by Carl Hiaasen
Angie waved and then turned to follow Clinton Tyree’s footpath to his hideout in the shadows.
* * *
—
Paul Ryskamp found Stanleigh Cobo behind a peach-pulp mask at the Casa Bellicosa spa. The agent introduced himself, showed his badge, and asked the aesthetician to step out. Cobo plucked the peach pits from his eyelids and sat up inquiring, “Did something happen outside? Is there a shooter?”
Ryskamp tossed him a towel and said, “We can’t have a serious conversation until you wipe that crap off your face.”
“But it needs ten more minutes.”
“Do it now. I don’t have all day.”
“Where did you get such a bad attitude?” Cobo sniffed as he scrubbed away the fruit paste. “I never heard of a Secret Service officer behaving so arrogant. You people work for all of us, remember?”
The agent said, “I don’t need to be polite with you, Mr. Cobo. I know things about you that you definitely don’t want your family to learn—especially your sister Deirdre, her being so prominent in political circles. And I’m not just referring to your Vegas debts or the hookers or the drugs, or even your bulk purchases from BondageOverstock.com.”
Cobo went pale as he stiffened. “I thought this was America. What happened to our constitutional right of privacy?”
“Down the shitter,” Ryskamp said. “Clearly you haven’t been paying attention. Try reading a newspaper once in a while.”
“Oh, I see. You’ve gone rogue.”
“Wake up, Stanleigh.”
“So, what else have you got on me that’s so awful?”
“You currently employ four—or is it five?—individuals who are undocumented aliens. Correct? From Guatemala, I believe.”
“Hold on, please, they’re okay,” Cobo protested. “Decent, docile people. And wizards at shrubbery!”
“Imagine the embarrassment to the President if this got out—that a brother of one of his Palm Beach Potussies was harboring five illegal Diegos?”
Cobo caved without a pause. “Fine, I’ll arrange for all of them to be deported. That’s easy. Deirdre knows the head honcho at Homeland Security. One phone call, boom.”
Ryskamp was too jaded to be disgusted. Cobo had recoiled in the treatment chair—bony legs drawn to his chest, the flaps of his neck slick with sweat.
“I don’t want a damn thing from you,” the agent told him, “and personally I don’t give a shit about the Guatemalans, as long as you’re paying a fair wage. Let’s talk about the Commander’s Ball. Your Chinese date is a spy.”
“Megan? No way.”
“That isn’t her name. Not even close. Megan? Seriously? Point is, she’s a foreign intelligence operative and you cannot bring her to a presidential residence.”
Cobo began to weep. Ryskamp had been forewarned. He reached into his suit pocket and took out the plastic baggie.
“Guess what I’ve got here, Stanleigh.”
Cobo sucked in his breath and toweled the snot off his chin. “Is that blow?”
“Even better,” Ryskamp said.
“What the fuck? Heroin?”
“No, Stanleigh. This is what your darling ‘Megan’ was going to bring you. Remember?”
Cobo’s bloodshot eyes grew wide. “Tusk?” he croaked hungrily. “Is it, uh, the good stuff?”
“All the way from Baffin Bay.”
“Fucking narwhal!”
“Fucking narwhal,” said the agent.
That was a lie. Ryskamp had not wasted a minute of his time trying to score narwhal tusk in Palm Beach’s tight-knit underground E.D. community. The substance in the baggie was an improvised blend of baking soda and cupcake mix, cut with jock-itch talc from Ryskamp’s personal gym bag.
“One thing, Stanleigh: You didn’t get this shit from me.”
“Of course not!” Cobo sang out. “We never met.”
He grabbed for the baggie but Ryskamp held it out of reach.
“First, you’ve got to break things off with your spy girlfriend,” the agent said.
“Right this minute?”
“Yup.” Ryskamp gave the powder a teasing little shake. “And try not to be an asshole about it.”
Cobo licked his upper lip and said, “We’ve got a deal.”
He made the call in front of Ryskamp. It didn’t last long, or end well. Afterward Cobo put on a heartsick face, though he didn’t take his eyes off the baggie. Ryskamp handed it over and walked out of the spa.
On his way to the Breakers, he called the deputy director in Washington to tell him the Cobo situation was resolved. Next he tried to reach Angie Armstrong, but her phone went straight to voicemail. Ryskamp didn’t leave a message.
The door of the nutritionist impersonator’s cabana was open when he got there. After multiple knocks, he stepped inside. It was more spacious than the First Lady’s beachside bungalow, though in stale disarray. A glitter-flecked stripper’s pole had been erected in the sitting area, the furniture shoved to one side. A suitcase lay agape on the divan, and women’s clothes were strewn about the floor. The mussed bedsheets featured an empty wine bottle, a rolled-up copy of Pro Wrestling Illustrated, and several incriminating Dr. Pepper cans, drained and crumpled. The whole place smelled like the exhaust vent at a Burger King.
Ryskamp tracked down Suzi Spooner on a lounge chair down by the ocean. She was wearing black Ray-Bans, a white plastic nose guard, and a canary bikini. A surprisingly dainty icicle pendant dangled from a piercing above her navel.
Suzi knew from Ryskamp’s gray suit and earpiece that he was Secret Service.
“Oh, God, no!” she cried. “Was it a stroke?”
“What?”
“Heart attack? Is he dead yet? Take me to see him!”
“The President’s fine, Miss Spooner.”
She produced a credible sigh of relief and flicked off her nose guard. “Then what are you doing here? Nobody’s supposed to know about me.”
“Well, that’s the problem. There’s too much talk.”
“Is this really part of your job?”
“Fair question,” Ryskamp said.
His visit to Mastodon’s mistress was unofficial. The agency hadn’t sent him to speak with her; he merely wanted to confirm for himself that the commander-in-chief was banging the same exotic dancer who was secretly shopping a racy book proposal to half a dozen publishers in New York. Ryskamp’s sister-in-law, a literary agent, had read him a page of the synopsis in which the author scathingly compared the executive gonads to “desiccated chickpeas.”
When Ryskamp asked Suzi if she’d ever written anything under the pseudonym Gillian LaCoste, she got so agitated that the silver tray of sliders flipped off her lap.
“I’ll get your ass fired if you tell anyone!” she said.
Ryskamp informed her that his ass would be out the door in a few weeks, anyway. “Besides, it’s not my concern what people say about the President, unless there’s a threat of physical harm.”
Suzi looked insulted. “Hey, I don’t hurt him. I’ve never hurt him. Soon as he’s out of breath, we stop.”
“Okay, fine, but that’s not what I meant.”
The voice in Ryskamp’s earpiece reported that Mastodon and Mockingbird were on the move; the President’s motorcade was heading to the golf course, the First Lady’s was going to a jobs fair in Riviera Beach.
“I really, really care about the man,” Suzi went on. “I always tell him, ‘Baby, get more cardio. Try a spin class. Zumba. Whatever.’ ”
“The mind reels,” said Ryskamp.
“Don’t judge me, bro. You know how many women out there would trade places? For the chance to bone a President, any President—are you kiddin’? How ’bout supermodels. Preachers’ wives. Even Costco cashiers.”
“If you care about him so much,” Ryskam
p said, “explain why you’re doing a book.”
“I bet he’ll like it.”
“Oh, yeah. Especially the part where you say he snorts like a wildebeest when he comes.”
“No, baby wildebeest,” Suzi said. “And I didn’t write that line, swear to God! The dude that’s helping me with the words, sometimes he’s such a smartass.”
They stopped talking while a white-clad attendant retrieved the fallen mini-burgers and buns from the beach sand around Suzi’s chair. When the young man was gone, Ryskamp said, “I don’t have to tell you about the President’s large temper.”
She sighed and rolled her eyes. “You’re right. He will totally lose his shit if he finds out about the book.”
“It won’t be from me.”
“So how much you want in order to keep your big mouth zipped?”
“That’s funny. You’re the second person today who thought I was trying to blackmail them when I wasn’t.” Ryskamp put on his sunglasses to watch a dark-haired woman on a paddleboard catch a nice wave. She was good.
Suzi said, “He told me he and his wife haven’t done it in forever. Is that true?”
“Were you planning to be at the Commander’s Ball? I didn’t see you on the list.”
“Not as Suzi Spooner. My birth name’s different. He said he’s gonna get me a fake date, so it’s all cool.”
“Oh.”
“I never been to his mansion, the Casa Whatever. You gonna be there?”
“I will,” Ryskamp said emptily. “Should be quite an evening.”
TWENTY-TWO
Angie took a bite. “Not bad. What is it?”
“Coyote,” her host replied.
“From where?”
“Eastbound lane, mile marker nineteen. Years ago, you never saw those gnarly fuckers around here. Now they’re a-thriving.”
He had grilled the stringy hind quarters over an open fire. Angie could hear a generator running on the far side of the camp; that would explain his internet connection, and the heat lamps that warmed the big strange cage at night.
“Not a cage—an enclosure,” he said without irony.
After everything she’d heard about him, Angie still wasn’t prepared for the live, in-person experience. His height, for starters. The funky pink shower cap that clashed with his military camo and boots. A beard as unruly as Spanish moss.
For someone his age he displayed a freakish vitality; the soothing cave-deep voice and movie-star smile, which were part of the legend, failed to offset the thrumming, unsettled force of his presence.
Then there was the damn iguana egg that he was attempting to hatch in his empty eye socket. One of the first things he’d done was flip up the patch and show the speckled white bulge to Angie. If that was a test, she assumed she passed. At least he hadn’t chased her off the island.
When she’d told him her name, he had seemed surprised. “Jim Tile sent you?”
“He told me it was okay to call you Skink.”
“There’s no reason to call me anything. You won’t be staying.”
“Can I see them? Please.”
“What—my books?” Wryly he had gestured toward the library-styled walls of the enclosure. The fissures of his face put the hard years on raw display, the corrosive sorrow and anger.
“Let’s eat,” he’d said, and cooked up the road-kill coyote, which actually tasted terrible. It was another test Angie passed. The only beverage that the governor offered was dark rum in a Dixie cup.
After they were done eating, he scrubbed the pan with swamp water while Angie doused the fire. She asked him what was in the large freezer, and he said frozen rabbits, sorbet, and expired hemorrhoid suppositories.
She said, “I’m actually on your side. You’re aware of that, right? And I know you’re not insane.”
“Do you now?” He laughed and laughed.
“Come on, Governor. Show me what you’ve been up to.”
Angie pointed at the trees, festooned with crispy, translucent snake sheds that fluttered whenever a breeze snuck through. “You should rent this place out for Halloween parties,” she said.
Skink grunted. “Let’s get on with it.”
Angie unknotted the bag that she’d brought, depositing the dead python in smooth flaccid coils at his feet.
“One of yours?” she asked.
He knelt to examine the snake’s bullet-punctured head. “The bikini shop on Worth Avenue,” he said.
“Not just any bikini shop—the First Lady’s bikini shop.”
“I guess my intel was solid.”
“And sneaking one of these suckers into the shipment of presidential Key Lime pies—that was slick, too,” Angie said. “Who told you the bakery truck always stops at the same gas plaza?”
“What can I say?”
“Start by telling me why. Is there a particular political point you’re trying to make?”
“If you were truly on my side, you wouldn’t need me to spell it out.”
Angie stood back while he skinned the python, which he proclaimed would make a “sporty” vest. Afterward he hacked up the meat, wrapped it in wax paper, and placed the pieces in the commercial-size freezer.
She said, “I’m not here to stop you, Governor. I doubt if I even could. Still, out of professional courtesy, maybe you can give me a sense of what’s coming.”
Skink tossed his head back and roared. “You, my dear, are cute as a button!”
Angie followed him over to the enclosure. From the front wall of books he removed a rectangle of tempered glass. After wriggling through the aperture, he called back to her: “No sudden movements, por favor.”
The sight inside the cage was jolting. Angie had never been afraid of snakes, but she’d never seen so many enormous constrictors in one place, confined together. For habitat Skink had constructed a web-like scaffold of stripped tree branches—cypress, live oaks, mahoganies—covered by chicken-wire mesh that let in the sun and rain. The pythons in the boughs shined like blown glass; some were crawling, some were balled up asleep.
Angie tried to count them all but quickly she became dizzy. Through the chicken-wire dome she spotted a jet high in the sky making a marvelous rainbow-colored contrail. Meanwhile the eyes of the pythons draped in the tallest branches began throbbing like embers, which was impossible.
Skink said, “Is this the first time you’ve ever done acid?”
“What?”
“I micro-dosed your ass. It was the rum.”
“That’s not funny, Governor.” Angie looked for a safe place to sit down.
“Relax. I’m tripping, too.” Skink steadied her in his arms. “It’s legit head therapy. I’ve been reading all about it in medical journals. A euphoriant that helps fight depression, they say.”
“Let go of me,” she said, though she didn’t mind being held.
“Also good for anxiety.”
“What’s the biggest python in here?”
“Twenty-three feet, eleven inches.”
Angie whistled. “World record. Nice work.”
For some reason she was clutching the front of his Army shirt. Her fingernails glinted like candy ice, which intrigued her. She cleared her throat saying, “I take back what I said about you not being insane.”
The pythons in the scaffold were becoming more active.
“They think it’s supper-time,” said Skink. “That isn’t a joke, by the way.”
“Not even a twenty-four-footer can swallow that fool in Palm Beach.”
“Hell, I know. I’m just havin’ a little fun.”
“Well, you got the Secret Service all worked up,” Angie said.
“Harmless capers.”
“Uh, no.”
Now there were snakes on the ground around them. Angie didn’t flinch. She thought they we
re beautiful, the way they kept changing colors. She wanted to feel their feathery tongues flick at her skin, making sparks.
“How long does a micro-dose last?” she asked Skink.
“Depends on the participant. Usually a couple hours.”
“Ah. Okay. Wow.”
He was still holding her. “It was better when I was hiding from all human contact. For a while I couldn’t tell you what year, month or day it was. The setback, God help me, was deciding to reconnect. Once I turned on the goddamn internet, no more sleep. President Shitweasel never fails to light my fuse. Just last Thursday he let a coal barge unload ten thousand tons of toxic ash at the port of Jacksonville. Dumped all of it in a landfill upwind from a playground. You shouldn’t have wasted your time at vet school, Angie. Pediatric oncology—that’s the future!”
She said, “Maybe you should ditch the laptop.”
“Lord, no! What’s left of my soul would shrivel without Pandora. They’ve got a whole station for Buffalo Springfield!”
“How did you know I went to veterinary school?”
“Your court file is public record, as with most felons.” Skink’s sigh had a sympathetic tone. “I’m waiting for you to remind me that the pythons don’t belong in Florida, that they’re devouring every native animal in sight—opossums, coons, bobcats, deer, all the lovely wading birds, even the crocodilians. But my specimens don’t do that, sweetheart. They get frozen entrees.”
Angie let go of his shirt and looked up at his scarred brown saddle of a face. “But the ones you’re turning loose in Palm Beach, they’re all going to die. You know this, right? It’s shoot to kill. The winter’s too cold for them up there, anyway.”
“Every year’s getting warmer,” he said. “Thanks to geniuses such as our climate-denier-in-chief, the biggest Burmese are movin’ north.”
“This is light-years beyond crazy. What can you possibly hope to accomplish?”
“Maybe scare him out of Florida.”
“The President?”
“I’m pleased, actually, that the Secret Service has taken notice. I wouldn’t be surprised if they advise him to vacation elsewhere.”
