A Death in China - Carl Hiaasen [46]
On Stratton’s third try the snake struck. He heard the hiss and felt the passing breath. Stratton froze. The cobra struck again, biting air. Six inches to the left and the fangs would have pierced Stratton’s groin.
The cobra was angry. The sweat, the heat of human exertion, the blood racing through Stratton’s body as he pounded the door—all this had ignited the snake’s primal reflex.
Instinctively, Stratton jumped to his left, crashing into a suit of clothes that hung from a dowel. The snake followed. Once, ssshhhhhh, in the air. Again, closer, a deadly sibilance two inches from Stratton’s ear. And once more, higher and longer …
Stratton pressed his head against the wall; he held himself there to stay out of range. Now he heard a different sound. The cobra was struggling in front of him, thrashing wildly in the folds of clothing. Stratton knew instantly what had happened. Its fangs were hung in the fabric. The beast was stuck like a dart on cork.
He reached out and found the snake. He grabbed it like a rope, working upward, hand-over-hand toward the frantic lethal head. Stratton found the cobra’s hood. It seemed enormous, but it folded smoothly in his grip. Stratton kneaded his way to the head.
Both hands yanked the cobra down to the floor of the closet. Squeezing its neck with all of his strength, he threw his body on the writhing coils. The cobra took twelve and one-half minutes to die. Stratton knew. He counted every second.
“THOMAS! I HEAR YOU in there.” Alice Dempsey paced the hallway outside the hotel room. Her voice dripped with annoyance. “You missed breakfast again, and you’re about to miss the bus.” Alice despised disorder; Stratton embodied it. In her mind, she had already composed a stern letter to his dean. The trip was a farce as far as Stratton went. He had disappeared for days at a time. He had openly taunted his colleagues. He had insulted the Chinese and even fought with them, for God’s sakes. Stratton would live to regret his inexcusable behavior.
“Come on!”
Alice knocked again. This time the door swung open on its own. Two Chinese strangers stood there. One wore a Mao cap pulled down low over his eyes.
“Where’s Mr. Stratton?” Alice demanded. She sensed trouble.
The man with the cap shrugged and said nothing.
“Do you understand English?”
The other man, younger than the first, shook his head no. Alice took a step inside. The bed had been slept in, but the room held no sign of Stratton. The drawers in the bureau had been drawn half open. The closet door was ajar—it too was empty—but something caught Alice’s eye: a length of heavy rope hung from the outside doorknob. In one corner of the room appeared to be another length of rope, brownish green in color, and glossy, as if it were made of plastic. Curious, Alice stepped forward for a closer look.
She let out a hoarse scream when she saw that the coil of rope was actually a large dead snake.
The man with the Mao pointed to the reptile and then tapped his chest proudly.
“You killed it?” Alice gasped.
The man nodded excitedly and pointed to his friend. Then he performed a brief pantomime, clubbing at the floor with an imaginary truncheon. Then he pointed at the cobra again and grinned.
Alice returned a nervous smile. “Well, you both are very brave. But where has Mr. Stratton gone? Have you seen him?”
The men’s faces were blank.
“Weiguoren,” Alice said, laboring over each syllable.
“Wei,” answered the man in the Mao cap. It was as good as a shrug.
Alice bowed goodbye and left the room, grumbling. No one on the bus would believe this.
STRATTON POURED HIMSELF a large cup of hot tea and drank it quickly; the train would lurch to a start any second, and he didn’t want the steaming cup to spill in his lap. That the soft class compartment was unoccupied was his second stroke of luck this morning. The first had been talking his way onto the Peking-bound train. His papers showed that he was not routed back to Peking, and the clerk at the station had noticed the discrepancy