Carl Hiassen - Sick Puppy

"You don't hear from me in eight, don't even bother."

Skink gave a thumbs-up. Then he turned and began to run across the windblown dunes. It was a meandering, waggle-stepped, butt-wiggling run, and Jim Tile couldn't help but laugh.

He watched his friend disappear into the hazy yellow-gray of the storm. Then he wheeled the car around and headed for the mainland.

caller: Help me! Help me, God, please, oh God, help ...

dispatcher: What's the problem, sir?

caller: She set fire to my hair! I'm burning up, oh God, please!

dispatcher: Hang on, sir, we've got a truck on the way. We've got help coming. Can you make it to the bathroom? Try to get to the bathroom and turn on the shower.

caller: I can't., I can't move ... She tied me to the damn bed. She ... I'm tied to the bed with, like – oh Jesus, my hair! – clothesline. Aaaggggghhhooooohhhh ...

dispatcher: Can you roll over? Sir, can you turn over?

caller: Cindy, no! Cindy, don't! CINDY!

dispatcher: Sir, if you're tied to the bed, then how –

caller: She held the phone to my ear, the sick bitch. She dialed 911 and put the phone to my ear and now ... ooohh-hhhhh ... Stop! ... Now she's doing marshmallows. My hair's on fire and she's cooking ... Stop, God, stop, I'm burning up, Cindy! ... Marsh – oh Jesus! – mallows ... Cindy, you crazy psycho bitch ...

Mr. Gash turned down the volume and said, "See? That's what love gets you. Man's wife ties him to the bedposts, pretending like she's gonna screw his brains out. Instead she puts a lighter to his hair and roasts marsh-mallows in the flames."

Desie said, "That was real?"

"Oh yes, Virginia." Mr. Gash popped the tape out of the console, and read from the stick-on label. "Tacoma, Washington. March tenth, 1994. Victim's name was Appleman. Junior Appleman."

"Did he die?"

"Eventually," Mr. Gash reported. "Took about six weeks. According to the newspaper, the Applemans had been having serious domestic problems. The best part: He lied to the dispatcher. It wasn't clothesline she tied him up with, it was panty hose. He was too embarrassed to say so. Even on fire! But my point is, romance is fucking deadly. Look at you two!"

Twilly and Desie traded glances.

"You wouldn't be here right now, about to die," Mr. Gash added, "if you guys hadn't gotten romantically involved. I'd bet the farm on it."

They were all in the station wagon, parked among the bulldozers in the woods. Desie recognized the place from Dr. Brinkman's tour of the island. Night had fallen, and the rain had ebbed to a drizzle. The only light inside the car came from the dome lamp, which Mr. Gash had illuminated while playing the 911 cassette for his captives. He was next to Twilly Spree in the front seat. Desie sat behind them with McGuinn, who noisily had buried his snout in a sack of dry dog food and was therefore heedless of the semiautomatic pointed at his head.

Mr. Gash said to Desie, "What's your name, babe?"

"Never mind."

Mr. Gash held the gun in his right hand, propped against the headrest. With his other hand he pawed through Desie's purse until he found her driver's license. When he saw the name on it, he said, "Shit."

Desie shrunk in her seat.

"Nobody told me. I wonder why," Mr. Gash mused. "They told me about the dog but not the wife!"

Twilly said, "Her husband didn't know."

"Didn't care is more like it."

"You're making a mistake," said Twilly. Of course the man in the brown zippered shoes ignored him.

"Well, 'Mrs. Stoat,' I had big plans for tonight. I was going to drive you back to the mainland and hook up with a couple party girls. Introduce you to the wonderful world of multiple sex partners." Mr. Gash was studying Desie's photograph on the license. "I like the highlighting job on these bangs. It's a good look for you."

Desie resisted the impulse to comment upon the killer's platinum-tinted eyebrows.

"How exactly do you pronounce your name?" Mr. Gash asked. "Dez-eye-rotta? Is that close?"

" 'Desie' is fine."

"Like the Cuban guy on the old Lucy show."

"Close enough."

"Take off your earrings," Mr. Gash told her. "I've got a friend in Miami, an Italian girl, she'll look wicked hot in those. Almost as hot as you."

Desie removed the pearl studs and handed them over.

Mr. Gash said, "You're way too pretty for that crybaby porker of a husband. And since I haven't been laid in six days, I say what the hell. I say go for it."

Twilly tensed. "Don't be an idiot. Clapley isn't paying you to molest the wives of his friends."

"Friend? According to Mr. Clapley, Stoat's nothing – and I quote – but a 'turd fondler.' Besides," said Mr. Gash, "my job is cleaning out the troublemakers. And, Mrs. Stoat, sleeping with a troublemaker makes you a troublemaker, too."

Desie pretended to stare out the fogged-up windows. A tear crawled down one cheek.

"The way I see it," Mr. Gash went on, "is a murder-suicide. The young hothead boyfriend. The married woman who refuses to leave her rich husband. The lovers argue. Boyfriend goes postal. Whacks the broad, whacks the puppy dog, and then finally he whacks himself. Of course, they find the weapon" – Mr. Gash, nodding at his own – "at the scene."

Twilly said, "Not very original."

"The murdered dog makes it different. That's what the cops'll be talking about," said Mr. Gash. " 'What kind of creep would hurt an innocent dog?' Speaking of which, before I shoot you I've gotta ask: Where'd you get that damn ear, the one you sent to Stoat? Jesus, was he freaked!"

Twilly shifted slightly in the driver's seat. He braced his back against the door and casually took his right arm off the steering wheel.

"You really collect those horrible tapes?" Desie's voice was like acid.

"By the trunkload." Mr. Gash flashed a savage smile.

For a few moments, a chorus of ragged breathing was the only sound in the car; all three humans, including Mr. Gash, were on edge. Twilly glanced over the seat to check on McGuinn, who had finished off the dog food and was now mouthing the paper sack. The Lab wore an all-too-familiar expression of postprandial contentment.

God, Twilly thought, please don't let him fart. This psycho punk would shoot him in a heartbeat.

Mr. Gash was saying, "Whoever finds your bodies, the first thing they'll do is call 911. You could be nothing but skeletons and still they'll call emergency." Mr. Gash paused to relish the irony. "Know what I'm going to do, Mrs. Stoat? I'm going to get the tape of that phone call, as a remembrance of our one and only night together. What do you think of that?"

"I think you're a monster."

" 'Possible human remains.' That's what the cops call those cases."

Desie Stoat said, "Please don't shoot my dog."

"You crack me up," said Mr. Gash.

"I'll do anything you want. Anything."

Desie sat forward and pinched the damp sleeve of Mr. Gash's houndstooth coat.

"Anything, Mrs. Stoat? Because I've got a very active imagination."

"Yes, we can tell by your wardrobe," said Twilly. He drew his right hand into a fist, mentally calibrating the distance to Mr. Gash's chin.

Desie was saying, "Please. There's no need to do that."

Mr. Gash shrugged. "Sorry, babe. The mutt dies first."

"Then I hope you're into necrophilia," she told him, trembling, "because if you shoot McGuinn, you're in for the worst sex of your whole life. That's a promise."

Mr. Gash pursed his waxy-looking lips and grew pensive. Twilly could tell that Desie's threat had hit home; the killer's kinky fantasies were in ruins.

Finally he said, "OK, I'll let him go."

Desie frowned. "Here? You can't just let him go."

"Why the hell not."

Twilly said, "He's been sick. He's on medicine."

"Better sick than dead."