Page 62 of Lost Souls

“You got a minute?” says Arnie, which fortunately for him the sheep has, as they generally tend not to have an undue amount on their agenda other than munching grass, a task this one still appears well able to do. “Yousee, there’s this screwy English broad. Hey, between you and me, she ain’t gonna win no beauty contest… but, you know, not so hideous, in a crazy, foreign way. Nice hooters – six cardigans down. Great eyes. Sweet sorta smile. Kindly soul. Decent person.Doublydecent. And, for reasons I won’t bore you with, ’cos truly they don’t make me look so good, I been trying every which way to get into her panties. Which, incidentally, are probably made from the same stuff you got on your back. Aw, come on, don’t give me that look; you’re a sheep of the world. But – well, it didn’t happen. Instead she – I hate to say this, but she kinda got into my… into my head. Okay, more than my head. You hear what I’m saying?”

Noreen has stopped her own chatter and is clearly listening to the adjacent man-to-ovine conversation.

“And, I gotta tell you,” continues Arnie, “that may not be nearly enough. How I’m just starting to feel, I mean. Not when the big day of reckoning comes. Which, by the way, is pretty damn soon – don’t ask me how I know.”

Noreen turns back to her woolly listener and talks just that bit louder. “If he could onlyturnhimself into a straightforward, honest, morally upright, generous, respectful, thoroughly decent human being…”

“Hey, lady,” says Arnie, “you’re talking to a sheep!”

As their audience drifts away, the two would-be Dr Dolittles look at each other a bit helplessly. Even, what you and I might call, sheepishly.

“ARNIE!”

Arnie Garth registers Cleo’s sudden yelp and knows immediately that this is not the excited cry of an animal lover.

Turning away from the Manger, he recognises – well, how could he not? – the compact hitman from the Bellagio, with the same small but lethal weapon partially but not fully concealed in his hand. Noreen sees him too and gives him a little wave of recognition, although, recalling their past encounter, she is pretty sure that he isn’t here for the animals.

Despite it being at a professionally low volume, Arnie registers every sinister word.

“Time’s up, sheep-whisperer. Why don’t we go somewhere quiet? We don’t want to upset the kiddies. You too, lady.”

“No, it’s okay,” says Cleo. “I’m good.”

“If memory serves, you’re great. But that isn’t the issue here.”

“Hey, fella,” says Arnie, “whatever your name is…”

“Big Louie.”

“Yeah?Well, I’m guessing that has to be ’cos you’re— never mind. Can we keep the ladies out of it?”

“Absolutely,” endorses Cleo. She tries to take advantage of this conversational interlude by making a sudden play for the gun. Until she feels something hard digging sharply into her lower ribs and a pair of onlyslightly softer items pushing into her upper back.

“I take it you’re not just pleased to see me, Melisande,” says Cleo as the other three move on.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Better ruined ten times than dead once.

(Judaeo/German proverb)

The Ark itself,clearly the main attraction of the park, is a suitably massive structure, engineered in several different types of local wood. (In fact, most everything except ‘gopher wood’, which is what old Noah originally built it from. But you try asking him what the heckthatwas!)

To add to the ‘authenticity’, the replica vessel hosts a respectable assortment of real, live animals (but not the xylophagous ones – wood-eaters to you!) and also features finely crafted animatronic models of the many other creatures, some now extinct, that he might well have taken with him on his Mediterranean cruise.

As a further treat, the attraction offers a walk-through of the sort of living quarters the big guy and his family would have used. And possibly even the rooms to which they’d flee when they couldn’t any longer stand the stench.

What really singles this ark out from the other biblically themed attractions, however, is that it sits in a large expanse of water and every hour, on the hour, it rocks like crazy in a makeshift storm. Fake lightning,thunderclaps, sounds of God’s ancient creatures getting biblically overexcited, the works. People have been known to get seasick just from the motion, so it is probably best to enjoy the experience before lunch or wearing those wristbands from your local pharmacy. What keeps the real animals sane in there is a secret known only to the park’s veterinarians.

Right now, a board beside the entrance booth boasts, in Hebraic-style lettering:Passeth not! Next Flood – 3.00. An attendant, sitting in the entrance booth in his predictably ancient gear, halts our threesome. He points imperiously to the board.

“Sorry, folks, we don’t saileth until three. Eth.”

Big Louie reaches up and knocks him out cold with his gun butt. He then turns to a shocked Arnie and Noreen.

“Hey, it’s just work. Some of my best friends are Jewish.”

When the curious threesome climb the wooden ramp into the currently empty attraction, some more reluctantly than others, they find the imposing structure big, dark and – although none would profess to be regular ark-goers – pretty authentic. Unsurprisingly, the animals behind the reinforced glass – raccoons, aardvarks, squirrels, are all in twos.