Sick Puppy

  Early on, Roger Roothaus had recognized the value of placing such a zealot on-site as a project supervisor. So long as a single sapling remained upright, Krimmler was impatient, irascible and darkly obsessed. The construction foremen hated him because he never let up, and would accept none of the standard excuses for delay. To Krimmler, a lightning storm was no reason to shut down and run for shelter, but rather a splendid opportunity to perform unauthorized land clearing, later to be blamed on the violent weather. He would permit nothing to waylay the machines, which he regarded with the same paternal fondness that George Patton had felt for his tanks.

  Krimmler regarded each new construction project as a battle, one step in a martial conquest. And so it was with the Shearwater Island resort. Krimmler lost no sleep over the fate of the oak toads, nor did he derive particular joy from it; burying the little critters was simply the most practical way to deal with the situation. As for the sudden disappearance of Brinkman, the pain-in-the-ass biologist, Krimmler couldn't be bothered to organize a search.

  What'm I now, a goddamn baby-sitter? he'd griped to Roothaus. The guy's a lush. Probably got all tanked up on vodka and fell off that old bridge—speaking of which, what's all this shit I see in the newspaper...

  "Not to worry," Roger Roothaus had assured him.

  "But is it true? The governor vetoed the bridge money!"

  "A technicality," Roger Roothaus had said. "We get it back in a month or two. All twenty-eight mil."

  "But what about the meantime?"

  "Just chill for a while."

  "But I got a survey crew coming over from Gainesville this week—"

  "Calm down. It's a political thing," Roger Roothaus had said. "A long story, and nothing you've got to worry about. We just need to chill out for a spell. Take some time off. Go up to Cedar Key and do some fishing."

  "Like hell," Krimmler had said. "Forget the bridge, I've still got serious acreage to clear. I've got the drivers ready to—"

  "No. Not now." The words of Roger Roothaus had hit Krimmler like a punch in the gut. "Mr. Clapley says to lay low for now, OK? No activity on-site, he says. There's a small problem, he's handling it. Says it shouldn't take long."

  "What kind a problem?" Krimmler had protested. "What in the hell kind a problem could shut down the whole job?"

  "Mr. Clapley didn't say. But he's the boss chief, OK? He's paying the bills. So I don't want no trouble."

  Krimmler had hung up, fuming. He was fuming when he went to bed, alone in the luxury camper that he drove from site to site. And he was still fuming the next morning when he woke up and heard the goddamned mockingbirds singing in the tops of the goddamned pines, heard the footsteps of a goddamned squirrel scampering across the camper's aluminum roof—a squirrel, which was a second goddamned cousin to a chipmunk, only bolder and bigger and filthier!

  Wretched was the only way to describe Krimmler's state after the Roothaus phone call; wretched in the milky tranquillity of the island morning, wretched without the growling, grinding gears of his beloved front-end loaders and backhoes and bulldozers. And when the surveyors showed up at the construction trailer at 7:00 a.m. sharp (a minor miracle in itself!), Krimmler could not bring himself to send them away, just because some shithead politicians were monkeying around with the bridge deal. Because the bridge was absolutely crucial to the project; without it, Shearwater Island would forever remain Toad Island. It had been hairy enough (and plenty expensive!) hauling the earth-moving equipment, one piece at a time, across the old wooden span. A fully loaded cement truck would never make it, and without cement you've got no goddamned seaside resort. Without cement you've got jack.

  So why not get the bridge surveying out of the way? Krimmler reasoned. What harm could come of that! It would be one less chore for later, one less delay after the money finally shook loose in Tallahassee. To hell with "laying low," Krimmler thought. Roger'll thank me for this later.

  So he led the surveyors to the old bridge and sat on the hood of the truck and watched them work—moving their tripod back and forth, calling coordinates to one another, spray-painting orange X's on the ground to mark critical locations. It was tedious and boring, but Krimmler hung around because the alternative was to sulk by himself in the trailer, listening to the goddamned birds and hydrophobic squirrels. The bridge survey was the closest thing to progress that was happening on Toad Island at the moment, and Krimmler felt a powerful need to be there. Once the surveyors were gone, that would be all for... well, who knew for how long. Krimmler willed himself not to fret about that. For now, perched on the hood of a Roothaus and Son F-150 pickup, he would be sustained by the click of the tripod and the sibilant fffttt of the aerosol spray-paint cans. Briefly he closed his eyes to envision the gleaming new bridge, fastened to the bottom muck of the Gulf with stupendous concrete pillars, each as big around as a goddamn sequoia...

  "Hello there."

  Krimmler stiffened, his eyes opening to a leery squint. "Who're you?"

  It was a young man with a deep weathered tan and sun-bleached hair. He wore a navy sweatshirt and jeans, but no shoes. His feet were caramel brown.

  "Just a tourist," he said.

  "You don't look like a tourist."

  "Really. Then what do I look like?" The young man gave a grin that put Krimmler on edge.

  "All I meant," said the engineer, "was, you know, the suntan. Any darker and you'd be speaking Jamaican. Whereas most of the tourists we see around here are white as a fish belly."

  "Well, I'm what you call a professional tourist," the young man said, "so I'm out in the sunshine all the time. What're you guys doing?" He jerked his chin in the direction of the surveyors. "Is this for that big golfing resort everybody's talking about?"

  Krimmler said, "You play golf?"

  "Where do you think I got this tan?"

  From the young man's air of casual confidence, Krimmler sensed that he might be living off a trust fund, or possibly socked-away dope earnings. Krimmler began to address him not as a scruffy pest but as a potential customer and future member of the Shearwater Island Country Club.

  "We're building two championship courses," Krimmler said, "one designed by Nicklaus, the other by Raymond Floyd."

  The young man whistled, turning to gaze at the island. "Two golf courses," he marveled. "Where you gonna put 'em?"

  "Oh, there's plenty of space," Krimmler said, "once you rearrange a few trees."

  "Ah." The young man looked back, again with the odd weightless grin.

  "We'll have condos, town houses and custom estate homes," Krimmler went on. "The fairway lots are selling like Beanie Babies. You're interested, they've got some color handouts at the sales trailer."

  "Raymond Floyd, you say?"

  "That's right. He's doing the south course."

  "Well, I'm impressed," the young man said. "And all this?"

  "For the new bridge," said Krimmler. "Four lanes. Sixty-foot clearance."

  "But isn't this the one I read about in the paper?"

  "Naw."

  "The one the governor just vetoed?"

  "Forget what you see in the news," Krimmler told the young man. "The bridge is a done deal. The resort's a done deal. We're good to go."

  "Is that right."

  "Soon," Krimmler said, with a wink. "Real soon."

  He heard a cry and, wheeling, saw one of the surveyors huffing after a big black dog. The dog somehow had gotten its leash caught up with the instrument tripod and was dragging the thing across the pavement like a crippled mantis.

  "Hey, stop!" Krimmler yelled. "Stop, goddammit!"

  The tan young man stepped away from Krimmler's side and broke into a run. He chased down the dopey dog and untangled the tripod, which he returned with its broken Sokkia transit to the slow-footed surveyor. Krimmler got there in time to hear the young man apologizing, and to watch him press a crisp wad of cash into the surveyor's palm. Then off they went, the black dog at the young man's heels, crossing the old wooden bridge toward the island.


  "Hey!" Krimmler called brightly after them. "Don't forget to swing by the sales office and pick up a brochure!"

  18

  When Krimmler returned to the travel trailer, he was alarmed to see lights in the windows. Approaching the front door, he heard a throb of excited voices.

  She's stabbing me! The crazy... ugh!... bitch is... agh!... stabbing me!!!

  Calm down. Please try to calm down.

  Stay calm? There's a fondue... ugh!... fork in my ass! HELP!

  Sir., we've got units on the way.

  No, Debbie, not there! You promised, NOT THERE! Yaaaggghh—Jesus, look whatchu done now! You crazy damn bitch!!

  Krimmler was turning to flee when the trailer door flew open. In a blur he was tackled, dragged inside and heaved like a sack of fertilizer onto the sour carpet. He expected to behold chaos, a deranged harpy with a bloody cheese fork poised over a dying boyfriend...

  But the only person in Krimmler's Winnebago was a powerfully built man with blond hair, which had been moussed into peculiar white-tipped spikes. The man wore a houndstooth suit and brown leather shoes with zippers down the ankles, like Gerry and the Pacemakers might have worn in 1964.

  The interior of the trailer showed no evidence of a savage stabbing. The cries and shrieks of crazed Debbie's victim had come from Krimmler's stereo speakers. The spiky-haired stranger twisted down the volume knob and positioned himself in a captain's chair, which he spun to face Krimmler.

  "I work for Mr. Clapley," the man said. He had a deceptively gentle voice.

  "I work for Mr. Clapley, too." Krimmler began to rise from the floor, but the spiky-haired man produced a handgun and motioned him to be still.

  "You were talking to a guy this morning. Barefoot guy with a dog," said the stranger. "Over by the bridge, remember?"

  "Sure."

  "I was watching. Who was he?"

  Krimmler shrugged. "Just some tourist. He wanted to know about the new golf courses. I sent him to the sales office."

  "What else?"

  "That's it. Why'd you bust into my place? Can't I get up now?"

  "Nope," said the man in the houndstooth suit. "Did he ask about the new bridge?"

  Krimmler nodded.

  "Well?"

  "I told him it was a done deal."

  "Why'd you tell him that?"

  "Because he acted like he had money," Krimmler said. "Mr. Clapley is still in the business of selling property, isn't he?"

  The stranger popped a cassette out of Krimmler's stereo console. He placed it in an inside pocket of his suit jacket, all the time keeping the gun on display in his other hand. Krimmler wondered why Robert Clapley would employ such a thug. Possibly the stranger was lying about that, though it didn't really matter at the moment. Krimmler was unfailingly respectful of firearms.

  "I never saw this goddamned guy before," he told the spiky-haired stranger. "He didn't say his name, and I didn't think to ask."

  "Is he with a woman?"

  "I got no idea."

  "Yesterday I saw a couple in a Buick station wagon crossing to the island," the stranger said. "They had a dog in the car."

  "Anything's possible," Krimmler said restlessly. "Look, I told you everything I know."

  "Well, he acts like a troublemaker. Didn't he strike you as a troublemaker?" The man went into Krimmler's refrigerator for a beer. "Was he pissed when you told him about the new bridge?"

  "Not that I could tell," Krimmler said. "Why the hell would he care about a bridge?"

  The man with the gun was silent for a few moments. Then he said: "It's a helluva sound system you got in this cozy little tin can."

  "Yeah. Thanks."

  "You can actually hear the people out of breath on those tapes. You can hear them wheezing and gasping and shit. It's just amazing what's possible on a first-rate sound system."

  "The speakers are brand-new," Krimmler said. "From Germany."

  The spiky-haired man opened the beer and took a swallow. "So. This troublemaker with the black dog—where would he be staying on the island?"

  "If he's not camping out, then he's probably at Mrs. Stinson's bed-and-breakfast."

  "And where's that?"

  Krimmler gave directions. The man holstered his gun. He told Krimmler it was all right to get up off the floor.

  "Can I ask your name?"

  "Gash."

  "You really work for Clapley?"

  "I do. Ask him yourself." The stranger turned for the door.

  "That tape you were listening to," said Krimmler, "was that for real? Was that you on there, calling for help?"

  The man laughed—a creepy and unsettling gurgle that made Krimmler sorry he'd asked.

  "That's good," Mr. Gash said. "That's really rich."

  "Look, I didn't mean anything."

  "Hey, it's OK. I'm laughing because the man on that tape, he's dead. Dead as a fucking doornail. Those were his last mortal words you heard: 'You crazy damn bitch!!' The last living breath out of his mouth."

  Mr. Gash chuckled again, then stepped into the night.

  It was nine-thirty, and Lisa June Peterson was alone in her office, which adjoined the governor's own. When the phone rang, she assumed it was Douglas, the probate attorney she'd been dating. Every time Douglas called, the first question was: "What're you wearing, Lisa June?"

  So tonight, being in a frisky mood, she picked up the phone and said: "No panties!"

  And a male voice, deeper and older-sounding than Douglas's, responded: "Me neither, hon."

  The governor's executive assistant gasped.

  "Ah, sweet youth," the voice said.

  Lisa June Peterson stammered an apology. "I'm so—I thought you were somebody else."

  "Some days I think the same thing."

  "What can I do for you?" Lisa June asked.

  "Get me an appointment with the governor."

  "I'm afraid he's out of town." Lisa June, trying to recover, hoping to sound cool and professional.

  The caller said: "Then I'll catch up with him later."

  She was troubled by something in the man's tone—not menace, exactly, but a blunt certainty of purpose. "Maybe I can help," she said.

  "I seriously doubt it."

  "I can try to reach him. Does Governor Artemus know you?"

  "Apparently so," the man said.

  "May I have your name?"

  "Tyree. You need me to spell it?"

  "No." Lisa June Peterson was floored. "Is this some kind of a joke?"

  "Anything but."

  "You're Governor Tyree—no bullshit?"

  "Since when do fine young ladies use that word in formal conversation? I am shocked to the marrow."

  Lisa June Peterson already was on her feet, collecting her purse and car keys. "Where are you now?" she asked the caller. "Pay phone down on Monroe."

  "Meet me in front of the capitol. Ten minutes."

  "Why?"

  She said, "I drive a Taurus wagon. I'm wearing a blue dress and glasses."

  "And no panties, 'member?"

  Nothing in Lisa June Peterson's experience prepared her for the sight of Clinton Tyree. First his size—he looked as big as a refrigerator. Then the wardrobe—he was dressed like a squeegee man: boots, homemade kilt and shower cap. As he got in her car, the dome light offered an egg-white glimpse of shaved scalp, a ruby Clint from a prosthetic eye. But it wasn't until they were seated side by side on upturned cinder blocks in front of a campfire that Lisa June Peterson got a good look at the lush cheek braids and the bleached bird beaks adorning them.

  "Buzzards," the former governor said. "Bad day."

  His face was saddle-brown and creased, but it opened to the same killer smile Lisa June remembered from her research; from those early newspaper photographs, before things went weird. The inaugural smile.

  She said, "It's really you."

  "Just the chassis, hon."

  They were in a wooded lot outside of town, near the municipal airport. The ex-governor was skin
ning out a dead fox he'd scavenged on the Apalachee Parkway. He said it had been struck by a motorcycle; said he could tell by the nature of the dent in the animal's skull.