Native Tongue

by Carl Hiaasen

  Calmly Joe Winder said, “Which word or two did you change?”

  “Oh, I improved Mr. Kingsbury’s comments. Couple of adverbs here and there.”

  “Fine.” Winder wasn’t so surprised. It was well known that Chelsea invented all of Francis X. Kingsbury’s quotes. Kingsbury was one of those men who rarely spoke in complete sentences. Didn’t have to. For publicity purposes this made him perfectly useless and unquotable.

  Chelsea said, “I also updated the info on Robbie Raccoon. Turns out he got a mild concussion from that blow to the head.”

  Winder forced a smile and set his briefcase on the desk. “It’s a she, Charlie. And she was fine when I spoke to her last night. Not even a bruise.”

  Chelsea’s voice took on a scolding tone. “Joey, you know the gender rule. If it’s a male character, we always refer to it with masculine pronouns—regardless of who’s inside the costume. I explained all this the day you were hired. It comes straight from Mr. X. Speaking of which, weren’t you supposed to get a haircut?”

  “Don’t be a dork, Charlie.”

  “What’s a dork?”

  “You’re not serious.”

  Charles Chelsea said, “Really, tell me. You called me a dork, I’d like to know what exactly that is.”

  “It’s a Disney character,” said Joe Winder. “Daffy Dork.” He opened the briefcase and fumbled urgently for his sinus medicine. “Anyway, Charlie, the lady in the coon suit didn’t have a concussion. That’s a lie, and it’s a stupid lie because it’s so easy to check. Some newspaper reporter is going to make a few calls and we’re going to look sleazy and dishonest, all because you had to exaggerate.”

  “No exaggeration,” Charles Chelsea said, stiffening. “I spoke with Robbie Raccoon myself, first thing this morning. He said he got dizzy and sick overnight. Doctor said it’s probably a concussion.”

  Winder popped two pills into his mouth and said, “You’re amazing.”

  “We’ll have a neurologist’s report this afternoon, in case anybody wants to see. Notarized, too.” Chelsea looked pleased with himself. “Mild concussion, Joe. Don’t believe me, just ask Robbie.”

  “What’d you do, threaten to fire her? Bust her down to the elf patrol?”

  Charles Chelsea stood up, shot his cuffs, gave Joe Winder his coldest, hardest look. “I came down here to thank you for doing such outstanding work, and look what I get. More of your cynicism. Just because you had a rotten night, Joey, it’s no reason to rain on everyone else’s parade.”

  Did the man really say that? Winder wondered. Did he really accuse me of raining on his parade? “That’s the only reason you’re here?” Winder said. “To thank me?”

  “Well, not entirely.” Charles Chelsea removed the newspaper from under his arm, unfolded it and handed it to Joe Winder. “Check the last three paragraphs.”

  It was the story about the theft of the blue-tongued mango voles. The Herald had stripped it across the top of the Local News page, a feature play. “Hey,” Winder said brightly, “they even used one of our pictures.”

  “Never mind that, just read the last three grafs.”

  The newspaper story ended like this:

  An anonymous caller identifying himself as an animal-rights activist telephoned the Miami office of the Associated Press late Monday and took credit for the incident at the popular theme park. The caller claimed to be a member of the radical Wildlife Rescue Corps.

  “We freed the voles because they were being exploited,” he said. “Francis Kingsbury doesn’t care about saving the species, he just wanted another stupid tourist attraction.”

  Officials at the Amazing Kingdom of Thrills were unavailable for comment late Monday night.

  Joe Winder gave the newspaper back to Charles Chelsea and said, “What a kick in the nuts. I’ll bet the boss man is going bat-shit.”

  “You find this amusing?”

  “Don’t you?” Winder asked. “I guess not.”

  “No,” said Chelsea. He refolded the newspaper and returned it to his armpit. “What do you suggest in the way of a response?”

  “I suggest we forget the fucking voles and get on with our lives.”

  “This is serious.”

  Winder said, “So I was right, Kingsbury’s on a tear. Then I would suggest you tell him that we’re waiting to see if there’s any truth to this claim. Tell him that if we say anything now, it might turn around and bite us in the rat hole.”

  Chelsea started rubbing his chin, a sign of possible cognition. “Go on,” he told Winder. “I’m listening.”

  “For instance, suppose the real Wildlife Rescue Corps calls up and denies any involvement. Hell, Charlie, there’s a good chance the caller was a crank. Had nothing to do with the group. To play it safe, we don’t respond for now. We say absolutely nothing.”

  “But if it turns out to be true?”

  “Then,” said Joe Winder, “we express outrage that any organization, no matter how worthy its cause, would commit a violent felony and endanger the lives of innocent bystanders.”

  Chelsea nodded enthusiastically; he liked what he was hearing. “Not just any bystanders,” he said. “Tourists.”

  Winder went on: “We would also recount Mr. Kingsbury’s many philanthropic gifts to the ASPCA, the World Wildlife Fund, Save the Beavers, whatever. And we would supply plenty of testimonial quotes from eminent naturalists supporting our efforts on behalf of the endangered mango vole.”

  “Excellent,” Charles Chelsea said. “Joe, that’s perfect.”

  “Pure unalloyed genius,” Winder said.

  “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” Chelsea said. “You don’t want to spend the rest of the week writing about rodents. Too much like covering City Hall, right?”

  Joe Winder chuckled politely. He could tell Chelsea was worried about pitching it to Kingsbury.

  In a hopeful voice, Chelsea said, “You think the guy was really just a nut? This guy who called the AP?”

  “Who knows,” Winder said. “We’ve certainly got our share.”

  Charlie Chelsea nodded hopefully. A simple nut would be fine with him, PR-wise; it’s the zealots you had to worry about.

  “The only thing to do is wait,” said Joe Winder. Already he could feel his sinuses drying up. He felt suddenly clear-headed, chipper, even optimistic. Maybe it was the medicine flushing his head, or maybe it was something else.

  Like having a real honest-to-God story, for a change. A story getting good and hot.

  Just like the old days.

  5

  Chelsea had a stark, irrational fear of Francis X. Kingsbury. It was not Kingsbury’s physical appearance (for he was gnomish and flabby) but his volcanically profane temper that caused Chelsea so much anxiety. Kingsbury long ago had practically ceased speaking in complete sentences, but his broken exclamations could be daunting and acerbic. The words struck venomously at Charles Chelsea’s insecurities, and made him tremble.

  On the afternoon of July 17, Chelsea finished his lunch, threw up, flossed his teeth and walked briskly to Kingsbury’s office. Kingsbury was leaning over the desk; the great man’s sleeves were rolled up to reveal the famous lewd tattoo on his doughy left forearm. The other arm sparkled with a gold Robbie Raccoon wristwatch, with emerald insets. Today’s surfer-blond hairpiece was longish and curly.

  Kingsbury grunted at Charles Chelsea and said: “Wildlife Rescue Corps?” He raised his hands. “Well?”

  Chelsea said, “The group exists, but the phone calls could be a crank. We’re checking it out.”

  “What’s this exploitation—shit, we’re talking about, what, some kind of rodent or such goddamn thing.”

  Not even close to a quotable sentence, Chelsea thought. It was astounding—the man spoke in overtorqued, expletive-laden fragments that somehow made perfect sense. At all times, Charles Chelsea knew exactly what Francis X. Kingsbury was talking about.

  The publicity man said, “Don’t worry, sir, the situation is being contained. We’re
ready for any contingency.”

  Kingsbury made a small fist. “Damage control,” he said.

  “Our top gun,” Chelsea said. “His name is Joe Winder, and he’s a real pro. Offering the reward money was his idea, sir. The AP led with it this morning, too.”

  Kingsbury sat down. He fingered the florid tip of his bulbous nose. “These animals, there’s still a chance maybe?”

  Chelsea could feel a chilly dampness spreading in deadly crescents from his armpits. “It’s unlikely, sir. One of them is dead for sure. Shot by the highway patrol. Some tourists apparently mistook it for a rat.”

  “Terrific,” said Kingsbury.

  “The other one, likewise. The bandits threw it in the window of a Winnebago camper.”

  Kingsbury peered from beneath dromedary lids. “Don’t,” he said, exhaling noisily. “This is like … no, don’t bother.”

  “You might as well know,” said Chelsea. “It was a church group from Boca Raton in the Winnebago. They beat the poor thing to death with a golf umbrella. Then they threw it off the Card Sound Bridge.”

  There, Chelsea thought. He had done it. Stood up and delivered the bad news. Stood up like a man.

  Francis X. Kingsbury entwined his hands and said: “Who knows about this? Knows that we know? Anybody?”

  “You mean anybody on the outside? No.” Charles Chelsea paused. “Well, except the highway patrol. And I took care of them with some free passes to the Kingdom.”

  “But civilians?”

  “No, sir. Nobody knows that we know the voles are dead.”

  “Fine,” said Francis X. Kingsbury. “Good time to up the reward.”

  “Sir?”

  “Make it a million bucks. Six zeros, if I’m not mistaken.”

  Chelsea took out a notebook and a Cross pen, and began to write. “That’s one million dollars for the safe return of the missing voles.”

  “Which are dead.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Simple, hell. Very simple.”

  “It’s a most generous offer,” said Charles Chelsea.

  “Bullshit,” Kingsbury said. “It’s PR, whatever. Stuff for the fucking AP.”

  “But your heart’s in the right place.”

  Impatiently Kingsbury pointed toward the door. “Fast,” he said. “Before I get sick.”

  Chelsea was startled. Backing away from Kingsbury’s desk, he said, “I’m sorry, sir. Is it something I said?”

  “No, something you are.” Kingsbury spoke flatly, with just a trace of disgust.

  On the way back to his office, Charles Chelsea stopped in the executive washroom and threw up again.

  Like many wildly successful Floridians, Francis X. Kingsbury was a transplant. He had moved to the Sunshine State in balding middle age, alone and uprooted, never expecting that he would become a multimillionaire.

  And, like so many new Floridans, Kingsbury was a felon on the run. Before arriving in Miami, he was known by his real name of Frankie King. Not Frank, but Frankie; his mother had named him after the singer Frankie Lane. All his life Frankie King had yearned to change his name to something more distinguished, something with weight and social bearing. A racketeering indictment (twenty-seven counts) out of Brooklyn was as good an excuse as any.

  Once he was arrested, Frankie King exuberantly began ratting on his co-conspirators, which included numerous high-ranking members of the John Gotti crime organization. Frankie’s testimony conveniently glossed over the fact that it was he, not the surly Zuboni brothers, who had personally flown to San Juan and picked up the twenty-seven crateloads of bootleg “educational” videotapes that were eventually sold to the New York City school system for $119.95 apiece. Under oath, Frankie King indignantly blamed the Zubonis and, indirectly, John Gotti himself for failing to inspect the shipment once it had arrived at JFK. On the witness stand, Frankie expressed tearful remorse that, in TV classrooms from Queens to Staten Island, students expecting to see “Kermit’s Wild West Adventure” were instead exposed to a mattress-level montage of Latin porn star Pina Kolada deepthroating a semi-pro soccer team.

  The Zuboni brothers and a cluster of dull-eyed kneecappers were swiftly convicted by a horrified jury. The reward for Frankie King’s cooperation was a suspended sentence, ten years’ probation and a new identity of his choosing: Francis X. Kingsbury. Frankie felt the “X” was a classy touch; he decided it should stand for Xavier.

  When the man from the Witness Relocation Program told him that Miami would be his new home, Frankie King thought he had died and gone to heaven. Miami! Frankie couldn’t believe his good fortune; he had no idea the U.S. government could be so generous. What Frankie did not know was that Miami was the prime relocation site for scores of scuzzy federal snitches (on the theory that South Florida was a place where just about any dirtbag would blend in smoothly with the existing riffraff). Frankie King continued to entertain the false notion that he was somebody special in the witness program, a regular Joe Valachi, until he saw the accommodations provided by his government benefactors: a one-bedroom apartment near the railroad tracks in beautiful downtown Naranja.

  When Frankie complained about the place, FBI agents reminded him that the alternative was to return to New York and take his chances that John Gotti was a compassionate and forgiving fellow. With this on his mind, Francis X. Kingsbury began a new life.

  Like all Floridians with time on their hands, he went to night school and got his real-estate license. It was an entirely new racket, and Frankie worked at it tirelessly; first he specialized in small commercial properties, then citrus groves and farmlands. Doggedly he worked his way east toward the good stuff—oceanfront, the Big O. He went from condos to prime residential estates in no time flat.

  Francis X. Kingsbury had found a new niche. He was, undeniably, a whiz at selling Florida real estate. In five short years he had accumulated more money than in an entire lifetime of mob bunko, jukebox skimming and mail fraud. He had a home down on Old Cutler, a beautiful young wife and a closetful of mustard blazers. But he wanted more.

  One day he walked into the boardroom of Kingsbury Realty and announced that he was selling the business. “I’m ready to move up in the world,” he told his startled partners. “I’m ready to become a developer.”

  Six months later, Kingsbury stood before a luncheon meeting of the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce and unveiled his model of the Amazing Kingdom of Thrills. It was the first time in his life that Frankie had gotten a standing ovation. He blushed and said: “Florida is truly the land of opportunity.”

  His probation officer, standing near the salad bar, had to bite back tears.

  “This is a very bad idea, Charlie.” Joe Winder was talking about the phony million-dollar reward. “A very bad idea. And cynical, I might add.”

  Over the phone, Chelsea said: “Don’t give me any lectures. I need five hundred words by tomorrow morning.”

  “This is nuts.”

  “And don’t overdo it.”

  “This is not just dumb,” continued Joe Winder, “it’s dishonest. The blue-tongued mango voles are dead, Charlie. Everybody at the park is talking about it.”

  Chelsea said, “Mr. X is adamant. He considers the money a symbolic gesture of his commitment to preserving the environment.”

  “Did you write that yourself?” Winder asked. “That’s fucking awful, Charlie. Symbolic gesture! You ought to be shot.”

  “Joey, don’t talk to me that way. This thing was your idea, offering a reward.”

  “I was wrong,” Winder said. “It was a big mistake.”

  “No, it was genius. The AP had it all over the wires.”

  “Look, I’m trying to save your ass,” Winder said. “And mine, too. Listen to me. This morning, a man with a cardboard box showed up at the front gate of the Amazing Kingdom. Said he’d found the missing voles. Said he’d come to collect his ten-thousand-dollar reward. Listen to me, Charlie. Know what was in the box? Rabbits. Two baby rabbits.”

  “So wha
t? They don’t look anything like a vole.”

  “They do when you cut their ears off, Charlie. That’s what the sonofabitch had done. Cut the ears off a couple of little tiny bunny rabbits.”

  Charles Chelsea gasped.

  “I know, I know,” Winder said. “Think about what’s going to happen we dangle a million bucks out there. Think of the freaks and sadists and degenerates stampeding this place.”

  “Holy Christ,” said Chelsea.

  “Now,” said Joe Winder, “think of the headlines.”

  “I’ll talk to Kingsbury.”

  “Good.”

  “Maybe I’ll bring you along.”

  “No thank you.”

  “You owe me,” said Chelsea. “Please. I’ve been good to you, Joe. Remember who hired you in the first place.”

  Thanks for reminding me, Winder thought, for the two-thousandth time. “I’m not the right man to deal with Mr. X,” he said. “I make a lousy first impression.”

  “You’re right,” said Chelsea, rethinking his plan. “Tell me one thing—that sicko with the bunny rabbits … what happened?”

  “Don’t worry,” said Winder. “We paid him to go away.”

  “How much? Not the whole ten grand?”

  “No, not ten grand.” Winder sighed. “Try fifty bucks. And he was delighted, Charlie. Positively thrilled.”

  “Thank God for that.” There was a brittle pause on Chelsea’s end. “Joe?”

  “What?”

  “This is turning into something real bad, isn’t it?”

  Late in the afternoon, Joe Winder decided to drive down to the Rare Animal Pavilion and find out more about the voles. He needed someone to take his mind off the rabbit episode, which made him heartsick. He should’ve seen it coming—naturally some greedy psychopath would mutilate helpless bunny rabbits for ten lousy thousand fucking dollars. It’s South Florida, isn’t it? Winder should’ve anticipated the worst. That’s why Chelsea had hired him, for his native instinct.

  The door to the vole lab was locked but the lights were on. Winder knocked twice and got no answer. He could hear a telephone ringing on the other side of the door. It stopped briefly, then began ringing again. He used his car keys to rap sharply on the glass, but there was no sign of Koocher. Winder figured the doctor was taking a late lunch.