Carl Hiassen - Sick Puppy

"Willie, all I'm saying," Palmer Stoat continued, "is that the governor kept his end of the deal. He did right by you. Can't you help him out of this one lousy jam? These were circumstances beyond his control."

"Sorry, man."

"We can't pull this off without you."

"I'm aware of that." Willie Vasquez-Washington, drumming his fingernails on the oak. "Any other time. Palmer, but not now. I've been planning this vacation for years."

Which was a complete crock, Stoat knew. The junket was being paid for secretly by a big HMO as a show of gratitude to Willie Vasquez-Washington, whose timely intervention had aborted a potentially embarrassing investigation of certain questionable medical practices; to wit, the HMO encouraging its minimum-wage switchboard operators to make over-the-phone surgical decisions for critically ill patients. What a stroke of good fortune (Stoat reflected wryly) that Willie Vasquez-Washington played golf every Saturday with the State Insurance Commissioner.

"Willie, how's this? We fly you in for the Toad Island vote, then fly you straight back to Banff. We'll get a Lear."

Willie Vasquez-Washington eyed Stoat as if he were a worm on a Triscuit. "And you're supposed to be so damn sharp? Lemme spell it out for you, my brother: I cannot skip the special session and go skiing, like I want. Why? Because they would crucify my ass in the newspapers, on account of the newspapers have bought into the governor's bullshit. They think we're all headed back to the capital to vote more money for poor little schoolkids. Because, see, the papers don't know jack about your bridge scam. So I am one stuck-ass motherfucker, you follow?"

Now it was Willie Vasquez-Washington's turn to lower his voice. "I'm stuck, man. I gotta go to this session, which means no skiing, which means the wife and kids will be supremely hacked off, which means – sorry! – no new bridge for Honorable Dick and his friends."

Palmer Stoat calmly waved for another round. He handed a genuine Montecristo Especial No. 2 to Willie Vasquez-Washington, and lighted it for him. Stoat was mildly annoyed by this impasse, but not greatly worried. He was adept at smoothing over problems among self-important shitheads. Stoat hoped someday to be doing it full-time in Washington, D.C., where self-importance was the prevailing culture, but for now he was content to hone his skills in the swamp of teeming greed known as Florida. Access, influence, introductions – that's what all lobbyists peddled. But the best of them also were fast-thinking, resourceful and creative; crisis solvers. And Palmer Stoat regarded himself as one of the very best in the business. A virtuoso.

Shearwater! Jesus H. Christ, what a cluster fuck. It had cost him his wife and his dog and nearly his life, but he would not let it cost him his reputation as a fixer. No, this cursed deal would get done. The bridge would get funded. The cement trucks would roll and the high rises would rise and the golf courses would get sodded. The governor would be happy, Robert Clapley would be happy, everybody would be happy – even Willie Vasquez-Washington, the maggot. And afterward they would all say it never would have come together except for the wizardly lobbying of Palmer Stoat.

Who now whispered through a tingling blue haze to the vice chairman of the House Appropriations Committee: "He wants to talk to you, Willie."

"I thought that was your job."

"Face-to-face."

"What the hell for?"

"Dick's a people person," Stoat said.

"He's a damn Toyota salesman."

"He wants to make this up to you, Willie. He wants to know what he can do to make things right."

"Before the session starts, I bet."

Stoat nodded conspiratorially. "They'll be some money floating around next week. How's your district fixed for schools? You need another school?"

"Man. You serious?" Willie Vasquez-Washington laughed harshly. "Suburbs get all the new schools."

""Not necessarily," said Palmer Stoat. "There's state pie, federal matching, lottery spill. Listen, you think about it."

"I am not believin' this shit."

Stoat took out a fountain pen and wrote something in neat block letters on a paper cocktail napkin. He slid it down the bar to Willie Vasquez-Washington, who chuckled and rolled the cigar from one corner of his mouth to the other.

Then he said: "OK, OK, I'll meet with him. Where?"

"I've got an idea. You ever been on a real big-game safari?"

"Not since I took the bone out of my nose, you asshole."

"No, Willie, this you'll dig. Trust me." Stoat winked and signaled for the check.

Willie Vasquez-Washington's gaze once more fell upon the cocktail napkin, which he discreetly palmed and deposited in an ashtray. On the drive back to Miami, he thought about the words Palmer Stoat had written down, and envisioned them five feet high, chiseled into a marble facade.

WILLIE VASQUEZ-WASHINGTON

SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL

Asa Lando urged Durgess to check out the horn; the horn was first-rate. Durgess could not disagree. However ...

"This rhino is how old?" he asked.

"I don't honestly know," said Asa Lando. "They said nineteen."

"Yeah? Then I'm still in diapers."

It was the most ancient rhinoceros Durgess had ever seen; even older and more feeble than the one procured for Palmer Stoat. This one was heavier by at least five hundred pounds, which was but a small consolation to Durgess. The animal had come to the Wilderness Veldt Plantation from a wildlife theme park outside Buenos Aires. The park had "retired" the rhino because it was now sleeping, on average, twenty-one hours a day. Tourists assumed it was made from plaster of paris.

"You said money was no object."

Durgess raised a hand. "You're right. I won't even ask."

"His name's El Jefe." Asa Lando pronounced it "Jeffy," with a hard J.

"Why'd you tell me that?" Durgess snapped. "I don't wanna know his name." The guide slept better by pretending that the animals at Wilderness Veldt actually were wild, making the hunts less of a charade. But named quarry usually meant tamed quarry, and even Durgess could not delude himself into believing there was a shred of sport to the chase. It was no more suspenseful, or dangerous, than stalking a pet hamster.

"El Jeffy means 'the boss,' " Asa Lando elaborated, "in Spanish. They also had a name for him in American but I forgot what."

"Knock it off. Just knock it off."

Durgess leaned glumly against the gate of the rhino's stall in Quarantine One. The giant creature was on its knees, in a bed of straw, wheezing in a deep and potentially unwakable slumber. Its hide was splotched floridly with some exotic seeping strain of eczema. Bottleflies buzzed around its parchment-like ears, and its crusted eyelids were scrunched into slits.

Asa Lando said: "What'd ya expect, Durge? He's been locked in a box for five damn days."

With a mop handle Durgess gingerly prodded the narcoleptic pachyderm. Its crinkled gray skin twitched, but no cognitive response was evident.

"Besides," said Asa Lando, "you said it didn't matter, long as the horns was OK. Any rhinoceros I could find, is what you said."

Durgess cracked his knuckles. "I know, Asa. It ain't your fault."

"On short notice, you can't hope for much. Not with endangereds such as rhinos and elephants. You pretty much gotta take what's out there, Durge."

"It's awright." Durgess could see that El Jefe once had been a strapping specimen, well fed and well cared for. Now it was just old, impossibly old, and physically wasted from the long sweltering flight.

"Can he run," Durgess asked, "even a little bit?"

Asa Lando shook his head solemnly.

"Well, can he walk?'

"Now and again," said Asa Lando. "He walked outta the travel crate."

"Hooray."