Carl Hiaasen – Sick Puppy

Durgess cheerlessly agreed. “Tell me again where you got him.”

“Uncle Wilhelm’s Petting Zoo,” Asa said. “They got rid of him on account he was eatin’ all their parrots. Don’t ast me how he caught the damn things, but I guess he taught hisself to jump like a motherfucker.”

“And how much did we pay?” Durgess braced himself.

“Five grand, minus freight.”

“Sweet Jesus.”

“C.O.D.”

“Asa, buddy, we got a serious problem.” Durgess explained that one of their best customers, Palmer Stoat, was bringing a bigshot business associate to Wilderness Veldt to shoot a cheetah, a full-grown African cheetah.

“It’s a big kill,” Durgess said gravely. “Big money.”

Asa eyed the wiry cat. “Maybe we can fatten him up ‘tween now and then.”

“Sure,” Durgess said. “Staple on a couple fake legs while we’re at it. Lord, Asa, sometimes I wonder ’bout you.”

But the Supervisor of Game wasn’t ready to admit failure. “Three hundred yards, Durge, one cat looks like another to these bozos. Remember Gummy the Lion?”

Durgess flicked his hand in disgust. Formerly known as Maximilian III, Gummy the Lion had been the star of a trained-animal act at a roadside casino outside Reno, Nevada. Old age and a lifelong affinity for chocolate-chip ice cream claimed first the big cat’s canines and eventually all its teeth, so Max had been retired and sold to a wildlife wholesaler, who had in turn peddled the animal to the Wilderness Veldt Plantation. Even Asa Lando had been aghast when they’d uncrated it. Durgess had figured they were stuck with a new pet—who’d pay good money to shoot a senile, toothless lion?

A moron named Nick Teeble, it turned out. Eighteen thousand dollars he’d paid. That was how badly the retired tobacco executive had wanted a lion skin for the stone fireplace in his Costa Rican vacation chalet. It had been Asa who had sized up Nick Teeble for the phony he was; Asa who had persuaded Durgess to use the enfeebled Gummy in the canned hunt. And Asa had been right: Nick Teeble was both oblivious and incompetent, an ideal combination for Wilderness Veldt. It had taken Nick Teeble seven shots to hit the lion, whose disinclination to run or even stir from its nap was attributable to a complete and irreversible deafness (brought about by twenty-one years of performing in front of a very loud, very bad casino brass combo).

Durgess said to Asa London: “That was different. Teeble was a chump.”

“All our customers are chumps,” Asa Lando pointed out. “They damn sure ain’t hunters. They just want somethin’ large and dead for the wall. Talk about chumps, you can start with your Mr. Stoat.”

“The man he’s bringing here has done real big-game trips. He won’t go for no Gummy routine,” Durgess asserted. “He ain’t gonna buy it if we tell him he shot two legs off that cat.”

Asa Lando said, unflaggingly: “Don’t be so

sure.”

“Hey, the man wants a cheetah, which is the fastest land mammal in the whole entire world. This poor critter here”—Durgess gestured at the lopsided ocelot—”couldn’t outrun my granny’s wheelchair.”

As if on cue, the cat hip-hopped itself in a clockwise motion, hoisted its tail and sprayed through the mesh of the cage, dappling both men’s pants.

“Damn!” cried Asa Lando, jumping back from the stall.

Durgess turned and trudged out of the building.

Riding in silence, they crossed the old bridge in late afternoon. Twilly Spree headed for the beach instead of the bed-and-breakfast, even though they were hungry. He hoped a sunset would improve Desie’s spirits.

But a front was pushing through, and the horizon disappeared behind rolling purple-tinged clouds. A grayness fell suddenly over the shore and a cool, wet-smelling breeze sprung off the Gulf. Twilly and Desie held hands loosely as they walked. McGuinn loped ahead to harass the terns and gulls.

“Rain’s coming,” Twilly said.

“It feels great.” Desie took a long deep breath.

“At each end of this beach is where they want to put those condos,” said Twilly, “like sixteen-story bookends. ‘Luxury units starting in the low two hundreds!’ ” This was straight off a new billboard that Robert Clapley had erected on U.S. 19. Twilly had noticed it that morning while driving back to the island.