WHEN MRS. BEAUREGARD ABERNATHY died at 106 years of age, her vast holdings funded the largest Oklahoma trust ever established to provide for a group of animals. My father, the first caretaker, maintained an elderly horse, three wiener dogs, an aquarium, five parrots, and a colony of stable cats.
After the horse and dogs succumbed predictably to old age, the cats and four of the parrots met with a curious assortment of accidents. Marie Louise, the new housekeeper, had been heartbroken when she found them. On the first Monday in September, following her predecessor's instructions exactly, Marie Louise set out poisoned bait for the usual autumn invasion of mice. By Wednesday afternoon, she found a stable full of dead cats.
Marie Louise' hazel eyes welled over with tears as she told me about the birds. One by one, she had pulled their lifeless bodies from the toilet, the aquarium, the entry-hall fountain, and the toilet again.
By the time my father retired and his position fell to me, only the aquarium and Jezebel, a forty-something scarlet macaw remained. Well, actually, there was another animal on the grounds.
Agatha Abernathy's grandson, her sole remaining human heir, lived in the pool house, surviving on a yearly "sustenance allowance" of only $200,000. The epitome of the name inherited from his paternal line, Beau the Third spent his days fishing bugs out of the swimming pool, sipping single malt scotch, and sexually harassing the staff, except me.
I outweighed "Beau the Turd", as we liked to call him, by 40 pounds. Since I grew up on the estate only two gardens, a fountain, and a pond away from his family home, I knew better than to put up with his shenanigans. Our relationship had been rocky since my first official day on the job when he nearly ran me over in the circle drive. I landed flat in the pansies on the garden side of the monkey grass and cursed his yellow Hummer as he drove away.
Just a month later, I found the first note.
"Be careful!" it said.
I was obviously being watched, sometimes followed.
On the second Saturday in February, howling winds delivered a freezing Oklahoma ice storm. As I approached Mrs. Abernathy's office where Jezebel's habitat stood beside a huge bay window, footsteps faded quickly down the opposite end of the marble hall. A folded piece of paper had appeared on the oiled mahogany desktop.
In blocky handwriting, the note said, "The bird is toast!"
I rushed to the door, opened it, and looked out into the hallway.
"Peek-a-boo!" Jezebel said as I pulled my head back inside the drafty room.
"Peek-a-boo, you." Whether from the cold or something else, I shivered and my teeth chattered briefly.
The magnificent red bird reached through the bars, unlatched the door, and scrambled to the top of her high, arched cage. She climbed expertly up the crown molding to a beam crossing the 14-foot ceiling and headed for her favorite perch, the art deco chandelier in the center of the room. I knew I'd be cleaning bird poop within the hour if I didn't take action.
"Don't even think about it, you red feathered monkey!" I clapped my hands loudly in the chill night air.
Jezebel looked down, regarding me first with one flashing eye, then another, and said, "I ruuvvvv you!"
"Now don't play that game with me, Miss Jezzie." I grabbed the long pole standing in the corner and tried to coax her to step up on it.
That failing, I reached for the old wooden ladder in the butler's closet.
"You might as well go on back to the cage," I said. "You know what'll happen if I have to come up there."
"Peek-a-boo!" She said, popping up from the center of the massive chandelier.
I positioned the eight-foot ladder, so that I could reach into the immense fixture, removed my shoes, and started climbing. I stood on the second rung from the top, stretching my arm as far as it would reach, trying to lure Jezebel with an almond, when the lights blinked out.
Before I could feel my way down, the door opened, a shadow crossed the room, and I felt my body, the ladder, and the almonds fall in different directions.
* * * * *
Gradually regaining my senses, I felt the cold stone floor hard against my left ear, shoulder, hip, and leg. Intense pain jolted my eyelids open. My wrists were secured to my ankles behind my back. I twitched, gagged, choked on a rigid tube passing through the right corner of my lips, between my teeth, and over my tongue, partially obstructing my throat. I could hardly breathe or even cough, my senses overwhelmed by the unmistakable smell and taste of duct tape.
Dozens of candles and a couple of bright kerosene lanterns illuminated the room. A shadow fell across my face, and I realized that Beau the Turd was standing over me.
"Ahh, awake, I see." He pulled a leather office chair to the exact center of the room, then sat down, propping his feet up on a green metal tool box. "So sorry to find you doing drugs on the job."
He was obviously quite pleased with himself, laughing as he dumped a bottle of large white pills into a decanter. "You really shouldn't climb ladders 'under the influence.'"
He popped the cork back into the bottle, shook it, swirled the golden liquid around a few times and looked at it closely. Then he grabbed me by the hair and held the Wild Turkey, 101 proof label only inches from my eyes. Dropping my head back hard against the floor, he disappeared briefly, then returned with a drink in one hand and a joint in the other.
"You know the Trust has a zero tolerance policy, so even if you survive -- you're outta here." He tossed back a swig of his drink, took a long drag off the joint, leaned back in the chair, and smiled. "But that's not gonna happen, since a large tree seems to have fallen over on the power line to the house. The thermostats won't work, and it's gonna get mighty cold before the housekeeper comes back Monday morning. There won't be any animals left, and I'll inherit everything."
Gagging, screaming in pain, I tasted blood as he elevated the long pvc pipe emerging from my mouth. He propped the end of the pipe up on his knee and leaned forward rummaging through the open metal tool box.
I had obviously underestimated my adversary.
Likewise, I had underestimated my allies.
"Eureka!" He said, producing a small plastic funnel from the tool box.
I heard a maniacal laugh and a hearty, "Peek-a-boo".
Beau the Turd looked up over his shoulder just as the chandelier plunged to the floor. The ponderous fixture tore his body from the chair, his right jaw caught on the open corner of the heavy steel tool box. Pinned in a position that might be called "prone" had his face not been pointing the other way, Beau's chest was forced against the floor. His chin twisted over his left shoulder toward the ceiling where the red bird hung blissfully flapping on the chain that once held the chandelier.
As the sound of the thundering crash faded, the housekeeper rushed in.
"Oh, my dear," she cried kneeling down beside me, "I'd been leaving notes, trying to warn you. I knew this asshole had evil on his mind!"
Marie Louise peeled the duct tape from my mouth, gently removed the pvc pipe, and to my very great surprise, kissed me.
Marie Louise and I still take care of Jezebel on her lavish estate. We spend a good deal of time on the patio beside the pool. Nothing much has changed except Beauregard, and for the better, if you ask me. Strapped into the finest electric wheelchair money can buy, Beau the Third spends many a sunny afternoon contemplating the pansies on the garden side of the monkey grass.
