Sick Puppy (23 page)

“Hello there.”

Krimmler stiffened, his eyes opening to a leery squint. “Who’re
you
?”

It was a young man with a deep weathered tan and sun-bleached hair. He wore a navy sweatshirt and jeans, but no shoes. His feet were caramel brown.

“Just a tourist,” he said.

“You don’t look like a tourist.”

“Really. Then what do I look like?” The young man gave a grin that put Krimmler on edge.

“All I meant,” said the engineer, “was, you know, the suntan. Any darker and you’d be speaking Jamaican. Whereas most of the tourists we see around here are white as a fish belly.”

“Well, I’m what you call a professional tourist,” the young man said, “so I’m out in the sunshine all the time. What’re you guys doing?” He jerked his chin in the direction of the surveyors. “Is this for that big golfing resort everybody’s talking about?”

Krimmler said, “You play golf?”

“Where do you think I got this tan.”

From the young man’s air of casual confidence, Krimmler sensed that he might be living off a trust fund, or possibly socked-away dope earnings. Krimmler began to address him not as a scruffy pest but as a potential customer and future member of the Shearwater Island Country Club.

“We’re building two championship courses,” Krimmler said, “one designed by Nicklaus, the other by Raymond Floyd.”

The young man whistled, turning to gaze at the island. “Two golf courses,” he marveled. “Where you gonna put ’em?”

“Oh, there’s plenty of space,” Krimmler said, “once you rearrange a few trees.”

“Ah.” The young man looked back, again with the odd weightless grin.

“We’ll have condos, town houses and custom estate homes,” Krimmler went on. “The fairway lots are selling like Beanie Babies. You’re interested, they’ve got some color handouts at the sales trailer.”

“Raymond Floyd, you say?”

“That’s right. He’s doing the south course.”

“Well, I’m impressed,” the young man said. “And all this?”

“For the new bridge,” said Krimmler. “Four lanes. Sixty-foot clearance.”

“But isn’t this the one I read about in the paper?”

“Naw.”

“The one the governor just vetoed?”

“Forget what you see in the news,” Krimmler told the young man. “The bridge is a done deal. The resort’s a done deal. We’re good to go.”

“Is that right.”

“Soon,” Krimmler said, with a wink. “Real soon.”

He heard a cry and, wheeling, saw one of the surveyors huffing after a big black dog. The dog somehow had gotten its leash caught up with the instrument tripod and was dragging the thing across the pavement like a crippled mantis.

“Hey, stop!” Krimmler yelled. “Stop, goddammit!”

The tan young man stepped away from Krimmler’s side and broke into a run. He chased down the dopey dog and untangled the tripod, which he returned with its broken Sokkia transit to the slow-footed surveyor. Krimmler got there in time to hear the young man apologizing, and to watch him press a crisp wad of cash into the surveyor’s palm. Then off they went, the black dog at the young man’s heels, crossing the old wooden bridge toward the island.

“Hey!” Krimmler called brightly after them. “Don’t forget to swing by the sales office and pick up a brochure!”

18

When Krimmler returned to the travel trailer, he was alarmed to see lights in the windows. Approaching the front door, he heard a throb of excited voices.

She’s stabbing me! The crazy . . . ugh! . . . bitch is . . . agh! . . . stabbing me!!!

Calm down. Please try to calm down.

Stay calm? There’s a fondue . . . ugh! . . . fork in my ass! HELP!

Sir, we’ve got units on the way.

No, Debbie, not there! You promised, NOT THERE! Yaaaggghh—Jesus, look whatchu done now! You crazy damn bitch!!

Krimmler was turning to flee when the trailer door flew open. In a blur he was tackled, dragged inside and heaved like a sack of fertilizer onto the sour carpet. He expected to behold chaos, a deranged harpy with a bloody cheese fork poised over a dying boyfriend. . . .

But the only person in Krimmler’s Winnebago was a powerfully built man with blond hair, which had been moussed into peculiar white-tipped spikes. The man wore a houndstooth suit and brown leather shoes with zippers down the ankles, like Gerry and the Pacemakers might have worn in 1964.

The interior of the trailer showed no evidence of a savage stabbing. The cries and shrieks of crazed Debbie’s victim had come from Krimmler’s stereo speakers. The spiky-haired stranger twisted down the volume knob and positioned himself in a captain’s chair, which he spun to face Krimmler.

“I work for Mr. Clapley,” the man said. He had a deceptively gentle voice.

“I work for Mr. Clapley, too.” Krimmler began to rise from the floor, but the spiky-haired man produced a handgun and motioned him to be still.

“You were talking to a guy this morning. Barefoot guy with a dog,” said the stranger. “Over by the bridge, remember?”

“Sure.”

“I was watching. Who was he?”

Krimmler shrugged. “Just some tourist. He wanted to know about the new golf courses. I sent him to the sales office.”

“What else?”

“That’s it. Why’d you bust into my place? Can’t I get up now?”

“Nope,” said the man in the houndstooth suit. “Did he ask about the new bridge?”

Krimmler nodded.

“Well?”

“I told him it was a done deal.”

“Why’d you tell him that?”

“Because he acted like he had money,” Krimmler said. “Mr. Clapley
is
still in the business of selling property, isn’t he?”

The stranger popped a cassette out of Krimmler’s stereo console. He placed it in an inside pocket of his suit jacket, all the time keeping the gun on display in his other hand. Krimmler wondered why Robert Clapley would employ such a thug. Possibly the stranger was lying about that, though it didn’t really matter at the moment. Krimmler was unfailingly respectful of firearms.

“I never saw this goddamned guy before,” he told the spiky-haired stranger. “He didn’t say his name, and I didn’t think to ask.”

“Is he with a woman?”

“I got no idea.”

“Yesterday I saw a couple in a Buick station wagon crossing to the island,” the stranger said. “They had a dog in the car.”

“Anything’s possible,” Krimmler said restlessly. “Look, I told you everything I know.”

“Well, he acts like a troublemaker. Didn’t he strike you as a troublemaker?” The man went into Krimmler’s refrigerator for a beer. “Was he pissed when you told him about the new bridge?”

“Not that I could tell,” Krimmler said. “Why the hell would he care about a bridge?”

The man with the gun was silent for a few moments. Then he said: “It’s a helluva sound system you got in this cozy little tin can.”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

“You can actually hear the people
out of breath
on those tapes. You can hear them wheezing and gasping and shit. It’s just amazing what’s possible on a first-rate sound system.”

“The speakers are brand-new,” Krimmler said. “From Germany.”

The spiky-haired man opened the beer and took a swallow. “So. This troublemaker with the black dog—where would he be staying on the island?”

“If he’s not camping out, then he’s probably at Mrs. Stinson’s bed-and-breakfast.”

“And where’s that?”

Krimmler gave directions. The man holstered his gun. He told Krimmler it was all right to get up off the floor.

“Can I ask your name?”

“Gash.”

“You really work for Clapley?”

“I do. Ask him yourself.” The stranger turned for the door.

“That tape you were listening to,” said Krimmler, “was that for real? Was that you on there, calling for help?”

The man laughed—a creepy and unsettling gurgle that made Krimmler sorry he’d asked.

“That’s good,” Mr. Gash said. “That’s really rich.”

“Look, I didn’t mean anything.”

“Hey, it’s OK. I’m laughing because the man on that tape, he’s dead. Dead as a fucking doornail. Those were his last mortal words you heard: ‘You crazy damn bitch!!’ The last living breath out of his mouth.”

Mr. Gash chuckled again, then stepped into the night.

It was nine-thirty, and Lisa June Peterson was alone in her office, which adjoined the governor’s own. When the phone rang, she assumed it was Douglas, the probate attorney she’d been dating. Every time Douglas called, the first question was: “What’re you wearing, Lisa June?”

So tonight, being in a frisky mood, she picked up the phone and said: “No panties!”

And a male voice, deeper and older-sounding than Douglas’s, responded: “Me neither, hon.”

The governor’s executive assistant gasped.

“Ah, sweet youth,” the voice said.

Lisa June Peterson stammered an apology. “I’m so—I thought you were somebody else.”

“Some days I think the same thing.”

“What can I do for you?” Lisa June asked.

“Get me an appointment with the governor.”

“I’m afraid he’s out of town.” Lisa June, trying to recover, hoping to sound cool and professional.

The caller said: “Then I’ll catch up with him later.”

She was troubled by something in the man’s tone—not menace, exactly, but a blunt certainty of purpose. “Maybe I can help,” she said.

“I seriously doubt it.”

“I can try to reach him. Does Governor Artemus know you?”

“Apparently so,” the man said.

“May I have your name?”

“Tyree. You need me to spell it?”

“No.” Lisa June Peterson was floored. “Is this some kind of a joke?”

“Anything but.”

“You’re
Governor
Tyree—no bullshit?”

“Since when do fine young ladies use that word in formal conversation? I am shocked to the marrow.”

Lisa June Peterson already was on her feet, collecting her purse and car keys. “Where are you now?” she asked the caller.

“Pay phone down on Monroe.”

“Meet me in front of the capitol. Ten minutes.”

“Why?”

She said, “I drive a Taurus wagon. I’m wearing a blue dress and glasses.”

“And no panties, ’member?”

Nothing in Lisa June Peterson’s experience prepared her for the sight of Clinton Tyree. First his size—he looked as big as a refrigerator. Then the wardrobe—he was dressed like a squeegee man: boots, homemade kilt and shower cap. As he got in her car, the dome light offered an egg-white glimpse of shaved scalp, a ruby glint from a prosthetic eye. But it wasn’t until they were seated side by side on upturned cinder blocks in front of a campfire that Lisa June Peterson got a good look at the lush cheek braids and the bleached bird beaks adorning them.

“Buzzards,” the former governor said. “Bad day.”

His face was saddle-brown and creased, but it opened to the same killer smile Lisa June remembered from her research; from those early newspaper photographs, before things went weird. The inaugural smile.

She said, “It’s really you.”

“Just the chassis, hon.”

They were in a wooded lot outside of town, near the municipal airport. The ex-governor was skinning out a dead fox he’d scavenged on the Apalachee Parkway. He said it had been struck by a motorcycle; said he could tell by the nature of the dent in the animal’s skull.

“What should I call you?” Lisa June Peterson asked.

“Let me think on that. You hungry?”

“I was.” She turned away while he worked at the haunches of the dead fox with a small knife.

He said, “This is my first time back to Tallahassee.”

“Where do you live now?”

“You know what’s tasty? Possum done right.”

Lisa June said, “I’ll keep my eyes peeled.”

“Tell me again what it is you do for Mr. Richard Artemus.”

She told him.

Clinton Tyree said: “I had an ‘executive assistant,’ too. She tried, she honestly did. But I was pretty much an impossible case.”

“I know all about it.”

“How? You were just a baby.”

Lisa June Peterson told him about the research that Governor Artemus has asked her to do. She did not tell him the scheme that had been kicking around her head, keeping her up nights; her idea to do a book about Clinton Tyree, Florida’s lost governor.

“Did your boss say what he wanted with my files?” The grin again. “No, I didn’t think so.”

“Tell me,” said Lisa June.

“You poor thing.”

“What is it?”

“Your Governor Dickie has an errand for me, darling, and not a pleasant one. If I don’t oblige, he’s going to throw my poor helpless brother out on the street, where he will surely succumb to confusion. So here I am.”

Lisa June felt a stab of guilt. “Doyle?”

Clinton Tyree raised a furry eyebrow. “Yes. My brother Doyle. I suppose
that
was in your damn research, too.”

“I’m so sorry.” But she was thinking: Dick Artemus isn’t capable of such a cold-blooded extortion.

The ex-governor speared the sliced pieces of fox on the point of a whittled oak branch, balancing it over the flames. “The reason I came to see him—your boss—is to let him know the dire ramifications of a double cross. He needs to be aware of how seriously I regard the terms of this deal.”

Lisa June Peterson said: “Isn’t it possible you misunderstood?”

Clinton Tyree gazed down at her with a ragged weariness. Then he dug into a dusty backpack and brought out a brown envelope crookedly folded and dappled with stains. Lisa June opened it and read the typed letter that had been delivered to Clinton Tyree by his best friend, Lt. Jim Tile. It didn’t matter that there was no signature at the bottom—Lisa June recognized the bloated phrasing, the comical misspellings, the plodding run-on sentences. The author of the threat could only be the Honorable Richard Artemus, governor of Florida.

“My God.” Despondently she folded the letter. “I can’t hardly believe it.”

Clinton Tyree snatched her under the arms, drawing her face close to his. “What
I
can’t believe,” he rumbled, “is that your boss had the piss-poor, shit-for-brains judgment to come fuck with
me.
Me of all people.”

His crimson eye jittered up toward the stars, but the good eye was fixed steady and lucid with wrath. “Anything bad happens to my brother from all this nonsense, someone’s going to die a slow, wretched death involving multiple orifices. You get the picture, don’t you?”

Lisa June Peterson nodded. The ex-governor eased her to the ground. “Try some fox leg,” he said.

“No, thanks.”

“I advise you to eat.”

“Maybe just a bite.”

“People speak of me as Skink. You call me captain.”

“OK,” said Lisa June.

“Any reason you need to be home tonight?”

“No. Not really.”

“Dandy,” said Clinton Tyree, stoking the campfire. “That’ll give us time to get to know each other.”

The flight from Fort Lauderdale to Gainesville took ninety minutes, plenty of time for Palmer Stoat to reflect on a productive half day of work. With a two-minute phone call he’d made forty grand. The woman on the other end was the chairperson of the Miami—;Dade County Commission, who had obligingly moved to the bottom of the night’s agenda an item of large importance to Palmer Stoat. It was a motion to award the exclusive fried-banana concession at Miami International Airport to a person named Lester “Large Louie” Buccione, who for the purpose of subverting minority set-aside requirements was now representing himself as Lestorino Luis Banderas, Hispanic-American.

To avoid the unappetizing prospect of competitive bidding, Lester/Lestorino had procured the lobbying services of Palmer Stoat, whose sway with Miami-Dade commissioners was well known. Once he had identified the necessary loophole and lined up the requisite voting majority, all that remained for Stoat was to make sure the fried-banana contract was placed far down on the agenda, so that the “debate” would be held no sooner than midnight. The strategy was to minimize public input by minimizing public attendance. A sparse crowd meant sparse opposition, reducing the likelihood that some skittish commissioner might get cold feet and screw up the whole thing.

It was a cardinal rule of political deal fixing: The later the vote, the better. So stultifying was the average government meeting that not even the hardiest of civic gadflies could endure from gavel to gavel. Generally, the only souls who remained to the wee hours were being paid to sit there—lawyers, lobbyists, stenographers and a few drowsy reporters. And since the shadiest deals were saved for the end, when the chamber was emptiest, competition was fierce for space at the tail of the agenda.

Lester Buccione had been elated to learn that the fried-banana contract would be taken up last, in tomb-like tranquillity, and that for this favor the chairperson of the Miami-Dade Commission had demanded only that one of her deadbeat cousins be hired as a part-time cashier at one of Lester’s new fried-banana kiosks. So pleased was “Lestorino” that he had promptly messengered to Palmer Stoat’s home a cashier’s check for the $40,000 fee, which divinely had mended Stoat’s tattered confidence—five-digit reassurance that the planet had not skittered off its axis, that the rightful order of the urban food chain had not been perverted, despite the harrowing madness that had ruptured Stoat’s personal universe.

He had been fingering the check from Lester Buccione, savoring its crisp affirmation, when out of the blue his missing wife had telephoned and asked him to charter another plane to Gainesville. Right away! And Palmer Stoat had thought: Thank God she’s finally come to her senses. He would fly up to get her and then they would go away for a while, somewhere secluded and safe from the demented dog dismemberer, the lascivious bald cyclops, the sadistic Blond Porcupine Man, the doll-stroking Clapley. . . .