Randy White - Night Vision

When he was close enough, Squires said to him, “Look, I don’t want any more trouble here. You play nice, I’ll play nice. How’s that sound to you?”

A confused expression appeared on the hippie’s face as he replied, “If that’s supposed to mean something, man, I don’t follow. What the hell you talking about?”

Squires told him, “I’m willing to cooperate,” his voice low now. “I know who you are. I think I know why you’re here. I’ll help set the bust up, if that’s the way you want to play it. You think those cops wouldn’t like to take down a major supplier? Hell yes, they would. One word from me, it could happen.”

Squires was thinking of giving the feds Laziro Victorino, the gangbanger who sold dope on the side, which seemed like a smart way to kill two birds with one stone. Plus, the V-man had shot those snuff films, too, which was a hell of a lot bigger deal than busting a small steroids operation like his.

Maybe the hippie would admit he was DEA, maybe he wouldn’t. Squires was watching the man’s reaction to see.

The expression on the hippie’s face changed from confusion to mild concern. “Who’ve you been talking to? Did you bully your tenants into giving information about me? Turned them into narcs?”

When Squires didn’t answer immediately, the hippie almost lost it. “That sucks, man! It really sucks. There’s nothing lower than a damn narc, in my opinion. These people come here with zero money, they need to make a buck, so what’s it matter to you? That’s really small-time bullshit-and I just helped save your ass. You could be dying right now! Getting your bad-karma ticket punched for hell. Instead, you’re threatening me!”

It took Squires a moment to realize what the hippie was saying. He put the words together with all those crisp twenties in the hippie’s billfold and started smiling. Squires couldn’t help himself. The damn hippie didn’t work for the DEA. The dude was worried about getting busted himself!

Suddenly, Squires felt back in control. Well… sort of. He still had his girlfriend, Frankie, to worry about, and that gangbanger Victorino. The V-man was scary, but Frankie scared him more. There was no telling the amount of crap the woman would dump on him once she’d heard the cops had been snooping around the lake.

The lake. What lay on the bottom of that lake was Squires’s biggest worry. It caused him to look toward the water, where the mangrove trees looked yellow in the bright ambulance lights, the water black as asphalt. What if they wanted to recover the alligator’s body and decided to drag the pond?

Squires’s smile faded for an instant but then returned. Nope, they wouldn’t need to drag the pond. Because now Squires noticed two cops, one of them lying on the bank, trying to get a rope around something that Squires realized was the gator’s tail.

Good! Fifi was dead-the fat pig deserved it, after attacking him. Shit, after all the times he’d fed her chunks of pig, once a whole yearling deer? And then the animal turns on him!

The scientist probably couldn’t shoot worth a shit, but he’d finally gotten lucky with his little lady’s pistol. True, Squires had been counting on the gator to get rid of the dead girl’s body, and maybe Fifi already had, which struck him as an encouraging possibility.

At first it did, anyway-until he thought it through.

What if the cops took the gator to the Wildlife people? What if the Wildlife cops opened Fifi’s belly to have a look?

Damn it!

Squires hadn’t thought of that and he felt sick again. What if the gator had eaten the Mexican girl’s body? Or even a few pieces? The cops would come storming back here with search warrants and handcuffs, and that would be the end of him.

Jesus Christ, he couldn’t let that happen. Not with the Bible-freak girl still around to testify that she’d seen him drag that heavy sack to the water. If it wasn’t for her, it would be easy enough to play dumb and let the cops blame the V-man. Or any one of the hundreds of other drunken Mexicans who lived in the area. That would be the natural direction to go. Wetbacks killed wettails, right? It happened all the time.

Squires took a look around. The girl had disappeared. Where? She had been kneeling by Carlson. Didn’t seem the least bit concerned that the cops could ask for her ID, find out she was an illegal and take her skinny ass into custody. Not just illegal but underage at that, which meant she’d probably end up in some state orphanage.

Stupid little Mexican.

Squires felt pressure building in his head again as he fumed about the girl, a nobody wettail who could have him jailed if she decided, maybe even send him to the electric chair. It made him furious to think that one little Mexican had so much power over him.

Squires became even more determined to fulfill his fantasy…

A voice interrupted. “Why were you staring at that child? What’s going on in the twisted brain of yours?”

Squires realized the hippie was talking to him. He turned, surprised, and a little pissed off. He studied the hippie, seeing the seriousness in the guy’s Jesus-looking eyes, also seeing how scrawny the dude was, easy enough to snap the man’s body in two if he wanted.

“She’s a chick, not a child, you dumbass,” Squires said to him, and then enjoyed the guy’s reaction.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” the hippie said, but in a sort of testing way.

“Bullshit, I don’t. You ever seen a boy with pretty little knockers so firm they could poke your damn eye out?”

The hippie took a step toward him. “Why would you even say something so disgusting?”

Squires was loving the look of outrage. “Because it’s true,” he told the guy. “Tonight, that little girl and me had a nice conversation while she was in the trailer taking herself a bath. That’s some tight little ass she’s got for a wettail that young.”

The hippie said, “Wettail?” then started walking toward Squires, the dude’s eyes a little crazy. “You lay a hand on that girl, I’ll see you in prison. You stay away from her or I’ll…”

“Or you’ll what? Try and scratch my eyes out?” Squires used a Screw you smile to make the guy madder, hoping the dude would take a swing at him while there were plenty of witnesses right there watching.

“Have an illegal Mexican girl squeal to the cops?”

The look of frustration on the hippie’s face was an awesome thing to see. “Go ahead, tell the cops I was watching the girl take a bath. Let’s see how long it takes for them to ship your little pal’s ass back to shithole Mexico.”

Squires flipped his middle finger at the dude, turned and made a quick trip to his double-wide, where he hid the cash he had stolen from the hippie and the hippie’s asshole friend.

He stuck the money under the false bottom of a drawer, with stacks of twenties, fifties and hundreds he and Frankie had amassed from selling Gator Juice. Probably more than fifty thousand there.

Frankie would know the exact amount. Harris Squires seldom had the patience to count it.

An hour later, with all the lights and cameras and Florida Wildlife vehicles arriving, Harris was thinking that killing an alligator was a bigger deal than killing a person.

He had overheard one of the cops telling a reporter that unless it was a life-or-death situation, harming or harassing a gator could mean a year in jail and up to a four-thousand-dollar fine.

Good. He hoped they took Ford away in handcuffs.

It didn’t look like it was going to happen, though, the way the cops had been treating the bastard. They’d hauled the drunk, Carlson, away in an ambulance, but not before Carlson had told them that Ford and the hippie had saved his life. Carlson was probably the only witness the nerd needed, but the little Bible-freak girl had seen the whole thing, too. Not that she’d stuck around long after the ambulance left.