Our narcotics unit had been working jointly on a case with the Feds and CCSO. A LSD lab had been located just north of Bonita Springs, in an abandoned serpentarium. The caretaker of the place was supposed to be a chemical genius. A test tube dude who was cooking enough LSD to have every head south of Atlanta seeing technicolor bunnies in their yogurt. One early morning we moved in.
The serpentarium, never anything but a third-rate sideshow, was just one house-size main building with a few trailers out back. We found the chemist, Karloff, busy at work in his makeshift lab. He was congenial enough but one of those "geniuses" who has all his furniture in one corner of the attic. Chemistry, a whiz. Remembering to eat, bathe, and sleep, dumb as dirt.
As an example, he told us he was being paid $125 a week. That for cranking out a hundred-thousand in dope every few days. But he was content, getting to live in one of the trailers free and, of course, there were all those snakes he could play with. And snakes there were.
Like many snake nuts, he was not too good at keeping track of the critters. All of the cages in the building where open and Karloff was a little vague about how many had been occupied to begin with. They come and go. But out front was the kingdom of creepy crawlies. A pit, about thirty-feet across was full of rattlesnakes. Several hundred. They writhed and slithered and hissed in a giant ball that looked like squirming intestines. It took one of our cops, Ken Ferrell, several hours to shoot them all.
Karloff was mainly concerned that his friend, Clyde, would be well taken care of in his absence. And that we be careful when sniffing around the shed at the foot of a commercial radio tower on the back of the property. The owner of the snake farm still had some stuff stored there. We checked there first.
Opening the shed's door, we found it loaded with crates oozing a substance like honey. It was old dynamite, disintegrating, with the nitroglycerin dripping out. Dynamite in its most unstable form. Fortunately, there were no blasting caps or the radio waves could've blown Bonita Springs off the map. We called the ATF folks, immediately.
Now to Clyde. We presumed he was a pal of Karloff's. We moved to the trailer when Karloff told us Clyde was asleep there, in the bedroom. Entering quietly, we eased open the bedroom door. We could see a huge lump under the covers, and peeling them back found a 300 pound python. He was asleep, having just had a tasty snack, a cow, something small like that. Maybe a Volkswagen.
We had a problem. What to do with Clyde. We tried to find a zoo or someone who'd take him but no luck. And Ferrell was eyeing his gun again. Howsumever, the expeditious federal legal system saved him. Karloff'd been taken to Miami, had a hearing, his bosses posted his bail and he was back at the farm while we were still snake wrangling, collecting evidence from the lab, and helping ATF guys tip-toe around the dynamite.
Karloff went straight to the bedroom, and hugged and cuddled Clyde. Clyde opened a sleepy eye and, I swear, seemed to smile at his kookie keeper. And I got all teary-eyed, being a sucker for happy reunions.
The serpentarium, never anything but a third-rate sideshow, was just one house-size main building with a few trailers out back. We found the chemist, Karloff, busy at work in his makeshift lab. He was congenial enough but one of those "geniuses" who has all his furniture in one corner of the attic. Chemistry, a whiz. Remembering to eat, bathe, and sleep, dumb as dirt.
As an example, he told us he was being paid $125 a week. That for cranking out a hundred-thousand in dope every few days. But he was content, getting to live in one of the trailers free and, of course, there were all those snakes he could play with. And snakes there were.
Like many snake nuts, he was not too good at keeping track of the critters. All of the cages in the building where open and Karloff was a little vague about how many had been occupied to begin with. They come and go. But out front was the kingdom of creepy crawlies. A pit, about thirty-feet across was full of rattlesnakes. Several hundred. They writhed and slithered and hissed in a giant ball that looked like squirming intestines. It took one of our cops, Ken Ferrell, several hours to shoot them all.
Karloff was mainly concerned that his friend, Clyde, would be well taken care of in his absence. And that we be careful when sniffing around the shed at the foot of a commercial radio tower on the back of the property. The owner of the snake farm still had some stuff stored there. We checked there first.
Opening the shed's door, we found it loaded with crates oozing a substance like honey. It was old dynamite, disintegrating, with the nitroglycerin dripping out. Dynamite in its most unstable form. Fortunately, there were no blasting caps or the radio waves could've blown Bonita Springs off the map. We called the ATF folks, immediately.
Now to Clyde. We presumed he was a pal of Karloff's. We moved to the trailer when Karloff told us Clyde was asleep there, in the bedroom. Entering quietly, we eased open the bedroom door. We could see a huge lump under the covers, and peeling them back found a 300 pound python. He was asleep, having just had a tasty snack, a cow, something small like that. Maybe a Volkswagen.
We had a problem. What to do with Clyde. We tried to find a zoo or someone who'd take him but no luck. And Ferrell was eyeing his gun again. Howsumever, the expeditious federal legal system saved him. Karloff'd been taken to Miami, had a hearing, his bosses posted his bail and he was back at the farm while we were still snake wrangling, collecting evidence from the lab, and helping ATF guys tip-toe around the dynamite.
Karloff went straight to the bedroom, and hugged and cuddled Clyde. Clyde opened a sleepy eye and, I swear, seemed to smile at his kookie keeper. And I got all teary-eyed, being a sucker for happy reunions.
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