When Ron was able to turn around with a straight face, Levin's chuckling still going strong, he turned toward Kate Kwitney, the woman he'd just met and who he had already succeeded in alienating. He assumed, at least, that he'd alienated her. And as he turned to give her his most sheepish expression, Ron noticed that someone else had walked in with her. Merely from the way Kate deferred to this new occupant of the room, merely from her body English, Riggs immediately knew that this was Holcomb.
He was a bit younger than Ron would have thought. He'd heard of him for years, had read about some of his exploits since he was a youngster just out of high school. Ron took the hand that was extended to him. "Hello, Mr. Riggs. I'm Vance Holcomb. Call me Vance."
"Hello." He squeezed back and looked into Holcomb's face. In his early fifties, the billionaire had obviously spent a lot of time in the outdoors. His blond hair was still thick, tinged just a bit with gray, and his face was permanently tanned from years spent in the sun. Currently, the darkness of the skin around his eyes and nose was accented, since he had obviously recently shaved off what had been a long held beard. The skin on his chin and around his lips was noticeably lighter, more like the complexion he'd probably sported in younger days. His features were appropriately chiseled for an outdoorsman, Ron thought; he was almost lantern-jawed, but just shy of that. There was a long scar along the left side of his face: pale skin that puckered slightly. Ron wondered how he'd gotten that, and why his millions hadn't bought the plastic surgery to hide it. Perhaps he thought it gave his face character. If he did think that, he was right.
"Kate here tells me she stumbled across you on one of the longleaf savannas." Holcomb took a half step away and put his hands behind his back, as if standing at attention. He was as tall as Kate was.
"Yes. But I'd hardly call it stumbling. Even though I was sitting down, eating my lunch, she picked me right out and headed straight over." Ron looked over at Kate, who was smirking at him. "I don't know how she did that."
"Oh, Kate knows the area, she does. I suspect she would have picked you out even if you'd been half a mile away. Kate's got a sharp eye out there in the forest. She's the best damned field taxonomist I've ever met." Holcomb looked her way and winked.
"Well, I thought I did, too. But I couldn't even tell what she was until she was right up on me." Ron shrugged, still feeling foolish despite Holcomb's manners.
"What do you think of the place, Mr. Riggs?" Holcomb raised his arms to encompass the room.
"I'm impressed. What I've seen of it. You've obviously gone to some great expense." He made eye contact with Kate. There didn't seem to be anything beyond mischief in her eyes. That gave him some relief. "You've got a nice lab here. And you certainly seem to have decent security around the place."
Holcomb shrugged. "Yes. I need the security. You never can tell what kind of problems we might encounter here. I'm not particularly popular with a lot of powerful folk, just now." He sighed. "But I'm used to it. I'm accustomed to making people angry."
"So I've heard," Ron admitted. Indeed. Ron knew that even a lot of people and organizations within the environmental movement did not care for Holcomb. Some said he that he caused more trouble than he was worth. There was his crackpot reputation, for one thing. He'd spent hundreds of thousands of dollars hunting for the Loch Ness Monster. And he'd claimed to have located a herd of Imperial mammoths living isolated and forgotten in Nepal. The claim concerning the mammoths had nearly proved true, but it had turned out to be a population of very large Indian elephants who were genetic throwbacks to another type of extinct species. While they were certainly mutants, they weren't mammoths. And Holcomb had even gone chasing after Sasquatch in the wild country of the Northwest.
However, he also could be effective in saving wild places that were worth preserving. The USA was dotted with lands he had bought up and donated to various state governments around the nation. When he was feeling cooperative was when he did the most good. From what Ron had read, he was not feeling cooperative where this place was concerned.
"Tell me something, Mr. Riggs. What exactly are you doing here? Why is Fish and Wildlife back here after publishing that ridiculous impact statement?" Holcomb had his hand on Riggs' shoulder and was leading him back out into the hallway. Ron allowed himself to be led.
"Actually, I'm just here to look for sign of a large constrictor, Mr. Holcomb."
"Vance. Call me Vance. Please."
"Um. Sure. You see…the folk from Salutations gave us a call. Said they were having trouble with pets disappearing. Dogs. A couple cats."
"Cats wander off all the time," Holcomb said. "Wander off and go feral and kill hundreds of birds a year. They're pure hell on native birds."
"Eh. Yes, sir. I know."
"Ouch. Sorry, Ron. I get so used to preaching and teaching that I forget myself. Sorry." Holcomb's eyes were downcast. He truly seemed apologetic.
"So, we think it's a python someone released. Maybe even an anaconda. It's not that rare, you know. Maybe one of the soldiers who was stationed here years before this place was decommissioned decided the pet python he'd bought had gotten just a bit too large, and maybe he let it go in the woods, thinking he was doing the right thing. Happens frequently, as you well know." Holcomb had led them down the hallway where Kate had disappeared when they'd come in. The rich man was taking Ron toward an opened doorway at the far end.
"I'm actually surprised they called you on this."
"Matter of fact, the studio seemed rather concerned that they not break any environmental laws. I think they might have handled it themselves if they'd known that there's no Federal protection for an alien species such as a python."
Holcomb threw back his head and laughed. Ron was strangely reminded of Burt Lancaster in his later years. Not so much Holcomb's physical appearance, but his mannerisms. "I can see some lame-brained executive making a dumb move like that. They were probably kicking themselves after you told them." He pointed at Ron. "You did tell them, didn't you?"
"Yes, I did."
Holcomb threw back his head and laughed again. "I like you, Ron. You've got a good sense of humor."
By then, they were at the doorway, and a pale light spilled out of the partially opened threshold. Vance Holcomb pushed it wide. Ron almost fell on his ass.
The room was huge. At least, huge for what it was. An office, apparently, but larger than any office in which Ron had ever set foot. A quick guess was that the room was easily three thousand square feet. Twice as big as Ron's own house. It was brightly lit and luxuriously, if sparsely, appointed. If Holcomb liked to do good deeds with his money, he was certainly not averse to lavishing himself with it, either. "This is your office?" Ron's voice was a squeak.
"Yes. Yes, it is. I like a big space where I work," he said. "If I've got to be inside, then I need lots of room to make me feel at ease."
"I see." The place, though huge, was not at all crowded. In fact, for the size of the room there was actually a ridiculously small amount of furnishings.
Seeing the unspoken question on Ron's face, Holcomb addressed it. "I take the Japanese view toward furnishings. Just what is necessary for comfort. Nothing more. Mainly, I just want the space."
"I can understand that," Ron told him, wondering what Holcomb would think of his own cluttered place. Ron followed Holcomb's lead toward a huge desk that was larger than he had thought from across the room, and he had a seat in a big, solid-looking chair that was softly upholstered. Cow leather, he noticed, sitting there. Holcomb was certainly not one of the no-meat, no-furs crowd.
Holcomb took his post on his side of the desk, settling down in a chair that reeked of expense. There were even buttons on one of the great arms, and Ron wondered what the hell they were for. For just a second he thought of the floor opening up beneath him while Holcomb laughed maniacally. He banished the thought.
"What do you plan to do, provided you find evidence of a snake? Or if you actually find the snake, itself? Supposing that there is a snake." The rich man found the humidor on the desktop, and he slid the top back along carefully fashioned grooves and took out a pair of cigars. "Do you take a cigar, Ron?" He offered one up.
"Sure," Ron said. "I like a cigar now and again," he lied. He figured if it was a cigar off of the desk of a billionaire, then it had to be expensive and he was willing to see what it was like. Holcomb trimmed both cigars and lit Ron's for him, then his own. The two sat and sampled the flavor. Actually, for a non-smoker, Ron was handling it well. Not bad, he thought. I could get into this.
Holcomb chewed his cigar, puffed a great billow of smoke. "Well?"
"Oh. About the snake. Yes." Ron took the cigar out of his mouth and looked at it, looked at Holcomb. "Well, we're obligated to call in someone."
"Someone?" Holcomb's brow went up.
"One of the fellows who contracts with the state to capture problem animals. Usually, it's gators, of course. But sometimes they can come in and take raccoons. And I guess snakes." Ron did not like the look on Holcomb's face. It wasn't anger, exactly, but he didn't look entirely happy.
"They kill those alligators. Correct? And the raccoons? They skin them all out and sell their pelts. All for being crowded out of their habitat by humans."
"Um. Yes, sir. The alligators and the raccoon are sold to markets. Or, rather, their skins are. In the case of the gators, even the meat is sold." Ron spread his hands. "The alligator in Florida is no longer endangered. You know that. It's not a problem to harvest them from time to time anymore."
Vance Holcomb leaned forward and eyed Ron, his demeanor no longer completely friendly. There was now an adversarial feel to their meeting. Maybe it had become a confrontation. "And what will happen to this snake? If it is a snake?"
"I'm not entirely sure, if they capture a large snake. I would assume that it would be worth more to a zoo alive than to someone dealing in leather goods."
"But you aren't certain?"
Ron slumped in the chair. He'd been enjoying the day, until then. "No. I honestly can't say. But I don't think it would just be killed outright. We don't do things that way anymore."
Holcomb rolled his eyes and threw his hands up. "Please. Spare me that. Of course things are still done that way."
"Well…hell." Ron wilted a bit more.
Holcomb turned his back on the desk, swiveling his chair. Ron saw him depress one of the buttons on the arm of the chair. On the far side of the room, what Ron had assumed was a wall slowly eased back in almost complete silence. If he strained, he could just hear the perfect whirring of finely tuned machinery. A gigantic window of truly impressive proportions was slowly revealed. Ron could see the view Holcomb had whenever he wished it. The forest was there, outside the great window, just beyond the chain link fence, no wooden barrier on this side of the compound. The view was impressive: cypress, gum, oaks, pines. Birds were moving across the afternoon sky, heading for roosts: ducks, birds of prey, egrets, cranes, storks. Incredibly, Ron saw a black bear moving at the verge of the forest, its snout testing the winds.
"I'll be damned," Ron said.
"This place must be protected, Mr. Riggs. I'm going to do whatever it takes to save it."
"I don't blame you," he said, the cigar loose in his fingers, his voice feeling like a whisper.
"I think we'll try to locate this snake before you and your animal killer do so. I really don't want the wrong kind of people mucking about around here. Understand?"
"Understood, Mr. Holcomb."
He faced Ron again, his face stern. "Please. Call me Vance."