Sick Puppy

by Carl Hiaasen

  "Shitty." Stoat's cheeks were flushed and his lips were gnawed. His left temple featured a knot the size of a plum.

  "Mr. Stoat," said Twilly, "please tell my mother about the bridge."

  Palmer Stoat blinked slowly, like a bullfrog waking out of hibernation. Desie continued to rock him with her foot.

  "Tell her how you lied to me about the bridge," Twilly said, "lied about the governor killing the bridge so the island would be saved. Mother, Mr. Stoat is a close personal friend of Governor Richard Artemus."

  "Really?" said Amy Spree.

  Stoat worked up a glower for Twilly. "You don't know what you're talking about."

  Twilly raised his hands in disgust. "You said the bridge was dead but, lo and behold, what do I encounter this very morning on Toad Island? A survey team, Mother. Measuring for—surprise, surprise!—a new bridge."

  "Uh-oh," said Amy Spree.

  "Without it, Mr. Stoat's clients can't build their fancy resort, because they can't get their cement trucks across the water."

  "Yes, son, I understand."

  McGuinn ambled onto the deck. He sniffed the knots at Palmer Stoat's wrists, then leisurely poked his nose in his master's groin.

  "Boodle, no!" Stoat bucked in the rocking chair. "Stop, goddammit!"

  Amy Spree turned her head, stifling a giggle. On the beach behind the deck were half a dozen young surfers, shirtless, with their boards under their arms. They were staring out morosely at the flat water. Amy Spree thought the scene would make a good picture, photography being her newest hobby. McGuinn trotted down the steps to make friends.

  "So what now?" Twilly slapped his palms loudly against his thighs. "That's the question of the day, Desie. What do I do with this lying, littering shithead of a husband you've got?"

  Desie looked at Twilly's mother, who looked at Palmer Stoat. Stoat cleared his throat and said: "Give me another chance."

  "Are you talking to me," said Twilly, "or your wife?"

  "Both."

  "Palmer," Desie said, "I'm not sure I want to come home."

  "Oh, for God's sake." Stoat huffed impatiently. "What is it you want, Desie?"

  "Honestly I don't know."

  "You want to be Bonnie Parker, is that it? Or maybe Patty Hearst? You want to end up a newspaper headline."

  "I just want—"

  "Fine. Then don't come home," said Palmer Stoat. "Don't even bother."

  Amy Spree rose. "Son, I need some help downstairs in the garage."

  "Relax, Mom," Twilly said. "It's all right."

  Amy Spree sat down. Desie Stoat took her foot off the chair, and her husband rocked to a stop.

  "Do whatever you want," he snarled at his wife. "Fuck you. Fuck that stupid Labrador retriever. To hell with the both of you."

  Twilly's mother said: "There's no need for profanity."

  "Lady, I'm tied to a goddamn chair!"

  Desie said, "Oh please. It's not like you've been a model husband the last two years."

  Stoat made a noise like a football going flat. "You'll be hearing from my lawyers, Desirata. Now: One of you fruitcakes better untie me." He twisted his neck to get a fix on Twilly Spree. "And with regard to the Toad Island bridge, junior, there's not a damn thing you or anyone else on God's green earth can do to stop it. You can have my wife and you can have my dog, but that new bridge is going up whether you like it or not. It's what we call a foregone conclusion, junior—no matter how many paws and ears and dog balls you send out. So take off these ropes this minute, before I start raising holy hell."

  Never had Desie seen her husband so infuriated. His face was swollen up like an eggplant.

  She said, "Palmer, why did you have to lie?"

  Before Stout could tee off on her again, Twilly slapped a fresh strip of hurricane tape across his lips. The pillowcase came down over wide hate-filled eyes.

  Amy Spree said, "Son, don't be too rough with the man."

  Twilly hauled the rocking chair indoors while Desie whistled for McGuinn. Later Amy Spree served dinner, broiled shrimp over rice under a homemade tomato-basil sauce. They brought Palmer Stoat to the table but he made clear, with a series of snide-sounding grunts, that he wasn't particularly hungry.

  "There's plenty more," said Twilly's mother, "if you change your mind. And I apologize, kids, for not having wine."

  "Mom gave up drinking," Twilly explained to Desie.

  "But if I'd known you were coming, I would have picked up a bottle of nice merlot," said Amy Spree.

  "We're just fine. The food is fantastic," Desie said.

  "What about your puppy?"

  "He'll eat later, Mrs. Spree. There's a bag of chow in the car."

  Dessert was a chocolate cheesecake. Twilly was cutting a second slice when his mother said, "Your father was asking about you."

  "You still talk to him?"

  "He calls now and again. Between flings."

  "So how's waterfront moving out on the West Coast?" Twilly said.

  "That's what I wanted to tell you. He quit the business!"

  "I don't believe that. Quit, or retired?"

  "Actually, they took away his real estate license."

  "In California?"

  "He didn't go into all the gory details."

  Twilly was incredulous. "Don't you have to disembowel somebody to lose your real estate license in California?"

  "Son, I couldn't believe it, either. Know what he's selling now? Digital home entertainment systems. He mailed me a color brochure but I can't make sense of it."

  Twilly said, "You know what gets me, Mom? He could've quit the business after Big Phil died. All that money—Dad didn't need to hawk one more lousy foot of beach. He could've moved to the Bahamas and gone fishing."

  "No, he could not," said Amy Spree. "Because it's in his blood, Twilly. Selling oceanfront is in his blood."

  "Please don't say that."

  "Excuse me," Desie interjected, "but Palmer acts like he needs to use the little boy's room."

  "Again?" Twilly rose irritably. "Jesus, his bladder's smaller than his conscience."

  Later Amy Spree walked them downstairs, where her son hoisted the rocking chair (with Palmer Stoat, squirming against the ropes) into the station wagon.

  She said, "Twilly, what're you going to do with him? For heaven's sake, think about this. You're twenty-six years old."

  "You want to take his picture, Mother? He likes to get his picture made. Isn't that right, Palmer?"

  From under the puckering pillowcase came a snort.

  "Polaroids especially," said Twilly.

  Desie blushed. From the rocker came a dejected moan.

  Amy Spree said: "Twilly, please don't do something you'll come to regret." Then, turning to Desie: "You stay on his case, all right? He's got to buckle down and work on that anger."

  Twilly slid behind the wheel, with Desie on the other side and McGuinn hunkered between them, drooling on the dashboard.

  "I love you, son," said Amy Spree. "Here, I wrapped the rest of the cheesecake."

  "I love you, too, Mom. Happy birthday."

  "Thanks for remembering."

  "And I'll bring back the rocking chair."

  "No hurry."

  "Might be next year," said Twilly, "maybe sooner."

  "Whenever," said his mother. "I know you're busy."

  Word of the governor's veto somehow reached Switzerland. Robert Clapley was floored when one of the bankers financing Shearwater Island called him up in the middle of the night. "Vot hippen to ze bridge?" All the way from Geneva at two-thirty in the morning—like he'd never heard of international time zones, the icy-blooded bastard.

  Yet Clapley was wide-awake, skull abuzz, when the phone rang. All night long he'd been trying to contact Palmer Stoat, as the Barbies were on a bimbo rampage for more rhinoceros powder. Clapley had returned from Tampa and found them locked in the bathroom, a boom box blasting fusion dance music from behind the door. An hour later the two women emerged arm in arm, giggling. Katya's hai
r was tinted electric-pink to match her tube top, and from the sun-bronzed cleft between her breasts arose an ornate henna fer-de-lance, fangs bared and dripping venom. By contrast, Tish had dressed up as a man, complete with a costume mustache, in Clapley's favorite charcoal gray Armani.

  He was struck helpless with horror. The women looked vulgar and deviant—anti-Barbies! They announced they were going to a strip club near the airport for amateur night. First prize: a thousand bucks.

  "I'll give you two thousand," Clapley pleaded, "to stay home with me."

  "You got horn?" Katya, with a cruel wink. "No? Then we go score some." And merrily they had breezed out the door.

  On the telephone, the banker from Geneva was saying: "Ze bridge, Mr. Clapley, vot hippen?"

  And over and over Robert Clapley tried to make the stubborn blockhead understand there was no cause for alarm. Honest. Trust me. The governor's a close personal friend. The veto was nothing but a sly deception. The new bridge is good to go. Shearwater Island is a done fucking deal.

  "So relax, Rolf, for God's sake." Clapley was fuming. He'd answered the phone only because he thought it might be that fuckweasel Stoat, finally returning his calls, or possibly the Palm Beach County vice squad, with precious Katya and Tish in custody...

  "But ze newspaper said—"

  "I told you, Rolf, it's just politics. Jerkwater Florida politics, that's all."

  "Yes, but you see, Mr. Clapley, with a line of credit as large as vot ve extended to you—"

  "Yeah, I know what you ex-shtended—"

  "Von hundred ten million, U.S."

  "I'm keenly aware of the amount, Rolf."

  "News such as this vood naturally cause some concern. It is understandable, no? Given our exposure."

  "Sure. So let me say it one more time. And feel free to pass this along to all your associates at the bank: There's nothing to worry about, OK? Now you say it."

  From the other end: "Vot?"

  "Your turn," said Robert Clapley. "Repeat after me: THERE IS NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT. Come on, Rolf, let me hear you."

  The problem was: Clapley was unaccustomed to dealing with bankers. He was used to dealing with dopers—criminals, to be sure, but far more flexible and pragmatic when something went wrong. The average drug smuggler lived in a world crawling with fuck-offs, deadbeats and screwups; not a day of his life unfolded exactly as planned. He transacted narcotics, guns and cash, routinely taking insane risks that young Rolf in Geneva could not possibly fathom. Exposure? thought Robert Clapley. This cheesebrain doesn't know the meaning of the word.

  "Oh, Rolf?"

  "Dere is nutting to vorry bout."

  "Thattaboy," said Clapley.

  He had resorted to Swiss bankers only because the Shearwater project had become too big for dope money—or at least Robert Clapley's kind of dope money. Oh, Toad Island he'd bought up all by himself, no sweat. However, more serious dough was needed to clear the place and remake it into a world-class golf and leisure community. Clapley's only other project, a seventeen-story apartment tower off Brickell Avenue in Miami, had been financed entirely with marijuana and cocaine profits, which Clapley had washed and loaned to himself through a phony Dutch holding company. He would have loved to work the same scam with Shearwater Island but he didn't have $100-odd million in loose cash lying around, and the only people who did were people who didn't need Robert Clapley to invest it for them: seasoned Colombian money launderers who favored commercial real estate over residential.

  So Clapley had gone looking for his first-ever legitimate partners and wound up with the Swiss bankers, who had been so impressed by the balance sheet on the Brickell Avenue tower that they'd offered him a generous line of credit for developing and marketing his scenic island getaway on Florida's Gulf Coast. Afterward, the bankers mostly had left Clapley alone—so much so that he'd been lulled into complacency.

  Because, obviously, they'd been keeping a cold blue Aryan eye on his ass. How else would they have found out that Dick Artemus had vetoed the damn Shearwater bridge?

  Still, Clapley sensed that young Rolf was uncomfortable in the role of edgy inquisitor, that he wanted very much to be stoic and unflappable in the Swiss banker tradition...

  "Surely this sort of minor snafu has come up before."

  Rolf said, "Yah, shore. Snafus all ze time."

  "So there's no cause to get all hot and bothered," said Clapley. "And Rolf?"

  "Yah."

  "Next time, don't call at such a wicked hour. I've got ladies here."

  "Oh."

  "That's ladies, plural." Clapley, with a suggestive chuckle.

  "Again, sir, my apologies. But ve can hope for no more surprises? That vood be good."

  "Oh, that vood be vunderful," chided Robert Clapley, perceiving starch in the young banker's tone, and not liking it. "Now it's time to say good-bye. Somebody's knocking at the door."

  "Ah. Perhaps one of your ladies plural."

  "Good night, again, Rolf."

  Clapley put on a silk robe that almost matched his pajamas. He hurried to the peephole and let out a burble of glee. Palmer Stoat!

  Clapley snatched open the door. "You got my rhino dust!"

  "No, Bob. Something better."

  As Stoat walked past him, Clapley inhaled a foul wave of heat, halitosis and perspiration. The lobbyist looked awful; blotchy and damp-skinned, a nasty purple bruise shining on his head.

  "It's about Toad Island," he said, trudging uninvited toward the kitchen. "Where are the future twins?"

  "Mass," said Clapley.

  "What for—to show off their kneeling?" Stoat was wheezing as if he'd walked all sixteen flights. "By the way, I lined up your cheetah hunt."

  "Swell. But what I need right now, more than oxygen, is the horn off a dead rhinoceros."

  Palmer Stoat waved a sticky-looking palm. "It's in the works, Bob. On my mother's grave. But that's not what I came here to tell you." He removed a carton of orange juice from the refrigerator and a bottle of Absolut from the liquor cabinet. He fixed himself an extremely tall screwdriver and told Robert Clapley all that had happened to him in the clutches of the maniac dognapper.

  "Plus, now he's brainwashed my wife. So here's what I did, Bob. Here's your big news. I advised this fucker—whose name is Twilly, by the way—I told him to keep Desie, keep the damn dog and quit wasting our time. The bridge is going up, I told him. Toad Island's history. So fuck off!" Palmer Stoat smacked his liver-colored lips and smiled.

  Clapley shrugged. "That's it?"

  Stoat's piggy wet eyes narrowed. "Yes, Bob, and that's plenty. No more extortion. The guy's got nothing I care about. He can't stop us and he can't hurt us."

  "You're only half-right," said Clapley, "as usual."

  "No, Bob. He's pathetic."

  "Really."

  "He doesn't matter anymore." Palmer Stoat made this a pronouncement. "He's a gnat. He's a no-place man."

  "That's 'nowhere man.' "

  "What can he do to us now? What's he got left?" Stoat gave a sickly grin. "He shot his wad, Bob."

  Robert Clapley was thinking how unwell Stoat looked. He was reminded of the day Stoat almost swallowed the baby rat.

  "So what're you saying, Palmer?"

  "Onward and upward is what I'm saying." Stoat tipped another shot of vodka into his drink. "From now on, it's full speed ahead. You build your bridge and dig those pretty golf courses—me, I'm getting a divorce and a new dog."

  "You say this diseased cocksucker's name isTwilly."

  "Forget about him, Bob. He's Desie's headache now."

  Clapley frowned. "No, Palmer, I can't forget about him. He went to a lot of trouble to make his point with you. I expect he's not done screwing with Shearwater yet."

  "For God's sake, what's he gonna do—throw himself in front of the bulldozers? Let him be," Stoat said. "It's over, Bob. Call off Mr. Gash and send him back to Liquid, or what-ever-the-hell club you found him at."

  "I'm afraid that's not possible."

>   Stoat gingerly pressed the chilled tumbler of vodka to the knot on his head. "Meaning you don't want to, right?"

  "Meaning it's not possible, Palmer. Even if I did want to," Clapley said. "Mr. Gash isn't communicating with me at the moment. He gets these moods."

  Palmer Stoat shut his eyes. Down one pallid cheek rolled a single clear droplet from the vodka glass. "Would he hurt Desie?"