Sick Puppy Page 5

  "What're you talkin' about, 'late'? We got eight holes to play." Willie was gesticulating with a three iron. "You can't quit in the middle of a fairway. Specially when I'm down twenty-six bucks!"

  "Keep the money, Willie, and the cart, too. I'll walk back." Stoat hung his golf bag over one shoulder and took a beer from the cooler. He gave a genial but firm wave to the vice chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, then began the trudge to the clubhouse.

  "Hey, Palmer! One more thing!" Willie Vasquez-Washington called out.

  Stoat turned and cupped a hand to his ear. Willie motioned him closer. Stoat cursed sharply under his breath and walked back.

  "It's about the name," said Willie, dropping his voice.

  "What about it?"

  "Didn't you see the name? In the House budget item."

  Palmer Stoat said, "I don't read the House budget word for word, Willie. I don't read the Miami phone book word for word, either. So help me out here, OK?"

  "The name should be the same in the Senate version. That's all I'm saying."

  Stoat had an urge to snatch Willie's three iron and wrap it around his blotched sweaty neck. "What name," he said thinly, "would you like me to put in the Senate bill?"

  "The Willie Vasquez-Washington Community Outreach Center."

  "Done," said Stoat. Once again he turned for the clubhouse.

  "Shouldn't you maybe write it down?"

  "No, I'll remember." Stoat thinking: Community OutreachCenter? Willie's not reaching out, he's just reaching.

  "Hey, Palmer, what about your new bridge?"

  "I'll fax you the draft language. And it's not mybridge." Stoat was moving away briskly now; long purposeful strides.

  "What I meant, is it gonna be named after somebody in particular?" Willie called after him. "You want, I could name it after the governor. Or maybe even you!"

  "No thanks!" Palmer Stoat shouted pleasantly, but he kept his back to the man and continued walking. "Maggot," he grumbled. "Another greedy little maggot on the make."

  The human population of Toad Island was 217 and in decline. Repeated efforts had been made to develop the place, and many of its remaining inhabitants were casualties of those doomed enterprises. The unofficial mayor was Nils Fishback, former landscape architect of an ambitious project that had promised three high-rise beachfront condominiums, a total of 660 units, called the Towers of Tarpon Island. (Everyone who sought to develop Toad Island renamed it as the first order of business. In addition to Tarpon Island, it had been incorporated fleetingly as Snook Island, Dolphin Island, Blue Heron Island, White Heron Island, Little Spoonbill Island, Big Spoonbill Island, Sandpiper Key, Sandpiper Cay, Sandpiper Isle and Sandpiper Shoals. The circumstances of failure varied from one busted scheme to the next, but a cheerlessly detailed history was available for scrutiny in the bankruptcy files of the federal courthouse at Gainesville.)

  Resistance to the latest Toad Island makeover came from a small core of embittered landholders masquerading as environmentalists. In protest they had begun circulating an impassioned, Thoreau-quoting petition, the true purpose of which was not to protect pristine shores from despoliation but to extort more money from the builders. Among the private-property owners it was strongly felt that Robert Clapley was being stingy about buying them out, and that he could easily afford to overpay for their property, just as previous developers had overpaid previous Toad Island inhabitants. The petition strategy had worked well before, stirring up legitimate conservation organizations and luring big-city editorial writers and columnists to Toad Island's cause. Lacerated by headlines, the developers usually caved in and doubled their offers. There was no reason to believe Clapley wouldn't do the same, to expedite groundbreaking on his luxury resort community.

  Fame and seniority handed Nils Fishback the lead role in the anti-Shearwater Island petition drive. He'd bought thirty-three lots there, having invested his life savings – unwisely, it had turned out – during the euphoric first gush of hype for what was then Tarpon Island. It had been Fishback's fantasy to escape Miami and retire to a placid Gulf Coast paradise, surrounded by water. He planned to keep four of the most scenic lots and, using his landscaping earnings from the high-rise project, build a grand plantation-style estate house for himself and his wife. Unfortunately for the Fishbacks, the Towers of Tarpon Island went belly-up shortly after the first slab was poured, due to the unexpected incarceration of its principal backers, two young gentlemen cousins from Barranquilla. At that point, Fishback had decorated only the sixty-by-sixty-foot parcel upon which the Towers of Tarpon Island sales kiosk had been assembled – an admittedly modest landscaping chore, but one for which Nils Fishback nonetheless expected compensation. He was not paid, nor were any of the other subcontractors. Worse: After eight years and three more failed Toad Island ventures, Fishback remained stuck with seventeen barren lots of the original thirty-three. His dream home had never advanced beyond blueprints; Fishback lived alone in the abandoned Tarpon Island sales hut, one of the few company assets in which the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration showed no interest.

  Fishback's wife long ago had given up hope and bolted for the mainland, leaving him with an unhealthy amount of solitude and free time. He went through a stretch of hard drinking, during which he regularly neglected to shave, bathe, floss or change clothes. He commonly passed out for days on the beach, and his skin became as brown and crinkled as a walnut. One morning, while drunkenly urinating off the old wooden bridge, Nils Fishback was approached by an impressionable young feature writer for a St. Petersburg newspaper. The following week, a long story appeared under a headline christening him "The Mayor of Toad Island." Although Fishback could not recall giving the interview, or any of the wild lies he told, he embraced his colorful new title with zest. He grew out his beard and bleached it snowy white, and took to going shirtless and barefoot and sporting bright bandannas. Deftly, Fishback re-created himself as a crusty and reclusive defender of Nature who had settled on the island purely for its grandeur, not to make a real estate killing. He happily posed for photographers, pretending to smooch one of the tiny striped oak toads that had given the place its name. Fishback was always good for a wistful quote or bittersweet adage about the demise of old Florida. For that reason he had been sought out over the years by the Washington Post, Newsweek,CNBC and the Turner networks, not to mention local media outlets. In this manner, he had evolved into a regional celebrity eccentric.

  In truth, Nils Fishback didn't give a damn what happened to Toad Island or the squirmy creatures that lived there. The most breathtakingly beautiful sight he could imagine in all God's kingdom would be a cashier's check from Robert Clapley's company for the sum of $510,000, which was Fishback's preposterous asking price for his seventeen orphan lots. He would, of course, ecstatically accept half as much and be gone from Toad Island before sunset. He feigned horror when Clapley's crew started bulldozing the toad habitat, but Nils Fishback was secretly delighted. He had never been fond of the toads, especially during mating season when their high-pitched stridulations rang all night long in his skull. Second, and more important, Clapley's mechanized assault on the petite amphibians was potent public-relations ammunition for the petition drive – the man was a monster, was he not? Smushing innocent creatures by the thousands. Fishback kept a Rolodex of media contacts, for precisely such occasions. He would personally lead the TV crews across the old bridge and down the beach road to the site of the massacre, and show them where to set up their cameras. The Shearwater Island Company couldn't afford such gruesome publicity! Nils Fishback would warn Robert Clapley an hour or so in advance, giving him just enough time to call the bank and get a check cut for the escrow deposit on Fishback's property.

  The only question in Fishback's mind was when to pick up the phone. If he waited too long, the toad massacre would be over and there'd be nothing left for the TV people to film. On the other hand, if he intervened too swiftly, the toad infestation would remain substantially undiminished, with the
spring breeding season only weeks away.

  Fishback stood up and dusted off the seat of his tattered cutoffs. He jerked two beers from the cooler; one he opened, the other he tucked under an arm. Then he ambled down the hill into the trees, where one of the big yellow bulldozers was being refueled. Fishback handed the unopened beer to the driver and said, "How long you boys gonna be at it?"

  The driver grunted. "Years, pop. Get used to it."

  "No," Fishback said, "I mean this part here." He waved a hand, as bony and gnarled as driftwood. "Buryin' all these damn toads."

  The driver's gaze narrowed. "What're you talkin' about?"

  "Check out your boots, jocko. That's toad guts, if I'm not mistaken."

  The driver stepped back, wiping his soles across the pine needles. "You're fuckin' nuts," he said to the old man.

  Fishback sighed impatiently. "Fine. There's no happy hoppers around here. Not a one. So just tell me how long it'll take."

  The bulldozer driver glanced appreciatively at the cold beer in his hand. Hell, he thought, the old fart seems harmless enough. Probably just the racket he cares about.

  "One week," the driver said to Fishback. "That's what the work order says."

  "Perfect." Fishback pointed into the woods. "There's a freshwater pond a quarter mile or so down that path. Be a good place to dump some dirt. I mean lotsa dirt."

  "Yeah?" The driver sounded interested.

  Nils Fishback offered a conspiratorial wink. "Oh yeah," he said. "We're talking Toad Central, partner."

  5

  In the week that followed, a conference committee of the Florida Legislature agreed to appropriate $9.2 million for a neighborhood development project in southwest Miami called the Willie Vasquez-Washington Community Outreach Center. The same committee approved $27.7 million in transportation funds toward the design and construction of an elevated four-lane concrete bridge to replace the creaky two-lane wooden span that connected Toad Island to the mainland. Governor Dick Artemus declared his strong support for both projects, and praised lawmakers for their "bipartisan commitment to progress." A few days later, as the last of the oak toads were being plowed under, Nils Fishback and twenty-two other signatories of the anti-Shearwater Island petition met with Robert Clapley and his attorneys in a private dining salon at a fashionable Cuban restaurant in Ybor City. A deal was reached in which Clapley would purchase Fishback's seventeen vacant lots for $19,000 each, which was $16,500 more than Fishback originally had paid for them. The other Toad Island "protesters" received, and eagerly accepted, comparable offers. They were flown home on a Gulfstream jet, and the next morning Nils Fishback called a press conference at the foot of the old wooden bridge. With a handful of local reporters present, "the mayor" announced he was terminating the petition drive because the Shearwater Island Company had "caved in to virtually all our demands." Wielding a sheath of legal-sized papers, Fishback revealed that Robert Clapley had promised in writing to preserve the natural character of the barrier island, and had agreed to provide on-site biologists, botanists and hydrologists to supervise all phases of construction. In addition, Clapley had endorsed an ambitious mitigation program that required replanting three acres of new trees for each acre sacrificed to development. What Nils Fishback didn't tell the press was that Clapley legally was not compelled to revegetate Toad Island itself, and that the new trees could be put anywhere else in Florida – including faraway Putnam County, where Clapley happened to own nine hundred acres of fresh-cut timber-land that needed replanting.

  The architect of the mitigation scam was none other than Palmer Stoat, who'd had a very productive week. The governor's cronies would be getting their new bridge, Willie Vasquez-Washington would be getting his new community center, and that impertinent tollbooth clerk in Yeehaw Junction would be getting a pink slip. Palmer Stoat flew home from Tallahassee and drove directly to Swain's, his favorite local cigar bar, to celebrate. Here he felt vigorous and important among the ruddy young lawyers and money managers and gallery owners and former pro athletes. Stoat enjoyed watching them instruct their new girlfriends how to clip the nub oh-so-carefully off a bootleg Bolivar – the Yuppie foreplay of the nineties. Stoat resented that his wife wouldn't set foot in Swain's, because she would've looked spectacular sitting there, scissor-legged and preening in one of her tight black cocktail dresses. But Desie claimed to be nauseated by cigars. She nagged him mercilessly for smoking in the house – a vile and toxic habit, she called it. Yet she'd fire up a doobie every time they made love – and did Palmer complain? No, ma'am. Whatever gets you past the night, he'd say cheerfully. And then Desie would say, Just for once shut up, wouldya? And that's the only way she'd do it, with him completely silent in the saddle. The Polaroid routine she'd tolerate, but the moment Palmer blurted a single word, the sex was over. That was Desie's ironclad rule. So he had learned to keep his mouth shut for fifteen or twenty minutes in the bedroom, maybe twice a week. Palmer could handle that. Hell, they were all a little crazy, right? And besides, there were others – the ones up at the capitol, especially – who'd let him talk all he wanted, from start to finish. Like he was calling the Preakness.

  The bartender delivered a fresh brandy.

  "Where'd this come from?" Stoat asked.

  "From the gentleman at the end of the bar."

  That was one thing about cigar joints, the customers were all "gentlemen" and "ladies."

  "Which one?" said Stoat.

  "In the sunglasses."

  Young guy in a tropical-print shirt; parrots and palm fronds. Stoat couldn't place the face. Deeply tanned, with long sun-bleached hair and a two-day stubble. Probably an off-duty deckhand from Bahia Mar or Pier 66, Stoat thought, somebody he'd met on a party yacht.

  Stoat raised the brandy and mouthed a thank-you. The boat guy in the sunglasses acknowledged with a wry nod. Stoat turned his attention to an effervescent brunette who wasn't smoking a seven-inch Cuban knockoff so much as fellating it. And while the woman would hardly be mistaken for a serious cigar connoisseur, her husky giggle indicated an enthusiasm to learn. Stoat was about to introduce himself when the bartender touched his sleeve and passed him a folded cocktail napkin. "The young gentleman in the sunglasses," the bartender said, "he left this for you."

  Palmer Stoat opened the note:

  Mr. Yee called from Panama City about your "vitamins. " Also, Jorge from Ocean BMW – they'll have another ragtop by Monday. This time be more careful where you park it!

  Stoat's hands were shaky when he put down the napkin. He scanned the bar: no sign of the boat guy. Stoat flipped open his cell phone, dialed the nonlisted number to his den, and punched in the numeric code of his answering machine. The first two messages, recorded on the same morning he'd flown to Tallahassee, were exactly as described in the boat guy's note. Mr. Yee – Durgess's elusive rhino-horn connection – had finally returned Stoat's call. (Without Desie's knowledge, Stoat intended to score some of that magic erection powder; he was scheming some wild recreation for his next business trip.) And the second phone message on the machine was indeed from the BMW salesman, a young go-getter named Jorge Hernandez.

  Spooky, Stoat thought. Either the boat guy pirated my phone code or he's been snooping inside my house. Stoat laid a twenty on the bar and raced home. Once inside the front door, he sidestepped the dog and hurried to his den. The room did not appear ransacked, and none of the personal items on his desk had been taken or moved out of place.

  Then Palmer Stoat noticed the polished glass eyeballs, arranged in a pentagram star. The geometry was so flawless that it appealed in an occult way to Stoat's obsession with neatness and order. (The inverse manifestation of this fetish was a compulsion to jettison all traces of potential untidiness – every scrap of trash, waste or rubbish – with no regard for the consequences. It's what made Stoat the impenitent litterbug he was.)

  So he did not disturb the mystery pentagram. Slowly he raised his face to look at the walls; at the stuffed lynx, the timber wolf, the mule deer, the big
horn ram, the elk, the marlin, the tarpon, the peacock bass. Stoat stared at all of them, but they weren't staring back.

  Twilly Spree had a habit of falling in love with any woman who was nice enough to sleep with him. One was named Mae, and she was ten years older. She had straight straw-blond hair, and caramel freckles from her cheeks to her ankles. Her family was wealthy, and she showed an endearing lack of interest in Twilly's inheritance. He likely would have married her, except for the fact she was already married to a businessman in Singapore. Mae filed for divorce three days after meeting Twilly, but the lawyers said it would take years for her to get free, since her spouse avoided the United States and therefore could not be served with papers. Having nothing else to do, Twilly got on a plane and flew to Singapore and met briefly with Mac's husband, who quickly arranged for Twilly to be beaten up, arrested in a brothel and deported. After Twilly was returned to Florida, he said in all innocence to Mae: "What'd you ever see in a creep like that?"

  Mae and Twilly lived together five months. She said she wanted him to help her become a free spirit. Twilly had heard the same line from other girlfriends. Without him asking, Mae gave up her bridge league and her Wednesday pedicures and took up the mandolin and bromeliads. Mac's father became concerned and flew down from Sag Harbor to check Twilly out. Mae's father was a retired executive from the Ford Motor Company, and was almost single-handedly responsible for ruining the Mustang. To test Twilly's character, he invited him to a skeet range and placed a 12-gauge Remington in his hands. Twilly knocked down everything they tossed up. Mae's father said, Sure, but can you hunt? He took Twilly to a quail plantation in Alabama, and Twilly shot the first four birds they jumped. Then Twilly set the gun in the grass and said, That's plenty. Mae's father said, What the hell's the matter with you, we're just getting warmed up.