"I am not believin' this shit."

Stoat took out a fountain pen and wrote something in neat block letters on a paper cocktail napkin. He slid it down the bar to Willie Vasquez-Washington, who chuckled and rolled the cigar from one corner of his mouth to the other.

Then he said: "OK, OK, I'll meet with him. Where?"

"I've got an idea. You ever been on a real big-game safari?"

"Not since I took the bone out of my nose, you asshole."

"No, Willie, this you'll dig. Trust me." Stoat winked and signaled for the check.

Willie Vasquez-Washington's gaze once more fell upon the cocktail napkin, which he discreetly palmed and deposited in an ashtray. On the drive back to Miami, he thought about the words Palmer Stoat had written down, and envisioned them five feet high, chiseled into a marble facade.

WILLIE VASQUEZ-WASHINGTON

SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL

Asa Lando urged Durgess to check out the horn; the horn was first-rate. Durgess could not disagree. However ...

"This rhino is how old?" he asked.

"I don't honestly know," said Asa Lando. "They said nineteen."

"Yeah? Then I'm still in diapers."

It was the most ancient rhinoceros Durgess had ever seen; even older and more feeble than the one procured for Palmer Stoat. This one was heavier by at least five hundred pounds, which was but a small consolation to Durgess. The animal had come to the Wilderness Veldt Plantation from a wildlife theme park outside Buenos Aires. The park had "retired" the rhino because it was now sleeping, on average, twenty-one hours a day. Tourists assumed it was made from plaster of paris.

"You said money was no object."

Durgess raised a hand. "You're right. I won't even ask."

"His name's El Jefe." Asa Lando pronounced it "Jeffy," with a hard J.

"Why'd you tell me that?" Durgess snapped. "I don't wanna know his name." The guide slept better by pretending that the animals at Wilderness Veldt actually were wild, making the hunts less of a charade. But named quarry usually meant tamed quarry, and even Durgess could not delude himself into believing there was a shred of sport to the chase. It was no more suspenseful, or dangerous, than stalking a pet hamster.

"El Jeffy means 'the boss,' " Asa Lando elaborated, "in Spanish. They also had a name for him in American but I forgot what."

"Knock it off. Just knock it off."

Durgess leaned glumly against the gate of the rhino's stall in Quarantine One. The giant creature was on its knees, in a bed of straw, wheezing in a deep and potentially unwakable slumber. Its hide was splotched floridly with some exotic seeping strain of eczema. Bottleflies buzzed around its parchment-like ears, and its crusted eyelids were scrunched into slits.

Asa Lando said: "What'd ya expect, Durge? He's been locked in a box for five damn days."

With a mop handle Durgess gingerly prodded the narcoleptic pachyderm. Its crinkled gray skin twitched, but no cognitive response was evident.

"Besides," said Asa Lando, "you said it didn't matter, long as the horns was OK. Any rhinoceros I could find, is what you said."

Durgess cracked his knuckles. "I know, Asa. It ain't your fault."

"On short notice, you can't hope for much. Not with endangereds such as rhinos and elephants. You pretty much gotta take what's out there, Durge."

"It's awright." Durgess could see that El Jefe once had been a strapping specimen, well fed and well cared for. Now it was just old, impossibly old, and physically wasted from the long sweltering flight.

"Can he run," Durgess asked, "even a little bit?"

Asa Lando shook his head solemnly.

"Well, can he walk?'

"Now and again," said Asa Lando. "He walked outta the travel crate."

"Hooray."

"Course, that was downhill."

"Well, hell," Durgess said impatiently. "He must move around enough to eat. Lookit the size of the bastard."

Asa Lando cleared his throat. "See, they, uh, brought all his food to him – branches and shrubs and such. He pretty much just stood in the same spot all day long, eatin' whatever they dumped in front of his face. Give him a big shady tree, they told me, and he won't go nowheres."

Durgess said, "I'm sure."

"Which is how I figure we'll set up the kill shot. Under one a them giant live oaks."

"Oaks we got," Durgess sighed.

He thought: Maybe we can get us two birds with one stone. Maybe Mr. Stoat's big-shot hunter would go for a jenna-wine African rhinoceros over a cheetah; even a sleepy rhino was an impressive sight. And El Jefe's front horn wasprimo – fifty grand is what Stoat said he could get for a decent one. Durgess idly wondered if the mysterious Mr. Yee might be enticed into a bidding war ...

"I gotta make a phone call," Durgess said to Asa Lando.

"One more thing. It might could help."

"What?"

"He stomped a man to death, Durge."

"No shit!"

"Six, seven years ago. Some superdumb tourist," Asa Lando said, "hopped on his back so the wife could take a picture. Like he was ridin' a bronco. Old El Jeffy went nuts is what them Argentines told me. Threw the tourist fellow to the ground and mushed his head like a tangelo. Made all the papers in South America."

Durgess smiled crookedly. "So it ain't just any rhino we got here, Asa. It's a killerrhino. A world-famous killer rhino."

"Exactly right. That help?"

"You bet your ass," Durgess said. "Call me when he wakes up."

Mr. Gash couldn't believe that the bum with the crimson eye and the weird checkered skirt had showed up in the dead of night, in the middle of the woods. And packing a pistol!

"I said, the boy is mine."

Mr. Gash leered. "You're into that,huh, pops? A rump ranger."

"I'll take the woman, too." The bum motioned with the gun toward the station wagon containing Desirata Stoat.

"Pops, you can have the 'boy.' He's dying anyway. But the lady," said Mr. Gash, waving with his own gun, "she stays with me. Now get the fuck outta here. I'm counting to six."

The bum flashed his teeth. The braids of his beard were dripping after his jog through the rain; tiny perfect globes, rolling off the bleached buzzard beaks. Mr. Gash was unnerved by the sight, as he was by the man's eerie calm. Being cold and unclothed had put Mr. Gash at a psychological disadvantage in the standoff. By rights he should have felt cocksure, a single-action Smith being no match for his trusty semiautomatic. Yet all it would take would be one lucky shot in the dark – and even a bum could get lucky.

Mr. Gash elected to proceed carefully, lest his pecker be blown off.

He said to the burn: "You can have the dog, too."

"I was hungry enough, Mr. Gash, I just might."

"What kinda sick kink you into, pops?" Mr. Gash levered himself to one knee. His foot made a sucking sound when he tugged it out of the mud. He was somewhat flattered that the bum knew his name.

"The governor sent me, Mr. Gash. I'll take over from here."

"Hooo! The governor!"

"Yessir. To fetch that young man."

"Well, Mr. Robert Clapley sent me,"said Mr. Gash, "to do the exact same thing. And my guess is Mr. Clapley pays a whole lot handsomer than the governor. So we got a conflict, don't we?"

A jingling came from the pines, and McGuinn's shadow appeared at the edge of the clearing. The second gunshot had launched the dog on another fruitless search for falling ducks, and he had returned only to encounter yet another human with a gun; an uncommonly large human who smelled of fried opossum and wood smoke. McGuinn's mouth began to water. Unspooling his tongue, he trotted forward to greet the stranger in the customary Labrador manner.

Mr. Gash saw what was coming and steadied his arm, preparing to fire. Here was the opportunity he'd been awaiting: The bum wouldn't be able to ignore the dog. Nobodycould ignore that loony pain-in-the-ass mutt. And the moment the bum got distracted, Mr. Gash would shoot him in the heart.