Carl Hiaasen - Nature Girl

“A bear,” the investigator said. “Just so you know, I don’t do break-ins and I don’t do disguises. That means I’d have to figure out some other way to sneak a camera into her apartment.”

“Not necessarily,” Lily said. “This morning my husband informed me that his company is sending him to Florida to be treated for a rare condition called aphenphosmphobia.”

Dealey winced. “Holy crap. Is it fatal?”

“If only,” said Boyd Shreave’s wife. “It’s a fear of being touched. And as we both know from your excellent surveillance, my husband has no fear whatsoever of being touched. Or sucked, fucked and fondled, for that matter.”

“So he’s faking.”

“Here’s what else: Boyd was fired several days ago from the call center. He was out banging Ms. Fonda when his boss called to ask where to mail his final paycheck-minus the cost of some missing office supplies.”

Dealey said, “Mr. Shreave has no idea that you’re onto him?”

“No, it’s pathetic. I’ll give him as much rope as he needs to hang himself,” Lily said. “The only thing he’s not lying about is going to Florida. A friend of mine works at a travel agency-she went in the computer and found Boyd’s reservation on a flight to Tampa. Guess who’s got the seat beside him.”

“Where will the happy lovebirds be staying?”

“I haven’t a clue. But for ten grand I’ll bet you can find out.” Lily got up and headed for the door.

“Hold on,” Dealey said. “You expect me to do what exactly-hide in the closet of their motel room? This thing you’re asking for, Mrs. Shreave, would take some special planning. Not to mention luck.”

Lily told him to go rent some porn, if he needed tips on the camera work.

“But those are actors. They couldn’t care less if some stranger with a camcorder is crouched between their legs,” Dealey said.

“You’ll think of something.” Lily walked out of the office.

Dealey, who couldn’t recall accepting her offer, followed two steps behind. “It’s ten thousand plus expenses, right?”

“If you get me penetration, yes. Absolutely.”

“And what if I don’t?”

“Then all you get is a free trip to Florida,” said Boyd Shreave’s wife, “which isn’t such a bad deal, is it?”

Sammy Tigertail was doing fine until the girl named Gillian started messing with his guitar. That’s when he stripped a palmetto frond and wove the leaves into a twine rope and tied her wrists to her ankles. Oddly, she did not resist.

“You don’t dress like an Indian,” she remarked as he cinched the knots. “Those are pretty nice threads.”

“Haven’t you heard? We’re all richer than Trump now.” He resumed packing his belongings into the stolen canoe.

“I had a boyfriend who played in a rock group. He had a Gibson, too,” Gillian said, “only not as cool as yours. His band was called the Cankers. Mostly they did covers of Bizkit and Weezer. Know what else? He got his thingamajig pierced.”

“I’m warning you,” said the Seminole.

“His scrotum. They all did-it was the bass player’s idea.”

Sammy Tigertail crouched directly in front of her. “If you go on with this story,” he said, “I’ll leave you here for the buzzards.”

Gillian squirmed. “You don’t scare me,” she said, but dropped the subject of her ex-boyfriend’s pierced privates.

“So where are you taking me?”

Sammy Tigertail didn’t answer because he didn’t know. He gagged her mouth with a balled-up pair of athletic socks and carried her to the canoe, which was wedged in some mangroves. Then he picked up the rifle and jogged back across the island.

In the moon glow he saw that Gillian’s friends were sleeping where they’d dropped, not far from the wisping campfire. Sammy Tigertail raised the gun and fired a shot over the beach. Quickly he stepped back into the tree line. As soon as he heard voices, he fired twice more.

Now the college kids were all on their feet, yelling and scrambling for their belongings. A male voice called Gillian’s name, and soon others chimed in. The Seminole squeezed off another round and the kids fell silent as they clambered into the remaining canoes.

Sammy Tigertail waited until they were out of sight and he could no longer hear their frantic paddling. He walked to the water’s edge and stood there, listening to the waves and trying to decide what to do next. Gillian had screwed up the whole plan. Her friends would go back to Chokoloskee and tell everyone that a sniper had chased them off the island, and that Gillian was missing. Airplanes and helicopters would be sent to search for the tangerine-colored canoe, which-Sammy Tigertail realized glumly-would stand out like a burning flare on the tea-brown creeks.

He hurried back to where he’d left the girl. Somehow she had gotten out of the canoe but he found her nearby, grunting and thrashing among the mangroves. He lugged her to a small clearing, where he cut off the palmetto ropes and uncorked the socks from her mouth and cleaned the scratches on her shins and arms.

“Stop crying,” he said.

“You killed my friends! I heard the shots.”

“Your friends are fine. All I did was scare ’em away.”

“What about me?” Gillian wiped her eyes with a sleeve of the sweatshirt. “They just left me here to rot?”

“I spooked ’em off with the gunfire.”

“What about Ethan? That guy I was with? I bet he just ran and never looked back.”

Sammy Tigertail said, “You remind me of my last girlfriend.”

Gillian sniffled and smiled. “Yeah?”

“It’s not a compliment. Take off that goddamn sweatshirt.”

“No way. I’m cold.”

He opened his duffel and dug out a gray fleece pullover, which he tossed to her. Grudgingly she removed the FSU sweatshirt.

“Give it here,” Sammy Tigertail said.

“I don’t see why you’re so pissy. It’s just a name,” she said, zipping up the fleece, “like the Atlanta Braves.”

He unsheathed a Buck knife and shredded the sweatshirt. Gillian sat stunned.

“It’s not just a name,” said Sammy Tigertail. “Do you have any clue what your people did to my tribe?”

Gillian said, “Chill, okay?” She didn’t take her eyes off the knife. “It wasn’t my people. My people were up in Ohio.”

“Yeah, screwing the Shawnee and the Chippewa.” Sammy Tigertail was depressed to think that this bubblehead would soon be a schoolteacher. It affirmed his view that white people were devolving with each generation.

He sheathed the knife and told her to take a seat in the canoe. “We’re outta here,” he said.

“Can’t we wait until the sun comes up? What if we flip over in the water?” Gillian was slapping haplessly at a mosquito. “Ethan said there’s sharks all over the place. He’s majoring in marine biology. My girlfriend’s engaged to his roommate. Well, practically.”

“I’m gonna count to three.”

She frowned. “You want me to shut up, I’ll shut up.”

Sammy Tigertail knew it was foolish to bring her along. If she remained on the island, the marine patrol or the Coast Guard would find her within hours after her friends reported her missing. She’d be hungry and sunburned, but unharmed…

Unless the other kids got hung up on the way back to the mainland. In that case, it might be several days before Gillian was located. By then the insects would have made a wreck of her and she’d be dangerously dehydrated, not that Sammy Tigertail should have cared.

Yet he did care-not much, but enough to unsettle him. He felt corrupted by the sentiment, which he blamed on his polluted half-white blood.

Into the night he paddled as fast as he could, the canoe gliding in a wash of moonlight. It occurred to the Indian that since he had no idea where he was going, it was technically impossible to get lost. At daybreak he’d stop at the nearest island, conceal the canoe and construct a lean-to that would be invisible from the air.