“Probably the jet lag,” Dirk said. “I thought for a moment you said a rhinoceros.”

“Yeah,” said Joe, disgustedly. “Got held up by it earlier. As it was leaving the airport.”

Dirk tried to think this through before he said anything that might expose him to ridicule. Presumably there must be a local football team or rock band called the Rhinoceroses. Must be. Coming from the airport? Driving to Santa Fe? He was going to have to ask.

“What exact type of rhinoceros are we discussing here?” he said.

“Dunno. I’m not as good at breeds of rhinoceros,” said Joe, “as I am at accents. If it was an accent, I could tell you what exact type it was, but since it’s a rhinoceros I can only tell you that it’s one of the big grey type, you know, with the horn. From Irkutsk or one of those kinda places. You know, Portugal or somewhere.”

“You mean Africa?”

“Could be Africa.”

“And you say it’s up there on the road ahead of us?”

“Yup.”

“Then let’s get after it,” said Dirk. “Quickly.”

He climbed back into the car, and Joe eased it out onto the highway once more. Dirk hunched himself up at the front of the passenger compartment and peered over Joe’s shoulder as they sped on through the desert. In a few minutes the shape of a large truck loomed up ahead in the Cadillac’s headlights. It was a green low-loader with a large, slatted crate roped down on to it.

“So. You’re pretty interested in rhinoceroses, then,” said Joe conversationally.

“Not especially,” said Dirk. “Not till I read my horoscope this morning.”

“That right? Don’t believe in them myself. You know what mine said this morning? It said that I should think long and hard about my personal and financial prospects. Pretty much what it said yesterday. ‘Course, that’s pretty much what I do every day, just driving around. So I suppose that means something, then. What did yours say?”

“That I would meet a three-ton rhinoceros called Desmond.”

“I guess you can see a different bunch of stars from New Zealand,” said Joe.

“It’s a replacement. That’s what I heard,” volunteered Joe.

“A replacement?”

“Yup.”

“A replacement for what?”

“Previous rhinoceros.”

“Well, I suppose it would hardly be a replacement for a lightbulb?” said Dirk. “Tell me—what happened to the, er, previous rhinoceros?”

“Died.”

“What a tragedy. Where? At the zoo?”

“At a party.”

“A party?”

“Yup.”

Dirk sucked his lip thoughtfully. There was a principle he liked to adhere to when he remembered, which was never to ask a question unless he was fairly certain he would like the answer. He sucked his other lip.

“I think I’ll go and take a look myself,” he said, and climbed out of the car.

The large, dark green truck was pulled onto the side of the road. The sides of the truck were about four feet high, and a heavy tarpaulin was roped down over an enormous crate. The driver was leaning against the door of the cab, smoking a cigarette. He clearly thought that being in charge of a three-ton rhinoceros meant that no one would argue with him about this, but he was wrong. The most astonishing amount of abuse was being hurled at him by the drivers negotiating their way one by one past his truck.

“Bastards!” muttered the driver to himself as Dirk wandered up to him in a nonchalant kind of way and lit a companionable cigarette himself. He was trying to give it up, but usually kept a pack in his pocket for tactical purposes.

“You know what I hate?” said Dirk to the truckdriver, “Those signs in cabs that say ‘Thank You for Not Smoking.’ I don’t mind if they say ‘Please Don’t Smoke,’ or even just a straightforward ‘No Smoking.’ But I hate those prim ‘Thank You for Not Smoking’ signs. Make you want to light up immediately and say, ‘No need to thank me, I wasn’t going to not smoke.’”

The driver laughed.

“Taking this old bugger far?” asked Dirk, with the air of one seasoned rhinoceros delivery driver comparing notes with another. He gave the truck an appraising glance.

“Just out to Malibu,” said the driver. “Way up Topanga Canyon.”

Dirk gave a knowing cluck as if to say, “Don’t talk to me about Topanga Canyon, I once had to take a whole herd of wildebeest to Cardiff in a minibus. You want trouble? That was trouble.” He sucked deeply on his cigarette.

“Must have been some party,” he remarked.

“Party?” said the driver.

“I’ve always found that a rhinoceros makes a pretty poor kind of party guest,” said Dirk. “Try it if you must, but brace yourself.” It was Dirk’s view that asking direct questions made people wary. It was more effective to talk complete nonsense and let people correct him.

“What do you mean, ‘party’?” said the driver.

“The party the other rhinoceros was attending,” said Dirk, tapping the side of his nose, “when it died.”

“Attending?” said the driver with a frown. “I wouldn’t say that it was actually attending the party.”

Dirk raised an encouraging eyebrow.

“It charged down out of the hills, smashed through the perimeter fence, crashed through the plate-glass windows into the house, took a couple of turns around the main room injuring about seventeen people, hurtled back out into the garden where somebody shot it, whereupon it toppled slowly into a swimming pool full of mostly naked screenwriters, taking half a hundredweight of avocado dip and some kind of Polynesian fruit melange with it.”

Dirk took a moment or two to digest this information. Then, “Whose house was this?” he said.

“Just some movie people. Apparently they’d had Bruce Willis round only the previous week. Now this.”

“Seems a bit rough on the old rhino as well,” said Dirk. “And now here’s another one.”