Carl Hiaasen – Sick Puppy

“Don’t get me started, darling. It’s a lot more complicated than that.” The governor raised his face to offer a paternal smile. “There’s a natural order to consider. A certain way things work. You know that, Lisa June. That’s how it’s always been. You can’t change it and I can’t change it and some crazy old homicidal hermit—Skink, isn’t that what he calls himself?—well, he damn sure can’t change it, neither.”

Lisa June Peterson stood up, smoothing her skirt. “Thanks for the pep talk, Governor.”

“Aw, don’t get sulky on me. Sit down, now. Tell me what he looked like. Tell me what happened, I’m dyin’ to hear.”

But even if Dick Artemus had been sober, Lisa June couldn’t have brought herself to share what had happened at the campfire—that the ex-governor had kept her up all night with a fevered monologue; that he had told her true stories of old Florida, that he had ranted and incanted and bellowed at the stars, stomping back and forth, weeping from one eye while the other smoldered as red as a coal; that he had painted teardrops on his bare scalp with fox blood; that he had torn his queer checkered kilt while scrambling up a tree, and that she’d put it back together with three safety pins that she’d found in a corner of her purse; that he’d kissed her, and she’d kissed him back.

Lisa June Peterson couldn’t have brought herself to tell her boss that she’d left Clinton Tyree snoring naked and sweaty in the woods a mere ten miles from the capitol, or that she’d rushed home with the intention of putting it all down on paper—everything he’d said and done, and said he’d done—saving it for the book she planned to write. Because when she got home to her apartment, showered, fixed a cup of hot tea and sat down with a legal pad, she could not put down a word. Not one.

“Nothing much happened,” Lisa June Peterson told the governor.

Dick Artemus rocked forward and planted his elbows on his desk. “Well, what does he look like? He’s a big fucker, according to the files.”

“He’s big,” Lisa June confirmed.

“Taller’n me?”

“He looks old,” Lisa June said.

“He is old. What else?”

“And sad.”

“But he’s still freaky, I bet.”

“I’ve seen freakier,” said Lisa June.

“Aw, you’re pissed at me. Don’t be like this.” Dick Artemus held out his arms imploringly. “I wasn’t really gonna evict the man’s brother from that lighthouse, Lisa June. You honestly think I’d do something as shitty as that?”

“The letter was enough.”

“Oh, for God’s sake.” The governor grabbed his bourbon and leaned back, balancing the glass on his lap. “All I want him to do is find that crazy kid with the dog. That’s all.”

“Oh, he’ll find him,” Lisa June Peterson said. “Now, how do you want to deal with the Honorable Representative Vasquez-Washington?”

“That fucking Willie.” Dick Artemus hacked out a bitter laugh. “You know what to do, Lisa June. Call Palmer Stoat. Get him to make things right.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Hey. What happened to your knee?” The governor, craning his neck for a better angle.

“Just a scrape.” Lisa June thinking: I knew I should’ve worn hose today, Dick Artemus being an incorrigible ogler of legs.

“Ooooch,” he said. “How’d that happen?”

“Climbing a tree,” said Lisa June Peterson.

“This I gotta hear.”

“No, you don’t.”

The name of the strip club was Pube’s.

Upon bribing the bouncer, Robert Clapley was dismayed to be informed that the Barbies had easily won first place in the amateur contest, snatched up the thousand-dollar cash prize and departed the premises with an individual named Avalon Brown, who claimed to be an independent film producer from Jamaica.

“I feel sick,” Clapley said to Palmer Stoat.

“Don’t. It’s the best thing that could happen to you,” Stoat said, “getting rid of those two junkie sluts.”

“Knock it off, Palmer. I need those girls.”

“Yeah, like you need rectal polyps.”

Stoat was in a sour and restless mood. All around him were frisky nude women, dancing on tabletops, yet he couldn’t stop thinking about Desie and the Polaroid.

But those nights were over, as was his marriage.

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