Карл Хайасен - Squeeze Me

“What kinda food you like, Mr. Hayduke?” Mazzelli had almost slipped and called him Mr. Haywire.

“I’ll eat almost anything dead,” the man answered, which was true in a way that Mazzelli could not have imagined.

“Try the Longhorn on Belvedere,” he said.

“Thanks, brother.” The man amiably snapped his eye patch and walked out the door, which Mazzelli immediately locked.

A few days later, after the gay psycho had cleared out, Mazzelli went to inspect the storage space. It was as spotless as a surgical suite, and empty except for one item—a small leatherbound book in the middle of the bare floor. Mazzelli circled cautiously before picking it up.

The title of the book was Th e Zurau Aphorisms, written by somebody named Kafka. It had been left open to a page upon which two sentences had been underlined with a green ballpoint:

The mediation by the serpent was necessary. Evil can seduce man, but cannot become man.

Mazzelli was no Bible scholar, hated snakes, and his only experience with mediation was a pauperizing day spent with a future ex-wife and two divorce lawyers. He had no idea what fucked-up message the one-eyed freak was trying to send, and no intention of trying to figure it out.

He closed the door of the warehouse and sailed the book into the nearest dumpster.

TWENTY-SIX

A snide cease-and-desist letter from lawyers representing Ms. Stevie Nicks snuffed Mastodon’s planned duet with Roseanne Barr at the Commander’s Ball. In response, the President defiantly ordered an instrumental version of “Leather and Lace” added to the set list, which already included several songs written by performers who despised him. The house band at Casa Bellicosa was The Collusionists, a versatile quintet unfazed by last-minute changes before major events. Often the lead guitarist would sneak in a number by the Dead or even the Chili Peppers, as Mastodon seldom stopped schmoozing long enough to listen to the music.

Among the first guests to arrive were Stanleigh Cobo and his new date, a saucy whirlwind named Suzi Spooner. Cobo was delighted to be escorting such a woman, handpicked for him by the President, who in exchange had asked Cobo to share his new E.D. antidote. The delivery took place out of earshot of Suzi and the Secret Service agents, in a hallway leading to the President’s private tanning room.

“Where’d you get this?” Mastodon asked when Cobo handed him the small baggie.

“It’s the tusk from a narwhal.”

“Whales have tusks?”

“They say this shit’s incredible, Mr. President.”

Cobo had no firsthand testimonials yet because none of the women he’d propositioned at the club had wanted to sleep with him. If Mastodon had gotten wind of Cobo’s serial lechery, he didn’t let on.

“You chop a line and snort it like coke?” he asked.

“Preferably off some angel’s ass,” Cobo said.

“Beautiful, fantastic.” The President pocketed the powder. “One more thing, that girl you’re with?”

“She’s so hot. Thanks for teeing me up.”

“Don’t lay a finger on her. She’s my personal nutritionist.”

“What?” Cobo squeaked.

“Keep your goddamn cock in your pants,” Mastodon said. “I’d like a word with her now, please.”

Suzi was already coming down the hall toward the tanning room. She walked past Cobo saying, “I’ll meet up with you in the ballroom, Stanny. Order me anything with vodka.”

He was waiting with a warming martini when she showed up ten minutes later wearing freshened lip gloss and a gopher-sized bite mark on one shoulder. “The President and me do a daily calorie count,” was the best she could do.

“It’s working. He’s definitely dropped a few,” Cobo said.

As dim as he sometimes could be, Cobo had quickly sized up the Suzi situation and was already scouting the crowd for new possibilities. The glass of bourbon in his other hand was his third. He and his fake date slipped outside so he could sneak a cigarette. She wasn’t exactly aglow, so he was curious to hear her review of the narwhal erection dust. In the end, he couldn’t muster the courage to ask.

The sprawling back lawn of Casa Bellicosa had been lavishly illuminated by amber floods. A chilly breeze blew across the water, from the west.

“Stanny, I’m cold,” Suzi said.

“Then you should go back inside. We’re at table seven.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll be there soon as I finish my smoke.”

Cobo waited until Suzi was out of sight before he approached the attractive ash-blond woman in the short, jungle-print dress.

“What are you looking at?” he asked.

The woman was aiming a flashlight at the top of a towering royal palm.

“I dropped an earring,” she said.

Cobo chuckled. “I get it. None of my business. What’s your name?”

“Go away,” said Angie Armstrong.

Stung, the man walked off. Angie moved to the next palm tree along the seawall. Pythons were climbers, but when hiding they favored thicker foliage.

From behind her, another male voice: “Lady Tarzan?”

It was Spalding in his Casa monkey suit, balancing a tray of champagne glasses.

“Lord, I cannot believe my eyes,” he said with a hungry look.

“Believe it. I’m working.”

He winked. “I don’t know about you, but the dress is definitely working.”

Angie shook her head. “And that’s all you got?”

“Hey, listen, there’s an after-party.”

“Wild guess. Your place?”

“Great idea!” said Spalding.

“Go away.”

Angie’s next stop was a cocoplum hedge that squared the croquet field. Her removal equipment—including a new machete—was laid out in the back of her pickup truck, parked at the service ramp behind the mansion. Inside the Fendi knockoff bag on her shoulder was a clean .22 Ruger fitted with a suppressor. It was strictly against the law for Angie to be carrying any weapon—much less a silenced semiauto—and strictly against Secret Service regulations for Paul Ryskamp to have given it to her. However, based on her visit to Clinton Tyree’s tree island, Angie had prepared for multiple targets.

The cocoplum hedge yielded no snakes though she spooked several iguanas. Walking past the swimming pool, she said yes to a vivid rum drink offered by a server whose name tag said she was from Sarajevo. The woman showed no reaction when she saw the military-grade camo flashlight in Angie’s hand, as if it was a perfectly normal accessory.

A knot of guests stood appraising a life-size ice sculpture of the President swinging a golf club. One of them, a distinguished-looking man with a cane, spotted Angie and began walking toward her. He had close-cropped white hair and wire glasses. She didn’t recognize him until he got close.

“You look nice, Angela.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Beautiful evening. Good music. Interesting conversations.”

“Horseshit,” Angie said. “How’d you score an invitation?”

Jim Tile laughed. “I didn’t.”

“Tell me what’s going on.”

“Aren’t you cold in that dress?” he asked guilelessly.

They moved to a place where they could talk, next to a statue that was supposed to be Julius Caesar though it looked more like John Goodman in Raising Arizona . Angie asked Tile how he’d made it past all the security.

“Look at this crowd, young lady,” he said. “You think these rich proper white folks gonna make a scene and turn away a fine-looking black man in a tuxedo, the only black man in this whole damn zip code? Especially when he’s old and a little confused, and then he drops a few names they’ve heard before. Names of people he actually knows—political types, and so forth.”