“Toodle-loo,” said Carrie. And the float began to roll.
At first, Sergeant Mark Dyerson thought the telemetry was on the fritz again. How could the panther get back on the island? No signal had been received for days, then suddenly there it was, beep-beep-beep. Number 17. The sneaky bastard was at it again!
Sergeant Dyerson asked the pilot to keep circling beneath the clouds until he got a more precise fix on the transmitter. The greenish darkness of the hammocks and the ocean suddenly was splayed by a vast sparkling corridor of lights—the Amazing Kingdom of Thrills. The plane banked high over a confetti of humanity.
“Damn,” said the ranger. Sharply he tapped the top of the radio receiver. “This can’t be right. Fly me over again.”
But the telemetry signals were identical on the second pass, and the third and the fourth. Sergeant Dyerson peered out the window of the Piper and thought, He’s down there. He’s inside the goddamn park!
The ranger told the pilot to call Naples. “I need some backup,” he said, “and I need the guy with the dogs.”
“Should I say which cat we’re after?”
“No, don’t,” Sergeant Dyerson said. The top brass of the Game and Fish Department was tired of hearing about Number 17. “Tell them we’ve got a panther in trouble,” said Sergeant Dyerson, “that’s all you need to say.”
The pilot reached for the radio. “What the hell’s it doing in the middle of an amusement park?”
“Going crazy,” said the ranger. “That’s all I can figure.”
The break-dancing migrant workers were a sensation with the crowd. Skink covered his face during most of the performance; it was one of the most tasteless spectacles he had ever seen. He asked Joe Winder if he wished to help with the gasoline.
“No, I’m waiting for Kingsbury.”
“What for?”
“To resolve our differences as gentlemen. And possibly pound him into dog chow.”
“Forget Kingsbury,” Skink advised. “There’s your girl.”
Carrie’s float appeared at the end of the promenade; a spotlight found her in a black sequined evening gown, posed among ersatz palms and synthetic cypress. She was perfectly dazzling, although the crowd reacted with confused and hesitant applause—they’d been expecting a scantily clad Indian princess astride a snarling wildcat.
Joe Winder tried to wave, but it hurt too much to raise his arms. Carrie didn’t see him. She folded her hands across her midriff and began to sing:
“Vissi d’arte, vissi d’amore
Non fed nin male ad animal viva!
Con man furtiva
Quante miserie conobbi, aiutai….”
Winder was dazed, and he was not alone; a restless murmuring swept through the stands and rippled along the promenade.
“Magnificent!” Skink said. His good eye ablaze, he clutched Winder’s shoulder: “Isn’t she something!”
“What is that? What’s she singing?”
Skink shook him with fierce exuberance. “My God, man, it’s Puccini. It’s Tosca!”
“I see.” It was a new wrinkle: opera.
And Carrie sang beautifully; what her voice lacked in strength it made up in a flawless liquid clarity. The aria washed sorrowfully across the Amazing Kingdom and, like a chilly rain, changed the mood of the evening.
Skink put his mouth to Winder’s ear and whispered: “This takes place in the second act, where Tosca has just seen her lover tortured by the ruthless police chief and sentenced to death by a firing squad. In her failed effort to save him, Tosca herself becomes a murderess. Her song is a lamentation on life’s tragic ironies.”
“I’d never have guessed,” Winder said.
As the float passed the Magic Mansion, Carrie sang:
“Nell ora del dolore
Perche, perche, Signore,
Perche me ne rimuneri cost?”
Skink closed his eyes and swayed. “Ah, why, dear Lord,” he said. “Ah, why do you reward your servant so?”
Winder said the audience seemed fidgety and disturbed.
“Disturbed?” Skink was indignant. “They ought to be distraught. Mournful. They ought to be weeping?
“They’re only tourists,” Joe Winder said. “They’ve been waiting all afternoon to see a lion.”
“Cretins.”
“Oh, she knew,” Winder said fondly. “She knew they wouldn’t like it one bit.”
Skink grinned. “Bless her heart.” He began to applaud rambunctiously, “Bravo! Bravo!” His clapping and shouting caught the attention of spectators in the lower rows, who looked up toward the VIP box with curious annoyance. Carrie spotted both of them in Kingsbury’s booth, and waved anxiously. Then she gathered herself and, with a deep breath, began the first verse again.