by Shelley Katz
He screamed, "Holy Christ! Lord!"
The alligator lurched forward and crunched into his soft flesh, clamping onto him with massive jaws. Dinks could no longer feel his bones crunch like toothpicks, or see his blood, which swirled into the water in warm, thick spurts. The alligator pulled Dinks's body down, below the surface of the boiling water and into the slime. Water and blood flowed back into Dinks's nostrils and mouth and filled his lungs with choking death.
On the surface of the water, Orrin floated, lifeless. His head had been smashed in by the side of the boat; his old heart had been exploded by the weight of fear. The bloody water lapped at him, making his dead body twitch.
There was a shock on the surface. The massive crooked head of the alligator reemerged, pieces of flesh still clinging to the conical, knife-sharp teeth. The alligator roared, almost languorously, and turned toward Orrin. He watched passively as Orrin's body floated and bumped through the water. A violent tremor traveled the length of his body. The alligator howled and lunged forward. He clamped onto Orrin's body, plucking him from the debris-strewn surface and pulling him far down into the bloody undertow.
The murky swamp water calmed over them, until all that was left was a small whirlpool in the black, obliterating water.
Chapter 2
Sam Pruett was a man who was used to dealing with the concrete. He was a lawyer, and through both training and inclination kept his mind as neat as a file cabinet. A short, stocky, bald-headed man with a pockmarked face and intelligent, deep-set eyes, Sam seemed to look right through everything, right down to the comprehensible center of the globe. As cornerstones of his existence were two beliefs. The first was that the world was a well-ordered place, and the second was that every inexplicable event had a perfectly understandable cause; all that was needed to see it was a little logic. When God appeared before Sam Pruett, it was in long judicial robes. In his forty-five years, Sam Pruett had seen nothing to contradict his view of the world until the morning that he was called to Sheriff Thompson's office.
It wasn't much after seven P.M. when Sam received the call from Ben Ferguson asking him to come over to the sheriff's office immediately. Ben was abrupt and mysterious when Sam asked what was so important that it couldn't wait.
Red early-evening light was streaming through the windows in Sheriff Thompson's office. Sam saw that the curtains had been removed and lay on the floor, covering something. Ben Ferguson was there, and Orville Levi, as well as Thompson. Simon Long was locked up in the cell, and Sam could see he was drunk.
"What's going on?" he asked irritably.
"Take a look." Sheriff Thompson inclined his head toward the curtains.
Sam walked over and lifted up an edge of the cloth. At first all he was aware of was a terrible odor. It was an inhuman odor, and, at the same time, human in a way one didn't like to think about. It was a smell of sea and land, millions of years of rot and decay. It was the smell of death. The blood-red evening light fell on something large and round. It took Sam awhile to understand what he was seeing. It was Dinks's head; thousands of ants were crawling across his green-white leering face and through his matted hair.
Sam fell back as if he had received a blow to his stomach. He looked from Thompson to Ben to Levi, but they were not looking at him. Finally he asked, "Who did it?"
"Not who, what," answered Thompson quietly. He stared out the window at the sunset.
Sam walked over to Thompson's desk and leaned against it, grateful for the support it gave him.
Thompson continued to watch the setting sun as he said, "There are two bodies, Orrin Bodges and Dinks Collier. Simon Long found them, and from what he told me and what I was able to see—" Thompson broke off and turned to the three men. "I'm afraid we're going to have to look at the bodies closely. There are puncture marks and ton limbs that no man could have made."
"Hell," said Ben, "Simon's drunk; you aren't gonna listen to him."
Thompson shuddered. "I gave him the bottle and locked him up to keep him quiet. I had to drink half the bcttle myself to screw up the nerve to bring in those bodies."
"Puncture marks?" questioned Sam. He was becoming intrigued.
"Like they were made by teeth," said Thompson.
The three men looked at one another. Thompson walked over to his desk and opened a book. "Large conical teeth that were close to an inch in diameter. The shape of them was familiar. Just like these." Thompson pointed to a picture of an alligator, and traced his finger over the outline of its teeth.
"Impossible," said Sam. "Alligators don't attack men."
"What about that woman last year in Lauderdale?" asked Ben.
"That was just one in a million," snapped Sam. He wasn't quite sure why he was getting angry.
"The point is," said Thompson, "it did happen, didn't it?"
"Yeah, it happened. But that was just one woman alone. Here there were two men, and they both carried shotguns. No alligator could take that on."
"No alligator we know of," said Thompson, "but what about a big one?"
Sam laughed outright. "A giant alligator? Jesus Christ, Thompson!"
"There were other things, too. Chunks were torn off the bodies, just pulled clean off. You know how an alligator kills? They grab ahold of their prey with their jaws and drag it underwater till it drowns. Then, when it's stopped moving, the gator comes back up and, still holding on with his teeth, he tosses the body back and forth till he's worked off a good chunk of flesh."
"How big do you figure this gator to be?" asked Orville Levi, a nervous, dapper little man with a face like a ferret's. The men looked around, surprised. He had remained so silent that they had forgotten he was there.
"Nineteen, twenty feet," answered Thompson.
"Would you care to run that by me again," said Sam with a smirk.
"Judging from the size of the teeth marks, he'd have to be that big."
Sam shook his head in annoyance. "I don't know about you, but I stopped listening to ghost stories when I was thirteen. I think we better have a look at these bodies right now." He walked over and pulled back the curtains.
Sam fought the urge to pull away and forced himself to inspect the bodies more closely. After the first glance, they were no longer so horrifying. They looked unreal, as if they'd been carved out of wax. Their skin was smooth and white from the hours in the water and lack of blood. The whorls of hair on their bodies were coarse and brittle, so very black against the unreal pallor that they seemed to be pasted on.
Their limbs were contorted in impossible positions. Every bone in their bodies must have been broken. Sam could see the teeth marks that Thompson was talking about, and the huge areas of torn flesh. But there was nothing frightening or disgusting about these signs of their death struggle, because there was nothing about the bodies that was any longer human. To imagine that what lay before him had once walked, talked, eaten, and made love seemed impossible. That was the most horrifying part of it to Sam. Not that the two men had been killed, not even that they might have been killed by a twenty-foot rogue alligator—and Sam was beginning to admit the possibility that they had—but that, once dead, it was as if they had never existed at all. He felt an almost uncontrollable urge to laugh.
"Believe me now?" asked Thompson.
"Does anyone else know about this?" asked Levi. It took a moment for the three men to break away from looking at the bodies and turn to him.
"No," answered Thompson. "Just us four and Simon over there. I made him promise not to say anything. I'm not sure we can trust him. That's why I got him drunk. I figured we could let him out while he was still hung-over and no one would believe a word he said."
"I saw it, and I still don't believe it," said Ben.
"I don't think we have the right to keep it to ourselves," said Sam. "I personally don't think there's a twenty-foot alligator slinking through our waterways—there's probably another explanation for it—but we just don't have the right to keep it to ourselves."
"I ag
ree with Sam," said Levi. "An incident like this hits the papers; you know what would happen?"
"Yeah, a panic," said Thompson.
"Wrong," said Levi. "Well, maybe a little one, but here's the thing—an incident like this could cause a boom."
"I don't get you," said Ben, but he had a terrible feeling that he did.
"Tourists—hundreds, maybe thousands of them. 'Come see the killer alligator' and all that kind of crap." Sam was looking at Levi with horror. Levi took it for interest. "See, Sam here agrees."
"You make me sick."
"Oh yeah?" Levi tried to push his way over to Sam, but Thompson stood in front of him and held him back. It wasn't difficult. Levi was not a fighting man.
"For once I pull rank," Thompson said when he had subdued Levi. "I'm the sheriff, and I say we keep this under wraps. I don't want any of you talkin' to no one and starting a panic here. It's a quiet town, and I intend to keep it that way, understand?"
Ben, Sam, and Thompson shook hands on it, but all they had been able to get from Levi was a knowing smile. The next day it was on the front page of every newspaper in the South.
Chapter 3
It wasn't until two o'clock in the morning that Rye Whitman was able to leave the stockholders' meeting and take a leak. He slipped out of the Miami Hilton ballroom and sneaked down the corridor and into the men's room before anyone noticed his absence.
He was dog tired. He rubbed his thick hand over his forehead as if he could wipe the fatigue off his face. Then he looked into the mirror. He didn't look too bad, considering the hour; considering his age, he was nothing short of a miracle. He was tanned and tall and solid as a rock. He could still swim a mile every morning in his pool and put in a twelve-hour day at the office. Not a day went by that a woman didn't give him the come-on. Often they were half his age. He didn't look all that different than he had twenty years ago. Perhaps there was some gray in his thick, curly blond hair, and a few wrinkles around his ice-blue eyes, but at forty-eight he could have been a lot worse off.
He straightened his tie and splashed cold water over his face, then winked at himself in the mirror. It had been a long night, but he'd headed them off at the pass.
He spotted a cobalt-blue fake velvet chaise in the corner of the room and eyed it longingly, but he knew he wouldn't even be able to get five minutes in before they found him.
Rye was startled out of his reverie by a knock on the door. "Rye! You in there?"
Rye winced. "No," he yelled back. "I went home an hour ago."
Maurice Gainor, vice-president of Whitman Enterprises and trusted friend, as much as Rye trusted anyone beyond himself, opened the door a couple of inches and slid into the men's room. He breathed a sigh of relief. "For a moment there, I could almost see the unemployment line."
"Are you kidding? Those turkeys had no shot." Rye pulled a paper towel from the dispenser, wadded it into a ball, and left-hooked it into a urinal by way of emphasis. "I practically own this state. There isn't a goddamned inch of land between here and Baton Rouge that doesn't have my mark on it. No weakkneed, ass-licking bunch of fancy-pants can organize a proxy fight against me."
"Any idea who was behind it?"
"I don't have a clue. Or maybe I should say the list is so long I don't know which one to choose. But I'll find out quick enough, and when I do, I'll have his balls strung out the thirty-fifth-floor window." Rye flicked Maurice's tie into his face and smiled. "You look like you just fought World War Three single-handedly."
Maurice ran his short, stubby fingers over his wrinkled suit and tried to make himself look presentable. He always looked as though he had just fought World War Three. He was the kind of man who looked dirty and sleazy no matter how often he washed and how much deodorant he used. On him, a five-hundred-dollar suit looked like it came with two pairs of pants. He glanced into the same mirror Rye had looked into seconds before. A squat, beetlelike man with thinning black hair and oily dark skin looked back at him. Only his eyes saved him from looking completely unsavory. They were soft brown and sad. He sighed. He had never gotten used to being ugly. Maybe nobody ever did, he thought. He turned away from the mirror.
"The press is waiting outside for you," said Maurice.
"Let John deal with them." Rye grabbed a paper towel and, taking careful aim, made another hook shot into the urinal.
"It wouldn't look good."
"Yeah," said Rye, "I guess you're right. Where in the hell is John, anyway?"
"He's still in the ballroom, kissing ass."
"Well, get him out of there and let's get this over with." Rye glanced at his watch. "We hurry, we can still make Everglades by morning."
Just as Maurice was about to open the door, there was another knock. "You in there?" called John.
"No," said Rye, "it's the cleaning lady. Come on in and join the party."
John Patterson kicked open the door. He stood in the doorway, one hand at either side of his Brooks Brothers trousers as if he were drawing six-shooters.
"Bang. Bang." John let off an imaginary shot at each man.
With John Patterson's tall, slim figure, short-cropped hair, and a face like the American Dream gone to seed, he was able to look fairly menacing in the half light.
"Not funny," said Rye.
"You're telling me?" John threw some cold water on his face and allowed the air to dry it off. "That was some surprise."
"Balls," said Rye. "Is the meeting over?"
"Yeah, everyone's gone but the press. You want to sneak out the back? There's a way through the kitchen."
"Gainor says it doesn't look right. But let's make it fast, okay? In and out."
Rye wadded up another towel and made a brilliant shot. He winked at Maurice and John. "Come on."
Rye sneaked up to the door and opened it a crack. The dimly lit corridor was quiet. At the far end he could just barely make out the twenty-five waiting reporters who were penned into a cordoned-off area near the ballroom. It would be easy to sneak by them.
Suddenly Rye burst through the men's-room door and, with Maurice and John in his wake, began striding down the corridor, a super-powered businessman in a hurry. It was all part of a game he had learned long ago. Pretend you're in control and they'll buy it.
Within seconds the press caught sight of Rye and tried to push through the barrier. The corridor, which only moments before was quiet, became a mob scene as the reporters jostled and pushed one another, shouting out questions at Rye and cursing one another. Five security guards sprang into action and, linking hands, held back the reporters. Flashbulbs popped, exploding light across the Hilton lobby like it was Christmas.
Rye strode over to the ballroom and positioned himself in front of the huge walnut doors he knew would look so impressive as background for his photo in the morning papers. He crinkled up his glacial blue eyes and flashed his relaxed country-boy smile for the cameras. "What the hell you boys doin' up so late?" he said after a barrage of pictures had been taken. "Must be well past your bedtime."
"Heard you had a little problem, Mr. Whitman," yelled a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, trying to make himself heard over the general din of shuffling feet and popping flashbulbs.
"Now who the hell told you that?" Rye smiled like an indulgent father.
"Come on, Rye, we hear there's been some trouble," shouted the tall, young, pimply-faced boy known as the Miami Herald's Wunderkind. He was hanging over the security guard's arms.
"Give us a break," whined a reporter from the Naples Times. He managed to dig his incredibly sharp elbow into the Wunderkind.
"No trouble," said Rye, beaming at them. "We just had a few differences that needed ironing out. But everything is fine now."
A blue-eyed young woman, newly hired by NBC and frantic to show her worth, shouted from the rear, "Mr. Whitman, we all know there's been a proxy fight. And from what we hear, you were lucky to make it out with your ass."
"Who let that cunt in here?" snapped Rye.
"I heard t
hat, Mr. Whitman," she yelled back.
"You'll hear a lot more if you don't shut that mouth of yours."
"Rye, don't," Maurice said frantically.
"I don't have to take that kind of shit."
The woman from NBC pushed her way to the front of the reporters. Her sharp blue eyes glared at him. Her voice was high-pitched and hysterical.
"Come on, Mr. Whitman, you've raped this state till it's nothing more than one long housing development."
"Careful I don't do the same thing to you. You look like you could use a good—"
"Rye!" Maurice's voice was heavy with warning.
"Okay, okay," answered Rye, "but let's get the hell out of here. I've had enough for tonight."
Maurice and John formed a flying wedge. The security guards cleared a path, and the three men pushed through the mob of reporters.
The reporters started pushing and shoving one another out of the way like dogs before a hunt. Rye could feel their hot breaths on him as they shouted. The noise of shuffling feet and shouting voices, combined with the damp Miami heat, was overpowering. Rye tried to ignore it. Keeping his eyes straight ahead and his shoulders hunched, he pushed through the crowd, past the Hilton lobby and out the swinging doors into the hot Miami night. He could still hear them shouting questions after him.
A ten-passenger, chauffeur-driven, cobalt-black Mercedes swung into the driveway as if on signal. Maurice threw open the door before the car had even stopped, and Rye and John piled into the back seat. Maurice waited until they were safely in, then jumped in himself. The chauffeur put the car back into gear and, with a piercing screech, pulled away from the curb and onto the city streets, just as the crowd of reporters crashed through the hotel doors.
