Carl Hiassen - NativeTongue

The Talent Manager became angry. "Paul Revere and the Raiders isn't good enough for you?"

"Go away," said Carrie.

"And where's our lion?"

"The lion is taking the night off."

"No, missy," the Talent lady said, shaking a finger. "Thousands of people out there are waiting to see Princess Golden Sun ride a wild lion through the Everglades."

"The lion has a furball. Now get lost."

"At least put on the wig," the Talent lady pleaded. "There's no such thing as a blond Seminole. For the sake of authenticity, put on the damn wig!"

"Toodle-loo," said Carrie. And the float began to roll.

At first, Sergeant Mark Dyerson thought the telemetry was on the fritz again. How could the panther get back on the island? No signal had been received for days, then suddenly there it was, beep-beep-beep. Number 17. The sneaky bastard was at it again!

Sergeant Dyerson asked the pilot to keep circling beneath the clouds until he got a more precise fix on the transmitter. The greenish darkness of the hammocks and the ocean suddenly was splayed by a vast sparkling corridor of lights – the Amazing Kingdom of Thrills. The plane banked high over a confetti of humanity.

"Damn," said the ranger. Sharply he tapped the top of the radio receiver. "This can't be right. Fly me over again."

But the telemetry signals were identical on the second pass, and the third and the fourth. Sergeant Dyerson peered out the window of the Piper and thought, He's down there. He's inside the goddamn park!

The ranger told the pilot to call Naples. "I need some backup," he said, "and I need the guy with the dogs."

"Should I say which cat we're after?"

"No, don't," Sergeant Dyerson said. The top brass of the Game and Fish Department was tired of hearing about Number 17. "Tell them we've got a panther in trouble," said Sergeant Dyerson, "that's all you need to say."

The pilot reached for the radio. "What the hell's it doing in the middle of an amusement park?"

"Going crazy," said the ranger. "That's all I can figure."

The break-dancing migrant workers were a sensation with the crowd. Skink covered his face during most of the performance; it was one of the most tasteless spectacles he had ever seen. He asked Joe Winder if he wished to help with the gasoline.

"No, I'm waiting for Kingsbury."

"What for?"

"To resolve our differences as gentlemen. And possibly pound him into dog chow."

"Forget Kingsbury," Skink advised. "There's your girl."

Carrie's float appeared at the end of the promenade; a spotlight found her in a black sequined evening gown, posed among ersatz palms and synthetic cypress. She was perfectly dazzling, although the crowd reacted with confused and hesitant applause – they'd been expecting a scantily clad Indian princess astride a snarling wildcat.

Joe Winder tried to wave, but it hurt too much to raise his arms. Carrie didn't see him. She folded her hands across her midriff and began to sing:

"Vissi d'arte, vissi d'amore

Non fed nin male ad animal viva!

Con man furtiva

Quante miserie conobbi, aiutai...."

Winder was dazed, and he was not alone; a restless murmuring swept through the stands and rippled along the promenade.

"Magnificent!" Skink said. His good eye ablaze, he clutched Winder's shoulder: "Isn't she something!"

"What is that? What's she singing?"

Skink shook him with fierce exuberance. "My God, man, it's Puccini. It's Tosca!"

"I see." It was a new wrinkle: opera.

And Carrie sang beautifully; what her voice lacked in strength it made up in a flawless liquid clarity. The aria washed sorrowfully across the Amazing Kingdom and, like a chilly rain, changed the mood of the evening.

Skink put his mouth to Winder's ear and whispered: "This takes place in the second act, where Tosca has just seen her lover tortured by the ruthless police chief and sentenced to death by a firing squad. In her failed effort to save him, Tosca herself becomes a murderess. Her song is a lamentation on life's tragic ironies."

"I'd never have guessed," Winder said.

As the float passed the Magic Mansion, Carrie sang:

"Nell ora del dolore

Perche, perche, Signore,

Perche me ne rimuneri cost?"

Skink closed his eyes and swayed. "Ah, why, dear Lord," he said. "Ah, why do you reward your servant so?"

Winder said the audience seemed fidgety and disturbed.

"Disturbed?" Skink was indignant. "They ought to be distraught. Mournful. They ought to be weeping?

"They're only tourists," Joe Winder said. "They've been waiting all afternoon to see a lion."

"Cretins."

"Oh, she knew," Winder said fondly. "She knew they wouldn't like it one bit."

Skink grinned. "Bless her heart." He began to applaud rambunctiously, "Bravo! Bravo!" His clapping and shouting caught the attention of spectators in the lower rows, who looked up toward the VIP box with curious annoyance. Carrie spotted both of them in Kingsbury's booth, and waved anxiously. Then she gathered herself and, with a deep breath, began the first verse again.

"What a trouper." Joe Winder was very proud.

Skink straightened his rain cap and said, "Go get her."

"Now?"

"Right now. It's time." Skink reached out to shake Winder's hand. "You've got about an hour," he said.

Winder told him to be careful. "There's lots of kids out there."

"Don't you worry."

"What about Kingsbury?"

Skink said, "Without the park, he's finished."

"I intended to make him famous. You should've heard my plan."

"Some other time," Skink said. "Now go. And tell her how great she was. Tell her it was absolutely wonderful. Giacomo would've been proud."

"Arrivederci!" said Joe Winder.

From his third-floor office above Sally's Cimarron Saloon, Francis X. Kingsbury heard the parade go by. Only Princess Golden Sun's dolorous aria brought him to the window, where he parted the blinds to see what in the name of Jesus H. Christ had gone wrong. The disposition of the crowd had changed from festive to impatient. Unfuckingbelievable, thought Kingsbury. It's death, this music. And what's with the evening gown, the Kitty Carlisle number. Where's the buckskin bikini? Where's the tits and ass? The tourists looked ready to bolt.

Carrie hit the final note and held it – held it forever, it seemed to Kingsbury. The girl had great pipes, he had to admit, but it wasn't the time or place for Italian caterwauling. And God, this song, when would it end?

As the float trundled by, Kingsbury was surprised to see that Princess Golden Sun wasn't singing anymore; in fact, she was drinking from a can of root beer. Yet her final melancholy note still hung in the air!

Or was it something else now?

The fire alarm, for instance.

Kingsbury thought: Please, don't let it be. He tried to call Security but no one answered – that fucking Pedro, he should've been back from his errand hours ago.

Outside, the alarm had tripped a prerecorded message on the public-address system, urging everyone to depart the Amazing Kingdom in a calm and orderly fashion. When Kingsbury peeked out the window again, he saw customers streaming like ants for the exits; the performers and concessionaires ran, as well. Baldy the Eagle ripped off his wings and sprinted from the park at Olympic speed; the animal trainers fled together in a hijacked Cushman, but not before springing the hinge on the lion's cage and shooing the wobbly, tranquilized beast toward the woods.

Kingsbury ran, too. He ran in search of Pedro Luz, the only man who knew how to turn off the fire alarm. Golf spikes clacking on the concrete, Kingsbury jogged from the security office to King Arthur's Food Court to The Catacombs, where he found Spence Mooher limping in mopey addled circles, like a dog who'd been grazed by a speeding bus.