“Huh,” Kurt said. “You’re full of surprises, Joe. Since when do you know about lizards?”
“Worked at a zoo one summer,” Joe said.
“Was there a girl involved in this story?”
“Callie Romano,” Joe admitted.
“Of course.”
Kurt yanked the stick collar back, and Ion was dragged across the floor and almost fell on his face. As Kurt shut the door, the Komodo dragon closed its eye and went back to sleep.
“So what do you suggest?” Kurt asked, beginning to enjoy himself.
Joe moved slowly down the row of enclosures. “How about this?”
He stopped in front of one of the largest enclosures in the small store. Eight feet deep and six feet wide, with some foliage, a small pool of water, and brown dirt on the floor. There was also a box with a grate over the top just outside it. A pair of large rats crouched inside the box.
Kurt looked into the larger enclosure. What he first thought was part of a tree moved a bit.
“Reticulated python,” Joe said, looking at the notes on the front of the clear plastic door. “Nocturnal hunters. They can reach almost thirty feet in length,” he added, “though this one is supposed to be only twenty-two.”
“Constrictor,” Kurt said, thinking aloud. “A twenty-two-foot, two-hundred-seventy-pound snake. Perfect.”
“You’re not going to—”
Before Ion could finish his sentence, Kurt had flipped the latch on the door, swung Ion in front of the opening and shoved him backward. He splashed down in the snake’s water pit.
Kurt opened the collar, pulled it over Ion’s head, and withdrew it. Joe slammed the door and pinned the latch.
“This thing’s handy,” Kurt said, looking at the stick collar and putting it down.
Ion got to his feet and looked around. Incredibly, the snake had already begun to move. Just its head and neck, sniffing around, nothing aggressive so far, but it seemed interested.
“I’ve been to a couple zoos,” Kurt said. “Honestly, never even seen one of these things move before.”
“Yeah,” Joe said. “The pythons in zoos are fed all the time, and they get so fat and overweight that they don’t do much of anything. But see how thin this one is.”
Joe pointed. The snake didn’t exactly look thin to Kurt, but he played along.
“He does look a little skinny,” Kurt said.
“Probably been starved for months,” Joe said.
By now Ion had moved toward the door.
“Why would they starve him?” Kurt asked.
“The owners of these places sell to rich collectors who want to see the snakes in action, crushing something and eating it,” Joe said. “So they keep ’em hungry until a buyer comes around. That what the rats are for.”
Kurt had no idea if Joe was serious or just making this stuff up, but it was a good shtick.
The snake was cooperating too, sliding down from the ledges near the back of the enclosure and beginning to stretch out.
Ion came up to the door. “Let me out of here, Austin.”
Kurt ignored him, instead looking at some type of poster describing the python. He looked at Joe. “It says here these things can eat a goat.”
“Oh yeah, sure,” Joe said.