by Carl Hiaasen
“Then what?” Angie was grinding her jaws in exasperation.
“Look,” he said, “these frothy projects keep my spirit from flaming out. Now it’s time for you to leave.”
“No, not just yet—”
“I hear the airboat coming, Angie.”
“Jim Tile said you sent him to my sentencing hearing.”
“True. I’d been following your case.”
“Can I ask why?”
“I liked how you dealt with the asshole fawn poacher.”
“It wasn’t very original,” Angie said. “Plus I got that poor old gator killed.”
“You did the best you could with what was available.” Skink spun her around and aimed her toward the portal in the wall of books. “Now, scoot,” he said.
Gingerly she stepped through the gathering snakes and wormed out the exit hole. The ex-governor was close behind. On the other side of the wall he paused to refit the piece of aquarium glass into the entry space.
Angie stood transfixed by the skin sheds streaming overhead in the treetops. “Can’t I stay longer?” she asked.
“Your ride’s here. Come along, dear.”
Skink began walking her down to the shore. Angie concentrated on setting one foot in front of the other. She jumped when a cardinal, bright as a rose, streaked past.
“You drugged me, Governor. That’s a social misfire,” she said.
“It wasn’t enough to hurt a kitten. You’re doing great, by the way.”
To avoid being seen by the airboat driver, Skink stopped in the shadows halfway down the path. When he told Angie goodbye, she found herself squeezing his hands. “Oh shit,” she said. “Of course, of course, of course. Now I get it.”
“What?”
“You’re the one who paid for my lawyer!”
He smiled. “For all the good that did. What a lazy dick he was.”
“Still it was eighteen thousand bucks. Shit!”
“Why ‘shit’?”
“Because I’ve always wanted to pay back the person who did that for me,” Angie said, “but I don’t have the money right now.”
“Pretend you never saw all this, and we’ll call it even.”
Then he kissed the top of her head and stomped back toward his secret, teeming camp.
* * *
—
Beak got his nickname in fourth grade when a dog named Tucker leaped into his lap and bit his nose, which resulted in weeks of the boy wearing a splint secured by a white pointy bandage. The mutt, which belonged to his stepbrother, attacked several other family members before succumbing to a heel kick delivered by a no-nonsense postal carrier who’d once played collegiate soccer.
Since then, Beak had been leery of domestic pets even as he grew into an amateur naturalist and avid outdoorsman. The airboat gig was the coolest job he’d ever had. Most of his customers were tourists or birders who were attentive to the surroundings and appreciated Beak’s knowledgeable patter. He lived off of tips, which he’d learned were proportionate to the number of alligators, eagles and spoonbills sighted. Normally he didn’t allow riders to leave the boat, but Angela Armstrong obviously was at ease in the Everglades and, more importantly, had happily overpaid for the charter.
“Where’s your bag of rope?” he asked when he picked her up at the island.
She pointed at her ears and said, “Can you find me a headset with a mic that works?”
On the trip back she seemed different—way more chill—humming tunes he didn’t recognize and asking him about his work. She had a sharp eye for wetland fauna, correctly naming every species of bird they saw, including a juvenile black-crowned night heron. Beak was impressed. He wasn’t the brightest bulb in the chandelier but, after Angie touched his knee and laughed a little too hard at his Zika mosquito joke, he wondered if she might be putting the moves on him.
“Beak, how old are you?” he heard on his headset.
“Twenty-seven.”
“Yikes,” she said.
“How was your hike through the hammock?”
“Kaleidoscopic.”
“Yeah? Is that good?” he asked.
“I’m still processing the experience. You married?”
“Nope.”
“Girlfriend?”
“Negative.”
Angie swayed in her seat as he turned the rudder hard, skirting a stand of cattails. She said, “FYI, I am likewise unattached.”
“Hard to believe.”
“You’re a smooth one,” Beak heard on his headset. “Do you have plans for dinner?”
They wound up at a barbecue joint where alligator croquetas were on the menu and derisively avoided by the locals. Beak had a plate of pulled pork while Angie ordered a rack of ribs and a stuffed potato. For a small woman she seemed to have a big appetite. When she asked if he’d ever taken LSD, he thought she was joking.
“I’m such a lightweight,” she murmured before chugging a jumbo tumbler of unsweetened iced tea.
Beak said, “I got some excellent bud at home.”
“Let’s get a drink instead.”
They found a decent bar, where he held her hand and listened to a thumbnail version of her life story. He said he couldn’t picture her locked in a prison cell. He liked how she’d rigged her pickup truck, and he had lots of questions about the wildlife-relocation business. He was surprised that it didn’t pay better.
“Was that tree island trip one of your jobs?” he asked.
Angie answered no, it was personal business.
“Was anyone else out there?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said.
“But what about that johnboat hidden in the grass?”
“Who knows. Maybe a poacher?”
“Yeah, probably,” said Beak.
They went back to his doublewide, Angie following in her truck. She fell asleep while he was in the shower, and he had no luck trying to wake her. In the morning she apologized, combed out her hair, and made pancakes.
“Are you booked today?” she asked him.
“Nope. Wish I was.”
“You are now,” she said. “I need to go back to that island. I’ll give you five hundred bucks.”
So Beak took her back, and this time Angie told him to wait at the shore. She was gone only a few minutes, and she seemed upset when she returned.
“What’s wrong? What happened back there?” he asked.
“Forget it. Let’s get the hell out.”
Beak said, “No, I’m gonna go look for myself.”
“You are not,” she snapped. “There’s nothing to see.”
Which was the wild and dumbfounding truth.
TWENTY-THREE
Fay Alex Riptoad gathered the Potussies at the club library in order to quell an uprising about the Commander’s Ball. The Italian gown designer most worshipped by the group had fallen behind in his work and assigned a straight young assistant to finish the patriotically themed dresses of Dorothea Mars Bristol, Yirma Skyy Frick, and Kelly Bean Drummond, all of whom were outraged by what they perceived was second-tier attention. Since there wasn’t enough time to start from scratch with another designer, the three demoted Potussies insisted that—to level the social playing field—every member of the group should come to the ball in a previously worn gown.
That radical proposal was jeered by Dee Wyndham Wittlefield and Deirdre Cobo Lancôme, both of whom were already drunk and feisty. Fay Alex Riptoad cast her vote with the tipsy traditionalists, asserting that the President and First Lady would surely notice—and be offended—if the women didn’t show up wearing something new and spectacular. Fay Alex cited her own chiffon Statue-of-Liberty ensemble from the previous year’s gala as particularly unforgettable—the toga-like gown fitted daringly to bare a shoulder, and hemmed precisely to ankle-length
so as not to conceal Fay Alex’s one-of-a-kind, tri-colored Louboutin slingbacks. The outfit was so distinct that it couldn’t possibly be recycled, even for the cause of friendship.
Dottie Mars, Yirma, and Kelly Bean were so incensed that they vowed to boycott the ball, a threat Fay Alex didn’t take seriously. The group was to be seated at the same table as the executive producer of Fox & Friends who was bringing as a guest his sleep-disorder therapist, wealthy and single. Since Dottie Mars was the one who’d gifted the tickets, there was no chance of her staying home. Still, seeking to mollify the mutineers, Fay Alex announced that anyone who was dissatisfied with the dress from the apprentice designer could seek reimbursement from the fashion slush fund controlled by the President’s eldest daughter, a size 8 with exquisite taste.
Once the matter was put to rest, Fay Alex offered to treat the group to a conciliatory brunch. The Potussies collected their respective Secret Service agents, who were posted outside the library, and headed for the Sabal Palm Room, a members-only lounge overlooking a garden of fiberglass bamboo. Along the way they passed the First Lady with her own Secret Service entourage, led by her tall, dark, alleged lover and an attractive female agent that Fay Alex remembered seeing occasionally on the grounds of Casa Bellicosa.
The President’s wife, wearing a long-sleeved tee and slate-gray leggings, had offered her trademark unbreakable smile but avoided eye contact with all of the Potussies except Fay Alex, who responded with the slightest of conspiratorial nods. Fay Alex had told none of her friends how she’d persuaded the First Lady to reinstate their Secret Service protection.
“What in God’s name has that woman done to her hair?” Kelly Bean sniped.
“She fired her colorist is what I heard,” whispered Yirma Skyy.
It was Dee Witty Wyndham who later, over lobster rolls, brought up the subject of the affair. “POTUS deserves someone who appreciates him,” she said, “not someone who carries on like a common tramp.”
“Or even an uncommon one,” added Deirdre Cobo.
“Well,” Fay Alex said. She paused cruelly to polish off her Tito’s and beckon for another.
“Well what?” honked Dottie Mars.
Fay Alex smirked and dropped her voice. “I heard it’s over.”
A trenchant glee rustled through the room. One of the Potussies asked Fay Alex if the juicy bulletin had come from her own Secret Service man.
“Ha! William barely says good morning,” said Fay Alex. “No, I got this from someone on the staff of the club, very reliable. Apparently the First Lady’s special ‘friend’ broke up with her this week. Now he’s all hot and heavy with one of the other agents. Supposedly they’re hooking up at some trucker motel out by I-95.”
“Ughhh,” was the tablewide reaction, Dee Dee Wittlefield emitting the loudest and following with: “Which agent is it, Fay Alex?”
“Rose is her last name. It’s the blonde we just saw him walking with in the hallway.”
“That skinny thing with the retro bangs?” Yirma Skyy yipped. “For Heaven’s sake, what kind of man dumps the President’s wife for that? And how has he not been transferred to Bumfuck, Alaska?”
“No, Arkansas,” said Kelly Bean. “That’s my prediction.”
“For both him and the blonde whore,” Dottie Mars added coldly. “Bumfuck, Arkansas.”
Fay Alex understood that the group was torn over which revelation would humiliate their beloved President more—that his gorgeous spouse had been cheating on him, or that her lover had rejected her for someone else.
Like she wasn’t hot enough!
Dee Wyndham said, “No wonder the First Lady didn’t look happy today.”
When does she ever look happy? Fay Alex wondered.
“Obviously she doesn’t have the warmest personality,” Deirdre Cobo cut in, “and she definitely needs to re-think some of her collagen choices—but, still, no man in his right mind would say nay to those incredible legs!”
Fay Alex agreed, though in the absence of fresh details she’d grown bored of discussing the scandal.
“Ladies, we have our big show number to rehearse. Now, who’s been practicing? Raise your hand!”
Large-print lyrics to “Big Unimpeachable You” were distributed around the lounge and, with Fay Alex leading, the Potussies commenced to harmonize.
* * *
—
Typically there was an uptick of trespassing at Casa Bellicosa in the days before the Commander’s Ball—curious tourists, daredevil spring breakers, brainless Instagram dolts, and mumbling psychos in bathrobes.
Secret Service agents would turn the harmless ones over to the Palm Beach Police Department, and Jerry Crosby’s job was to make sure they remained locked up until the morning after the gala. The chief didn’t mind his secondary role; managing security for presidential events was a pain in the ass. His officers actually preferred working traffic outside the gate, overtime pay being the sweetener.
The chief happened to be southbound on A1A when Paul Ryskamp called to say that two belligerent men had been arrested in the foot tunnel between the oceanfront and the Casa’s parking garage. Claiming to be VIP friends of the First Family, the trespassers had demanded that Crosby be summoned to vouch for them. Reluctantly, he did.
Both young Cornbrights bore evidence of their Jet Ski injuries—Chase had gleaming new dental veneers and a Burberry-pattern cast on his broken knee, while Chase sported matching shoulder braces that not only stabilized his reconstructed joints but markedly improved his posture. The sons of Kiki Pew Fitzsimmons had been confined to a half-renovated powder room on the mansion’s second floor, where they tag-team bitched at Paul Ryskamp while waiting for Jerry Crosby.
Chase and Chance had been catching some rays on the beach when they decided to drop by the Winter White House for a late lunch and Bloody Marys. Agents had intercepted them in the tunnel and asked for ID. The Cornbright brothers had become infuriated when they learned that their club privileges had terminated with the recent death of their mother, whose membership slot at Casa Bellicosa had already been re-sold to another widowed heiress on the waiting list. Chance and Chase had refused to leave the property, and vowed to have the Secret Service agents fired. The young men had felt insulted by the agents’ impassive response, and were still unloading on Ryskamp when the police chief arrived.
“You know these two?” Ryskamp asked Crosby. “Would you please take them home to their nannies?”
“Hold up!” Chase protested. “We came for lunch, and by God we’re having lunch—”
“You’re not members here, Mr. Cornbright, and you’re not on the guest list for today,” Ryskamp said. “No lunch. No snacks. No breath mints.”
Because his shoulders were injured, Chance could only wag a finger. “Mister, you’ve got no idea what kind of shit blizzard is rolling your way.”
Crosby and Ryskamp left the powder room to speak privately. They agreed that the Cornbright brothers were spoiled young shits, and that the dispute over their membership status should be dealt with by the club manager, not law enforcement.
“Their mother had met the President only a few times,” the chief said, “but he’s taken a major interest in her death. He mentions her name all the time in his tweets—that No-More-Diegos thing.”
“I’m well aware, Jerry.”
“The other Potussies are gonna flip out when they hear that Kiki Pew’s kids got thrown off the property.”
Ryskamp put a hand on the chief’s shoulder. “Would it make your life easier if we let these two assholes hit the buffet line?”
“Yeah, it would.”
“Then what the hell. I’ll call downstairs.”
“And don’t worry, Paul, they’re bluffing. They’d never try to get you fired.”
Ryskamp chuckled. “I don’t give a flying fuckeroo if they do.”
Jerry Crosby enviously wondered if the day would come when he didn’t give a flying fuckeroo, or at least could afford not to.
“Can you let me know if the Cornbrights are on the list for the Commander’s Ball?” he asked. “Because I guarantee you they think they are.”
“You want me to clear them?”
“If they get stopped at the door, it’ll be an issue.”
“Then I’ll take care of it,” said Ryskamp, “but only because they just lost their mom.”
“Their mom thought they were useless.”
“Yes, and they’ll fit in beautifully at this event.”
Crosby wished he could get away with saying things like that. Tragically, keeping his job depended on sucking up to the Kiki Pew Fitzsimmonses and Fay Alex Riptoads of the island. Special Agent Ryskamp clearly had no such obligations.
“What do you hear from the elusive Ms. Armstrong?” the chief asked.
“She’ll be on duty at the gala. Will you be there, Jerry?”
“Yeah, but not in the ballroom.”
“Lucky bastard,” said Ryskamp.
* * *
—
Mockingbird took a hit off the vape pen before going to her husband’s suite. He was occupied in the bathroom, so she waited with her security team in the sitting area. It was impossible not to notice Keith-slash-Ahmet and Jennifer Rose quietly exchanging words; Mockingbird was almost certain they smiled at each other. Obviously Ahmet was following her instructions to fake-flirt, and his performance was subtle enough to be convincing.
Earlier that morning there had been another moment—an amused-seeming whisper that passed between him and Agent Rose in the presence of Spalding, the young server from South Africa and Ahmet’s conch-pearl connection. Spalding, who’d delivered a tray of star fruits and CBD-infused hummus to the First Lady, had undoubtedly hurried back to the kitchen to report on Ahmet’s wandering eye. Mockingbird saw that her disinformation scheme seemed to be working.
Up close, Jennifer Rose appeared thinner and even more attractive than Mockingbird remembered, but that meant she probably had a man in her life and wasn’t looking for a new lover. In addition, the Secret Service strongly disapproved of romances between its special agents. Nonetheless, Mockingbird considered asking Ahmet to turn down the charm dial a few notches, just in case.