The Fourth Hand Read Free Page A

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    “additional local color.”
    No wonder the interview seemed anticlimactic compared to Wal ingford’s night with the German sound technician.
    Monika with a k, in her T-shirt without a bra, was making a noticeable impression on the Muslim meat wal ahs, who had taken offense at the German girl’s clothes, or lack thereof. In their fear, their curiosity, their moral outrage, they would have given a better and truer depiction of additional local color than the tiresome ringmaster.
    Near the lions’ cage, but appearing either too afraid or too dumbfounded or too offended to come any closer, the Muslims stood as if in shock. Their wooden carts were piled high with the sweet-smel ing meat, which was a source of infinite disgust to the largely vegetarian (Hindu) community of the circus. Natural y the lions could smel the meat, too, and were vexed at the delay. When the lions began roaring, the cameraman zoomed in on them, and Patrick Wal ingford—recognizing a moment of genuine spontaneity—extended his microphone to within reach of their cage. He got a better kicker than he’d bargained for.
    A paw flicked out; a claw caught Wal ingford’s left wrist. He dropped the microphone. In less than two seconds, his left arm, up to his elbow, had been snatched inside the cage.
    His left shoulder was slammed against the bars; his left hand, including an inch or more above his wrist, was in a lion’s mouth. In the ensuing hul abaloo, two other lions competed with the first for Patrick’s wrist and hand. The lion tamer, who was never far from his lions, intervened; he struck them in their faces with a shovel. Wal ingford retained consciousness long enough to recognize the shovel—it was used principal y as a lion pooper-scooper.
    (He’d seen it in action only minutes before.) Patrick passed out somewhere in the vicinity of the meat carts, not far from where Monika with a k had sympathetical y fainted. But the German girl had fainted in one of the meat carts, to the considerable consternation of the meat wal ahs; and when she came to, she discovered that her tool belt had been stolen while she’d lain unconscious in the wet meat.

    The German sound technician further claimed that, while she was passed out, someone had fondled her breasts—
    she had fingerprint bruises on both breasts to prove it. But there were no handprints among the bloodstains on her Tshirt. (The bloodstains were from the meat.) It was more likely that the bruises on her breasts were the result of her nightlong lovemaking with Patrick Wal ingford. Whoever had been bold enough to swipe her tool belt had probably lacked the courage to touch her breasts. No one had touched her headphones.
    Wal ingford, in turn, had been dragged away from the lions’
    cage without realizing that his left hand and wrist were gone; yet he was aware that the lions were stil fighting over something. At the same moment that the sweet smel of the mutton reached him, he realized that the Muslims were transfixed by his dangling left arm. (The force of the lion’s pul had separated his shoulder.) And when he looked, he saw that his watch was missing. He was not that sorry to have lost it—it had been a gift from his wife. Of course there was nothing to keep the watch from slipping off; his left hand and the big joint of his left wrist were missing, too.
    Not finding a familiar face among the Muslim meat wal ahs, Wal ingford had doubtless hoped to locate Monika with a k, stricken but no less adoring. Unfortunately, the German girl was flat on her back in one of the mutton carts, her face turned away.
    Patrick took some bitter consolation from seeing, if not the face, at least the profile of his unfazed cameraman, who had never wavered from his foremost responsibility. The determined professional had moved in close to the lions’
    cage, where the lions were caught in the act of not very agreeably sharing what little remained of Patrick’s wrist and hand. Talk about a good kicker!
    For