Карл Хайасен - Squeeze Me

From down the hall came a muffled: “What’s goin’ on, Filly? I’m on the can.”

“Take your time, Boo,” Filomena called back, “and open the damn window.”

The detective said the Malibu had been discovered by a fisherman whose boat anchor snagged on the front bumper. In Florida, canals are the favored dumping choice for auto thieves; a tow company specializing in such retrievals had hauled out Filomena’s precious Margie.

“Take a look at this please,” the detective said. He showed her a picture of a scowling, narrow-eyed man in an orange jumpsuit.

“Who’s this?” she asked. “Is he the asshole stole my Malibu?”

“You don’t know him?”

“Hell, no.”

“His name’s Keever Bracco,” the detective said. “The diver who hooked the chains to your car found his body in the same area of the canal.”

“You mean dead?”

“Oh yes.”

To Filomena it made sense. “So this shithead, first he hotwired Margie, then he accidentally drove his sorry dumb ass into the water and drowned. Ten bucks says he was textin’ one of his punk peeps and not watchin’ the road.”

“That isn’t what happened. Mr. Bracco was strangled. Whoever did it sunk his body with barbells.”

“Sweet Leaping Jesus!”

“He’s a prime suspect in a murder on Palm Beach. The police all over the state have been hunting for him.”

Filomena was flabbergasted. A murderer?

The detective said, “Right now they’ve got nothing that connects Bracco to the theft of your car. It’s probably a coincidence his body ended up in the same canal. He’s a convicted felon, a dope dealer, and they make lots of enemies, Ms. Ricci. We’re just doing routine follow-up.”

Relieved, Filomena caught her breath and said, “Look, I never heard that man’s name and never seen him before in my life. Never! Swear on my stepdaddy’s grave.”

The detective seemed to believe her. He gave her the phone number for the impound lot, in case she wanted to sell the Malibu for scrap.

Filomena sagged cheerlessly on her crutches. “Man, I just put in some brand-new Alpine speakers I bought on eBay. What if, like, I took a hair dryer and worked on ’em real slow at high heat?”

The detective was genuinely sympathetic. “Alpines rock. That’s what I’ve got in my Mustang,” he said. “But they’re definitely not waterproof.”

“Listen, okay? Do me a favor. You ever find the bastard that did this to my Margie—”

“We’ll call you first thing, Ms. Ricci.”

—

Later that afternoon, Paul Ryskamp and the other senior agents gathered in front of the flat-screen in the secure briefing room to watch Mastodon conduct an impromptu press conference on the 18th green of a Maryland golf course that bore his name, though it was owned half by a Swiss bank and half by a cross-dressing Russian oligarch.

“Anyone see this coming?” Ryskamp asked.

“Hell, no,” was the consensus reply.

“So, who told him and why?”

“It was Barney Wittlefield.”

“That Dartmouth dipshit.”

“No, he’s Princeton. His sister was friends with the dead woman.”

“Small fucking world,” said Ryskamp.

Up on the TV screen, Mastodon was wearing a vast beet-colored golf shirt that hung on his upper frame like an Orkin termite tent. His long-billed cap had been yanked down tight to keep his hairpiece moored to its Velcro moonbase during gusts of wind. Facing a hastily assembled battery of cameras and bobbing microphones, he somberly announced that on the previous fairway he’d been briefed by the attorney general about a serious matter.

“As many of you know,” he said, “there was a horrible, horrible crime committed recently in Palm Beach, not far from the Winter White House. The victim was a fabulous woman, a dear close friend of mine, named Katherine Fitzsimmons. Fantastic people. Fantastic family.” Here he paused for a fake fond smile. “Those of us who knew Katherine best,” he added, “we called her Kikey Pew.”

Ryskamp put his hands to his ears. “Did he really just say Kikey Pew?”

“Not our problem,” cackled one of the other agents. “This is why his press secretary gets the big bucks. Shit, I’d rather piss off the Hell’s Angels than the Anti-Defamation League.”

Live from his golf links, Mastodon rambled on: “But today I’ve got some really, really terrific news. One of the thugs involved in this sick crime has been found. His name is Keefer or Keever Bracco, A.K.A. Prince Palindrome. They say he was a notorious drug dealer with a long rap sheet. Bad guy. Very bad guy. The worst. My people at the Justice Department tell me he was executed by his own partner to silence him about the abduction and murder of Mrs. Fitzsimmons.”

Please, somebody, shut him up, thought Ryskamp. The Palm Beach police must have given some version of the Bracco scenario to Barnette Wittlefield’s sister, who delivered it to her brother, who fed it to the President along with his predawn McMuffins.

“Today I’m happy to report,” Mastodon rumbled on, “that the magnificent people of Palm Beach are safe again. We now have the second murder suspect in custody. His name is Diego—we’ll get you the last name later, but the first name is definitely, one-thousand-percent Diego. Tragically, this predator entered our country illegally on the same night Mrs. Fitzsimmons disappeared, and not far from where she was last seen alive. He was captured later in a lightning sweep by our amazing border security forces. That’s when they found a jewel belonging to Kikey Pew in his possession, an incredibly rare gem. They tell me the island people call it a conch pearl.”

The President rhymed conch with “haunch.”

“It’s ‘conk,’ ” Ryskamp said under his breath, but no harm done—the “island people” would get a laugh out of it.

The agent was also relieved to have heard nothing in Mastodon’s announcement that threatened to complicate his own job. Even with the possible involvement of an illegal migrant, the murder of Katherine Fitzsimmons was strictly a local homicide case. The FBI or ICE might offer assistance, but there was no angle that would require the expertise of the Secret Service…

Until the President cocked his head, flared his nostrils, puffed his scrotal cheeks and declared:

“Unfortunately, the tragic death of Mrs. Fitzsimmons appears to be much more sinister than just the usual kidnapping and robbery. I’ve received some very disturbing information about Señor Diego, a very malo hombre who I’m told is from Honduras, a country infested with violent street gangs. But, folks, what happened in Palm Beach wasn’t an ordinary street crime. It seems Diego and his accomplice, the late Mr. Broccoli, might have targeted Mrs. Fitzsimmons not because she was rich, elderly and slow, but because she was a dear friend of mine and very active in a women’s political group that has proudly and loudly supported this presidency—especially my crusade to secure America’s borders. In other words, it’s very possible—and I say possible, because we’re not ready to release all the details—but let’s call it an extremely high probability that the brutal murder of Kikey Pew Fitzsimmons was an act of political terrorism aimed at me and my administration.”

Ryskamp stared numbly at the screen. He was the only one in his office who knew that Mrs. Fitzsimmons had actually been killed and eaten by a snake. The other agents offered their usual assessment of the President’s melodramatic performance.

“This is a show of the shit variety,” one remarked.

“He’s a pathogen,” sighed another.

Mastodon railed on a while longer, making air quotes with his stubby doll fingers whenever mentioning the name Diego, and thundering that this was exactly the bloodthirsty breed of invader that the White House had been warning the nation about.