Карл Хайасен - Squeeze Me

The crowd clapped with a vigor that sounded compulsory.

“These two outstanding boys were left orphaned by a vicious foreign criminal,” Mastodon growled on, “who is now rotting in a hot, stinking jail cell only a few miles from here. And guess what? He ain’t gettin’ out! And the rest of his bloodthirsty gang, the DBC-77s or 88s or 69s, whatever the hell these thugs call themselves, they’re not gettin’ across our borders, either. Not on my watch, folks. No more Diegos! Come on, let me hear you send that message loud and clear: NO MORE DIEGOS!”

The chanting lasted so long that the President grew weary of holding the wooden mask, but he would have crawled under the cauliflower boiler before letting the crowd see his lobsterized face. It was aggravating that so many guests—including his own daughters—had snubbed the impromptu Mardi Gras theme by not donning their own party masks, which had been rounded up on short notice after the tanning-bed misfire. The two seats reserved for his sons were unoccupied; an ice storm had stranded them at an illegal hunting camp in Antarctica, where they’d been stalking emperor penguins.

His face still afire, Mastodon hurried to wrap up his pep talk so that he could slip away for more numbing ointment. “Folks, I’m going to let you relax now and enjoy your prime sirloin or grilled mahi—both dishes are fabulous, congratulations as always to Chef Roger! But first I want to introduce someone you know very well, one of the most smartest, articulatest and hottest women in the whole world, my tremendous wife—”

Only when the President turned to present the First Lady did he realize that her chair at the table was empty. “I guess she’s still in the powder room,” he said with a brittle stage chuckle, “but please give her a big hand when she gets here.”

As he and his Secret Service phalanx departed, Mastodon was surprised to spy through the mask’s eye slits an actual black person in formal wear, indicating he was a guest and not on the wait staff. The President detoured into the crowd and conscripted the amused-looking fellow to pose for a photograph, promised to send him an autographed print, and complimented him on his steadiness with a cane.

“Make sure you get a picture with my wife, too,” Mastodon said. “She’ll be back any minute.”

But Mockingbird wasn’t in the powder room. She was still in her suite, on the vintage Chesterfield sofa, riding Agent Ahmet Youssef cowgirl-style.

When he had arrived to escort her downstairs, she’d stepped from her dressing room wearing nothing but Margaritaville flip-flops.

“Wow,” Ahmet had observed helplessly.

“Agent Ryksamp gave me these. Aren’t they cool? I love the little parrot on the logo.”

“Paul got you those? Why?”

Mockingbird had smiled teasingly, and in an instant Ahmet had swept her up and carried her to the Chesterfield. They went at it so hard and for so long that his earpiece got ejected. For once Mockingbird made no effort to be quiet, knowing Jennifer Rose was waiting outside in the hallway with the other agents.

“You think they heard us?” Mockingbird whispered afterward to Ahmet.

“I don’t care anymore,” he said breathlessly, music to her ears.

The next morning, the First Lady’s housekeeper would surreptitiously remove the tropical flip-flops from the bathroom trash basket, where Ahmet had jealously tossed them, and smuggle them home for her teenaged daughter.

—

Fay Alex Riptoad had overdone the Tito’s. That was the most obvious excuse for what was happening. Also, those two milligrams of Xanax.

Bad idea.

Or possibly it was the stress—she was justifiably nervous about performing with the Potussies in front of POTUS and a thousand other people. The rehearsals had been fractious, and good harmonies elusive. Fay Alex had been up late every night, losing sleep—so that could be a factor, too.

She had never cared for Deirdre Cobo Lancôme’s deadbeat brother, Stanleigh, and Stanleigh had never paid attention to any woman older than fifty. Yet here the two of them were, making out on a padded bench in the secluded Meditation Pavilion beneath a trellis of lush red bougainvilleas.

They were alone because Fay Alex’s Secret Service escort, William, had been recruited by Paul Ryskamp to help deal with a disturbance at one of the crystal Purell stations—a fistfight between coal barons had turned hairy when one of them pulled a plastic pistol, fully loaded, that he’d manufactured on a 3D printer. Such a weapon normally would have been detected by the state-of-the-art body scanner at the first security checkpoint, but Mastodon had banned such screening at the Commander’s Ball in order to spare his wealthiest supporters from embarrassment, as many of them had artificial joints, partial skull plates, or penile implants.

At first Fay Alex Riptoad had been irked when William rushed off, but at the moment she was glad for some privacy. She had detailed herself as a flamboyantly statuesque version of Abigail Adams, and now Stanleigh Cobo’s nose was planted in her bunched, powdered cleavage. Sniffling like a French bulldog, he fumbled somewhat brutishly to unfasten the front of Fay Alex’s sparkly, one-of-a-kind gown.

“Down, big boy,” she teased.

“I’m jacked up on narwhal,” he said. “It’s now or never.”

“Jacked on what?”

“Check this out.” He grabbed one of her hands and placed it on his groin.

“Whoa, Stanny.” It had been a long time since Fay Alex had heard herself giggle.

“At your service, Mrs. Adams.”

“If you rip the dress,” she said, closing her eyes, “I’ll yank your goddamn nuts off.”

It was only moments later, after Cobo had pulled Fay Alex on top of him, that while sucking on one of her emerald-studded earlobes he noticed movement in the bougainvillea vines above.

A bronze-striped head, as big as a cocaine brick, poked out of the leaves. Cobo’s cry died in his throat. Petrified, he watched foot after foot of the colossal body unwind from the trellis beams while the beast’s stone-eyed face—probing night scents with a gossamer tongue—levitated over the lovers’ bench.

Ultimately it was Fay Alex who shrieked, Cobo having clamped his jaws together in terror. He was gone by the time Angie Armstrong reached the pavilion. She found an older woman with a shredded ear sprawled on the paving stones. The woman’s hair had been styled and dyed as a Continental-era flag, and the front of her spangled gown was unbuttoned.

“Stanleigh, you asshole!” she yelled in the direction of her companion’s cowardly flight.

“Don’t move,” Angie said.

“Why are you just standing there? Get over here and help me up!”

“Do not fucking move.”

“You know who I am?”

“A damn fool,” said Angie, “if you don’t listen to me.”

Fay Alex sat upright and finally saw the snake—it was descending fluidly from the bougainvilleas, arranging itself on the meditation bench one muscular coil after another. Calculating that she was within striking range, Fay Alex shut up. Anxiously she glanced back and forth between the endless-seeming reptile and the rude young woman in the jungle-print Versace.

Guests were streaming out of the ballroom to see the tumult, forcing the club’s security guards to hastily erect a velvet-rope perimeter. The Collusionists gamely tried to halt the exodus by cranking up their amps and delivering the tightest cover of “Sugar Magnolia” that Angie had ever heard.

“What’s your name?” she asked the woman on the ground.

“Fay Alex Riptoad.”

“What happened to your ear?”

“Some horny idiot bit me.”

Mrs. Riptoad was still bleeding, and would likely need stitches.