Карл Хайасен - Squeeze Me

Ryskamp’s smile wasn’t quite the same as before. “I’m not mad, Angie. But if you’re here to discuss the subject we’ve already exhausted, then Agent Frey will be taking you back downstairs.”

She said, “Don’t worry, I’m not here about Beltrán. This is personal.”

“Have a seat.”

“Man, when you hit the Off switch, you hit it hard.”

“So, what’s up?”

Angie told him about Pruitt’s phone calls to Joel. “Supposedly he moved out of the county and vanished. I need some help, Paul.”

“He doesn’t sound smart enough to vanish.”

“Even if he did, you people can find anybody . That’s your thing. Some meth-head living under a bridge says he’s gonna pop the President, you guys have the crazy fool locked up by the end of the week.”

“Sometimes,” said Ryskamp.

“Pruitt might be in Iceland for all I know, but he’s still gotta pay rent and utilities, or at least have a credit card. For sure his name and address are in a database somewhere.”

“Has he ever done anything worse than make phone calls?”

“Look, he’s threatening my stepson and his girlfriend. I can’t take a chance that he hasn’t suddenly stripped his gears.”

“Say I was able to locate him. Tell me what you’d do with the information, Angie.”

“Notify the authorities that have legal jurisdiction?”

“Give me an effing break.”

“Paul, I promise not to feed any other part of his anatomy to a gator.”

“Honestly? I don’t give a shit if you do, as long as the trail doesn’t lead back to me. Let me see what I can dig up.”

“For real? You’re gonna help me out?”

Ryskamp said, “Go home and do some laundry.”

Angie glanced down, frowning at the stain on her shirt. “It’s just bunny pee. Want to meet up later for a drink?”

“Sorry, I’m working. The President’s in town.”

“No offense, but what are you trying to pull off with this Parrothead look?”

Ryskamp laughed. “Carefree island dude who doesn’t get noticed.”

“Then you need to gain about twenty pounds.”

“Uh, okay.”

“That’s a compliment, sir. Means you’re too cut to be wearing a baggy shirt covered with palm trees.”

As he walked her to the elevator, Angie asked, “Are you and I done, Paul? Date-wise, I mean.”

“I believe so.”

“God, was my Diego plan really so terrible? Before all that, things were going peachy. You even told me I was great in bed. Not just great—amazing.”

“Sssshh,” he said.

“My new plan is cleaner. You don’t have to be involved in any way.”

“We’re on camera,” he whispered without moving his mouth. “And our people can read lips.”

“Uh-oh,” Angie murmured.

As the elevator doors opened, she shook Paul’s hand and said in a clear firm voice, “I appreciate you taking the time to meet me with me, Agent Ryskamp.”

“You’re welcome, Ms. Armstrong. Thank you for dropping by.”

—

They turned up her Pandora playlist to cover their voices, and they held each other for a long time in the darkness. Mockingbird kept telling him everything would turn out all right, and Keith Josephson kept saying no, it wouldn’t.

“Some of the people who work here know about us,” he said. “They’re talking.”

“Cheap gossip, Keith, that’s all. Nobody can prove a thing.” She didn’t tell him about Fay Alex Riptoad’s loaded remark at the Potussies photo session.

“The agency’s sending me back to D.C.”

“Not happening,” said Mockingbird.

“A special agent named Jennifer Rose will be replacing me on your detail.”

“ Definitely not happening.”

Keith said, “The last thing you need is a public scandal.”

“I told you, hon. My husband’s people would do everything and anything in their power to cover this up. And it’s my word against whose? Some nosy busboy from Belgrade?”

“If I don’t go back to Washington, I’m done.” Keith sounded frayed and desolate.

Mockingbird said, “You don’t get it. The Secret Service won’t do anything the White House tells them not to.”

“You’re wrong. And even if for some reason they agreed to leave me where I am, my career’s basically over. Besides, your husband won’t want me around, especially if he finds out what I am.”

“Oh great. Let me guess: You’re a spy.”

“Worse, actually in his eyes.” Keith confided to Mockingbird that his real name was Ahmet Youssef, and explained why it had been changed. “I agreed to do it only because they said they needed me on this detail. Don’t cry.”

“Shit, Keith, ” she said, wiping her eyes with the corner of a pillowcase.

“This is all on me. I should’ve been…I don’t know. Stronger.”

“Meaning you should have said no when I hit on you. Right?”

He walked over to the window. “I’m on a flight out of Lauderdale tomorrow night.”

“You could quit and go to work for Black Eagle.” Mockingbird was talking about a private security contractor with which the administration had unsavory ties. “I could set it up with one phone call,” she said, then quickly added: “Never mind. That won’t work.”

“No, ma’am.”

Both of them knew their affair couldn’t survive if he left the agency. They would never get to see each other.

“I should head back to the hotel now,” he said.

“Not yet.”

“Strathman knows I’m here. So do the other agents on the shift.”

“Of course they do.” Mockingbird reached up and turned on a light. “So what? You’re still officially on the job, right?”

“As of tonight, yes.”

“Then please open that bottle of shitty Chablis.”

“Not allowed,” he said.

“The wine’s for me, not you. Stay awhile. Please, Ahmet.”

EIGHTEEN

The Key Lime pie that Mastodon devoured punctually every night came from a mom-and-pop bakery in Marathon. When the President was in Washington, the pies arrived in lots of a dozen on a Grumman C-2 based at the Boca Chica Naval Air Station near Key West. During his vacations at Casa Bellicosa, the pies were delivered by refrigerated truck directly to the mansion. The trip from the Middle Keys to Palm Beach took roughly four hours on the Turnpike, depending on traffic. Typically the driver made a bathroom stop at the Pompano Beach service plaza. He was away from the truck for fewer than six minutes on the afternoon of the security breach, but there was no video because the camera posted in that quadrant of the parking lot had been disabled by someone with a pellet gun.

Later, the director of the Secret Service would be summoned before a Senate subcommittee and questioned about why Mastodon’s Key Lime pies hadn’t been transported in an unmarked vehicle. The director would explain that the small bakery didn’t own any trucks without signage, that the cost of using a government rig would have been exorbitant, and that in any case the hardworking couple that made the pies felt it was good advertising to have the bakery’s name on display, especially when delivering to such a prestigious zip code.

The time was five-twenty p.m. when the tangy shipment from Marathon arrived at the service entrance of Casa Bellicosa. Two white-clad Brits on the kitchen staff stood in wait while the driver, whose name was Guppo, backed up the gaily painted Betancourt Pastries chariot. It was he who noticed that the truck’s cargo compartment wasn’t locked, but he assumed he’d forgotten to do it. He rolled up the door, stepped into the cooler, pulled the wide tray from the rack, and let out a sound that changed from a quizzical hum to a terrified shriek.

A long mottled snake had threaded itself among the delicacies. It wasn’t moving because reptiles become dormant in cold temperatures, a herpetological fact unknown to Guppo. He reasonably feared he was about to get chomped and possibly squeezed to death.