Carl Hiassen - Sick Puppy

Yet Clapley was wide-awake, skull abuzz, when the phone rang. All night long he'd been trying to contact Palmer Stoat, as the Barbies were on a bimbo rampage for more rhinoceros powder. Clapley had returned from Tampa and found them locked in the bathroom, a boom box blasting fusion dance music from behind the door. An hour later the two women emerged arm in arm, giggling. Katya's hair was tinted electric-pink to match her tube top, and from the sun-bronzed cleft between her breasts arose an ornate henna fer-de-lance, fangs bared and dripping venom. By contrast, Tish had dressed up as a man, complete with a costume mustache, in Clapley's favorite charcoal gray Armani.

He was struck helpless with horror. The women looked vulgar and deviant – anti-Barbies! They announced they were going to a strip club near the airport for amateur night. First prize: a thousand bucks.

"I'll give you two thousand," Clapley pleaded, "to stay home with me."

"You got horn?" Katya, with a cruel wink. "No? Then we go score some." And merrily they had breezed out the door.

On the telephone, the banker from Geneva was saying: "Ze bridge, Mr. Clapley, vot hippen?"

And over and over Robert Clapley tried to make the stubborn blockhead understand there was no cause for alarm. Honest. Trust me. The governor's a close personal friend. The veto was nothing but a sly deception. The new bridge is good to go. Shearwater Island is a done fucking deal.

"So relax, Rolf, for God's sake." Clapley was fuming. He'd answered the phone only because he thought it might be that fuckweasel Stoat, finally returning his calls, or possibly the Palm Beach County vice squad, with precious Katya and Tish in custody ...

"But ze newspaper said – "

"I told you, Rolf, it's just politics. Jerkwater Florida politics, that's all."

"Yes, but you see, Mr. Clapley, with a line of credit as large as vot ve extended to you – "

"Yeah, I know what you ex-shtended – "

"Von hundred ten million, U.S."

"I'm keenly aware of the amount, Rolf."

"News such as this vood naturally cause some concern. It is understandable, no? Given our exposure."

"Sure. So let me say it one more time. And feel free to pass this along to all your associates at the bank: There's nothing to worry about, OK? Now you say it."

From the other end: "Vot?"

"Your turn," said Robert Clapley. "Repeat after me: THERE IS NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT. Come on, Rolf, let me hear you."

The problem was: Clapley was unaccustomed to dealing with bankers. He was used to dealing with dopers – criminals, to be sure, but far more flexible and pragmatic when something went wrong. The average drug smuggler lived in a world crawling with fuck-offs, deadbeats and screwups; not a day of his life unfolded exactly as planned. He transacted narcotics, guns and cash, routinely taking insane risks that young Rolf in Geneva could not possibly fathom. Exposure? thought Robert Clapley. This cheesebrain doesn't know the meaning of the word.

"Oh, Rolf?"

"Dere is nutting to vorry bout."

"Thattaboy," said Clapley.

He had resorted to Swiss bankers only because the Shearwater project had become too big for dope money – or at least Robert Clapley's kind of dope money. Oh, Toad Island he'd bought up all by himself, no sweat. However, more serious dough was needed to clear the place and remake it into a world-class golf and leisure community. Clapley's only other project, a seventeen-story apartment tower off Brickell Avenue in Miami, had been financed entirely with marijuana and cocaine profits, which Clapley had washed and loaned to himself through a phony Dutch holding company. He would have loved to work the same scam with Shearwater Island but he didn't have $100-odd million in loose cash lying around, and the only people who did were people who didn't need Robert Clapley to invest it for them: seasoned Colombian money launderers who favored commercial real estate over residential.

So Clapley had gone looking for his first-ever legitimate partners and wound up with the Swiss bankers, who had been so impressed by the balance sheet on the Brickell Avenue tower that they'd offered him a generous line of credit for developing and marketing his scenic island getaway on Florida's Gulf Coast. Afterward, the bankers mostly had left Clapley alone – so much so that he'd been lulled into complacency.

Because, obviously, they'd been keeping a cold blue Aryan eye on his ass. How else would they have found out that Dick Artemus had vetoed the damn Shearwater bridge?

Still, Clapley sensed that young Rolf was uncomfortable in the role of edgy inquisitor, that he wanted very much to be stoic and unflappable in the Swiss banker tradition ...

"Surely this sort of minor snafu has come up before."

Rolf said, "Yah, shore. Snafus all ze time."

"So there's no cause to get all hot and bothered," said Clapley. "And Rolf?"

"Yah."

"Next time, don't call at such a wicked hour. I've got ladies here."

"Oh."

"That's ladies, plural." Clapley, with a suggestive chuckle.

"Again, sir, my apologies. But ve can hope for no more surprises? That vood be good."

"Oh, that vood be vunderful," chided Robert Clapley, perceiving starch in the young banker's tone, and not liking it. "Now it's time to say good-bye. Somebody's knocking at the door."

"Ah. Perhaps one of your ladies plural."

"Good night, again, Rolf."

Clapley put on a silk robe that almost matched his pajamas. He hurried to the peephole and let out a burble of glee. Palmer Stoat!

Clapley snatched open the door. "You got my rhino dust!"

"No, Bob. Something better."

As Stoat walked past him, Clapley inhaled a foul wave of heat, halitosis and perspiration. The lobbyist looked awful; blotchy and damp-skinned, a nasty purple bruise shining on his head.

"It's about Toad Island," he said, trudging uninvited toward the kitchen. "Where are the future twins?"

"Mass," said Clapley.

"What for – to show off their kneeling?" Stoat was wheezing as if he'd walked all sixteen flights. "By the way, I lined up your cheetah hunt."

"Swell. But what I need right now, more than oxygen, is the horn off a dead rhinoceros."

Palmer Stoat waved a sticky-looking palm. "It's in the works, Bob. On my mother's grave. But that's not what I came here to tell you." He removed a carton of orange juice from the refrigerator and a bottle of Absolut from the liquor cabinet. He fixed himself an extremely tall screwdriver and told Robert Clapley all that had happened to him in the clutches of the maniac dognapper.

"Plus, now he's brainwashed my wife. So here's what I did, Bob. Here's your big news. I advised this fucker – whose name is Twilly, by the way – I told him to keep Desie, keep the damn dog and quit wasting our time. The bridge is going up, I told him. Toad Island's history. So fuck off!" Palmer Stoat smacked his liver-colored lips and smiled.

Clapley shrugged. "That's it?"

Stoat's piggy wet eyes narrowed. "Yes, Bob, and that's plenty. No more extortion. The guy's got nothing I care about. He can't stop us and he can't hurt us."

"You're only half-right," said Clapley, "as usual."

"No, Bob. He's pathetic."

"Really."

"He doesn't matter anymore." Palmer Stoat made this a pronouncement. "He's a gnat. He's a no-place man."

"That's 'nowhere man.' "

"What can he do to us now? What's he got left?" Stoat gave a sickly grin. "He shot his wad, Bob."

Robert Clapley was thinking how unwell Stoat looked. He was reminded of the day Stoat almost swallowed the baby rat.

"So what're you saying, Palmer?"

"Onward and upward is what I'm saying." Stoat tipped another shot of vodka into his drink. "From now on, it's full speed ahead. You build your bridge and dig those pretty golf courses – me, I'm getting a divorce and a new dog."