The Cactus Club Killings (Joe Portugal) by Nathan Walpow

These are the first I’ve grown. Seed’s been real hard to get. It sounded from the paper like the one that killed Brenda was much bigger than this. Someone had that sucker a while. I hope they catch the guy.”
    “Or the woman.”
    He stopped short in front of a flat of aloes. You could see the wheels turning. “You think it could have been a woman? I never thought of that. I just assumed it was one of her old boyfriends.” He looked over at me. “Not you, of course.”
    “Of course.”
    “But everyone knows she had a lot of boyfriends.”
    “Maybe she had girlfriends too.”
    His nose curled up. “A girl like Brenda? No. I know a dyke when I see one.”
    I’d have to share that comment with Gina. She could put it in her spreadsheet.
    Lyle picked up a plant with little spiny arms growing from a big fat central stem. “Like the caudex on this one?” The fancy term for a big fat central stem.
    “Sure. That’s a nice one; which is it?”
    “Euphorbia restricta.”
He waggled die plant at me. “Got to watch it with these. You grow them from cuttings, they don’t get a caudex. All my caudex euphorbias are grown from seed.”
    “Nothing field-collected?”
    He threw me a look like I’d suggested he engaged in carnal relations with Merlin. “Of course not. I wouldn’t sell that shit. Goddamned habitats being ripped to shreds.” He thrust the
Euphorbia restricta
into my hand. “Here, take this.”
    “Uh.”
    “For free. As a gift. Like those catalogs my wife’s always getting. They’ll give you a bra or something to get you to come back as a customer.”
    “I haven’t been gone as a customer.”
    “Whatever. Come on, take the plant.”
    “You don’t have to do this.”
    “Fuck a duck, Joe, will you take the goddamned plant?”
    It seemed prudent. “Okay,” I said. “And thanks.”
    “You’re welcome,” he said, instantly calmer.
    A minute later I ran across some nice
Euphorbia francoisii
, the colorfully leafed Madagascar dwarf Sam had mentioned, and that prompted me to get back to business. “Several peoplethink Brenda’s killing had something to do with plant smugglers.”
    “I met one of ’em once.”
    “You did? Where?”
    “South Africa. On that trip last year.”
    “What’d he do, just walk up and say, I’m a plant smuggler’?”
    This invoked a robust laugh. “I was in a bar in Johannesburg with a couple of the local succulent guys.” I could see him there, drinking hearty brews with the hearty South Africans. “This guy in a bush jacket walks in and says hi to the locals. He has an accent, but I can’t figure out what kind on account of everyone there talks funny anyway. He joins us at the table. They’re all blabbing away, and all of a sudden they start arguing. Turns out the guy’s on his way to Namibia to dig stuff up. My two friends are trying to convince him not to, and he tells us about how the market in Europe is dying to have these plants, and so it doesn’t matter if they’re all dug up. So they go back and forth for a while, and nobody convinces anybody of anything, and as far as I know the guy went off that day and dug up everything he wanted to.”
    “Did you catch his name?”
    He scratched his hairy chest. “It was a German name. One of those
Sh
names.”
    “Schoeppe?”
    He cocked his head at me. “Yeah, that was it. How’d you know?”
    “You’re sure it was Willy Schoeppe?”
    His brow furrowed. “No. Not Willy It was something else. Hans or…Hermann. That was it. Hermann Schoeppe.”
    “Hmm.”
    “What?”
    “How common a name do you think Schoeppe is?” “Don’t have a clue. Hey. It’s getting dark, and we have two more greenhouses to look at.”
    Forty-five minutes later I drove off with my wallet lighter by the forty dollars I’d spent on the box of plants on the seat beside me. As I pulled away I threw a look back at the house. Merlin was again out by the front fence, regarding me with a baleful eye. I regarded him right back with