Tourist Season

by Carl Hiaasen

  “But not us, no sir, we’ve got a score to settle,” Burt declared. “What about it, Mr. Keyes? We’re not professionals, not like you, but we can take care of ourselves. I’m pretty good with a handgun—”

  “Pretty good!” James interjected. “Jeez.”

  “And James himself has some martial-arts experience. Black belt, yellow belt, you name it. Plus a pilot’s license. What about it, Mr. Keyes, think you could use some help?”

  Well hell, thought Brian Keyes, why not?

  “I’d be grateful,” Keyes told them.

  “Good, then it’s settled.”

  “Just one thing.”

  “Yes, Mr. Keyes?”

  “About those hats. You have to wear them all the time?”

  There was an awkward moment of silence, as if Keyes had breached some sacred Shriner wont. Burt and James glanced at one another, and even Nell Bellamy looked up, her face mostly hidden by a mask of pink tissue.

  “It’s a fez,” Burt said, touching the purple crown. “What about it?”

  “Would you like one?” James offered. “Maybe without a tassel.”

  “Never mind,” Keyes said. He pressed the button to ring for a nurse. It was time to check out.

  The annual competition for Miami’s Orange Bowl queen had attracted the usual chorus line of debutantes, fashion models, ex-cheerleaders, and slick sorority tarts.

  Jesús Bernal, who’d spent the whole day building a bomb, was overwhelmed. As far as he was concerned, this was a dandy way to take your mind off plastique.

  “You ever seen this much pussy?” he asked Viceroy Wilson.

  “Sure,” Wilson said. “Dallas. Super Bowl Eight.”

  Two touchdowns, three blow-jobs, and a cowgirl sandwich. God, he was such a lowlife in those days. All hard-on, no purpose. Wilson shook his head at the memory and lighted a joint.

  “Not here!” Bernal snapped. “Remember, we’re supposed to be security guards.”

  “Well, I feel so secure I’m gonna smoke some weed.”

  They stood in darkness at the rear of the Civic Center. The stage was bathed in kliegs. It was dress rehearsal and the auditorium was empty, except for a skeleton orchestra, some TV technicians, and the contestants themselves. The women milled onstage, tugging at their gumdrop-colored swimsuits and poofing their hair. The air conditioning was running full blast, and Jesús Bernal had never seen so many erect nipples in one congregation.

  “The fourth one from the left,” Bernal said. “Her name is Maria.”

  “No way,” said Viceroy Wilson. He really couldn’t see a damn thing with the sunglasses on.

  “How about the redhead? Rory Mc What’s-her-face.”

  “Forget it, Hay-zoos. She don’t have a prayer. Freckles look rotten on TV.”

  “She made it to the semifinals,” Bernal said.

  “Sympathy vote. Mark my words.”

  Viceroy Wilson was having as good a time as his abstemious revolutionary ethic would allow. Whenever Wilson found himself distracted by lust, he sublimated rigorously. And whenever he sublimated, he was struck by a vestigial urge to run with a football. Right now he wanted to run down the center aisle, hurdle onstage, and steamroller the emcee. The emcee had a voice that could take the paint off your car.

  “They’re going to fire your ass for smoking,” Bernal scolded. “You’ll wreck everything.”

  “Know what you need? You need about eight Quaaludes. Calm your Cuban ass right down.”

  Jesús Bernal was appalled at the lack of regimentation within Las Noches de Diciembre. Viceroy Wilson, who personified this insubordination, wouldn’t have lasted ten minutes with the First Weekend in July. Using drugs during a mission! The Cubans would have wasted him immediately.

  “Any sisters make the semis?” Wilson asked.

  “Nadie,” Jesus Bernal reported. “Seven Anglos, three Cubans.”

  “God damn, that figures.”

  Jesús Bernal could no longer see Viceroy Wilson’s face, only a sphere of bluish smoke behind the sunglasses. Bernal knew that Wilson was worried about the Indian’s Cadillac, which they’d double-parked in front of the Hyatt Regency. Bernal himself was anxious about the car, and for the same reason. The double-parking had nothing to do with it.

  Skip Wiley had ordered them to interrupt their mission and stop at the Civic Center. A scouting assignment, Wiley had explained, extremely important.

  Drive carefully, Wiley had added. Very carefully.

  Which only reinforced Jesús Bernal’s belief that Wiley was especially crazy when it came to risking other people’s asses. A reputable terrorist simply would not dally in downtown Miami with a freshly assembled bomb in the trunk of his Cadillac. Bombs, like pizzas, are made for speedy delivery.

  “Straighten up,” Wilson said, stubbing out the joint. “Somebody’s coming.”

  A man with a walkie-talkie charged up the aisle. He was the chief of security for all Orange Bowl festivities.

  “What’s that smell?” he demanded, looking straight at Jesus Bernal.

  “No sé,” Bernal replied.

  “Caught some kids smoking dope in the back row and threw ’em out,” Wilson said. “Broke their fingers first.”

  “Good work, Mr. Wilson.”

  The security chief was a big Dolphins fan, so he was overjoyed to have the legendary Viceroy Wilson on his staff.

  “So, you enjoying the pageant?” he chirped.

  “Loving it,” Wilson said. “Who’s your pick?”

  “Rory McAllister. Little redhead with the nice ass. Second from the right.”

  “Sí, es muy bonita,” Jesus Bernal said.

  “Tell me, my man, why don’t I see any black women up on that stage?”

  The security chief lost his locker-room grin and wilted back a few steps. “Gosh, I don’t know. That’s a stumper. Want me to ask the judges?”

  “Yeah,” Viceroy Wilson said. “Do that.”

  “Right away, Mr. Wilson. And, hey, good work rousting those dopers!” The security chief hurried away.

  Jesus Bernal and Viceroy Wilson strolled to the foot of the stage and stared up at the beauty contestants, who were practicing the winner’s walk. Back straight, boobs out, buttocks tight, big smile. To Jesus Bernal each of the women seemed six feet tall, perfect and impenetrable.

  “Number five,” Wilson said in a disinterested tone. “That’s your winner.”

  Jesus Bernal found a program and read aloud: “Kara Lynn Shivers. Sophomore, University of Miami. Majoring in public relations. Hobbies: Swimming, mime, and French horn. Hair: blond. Eyes: hazel.”

  “Height?” Wilson said.

  “Five-eight.”

  “She weighs one-twenty.”

  “One hundred ten,” Bernal said “That’s what it says here.”

  “Vanity,” Wilson coughed. “The bitch is lying.”

  Bernal shrugged. “Whatever you say. Is one-twenty too heavy?”

  Wilson smiled, thinking of all those NFL linebackers. Somebody yelled “Cut!” and the emcee swaggered across the stage, trailing a microphone cord. He leaned over and spoke to Wilson and Bernal. “You guys are too close to the action. We got the top of your heads in that last shot.”

  The emcee sounded quite annoyed. Viceroy Wilson had never seen such large bright teeth on a white person. You could tile a swimming pool with teeth like that.

  Jesús Bernal stuck out his chest and tapped the badge that was pinned to the pocket of his gray security-guard uniform.

  The emcee said, “Hey, I’m superimpressed, okay? Now, get away from the stage. You’re making the girls nervous and you’re fucking up the take. Comprende?”

  From somewhere inside Viceroy Wilson came a wet growling noise. Jesús Bernal seized him by the arm and tried to pull him away from the stage, but it was too late. Wilson reached up and grabbed one of the emcee’s black nylon ankles.

  “Let go, you!” the emcee cried.

  “Let go, Viceroy,” Jesus Bernal pleaded.

  �
�Aarrrummmm, rrmmmmm,” Viceroy Wilson said.

  Then the emcee was a blur, the microphone flying one way, a black shoe flying the other. The emcee’s blow-dried head hit the stage with a crack that carried to every corner of the acoustically perfect auditorium. A few of the beauty contestants shrieked “Oh Jerry!” and ran to the young man’s aid; others just stared with pained expressions at the prone tuxedo.

  The security chief sprinted down the aisle and bounded onstage. “My God, what happened here? Back off, girls, give him air. Give him air.”

  Jesus Bernal glanced at Viceroy Wilson and thought: The dumb spade just ruined everything.

  “The man slipped on a puddle,” Bernal told the security chief.

  “Naw, it was an epileptic attack,” said Viceroy Wilson.

  “Get a doctor!” the security chief hollered into his K-Mart walkie-talkie. “Somebody get a doctor.”

  “An epilepsy doctor,” advised Viceroy Wilson.

  Kara Lynn Shivers gracefully dropped to her knees and cradled the emcee’s head. Discreetly she removed some tissue from the left cup of her bathing suit and began dabbing the emcee’s forehead. The injured man gazed up at Kara Lynn’s perfect sophomore breasts with a stunned but tranquil look.

  “I told you she’s gonna win,” Viceroy Wilson whispered. “This’ll be so damn easy.”

  “Let’s move,” Jesús Bernal said, commando style. “We’ve got to find the golf course before it gets dark.”

  “Hay-zoos, lemme tell you something,” Wilson said, taking his time. “If your little box of Tinker Toys goes off before we get there, just ‘member the last thing you’re gonna see on this earth is my black face—and I’ll be chewing on your fuckin’ guts all the way to hell.”

  15

  Like all terrible golfers, Dr. Remond Courtney believed that nothing was too extravagant for his game. He wore Arnold Palmer sweaters and Tom Watson spikes, and carried a full set of Jack Nicklaus MacGregors, including a six-wood that the Golden Bear himself couldn’t hit if his life depended on it.

  And like all terrible golfers, Dr. Courtney preferred to play very early in the morning, embracing the myth that golf balls fly farther in cool weather. Since he had no true friends at the Palmetto Country Club, Dr. Courtney often recruited his patients to play golf with him. This worked out fine if the patients were fairly stable, but occasionally one would go completely berserk. This usually happened on the back nine, which was lousy with water hazards, and Dr. Courtney would wave the other golfers to play through while he took an hour to tranquilize his partner. Some Thursdays a round of golf for Dr. Courtney was almost as grueling as a day at work, which is why he had no qualms about writing off all his MacGregors as a hefty tax deduction.

  On December 13, Dr. Remond Courtney hitched up his pretentious tweed knickers and teed off at 7:08 A.M. The foursome included one of his patients—a vastly improved schizophrenic named Mario Groppo—and two total strangers from Seattle. The strangers were engineers for Boeing, the aerospace company, and they tended to shank the ball off the tee. Predictably, Mario Groppo would hook the ball on one hole and slice the ball on the next. Nobody in the foursome could putt worth a damn.

  As for Dr. Remond Courtney, his golf swing was so unusual that from a distance he appeared to be beating a snake to death. It was a very violent golf swing for a psychiatrist. He managed an eight on the first hole and still won it by two strokes. It looked like it was going to be a long morning.

  By the fifth tee, Dr. Courtney had become confident enough in his partners’ ineptitude that he’d started betting on every hole. Poor Mario Groppo promptly dropped thirty dollars and appeared headed for a major anxiety attack; the Seattle tourists went to the bourbon flask early and lost their amiable out-of-towner dispositions. Every time Dr. Courtney would bend over a putt, one of them would fart or sneeze in flagrant violation of golf etiquette. The psychiatrist haughtily ignored this rudeness, no matter how many strokes it cost.

  The foursome made the turn with Dr. Courtney leading the Seattle engineers by four and seven strokes respectively, while Mario Groppo sweated bullets somewhere around twenty over par.

  Weatherwise it was a fine Florida day. The sky was china blue and a light breeze fought off the lethal humidity. As they strolled down the twelfth fairway, the psychiatrist sidled up to Mario and said, “So how are we feeling today, Mr. Groppo?”

  “Just fine,” replied Mario, fishing in his golf bag for a five iron.

  “Come now,” Dr. Courtney said. “Something’s troubling you, isn’t it?”

  “I’m lying three in the rough. That’s all that’s troubling me.”

  “Are you sure? I’ve got some Thorazine in my golf bag.”

  “I’m fine,” Mario said impatiently. “Thanks anyway.”

  Dr. Courtney patted him on the back and gave a doctorly wink. “When you want to talk, just let me know. I’ll set aside some time.”

  Dr. Courtney and the Boeing engineers put their shots smack on the green, while Mario Groppo dumped his five-iron in the back bunker.

  “Too much club,” the psychiatrist remarked.

  “Too much mouth,” sniped one of the guys from Boeing.

  Dr. Courtney snorted contemptuously and marched toward the green, his putter propped like a musket on his shoulder.

  While the other golfers lined up their putts, poor Mario Groppo waded into the sand trap, a canyon from which he could barely see daylight.

  “I’ll hold the stick,” Dr. Courtney called.

  Over the lip of the bunker Mario could make out the tip of the flagstick, Dr. Courtney’s pink face and, beyond that, the visors of the two Seattle tourists, waiting their turns.

  The psychiatrist kept shouting advice. “Bend the left knee! Keep the club face open! Hit behind the ball!”

  “Oh shut up,” Mario Groppo said. He grimaced at the idea of surrendering another ten bucks to Remond Courtney.

  Mario glared down at the half-buried Titleist and grimly dug his spikes into the sand. He took one last look at the flag, then swung the wedge with a mighty grunt.

  To everyone’s surprise, Mario’s golf ball leapt merrily from the sand trap, kissed the green, and rolled sweetly, inexorably toward the hole.

  “All right!” exclaimed one of the Seattle tourists.

  “I don’t believe it,” sniffed Dr. Courtney as Mario’s ball dropped with a plunk.

  At that instant the twelfth green of the Palmetto Country Club exploded in a hellish thunderclap. The bomb, hidden deep in the cup, launched the flagstick like a flaming javelin. The air crackled as a brilliant orange plume unfurled over the gentle fairways.

  There was no time to run, no time to scream.

  His face scorched and hair smoldering, poor Mario Groppo found himself lost in a crater. Haplessly he weaved in circles, using his sand wedge as a cane. “Holy God!” he mumbled, squinting through the smoke and silicate dust for some sign of the doomed threesome. “Holy Jesus God!” he said, as the sky rained wet clumps of sod and flesh, twisted stems of golf clubs, and bright swatches of Izod shirts.

  Mario sat down in the dirt. In a daze he thought he heard a man’s voice, and wondered if one of the other golfers had been spared.

  “Hello! I’m right here!” Mario cried. “Over here!”

  But the voice that replied was much too far away, and much too sonorous. The voice rose in proclamation from a stand of tall Austrailian pines bordering the thirteenth fairway.

  “Bon voyage, Dr. Goosefucker!” the voice sang out.

  ‘Welcome to the Revolution!”

  Jenna stood at the door, hands on her hips. “Boy, everybody in Miami’s looking for you!” She wore an indigo Danskin and a white terrycloth headband. Her forehead was damp; the Jane Fonda workout video was on the television.

  “May I come in?” Brian Keyes asked.

  “Of course. I’m making granola bars. Come sit in the kitchen and talk.”

  Jenna was in her element, and Keyes knew he’d have to take it slowly. One
wrong move and it was lights out.

  “Cab called. He’s hunting all over for you.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  “What about these cops?” Jenna emptied a box of raisins into a mixing bowl. “Cab says the cops want to talk to you about what happened. Hey, are you feeling okay? How come you left the hospital so soon?”

  “I got better,” Keyes said, “thanks to this incredible nurse. ”

  No reaction. Jenna stood at the kitchen counter with her back to him. She was stirring the granola mix.

  “You’re really something,” Keyes said playfully. “I got in all kinds of trouble, you know.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “The doctors chewed me out, moved me to a private room. They said we violated about five hundred hospital rules. The whole wing was talking about it.”

  “Yeah? You like carobs? I’m gonna add some carobs.”

  “I hate granola bars.”

  “These are homemade.” Jenna’s stirring became rhythmic.

  “I talked to Skip today.” She glanced over her shoulder at Keyes. “He wanted me to tell you how sorry he was about the Cuban. He said the little fellow means well; he just gets carried away with the knife. I told Skip you were doing better and he was quite relieved. He wanted me to tell you it won’t happen again.”

  “How thoughtful,” Keyes said acidly. “Where is the Madman of Miami, anyhow?”

  “We didn’t talk about that,” Jenna said. She was padding around the kitchen in jazz exercise tights and no shoes. “Skip made a bunch of new rules,” she said. “Rule number one: Don’t ask where he is. Rule number two: Don’t use his name over the telephone. Rule number three: No more horny love letters.”

  “Jenna, you’ve got to help me find him.”

  “Why? He’s done nothing wrong. He told me he’s got a clear conscience. Here, want a taste of this?” She thrust a wooden spoon in his mouth. “See, that’s good stuff.”

  “Not bad,” Keyes said, thinking: She’s at it again.

  Jenna poured the granola batter into a pan, and put the pan in the oven. She took a bottle of white wine from the refrigerator and poured herself a glass.