time I'd sold elk steaks to him. That didn't mean that Panich wouldn't try to cheat me if he could.
"Okay, so next week, then," I said stuffing the folded bills into my pocket. "I'll bring bear gall bladder next week."
"Yes, yes, fine," Panich said waving me away. The deal was done, and he was done with me.
Where the hell was I going to get a bear gall bladder, without killing the bear, of course. Maybe we had gall bladders in the evidence locker.
I turned toward the screen door, thinking about how to set up the bear deal next week, and Frank Reid slammed through it belly first, badge held high in one hand, pistol in the other, shouting, "Awright everybody, this is a bust. Everybody on the floor!"
Rubén Chacal was right behind him.
Author's Biography
Sandoval McNair graduated from Oregon State University with a Bachelor of Science in Fisheries Science and worked for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife before moving to Portland, Oregon, where she now walks dogs, watches birds, and writes mysteries.
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