Карл Хайасен - Squeeze Me

She said, “Maybe you should ditch the laptop.”

“Lord, no! What’s left of my soul would shrivel without Pandora. They’ve got a whole station for Buffalo Springfield!”

“How did you know I went to veterinary school?”

“Your court file is public record, as with most felons.” Skink’s sigh had a sympathetic tone. “I’m waiting for you to remind me that the pythons don’t belong in Florida, that they’re devouring every native animal in sight—opossums, coons, bobcats, deer, all the lovely wading birds, even the crocodilians. But my specimens don’t do that, sweetheart. They get frozen entrees.”

Angie let go of his shirt and looked up at his scarred brown saddle of a face. “But the ones you’re turning loose in Palm Beach, they’re all going to die. You know this, right? It’s shoot to kill. The winter’s too cold for them up there, anyway.”

“Every year’s getting warmer,” he said. “Thanks to geniuses such as our climate-denier-in-chief, the biggest Burmese are movin’ north.”

“This is light-years beyond crazy. What can you possibly hope to accomplish?”

“Maybe scare him out of Florida.”

“The President?”

“I’m pleased, actually, that the Secret Service has taken notice. I wouldn’t be surprised if they advise him to vacation elsewhere.”

“Then what?” Angie was grinding her jaws in exasperation.

“Look,” he said, “these frothy projects keep my spirit from flaming out. Now it’s time for you to leave.”

“No, not just yet—”

“I hear the airboat coming, Angie.”

“Jim Tile said you sent him to my sentencing hearing.”

“True. I’d been following your case.”

“Can I ask why?”

“I liked how you dealt with the asshole fawn poacher.”

“It wasn’t very original,” Angie said. “Plus I got that poor old gator killed.”

“You did the best you could with what was available.” Skink spun her around and aimed her toward the portal in the wall of books. “Now, scoot,” he said.

Gingerly she stepped through the gathering snakes and wormed out the exit hole. The ex-governor was close behind. On the other side of the wall he paused to refit the piece of aquarium glass into the entry space.

Angie stood transfixed by the skin sheds streaming overhead in the treetops. “Can’t I stay longer?” she asked.

“Your ride’s here. Come along, dear.”

Skink began walking her down to the shore. Angie concentrated on setting one foot in front of the other. She jumped when a cardinal, bright as a rose, streaked past.

“You drugged me, Governor. That’s a social misfire,” she said.

“It wasn’t enough to hurt a kitten. You’re doing great, by the way.”

To avoid being seen by the airboat driver, Skink stopped in the shadows halfway down the path. When he told Angie goodbye, she found herself squeezing his hands. “Oh shit,” she said. “Of course, of course, of course. Now I get it.”

“What?”

“You’re the one who paid for my lawyer!”

He smiled. “For all the good that did. What a lazy dick he was.”

“Still it was eighteen thousand bucks. Shit!”

“Why ‘shit’?”

“Because I’ve always wanted to pay back the person who did that for me,” Angie said, “but I don’t have the money right now.”

“Pretend you never saw all this, and we’ll call it even.”

Then he kissed the top of her head and stomped back toward his secret, teeming camp.

—

Beak got his nickname in fourth grade when a dog named Tucker leaped into his lap and bit his nose, which resulted in weeks of the boy wearing a splint secured by a white pointy bandage. The mutt, which belonged to his stepbrother, attacked several other family members before succumbing to a heel kick delivered by a no-nonsense postal carrier who’d once played collegiate soccer.

Since then, Beak had been leery of domestic pets even as he grew into an amateur naturalist and avid outdoorsman. The airboat gig was the coolest job he’d ever had. Most of his customers were tourists or birders who were attentive to the surroundings and appreciated Beak’s knowledgeable patter. He lived off of tips, which he’d learned were proportionate to the number of alligators, eagles and spoonbills sighted. Normally he didn’t allow riders to leave the boat, but Angela Armstrong obviously was at ease in the Everglades and, more importantly, had happily overpaid for the charter.

“Where’s your bag of rope?” he asked when he picked her up at the island.

She pointed at her ears and said, “Can you find me a headset with a mic that works?”

On the trip back she seemed different—way more chill—humming tunes he didn’t recognize and asking him about his work. She had a sharp eye for wetland fauna, correctly naming every species of bird they saw, including a juvenile black-crowned night heron. Beak was impressed. He wasn’t the brightest bulb in the chandelier but, after Angie touched his knee and laughed a little too hard at his Zika mosquito joke, he wondered if she might be putting the moves on him.

“Beak, how old are you?” he heard on his headset.

“Twenty-seven.”

“Yikes,” she said.

“How was your hike through the hammock?”

“Kaleidoscopic.”

“Yeah? Is that good?” he asked.

“I’m still processing the experience. You married?”

“Nope.”

“Girlfriend?”

“Negative.”

Angie swayed in her seat as he turned the rudder hard, skirting a stand of cattails. She said, “FYI, I am likewise unattached.”

“Hard to believe.”

“You’re a smooth one,” Beak heard on his headset. “Do you have plans for dinner?”

They wound up at a barbecue joint where alligator croquetas were on the menu and derisively avoided by the locals. Beak had a plate of pulled pork while Angie ordered a rack of ribs and a stuffed potato. For a small woman she seemed to have a big appetite. When she asked if he’d ever taken LSD, he thought she was joking.

“I’m such a lightweight,” she murmured before chugging a jumbo tumbler of unsweetened iced tea.

Beak said, “I got some excellent bud at home.”

“Let’s get a drink instead.”

They found a decent bar, where he held her hand and listened to a thumbnail version of her life story. He said he couldn’t picture her locked in a prison cell. He liked how she’d rigged her pickup truck, and he had lots of questions about the wildlife-relocation business. He was surprised that it didn’t pay better.

“Was that tree island trip one of your jobs?” he asked.

Angie answered no, it was personal business.

“Was anyone else out there?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said.

“But what about that johnboat hidden in the grass?”

“Who knows. Maybe a poacher?”

“Yeah, probably,” said Beak.

They went back to his doublewide, Angie following in her truck. She fell asleep while he was in the shower, and he had no luck trying to wake her. In the morning she apologized, combed out her hair, and made pancakes.

“Are you booked today?” she asked him.

“Nope. Wish I was.”

“You are now,” she said. “I need to go back to that island. I’ll give you five hundred bucks.”

So Beak took her back, and this time Angie told him to wait at the shore. She was gone only a few minutes, and she seemed upset when she returned.

“What’s wrong? What happened back there?” he asked.

“Forget it. Let’s get the hell out.”

Beak said, “No, I’m gonna go look for myself.”

“You are not, ” she snapped. “There’s nothing to see.”

Which was the wild and dumbfounding truth.

TWENTY-THREE