A shrill rhythm of sounds shrieked from the other room, and it took Valentin a few shallow breaths to realize that it was a cell phone ringing. The deer stopped its unsteady walking and lifted its head at the noise. Clint tensed his shoulders and then swung open the door to the other room, disappearing around a corner. In the seconds that the door was open, Valentin saw the carcass of another deer spilt open through the stomach, its head flung back and legs splayed to reveal the empty cavity where its organs used to be. Blood had spilled onto the tile floor and was continuing to drip off the table where the animal lay. Tendons and muscle had obviously been cut out, leaving little more than skin over skeleton. This deer’s antlers were not as large and elaborate as the taxidermy deer and its fur was not as golden, but it was nearly the right size and must have also been beautiful. Valentin finally understood where the organs, muscles, and blood that the two Americans had put into the taxidermy deer had come from.
Clint came back through the door, the red stains on his clothing now more repulsive to Valentin as he imagined that scalpel blade slicing out the warm organs. The American was listening intently to someone on the phone and he twirled the scalpel with the fingers of his other hand.
“I was going to call you, but we just now finished,” Clint said into the receiver and then nodded solemnly.
“Everything went well except for one complication,” he said. “But we’re going to fix it.”
Laurine was stroking the fur on the head of the resurrected deer and Valentin thought with a shudder about the wide eyes and strained mouth on the dead deer in the other room. These were people who would sacrifice one life for another to get what they wanted.
Clint hung up the phone and looked only at Morris.
“He’s going to come over here and fix our problem,” he said.
“What else did he say?” Laurine asked.
“Nothing really, although I guess that people are a little stirred up about what happened at the museum last night. The robbery was all over the news this morning.”
“I didn’t have a choice.”
“Right, you said that. Maybe you shouldn’t have been sent there alone.”
“I knew what I was doing, you couldn’t have helped.”
“Sure, well, it’s over now.”
There was the sound of footsteps on the floor above them and voices came down through the wood beams.
“Maybe that’s Renard now,” Clint said.
“He couldn’t get here that fast, the store is probably open,” Morris said.
Valentin had been in the Deyrolles store before to see its drawers full of pinned insects and taxidermy animals cluttered in every room. There had been a big fire in the store not too long ago and the photographs of the charred animals had stuck with him, if only because it made him afraid for the collection at the museum. He couldn’t stand to think about all of those beautiful marching animals in the main gallery catching flame and their plastic eyes melting out and fur turning to ash. Deyrolles had reopened after the fire and although it wasn’t as full, it was rebuilding its store and again there were giraffes, zebras, birds, and animals from around the world preserved and perched on bookshelves, tables, and bureaus.
