Carl Hiaasen - Hoot

From there he headed home, where his wife informed him that she would need the pickup truck, since her mother was taking the other car to the bingo hall. Curly didn't like anyone else driving his pickup, so he was sulking when his wife dropped him off at the trailer.

Before settling down in front of the television, Curly took out his gun and made a quick tour of the property. Nothing appeared to have been disturbed, including the survey stakes. He began to believe that his presence was indeed keeping intruders away from the construction site. Tonight would be the true test; without the pickup truck parked near the trailer, the place would appear deserted and inviting.

As he walked the fence line, Curly was pleased not to come across a single cottonmouth moccasin. That meant he could save his five remaining bullets for serious security threats, though he didn't want a repeat of the nerve-rattling fiasco with the field mouse.

Determined to discourage uninvited rodents, Curly carefully baited the rattraps with peanut butter and placed them at strategic locations along the outside walls of the trailer.

Around five o'clock, he nuked a frozen dinner and popped the movie into the VCR. The turkey potpie wasn't half bad, and the cherry strudel turned out to be surprisingly tasty. Curly didn't leave a crumb.

Unfortunately, the movie was a disappointment. It was called The Last House on Witch Boulevard III, and one of the co-stars was none other than Kimberly Lou Dixon.

A clerk at the Blockbuster had helped Curly find the film, which had been released several years earlier, before Kimberly Lou Dixon signed on for the Mother Paula TV commercials. Curly guessed it was her very first Hollywood role after retiring from beauty pageants.

In the movie, Kimberly Lou played a pretty college cheerleader who got hexed into a witch and started boiling the star football players in a basement cauldron. Her hair was dyed fiery red for the part, and she wore a fake nose with a rubber wart on the tip of it.

The acting was pretty lame and the special effects were cheesy, so Curly fast-forwarded to the end of the tape. In the final scene, the hunk college quarterback escaped from the cauldron and threw some sort of magic dust on Kimberly Lou Dixon, who turned from a witch back into a pretty cheerleader before collapsing in his arms. Then, as the quarterback was about to kiss her, she morphed into a dead iguana.

Curly turned off the VCR in disgust. He decided that if he ever got to meet Kimberly Lou Dixon in person, he wouldn't mention The Last House on Witch Boulevard III.

He switched to cable and found a golf tournament, which made him drowsy. First prize was a million dollars and a new Buick, but Curly still couldn't keep his eyes open.

When he awoke, it was dark outside. A noise had startled him from his nap, but he wasn't sure what it was. Suddenly he heard it again: SNAP!

Instantly a cry rang out-possibly human, but Curly wasn't sure. He muted the TV and grabbed for his gun.

Something-an arm? a fist?-thumped against the aluminum side of the trailer. Then came another SNAP, punctuated by a muffled profanity.

Curly crept to the door and waited. His heart was thumping so hard, he was afraid the intruder might hear it.

As soon as the doorknob began to jiggle, Curly went into action. He lowered a shoulder, let out a Marine-style roar, and crashed out of the trailer, snapping the door off its hinges.

The intruder let out a cry as he hit the ground in a heap. Curly pinned him there with a heavy boot on the midsection.

"Don't move!"

"I won't! I won't! I won't!"

Curly lowered the gun barrel. By the light from the trailer, he could see that the burglar was just a kid-a large, lumpy kid. He had accidentally stumbled upon the rattraps, two of which were attached crookedly to his sneakers.

That has to hurt, Curly thought.

"Don't shoot me! Don't shoot me!" the kid cried.

"Aw, shut up." Curly stuck the.38 in his belt. "What's your name, son?"

"Roy. Roy Eberhardt."

"Well, you're in deep doo-doo, Roy."

"Sorry, man. Please don't call the cops. 'Kay?"

The boy began to wiggle, so Curly pressed down harder with his boot. Looking across the lot, he noticed that the padlock on the gate had been broken with a heavy chunk of cinderblock.

"You must've thought you was pretty slick," he said, "sneakin' in and outta here whenever you pleased. You and your smart-ass sense of humor."

The boy raised his head. "What're you talkin' about?"

"Don't play dumb, Roy. You're the one yanked out all the survey stakes, and put them gators in the port-o-johnnies-"

"What! You're crazy, man."

"-and painted the cop car. No wonder you don't want me callin' the police." Curly leaned closer. "What's your problem, boy? You got a gripe with Mother Paula's? To be honest, you look like a kid that enjoys a good pancake."

"I do! I love pancakes!"

"Then what's the deal?" Curly said. "Why you doin' all this stuff?"

"But I never even been here before!"

Curly removed his foot from the kid's belly. "Come on, kid. Get up."

The boy took his hand, but instead of letting Curly pull him to his feet, he yanked Curly to the ground. Curly managed to get one arm around the boy's neck, but he twisted free and hurled a handful of dirt into Curly's face.

Just like in that stupid movie, Curly thought as he clawed miserably at his eyes, except I'm not turning into a cheerleader.

He cleared the crud from his vision just in time to see the boy run off, the rattraps clattering like castanets on the toes of his shoes. Curly attempted to give chase but he made it only about five steps before tripping in an owl hole and falling flat.

"I'll get you, Roy!" he hollered into the darkness. "You're outta luck, mister!"

Officer David Delinko had Saturday off, which was fine. It had been a hectic week, culminating in that weird scene at the emergency room.

The missing dog-bite victim still had not been found or identified, though Officer Delinko now had a green shirt to match the torn sleeve he'd found on the fence at the Mother Paula's construction site. The boy who'd fled from the hospital must have left the shirt on the antenna of Officer Delinko's squad car, obviously as some sort of joke.

Officer Delinko was tired of being the butt of such jokes, though he was grateful for the fresh clue. It suggested that the emergency-room runaway was one of the Mother Paula's vandals, and that young Roy Eberhardt knew more about the case than he was admitting. Officer Delinko figured that Roy's father would get to the bottom of the mystery, given his special background in interrogations.

The policeman spent the afternoon watching baseball on television, but both Florida teams got creamed-the Devil Rays lost by five, the Marlins by seven. Around dinnertime he opened his refrigerator and discovered there was nothing to eat but three individually wrapped slices of Kraft processed cheese.

Immediately he embarked on a trip to the minimart for a frozen pizza. As was his new routine, Officer Delinko made a detour toward the Mother Paula's property. He still hoped to catch the vandals, whoever they were, in the act. If that happened, the captain and the sergeant would have little choice but to take him off desk duty and put him back on patrol again-with a glowing commendation for his file.

Turning his squad car onto East Oriole, Officer Delinko wondered if the trained Rottweilers were guarding the pancake-house site tonight. In that event, it would be pointless for him to stop; nobody would mess with those crazed dogs.

In the distance, a bulky figure appeared in the middle of the road. It was advancing in an odd halting gait. Officer Delinko braked the Crown Victoria and peered warily through the windshield.