Карл Хайасен - Squeeze Me

Ryskamp tossed him a towel and said, “We can’t have a serious conversation until you wipe that crap off your face.”

“But it needs ten more minutes.”

“Do it now. I don’t have all day.”

“Where did you get such a bad attitude?” Cobo sniffed as he scrubbed away the fruit paste. “I never heard of a Secret Service officer behaving so arrogant. You people work for all of us, remember?”

The agent said, “I don’t need to be polite with you, Mr. Cobo. I know things about you that you definitely don’t want your family to learn—especially your sister Deirdre, her being so prominent in political circles. And I’m not just referring to your Vegas debts or the hookers or the drugs, or even your bulk purchases from BondageOverstock.com.”

Cobo went pale as he stiffened. “I thought this was America. What happened to our constitutional right of privacy?”

“Down the shitter,” Ryskamp said. “Clearly you haven’t been paying attention. Try reading a newspaper once in a while.”

“Oh, I see. You’ve gone rogue.”

“Wake up, Stanleigh.”

“So, what else have you got on me that’s so awful?”

“You currently employ four—or is it five?—individuals who are undocumented aliens. Correct? From Guatemala, I believe.”

“Hold on, please, they’re okay,” Cobo protested. “Decent, docile people. And wizards at shrubbery!”

“Imagine the embarrassment to the President if this got out—that a brother of one of his Palm Beach Potussies was harboring five illegal Diegos?”

Cobo caved without a pause. “Fine, I’ll arrange for all of them to be deported. That’s easy. Deirdre knows the head honcho at Homeland Security. One phone call, boom.”

Ryskamp was too jaded to be disgusted. Cobo had recoiled in the treatment chair—bony legs drawn to his chest, the flaps of his neck slick with sweat.

“I don’t want a damn thing from you,” the agent told him, “and personally I don’t give a shit about the Guatemalans, as long as you’re paying a fair wage. Let’s talk about the Commander’s Ball. Your Chinese date is a spy.”

“Megan? No way.”

“That isn’t her name. Not even close. Megan? Seriously? Point is, she’s a foreign intelligence operative and you cannot bring her to a presidential residence.”

Cobo began to weep. Ryskamp had been forewarned. He reached into his suit pocket and took out the plastic baggie.

“Guess what I’ve got here, Stanleigh.”

Cobo sucked in his breath and toweled the snot off his chin. “Is that blow?”

“Even better,” Ryskamp said.

“What the fuck? Heroin?”

“No, Stanleigh. This is what your darling ‘Megan’ was going to bring you. Remember?”

Cobo’s bloodshot eyes grew wide. “Tusk?” he croaked hungrily. “Is it, uh, the good stuff?”

“All the way from Baffin Bay.”

“Fucking narwhal!”

“Fucking narwhal,” said the agent.

That was a lie. Ryskamp had not wasted a minute of his time trying to score narwhal tusk in Palm Beach’s tight-knit underground E.D. community. The substance in the baggie was an improvised blend of baking soda and cupcake mix, cut with jock-itch talc from Ryskamp’s personal gym bag.

“One thing, Stanleigh: You didn’t get this shit from me.”

“Of course not!” Cobo sang out. “We never met.”

He grabbed for the baggie but Ryskamp held it out of reach.

“First, you’ve got to break things off with your spy girlfriend,” the agent said.

“Right this minute?”

“Yup.” Ryskamp gave the powder a teasing little shake. “And try not to be an asshole about it.”

Cobo licked his upper lip and said, “We’ve got a deal.”

He made the call in front of Ryskamp. It didn’t last long, or end well. Afterward Cobo put on a heartsick face, though he didn’t take his eyes off the baggie. Ryskamp handed it over and walked out of the spa.

On his way to the Breakers, he called the deputy director in Washington to tell him the Cobo situation was resolved. Next he tried to reach Angie Armstrong, but her phone went straight to voicemail. Ryskamp didn’t leave a message.

The door of the nutritionist impersonator’s cabana was open when he got there. After multiple knocks, he stepped inside. It was more spacious than the First Lady’s beachside bungalow, though in stale disarray. A glitter-flecked stripper’s pole had been erected in the sitting area, the furniture shoved to one side. A suitcase lay agape on the divan, and women’s clothes were strewn about the floor. The mussed bedsheets featured an empty wine bottle, a rolled-up copy of Pro Wrestling Illustrated, and several incriminating Dr. Pepper cans, drained and crumpled. The whole place smelled like the exhaust vent at a Burger King.

Ryskamp tracked down Suzi Spooner on a lounge chair down by the ocean. She was wearing black Ray-Bans, a white plastic nose guard, and a canary bikini. A surprisingly dainty icicle pendant dangled from a piercing above her navel.

Suzi knew from Ryskamp’s gray suit and earpiece that he was Secret Service.

“Oh, God, no!” she cried. “Was it a stroke?”

“What?”

“Heart attack? Is he dead yet? Take me to see him!”

“The President’s fine, Miss Spooner.”

She produced a credible sigh of relief and flicked off her nose guard. “Then what are you doing here? Nobody’s supposed to know about me.”

“Well, that’s the problem. There’s too much talk.”

“Is this really part of your job?”

“Fair question,” Ryskamp said.

His visit to Mastodon’s mistress was unofficial. The agency hadn’t sent him to speak with her; he merely wanted to confirm for himself that the commander-in-chief was banging the same exotic dancer who was secretly shopping a racy book proposal to half a dozen publishers in New York. Ryskamp’s sister-in-law, a literary agent, had read him a page of the synopsis in which the author scathingly compared the executive gonads to “desiccated chickpeas.”

When Ryskamp asked Suzi if she’d ever written anything under the pseudonym Gillian LaCoste, she got so agitated that the silver tray of sliders flipped off her lap.

“I’ll get your ass fired if you tell anyone!” she said.

Ryskamp informed her that his ass would be out the door in a few weeks, anyway. “Besides, it’s not my concern what people say about the President, unless there’s a threat of physical harm.”

Suzi looked insulted. “Hey, I don’t hurt him. I’ve never hurt him. Soon as he’s out of breath, we stop.”

“Okay, fine, but that’s not what I meant.”

The voice in Ryskamp’s earpiece reported that Mastodon and Mockingbird were on the move; the President’s motorcade was heading to the golf course, the First Lady’s was going to a jobs fair in Riviera Beach.

“I really, really care about the man,” Suzi went on. “I always tell him, ‘Baby, get more cardio. Try a spin class. Zumba. Whatever.’ ”

“The mind reels,” said Ryskamp.

“Don’t judge me, bro. You know how many women out there would trade places? For the chance to bone a President, any President—are you kiddin’? How ’bout supermodels. Preachers’ wives. Even Costco cashiers.”

“If you care about him so much,” Ryskamp said, “explain why you’re doing a book.”

“I bet he’ll like it.”

“Oh, yeah. Especially the part where you say he snorts like a wildebeest when he comes.”

“No, baby wildebeest,” Suzi said. “And I didn’t write that line, swear to God! The dude that’s helping me with the words, sometimes he’s such a smartass.”

They stopped talking while a white-clad attendant retrieved the fallen mini-burgers and buns from the beach sand around Suzi’s chair. When the young man was gone, Ryskamp said, “I don’t have to tell you about the President’s large temper.”