Carl Hiaasen - Skinny Dip

"Mick's been taking care of me," Joey Perrone said.

With a straw, Rolvaag swirled the ice in his jumbo Sprite. He said, "You've had quite a go of it." That much of their story he believed.

Mrs. Perrone picked distractedly at a Greek salad. "I know it's just my word against his, but I want to prosecute Chaz for attempted murder. I want to take him to trial."

"That may not be possible," Rolvaag said. "Your husband is missing in the Everglades. There was a suicide note in his vehicle."

Joey Perrone seemed more shocked than Mick Stranahan, who asked if the note looked authentic.

"I think there's a strong possibility that Mr. Perrone is gone for good," the detective replied.

Mrs. Perrone put down her fork and turned away, looking toward the ocean. Stranahan moved closer and laid a hand on her back.

"Damn," she said softly.

"You all right?" Rolvaag asked.

She nodded and stood up. "I want to take a walk."

When they were alone, Stranahan asked the detective where he was moving.

"Home to Minnesota," Rolvaag said. "I figure it's best to get out of here now, while I still remember what 'normal' is."

"Good luck," said Stranahan.

"Just yesterday was one of those only-in-Florida moments. They called me out to see some dead guy by the side of the road. You know these white crosses people put up at fatal accident scenes? He had one sticking in the middle of his gut."

Stranahan took a bite of cheeseburger. "Was he a tourist? Because that's when you hear from the governor, when tourists start getting whacked."

"Nope, he owned a big farming outfit up near Lake Okeechobee. Coincidentally, he was an associate of Mrs. Perrone's husband," the detective said. "Samuel Hammernut was his name."

Stranahan displayed no curiosity whatsoever. When a seagull landed on the corner of the table, he tossed a french fry at its feet.

Rolvaag said, "They held a memorial service for Mrs. Perrone last Thursday and, I swear, there was a guy at the church who looked a lot like you."

"No kidding?" Stranahan offered a soggy slice of pickle to the gull, which mangled it greedily. "The island is lousy with these things," he remarked. "Rats with wings."

"All those years working for the state," Rolvaag said, "did you ever get a case that wrapped itself up in a nice neat package, and all you could do was sit back and watch? Where all the bad guys just canceled each other out and saved everybody the hassle of a trial?"

"A rare treat," Stranahan said.

"Well, this is my first." Rolvaag picked up his notebook and sailed it into a litter basket, spooking the bird. "I figure it's a good note to leave Florida on. What do you think, Mr. Stranahan?"

"I think timing is everything, Karl."

The two men stopped talking when they spotted Joey returning along the beach. She had put on her sunglasses and taken off her shoes and pulled the tie from her ponytail. A big striped ball rolled into her path and, without breaking stride, she gently kicked it back to a small blond boy, who skipped away laughing. Every now and then she would stop to watch the waves froth around her legs, or to pick up a seashell.

The burly unkempt stranger who came shouldering out of the saw grass carried no weapon. Chaz Perrone heaved the rock, which splashed in front of the stranger, and screamed, "Stay the fuck away from me, old man!"

The intruder's grin was alarming in its perfection. From his deportment, Chaz initially had pegged him as a homeless wino, but winos typically did not make a priority of dental hygiene.

"Don't get any closer," Chaz warned. He snatched another rock off the ground and cocked his arm.

The grizzled intruder kept coming. When he was ten yards away, Chaz let loose. The man caught the rock bare-handed and threw it back with surprising velocity, over Chaz's head.

"I played some college ball myself," the man said, "about a jillion years ago."

Chaz shielded his shriveling, bug-bitten privates as he backed against the bay tree. He told himself that the situation could be worse; it could be Red and Tool, with the twelve-gauge.

The man said, "I heard the shots last night, but I was a long ways off."

"What do you want?" Chaz asked shakily.

"Thought it might be a deer poacher. Five rounds from a shotgun means somebody's trying to kill something."

"Yeah, me." Chaz turned to reveal the pellet marks in his backside.

"Close call," the man said, with no abundance of concern.

If he was a game warden, Chaz thought, he must have been lost in the boonies for decades. He wore a tattered Stones T-shirt, filthy dungarees and moldy boots that had long ago come unstitched at the toes.

A plastic shower cap was stretched over his hair, and one misaligned eyeball stared emptily at the sky. His silver beard, intricately braided, was accented by a necklace made of teeth.

Human teeth, Chaz observed with consternation. He could see the amalgam fillings.

The stranger noticed Chaz gawking and said, "They're real, if that's what you're wondering. I took 'em off a guy who killed a momma otter for no good reason. Where are your clothes, sir?"

"They got torn off in the saw grass."

Chaz was thirsty, famished and nearly unhinged from lack of sleep, having spent the night ribaldry serenaded by alligators.

"And where's the fellow who tried to shoot you?" inquired the man in the shower cap.

Chaz motioned haplessly at the outlying marsh. "Who knows. There was two of 'em, back on the levee."

The stranger nodded. "Before I decide what to do with you, I need some answers. You mind?"

Chaz answered emphatically. "Anything you want. Just get. me out of this goddamn hellhole."

"Understand that I'm not a well person. I'm muddling through a rough spell at the moment," the man said. "For instance, I've got a hunch you don't even marginally resemble H. R. Haldeman. Bob, they used to call him at the White House."

Chaz said he didn't know who that was.

"An arrogant, perjuring, justice-obstructing shitweasel who worked for the thirty-seventh president of the United States of America, an amoral maggot in his own right," the stranger related somewhat testily. "Anyway, that's who I'm hallucinating when I look at you-Bob Haldeman. So keep that in mind. Plus, I've got a hideous duet running like a freight train through my skull-'Hey Jude,' as performed by Bobbie Gentry and Placido Domingo. It's a fucking miracle I haven't disemboweled myself."

"What's your name?" Chaz was trying to stay calm, trying to sound amiable and harmless.

"You just call me Captain. But I'm asking the questions here, you understand?"

Chaz signaled cooperatively.

The man said, "Good. Let's start with basic identification."

"All right. My name is Charles Perrone and I have a Ph.D. in wet-

lands ecology. I'm employed as a field biologist for the South Florida Water Management District."

"Doing what, Mr. Perrone?"

"It's Dr. Perrone." Chaz hoped that the substance of his title would counterpoise his forlorn appearance. "I work mostly out here in the Everglades, testing the water for phosphates," he said. "It's part of the big government restoration project."

The stranger did not seem as impressed, or deferential, as Chaz had hoped. He removed his artificial eye and, with a scrofulous pocket-knife, scraped a dried clot of algae off the polished glass.

Then he twisted the orb back into its socket and said, "What's your name again?"

"Perrone." Chaz spelled it.

"No, ace, your first name."

"Charles. But everybody calls me Chaz."

The stranger cocked his head. "Chad?"

"No, Chaz. With a z."

That brought an inexplicable laugh. "Small world," said the man in the shower cap.

"How so?" Chaz asked, though he was already dreading the answer.