by Carl Hiassen
Landon [two-shot, both waving, major smiles]. 'Night, everybody. Happy New Year!
Garcia reached for the remote control and turned the channel. A show about humorous TV bloopers came on and Garcia asked the nurses for a shot of Demerol. He lay thinking about the killing of Jesus Bernal and the peaceful parade, and contemplated the possibility that the madness was really over. He felt immense relief.
Ten minutes later the phone rang, sounding five miles away. It was the chief of police.
"Hey, Al, how you feeling?"
"Pretty damn good, boss."
"We did it, huh?"
Garcia didn't want to quibble. "Yeah," he said.
"Did you see the pageant?"
"Yeah, it was just great."
"Looks like the Nachos are history, buddy."
"Looks that way," Garcia said, thinking: This is the same bozo who thought I wrote the Fuegoletters. But this time he just might be right. It looks like Wiley took the deep-six after all.
"What do you say we shitcan the task force?" the chief said.
"Sure." There was no good argument against it. The parade was over, the girl was safe.
"First thing tomorrow I'll do up a release."
"Fine, boss."
"And, Al, on my honor: you're getting all the credit on this one. All the credit you deserve."
For what? Garcia wondered as he hung up. It wasn't like I shot down the goddamn chopper myself.
After the parade, Brian Keyes drove back to the Shivers house and started packing. Reed Shivers and his wife got home thirty minutes later.
"See, all that panic for nothing," Shivers said smugly.
"I get paid to panic," Keyes said, stuffing his clothes into a canvas athletic bag. He felt drained and empty. The end wasn't supposed to have been this easy, but Wiley's moment had come and gone—if the bastard really had been alive, Keyes thought, he would have shown up. With bells on.
"Where's Kara Lynn?" Keyes asked.
"She went to a wrap party with the other girls," Mrs. Shivers said.
"A wrap party."
"A little tradition in beauty pageants," Mrs. Shivers explained. "Girls only."
"You'd best be off," Reed Shivers said. He was trying to light his pipe, sucking on the stem like a starving carp. "There was a lady from the Eileen Ford agency in the stand—she picked up on Kara Lynn right away. I'm expecting a call anytime."
"Wonderful," Keyes said. "Book a room at the Plaza."
The Shiverses walked him to the door.
"Is your friend going to be all right?" Mrs. Shivers asked. "The Cuban policeman."
"I think so. He's a tough guy."
"You're a brave young man yourself," she said. Her tone of voice made it plain that she was addressing the hired help. "Thank you for all you've done for Kara Lynn."
"Yes," Reed Shivers said grudgingly. He extended his golden-brown hand; a Yale man's polite but superior handshake. "Drive carefully now," he said.
"Good night, Mr. and Mrs. Cleaver."
They nodded blankly and shut the front door.
Keyes was standing at the trunk of the MG, squirming out of the shoulder holster, when a brown Buick pulled into the driveway and Kara Lynn got out. She had changed into blue jeans and a papery white sleeveless blouse; she carried her Orange Bowl gown on a plastic hanger.
"Where you going, Marlowe?"
"Back to the other side of town."
A female voice from the Buick shouted: "Kara, is that him?"
Kara Lynn smiled bashfully and waved her friends to leave. The Buick honked twice as it sped off.
"We had a little wine," she said. "I told 'em about you."
Keyes laughed. "The private eye in the octopus."
Kara Lynn laid the gown across the hood of the sports car and glanced up at the house, checking for her parents at the window. Then she put her arms around Keyes and said, "Let's go somewhere and make love."
Keyes kissed her softly. "Your folks are waiting inside. Somebody from a model agency is supposed to call."
"Who cares?"
"Your old man. Besides, I'm worn out."
"Hey, don't look so blue. We made it." Playfully she took his hands and placed them on her buttocks. "The mother lode is safe," she said, kissing him hard. "Good work, kiddo."
"I'll call you tomorrow."
A yellow porch light came on over the front door.
"Daddy waits," said Kara Lynn, frowning.
Keyes climbed into the MG and started the engine. Kara Lynn scooped up her gown and pecked him on the cheek. "Did I mention," she said in a breathy Marilyn voice, "that I wasn't wearing any panties tonight?"
"I know," Keyes said. "It wasn't all bad, the view from the octopus."
On the way back to his apartment, he stopped at the office to check for burglaries and collect his mail, which consisted of a dozen bills, two large checks from the Miami Sunand a National Geographicwith an albino something on the cover. Lost somewhere in the debris on Keyes's desk was a checkbook, and he decided to locate it, just in case he ever needed to buy groceries again. Afterward he tried to clean the aquarium, which had been consumed by an advancing greenish slime that threatened to overtake its borders.
These chores were undertaken mainly to stuff his mind with distractions and delay the inevitable. It was nearly one A.M. when Keyes finished, and he lay down on the battered sofa and fell asleep. Before long he felt the coarse grip of the Browning semiautomatic in his right hand. He looked down and saw that his hand was covered with lustrous black mosquitoes, which were swelling up and bursting one by one, little blood balloons. A bony-looking puppet appeared and began to dance, and the Browning went off. The bullets traveled slowly, leaving orange contrails. One after another they puffed into the limestone around the puppet's feet. Just as the puppet's likeness changed from Jesus Bernal to Ernesto Cabal, one of the bullets smashed its head into a thousand wooden splinters. The slivers flew in all directions, twanging the puppet strings which led to the sky. In the dream Brian Keyes saw himself racing toward the broken puppet and snatching the strings with blood-splashed hands. Then he was airborne over the ocean, clinging for life. In a wispy cloud high above, a familiar man with long blond hair and Gypsy eyes twitched the puppet strings and muttered about the usurious price of coffins.
Port-au-Prince, Haiti. December 28th—By the time this is published, I might be dead or in jail, or hiding in some bleak rathole of a country where Td never get to read it anyway. Which would be a shame.
But I suppose I've got it coming.
For many years I've written a daily column for this newspaper, a column that achieved an unforeseen but gratifying popularity. I admit that the reportage was not always faultless, but I never strayed too far from the truth. Besides, you folks knew what you were getting.
I probably could have continued to grind out fifteen inches of daily outrage, insult, poignancy, and sarcasm until I got old and my brain turned to porridge. See, I had a nifty deal going here at the paper. The brass liked me, and to keep me contented paid a salary nearly commensurate with my talents. This is what happens when you sell the merchandise: they make it worth your while.
About six weeks ago something changed. Whether it was my job attitude, spiritual diet, or moral equilibrium, I can't say. Things got out of hand, I suppose. The simple and convenient view is that I went berserk, which is possible though unlikely. In my business you learn that sanity, not insanity, is the greater riddle—and that there's nothing so menacing as a sane person suddenly alerted to his own fate.
One thing is true. Over time I came to see the destiny of Florida in a singularly horrid vision, and I took steps to change that destiny. Extreme steps. I assembled a few choice acquaintances and we made some moves, as they say.
In my ardor I might have committed a few unforgivable felonies, but my mission was to save the place and to inspire those who cared, and to that noble end I suppose I'd break almost any law. Which they say I did.
For once it was a fai
r fight, both sides battling with tantamount weapons: publicity versus counterpublicity. Their ammunition was fantasy and whitewash, and ours was the meanest of truths, random crime, and terror. What better way to destroy bogus mail-order illusions!
The odious reality is that we live on a peninsula stolen from the Indians, plundered by carpetbaggers, and immorally occupied by Yankee immigrants who arrive at the rate of one thousand per day, Okies in BMWs.
Most of us born here were always taught to worship growth, or tolerate it unquestioningly. Growth meant prosperity, which was defined in terms of swimming pools and waterfront lots and putting one's kids through college. So when the first frostbitten lemmings arrived with their checkbooks, all the locals raced out and got real-estate licenses; everybody wanted in on the ground floor. Greed was so thick you had to scrape it off your shoes.
The only thing that ever stood between the developers and autocracy was the cursed wilderness. Where there was water, we drained it. Where there were trees, we sawed them down. The scrub we simply burned. The bulldozer was God's machine, so we fed it. Malignantly, progress gnawed its way inland from both coasts, stampeding nature.
Today the Florida most of you know—and created, in fact—is a suburban tundra purged of all primeval wonder save for the sacred solar orb. For all you care, this could be Scottsdale, Arizona, with beaches.
Let me fill you in on what's been going on the last few years: the Glades have begun to dry up and die; the fresh water supply is being poisoned with unpotable toxic scum; up near Orlando they actually tried to straighten a bloody river; in Miami the beachfront hotels are pumping raw sewage into the Gulf Stream; statewide there is a murder every seven hours; the panther is nearly extinct; grotesque three-headed nuclear trout are being caught in Biscayne Bay; and Dade County's gone totally Republican.
This is terrible, you say, but what can we do?
Well, for starters, you can get out. And since you won't, I will.
It's been pure agony to watch the violent taking of my homeland, and impossible not to act in resistance. Perhaps, in resisting, certain events happened that should not have, and for these I'm sorry. Unfortunately, extremism seldom lends itself to discipline.
At any rate, my pals and I certainly got your attention, didn't we?
By the time this is published—if it's published—I certainly won't be where I am now, so I don't mind revealing the location: a palm-shaded porch of an old hotel on a mountainside overlooking the sad city of Port-au-Prince. Above my head is a wooden paddle fan that hasn't turned since the days of Papa Doc. It's humid here, but no worse than SW Eighth Street in July, and I'm just fine. I'm sitting on a wicker chaise, sipping a polyester-colored rum drink and listening to last year's NBA All-Star game on French radio. Upstairs in my hotel room are three counterfeit passports and $4,000 U.S. cash. I've got a good idea of where I've got to go and what I've got to do.
Evidently this will be my last column, but whatever you do, please don't phone up and cancel your subscription to the paper. TheSun is run by mostly decent and semi-talented journalists who deserve your attention. Besides, if you quit reading it now, you'll miss the best part.
Historically, the function of deranged radicals is to put in motion what only others can finish; to illuminate by excess; to stir the conscience and fade away in exile. To this end, the Nights of December leaves a worthy legacy.
Welcome to the Revolution.
For the first time in nearly half a century, the front page of the Miami Sunon New Year's Day did not lead with a story or photograph of the Orange Bowl Parade. Instead, the paper was dominated by uncommon pieces of journalism.
The farewell column of Skip Wiley appeared in a vertical slot along the left-hand gutter, beneath Wiley's signature photo. Stripped across the top of the newspaper, under the masthead, was a surprisingly self-critical article about why the Sunhad failed to connect Wiley to Las Noches de Diciembreeven after his involvement became known to a certain high-ranking editor. This piece was written, and written well, by Cab Mulcahy himself. Therein shocked Miami readers learned that Wiley's cryptic "Where I've got to go, and what I've got to do" referred to the planned, but unconsummated, kidnapping of the Orange Bowl queen during the previous night's parade.
The other key element of the front page was a dramatic but incomplete account of the killing of fugitive terrorist Jesus Bernal on a limestone spit in North Key Largo. This story carried no byline because it was produced by several reporters, one of whom had confirmed the fact that private investigator Brian Keyes had fired the fatal shots from a nine-millimeter Browning handgun, which he was duly licensed to carry. Keyes's presence at the remote jetty was unexplained, although the newspaper noted that he recently had been hired as part of a covert Orange Bowl security force. The only other witness to the Bernal shooting, Metro-Dade Police Sergeant Alberto Garcia, was recovering from surgery and unavailable for comment.
When Brian Keyes woke up in the dinginess of his office, Jenna sat at the desk, reading the morning paper.
"When are you gonna learn to lock the door?" she asked. She handed him the front page. "Take a look. The puddy tat's out of the bag."
Keyes sat up and spread the newspaper across his knees. He tried to read, but his eyes refused to focus.
"I figured you'd be decked out in black," he said groggily.
"I don't believe he's dead," Jenna said. "I will not believe it, not till I see the body." Case closed. She forced a smile. "Hey, Bri, seems you're a big hero for killing that Cuban kidnapper."
"Yeah, I look like a big hero, don't I?"
He glanced at Wiley's column. "December 28—the day before the helicopter crash. When's the last time you heard from him?"
"Same day. I got a telegram from Haiti."
"What did he say?" Keyes asked.
"He said to spray the lawn for chinch bugs."
"That all?"
She pursed her lips. "He also said if anything happens, he wants to be buried in that pine coffin he got from the swap meet. Buried with all his old newspaper clippings, of course."
"Very touching."
"I think he stole the idea from the Indian," Jenna said. "Seminole warriors are always buried with their weapons."
Keyes stumbled downstairs to a vending machine and bought three cups of coffee. Jenna took one look and said she didn't want any, so Keyes drank them all.
It put him in a perfect mood for Skip Wiley's farewell column, which Keyes found mawkish and disorganized and only slightly revelatory. He was more interested in Cab Mulcahy's companion story. In it, the managing editor explained that Wiley's key role in the Nights of December had not been exposed because of a threat that many more tourists and innocent persons would be murdered. For several days the information about Wiley was withheld while an investigator hired by the Sunsearched for him; in retrospect, Mulcahy had written, this decision was ill-advised and probably unethical.
"Poor Cab," Keyes said, not to Jenna but himself. He felt hurt and embarrassed for his friend.
Jenna came around from behind the desk and sat on the tattered sofa next to Keyes. "Skip really got carried away," she said, stopping just short of remorse.
"He carried all of us away," Keyes said, "everyone who cared about him. You, me, Mulcahy, the whole damn newspaper. He carried all of us right into the toilet."
"Brian, don't be this way." Jenna wasn't wearing any makeup; she looked like she hadn't slept in two days. "It was a good cause," she said defensively. "Just poor administration."
"What makes you think he's not dead?"
"Intuition."
"Oh really." Keyes eyed her with annoyance, as he would a stray cat.
He said, "I can't imagine Skip passing up that parade. National television, half the country tuned in. It was too good to resist—if he's not dead, he's in a coma somewhere."
"He's not dead," Jenna said.
"We'll see."
Jenna had never heard him so snide.
"What's with you?" she aske
d.
"Aw, nothing. Blew a guy's head off last night and I'm still a little bushed. Wanna go for a Danish?"
Jenna looked shaky. "Oh Brian," she said.
A plaintively rendered oh Brianusually would do the trick; a guaranteed melt-down. This time Keyes felt nothing but a penetrating dullness; not lust or jealousy, rage or bitterness.
"He was supposed to meet me at Wolfie's this morning, but he never came," she admitted. "I'm kind of worried." Her eyes were red. Keyes knew she was about to turn on the waterworks.
"He can't be dead," she said, choking out the words.
Keyes said, "I'm sorry, Jenna, but you did the worst possible thing: you encouraged the bastard."
"I suppose," she said, starting to sob. "But some of it sounded so harmless."
"Skip was about as harmless as a 190-pound scorpion."
"For instance, dropping those snakes on the ocean liner," she said. "Somehow it didn't seem so terrible when he was arranging it. The way he told it, it was supposed to be kind of funny."
"With goddamn rattlesnakes, Jenna?"
"He didn't tell me thatpart. Honest." She reached out and put her arms around him. "Hold me," she whispered. Normally another foolproof heartbreaker. Keyes took her hand and patted it avuncularly. He didn't know where it had gone—all his feeling for her—just that it wasn't there now.
"It wasn't all Skip's fault," Jenna cried. "This was building up for years, poisoning him from the inside. He felt a duty,Brian, a duty to be the sentinel of outrage. Who else would speak for the land? For the wild creatures?"
"Save your Sierra Club lecture for the first-graders, okay?"
"Skip is not a bad man, he has a vision of right and wrong. He's a principled person who took things too far, and maybe he paid for his mistakes. But he deserves credit for his courage, and for all his misery he deserves compassion, too."
"What he deserved," Keyes said, "was twenty-five-to-life at Raiford." Ten innocent people were dead and here was Jenna doing Portia from the Merchant of Venice.He let go of her hand and stood up, not wishing to test his fortitude by sitting too close for too long. He said, "You'd better go."