Hazards Read Online Free PDF Page A

disgruntled women,” I said.
    “You simply don’t look like the killer of twenty-eight men, women and children,” he continued, staring at me. “Still, appearances can be deceiving, which is our guiding motto here.”
    “I don’t want to put a damper on your enthusiasm,” I said, “but I ain’t never killed anyone.”
    “You’re not Juan Pedro Vasquez?” he said.
    “I’m the Right Reverend Honorable Doctor Lucifer Jones,” I told him.
    “What are you doing on my island?”
    “Well, for the past hour or so I’ve mostly been concentrating on being lost,” I admitted.
    “Then you shall be an honored visitor,” he said. “Come right in.”
    He kind of pulled me in by the arm and shut the door behind me before I could decide whether or not to make a dash for the river.
    “May I offer you a drink?” he asked, leading me to the living room, which had a dozen diplomas on the wall instead of the usual animal heads and tasteful paintings of naked ladies striking friendly poses.
    “That’s right generous of you,” I said, “but I ain’t thirsty just now.”
    “You’ve been listening to the animals,” he said knowingly. “Don’t worry, Doctor Jones. The drink is perfectly safe. You must not pay attention to a bunch of felons.”
    “I ain’t been talking to no felons, present company possibly excepted,” I said. “Just a bunch of the strangest animals I’ve ever run into.”
    He walked to a cabinet, pulled out a bottle, and poured two glasses. He took a swallow from one and then handed it to me.
    “Will that assuage your fears?” he said.
    “Well, under these circumstances, I suppose I can overcome my natural aversion to liquid,” I allowed, downing the rest of the glass and holding it out for a refill. As he poured it, I asked him if he had any serious intention of telling me just what felons he thought I’d been talking to.
    “Ramon and Felicity and the others,” he said.
    “I don’t want to seem to ignorant,” I said, “but just what kind of felony can an elephant commit on an island in the middle of the jungle?”
    “I shall be happy to explain it all to you, Doctor Jones,” he said, sitting down on a big leather chair. “Let me begin by asking if you are acquainted with the work of Doctor Septimus Mirbeau, who is unquestionably the world’s most brilliant doctor and scientist?”
    “Sounds like an interesting guy,” I said. “I’d sure like to run into him someday.”
    “You’re talking to him,” he said. “Can it be that you’ve really never heard of me?”
    “Not unless you played third base for the St. Louis Browns about fifteen years ago,” I replied.
    His face fell. “That’s the price of genius. I have to work in obscurity until I can announce my findings to the world.”
    “Well, you can’t get much more obscure than a nameless island in the middle of the Amazon,” I said.
    “It has a name,” replied Doctor Mirbeau. “I call it the Island of Lost Souls.”
    “As far as I can tell, the only soul what’s lost around here is me,” I said.
    “The name is a poetic metaphor,” he said, lighting up a big cigar. “If I was being literal, I would call it the Island of Lost Bodies.”
    “It strikes me as a pretty small island to misplace a whole graveyard,” I said.
    He smiled. I’m sure he meant it to be a tolerant, fatherly smile, but it came across as something out of one of them movies what got people called Bela and Boris and a lot of other names beginning with a B acting in ’em.
    “The bodies are still here, Doctor Jones,” he assured me.
    “You just forgot where?”
    “You have just been in their company.”
    “That’s funny,” I said. “I didn’t notice nothing except a bunch of animals with an unlikely way of expressing themselves.”
    “That was them.”
    “I know the vertical rays of the tropical sun can have a funny effect on some folk,” I allowed, “but I’m pretty sure those were animals and not men.”
    “They are animals