Carl Hiaasen – Native Tongue

Skink lifted the turtle by the tail and stuck a fork in it. “Ten more minutes,” he said, “at least.”

It wasn’t easy trying to talk with him this way, but Winder wouldn’t give up: “It’s been an interesting day. In the space of two hours I lost my job and my girlfriend.”

“Christ, you sound like Dobie Gillis.”

“The job was shit, I admit. But I was hoping Nina would stay strong. She’s one in a million.”

“Love,” said Skink, “it’s just a kiss away.”

Dejectedly, Winder thought: I’m wasting my time. The man couldn’t care less. “I came to ask about a plan,” Winder said. “I’ve been racking my brain.”

“Come on, I want to show you something.” Skink rose slowly and stretched, and the blaze-orange rainsuit made a crackling noise. He pulled the shower cap tight on his skull and, in high steps, marched off through the trees. To the west, the sky boiled with fierce purple thunderheads.

“Keep it moving,” Skink advised, over his shoulder.

Joe Winder followed him to the same dumpsite where the corpse of Spearmint Breath had been hidden. When they walked past the junker Cadillac, Winder noted that the trunk was open, and empty. He didn’t ask about the body. He didn’t want to know.

Skink led him through a hazardous obstacle course of discarded household junk—shells of refrigerators, ripped sofas, punctured mattresses, crippled Barca-loungers, rusty barbecue grills, disemboweled air conditioners—until they came to a very old Plymouth station wagon, an immense egg-colored barge with no wheels and no windshield. A yellow beach umbrella sprouted like a giant marigold from the dashboard, and offered minimal protection from blowing rain or the noonday sun. Skink got in the car and ordered Joe Winder to do the same.

The Plymouth was full of books, hundreds of volumes arranged lovingly from the tailgate to the front. With considerable effort, Skink turned completely in the front seat; he propped his rear end on the warped steering wheel. “This is where I come to read,” he said. “Believe it or not, the dome light in this heap still works.”

Joe Winder ran a finger along the spines of the books, and found himself smiling at the exhilarating variety of writers: Churchill, Hesse, Sandburg, Steinbeck, Camus, Paine, Wilde, Vonnegut, de Tocqueville, Salinger, Garcia Marquez, even Harry Crews.

“I put a new battery in this thing,” Skink was saying. “This time of year I’ve got to run the AC at least two, three hours a day. To stop the damn mildew.”

“So there’s gas in this car?” Winder asked.

“Sure.”

“But no wheels.”

Skink shrugged. “Where the hell would I be driving?”

A cool stream of wind rushed through the open windshield, and overhead the yellow beach umbrella began to flap noisily. A fat drop of rain splatted on the hood, followed by another and another.

“Damn,” said Skink. He put a shoulder to the door and launched himself out of the station wagon, “Hey, Flack, you coming or not?”

The storm came hard and they sat through it, huddled like Sherpas. The campfire washed out, but the soft-shelled turtle was cooked to perfection. Skink chewed intently on its tail and blinked the raindrops from his good eye; the other one fogged up like a broken headlight. Water trickled down his bronze cheeks, drenching his beard. Lightning cracked so close they could smell it—Winder ducked, but Skink showed no reaction, even when thunder rattled the coffeepot.

He adjusted the blaze weather suit to cover the electronic panther collar on his neck. “They say it’s waterproof, but I don’t know.”

Winder could scarcely hear him over the drum of the rain against the trees. Lightning flashed again, and reflexively he shut his eyes.

Skink raised his voice: “You know about that new golf resort?”

“I saw where they’re putting it.”

“No!” Skink was shouting now. “You know who’s behind it? That fucking Kingsbury!”

The wind was getting worse, if that was possible. With his free hand, Skink wrung out the tendrils of his beard. “Goddammit, man, are you listening? It all ties together.”

“What—with Koocher’s death?”

“Everything—” Skink paused for another white sizzle of lightning. “Every damn thing.”

It made sense to Winder. A scandal at the Amazing Kingdom would not only be bad for business, it might jeopardize Francis Kingsbury’s plans for developing Falcon Trace. If anyone revealed that he’d lied about the “endangered” voles, the feds might roll in and halt the whole show. The EPA, the Army Corps of Engineers, the Department of Interior—they could jerk Kingsbury around until he died of old age.

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168

Leave a Reply 0

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *