Sick Puppy

by Carl Hiaasen

  "Can I ask you something?"

  "Long as your feet keep moving," said the man.

  They were walking along the windswept shoreline, Twilly with McGuinn at his heels. Mr. Gash followed a few feet behind. He was taking care not to get his shoes wet in the surf.

  "Why are you pointing the gun at the dog," Twilly said, "and not at me?"

  "Because I saw how you hauled ass up here when you thought Fido was in trouble. You care more about that dumb hound than you do about yourself," Mr. Gash said. "So I figure you won't try any crazy shit long as I keep the piece aimed at Fido's brain, which I'm sure is no bigger than a stick of Dentyne."

  Twilly reached down and scratched the crown of McGuinn's head. The Lab wagged his tail appreciatively. He seemed to have lost interest in the strange-smelling human with the gun.

  "Also," said Mr. Gash, "it'll be cool to watch you watch the dog die. Because that's what has to happen. I gotta do Fido first."

  "How come?"

  "Think about it, man. I shoot you first, the dog goes batshit. I shoot the dog first, what the hell're you going to do—bite me in the balls? I seriously doubt it."

  Twilly said, "Good point."

  His legs felt leaden and his arms were cold; the temperature was dropping rapidly ahead of the weather front. The salt spray stung, so Twilly kept his eyes lowered as he walked. He could see Desie's footprints in the sand, pointing in the same direction.

  Mr. Gash was saying: "I got tape of a hellacious dog attack. Chow named Brutus. The owner's on the phone yelling for help and Brutus gets him by the nuts and will not let go. The 911 operator tells the guy to, quick, try and distract the dog. So the poor fucker, he dumps a pot of Folger's decaf on Brutus and the last thing on the tape is this scream that goes on forever. Damn dog took everything! I mean the whole package."

  "Ouch," said Twilly.

  "You should hear it."

  "How'd you get a tape of something like that?" Twilly thinking: The more pertinent question is: Why?

  Mr. Gash said, "I got my sources. Where's your goddamned car, anyway? I'm getting drenched."

  "Not far."

  Twilly was crestfallen to spy the Road-master behind a scrub-covered sand dune, where he had parked it. He had hoped Desie would see the keys in the ignition and drive back to the bed-and-breakfast, to sulk or pack her bag or whatever.

  Maybe she decided to walk, thought Twilly. The important thing was that she was somewhere else, somewhere safe...

  But she wasn't. She was lying down in the backseat. Mr. Gash tapped the gun barrel against the rain-streaked window. Desie sat up quizzically and put her face near the glass. Mr. Gash showed her the semiautomatic and told her to unlock the door. When she hesitated, he grabbed McGuinn's collar, jerked the dog off the ground and jammed the gun to its neck.

  The door flew open.

  Mr. Gash beamed. "Lookie there, Fido. She loves you, too."

  The trooper got to the old bridge before he changed his mind. He whipped the cruiser around and drove back to look for his friend. Thirty minutes later he found him, naked on a dune. The governor stood with his face upturned, his arms outstretched—letting the rain and wind beat him clean.

  Jim Tile honked and flashed his headlights. The man who called himself Skink peered indignantly through the slashing downpour. When he saw the Highway Patrol car, he stalked across the sand and heaved himself, dripping luxuriantly, into the front seat.

  "I thought we said our good-byes," he growled, wringing out his beard.

  "I forgot to give you something."

  The man nodded absently. "FYI: Governor Dickhead was right. They sent someone after this boy. The boy with the dog."

  Jim Tile said, "He's twenty-six years old."

  "Still a boy," Skink said. "And he's here on the island, like we figured. I believe I met the man they sent to kill him."

  "Then I'm glad I came back."

  "You can't stay."

  "I know," said the trooper.

  "You've got Brenda to consider. Pensions and medical benefits and such. You can't be mixed up in shit like this."

  "Nothing says I can't take off the uniform, Governor, at least for a few minutes."

  "Nothing except for common sense."

  "Where's your damn clothes?"

  "Hung in a tree," said Skink. "What'd you bring me, Jim?"

  The trooper jerked a thumb toward the trunk of the cruiser.

  "Pop it open for me, would you?" Skink got out in the rain and went to the rear of the car. He returned with the package, which Jim Tile had wrapped in butcher's paper.

  Skink smiled, hefting the item up and down in one hand. "You old rascal! I'm guessing Smith & Wesson."

  The trooper told him the gun was clean; no serial numbers. "One of my men took it off a coke mule in Okaloosa County. Very slick operation, too—eighteen-year-old Cuban kid driving a yellow Land Rover thirty-seven miles per hour at three in the morning on Interstate 10. It's a wonder we noticed him."

  Skink borrowed a handkerchief to swipe the condensation off his glass eye. "I don't get it. You're the one told me not to bring the AK-47."

  "Guess I'm getting nervous in my old age," the trooper said. "There's something else in the glove compartment. You go ahead and take it."

  Skink opened the latch and scowled. "No, Jim, I hate these damn things." It was a cellular phone.

  "Please. As a favor," the trooper said. "It will significantly improve my response time."

  Skink closed his palm around the phone.

  "You better hit the road," he said grumpily. "This damn car stands out like the proverbial turd in the punch bowl."

  "And you don't?"

  "I'll be getting dressed momentarily."

  "Oh, then you'll really blend in," Jim Tile said.

  Skink got out of the police cruiser and tucked the heavy brown package under one arm. Before closing the door, he leaned in and said, "My love to your bride."

  "Governor, I don't hear from you in twenty-four hours," the trooper said, "I'm coming back to this damn island."

  "You don't hear from me in eight, don't even bother."

  Skink gave a thumbs-up. Then he turned and began to run across the windblown dunes. It was a meandering, waggle-stepped, butt-wiggling run, and Jim Tile couldn't help but laugh.

  He watched his friend disappear into the hazy yellow-gray of the storm. Then he wheeled the car around and headed for the mainland.

  caller: Help me! Help me, God, please, oh God, help...

  dispatcher: What's the problem, sir?

  caller: She set fire to my hair! I'm burning up, oh God, please!

  dispatcher: Hang on, sir, we've got a truck on the way. We've got help coming. Can you make it to the bathroom? Try to get to the bathroom and turn on the shower.

  caller: I can't., I can't move... She tied me to the damn bed. She... I'm tied to the bed with, like—oh Jesus, my hair!—clothesline. Aaaggggghhhooooohhhh...

  dispatcher: Can you roll over? Sir, can you turn over?

  caller: Cindy, no! Cindy, don't! CINDY!

  dispatcher: Sir, if you're tied to the bed, then how—

  caller: She held the phone to my ear, the sick bitch. She dialed 911 and put the phone to my ear and now... ooohh-hhhhh... Stop!... Now she's doing marshmallows. My hair's on fire and she's cooking... Stop, God, stop, I'm burning up, Cindy!... Marsh—oh Jesus!—mallows... Cindy, you crazy psycho bitch...

  Mr. Gash turned down the volume and said, "See? That's what love gets you. Man's wife ties him to the bedposts, pretending like she's gonna screw his brains out. Instead she puts a lighter to his hair and roasts marsh-mallows in the flames."

  Desie said, "That was real?"

  "Oh yes, Virginia." Mr. Gash popped the tape out of the console, and read from the stick-on label. "Tacoma, Washington. March tenth, 1994. Victim's name was Appleman. Junior Appleman."

  "Did he die?"

  "Eventually," Mr. Gash reported. "Took about six weeks. According to the newspaper, the Applema
ns had been having serious domestic problems. The best part: He lied to the dispatcher. It wasn't clothesline she tied him up with, it was panty hose. He was too embarrassed to say so. Even on fire! But my point is, romance is fucking deadly. Look at you two!"

  Twilly and Desie traded glances.

  "You wouldn't be here right now, about to die," Mr. Gash added, "if you guys hadn't gotten romantically involved. I'd bet the farm on it."

  They were all in the station wagon, parked among the bulldozers in the woods. Desie recognized the place from Dr. Brinkman's tour of the island. Night had fallen, and the rain had ebbed to a drizzle. The only light inside the car came from the dome lamp, which Mr. Gash had illuminated while playing the 911 cassette for his captives. He was next to Twilly Spree in the front seat. Desie sat behind them with McGuinn, who noisily had buried his snout in a sack of dry dog food and was therefore heedless of the semiautomatic pointed at his head.

  Mr. Gash said to Desie, "What's your name, babe?"

  "Never mind."

  Mr. Gash held the gun in his right hand, propped against the headrest. With his other hand he pawed through Desie's purse until he found her driver's license. When he saw the name on it, he said, "Shit."

  Desie shrunk in her seat.

  "Nobody told me. I wonder why," Mr. Gash mused. "They told me about the dog but not the wife!"

  Twilly said, "Her husband didn't know."

  "Didn't care is more like it."

  "You're making a mistake," said Twilly. Of course the man in the brown zippered shoes ignored him.

  "Well, 'Mrs. Stoat,' I had big plans for tonight. I was going to drive you back to the mainland and hook up with a couple party girls. Introduce you to the wonderful world of multiple sex partners." Mr. Gash was studying Desie's photograph on the license. "I like the highlighting job on these bangs. It's a good look for you."

  Desie resisted the impulse to comment upon the killer's platinum-tinted eyebrows.

  "How exactly do you pronounce your name?" Mr. Gash asked. "Dez-eye-rotta? Is that close?"

  " 'Desie' is fine."

  "Like the Cuban guy on the old Lucy show."

  "Close enough."

  "Take off your earrings," Mr. Gash told her. "I've got a friend in Miami, an Italian girl, she'll look wicked hot in those. Almost as hot as you."

  Desie removed the pearl studs and handed them over.

  Mr. Gash said, "You're way too pretty for that crybaby porker of a husband. And since I haven't been laid in six days, I say what the hell. I say go for it."

  Twilly tensed. "Don't be an idiot. Clapley isn't paying you to molest the wives of his friends."

  "Friend? According to Mr. Clapley, Stoat's nothing—and I quote—but a 'turd fondler.' Besides," said Mr. Gash, "my job is cleaning out the troublemakers. And, Mrs. Stoat, sleeping with a troublemaker makes you a troublemaker, too."

  Desie pretended to stare out the fogged-up windows. A tear crawled down one cheek.

  "The way I see it," Mr. Gash went on, "is a murder-suicide. The young hothead boyfriend. The married woman who refuses to leave her rich husband. The lovers argue. Boyfriend goes postal. Whacks the broad, whacks the puppy dog, and then finally he whacks himself. Of course, they find the weapon"—Mr. Gash, nodding at his own—"at the scene."

  Twilly said, "Not very original."

  "The murdered dog makes it different. That's what the cops'll be talking about," said Mr. Gash. " 'What kind of creep would hurt an innocent dog?' Speaking of which, before I shoot you I've gotta ask: Where'd you get that damn ear, the one you sent to Stoat? Jesus, was he freaked!"

  Twilly shifted slightly in the driver's seat. He braced his back against the door and casually took his right arm off the steering wheel.

  "You really collect those horrible tapes?" Desie's voice was like acid.

  "By the trunkload." Mr. Gash flashed a savage smile.

  For a few moments, a chorus of ragged breathing was the only sound in the car; all three humans, including Mr. Gash, were on edge. Twilly glanced over the seat to check on McGuinn, who had finished off the dog food and was now mouthing the paper sack. The Lab wore an all-too-familiar expression of postprandial contentment.

  God, Twilly thought, please don't let him fart. This psycho punk would shoot him in a heartbeat.

  Mr. Gash was saying, "Whoever finds your bodies, the first thing they'll do is call 911. You could be nothing but skeletons and still they'll call emergency." Mr. Gash paused to relish the irony. "Know what I'm going to do, Mrs. Stoat? I'm going to get the tape of that phone call, as a remembrance of our one and only night together. What do you think of that?"

  "I think you're a monster."

  " 'Possible human remains.' That's what the cops call those cases."

  Desie Stoat said, "Please don't shoot my dog."

  "You crack me up," said Mr. Gash.

  "I'll do anything you want. Anything."

  Desie sat forward and pinched the damp sleeve of Mr. Gash's houndstooth coat.

  "Anything, Mrs. Stoat? Because I've got a very active imagination."

  "Yes, we can tell by your wardrobe," said Twilly. He drew his right hand into a fist, mentally calibrating the distance to Mr. Gash's chin.

  Desie was saying, "Please. There's no need to do that."

  Mr. Gash shrugged. "Sorry, babe. The mutt dies first."

  "Then I hope you're into necrophilia," she told him, trembling, "because if you shoot McGuinn, you're in for the worst sex of your whole life. That's a promise."

  Mr. Gash pursed his waxy-looking lips and grew pensive. Twilly could tell that Desie's threat had hit home; the killer's kinky fantasies were in ruins.

  Finally he said, "OK, I'll let him go."

  Desie frowned. "Here? You can't just let him go."

  "Why the hell not."

  Twilly said, "He's been sick. He's on medicine."

  "Better sick than dead."

  "He's a dog, not a turtle. You don't just let him go," Desie protested. "He doesn't know how to hunt for himself—what's he going to eat out here?"

  "You guys, for starters," said Mr. Gash. "Dogs go for fresh meat, is my understanding."

  Desie blanched. Mr. Gash was paying close attention to her reaction, savoring it. Twilly saw an opportunity. He coiled his shoulder muscles, drew a deep breath and—

  Then it hit him, rank and unmistakable. McGuinn!

  Mr. Gash's nose twitched. His face contorted into a gargoyle scowl. "Aw, who cut the cheese? Did he do that!"

  "What are you talking about?" Twilly, laboring to breathe through his mouth.

  "I don't smell anything," insisted Desie, though her eyes had begun to well.

  "Your damn dog passed gas!"

  Mr. Gash was up on his knees, cursing furiously and waving the semiautomatic. McGuinn wore that liquid expression of pure lovable innocence well known to all owners of Labrador retrievers. The Look had evolved over hundreds of years as an essential survival trait, to charm exasperated humans into forgiveness.

  Unfortunately, Mr. Gash was immune. "Roll down the goddamn windows!" he gasped at Twilly.

  "I can't. They're electric and you took the car keys."

  Mr. Gash dug the ignition key out of his pocket and twisted it into the switch on the steering column. Then he threw himself across Twilly's lap and feverishly began mashing all the window buttons on the door panel. Mr. Gash remained in that position long enough to gag Twilly with a miasmal body funk that, by comparison, made dog flatulence smell like orange blossoms.

  Had Twilly been able to draw an untainted breath, he likely could have reached around and broken Mr. Gash's neck, or at least his firing arm. But the stench off the gamy hound-stooth suit had a paralyzing effect, and by the time Twilly recovered, Mr. Gash had thrust the upper half of his torso across the front seat and placed the gun barrel squarely between McGuinn's calm, still-guileless eyes.

  "You were home free, Fido. Then you had to go and fart."

  Desie cried out and threw both arms around the
Lab's trunk-like neck.

  For several moments, nobody moved. A piney breeze rushed through the open windows of the Roadmaster. Twilly hoped it might refresh Mr. Gash and cool his fury.