NativeTongue

by Carl Hiassen

In the evening he drove out to the Card Sound Bridge and parked. He got a flashlight from the trunk and began to walk along the road, keeping close to the fringe of the trees and playing the light along the ground. Soon he found the place where he had been beaten by the two goons, Angel and Spearmint Breath. Here Joe Winder slowed his pace and forced himself to concentrate.

  He knew what he was looking for: a trail.

  He'd spent most of his childhood outdoors, cutting paths to secret hideaways in the hammocks, glades and swamps. At a young age he had become an expert woodsman, a master of disappearing into impenetrable pockets where no one else wanted to go. Every time his father bought a new piece of property, Joe Winder set out to explore each acre. If there was a big pine, he would climb it; if there was a lake or a creek, he'd fish it. If there was a bobcat, he'd track it; a snake, he'd catch it.

  He would pursue these solitary adventures relentlessly until the inevitable day when the heavy machinery appeared, and the guys in the hard hats would tell him to beat it, not knowing he was the boss's kid.

  On those nights, lying in his bed at home, he would wait for his mother to come in and console him. Often she would suggest a new place for his expeditions, a mossy parcel off Old Cutler Road, or twenty acres in the Gables, right on the bay. Pieces his father's company had bought, or was buying, or was considering.

  Raw, tangled, hushed, pungent with animals, buzzing with insects, glistening with extravagant webs, pulsing, rustling and doomed. And always the portal to these mysterious places was a trail.

  Which is what Winder needed on this night.

  Soon he found it: an ancient path of scavengers, flattened by raccoons and opossums but widened recently by something much larger. As Winder slipped into the woods, he felt ten years old again. He followed the trail methodically but not too fast, though his heart was pounding absurdly in his ears. He tried to travel quietly, meticulously ducking boughs and stepping over rotted branches. Every thirty or so steps, he would turn off the flashlight, hold his breath and wait. Before long, he could no longer hear the cars passing on Card Sound Road. He was so deep in the wetlands that a shout or a scream would be swallowed at once, eternally.

  He walked for fifteen minutes before he came upon the remains of a small campfire. Joe Winder knelt and sniffed at the half-burned wood; somebody had doused it with coffee. He poked at the acrid remains of something wild that had been cooked in a small rusty pan. He swung the flashlight in a semicircle and spotted a dirty cooler, some lobster traps and a large cardboard box with the letters "EDTIAR" stamped on the side. On the ground, crumpled into a bright pile, was a fluorescent orange rainsuit. Winder unfolded it, held it up to gauge the size. Then he put it back the way he found it.

  Behind him, a branch snapped and a voice said, "How do you like the new pants?"

  Winder wheeled around and pointed the flashlight as if it were a pistol.

  The man was eating – and there was no mistaking it – a fried snake on a stick.

  "Cottonmouth," he said, crunching off a piece. "Want some?"

  "No thanks."

  "Then we've got nothing to talk about."

  Joe Winder politely took a bite of snake. "Like chicken," he said.

  The man was cleaning his teeth with a fishhook. He looked almost exactly as Joe Winder remembered, except that the beard was now braided into numerous silvery sprouts that drooped here and there from the man's jaw. He was probably in his early fifties, although it was impossible to tell. The mismatched eyes unbalanced his face and made his expression difficult to read; the snarled eyebrows sat at an angle of permanent scowl. He wore a flowered pink shower cap, sunglasses on a lanyard, a heavy red plastic collar and no shirt. At first Joe Winder thought that the man's chest was grossly freckled, but in the flashlight's trembling beam the freckles began to hover and dance: mosquitoes, hundreds of them, feasting on his blood.

  In a strained voice Joe Winder said, "I can't help but notice that thing on your neck."

  "Radio collar." The man lifted his chin so Winder could see it. "Made by Telonics. A hundred fifty megahertz. I got it off a dead panther."

  "Does it work?" Winder asked.

  "Like a charm." The man snorted. "Why else would I be wearing it?"

  Joe Winder decided this was something they could chat about later. He said, "I didn't mean to bother you. I just wanted to thank you for what you did the other night."

  The stranger nodded. "No problem. Like I said, I got a pair of pants out of the deal." He slapped himself on the thigh. "Canvas, too."

  "Listen, that little guy – Angel Gaviria was his name. They found him hanging under the bridge." Winder's friend at the medical examiner's office had confirmed the identity.

  "What do you know," the stranger said absently.

  "I was wondering about the other one, too," said Winder, "since they were trying to kill me."

  "Don't blame you for being curious. By the way, they call me Skink. And I already know who you are. And your daddy, too, goddamn his soul."

  He motioned for Joe Winder to follow, and crashed down a trail that led away from the campfire. "I went through your wallet the other night," Skink was saying, "to make sure you were worth saving."

  "These days I'm not so sure."

  "Shit," said Skink. "Don't start with that."

  After five minutes they broke out of the hardwoods into a substantial clearing. A dump, Joe Winder noticed.

  "Yeah, it's lovely," muttered Skink. He led Winder to the oxidized husk of an abandoned Cadillac, and lifted the trunk hatch off its hinges. The nude body of Spearmint Breath had been fitted inside, folded as neatly as a beach chair.

  "Left over from the other night," Skink explained. "He ran out of steam halfway up the big bridge. Then we had ourselves a talk."

  "Oh Jesus."

  "A bad person," Skink said. "He would've brought more trouble."

  An invisible cloud of foul air rose from the trunk. Joe Winder attempted to breathe through his mouth.

  Skink played the beam ol the flashlight along the dead goon's swollen limbs. "Notice the skeeters don't go near him," he said, "so in one sense, he's better off."

  Joe Winder backed away, speechless. Skink handed him the light and said, "Don't worry, this is only temporary." Winder hoped he wasn't talking to the corpse.

  Skink replaced the trunk hatch on the junked Cadillac. "Asshole used to work Security at the Kingdom. He and Angel baby. But I suppose you already knew that."

  "All I know," said Winder, "is that everything's going bad and I'm not sure what to do."

  "Tell me about it. I still can't believe they shot John Lennon and it's been – what, ten years?" He sat down heavily on the trunk of the car. "You ever been to the Dakota?"

  "Once," Joe Winder said.

  "What's it like?"

  "Sad."

  Skink twirled the fishhook in his mouth, bit off the barb, and spit it out savagely. "Some crazy shithead with a .38 – it's the story of America, isn't it?"

  "We live in violent times. That's what they say."

  "Guys like that, they give violence a bad name." Skink stretched out on the trunk, and stared at the stars.

  "Sometimes I think about that bastard in jail, how he loves all the publicity. Went from being nobody to The Man Who Shot John Lennon. I think some pretty ugly thoughts about that."

  "It was a bad day," Joe Winder agreed. He couldn't tell if the man was about to sleep or explode.

  Suddenly Skink sat up. With a blackened fingernail he tapped the radio collar on his neck. "See, it's best to keep moving. If you don't move every so often, a special signal goes out. Then they think the panther's dead and they all come searching."

  "Who's they?"

  "Rangers," Skink replied. "Game and Fish."

  "But the panther is dead."

  "You're missing the whole damn point."

  As usual. Joe Winder wondered which way to take it, and decided he had nothing to lose. "What exactly are you doing out here?" he asked.
<
br />   Skink grinned, a stunning, luminous movie-star grin.

  "Waiting," he said.

  TWELVE

  On the morning of July 21, a Saturday, Molly McNamara drove Bud Schwartz and Danny Pogue to the Amazing Kingdom of Thrills for the purpose of burglarizing the office of Francis X. Kingsbury.

  "All you want is files?" asked Bud Schwartz.

  "As many as you can fit in the camera bag," Molly said. "Anything to do with Falcon Trace."

  Danny Pogue, who was sitting in the back seat of the El Dorado, leaned forward and said, "Suppose there's some other good stuff. A tape deck or a VCR, maybe some crystal. Is it okay we grab it?"

  "No, it is not," Molly replied. "Not on my time."

  She parked in the Cindy-the-Sun-Queen lot and left the engine running. The radio was tuned to the classical station, and Bud Schwartz asked if Molly could turn it down a notch or two. She went searching through her immense handbag and came out with a Polaroid camera. Without saying a word, she snapped a photograph of Bud Schwartz, turned halfway in the seat and snapped one of Danny Pogue. The flashbulb caused him to flinch and make a face. Molly plucked the moist negatives from the slot in the bottom of the camera and slipped them into the handbag.

  "What's that all about?" said Danny Pogue.

  "In case you get the itch to run away," Molly McNamara said, "I'd feel compelled to send your photographs to the authorities. They are still, I understand, quite actively investigating the theft of the mango voles."

  "Pictures," said Bud Schwartz. "That's cute."

  Molly smiled pleasantly and told both men to listen closely. "I rented you a blue Cutlass. It's parked over by the tram station. Here are the keys."

  Bud Schwartz put them in his pocket. "Something tells me we won't be cruising down to Key West."

  "Not if you know what's good for you," Molly said.

  Danny Pogue began to whine again. "Ma'am, I don't know nothin" about stealing files," he said. "Now I'm a regular bear for tape decks and Camcorders and shit like that, but frankly I don't do much in the way of, like, reading. It's just not my area."

  Molly said, "You'll do fine. Get in, grab what you can and get out."

  "And hope that nobody recognizes us from before." Bud Schwartz arched his eyebrows. "What happens then? Or didn't you think of that."

  Molly chuckled lightly. "Don't be silly. No one will recognize you dressed the way you are."

  She had bought them complete golfing outfits, polyester down to the matching socks. Danny Pogue's ensemble was raspberry red and Bud Schwartz's was baby blue. The pants were thin and baggy; the shirts had short sleeves and loud horizontal stripes and a tiny fox stitched on the left breast.

  Bud Schwartz said, "You realize we look like total dipshits."

  "No, you look like tourists."

  "It's not that bad," agreed Danny Pogue.

  "Listen," Molly said again. "When you're done with the job, get in the Cutlass and come straight back to my place. The phone will ring at one sharp. If you're not there, I'm going directly to the post office and mail these snapshots to the police, along with your names. Do you believe me?"

  "Yeah, sure," said Bud Schwartz.

  She got out of the Cadillac and opened the doors for the burglars. "How is your hand?" she asked Bud Schwartz. "Better let your friend carry the camera bag."

  She held Danny Pogue's crutch (mending quickly, he was down to one) while he slipped the camera bag over his right shoulder. "The tram's coming," she announced. "Better get moving."

  As the men hobbled away, Molly called out cheerfully and waved good-bye, as if she were their mother, or a loving old aunt.

  With a trace of fondness, Danny Pogue said, "Look at her."

  "Look at us," said Bud Schwartz. "Real fucking pros."

  "Well, at least it's for a good cause. You know, saving them butterflies."

  Bud Schwartz eyed his partner in a clinical way. "Danny, you ever had a CAT scan?"

  "A what?"

  "Nothing."

  The burglars were huffing pretty heavily by the time they made it to the tram. They climbed on the last car, along with a family of nine from Minneapolis. Every one of them had sandy hair and Nordic-blue eyes and eyebrows so blond they looked white in the sunlight.

  A little girl of about seven turned to Danny Pogue and asked what had happened to his foot.

  "I got shot," he said candidly.

  The little girl flashed a glance at her mother, whose eyes widened.

  "A tetanus shot," said Bud Schwartz. "He stepped on a rusty nail."

  The mother's eyes softened with relief. "Where are you from?" she asked the men.

  "Portugal," said Danny Pogue, trying to live up to the tourist act.

  "Portugal, Ohio," Bud Schwartz said, thinking: There is no hope for this guy; he simply can't be allowed to speak.

  The tiny blond girl piped up: "We heard on the radio that the whale died yesterday. Orky the whale."

  "Oh no," said Danny Pogue. "You sure?"

  The tram rolled to a stop in front of the main gate, where the burglars got off. Nodding good-bye to the blond Minneapolitans, Bud Schwartz and Danny Pogue slipped into the throng and located the shortest line at the ticket turnstiles.

  In a gruff tone, Bud Schwartz said, "Portugal? What kind of fuckhead answer is that?"

  "I don't know, Bud. I don't know a damn thing about tourists or where they come from."

  "Then don't say anything, you understand?" Bud Schwartz got out the money that Molly had given them to buy the admission tickets. He counted out thirty-six dollars and handed the cash to his partner.

  "Just hold up one finger, that's all you gotta do," said Bud Schwartz. "One finger means one ticket. Don't say a goddamn thing."

  "All right," Danny Pogue said. "Man, I can't believe the whale croaked, can you?"

  "Shut up," said Bud Schwartz. "I'm not kidding."

  Danny Pogue didn't seem the least bit nervous about returning to the scene of their crime. To him the Amazing Kingdom of Thrills was a terrific place, and he strutted around with a permanent grin. Bud Schwartz thought: He's worse than these damn kids.

  Outside the Magic Mansion, Danny Pogue stopped to shake hands with Petey Possum. A tourist lady from Atlanta took a photograph, and Danny Pogue begged her to send him a copy. At this point Bud Schwartz considered ditching the dumb shit altogether and pulling the job alone.

  Golf duds and all, Bud Schwartz was antsy about being back on the premises so soon after" the rat-napping; it went against his long-standing aversion to dumb risk. He wanted to hurry up and get the hell out.

  It wasn't easy locating Francis X. Kingsbury's office because it didn't appear on any of the colorful maps or diagrams posted throughout the amusement park. Bud Schwartz and Danny Pogue checked closely; there was the Cimarron Trail Ride, Orky's Undersea Paradise, the Wet Willy, the Jungle Jerry Amazon Boat Cruise, Bigfoot Mountain, Excitement Boulevard, and so on, with no mention of the administration building. Bud Schwartz decided Kingsbury's headquarters must be somewhere in the geographic center of the Amazing Kingdom of Thrills, and for security reasons probably wasn't marked.

  "Why don't we ask somebody?" Danny Pogue suggested.

  "Very smart," said Bud Schwartz. "I got a better idea. Why don't we just paint the word 'thief' in big red letters on our goddamn foreheads?"

  Danny Pogue wasn't sure why his partner was in such a lousy mood. The Kingdom was awesome, fantastic, sensational. Everywhere they went, elves and fairy princesses and happy animal characters waved or shook hands or gave a hug.

  "I never seen so much friendliness," he remarked.

  "It's the crutch," said Bud Schwartz.

  "No way."

  "It's the damn crutch, I'm tellin' you. They're only being nice because they got to, Danny. Anytime there's a customer on crutches, they make a special point. You know, in case he's dying a some fatal disease."

  Danny Pogue said, "You go to hell."

  "Ten bucks says it's right in the training
manual."

  "Bud, I swear to God."

  "Gimme the crutch and I'll prove it."

  Danny Pogue said, "You're the one's always on my ass about attitude. And now just listen to yourself – all because people're actin' nice to me and not to you."

  "That's not it," said Bud Schwartz, but when he turned around his partner was gone. He found him on line at the Wild Bill Hiccup rodeo ride; Danny Pogue had stashed his crutch in the men's room and was determined to give Wild Bill Hiccup a go. Bud Schwartz was tired of bickering.

  The ride was set up in an indoor corral that had been laboriously fabricated, from the brown-dyed dirt to the balsa fence posts to the polyethylene cowshit that lay in neat regular mounds, free of flies. Twenty-five mechanical bulls (only the horns were real) jumped and bucked on hidden tracks while a phony rodeo announcer described the action through a realistically tinny megaphone.

  During this particular session, the twenty-five bulls were mounted by twenty-three tourists and two professional crooks. Before the ride began, Bud Schwartz leaned over to Danny Pogue and told him to be sure and fall off.

  "What?"

  "You heard me. And make it look good."

  When the bell rang, Bud Schwartz hung on with his good hand and bounced back and forth for maybe a minute without feeling anything close to excitement. Danny Pogue, however, was launched almost instantly from the sponge hump of his motorized Brahma – a tumble so spectacular that it brought three Company Cowpokes out of the bronco chute at a dead run. They surrounded Danny Pogue, measured his blood pressure, palpated his ribs and abdomen, listened to his heart, shined a light in his eyeballs and finally shoved a piece of paper under his nose.

  "Why don't you put your name on this, li'l pardner?" said one of the Cowpokes.

  Danny Pogue examined the document, shook his head and handed it to Bud Schwartz for interpretation.

  "Release of liability," Bud Schwartz said. He looked up with a dry smile. "This means we can't sue, right?"

  "Naw," said the solicitous Cowpoke. "All it means is your buddy's not hurt."

  "Says who?" said Bud Schwartz. "Bunch a dumb cowboy shit-kickers. Thanks, but I think we'll try our luck with an actual doctor."