Карл Хайасен - Squeeze Me

The agent left the room to finish speaking with his supervisors. When he came back, he said, “They want you to wear a gown to the event.”

Angie laughed. “I don’t own a gown.”

“Shocker.”

“That’s not very nice, Paul.”

“This is straight from the President’s vice-assistant deputy chief of staff. He thinks your regular workday outfit will spark unwanted curiosity.” Ryskamp sat on the edge of the bed and took her hand.

“Screw the gown,” Angie said.

“Just between us, they’d love an excuse to hire one of your competitors for the job.”

“Because I’m a woman.”

“Duh,” said Ryskamp. “I were you, I’d go buy the most expensive dress I could find. Your rich Uncle Sam will pay for it.”

“I’m kind of liking this new attitude. But, seriously, retirement?”

“The timing’s right, Angie.”

“In six months you’ll be bored out of your skull.”

“Possibly not. I rented a place in Key West.”

“Good choice,” she said. “You’ve already got the wardrobe.”

“Tomorrow I start packing my shit.”

“But I’ll see you at the ball Saturday night, right?”

“Yes, indeed,” said Ryskamp. “Call of duty.”

Then he slid under the sheets beside her, and they talked some more.

—

Sedated and bandaged heavily, Diego Beltrán was surprised when they moved him from the jail’s hospital wing to his cell. One of the older Hispanic deputies advised him not to come out.

“Word is they want you offed before the weekend,” the deputy said, “as a present to the President.”

“Is it El Rotundo’s birthday?” Diego asked.

“There’s a big party for him on the island. I don’t know what for.”

“So who’s supposed to kill me?” Diego’s ribs ached when he inhaled. “The Aryans again?”

The deputy whispered, “No, it’s the Neo-Christian Cawks.”

“The Cucks? Isn’t that a sex cult?”

“No, man, the Cawks . As in Caucasians.”

“Lamest gang name ever,” Diego said.

“Just stay in your cell, dude. I’ll bring you some books and magazines.”

“But I need a shower. Bad.”

“You wanna be dirty and breathing,” said the deputy, “or squeaky clean and dead?”

“How much are these racist assholes getting paid?”

“Ten grand is what I heard. Eleven if they cut off your nut sack, too.”

Diego felt wobbly. The deputy helped him get on the cot.

“Big crowd out front today,” the deputy said. “They want your balls on a fork, too.”

Diego wondered what had stirred up the loonies. Lately there had been so few demonstrators that even the local Fox affiliate had lost interest. The deputy reported that the TV crews were back in force along with the protesters, who were wearing crimson tee-shirts that said “No More Damn Diegos!” and practicing their chants between live feeds. He said some carried signs with black-bordered pictures of Kiki Pew Fitzsimmons and the words: WE WILL NEVER FORGET.

Diego stared despondently at the crusted gray ceiling. “I don’t get it. Why now?”

“There was a radio contest, I heard, for who could yell the loudest.”

“What’s first prize?”

“Christmas for life at Olive Garden. Whole family eats free.” The deputy closed the cell door, which locked automatically.

Diego lifted his head. “Hey, did my lawyers ever call back?”

The deputy said an envelope from the Public Defender’s Office was tucked in the pages of his Bible. When Diego opened it, he found a copy of a Motion to Withdraw from the case. His latest team of attorneys had informed the judge that they’d been receiving “graphic” death threats online and “ominous” items sent by mail. The disturbing deliveries included a disrobed and crudely altered Mickey Mouse doll, a bullet-riddled target with the lawyers’ faces pasted to the bull’s-eye, and a blood-stained cockatoo feather that arrived without clear explanation. Another anonymous package featured a photo of one of the defense lawyer’s daughters kissing a “nonwhite” high-school classmate at a football game; the word “HORE” had been written on the picture with an orange crayon, scratched through, and replaced with “SLUTT.”

Diego saw a second envelope inside the Bible—a handwritten letter from his mother in Tegucigalpa. The letter had been opened and inspected by an officer at the jail, and the last page—his mother’s loving sign-off—was missing. This had happened before. Diego knew somebody was screwing with his head. The first time he had complained, but now he let it go.

The deputies continued to go through the motions of protecting him, but Diego sensed they were tired of the extra effort. Upon his return from the medical unit, he’d noticed that a new leather belt had been placed on top of his neatly folded jumpsuit. He processed it as a strong suggestion, if not a warning.

Suicide once had seemed cowardly and unthinkable, but the idea had been drifting on the periphery of Diego’s thoughts since the stabbing. There was no reason to believe that Angela Armstrong—as fiery and resolute as she might be—had the juice to get him freed from jail. Even if he was released, for the rest of his life he would be the border-jumping Diego who ignited the No-More-Diegos movement, the Diego made notorious by the President of the United States.

Where could a man run to escape such infamy? How could he hide from the global talons of Twitter and Instagram? Diego had been told his name was now well-known in his hometown, and all Honduras. If he returned, who would risk being a friend? Or lover? Or wife? It was overwhelming to contemplate the chore of erasing his past, inventing a new identity and starting over someplace far away.

Engulfed by hopelessness, he closed his eyes and heard the rabid red-shirted fanatics screaming his name. They were either outside the jail, or inside his head. He felt like it didn’t matter.

An unfamiliar deputy, a middle-aged white dude with a bleached soul patch, came to Diego’s cell and rolled a prescription bottle of pills on the floor through the bars.

“Nurse said you should take those,” he said, “for pain.”

Diego shook the bottle. It sounded full.

“You should get some sleep,” said the deputy.

“What a good idea.”

—

Mastodon was livid after he learned his tanning session had been postponed because of equipment problems. He bemoaned his halibut complexion, head-butted his bathroom mirror and canceled several afternoon appearances, including the dedication of a seniors-only pickleball complex named for his pal Geraldo Rivera.

Christian worked on the Cabo Royale nonstop for hours, replacing every part for which he had spares. With The Knob singed, sidelined and threatening to sue, Christian had turned to his friend Spalding, who agreed to fill in as the test dummy. To replicate the President’s physique, Spalding climbed into a padded K-9 trainer attack suit that the Secret Service had purchased secondhand from the sheriff’s department.

Fortunately, the tanning cocoon operated perfectly; no flickering, no sparks, no hot spots. An elated Christian offered to buy Spalding dinner, and they ended up late in a corner booth at Echo.

“Why doesn’t the dumbass use bronzer instead?” Spalding asked between bites of wahoo sashimi. “It’s way easier.”

“He won’t touch that stuff anymore,” Christian said. “No personal gels whatsoever.”

“Strange dude.”

“He had a really bad experience at a pro-am in Tahoe.”

“Okay, not while I’m eating,” Spalding said.

“Grabbed the wrong tube—”

“Yeah, I get it. Can we please move on?”

Christian ordered more sake. He asked Spalding for the latest gossip about the First Lady’s romance. “Did she really get dumped by her studly Secret Service man?”